Follow Me to Ground(30)

–What have you done to me?

The dress she’d put on that morning was sodden, damply creased about the hips and breasts. Her hair was falling ’round her face, reddy-grey frame all tendril and wisp. Again, –What have you done to me?

–I’m making us time. More time.

He laughed and it was not Lorraine’s laugh but not his, either. Only a quick dislodging in the throat. A few steps toward me, uncertain and slow.

–You bring me up.

–You’ll come up as soon as you’re ready. The Ground’ll know.

–Now.

I leaned back on the counter. It was such a sad sight, his beautiful body kicking and squirming inside her. And Lorraine; disfigured, and perhaps the most alive she’d ever been.

–Now, Ada.

Close to me now and putting Lorraine’s hands on my waist, and the touch too familiar. The heat of the stove slicking up my back. Her lips so close I could see clearly their fine lines and whiskery corners. Cigarette-breath landing on my mouth. I said –The Ground will keep you safe. It’ll cure you of the hurt Olivia put in you.

It was like he’d been poured inside her, hot and molten, and she was squirming so as not to get burned. Every time she moved he showed through a little, pushing at the seams.

A wild dog snapping.

–I can’t stay down there.

–It’s not forever.

Lorraine’s face wrinkling around her mouth and nose, dense centre of a rose.

–Bring me up, Ada.

–I can’t.

–Your father—

– The Ground will know. The Ground will be able to tell.

Was Lorraine in there, still? While he spoke through her?

The first sign I should have taken heed of: her knee giving out from under her. Jerking, spasming. He carried on talking. Couldn’t feel what he was doing to her.

–What have you done? Why—

–I’m fixing what Olivia did to you. Isn’t that what you wanted? Isn’t that why you kept on asking me to look inside?

The second sign: the moisture coming through her shirt.

Her body doing something it hadn’t done for years and, lacking milk, producing some other liquid long since spoiled inside her.

–Dammit Ada! This is not what I wanted! No!

Trying to make a fist but his will not quite making it down into Lorraine’s soft, slow fingers.

By now Father was standing in the hall, looking into the kitchen, looking at me over Lorraine’s frizzing hair. He’d been upstairs but Samson was shouting, his voice coming thick over Lorraine’s tongue, –I thought we were leaving. Leaving together. I thought that was our plan.

I was found out, my scheming undone in the kitchen with its blackened pots and unwashed floor. Undone and suddenly unremarkable, with the breadth of Father’s shoulders in the doorway stealing the light from the room. Probably Samson mistook Father for clouds crowding the sun, because he kept talking to me – mewling, every few words his voice turned to squeak.

–What have you done, Ada? What have you done?

The stains on the front of her dress, pooling now. Sticking to her.

I hope she’s not awake.

Her jaw moving as though her tongue had swollen in her mouth and Samson’s words coming out of her with a strange, dull echo. A light bubbling on her lips making me think of the foam the river made when no rain had come to flush its innards clean. The flaccid flesh of her throat trembling, unable to keep up with her breath and, finally, her temples giving off a hard, buzzing sound. A bee trapped under a mug.

I don’t know if a younger woman would have managed better, or if there’s any way to survive such a thing.

In any case, something somewhere burst, and she fell.

When she fell she fell hard and her left knee, the knee she came down on, cracked.

The sound that came out her mouth could have been either of them.

Not quite low, not quite high.

A sweep of loam on the tiles: the track he’d made in leaving her.

And then it was Father’s talking.

A new voice, but the same questions.

–What have you done, Ada?

–Ada, what have you done?

It seemed a long time passed, and still we stood looking at Lorraine on the floor.

–Dammit, Ada.

–I know.

–He’s not a fox. He’s not a bird.

–I know.

–How long has he been down there?

–…Two weeks.

–No more?

–No.

–Why have you done this?

On the floor in front of me her body was leaking its last few dregs. Her mouth, her ears and her eyes. The slow, shiny spread come out beneath her skirt. And then: she kicked a little. The hem of her dress showed us more of her pale, damp thigh. I said –Because it wasn’t enough.

If he’d been a Cure he might have sighed, rubbed at his eyes. But he only looked at me.

–Enough?

–The days going on and on. Dipping in and out of Cures. I need to keep him and if I’m going to keep him I need to fix him. Need to keep him safe from his sister for a time.

Father’s brow churning. I was giving too much away.

–You were right. He’s sick. But it’s her that put it there.

Looking at me hard, not willing to be distracted.