Hummingbird Salamander(68)

[71]


I wasn’t alone on the houseboat, though. I wasn’t alone anywhere. Not a miracle, the voice that would come spiraling into my head. Not a miracle, the way I let it in. But how do you know what a miracle is anymore? Or what’s damnation?

Early on, after the balcony, the messages were either basic or bat shit. They came in over Bog, the phone I’d gotten at the conference. Confused me for just a second, like I was still using my work phone. Then I realized he’d found a way to bug it or use it from our time together at the bar as Jack and Jill.

That far-off magical time that would never return. When I also hadn’t been safe.

>>Hello, Jane. Things going well? Or a little … sideways?

>>Ever wonder about alkaloids and hallucinogens and hummingbirds? What a high that would be? You’re already high, in the mountains, but high, too. Just high and high and hi.

>>Hello, Jane. I started my day with toast and scrambled eggs. I snuck out during curfew to get the eggs. You just have to know the people. Who have eggs.

>>Did you know that Vilcapampa’s actually shoved in a basement somewhere, with a stroke? That was an actor you met. His wife runs everything now.

>>Did you see the cruise ships overrun with refugees? They’re just drifting out there, getting desperate. Circling the drain. Where can that lead? Talk to me about it.

>>You could turn me off anytime, Jane. Yet I know you’re receiving this. Why is that? Do you need me for some reason? Or you just have grown accustomed? I know the feeling.

>>Ever wonder if this is just a simulation? I do. I wonder every fucking day. Because it sure feels like someone external is turning up the heat. And I don’t believe in the devil.

>>I can’t see where you are. That’s clever. I don’t even know if you’re getting this. But you have to know I’ll come for you soon. I’ve no choice. I know what you plan to do.

He didn’t know because I didn’t know. Not really. And I hadn’t replied. I just let him “talk.” He became a little unraveled when he didn’t have someone responding. Or maybe that was an act, too. Psyops, just like the dual purpose of the wig. Throw me off-balance. Keep pushing me forward. Make me believe in his reliable unreliability.

Sometimes I imagined half the texts were sent by an assistant. That’s why they didn’t stay consistent or on point. But I knew he was a loner. Takes one to know one. Except, unlike me, Hellbender was a loner who needed someone to acknowledge his wit, his brilliance.

Maybe Hellbender was a fed. But it was just a theory. I couldn’t know for sure. No evidence, and fewer ways of searching than before. Allie’s long-ago, dredged-up secret report could’ve led me somewhere if only I’d been a hacker. But, also, even with the secret version of the internet available through Bog, I didn’t want to leave a trace. There were worse things than a Google search history.

“Reports in the literature of a second species in the genus Plethowen are apocryphal. Descriptions of this second road newt species are consistent in noting a much larger salamander. Many scientists think this second species is a myth. How could a larger version, a giant version, pass notice when the smaller, more suited for stealth and invisibility, is already dead?”

Was Hellbender like the giant salamander? Smoke and mirrors? The leftovers from some impulse I couldn’t see the beginning of. Except now I knew the salamander was real. Not helping was all the myriad ways pain robbed me of the ability to think. I held on to hauntings. The way Silvina never left me. The way Hellbender would not leave me alone. Except, I didn’t have Hellbender’s journal. I couldn’t suss him out at all. What could I invent out of a single bar encounter? What vital clue I would’ve noticed if I’d thought it important.

But if he was still texting me, then at least I had distance from him. Maybe that sounds odd. It was almost like I knew where he was if he kept texting. A sense of the enemy. Like his texts were depth charges, but as long as I kept quiet, at the bottom of the sea, holding my breath, I was safe.

The first thing I’d figured out was how to keep the voice in my head without letting it know where I was on the map. The second thing I’d done was change his name in my phone. Didn’t want that static confusion, that allusion to a salamander. So, instead: “Hellmouth.”

Imagine you miss your husband and daughter but you can’t ever see them again or dare to make contact or respond when they make contact. That you know they’re alive only if a lone text appears on a phone you shouldn’t have kept that hardly ever has its SIM card engaged. Or because there’s nothing in the newspaper about them being found dead.

Imagine you believe this charade of being a detective has a purpose, a point, and it’s not just about making sure you still have some connection to the world.

Imagine you still possess a half-burnt salamander you hope will give up its secrets.

Imagine the deep forest is right there, and you wonder why you can smell salt spray at all. But you know why the salt spray always brings you back to a burning warehouse.





[72]


The morning after I hit the man in the bar, I crawled from under the blankets to the bathroom and took a hot shower. I was used to the slight lurch of the houseboat under my bulk. Mornings were better for the pain, as if it had to wake up, too. Or was disguised by the regular aches of middle age. Or maybe the chill froze the pain.