By the Light of His Lantern Page 24

  “What was it?”

  They both took sips from their water. Catherine bent over the rear of the sofa to peer through the window, as though someone could be approaching them or spying on them who might listen. Satisfied, she sat down again.

  “You’ll never be able to look at me the same after I tell you.”

  “Oh, that ship has sailed.”

  “Has it?” Catherine grabbed her glass and gulped the rest of her water down. “Before now, I would have called it hocus pocus. She opened a book and read something in its pages, and gave me a bag of powder. She copied down a symbol from the book and gave that to me, just a scrap of paper. She told me not to smell the powder or ingest it. She told me I had to blow it into his face. It wouldn’t hurt him, she said, only make him calm. And then…” She hesitated. Telling the rest sounded ridiculous even to her—she’d die of shame to let Beth hear it. “I needed to mix fresh blood, my blood, with the powder and… well, draw with it. On his face.”

  Beth’s mouth twisted sour. “Catherine…”

  “Yeah.”

  “And did—”

  “I did it all. I waited one night for him to come home from work. It was late enough then, I wouldn’t have to worry about anyone being there. There was always the chance someone else might be coming or going, but I got lucky that night, I guess. When he parked his car, I hurried and surprised him as he was getting out and blew the powder in his face.”

  “What would you have done if it hadn’t—”

  “Luckily I didn’t need to find out. He kind of flinched when I did it, like you do when someone throws something in your face, and then he just sank back into his seat. I got in the passenger seat after making sure no one was around. I brought a pocket knife with me, which I cut my arm with.”

  “I asked you about that. You said… cooking?”

  “I don’t know why I cut there. I thought about cutting my hand, but thought it would hurt too much. I thought cutting the back of my arm would hurt less than the underside? I don’t know. It still hurt…”

  “And then you finger-painted on him.”

  “Do you find this funny?”

  “I don’t know what I find any of this. Honestly, I’m just trying to follow along…”

  “I understand…”

  “So you blew the powder in his face and then painted something on him, right? And this… made him go to sleep.”

  “He was awake the whole time I painted the symbol on him—”

  “What kind of symbol?”

  “Just this weird circular symbol with a couple curved, intersecting lines through it, with some dots around it. Do you want me to draw it?”

  “No, that’s fine. Just continue.”

  “So he was awake while I did it. He looked around, even looked at me a couple times. When I finished painting the symbol, his eyes immediately closed. And that was it. And then I brought him here.”

  “You carried him yourself?”

  “I pushed him into the passenger seat and drove his car here. Then I drove back, left his car at his apartment and drove mine home.”

  “And now you’ve been keeping him alive for a couple weeks? He’s never woken up?”

  “No, but he’s perfectly alive. I mean… he’s not looking very great, but he’s still alive.”

  “And if he needs to…”

  “Adult diapers.”

  “Catherine.”

  Much of the tension surrounding Beth’s visit had since dissipated, but the guilt was still there, and a stifled sense of doom simmered underneath. There was an open chasm ahead whose location Catherine still couldn’t pinpoint, but she knew she was approaching it. And instead of anchoring her heels, she was barreling toward it like a frightened, suicidal sheep.

  “How do you reverse it, then?”

  “I went to Rosaline already for an antidote or something, but all she told me was that I couldn’t afford it.”

  “Of course.”

  “So that’s where I am.”

  They sat quietly for a bit, not exactly enjoying each other’s company, but sharing it. Catherine felt indescribably grateful to have Beth with her, and to have been able to tell her everything and not be faced with judgement or worse—being reported.

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do, Beth.”

  “How much did she want for the reversal?”

  “She wouldn’t say, only that I couldn’t afford it. I took that as a sign there wasn’t an actual price. She wanted me to make an offer.”

  “I’m sure she knows anyone wanting the antidote is probably pretty desperate for it. Or not, or whatever. I’m sure some people might just say screw it and let them die…”

  “I can’t do that. I really don’t want to. Especially not if what she claimed was true. If he’s in this place… I don’t know what I was thinking. It was only when Lara was here… I started realizing the gravity of what I’m doing.”

  “Is she still here?”

  “No, she’s gone. Possibly for good.”

  “For good?”

  “I’ll tell you that one later sometime.”

  It was getting later in the evening. The sun was deep in its downward slope, the street outside wore a calm blue.

  “I only see one solution to this,” Beth said.

  Catherine perked up, not entirely hopeful but curious.

  “If you can’t pay for it, all you can do is steal it.”

  “No,” Catherine said. “It won’t work that way. I doubt it’s just a potion in a bottle sitting somewhere in her house labeled “eternal hell curse antidote”. It’ll be a whole thing, a ritual or something.”

  “You said she got the curse out of a book, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “What if you could copy it down from that book?”

  “I don’t know—”

  “If there was a chance,” Beth said, “you should obviously take it. I mean, unless you’d rather take care of him like an infant forever, or until he likely dies from something else. You don’t want him dead, you’ve already realized that. This is all you’ve got.”

  “I’m not a witch, though. Or a psychic or whatever she is…”

  “I’ll help you.”

  “Plus, I’m not—” Her eyes snapped to Beth’s, mouth agape. “You will?”

  “I couldn’t listen to all this and then just go home pretending like you were fine to handle this alone. I mean, if this is what happens when you’re left to your own devices…”

  “You realize how serious this is, don’t you?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Okay.”

  “If I didn’t make light of it in some way, though, I’d go crazy, and then there’d be two of us.”

  Catherine couldn’t believe it, but she was smiling. And that made Beth smile, and before she knew it they were both smiling like a couple of middle-aged lunatics.

  “How would we do it?” Catherine asked.

  “We need to know when Rosaline isn’t there. Her husband, too, I suppose…”

  “You want us to break into their home?”

  “No, not quite.” Beth chewed her lip, thinking. “Actually that’s exactly what I was thinking.”

  Catherine leaned back, eyes closed.

  “How much worse is breaking and entering than kidnapping and murder?” Beth asked. “Don’t tell me this is suddenly where you draw the line.”

  Through narrowed eyes, Catherine regarded Beth scornfully. “I know, I just…”

  “It’ll be fine.”

  “How do you know that?” Catherine sat up. “And how are you so… okay, with all this?”

  “It is what it is.”

  Catherine puffed an exhausted breath from her lips. “I don’t know what kind of reaction I expected when I called you over here, but it wasn’t this.”

  “And I wasn’t expecting any of this when you called me over, either. I guess we lucked out in the friend department, didn’t we?”

  “Something like that…�
��

  “So we’ll scope out the place Saturday. I know she and her husband run a small bar in town, and the husband does something else on the side, a repairman or some HVAC thing, I don’t know. It shouldn’t be too hard finding a time when neither of them are home.”

  “I have tomorrow off, too. I could take a look then.”

  “No, wait until Saturday. That way I can be there.”

  “But if I—”

  “If Rosaline sees you around, she’ll know something’s up. She’s a smart lady. She remembers clients. And she’ll remember you especially, now you’ve already been around asking.”

  “Okay. You’re right.”

  “I know I’m right.” Beth stood and made her way toward the front door. “Don’t do anything without me. Just…” She pointed toward the basement door. “Keep that situation under control in the meantime. All right?”

  “Thank you, Beth.” Catherine went and stood with her at the door. “Really… I couldn’t have asked for a better friend. I thought for sure when I told you…”

  “That I’d wrestle you to the ground and tie you up while I called for reinforcements? Yeah, I thought about it.”

  “I mean it. Thank you.”

  “I’ll be honest, when I went down there and saw him… most of the time I was down there, I was waiting for feeling to return to my… well, everything. That kid’s lucky if you think about it. Other parents might not have been so indecisive. And either way, if it turns out we can’t reverse it—”

  “I don’t want to think about that.”

  “I know you don’t.”

  With that, they hugged and said their goodbyes. Through the living room window Catherine watched Beth leave. The sun was gone and nighttime was creeping in.

  The man’s smoothie was overdue, she thought. She went to the kitchen to make it, and hoped it would be one of the last.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Against her better judgement, Catherine decided she would take a quick, early-morning drive over to Rosaline’s. It would be helpful to know the vehicles they drove. She would then be able to know when Rosaline was at the bar, and they could plan their… their…

  Heist.

  They could plan their theft. That was it. She was a thief, a kidnapper, a would-be murderer…

  “A terrible mother,” she muttered, turning the steering wheel gently in her hand as she rolled around the corner to the Rosaline’s street. That same gnarly tree, branches like thick stubby fingers clawing at the sky, marked the house. She parked a couple houses down. She took a sip of coffee from her thermos and watched.

  There were two cars parked there. One was a white utility truck parked in the street. Its bed overflowed with what appeared to be rolls of chain-link fence and some other rolled-up materials. In the driveway was a purple sedan, whose oxidized paint had seen far better days. There was no garage as far as she could tell, not even a carport. Only the two cars, at least that morning. If the husband was a repairman, as Beth suggested, the white utility truck was undoubtedly his own, and the purple sedan must have been Rosaline’s. Now that she saw it again, Catherine thought she remembered seeing that same car in the liquor store parking lot that day. If she ever drove to the bar again and saw that car, she’d know Rosaline was working.

  Nothing happened in the twenty minutes she watched the house, so she drained the last of her coffee and returned home. As she left, she passed the utility truck and saw painted on the back and sides: Plumbing Emergency? Give Avila Plumbing a Call! followed by what Catherine assumed was a cellphone number.

  When she collected her thermos and purse, juggled them around in her arms as the garage door rumbled shut behind her, she couldn’t tell if it was the coffee or the thrill of the approaching heist that set her hands jittering.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Catherine was out shopping for more nutrients for the man’s very disgusting but very healthy smoothies when Beth invited her out to eat on her lunch break, which Catherine accepted, not only because she had little to do on her final day off work—not counting the weekend—and needed desperately to get out of the prison which housed her guilt like a beating heart under the floorboards, but also because she was eager to brainstorm ideas for their robbery. They met at a not-so-quiet soup and sandwich kitchen, crowded with others on their lunch breaks. Upon stepping inside Catherine felt overwhelmed, smothered by the noise of their chatter. Standing in line she was bumped from behind as others filed in. It would be fine, she told herself. If nothing else, the volume would mask their own conversation which, given its subject matter, would be for the best.

  They sat with their food—Beth with some kind of thick bisque, while Catherine chose neither soup nor sandwich and opted for a light salad instead—and skipped all pleasantries.

  “I drove by this morning,” Catherine said.

  “What? I told you to wait for me.”

  “I know, but I couldn’t.” Beth shook her head disapprovingly. “It was fine.”

  “It was risky.”

  “It was early enough in the morning, no one would have been up to see me. And I wasn’t there long. I just wanted to remember the cars they drove.”

  “And?”

  “The husband has a work truck. Owns a plumbing company, I think, or is part of one. Rosaline has a purple car, just a small, old thing. They might both drive it.”

  “Okay…”

  They ate their food, thinking privately to themselves.

  “I figure at least now we’ll know when one of them is at the bar. Or both of them. If one of them is at the bar, we just have to wait for the other to leave.”

  “Wait? That’s not a plan. We could be sitting there all day…” Beth sipped from her water. “So the father’s a plumber? Did you see anything on his work truck, like a company logo or phone number or something?”

  “There was a number, I didn’t take it down. They’re called Avila Plumbing, though. That’s it.”

  “That’s good. Because if we can catch Rosaline while she’s working the bar, it might be possible to lure the husband away with an emergency phone call.”

  “And if we can get them both out of the house?”

  “I’ll be the one to get the book.”

  “You? You don’t know what it looks like.”

  “You can describe it, can’t you? It’s a book, shouldn’t be too hard to find. How many could they have lying around…”

  “And if you find the book? You’re going to steal it?”

  “No. They’ll notice it’s missing and be looking for it, and they’ll probably suspect a client.”

  “So then…”

  “I’ll find the page you mentioned and I’ll snap a picture of it or something. I’m sure any ‘antidote’ should be included on the same page as the curse itself, right?”

  Catherine thought it over. While she’d eaten only a little of her salad, she felt full already on the butterflies.

  “Do you believe in this stuff?” she asked.

  “Hmmm?” Beth shrugged. “I don’t think I need to.”

  “You wouldn’t help me with this if you thought it meant nothing.”

  “It means something to you, and I trust you…” She scowled as she found the words. “And I saw the man in your basement.”

  Catherine looked from side to side, over her shoulder. The crowded restaurant was oblivious to their conversation.

  “Based on the story you told me, he wasn’t put there by being knocked over the head. So whatever you did to him had some kind of effect. If I believe that you believe, I have no other explanation for how you did it.”

  Catherine couldn’t believe her luck to have someone like Beth’s loyalty. It felt too good to be true.

  “I really can’t thank you enough.”

  “Well stop. It’s not like I’m being selfless.” Beth took the last spoonful of her soup. She wiped her mouth on her napkin. “You have no idea how bored I’ve been without you this past year. You know I understand, though.”

  �
��I’m sorry.”

  “I wish you’d have let me be there for you more, you know. You wouldn’t have spent nearly as much time alone in that house if it’d been up to me.”

  “I needed time to… work through things on my own.”

  “I know.”

  “I’m still working through things.”

  “I know.”

  “It’s…”

  “I know, Cathy. I’m sure it’ll be a long time still. But you don’t have to work through them alone anymore, if you don’t want to. You never did.”

  “Well, I’m sorry I’m only letting you in at a time like this…” She gave Beth an apologetic, lopsided smile. “I bet you never expected me to involve myself in something—”

  “Nope, totally did,” she interrupted. “You’re insane. That’s why we get on so well, we validate each other.”

  “Oh, God. Don’t say that…”

  “When this is over and done with, we’ll Thelma and Louise ourselves.”

  “All right, okay. Was lovely having lunch with you…”

  “Sit down, you hardly even touched your salad!”

  “I’m not very hungry.”

  “I’m looking at you, and you’re starving.”

  “No, really.” Catherine stood, shouldered her purse. “I need to finish my shopping.”

  “Have to feed the comatose, I guess.”

  They both gathered their things and tossed their leftovers in the garbage.

  “Let’s meet tomorrow? We can go over it more, hopefully set something up concrete.”

  “It’s a date. We’ll do lunch again.”

  They left the restaurant, and on her way to her car Catherine thought to herself:

  She might really be insane. Who else would help someone like me…

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  She finished her shopping and arrived home in the midafternoon. She took the groceries—fresh fruit and veggies and vitamin supplements from the health food store-—inside and dumped them on the kitchen counter. Hopefully, she thought, this would be enough to last him until she was able to… to…

  Something caught her attention. An open cupboard over the stove. Unable to remember what she’d been in there for, she stood on tiptoe to look inside and saw the same old canned junk she’d forgotten ages ago. She closed the cupboard door. She scratched her head, thinking.