Lies That Bind Us(69)

Simon didn’t want to run the generator just to keep a nightlight on, so he left the hurricane lamp burning on the stone counter in the adjoining kitchen, making sure there was nothing flammable close by. It lent the room a soft and shaded glow, like firelight, and might, in other circumstances, have been warm and evocative. Even romantic.

Not now.

“Should one of us . . . I don’t know, keep watch?” said Marcus, stirring.

“It’s not the Lord of the fucking Rings, professor,” said Brad.

Marcus scowled and looked away, then turned quickly back and said to Melissa, “Did Gretchen spend the whole afternoon with you?”

“What?” said Melissa, who was already lying down.

“You went shopping together when the rest of us went to the fort. Did she stay with you the whole time?”

“No,” said Melissa. “Just an hour or so. I felt like doing my own thing so . . .”

So she dumped her. That sounded like Mel.

“You know where she went? What she did?”

“No,” said Melissa. “Why?”

“No reason,” said Marcus. “Just wondering.”

“Can we go to sleep, please, Nancy Drew?” said Brad. “Miss Marple, or whoever the fuck you are. Or would you like to arrest the butler?”

Marcus said nothing and shifted again, closing his eyes. Brad settled down and started snoring softly almost immediately, but I lay awake, eyes open, going over and over what I had heard and seen, listening to the house settling. Simon fell asleep next, I thought, and within another half hour or so, I was fairly sure I was the only one still awake. I kept quite still, watching the black cedars swaying through the tall windows, listening for footsteps upstairs, for the sound of a door opening or closing, for anything—anything—out of place.

There was nothing.

As I lay there, I tried to make sense of Gretchen’s words but I couldn’t. People were keeping secrets, I was sure of that, but I couldn’t grasp how we might be in real danger. Even the underwear incident, nasty though it was in every sense, felt more like a mean-spirited and possibly deviant prank than a threat. Melissa had said as much to Gretchen as she tried to talk her into staying. Gretchen had been appalled, said Mel was blowing it off like it was just a kind of bad-taste joke. Melissa had abandoned the argument gracelessly, making it very clear in her slamming and banging around the house as she helped prepare for Gretchen’s departure that she didn’t approve of this running off to the airport. It was, unsurprisingly, Brad who added his own hard and dismissive brand of wit to the matter as he made himself toast the following morning.

“You know what I always say,” he mused to whoever might be listening. “It’s no good crying over spilled panties.”

He grinned to himself. Kristen, still in her makeshift bed, sat up and glared at him for a long moment, then lay down again, teeth clenched, eyes fixed on nothing.

The rest of us got up slowly and quietly, all the energy and fun long gone, the weight of my supposed guilt hanging over the room like a storm cloud. It reminded me of the final day of our last visit, the day after the cave.

I went to the bathroom upstairs and checked my room, half expecting to find my suitcase ransacked, my clothes torn to shreds and patches, but there was no sign that anyone had been in, and with the window bathing the room in golden morning light, it was hard to believe that we had been too scared to sleep upstairs.

In fact I had barely slept at all. The floor, in spite of the comforter, had been hard, and with my mind as preoccupied as it was, and with one ear open for the sound of unwelcome movement in the house, I had hardly shut my eyes. Bizarrely, however, I felt less tired than I had the previous morning, and my mind was clear. I confess to hesitating before drawing the shower curtain, but there was no Norman Bates lurking, and I emerged comparatively refreshed and determined to do one thing.

I had to bide my time because Marcus was, predictably, avoiding me. This was an old strategy of his when there were problems or the possibility of confrontation. I used to call him Old Ostrich Face, because of his ability to bury his head in the sand when things got rough, but since my coping mechanism involved inventing an entirely fictitious version of the universe, I guess I didn’t really have the high ground. In the end, I snuck up when he was taking his shower and ambushed him as he came out.

“I didn’t do it, you know,” I said to him.

“Jan, I don’t know what to think right now,” he said. “So I think it’s best if you just let me be.”

“I told you I’d never lie to you.”

“Yes,” he said. “You did.”

It was almost an accusation, and I decided I couldn’t be bothered arguing the point. Instead I got right to what I should have asked him the day before.

“What does the word Manos mean to you?” I said.

The question caught him utterly off guard. He blinked and leaned back, as if trying to refocus his gaze on me, then shook his head.

“Manos?” he said. “Never heard it. Why? What is it?”

“Not sure,” I said. “Something I read.”

“No,” he said. “Means nothing to me.”

You remember your firsts, especially where romance is concerned. First love. First kiss. First true sexual encounter. You remember them usually because you didn’t really know what they were till they happened. They open up a rush of new thoughts and sensations, like you’ve stumbled on a world you hadn’t believed in till you found yourself in it. The feelings that come with that new world may be the beginning of a long sequence that eventually becomes familiar and staid, but they begin as surprise.