Caitlin Kiernan - Silk

“I don’t know how to help you,” and Niki was crying now, hating herself for it, but she could not be this tired and scared, scared for her and Spyder, for them both separate and together, and not cry. Spyder began rubbing at the stubborn stain again, and already the kitchen was beginning to smell like death, sweet putrid death like bad meat and wilted flowers. Like breakdown, patient decay, disintegration.

“You can’t help me. This isn’t about you. Everything isn’t about you, Niki,” and Niki turned and ran, through the house and back to their bedroom, threw herself down on the bed and gave in to the tears, the exhaustion and rage. Her own madness inside and the certainty that Spyder was right; nothing she could do but intrude, act more like Spyder’s nursemaid than her lover, or sit back and watch, wait for this shit to play itself out. She found Spyder’s Klonopin on the floor by her side of the bed, pastel blue tablets inside amber plastic, had to wrestle a moment with the childproof cap: she swallowed one of the pills and put them back, wrapped her arms tight around Spyder’s pillow, heavy feather pillow and its dingy lemon-yellow pillowcase, as if cotton and the musky stink of old feathers could be Spyder. And she closed her eyes and cried herself to sleep.

A long dream of candlelight on earthen walls and Jackson Square, the girl with her tarot deck again, but still Niki didn’t see the whole spread, that card, dream within a dream toward the end, that night on the beach in North Carolina, the strange girl named Jenny Dare, and Niki woke up slow, drifted up from the smell of salt spray and fish and the girl’s wet clothes. Groggy and her mouth too dry, headache, and then she remembered taking the Klonopin, that this must be what the doctor had called “rebound,” like a hangover from the long benzodiazepine sleep. And then she remembered it all and wished she could close her eyes and forget again. Instead, she sat up, dizzy, and so she leaned against the headboard and stared at the windows; not dark yet, but dusk, almost night.

Someone had undressed her-no, not someone, Spyder-had gotten her out of the bulky army coat, and it hung on a bedpost now, and there was quiet music playing on the portable CD player, Dead Can Dance, cellos and violins, Lisa Gerrard’s calming, ethereal vocals; the covers had been pulled up around her.

She could hear the television playing, too, a game show filtered through the walls. She stood up, cautious, distrusting her throbbing head, her rubbery arms and legs. No wonder Spyder hated taking this shit so much.

She turned off the music, set on repeat and no telling how many times the album had played through, getting into her sleep, coloring her dreams. The house was freezing, and she guessed Spyder had turned off the heat. Niki slipped the coat on, zipped it closed, and went to find Spyder.

Spyder had not put on warmer clothes, too hot from the hours of work and finally she had stripped off the T-shirt and jeans, sat on the kitchen floor now wearing nothing but her boxers, sweat drying on her pale skin. Watching Byron on the table, the package he had become, wrapped up tight. She’d started with plain white thread, four big spools she’d found in an old sewing box that had been her mother’s, round and round his face after she’d stuffed the empty eye sockets with cotton wads from Tylenol bottles. And then she used the other colors, black and red and bright Kelly green, and she’d had to switch to yarn, orange and gold the color of grain around his narrow shoulders, and after that nylon fishing line and torn bed sheets and tape, whatever she could find, incorporated into the binding.

She’d been thorough, and no glimpse of skin showed through. His raggedy, filthy clothes were folded and placed together neatly by the body, ruined clothes and his shoes. She thought he might be safe this way, safe from her and the things the house remembered because of her. Safe from the sounds that had begun an hour ago, the things that made the sounds, bonemetal scrape and papery rustle from the basement below.

And she’d drawn a circle around the table, as perfect a circle as she could draw in the crystal-powder white of Morton’s iodized table salt.

“Safe from me,” she whispered and hugged the dream catcher close. Half an hour earlier, she’d pulled it off the boards nailed over her old bedroom door. Had carefully unwound each black strand of Byron’s hair and laid them on his chest. Now the dream catcher was fraying, undone, lessened by subtraction and her busy fingers.

“Oh, Spyder. What have you done?” and Spyder looked up: Niki was standing in the doorway, beautiful confusion, rumpled clothes and hair, bags beneath her dark eyes, eyes puffy from sleep or crying or both.

“If I tell you,” Spyder said, “you have to promise-you have to fucking swear to me-that you’re never gonna tell anyone else. No matter what happens, you’ll never tell anyone else a single, solitary word of it.” But Niki didn’t promise, looked back and forth, from the pathetic cocooned shape on the kitchen table to Spyder sitting on the floor, like neither could be real, like there was a choice to make between them.

“I want you to go back to the hospital,” she said, finally, and Spyder said no, laughed and said no again.

“Please, Spyder. You’re frightening me.” Niki took a step closer, moved so slow, one small step and another, and she kneeled, close enough that Spyder could reach out and touch her now, would have if it could have done anything but make things worse; for a second, Spyder thought she smelled jasmine, maybe, but it was only the cleansers or bug spray under the sink.

“I’m not trying to scare you. I don’t want to scare you.”

“Well, you are. You’ve got me scared shitless.”

“I’m sorry. I am sorry.” She laid one hand palm-up on the floor, empty, so Niki could take it if she chose.

“It’s not too late to work this shit out, to get you out of here,” and Niki did take her hand, squeezed it, twined their fingers together, weave of Spyder’s pale, chilled flesh and Niki’s dusky, warm flesh. “I think maybe this house is making you sick, Spyder. Or keeping you from getting any better. Too much bad shit’s happened to you here. It’s no wonder you can’t stop thinking about it.”

It’s not even half that simple, but all Spyder said was, “It’s been too late for a long time,” and Niki frowned, heat lightning flash of anger across her face and sudden anger behind her words. “Don’t give me that crap, goddammit. I don’t want to hear it. All you have to do is get up and let me take you to the hospital.”

Spyder shook her head, let go of Niki’s hand; the separation hurt, physical pain and pain inside that was worse, pulling away from the last bit of warmth in the world.

“Do you still want to hear what I was gonna say or not? I won’t tell you if you don’t.”

“I want to help you, Spyder.”

“Then listen, ’cause I don’t think there’s anything else you can do.”

Spyder saw the moment clear in Niki’s eyes, swollen moment of decision; saw it come like the shadows before a summer thundershower, lingering, sweet rain scent and ozone and the hair on your arms and the back of your neck prickling from the static charge, and then it was gone, and Niki sighed loudly, sat down next to Spyder and held her hand again. Decision made, and Spyder was glad for her touch, but couldn’t look at her face, the fear and regret stamped there, stared over the edge of the sink and out the kitchen window instead, the cold night gathering around the house, taking its place, and when it had settled, when it was comfortable, she started to talk.

Not the night that he cut her face, a month later, maybe, and the cross scar between her eyes is bubblegum pink and fresh. And it made no difference at all, because the angels still haven’t taken them all away, haven’t taken him away, and that’s really all that matters anymore. But they sit in the basement, inside his charm, listening to two radios at once, one playing the preaching and the other playing hymns. The orange extension cords hang in loops from the ceiling so they won’t break the circle; nothing must break the circle, ever.