False Memory

“I’ve had the locks changed three times,” Susan said, instead of answering the question. Her voice rose from a whisper, sharpened by a brittle note of nascent hysteria that she was struggling mightily to repress. “Always a different company. Eric can’t know someone at every locksmith, can he? And I didn’t tell you this before, because maybe it makes me sound loopy, but I’ve dusted the windowsills with talcum powder, so if he did come through a locked window somehow, there’d be evidence of it, there’d be handprints in the powder, some mark of disturbance, but the talcum is always perfect in the morning. And I’ve wedged a kitchen chair under the doorknob, too, so even if the bastard has a key, he can’t open the door, and the next morning the chair is always there, where I put it, yet I’ve got his stuff in me, in my panties, and I’m sore, and I know I’ve been used, brutally, I know it, and I shower and shower, hotter and hotter water, so hot it hurts sometimes, but I can’t get clean. I never feel really clean anymore. Oh, God, sometimes I think what I need are exorcists — you know? — some priests to come here and pray over me, priests who really believe in the devil if there are any like that today, holy water and crucifixes, incense, because this is something that defies all logic, this is utterly supernatural, that’s what it is, supernatural. And now you’re thinking I’m a fully rounded nutball, but I’m really not, Martie, I’m not. I’m messed up, no question about that, okay, but this is apart from the agoraphobia, this is really happening, and I can’t go on like this, waking up and finding… It’s creepy, disgusting. It’s destroying me, but I don’t know what the hell to do. I feel helpless, Martie, I feel so vulnerable.”

Klick-klick.

Martie’s right arm ached from the wrist to the shoulder now; as she pressed on the drawer with all her weight, all her strength. Her jaw was clenched. Her teeth ground together.

Bright needles drew hot threads of pain up through her neck, and the pain sewed a little reason into her confusion-torn thoughts. In truth, she wasn’t concerned that something would escape from the drawer. The scissors weren’t magically animated like the brooms that plagued the beleaguered sorcerer’s apprentice in Disney’s Fantasia. The crisp dry sound — klick-klick — was in her mind. She was not actually afraid of the scissors or of the rolling pin, not afraid of the knives, the forks, the corkscrew, the corncob skewers, the meat thermometer. For hours now, she had known the true object of her terror, and she had fleetingly considered it several times during this strange day, but until now she had not faced it directly and without equivocation. The sole menace before which she cowered was Martine Eugenia Rhodes: She feared herself, not knives, not the hammers, not the scissors, but herself She was forcing the drawer shut with unwavering determination because she was convinced that otherwise she would yank it open, would seize the shears — and, in the absence of any other victim, would rip brutally at herself with the pointed blades.

“Are you there, Martie?”

Klick-klick.

“Martie, what am I going to do?”

Martie’s voice trembled with compassion, with anguish for her friend, but also with fear for herself and fear of herself. “Sooz, this is spooky shit, this is weirder than hoodoo.” A cold brine of sweat drenched her as thoroughly as if she had just stepped out of the sea. Klick-klick. Her arm, shoulder, and neck ached so intensely that tears flooded her eyes. “Listen, I’ve got to wrap my brain around this a little while before I can advise you what to do, before I can figure out how I can help.”

“It’s all true.”

“I know it’s true, Sooz.”

She was frantic to be off the telephone. She must get away from the drawer, get away from the scissors that waited in it, because she couldn’t escape from the violent potential within herself.

“It’s happening,” Susan insisted.

“I know it is. You’ve convinced me. That’s why I’ve got to mull it over. Because it’s so strange. We’ve got to be careful, be sure we do the right thing.”

“I’m afraid. I’m so alone here.”

“You aren’t alone,” Martie promised, her voice beginning to break apart, not just quaverous anymore, but quaking and cracking. “I won’t let you be alone. I’ll call you back.”

“Martie —”

“I’ll think about this, think it through —”

“— if anything happens —”

“— figure out what’s best —”

“— if anything happens to me —”

“— and I’ll call you back —”

“— Martie —”

“— call you back soon.”

She racked the wall phone, although at first she couldn’t release it. Her grip was locked around the handset. When finally she was able to let go, her hand remained cupped, holding fast to a phantom phone.