The Best Horror of the Year. Volume 4

Your mother raises her hand, and your voice trails away. She stares down, her brow furrowing as if studying for a test. You want to believe that the small ticks and movements of her lips, her eyelids, are the tiny cracks of the truth, seeping up from the paper and through her skin. Her fingers move just above the lines, and then away, as if deflected from the void in the middle. She moves her fingers again, her eyes following as she touches the paper. Again, deflection, and confusion drawing lazy strokes across her face, as her fingers slide somewhere north. Relief flares inside you, prickly cold, followed by hot triumph. She does not see your map. She sees the route and destination only meant for her.

“June, honey.” She leans back, thrusting the map toward as if anxious to be rid of it. “It’s just coffee stains. It’s a stain from the bottom of a coffee cup. See how it’s shaped? Probably from your father’s thermos.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I didn’t see it until now.”

“All that fuss for nothing. What were you talking about, anyway — what, did you think it was some mysterious, magical treasure map?” She laughs in that light, infectious tone you loathe so much — although, the way she rubs at the small blue vein in her right temple reveals a hidden side to her mood. “Come on, now. You’re not five anymore, you’re too old for this.”

“Ah,” you say, cheeks burning with sudden, slow anger. She’s done this before, playing games with you. Long ago, like when she’d hide drawings you’d made and replace them with white paper, only to slide them out of nowhere at the last minute, when you’d worked yourself into an ecstatic frenzy of conspiracies about intervening angels or gods erasing what you’d drawn. You’d forgotten about that part of her. You’d forgotten about that part of yourself.

“It just looked like,” you grasp for an explanation, “it just looked like you’d drawn your own map of our vacation, and Father drew another, and the circles looked — I mean, look…” The explanation fades.

“Sweetie, calm down.” Your mother tousles your hair, cropped like hers. She appears bemused now, with only a touch of concern. She doesn’t believe in miracles or the divine, and sometimes she thinks you’re a bit slow. “Honestly. You read too much into everything, and you get so overexcited. That’s your father’s fault, not yours. All those damn books he gives you—”

“I’m sorry,” you stutter. “It was stupid, I know — it’s so bright in here. The sun.”

“Are you feeling alright?” She places a cool palm against your forehead. She does love you, as best she can, in her own way. “Maybe we should have stopped. Do you want some water? Let me get you some water.”

“Don’t tell Father,” you say, touching her arm with more than a little urgency. She pats your hand, then squeezes it.

“Of course.” A flicker of fear crosses her face again. “Absolutely not.”

As your mother busies herself in the fridge with the tiny ice cube tray, you fold the map back up, turning it around as you collapse it into itself. Your hand brushes the surface, casually, and you close your eyes. The paper is smooth to your touch. It’s just our secret, the circle, you tell yourself. It’s between us, between me and the void. That’s what you call it: the void, that black, all-enveloping place you go to whenever Father appears in your doorway, the place where you don’t have to think or remember or be. After all these years of traveling to it, perhaps now it is coming to you.

“Are you ok?” Jamie touches your arm. You shrug.

“I’m fine. Help me pick up the cards. I want to play Old Maid.”

“June, it’s getting dark. How can you read that — scoot your chair over here before you hurt your eyes.”

“It’s ok. I can read it just fine,” you lie.