Forty Words for Sorrow

Edie turned to look. Out there, where the sky and the lake met in mutual shades of ash gray, lay the islands. That island. Windigo. Who would have thought such a tiny island could have a name? Edie remembered the dead girl, the curve of her spine against Eric's duffel bag. So momentous it had seemed at the time, the murder, such a grim weight to that word. But it was amazing how little it mattered, the actual event, when you got right down to it. A human life had been extinguished, but no pillar of flame had descended from the sky, no maw of hell had opened. The cops and the newspapers got a little excited, but essentially the world went on exactly as before, minus Katie Pine. I wouldn't even remember her name, Edie thought, if they hadn't yammered about it day in and day out on the news.

She moved a little to the left, just as the ice shifted with a squeal like tearing metal. Edie let out a cry. "Eric, did you hear that?"

"The ice moved. Give me a smile, now."

"I don't want to smile." Cameras were no friend to Edie, and the ice had rattled her- as if the island had spoken her name.

"Look grumpy, then, Edie. I don't care."

She gave him her biggest grin, just to spite him, and he clicked the shutter. Another one for the record.

They'd started their photographic expedition out at Trout Lake, up near the reservoir. Eric had snapped one of Edie making an angel in the snow right over the spot where they'd buried Billy LaBelle. With all the snow, there wasn't the slightest trace of anything untoward. The hill with its view of the lake, the deep blue sky, would have looked good on a postcard.

Then they'd driven down to Main Street and taken a few shots in front of the house where they'd killed Todd Curry. One of Edie, one of Eric, and then one of the two of them (Eric had used the timer for that one). A man had seen them- a man walking his big woolly dog, and Edie had imagined for a moment that he had glared at them. But Eric had reassured her: just a young couple playing with a camera, what's the old fart going to care?

They moved to the lee of the bait shop so Eric could light a cigarette, cupping his hands around the match. He leaned against the wooden wall and looked at Edie through narrowed eyes. She could hear the words he was going to say before he said them, as if she had already dreamed the scene, as if she had created Eric, constructed the dock and the cold and the smoke all in her own mind. She sensed the same dark thrill running in his blood as was running in hers, now. She could smell it, like the metallic smell of ice that quivered on the frigid wind. Seeing the house again had set her nerves humming. Seeing the island. She was shivering with cold but said nothing. She didn't want to spoil this moment.

They got back in the van and turned the heat up full blast. It felt so good that Edie laughed out loud. Eric dug a book out of the glove compartment and handed it to her. It was a large paperback, very grimy, with a used sticker on it.

She read the title. "Dungeon. Where'd you get this?"

He told her he'd picked it up last time he was in Toronto. It was a historical document he'd been looking for. A catalog of torture devices used in the Middle Ages. "Read it to me," he said. "Read page thirty-seven."

Edie flipped through the glossy pages of photographs and drawings. The photographs showed the chair, whip, or restraint; the drawings illustrated the device's use: hooks to yank out guts, iron claws to tear the flesh, saws for splitting a human in two. The illustration for that one showed a man hanging upside down, while two others sawed him from crotch to navel.

"Read page thirty-seven," Eric said again. "Read it to me. I love it when you read to me. You read so well."

Oh, he knew how good his praise felt. Like coming home to a roaring fire after freezing half to death. Edie found the page. It showed a sort of helmet that was fixed over a wooden bar. Above the helmet was a huge screw.

"Skull crushers," she read. "The accused's chin is braced against the lower rod. As the screw is turned, the iron cap is forced downward, smashing the teeth together and gradually into the upper and lower jawbones. As more and more pressure is exerted, the eyes are pushed from their sockets. Eventually the brain itself is forced through the splintered cranium."

"Yes. The brain squirts through," Eric breathed. "Read another one. Read about the wheel."

Eric had his hands deep in his pockets. Edie was sure he was touching himself, but she knew better than to mention it. She flipped through the pages, the pictures of old iron instruments, the funny little woodcuts with their cartoonlike expressions of horror.

"Come on, Edie. Read about the wheel. It's near the end."

"You seem to know this book very well. Must be a favorite of yours."

"Maybe it is. Maybe that's why I want to share it with you."