Karen Fowler - Black Glass

“I don’t want any,” Tilly said. “Really. After what they did to you today I’m sure you need food more than I do. Please. You eat it.”

It made Alice angry. “You’ve always shared with me,” Alice insisted. “Always. We share.” She directed these last words toward the one who stayed to watch them eat. Tilly took the crackers. The sun went down. The birds quieted and the bugs grew louder. Tree frogs sang, incessantly alto. The world outside maintained a dreadful balance. Inside, the tent walls darkened, and they were left alone. Alice lay still. Tilly undressed completely. She climbed into her bag, which smelled of mildew, and missed Steven.

She had to urinate during the night. She waited and waited until she couldn’t wait anymore, afraid she would wake Alice. Finally she slid out of her bag and crawled to the empty bucket that sat by the tent door. She tried to tilt the bucket so that the urine would make less noise hitting the bottom, but every sound she made was too loud in this room. Of course Alice would hear her and wonder. Alice rarely used the bucket at all now. Tilly wished she could empty the bucket before Alice saw it. She got back into her sleeping bag and missed Steven until she finally fell asleep, sometime in the morning.

When she woke up, she missed him again. Alice’s eyes were open. “That teacher who killed that doctor,” Tilly said. “The diet doctor.”

“Jean Harris,” said Alice. “I already said her.”

“No, you didn’t,” said Tilly.

“I don’t want to play anymore. It was a stupid game and it just upsets me. Why can’t you forget it?” Of course the mornings were always tense for Alice. The day’s ordeal was still ahead of her. Tilly tried not to mind anything Alice said in the mornings. But the truth was that Alice was often rather rude. Maybe that was why she was treated the way she was. Tilly was not rude, and nobody treated Tilly the way they treated Alice.

“I have another one,” said Tilly. There was already a film of sweat on her forehead; the day was going to be hot. She climbed out of her sleeping bag and lay on top of it, wiping her face with the back of her hand. “And you certainly haven’t said her. I can’t remember her name, but she lived in Wales in the 1800s and she was famous for fasting. She lived for two years without eating food and without drinking water and people said it was a miracle and came to be blessed and brought her family offerings.”

Alice said nothing.

“She was a little girl,” Tilly said. “She never left her bed. Not for two years.”

Alice looked away from her.

“There was a storm of medical controversy. A group of doctors finally insisted that no one could live for two years without food and water. They demanded a round-the-clock vigil. They hired nurses to watch every move the little girl made. Do you know this story?”

Alice was silent.

“The little girl began to starve. It was obvious that she had been eating secretly all along. I mean, of course she had been eating. The doctors all knew this. They begged her to eat now. But they wouldn’t go away and let her do it in secret. They were not really very nice men. She refused food. She and her parents refused to admit that it had all been a hoax. The little girl starved to death because no one would admit it had all been a hoax,” said Tilly. “What was she a prisoner of? Ask me. Ask me who her jailers were.”

Shhh said the door.

“You must be very hungry,” said Alice. “Diet doctors and fasting girls. I’m hungry, too. I wish you’d shut up.” It wasn’t a very nice thing for Alice to say.

Alice was given crackers for breakfast. Tilly had a Cayenne banana and their own dried jerky and some kind of fruit juice. Tilly sat beside Alice and made Alice take a bite every time Tilly took a bite. Alice didn’t even thank her. When they finished breakfast, two more of them came and took Alice.

They brought Tilly coffee. There were sugar and limes and tinned sardines. There was a kind of bread Tilly didn’t recognize. The loaf was shaped in a series of concentric circles from which the outer layers could be torn one at a time until the loaf was reduced to a single simple circle. It was very beautiful. Tilly was angry at Alice so she ate it all, and while she was eating it she realized for the first time that they loved her. That was why they brought her coffee, baked bread for her. But they didn’t love Alice. Was this Tilly’s fault? Could Tilly be blamed for this?

Tilly was not even hungry enough to eat the seeds of the limes. She lifted her pad to hide them with the fish bones. Many of the tiny bones were still attached to the fish’s spine, even after Tilly had slept on them all night. It made her think of fairy tales, magic fish bones, and princesses who slept on secrets, and princes who were nice men or maybe they weren’t; you really never got to know them at home. She could imagine the fish alive and swimming, one of those transparent fish with their feathered backbones and their trembling green hearts. No one should know you that well; no one should see inside you like that, Tilly thought. That was Alice’s mistake, wearing her heart outside the way she did. Telling everybody what she thought of everything. And she was getting worse. Of course she didn’t speak anymore, but it was easier and easier to tell what she was thinking. She felt a lot of resentment for Tilly. Tilly couldn’t be blind to this. And for what? What had Tilly ever done? This whole holiday had been Alice’s idea, not Tilly’s. It was all part of Alice’s plan to separate Tilly from Steven.

Tilly got out Alice’s papers, looking to see if she’d written anything about Tilly in them. But Alice hadn’t written anything for a couple of weeks. PD, the last entry ended. PD. Tilly traced it with her index finger. What did that mean?

When Alice came back, Tilly was shocked by the change in her. She was carried in and left, lying on her back on Tilly’s mat, which was closer to the door, and she didn’t move. She hardly looked like Alice anymore. She was fragile and edgeless, as if she had been rubbed with sandpaper. The old Alice was all edges. The new Alice was all bone. Her bones were more and more evident. It was a great mistake to show yourself so. “What does PD mean?” Tilly asked her.

“Get me some water,” Alice whispered.

They kept a bucket full by the door next to the empty bucket which functioned as the toilet. A bug was floating in the drinking water, a large white moth with faint circles painted on its furry wings. If Tilly had seen it fall she would have rescued it. She doubted that Alice would have bothered. Alice was so different now. Alice would have enjoyed seeing the moth drown. Alice wanted everyone to be as miserable as she was. It was the only happiness Alice had. Tilly scooped the dead moth into the cup of water for Alice, to make Alice happy. She held the cup just out of Alice’s reach. “First tell me what it means,” she said.

Alice lay with her head tilted back. The words moved up and down the length of her throat. Her voice was very tired and soft. Shhh said the door. “It’s a cartographer’s notation.” Her eyes were almost closed. In the small space between the lids, Tilly could just see her eyes. Alice was watching the water. “It means position doubtful.” Tilly helped her sit up, held the cup so she could drink. Alice lay back on the mat. “Prospects doubtful,” said Alice. “Presumed dead,” said Alice.

Outside Tilly heard the howler monkeys, closer today. She could almost distinguish one voice from the rest, a dominant pitch, a different rhythm. She had once stood close enough to a tribe of howler monkeys to connect each mouth with its own deafening noise. This was at the zoo in San Diego. In San Diego, Tilly had been the one on the outside.