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

“Sonavu bitch ,” she whispers.

“What do you see?” I don’t want to know, but I have to know. What map does she see?

“June.” She throws up her hands, as if exasperated. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I see my map, which obviously your Father can’t see because he obviously is ignoring everything we’ve been planning for the last two months, but there is no second or third set of drawings here.”

“How can you not see that?” You know you see the lines, drawn over her directions and Father’s. You know you see the word in the circular void. It’s right there, on the paper, right in front of her. And, you know you don’t want her to see, you want it to be your destination, the secret place only you can travel to. But you place a trembling finger onto the middle of the circle, just below the word. You have to confirm it, that your map is unseen, safe. “All these new roads, leading to this circle in the middle, leading to this word—”

Your mother raises her hand, and your voice trails away. She stares down, her brow furrowing as if studying for a test. You want to believe that the small ticks and movements of her lips, her eyelids, are the tiny cracks of the truth, seeping up from the paper and through her skin. Her fingers move just above the lines, and then away, as if deflected from the void in the middle. She moves her fingers again, her eyes following as she touches the paper. Again, deflection, and confusion drawing lazy strokes across her face, as her fingers slide somewhere north. Relief flares inside you, prickly cold, followed by hot triumph. She does not see your map. She sees the route and destination only meant for her.

“June, honey.” She leans back, thrusting the map toward as if anxious to be rid of it. “It’s just coffee stains. It’s a stain from the bottom of a coffee cup. See how it’s shaped? Probably from your father’s thermos.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I didn’t see it until now.”

“All that fuss for nothing. What were you talking about, anyway — what, did you think it was some mysterious, magical treasure map?” She laughs in that light, infectious tone you loathe so much — although, the way she rubs at the small blue vein in her right temple reveals a hidden side to her mood. “Come on, now. You’re not five anymore, you’re too old for this.”

“Ah,” you say, cheeks burning with sudden, slow anger. She’s done this before, playing games with you. Long ago, like when she’d hide drawings you’d made and replace them with white paper, only to slide them out of nowhere at the last minute, when you’d worked yourself into an ecstatic frenzy of conspiracies about intervening angels or gods erasing what you’d drawn. You’d forgotten about that part of her. You’d forgotten about that part of yourself.

“It just looked like,” you grasp for an explanation, “it just looked like you’d drawn your own map of our vacation, and Father drew another, and the circles looked — I mean, look…” The explanation fades.

“Sweetie, calm down.” Your mother tousles your hair, cropped like hers. She appears bemused now, with only a touch of concern. She doesn’t believe in miracles or the divine, and sometimes she thinks you’re a bit slow. “Honestly. You read too much into everything, and you get so overexcited. That’s your father’s fault, not yours. All those damn books he gives you—”

“I’m sorry,” you stutter. “It was stupid, I know — it’s so bright in here. The sun.”

“Are you feeling alright?” She places a cool palm against your forehead. She does love you, as best she can, in her own way. “Maybe we should have stopped. Do you want some water? Let me get you some water.”

“Don’t tell Father,” you say, touching her arm with more than a little urgency. She pats your hand, then squeezes it.

“Of course.” A flicker of fear crosses her face again. “Absolutely not.”

As your mother busies herself in the fridge with the tiny ice cube tray, you fold the map back up, turning it around as you collapse it into itself. Your hand brushes the surface, casually, and you close your eyes. The paper is smooth to your touch. It’s just our secret, the circle, you tell yourself. It’s between us, between me and the void. That’s what you call it: the void, that black, all-enveloping place you go to whenever Father appears in your doorway, the place where you don’t have to think or remember or be. After all these years of traveling to it, perhaps now it is coming to you.

“Are you ok?” Jamie touches your arm. You shrug.

“I’m fine. Help me pick up the cards. I want to play Old Maid.”

“June, it’s getting dark. How can you read that — scoot your chair over here before you hurt your eyes.”

“It’s ok. I can read it just fine,” you lie.

If there’s a sun left in the sky, you can’t see it from the makeshift campsite, a small flat spot Father found just off the one of the dead-ended offshoots of Hot Springs Road. He says that according to the map — his version of it — there’s a lake nearby, but it’s hidden from view — wherever it is Father has parked the camper, you get no sense of water or sloping hills, of the space a lake carves for itself out of hilly land. The earth is hard and flat, and piles of stripped logs lie in jumbled heaps at the edges, as thought matchsticks tossed by a giant. The woods here seems weak and tired, as if it never quite recovered from whatever culling happened decades ago. You sit on a collapsible camp stool, watching Father set up a small table for the Coleman stove and lanterns. No fire tonight, this time. Father says there isn’t time, they have to be to bed early and up early. “It’s ready,” he says to your mother, as he lights the small stove. “I’ll be back in a bit.” He turns and walks off with the lighter, disappearing between tree trunks and the sickly tangle of ferns. His job is finished, and he’s off to smoke a cigarette or two, an ill-kept secret no one in the family is supposed to notice. There are so many other secrets to keep track of, he can afford to let slip one. Besides, it calms him down. You note that the map is in his back pocket, sticking out like a small paper flag.

Your mother has become thin-lipped and subdued over the past hour — you know what she’s thinking, even if she doesn’t. No matter where the family goes, a vacation for all of you is never a vacation for her, only the usual cooking and serving and cleaning without any of the comforts of home. Jamie knows how she feels, and as usual, he helps her. Beef stew and canned green beans tonight, and store-bought rolls with margarine. Chocolate pudding cups for dessert. If she was in the mood, she’d make drop biscuits from the box, or cornbread. She’s not in the mood tonight. It’s more than just cooking, this time. Father and your mother are divided over the vacation, over the destination. This is a first for them, and a first for you. Usually they are united in all things, as you and Jamie are, because so much is always at stake for all of you, because everything must be done in secret, away from the eyes of those who wouldn’t understand, which is everyone in the world. But things are off-balance, tonight. You stare up at the trees, trying to see past them to the heart of the mountains. Your mother couldn’t see the brown ink lines, the map within the map. Does he? You think you know the answer. Otherwise, why would he ignore his own vacation plans, his own map and dotted blue lines, why would he take you all here?

“June.” Your mother, her voice clipped and tired. “Go get your father. Dinner’s ready.”

You stand up, looking around. Nothing but trees. It’s peaceful here without him, brooding over everyone. You don’t see the need to change that.