Thomas Sniegoski: Where Angels Fear to Tread

Yes, Madeline as he remembered her wasn’t there anymore, but he liked to come to this place of beauty to honor her memory. It was a monument to the amazing person she had been and to the special love they had shared.

Remy found himself pondering Mulvehill’s words. They’d struck a chord deep within him.

It wasn’t as though he’d never had the thought himself. Remy knew he was lonely, and in moments of weakness, had briefly considered the what-ifs of seeking companionship. But his thoughts would always return to Madeline and how it all felt like some sort of horrible betrayal to her memory.

That was why he had come today, just the thought that Steven Mulvehill might be right sending him to his wife’s grave site for penance.

“There could never be another you,” he used to tell her, and he remembered the smile that would appear on her face. It still had the same effect on him, even if it was only from memory.

His stomach sort of dropped, as though he were on an elevator suddenly starting down to the next floor, and then he smiled, recalling how lucky he had been to have had her in his life.

But now she was gone, leaving behind a sucking void of loneliness that seemed impossible to fill.

And did he truly want to?

That was the question, and the reason he was so disturbed by Mulvehill’s observation that it might be time to let go of the past and look to the future.

“If I can’t have you, do I want anybody else?” he asked the grave, not expecting an answer.

He rose to his feet, brushing some stray blades of grass and dirt from the front of his jeans, and looked to see where Marlowe had gotten to. He could see the dog off in the distance, circling the base of an oak tree, and called to him. The dog glanced threateningly up the tree, then gave a single bark, a warning to a squirrel that next time it wouldn’t be so lucky, before bounding across the cemetery toward Remy.

“Did you give that squirrel the business?” Remy asked the Labrador as he lovingly patted his head.

The dog panted furiously, lapping up the affection.

“ Gave business ,” Marlowe agreed, his thick pink tongue lolling with the heat.

“I think it’s time to go,” Remy told him, and the dog agreed, turning toward the trail back to the parking lot and the air-conditioned car.

“Aren’t you going to say good-bye to Madeline?” Remy asked the back of the animal.

“ Not there ,” Marlowe said, not even turning around. “Madeline gone.”

Madeline gone.

They returned to Beacon Hill only a little late for Marlowe’s supper, but the dog nevertheless wasted no time in letting Remy know.

“I don’t remember your ever being this demanding,” Remy said. He picked up Marlowe’s water bowl and rinsed it before refilling it with fresh water. “Is this some new teenage phase you’re going through?”

“ Hungry ,” the dog said, his tail wagging.

“You’re always hungry,” Remy responded, pulling a plastic container filled with food out of a lower cabinet. Using a metal measuring cup, he dumped a full scoop of the nugget-sized food into another metal dish.

“This stuff looks delicious,” Remy said jokingly, giving the bowl a shake. The contents rattled enticingly.

Marlowe’s eyes were locked on the bowl as Remy crossed the kitchen to set it down beside the water.

“Go to it,” he said, stepping back as the hungry Labrador charged the bowl and immediately began to eat.

“Don’t forget to chew,” Remy warned. They’d had some problems with this in the past, usually on the living room carpet or in Remy’s bed.

“Is it all right if I have a moment to myself now?” he asked the animal.

The dog ignored him, chowing down on the tasty morsels that filled his bowl.

“I guess that’s a yes,” Remy said. He reached down and thumped the dog’s side with his hand, before turning toward the kitchen doorway.

And then he noticed the flashing red light of his answering machine on the counter.

“Huh,” he said, having a hard time remembering the last time he’d had a message on his landline, never mind receiving a call. Most of his calls these days came over his cell, or the office phone.

He stopped and pushed the PLAY button.

You have one new message , the machine told him in a clipped, mechanical voice, over the sound of Marlowe’s slurping at his water bowl.

At first there was the hiss of silence, and for a second Remy thought it might be a hang-up, but then a woman began to speak.

“Um, hi. .” There was another pause, the woman grumbling something beneath her breath that Remy couldn’t make out.

He leaned closer to the machine.

“Yeah, ummm, this message is for Remy Chandler. . I’m calling because. .”

Again she paused, and he listened as she whispered to herself, “How do I say this without your thinking I’m crazy?”

Marlowe had joined him, wiping his face, still wet from his drink, on the side of Remy’s leg.

Thank you very much, Marlowe , he wanted to tell the dog, but he was still listening to the message.

“I’m calling to ask. . Why am I calling?” She sounded frustrated, and perhaps a little confused. “I was calling to ask. . I was calling to ask if you had a big black dog,” she finally said.

Remy quickly glanced at Marlowe, who was looking up at him with that patented Labrador smile and tail wag.

“Oh my God, I can’t believe I did this,” she finally said and, without another word, ended the call.

End of message , his machine then told him with a high-pitched beep.

“Okay,” he said to himself, and then to the dog standing beside him, “What the hell was that all about?”

But Marlowe didn’t have any answers either.

Clifton Poole took a deep breath, then slowly exhaled, awaiting the effects of the drug combination he’d just taken.

It was a special cocktail of barbiturates and antidepressants made just for him after years of trial and error. It was the only thing that would silence the voices.

Everything in the world had a voice—psychic impressions left by contact with living beings—and Poole could hear them all, whether he wanted to or not, which was why he so enjoyed his special medication, and the numbing bliss it provided him, no matter how short.

He lay naked in the windowless room of his country estate in Lincolnshire, England, surrounded by nothing. Built to his own specifications, the room was only cold plaster walls and ceiling and a wooden floor. No more than three people were involved with its design and construction, and the materials had come from local merchants.

The voices that radiated from this room were minimal, and the drugs readily dulled them, allowing him to slip into sweet, restful oblivion, without too much of the usual commotion.

Poole felt himself drifting down, down, down, into the darkness of the abyss, the prattling voices growing softer and less defined by the second.

He was just about to succumb to the embrace of his beloved mistress, oblivion, when he noticed the pulse of color through the lids of his closed eyes. He tried to ignore the yellow flash that was trying to pull him from his rest.

But he opened his eyes instead.

The room clamored to tell its story, as over the single, wooden door, a yellow bulb flashed for his attention.

Look at me. I come from a factory in China where. .

He watched the light continue to flash, praying it would stop, but it didn’t. He sighed, blocking out the voices, and climbed awkwardly to his bare feet.

“This had better be good,” he slurred as he stumbled numbly to the door and opened it to find his valet, Broughton, standing on the other side, white handkerchief pressed to a bleeding nose.