Каарон Уоррен - The Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror 2018 Edition

Remember that time…

He wondered now, as they filed back into the minibus, whether the juice of the plant had carried some kind of poison that was deleterious to the heart. Felix sat next to him, his head against his shoulder, as he thought of his parents (long dead, both heart attacks) and their love of gardening. His father had only ever referred to a plant using its Latin name, just one of the many ways he had tried to trump his only son’s greater academic achievements.

Now he thought of monkshood and belladonna, of sweetshrub and Christmas rose. Oleander and foxglove. As a child he had loved apricots and rhubarb, but his father had wagged a finger, telling him that he was a step away from a horrible death. Rhubarb leaves contained oxalates that could cause kidneys to fail; cyanide lurked within apricot stones, and would put you in a coma from which you would not revive. He often wondered if his weight gain had come from such nightmare threats: bread and cake, as far as he was aware, could be consumed without any danger of toxicity.

He was nudged awake by Ricardo. They had arrived back at the hotel. The sun was low in the sky, but its heat seemed undimmed. It struck Graham that the juice on the guide’s chin was the color of the vernix that had coated Felix’s body at birth. Stiffly he climbed out of the back of the minibus, trying to combat the beats of nausea. Felix was ahead of him, already trotting down the path to the apartments. He could hear splashing and gales of infant laughter from the pool area. Beyond that was a tennis court, and the soft thwock of volleys. There was no sign of Cherry in their rooms, and no note to explain where she might be. Graham chased Felix into a hot shower and they dressed for dinner. He brushed his teeth but the taste of the plant remained, an oily film on the back of his incisors.

“Let’s find Mummy,” he said.

Cherry wasn’t at the poolside, though a lounger was adorned with proof of her occupancy: a novel by her beloved Patricia Cornwell; a drained glass carrying her plum-colored lip imprint; the silk scarf with which she tied back her hair. He found her at the bar, another strawberry daiquiri before her, laughing too loudly at the things a much younger bartender was saying.

“We made it,” he said, and sat alongside her. One split second. But he noticed it: the expression falling; her flirting over.

Cherry fussed over Felix for a while, telling him what a big boy he was for cycling so far, and for looking after Daddy. They agreed that he could have twenty minutes in the pool before dinner. Cherry took her drink to the poolside table and Graham joined her after ordering a martini for himself. “Productive afternoon?” he asked, as he sat down.

“No need to be snippy.”

“I’m not being snippy,” he said. He shifted in his seat and felt the efforts of the day leap in his muscles. His thighs sang, but it was an agreeable pain, a righteous pain. Tomorrow morning might be a different matter though.

“Did you overdo it today?” Cherry asked.

“Define ‘overdo.’ You booked the exertion… sorry, excursion. Maybe you were hoping it would be too much for me and I wouldn’t make it back. Then you could laugh at shit bartender jokes to your heart’s content.”

“I do worry about you, no matter what you might think.” Graham took a deep swallow of his drink. Ice cold. And what was it they used to say back during his student days, he and the others in the cocktail club? Drier than the dust from a druid’s drill-stick. The guy might have been trying it on with his wife, but he was an excellent barman. The martini suffused him with good will, not least because it helped to mask the flavor of the plant. He gazed at his wife, at the expression on her face, that will we, won’t we look. She seemed ready for a scrap. Was there ever a dinner eaten that benefited from a fug of bad domestic air?

“I’m sorry,” he said. “It was a good day. I had fun. Felix had fun. We missed you, that’s all.”

“It sounds like it,” she said, but it was mock admonishment, tinged with triumph at having eked out the first apology. She smiled and touched the back of his hand. “Ten minutes more, though, and I’d have been in with that bartender.”

They finished their drinks and lured Felix from the pool with promises of chocolate ice cream. Dinner was good, and Cherry did not comment on the amount of wine he pointedly consumed.

Graham carried Felix—who had been nodding off into his dessert—back to their apartment. His mood was souring again; he could still taste the mother’s tears plant, despite the slick of pepper sauce that had accompanied his steak.

Cherry was already in her sleeping attire, and it was the kind she wore to signal to him that she was not receptive to any kind of night maneuvers. Plain Jane knickers in beige. An unflattering sleep bra underneath one of her skintight yoga tops that was accessible only if you had access to a variety of chisels and pliers. He left her to her nocturnal rituals of cleansers, toners, and moisturizers and returned to the bar.

He was pleased to see that Cherry’s barman was off duty and had been replaced by a woman. He thought of turning on the old charm, but realized he was too tired and agitated. And he just did not feel like flirting. Pain lanced his sides, like the colic he had suffered from greatly as a child. He should have just gone to bed and tried to sleep it off, but the churning of his insides had made him jittery. Some late night fresh air—and fresh it was; cliffs of cloud were rising out to sea, signaling a storm’s approach—might do his efforts to relax later the world of good.

He ordered a glass of tonic water in the hope that the quinine’s analgesic effects would counter his symptoms. He took the drink into a far corner of the dining room where a TV was showing grainy repeats of the evening’s football match. He couldn’t tell who was playing, or what the venue was, let alone what they were playing for. But it was something to focus on while his guts seethed and the wind tested the strength of the building with growing muscle.

“Tastes good.”

Graham jerked in his seat; he was not alone. What he thought was a nest of shadow turned out to be a man leaning against the wall, arms folded. He too was watching the game and Graham had sat directly in his line of sight.

“I’m sorry,” Graham said, meaning it as an apology for blocking his view, but the man took it as a request to clarify his statement.

“The taste. It is good.”

“I’d prefer there was some gin to go with it, but yes, it’s a refreshing drink.”

“Not your glass. The juice in the body. The meal of it.”

Now Graham saw that the man held a newspaper in one fist. He brandished it. Graham couldn’t translate the headline, but he recognized some of the words he had already heard today.

O Sedento.

“Ricardo?”

The guide offered a loose salute in return.

“You sound as if you admire him,” Graham said.

“Who said it was him?”

“A woman then. Whoever it is.”

“Who said woman?”

“Then what? A witch? A curse? A bad dream?” Graham wished he’d go away. He wanted to watch grainy football on a shit TV, drink his tonic water and go to bed.

“I don’t know,” Ricardo said. “Maybe all of those things. Maybe none. Maybe O Sedento is the appetite we all carry. The best of us keep it hidden, no?” He folded his newspaper and slotted it into his back pocket. He touched a finger to his forehead. “I sorry. I don’t mean to annoy. Have a good night. Do not go to bed thirsty, yes?”

Any other day and Graham—who hated confrontation, hated the feeling he might have slighted someone in some vague, infuriatingly British way—would have offered some sop in reply, bought the guide a drink, invited him to stay.