Ellen Datlow - The Best Horror of the Year. Volume 4

Hidden and unseen, Jamie’s hand returns the favor, traveling up your leg. You feel the center of yourself unclench, just a little. Just enough. Raising the map again, you peek at the word. After all these years and so many silent pleas, has something finally heard? Face flush with shock, you bite your lower lip so as not to smile. You stare out the window, eyes hidden behind sticky sunglasses, watching the decayed ends of Port Townsend dribble away into the trees, watching the woods rise up to meet the road, the prickly skin of an ancient beast, slumbering and so very, very ready to awaken.

You want to believe, but you shouldn’t. Belief is an empty promise. Belief just leads back to the void. You shouldn’t want to believe, but you will. This time, just this once, you will.

“Yes,” you say. “Yes, I do.”

The beginning of a journey is always deception. The beginning always appears beautiful, as a mirage. Once you fold the map away, there’s laughter and music, jokes and gentle pinches, and the heady anticipation of traveling someplace new, all of you together, a family like any other family in the world. Sunlight drenches the windows and you laugh at the sight — so many prisms and prickles of color, glitter-balling the camper’s dull brown interior into a jewelry box. After half an hour, your mother unbuckles her seat belt and makes her way across the porta-potty, wedged in between the small refrigerator and the tiny bench with its fake leather cushions that hide the bulk of the food.

“Something to eat — a snack? We had lunch so early.” Your mother raises the folding table up, fixing the single leg to the camper’s linoleum floor, then pulls sandwiches and small boxes of juice from the fridge, passing them up to Father. She’s a good wife, attentive. Jamie drinks a Coke, wiping beads of sweat from its bright red sides onto his t-shirt. You pick at your bread, rolling it into hard balls before popping them into your mouth. The camper is traveling at a slight incline, and the right side of the highway peels away, revealing sloping hills that form the eastern edge of the Peninsula. You think of the ferry, of all that cool, wide ocean, waters without end, in which all things are hidden, in which all things can be contained.

“Can we stop?” You point to a small grocery stand and gas station coming up ahead to the right, overlooking a rest stop and lookout point.

Your mother points to the porta-potty. “You need to go?”

“No.” You feel yourself recoil. “No, I just — I just thought we could stop for a while. I’m getting a little queasy.” It’s true, you get carsick, sometimes. You think of the curved slope beyond the rest stop, and how easy it’d be to slip over the rail guard as you pretend to be sick. You think of the water, so close you can almost see it. “While we can.”

Your father doesn’t slow the camper. “Sorry, June-Bug. We need to keep going.”

You nod your head. “Sure. No problem.” You think about what you’ve just said, and decide that it’s not a lie. Running away would mean you didn’t really believe that the word moved, that something out there in the mountains is weaving its way to you, some beautiful, dangerous god coming to save the queen. You want to stay. Just this once, you want to see your miracle.

Outside, 101 splits off, part of it flying off and up the coast to Neah Bay as the newly-formed 112. Now the landscape morphs, too, sloughing off yet more buildings and houses. A certain raw, ugly quality descends all around. The highway curves away, and with it, the store, the land. You’re going in a different direction now. No use to think of ferries and guard rails anymore.

Jamie pulls out a deck of cards. They fan out and snap back into themselves as he shuffles them again and again. Your mother leans back against the small bench, watching him deal the cards. Go Fish — their favorite game. You’ve never liked games. You don’t believe in luck or chance. You believe in fate.

Reaching to the floor, you pull a fat book out of your backpack, and turn the pages in an absentminded haze, staring at nothing as words and illustrations flow past. Ignore her, you say, ignore the two small feet, bare and crowned with nails painted a pretty coral, that appear between you and Jaime, and nestle in cozy repose at his thigh. You press yourself against the edge of the seat, forehead flat against the window, legs clamped tight, ignoring the low hum of their voices calling out the cards. It’s not as if you hate your mother — you have long talks with her sometimes, she’s a good listener. And she’s never touched you, never like that. Sometimes, she even comes to your defense, when you can’t — just can’t do it anymore, when you’re tired or sick or just need a break, just need an evening to yourself, to sit in your pink-ruffled bedroom and pretend you’re a normal girl in a normal world. Still, though. She’s your mother, not your friend, and Jamie is her favorite, just as you are Father’s favorite. Sometimes you wonder if Jamie might love her more than you. That would kill you. It would be like, she’s rejecting one half of you for the other, without any real reason why.

“Where did you get the map?” Why did you ask her that? You curse yourself silently. Always too curious, always wanting to know everything, and more. Like father, like daughter.

Your mother looks up from her cards, mouth pursed. Clearly she doesn’t like being reminded of the map, and doesn’t want to answer — or she’s going to answer, but she’s buying a bit of time. It’s her little not-so-secret trick, her way of rebelling. Jamie does the same. Like mother, like son.

“It’s just a regular map,” she finally says, adjusting her hand as she speaks. “I don’t know where your father got it. Maybe the car dealership? Or the 76 station on Bridgeport.” She lays down a card, as you wait for the shoe to drop. Your mother is often more predictable than she’d care to admit.

“Why do you want to know?” she asks.

“Never mind.”

Your mother sighs. “You know I hate it when you say that. Why did you ask?”

Jamie looks up from his cards. “She wants to know who drew the third map and the circle on it.”

“The third what ?”

“Jamie.” Your voice is calm, but the biting pinch of your fingers at his thigh tells him what he needs to know. “Nothing, I meant nothing,” Jamie says, but it’s too late, he’s said too much.

“Did you draw on the map?” Your mother’s voice is hushed, conspiratorial. Together, your heads lean toward each other, voices dropping so that Father won’t hear.

“No, I swear. I thought someone had drawn on it. That’s all. That Father drew over it, where we were going to go, and someone else drew another map over those two.”

“Juney, there’s no third map — there’s no second map. What are you talking about?”

“I—”

Now you’re the one who’s said too much. She places her cards on the table, and holds out one hand. The diamond on her wedding ring catches the light, hurling tiny rainbow dots across your face. “Let me see it.” Her voice is low. You realize she’s not just angry but afraid, and it unsettles you. Your mother is often cautious, but never afraid.

“I didn’t write on it, I swear.”

“I hope to God you didn’t. He’ll kill you—”

“What’s going on back there?” Father, up in the driver’s seat.

“Nothing, honey. We’re playing Go Fish.” She motions for the map. You pull it out from underneath your jacket, and hand it over. Your mother opens it up, spreading it across the table. Cards flutter to the floor. She stares down, hands aloft as if physically shaping her question with the uplift of her palms. From where you sit, you can see what she sees, upside down. You look up at the front of the camper. Father’s sea green eyes stare back from the mirror, watching.