~22~
Now
It was 4:18 in the morning, and the lights in Elsa's bedroom were blazing. She had drawn the curtain so she wouldn't have to see her reflection in the glass, painted with striking clarity over the darkness outside. She had the spare digital camera in her hands, and she was taking picture after picture of the walls of her bedroom. She turned slowly around until she had captured the entire 360 degree panorama of hopelessness written on the walls in blue and red marker.
Anna could not be seen in the view screen of the camera. In the screen the sheet was draped unevenly over the bed as if Anna did not exist at all. In the night, she was truly not in this world. It spooked her so much that Elsa ended up holding Anna's big toe through the sheet to ground herself.
As soon as she was done with the pictures, she arranged drop cloths along the carpeted floor, and pulled the plastic drop sheets over dressers and other furniture.
Then she took the bucket of paint she had found in the garage and started painting the walls.
It was warm work, and Elsa was sweating as she rolled the paint in huge swaths over the walls, erasing every one of Anna's dead nights. The paint was not the same colour as the walls had been, so when she was finished covering all the words, she began to concertedly paint the walls again, coating them twice until no one could ever have imagined anything ever existed on them.
She stayed as quiet as she could. She didn't want to wake Kristoff or Renee.
She didn't have to worry about Cub anymore, buried in the garden. Like Anna, Cub was dead.
As she worked, her pinkie finger tingled in memory of her conversation with Casey, amplified by the contents of the letter that simmered in her pants pocket.
It was nearing 6 am when she finished. Cleaning off the rollers, she tidied up before stripping out of all her clothing. In a rare display of messiness, she balled up the pants that held the letter and kicked them under the bed. Anna could not discover that letter, not until Elsa could figure out how to talk to her about it. She turned on the shower before she headed back to her bed.
Elsa was even more careful than usual in drawing back the sheets. She hoped it had been Renee who had undressed Anna and put her in bed, but she thought it was probably Kristoff. Had he blushed with the naked body of her lover in his arms? Or were his eyes wide shut as he walked, seeing without seeing?
Of course, Anna did not stir as Elsa picked her up. Anna's stitched and bandaged arm flopped to her side, but Elsa didn't have the many hands of Vishnu to put it back in its place. She slowly shuffled into the bathroom, opened the shower stall, releasing the captured clouds of steam, and then stepped inside.
Anna's hair soon turned dark, and her bandages began to soften under the water. Elsa stared at the clock and prayed. Life really could change in the blink of an eye. It was a very good thing that God didn't blink.
Three.
Elsa forced her mouth into a smile. She had learned to lie.
Two.
Elsa blinked her eyes and swallowed against the fear. She had learned not to cry.
One.
Anna's face was in the hollow of her throat, one of her favourite Elsa spaces. She would kiss her there, as she often did, or her scream would hit there and be absorbed by the open vessel of Elsa's skin.
What night would it be? Red, or blue?
Wait.
6:04 and five seconds. There was no response.
Holding her breath, Elsa looked at the clock. The second hand continued its lackadaisical and unambitious march along the face.
6:04 and twenty four seconds. Anna was still dead.
Had someone jiggled the clock? Had anyone accidentally reset it? Was the battery dying?
Liar!
Why did panic taste so much like blood in her mouth? Like seawater?
"Anna?" she called, shifting the body in her arms so she could feel the carotid artery at the side of Anna's neck. It was past 6:04; blood should there be surging. Anna should have been asking if they were alive again.
No pulse. Elsa was clammy and cold where Anna touched her skin.
Conscious of Anna's great wounds, Elsa still jiggled her slightly. Anna was a rag doll in her arms, and her head lolled away from Elsa's throat. Her spine had no intention, so it curved under Elsa's supporting hand. Dead, but not stiff, those were the rules.
There were rules, weren't there?
Right?
6:05 now.
"Come on now," Elsa said.
Pause.
Elsa's right hand was strong. She had milked cows, fixed fences, painted walls with it. She pulled back her right hand and then slapped Anna's face with it, as hard as she dared.
Tendrils of dark, wet hair snapped at Elsa's face as Anna's head recoiled with the blow. Her cheek should have reddened with the blow, but there was no blood flowing within her. After all, she was dead.
"ANNA!" Elsa screamed. "For God's sake, Anna, where are you? Come back!"
How could the water on her skin be so cruel? Surely every molecule was laughing at her, along with all the inhabitants of the unseen world, mocking her between the shadows and planes of light. No wonder the steam had run away when she opened the shower door.
"Don't you dare do this to me," Elsa growled. "God, if you do this to me I swear to hate you forever."
6:06. The sun would not rise until near 7 am, yet the sky was starting to bruise with light; light as fake as the glowing bulbs in this room. All light was fake, except for that shining moment when Anna died every night. That light was real, and petty, and bitter. Kool-Aid made with salt instead of sugar and no apologies for the taste.
Anna's hair was sodden, just like the day she drowned to death.
"ANNA!" Elsa screamed again.
The door to the bathroom opened, and Renee was standing there, her brown face strangely translucent with exhaustion and surprise. Her eyes were still red-rimmed; had she been crying all night? Did she remember the feeling of the shovel in her hands?
"Elsa, what's wrong?" she asked, stepping into the bathroom and closing the door behind her.
Elsa's eyes were wild, and she held Anna out to Renee, her arms an altar and Anna the sacrifice. Anna still hung from her, submissive and docile and dead. The wet patches of taped gauze on her skin looked like leper bandages. "She's not waking up," Elsa said, with saturated panic infusing her voice.
"Did you get her under before 6 am?" Renee asked, coming close enough to help take Anna from her hands.
Elsa didn't want to let go, so Renee had to pull them both from the shower stall and turn off the water herself. "I'm sure I did," Elsa replied, thinking back, thinking back, staving off panic. That was the only reason to miss a day. If she brought Anna into the water even just a moment too late, Anna would not come back. It would lead to a lost day, one of thankfully few over the years, like the time Elsa had been stranded with her in the backseat of a car.
"Don't panic," Renee was saying, trying to soothe her. "That must have been it. Here," she said, draping a robe over Elsa's shoulders and momentarily holding the damp and despondent dead body so Elsa could tug it on. "It's just a lost day. We have time. Don't worry. She'll be back tomorrow."
Renee didn't know the contents of Casey's letter. She was ignorant, and her words brought no comfort; still Elsa tried to wrap them around herself just like the robe.
A day. Could they afford even one lost day?
Anna had to wake up. She needed to tell Elsa who had hurt her and killed Cub, so Elsa could administer some very well-deserved chastisement. Her hatred and sense of vengeance for this unknown entity began to rival that for the fortune teller.
Renee helped propel them into their bedroom, where she stopped for a moment to look at the freshly painted walls. Elsa was aware of her surprise, her reaction; she thrust it away from her as she tenderly placed the body of her dead lover in their bed.
"You know, Haley called last night," Renee said, her words tentative, skating on thin ice.
"I know," Elsa replied, bringing up the sheets, tucking them around the body, arranging the still-damp hair. Frowning at the tangles, Elsa went to her dresser and picked up her brush. She sat by Anna's side and began to brush her hair.
"She told us what was in Casey's letter," Renee continued, a voice from mere ether. There was no substance in it, because there was no substance in shadows.
Would the unseen world erode the substance of the baby in her womb? If she and Kristoff left here, would the unseen world pursue them and devour them?
By Elsa's power, it would not. She would let it feed on her forever if it would divert its attention from her brother and his truthful wife.
Thoughts tumbled in her head, but she did not utter them. She was a mountain.
"We can't lose a day, can we?" Renee continued from beyond her sight. "How long can Casey hold on?"
Casey had been born feet first. She was meant to rupture the world.
"She is stronger than all of us," Elsa said, and the words of truth, unblocked by lies, went into Anna's dead skin and hair. Maybe they would provide sustenance during her drawn out exile in the unseen world.
Casey's plan would work because Casey, at the core of her, was a fool. In her mind, Elsa could see the tarot card that Casey drew far too often to be coincidence, seeing that coincidence itself was a comforting farce for unbelievers like Anna.
The Fool, about to walk off a cliff, though a dog barks at his side in warning. He holds a flower in his hand, and there is a satchel upon his shoulder, filled with the hidden four elements of the earth. He walks blithely, because he walks with God, not knowing how he will survive, only that he will. The light that beams upon him is the pure white unadulterated light of Creation; the faith of the Fool drawing the notice of Heaven.
It is unknown whether the Fool falls from the cliff, or if he is saved by great birds, or if a slender bridge appears. That, indeed, is the damning crux of all faith. Faith; unseen things which are hoped for, which are true.
Slapped in the face with Elsa's silence, Renee finally left the room. The stench of paint was high. Anna's hair was now gleaming, so Elsa put her brush away. Carefully lifting Anna's upper torso, Elsa climbed into bed and sat cross-legged, leaning against the headboard. She put the pillow in her lap and laid Anna's head back on the pillow. Elsa opened a little drawer in Anna's bedside table where a dozen vials of essential oils were kept.
The choice was easy. It would be sandalwood and rose, for peace and love. She unstoppered the vial and delicately administered three droplets along the crown of Anna's head. After she set it aside, she began to massage the oil into the cool scalp, the scent a balm to her own tortured soul, woody, light, and rich.
When the tears threatened, like a storm upon the mountaintop, Elsa shoved them away. She was only a mountain now. In her heart she felt a tearing; how could she choose between lover and child? There was no way she could be with both Anna and Casey at the same time; she had no clone, no doppelganger.
In all her years, Elsa had not yet found her own truth, the ripples that connected her with all souls, and the great truth that would validate Casey's blighted life.
It was the foolish man who moved the mountain, because all the sages agreed it could not be done.
Then
The calliope emits a shrill whistle of sound, a scream, perhaps, born of the steam engine. What heartless engineer had devised such an instrument, to produce Stars and Stripes Forever from the persecution of a machine by fire and water? Why did the children laugh upon hearing it?
It was the sound of the calliope that ushered them into the Salem Fair. The instrument had been invented in Worchester, Massachusetts, and only a few of them now remained; the strong ones, no doubt, that could withstand the pressures of heat and water, time and scrutiny. Their bright copper tubes were imprisoned in a carnival wagon, behind dull bars of iron and surmounted with ornate and garish letters. Yet the piercing scream of the instrument could not cut through the excited din of the fair, several days before Halloween.
After all, it was only sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Anna stared at the trapped instrument even as she felt the warmth of Elsa's palm in hers. It comforted her, for she was feeling strange. She hoped she had not caught whatever flu or illness Haley had been incubating, even as a deeper portion of her mind realized that her reactions were more spiritual in origin than physical.
As they were swallowed by the fair, Anna began to relax, began to enjoy the fair, even though it was as painted and fake as Haley's black lips and electric blue hair. She and Elsa were enveloped in a fog of noise and hot oil. Things were frying everywhere; mini-donuts, elephant ears, French fries, even Mars bars dipped in sweet batter and lowered into spiteful oil. Barkers and Carnies stood at their booths, convincing muscle-headed boys and their empty-headed girlfriends to try their games; hey-a-shot, try-a-shot, win-a-prize-for-your-girl. These cries of enticement were inevitably followed by the disappointing clink of balls flying far from their targets, of missing the tiny bulls-eye targets, of darts rarely puncturing balloons but puncturing egos all the same.
It was enchanting, and Anna knew that Haley would have enjoyed every minute of it.
Above the light pollution of the fair a few brave stars dared to shine in a cloudless sky. Only distance doused them; in their own galaxies they were as bright as the sun. The mediocre sliver of a new moon hung back, frightened by all the competition in the night sky.
They paused to get in line for the Ferris wheel. When they sat down on the seat, Elsa's thigh was hard and firm against her own. Into space they were lifted, and surely fortune on her own wheel smiled down upon them, and whispered the secrets of the heavens into their ears. At the apex of the climb the Ferris wheel shuddered into a rocking pause; Anna slipped her hand under Elsa's shirt as she slipped her tongue into Elsa's mouth, and there she tasted that heaven.
Elsa's response was fiery and miraculously present; the depth of it seared Anna's soul.
Back to the earth again, as giddy as fools. They stepped warily around ketchup-splattered and puke-soiled ground even as they were only aware of each other. Foil papers transparent with grease slid along the ground, propelled by unambitious puffs of wind. They walked without intent, just cells within the veins of the fair, and was it really coincidence that led them to Madame Katja's tent, or was it fate?
Was it coincidence that, even afar off, Anna could have sworn she saw Gerda exit that self-same tent? Bombarded by false light and bright noise, Anna didn't mention it to Elsa, believing that her mind was only tricking her. What possible reason could Gerda have for being here, of all places, when her only occupation of space should have been at Casey's side?
Elsa was holding her wounded hand along the luscious plane of her stomach, and for some untold reason her eyes were wary as they entered the tent. She gave off heat like a furnace; Anna wanted to curl, cat-like, by that furnace for the rest of her life.
The smell of incense inside the tent battled the smell of hot oil and popcorn and was winning. Near the canvas walls were propped easels with illustrations of the occult and the arcane; the Priestess at Delphi, a picture of a woman holding an odd noisemaker with the name Purim along the bottom, and, strangely chilling, a bastardization of the famous Arnolfini Portrait by Jan van Eck. In this macabre rendition, the convex mirror at the back of the luxurious room did not show a reflection of the man and woman in the painting, though it reflected all else in the room. It would have been an omen, had Anna been paying attention.
But by then Anna was struck by the fortune teller herself.
She was unbearably young, but she held her youth and beauty the same way that Elizabethan nobles used to trap bright Cardinal birds in cages wrought of gold. There was an uncomfortable amount of mascara on her eyes; to weigh them down perhaps, because they focused too often on heavenly sights? A shocking amount of noise came from her person, for she had dozens of thin metal bracelets on her wrists, and her earrings were long enough to caress her shawl-lined shoulders. She wore a dress of an indigo so dark as to be confused for midnight, yet she had gold eye shadow on her eyes.
Her eyes were the most strange of all. They were the colour of the richest, deepest earth, earth only revealed in the gouging of the plough or the digging of a grave. Her eyes were far too deep for the youth of her body; Anna understood this instinctively, and remembered this strange dichotomy for the rest of her life, as short as that would end up being.
Anna tightened her grip on Elsa's hand; grateful that Elsa was a mountain at her side.
The young woman gestured to the wooden chairs on their side of the table. An intricate white cloth covered the table, and upon it was a deck of tarot cards and a sign. They sat down tentatively, and Anna instantly wished that her chair were closer to Elsa, so she could feel the tangible heat and firmness of her girlfriend's thigh.
Alas for the space that separated them, like the abyss of sound between the piercing and shrieking notes of the calliope. Alas for the silence that feasted on their unease. Alas for the stars that dared to shine.
A simple sign on the table was all the advertisement the young woman needed. It had a list of her services, followed by the dollar amount. Palmistry, tea leaves, tarot, handwriting analysis; a suite of methods for communicating with the divine, and all of them charades.
"What is your desire?" the woman asked, perforating the non-silence. Her voice was slightly high, slightly sweet, still a paradox to her eyes. Anna couldn't quite place her accent; it sounded vaguely Slavic. With her olive skin and dark eyes and hair, she was likely from Eastern Europe, maybe even a true Romany.
"Do you have a reading for people who don't know why they are here?" Elsa asked when Anna did not.
"The single card reading of tarot is probably the best," Katja said. "Do you understand what the tarot is?"
Anna stayed still, so Elsa eventually answered, "Enlighten us."
The young woman touched the stack of cards, which were well worn and probably much beloved. "The tarot speaks in the language of the divine," she began. "The voice that comes from the tarot is never a harsh voice, neither is it right or wrong. It simply is. Those who seek from the tarot are seeking truth. The cards represent both the seen and unseen worlds, both the physical and the divine. The truth of a single card reading is the truth of the now. The cards and their configuration is only a mirror, a reflection of the question in your soul. In this moment, on your journey, I am but a translator, a facilitator. You choose the card, and I interpret it."
For some unknown reason Anna thought of one of her favourite childhood Bible stories. Joseph and his coat of many colours, how he was betrayed by his blood kin and sold into slavery in Egypt, and how his anguish turned into hope when he interpreted the dreams of the king and saved thousands from starvation and death. God had certainly taken his time in reversing the fortune of that young man, the young man who believed.
It was a good thing she had nothing to do with God anymore. Believing in God was dangerous.
"Do the meanings change with each person?" Elsa was asking.
"As the cards are eternal, so are their meanings," Madame Katja replied. Was she really old enough to be a Madame, this girl who looked as young and fresh as Haley? "Who would like to go first?" the woman asked.
Elsa was softly hesitating next to her; her right hand was in Anna's hand, and her left hand was in her lap.
"I'll go first," Anna said.
"Cut the deck. Do not shuffle it," the woman instructed, pushing the deck toward her. The bottom card caught on the ornate stitching of the tablecloth and was separated from its brethren until Anna rescued it and returned it to the deck. She wasn't told how often to cut the deck, so she cut it six or seven times, losing count, before handing it back to the fortune teller. Within her spangled and bejewelled hands, the woman spread the cards and gestured for Anna to chose one.
Anna did not pause or hesitate. She pulled out a card from the middle and handed it to the woman. The fortune teller looked at it and put it on the table with the smallest of sighs, Anna following her gaze. Anna had not spent enough time with Haley to know the cards, and she was disturbed by the scene depicted on it.
The card, once turned over, revealed a blindfolded woman, her arms and legs bound with cloth, surrounded by swords piercing the ground; five on her right, and three on her left.
The fortune teller looked between Elsa and Anna, and then said, looking at Anna alone, "This card is the Eight of Swords," the fortune teller began. "Eight represents patience and splendour, and the sword represents air. You are a cautious person, you test the waters with your toes before you wade in. Blindfolded, you rely on your intuition to understand the world. Your manner of walking away is to go within, to protect yourself from the world. Swords surround you; you cannot stay immobile forever. This situation is not unknown to you; you have come through it many times before. You know you must move forward, even though you know you're going to be hurt."
Anna's heart was knocking against her chest, the words rolling around and around in her head. What did this mean?
Nothing. Party tricks.
Elsa was looking at her in warm concern, and love for her crawled even deeper in Anna's chest.
"Your turn," the fortune teller said, gathering up her cards and giving them to Elsa. Elsa, who lifted her mangled hand to cut the deck only once before handing the stack back. When the woman splayed the cards, Elsa hesitated only a moment before using her left hand to choose the outermost card on the right. The card looked strange and uneven in her unusual hand.
The turned card revealed a bleak scene where nothing grew. Scant light through stained glass illuminated a ragged woman and man, toiling in the snow. Within the window were five circles, etched with stars. Elsa crossed her arms as she settled back in her chair, waiting for her explanation. Anna felt uncomfortable; she wanted Elsa's hand back, so she could hold it.
"This card is called the Five of Pentacles," the fortune teller said, looking at her Elsa with those uncanny eyes. "The five represents the end of the cycle, for the four seasons have passed away. It represents a time of challenge and uncertainty. The pentacles are coins, which represent the earth. The predicament of man is in desiring the future while stuck in the present, always wanting more." She tapped the light coming from the window with her thin and long fingers. "My dear, you have already endured so much. You toiled in the winter of your dreams, and the light always seemed behind you. Ice and snow have left their mark on you."
Elsa's left hand quivered. Her right hand shot out and gripped Anna's.
"For a while now you have discovered joy, but you are about to experience a world of change," Katja continued, her voice tired. "When sorrow comes, remember that the light always shines, even if it's behind you. When the ending knocks, meet it in kindness. Where there is life, there is hope. When you are confronted by loss, realize that there is no real loss at all."
And that was that.
The tent was lit with lamps, and they shone on Elsa's platinum hair with soft perfection. In this light every part of her was beautiful beyond imagining; the latticework of scars on her throat, the smooth stumps of her hand, that very careful stiffness she employed to sit in the chair across from the fortune teller, wounded with her words. Anna thought of her own reading, and was very glad she didn't believe in any of this.
The one-card readings were cheap; Anna handed the woman a twenty dollar bill to pay for both of them. The air of the tent was thick, somehow muting the noise of the fair on the other side of the slim curtain. Perhaps it was only the roaring of her heart and her breath that created this white noise to counter the unseen din.
Anna rose and turned away, but the fortune teller touched her on the arm. "Take the cards," Katja was saying, rapidly scribbling a phone number on the back and handing them the cards they had chosen. "Please. And remember that free will is the last best gift of God. Doamne fereşte."
Numb, uncomprehending, Anna put her card in her pocket and watched as Elsa did the same. Hand in hand, they exited the tent and rejoined the circulation of the crowds. Anna desperately wanted a hug.
Anna didn't often get what she wanted, at least not the way she wanted it.