Alice Hoffman - Here On Earth

“Hey,” Hank says. He gets up from the table so quickly that he upsets his cup of coffee, and liquid spills over his research materials.

“I told you I didn’t want the Judge here,” Hollis is saying to Gwen. “But you think you’re too good to listen to anybody.”

“I don’t have to listen to you,” Gwen says right back to him. She feels as if he could snap her spine if he chose to, but she doesn’t care. How much she hates him is all she can think about at the moment.

March has come down from the bedroom, and she stands in the doorway to the kitchen. Now she knows how people freeze; she understands how that fire burned out of control before Alan could walk through the door. There is her daughter, frightened and shouting. There is the man she loves with his hands on her throat.

“I’m going to make you listen,” Hollis is saying to Gwen.

“I don’t think so,” Gwen says. She can see Hank coming toward them, but that’s not what gives her courage. She truly doesn’t care if Hollis hurts her; she wants him to, because that would only serve to prove her right in her opinion of him.

“You don’t want to do this,” Hank says, getting in between Hollis and Gwen. “Don’t do this.” He’s begging Hollis really; if he had to he would get down on his knees.

Hollis looks at the boy coldly, and then something clicks. “You’re right.” He goes into the parlor, where Mr. Cooper’s gun is still in its case.

“Shit,” Hank says when he sees Hollis go out the front door, the one no one uses anymore. Hank heads out the back, hoping he can cut Hollis off and talk to him. The red dogs come out of the shadows to greet Hank, but he jogs past them. He doesn’t like the way he feels inside, the way his stomach is lurching. It’s too quiet tonight; the air breaks like twigs.

“Now do you see what he’s like?” Gwen is saying to her mother in the cold kitchen of the house. “Now do you believe me?”

March knows that when he gets like this, he always regrets it. Tonight, when she takes him into their bed, he’ll cry. He’ll tell her that he never meant to hurt anyone, and she’ll believe him.

“Gwennie, you don’t understand,” March begins, but then she realizes that she hopes her daughter never will understand, and after that, how can she say more?

Gwen picks up Sister and slams out of the house. She races after Hank, and the closer she gets, the more she smells the bitter scent of hay. Already, the sound of the horses has begun to echo. When Gwen runs inside, Hollis is opening Tarot’s stall, and Tarot is in a panic at his proximity. He kicks the stall behind him, and shakes his head back and forth. Hollis has the gun under his arm as he drags open the wooden door.

“Wait until tomorrow.” Hank is saying. “You’ll feel different then.”

“Oh, really?” Hollis’s tone is amused, even though his mouth is set in a thin line. “And you assume I’m interested in what the fuck you think?”

“It’s late,” Hank says now. It’s not even ten, but Hank is willing to try anything to slow this down. His voice sounds comforting, but he’s well aware that there’s no comfort here. He puts his arm out, to stop Gwen from going closer. She is about to push him away, but then she looks at Hollis, and she knows she’d better stay put.

“Now you’re telling me what time it is?” Hollis says, and his voice is so distant it sounds as if its point of origin was a million miles away. He has spied Gwen, who is shivering as she holds Sister close to her chest. “You need to learn a lesson about what happens when things don’t belong to you. You can beg,” he tells Gwen, “but it won’t do you any good.”

Gwen can feel the cold air in her lungs every time she breathes. She can feel Hank next to her, the way his muscles are coiled, ready to do something, but unsure as to what that action should be.

“Come on,” Hollis says. “Beg.”

Gwen herself feels a weird sort of sensation inside her; it’s as if something were being boiled.

“Please,” she says.

Hollis considers, then shakes his head. “Not good enough.”

Nothing will ever be good enough, that’s the problem, Gwen sees that now. Some things are done rather than decided, and before she plans it out entirely, Gwen rushes for the door to Tarot’s stall and swings it wide open.

“Go,” she screams, but that’s not necessary. Tarot moves so fast that Hollis has to jump aside, and by the time Hollis is thinking straight enough to go for his gun, his target is out in the open, running so fast the wind can’t keep up, leaving a cloud of his breath behind. Hollis goes to the barn door and fires once, but by then Tarot has jumped the first fence in the field, and is bolting over the next. Hank and Gwen can hear him running, riderless and hot, on this freezing, black night.

When the horse arrives in the Marshes, the Coward is dreaming of snow. He opens his eyes when he hears a clatter, and sure enough, snow is falling and beside the apple tree stands Belinda’s horse, pawing at the frozen ground, searching for apples.

The Coward has been sleeping in his coat and his boots; he goes outside and huddles near the horse and watches him eat. After a while, he gets a rope and ties the horse to the tree.

“There you go,” the Coward tells the horse. “That’s your bed.”

The Coward gets himself a nightcap and sits on his porch until Gwen arrives at his rickety, useless gate, her little white dog trailing behind. Gwen’s eyes look strange and feverish and she has a purple bruise across her face. Hollis hit her only once, as she went past him leaving the barn, but he made certain to strike hard. There are broken blood vessels beneath her skin; he’s left his mark for weeks to come.

When the Coward sees the way she looks, he has a funny feeling in his arms and legs, as though someone had set a match to his flesh. “What did he do to you?” he asks.

The girl looks straight ahead. Tears are falling from her eyes, but she’s not making a sound.

“I won’t let him get to this horse, if that’s what you’re worried about,” the Coward says, suddenly much braver than he imagined he could be. He’d kill any man who came looking for this horse, or be killed himself. If he can stay sober long enough. That’s the hitch, but there’s no need to mention it to this lovely girl.

“Really?” Gwen says, because she’s already realized she can’t take Tarot with her and she can’t stay. “You’d do that?”

“I would,” the Coward vows.

A little while later, Hank comes looking for Gwen. He remained at the house until Hollis calmed down; it was, he believes, the least he could do. He might have leapt to protect Gwen when Hollis reached out and slapped her, but it was so sudden Hank was caught completely by surprise, or so he tells himself. Hollis doesn’t mean to do these things; he’s like a bomb, one which, if you don’t defuse it straightaway, will go off when you least expect it. Surely, Gwen will understand this, and the reason for Hank’s delay. Of course Hank hasn’t sided with Hollis-it’s simply a question of loyalty, not unlike a pledge you make to a country about to enter a foolish, wrongheaded war.

Gwen is sitting on the Coward’s floor when Hank arrives; she’s wrapped in a ratty wool blanket Judith Dale brought here years ago, trying her best to ignore how drunk the Coward has become.

“It’s about time,” the Coward says to Hank when the boy pushes open the door. “God, you are slow.”

But fast or slow no longer matters, Hank realizes that as soon as he sees the mark Hollis left on Gwen’s face. Hollis hit her hard, that’s what Hank sees now, and he meant to. Certainly, Hank can try to explain it away, he can sit beside her and loop his arm around her and whisper how awful this is, how sorry he is, how Hollis probably regrets what has happened already, how he’d never actually go ahead and hurt Tarot, but none of this signifies anymore. Sitting there, more beautiful than ever, Gwen has made the decision to go.