By the Light of His Lantern Read online

  “That is such a you thing to say. ‘It was fine’, my god. You poor thing, you probably had no idea what to expect. Did I scar you forever?”

  “You suggested I go for a reason, Beth. It’s a sensitive subject.”

  “Yes, I know. I know.” She looked at Catherine with apologetic yet doting eyes. “So tell me about it.”

  “I don’t know. It was interesting. Honestly, I didn’t get much out of the reading. It felt… forced? It just wasn’t my thing, I think.”

  “You have to be open to it,” Beth said. “Otherwise you won’t feel anything.”

  “Well, I’m sure you must have known I’m not someone who’s normally open to that kind of… thing. You set me up for failure!”

  They grinned. Beth took her final bite and then pushed her syrup-smeared plate away.

  “I’m done. For the day, I think. No more food.”

  “I actually saw her randomly today,” Catherine blurted. “At the liquor store.”

  “Saw who? At the liquor store? What were you doing there?”

  “The woman. The psychic, Beth. Are you paying attention?”

  “Oh! Right. What were you doing at the liquor store?”

  “Getting a bottle of something for my daughter. It’s her birthday.”

  “Oh, tell her I said happy birthday!”

  Yeah right, Catherine thought. “Sure.”

  Beth shut her eyes as she remembered what they’d actually been talking about.

  “You said you saw Rosaline at the liquor store?”

  “I did. As I was leaving. Funny thing. I couldn’t tell for sure, but I thought she saw me and smiled…” She trailed off, staring into the greasy swirls on Beth’s finished plates, like hypnosis devices. “She’s very beautiful.”

  Beth said in a low voice as though sharing a secret, “I know, right? I’d kill for her hair.” She shook her head, smiling reminiscently. “Sometimes she finishes my compliments for me when she greets me at her door, and I have to quickly think to myself ‘is she that good, or have I just said it too many times?’”

  Catherine wasn’t sure why she brought it up or mentioned it, but she was glad for Beth’s easy distractibility, to have the topic already behind them. She quickly moved on.

  “I should get going,” she said, and began collecting her things on the booth beside her. “I have a few other errands I should run before I head home.”

  Outside the diner, they hugged and parted ways to their vehicles. Catherine got into her car and took a breather before putting her key in the ignition. There she stopped, key in hand, and a thought crossed her mind that sent shivers down her shoulders.

  I can’t tell a single soul.

  As Beth pulled out behind her, they waved. Then she started her own car, and—contradictory to what she’d said—headed straight home.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  She’d needed to get out of the house for a little while. Being home alone stressed her out too much… or, at least the last few days it did. But now, as she returned from her errands—shorter lived than she’d expected, what with her daughter not being too keen on spending any time together—she felt that being gone had only given her more to worry about.

  What if I come home to find the front door wide open? What if I come home and find the flashing red and blue already waiting?

  She turned down her street—a lovely place to live, she often remarked, tidy and quiet and mostly free of children—and tightened her grip on the steering wheel as she neared home.

  To her relief, the front door was not wide open. Nothing looked out of place at all. She stopped in the driveway as she waited for the garage door to rattle open, and she peered up at the windows while she waited and expected to see something—something to cause a skip in the beat of her heart. But there was nothing.

  With the car parked and the garage door shut behind her, she made to go inside and found her hands trembling as she sorted through her keys. She unlocked the door. She twisted the knob. She pushed it open a crack. She listened. For a brief moment, she considered poking her head inside and calling out ‘hello?’ but felt too silly for it.

  She set her things on the kitchen counter, washed her hands at the sink. Through the window, her backyard lay sunshiny and empty, freshly mowed and not a blade of grass out of place. A wooden wind chime hung outside the window, and it just barely sounded in a breeze.

  I hope she likes hers just as much.

  The wind chime gave her a second of peace of mind, but only that. She dried her hands, retrieved her keys from the counter, and walked through her home, from the kitchen to the entry, and from there to the basement door. It was shut and locked, as she’d left it.

  She sorted through her keys, plugged the one she needed into the lock. She opened the door slowly, leaned back from its gloom. On the other side, the stairs descended until she couldn’t see their end in the dark. She flipped the light on the wall and lit the room below. She took one step down. Two steps.

  “Hello?” she asked aloud. “Is anyone there?”

  No, she told herself. There wouldn’t be anyone waiting for her down there. The dark corners would be empty, the shelves and boxes undisturbed. There was nothing to fear.

  That’s not entirely true.

  And she was mostly right. When she reached the bottom of the stairs, stepped into the room and swept it quickly with her eyes, ears alert like a spooked cat… she proved her own reassurances. The corners were empty, the shelves and boxes were undisturbed. No one waited to pounce upon her, to claw her, to bludgeon her, to scramble past her to the open doorway at the top of the stairs.

  The only person who waited was the man lying in the middle of the floor, bound and gagged and unconscious just as she’d left him earlier that morning.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  She sat in the front room with the curtains pulled wide to let the sun in behind her. She sipped a mug of tea. Across the room the basement door was shut and locked once more. She eyed it daringly with her mug to her lips.

  Forget about him. It’ll be over soon. Don’t think about it.

  She stood from the couch. Against the far wall of the front room was an upright piano, glossy and black. The keyboard was covered. On top of the piano was an arrangement of photo frames. She looked at each of them while she sipped her tea. She took one in her hand and studied it a great deal, eyes narrowed above her mug. She replaced the frame.

  Is this what I want?

  She returned to the locked basement door, took a deep breath.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  She descended the basement steps very carefully, balancing a small tray in her arms. There were raw carrots, broccoli, peapods, chunks of grilled chicken, a slice of wheat bread, and a glass of water on the tray. She paused when she reached the bottom. The man still lay as he did before, on his side. She would have to remember to reposition him before she returned upstairs…

  She set the tray on the floor off to the side. She bent over him in the middle of the basement, looked him over from head to toe. On her hands and knees, she put her ear to his mouth and heard him breathe, felt it against her cheek.

  “Okay, here goes…”

  She grabbed under his arms and heaved. She dragged him toward the wall next to where she left the tray and propped him up. His head lolled forward. She lifted his face.

  “Can you eat?”

  When she let go, his head dropped again.

  He can’t hear you.

  She knelt in front of him, dragged the tray closer. She took a baby carrot in one hand, lifted his head with the other. She pried his mouth apart with her thumb and index, felt his wet mouth on her fingertips. She pushed the carrot in, left it sitting on his tongue, closed his mouth, and let him go. His head fell forward, his mouth opened, and the carrot fell into his lap.

  “Oh, bullshit…”

  She tried it again. She tried it again, with the broccoli. She took the chunks of chicken and waved them under his nose. Nothing seemed to have any effect. She place
d some chicken in the back of his mouth, lined it carefully on his teeth, and attempted opening and closing his jaws with it there, to help him chew. It worked. He chewed it. But nothing she did could get him to swallow or do any of it on his own. He was entirely gone.

  She tried the glass of water. She tilted his head back, opened his mouth, and put the rim of the glass to his lips and poured. His mouth filled. It filled until it spilled down his chin. She continued pouring it, slowly, watched his face closely as she did, looking for a reaction of any kind.

  “Come on,” she muttered. “You need it. You know you do…”

  She tipped the glass a little higher. All at once the water exploded back at her as the man coughed it out, and she screamed. She dropped the glass in his lap as she flinched away. Water dripped from both their faces.

  “Oh, bullshit!”

  She snatched the glass from his lap. She headed upstairs. A minute later she returned with a freshly filled glass and a large kitchen towel. She dried him off as best she could. She violently patted at his lap where the glass had spilled, mumbling to herself as she did. Finally, she gave up and picked up the refilled glass.

  “You have to drink this.”

  She poured it in again like she’d done the last time. She waited until it brimmed his lower lips. Then she set the glass down, shut his jaws together, and leaned him gently back, moving the water to the back of his mouth, to his throat. He coughed.

  “No, no…” she whispered. “Keep it. Swallow it down…”

  He coughed again. Water dribbled out of his mouth. Catherine’s heart beat painfully in her chest. Then, just when she thought she was about to get another mouthful of water to her face, the small lump of his Adam’s apple bobbed and the water gurgled down. His mouth fell open, empty this time.

  An idea occurred to her—one she planned to refine later on. But for now, she thought it worth trying just to see. She put more chicken in his mouth, forced him to chew it up as soft as she could get it.

  I’m not mother-birding this bastard any time soon…

  Then she took the glass of water back in her hand. She tilted his head, put the glass to his lips.

  There was a sound upstairs and Catherine nearly choked on her own tongue. She bolted upright, glass in hand. The water sloshed out over her wrist. She stood facing the bottom of the stairs, listening. She set the glass down and moved to the stairs, peered at the open door at the top.

  “Hello?” she called.

  The noise came again. She realized what it was, but her heart didn’t beat any slower, nor did her hands shake any less. Someone was knocking on the door. She looked over her shoulder at the man leaned against the wall, the tray of food next to him, water splashed all around his legs as though he’d had an accident. The knocking came again and she headed up.

  She closed the basement door behind her.

  Who could it be? On a Saturday afternoon…

  She answered the front door and suddenly everything flooded back to her. She felt a moment of sick dread when it did—not just due to the secret beneath her feet, but that her secret caused such a rift in her memory, so that she’d almost forgotten something so routine…

  A small girl stood on her porch with a backpack slung over her shoulder. Down the walkway, at the curb, a white sedan was parked. A young mother at the wheel peered through the passenger window at them. She waved, and Catherine waved back, smiling. She invited the small girl inside.

  “How are you today, Kellie?” Catherine asked.

  The little girl took off her backpack on the couch and unzipped it. She pulled a loosely bound ream of paper out, flipped through it.

  “I’m okay…” she answered, unconcerned. “Except I don’t remember the name of the song we started last time…”

  Catherine watched her, not really hearing her. She nervously looked behind them, checking to make sure she’d closed the basement door. Not that it would matter, she thought. He wasn’t going anywhere…

  “I think it was this one?” She handed Catherine the sheet music. Catherine looked at it, didn’t read it at first. Her eyes wouldn’t focus. She looked at the small girl, Kellie, over the pages of her sheet music, and felt a pang of guilt—a pang of terror somewhere deeper, too. Then she finally read the title of the page the booklet was turned to and nodded.

  “Yes… I think this was it. Ode to Joy.” She gave Kellie a warm smile and handed back her booklet. “Something fun and simple to start.”

  They moved to the piano, where Kellie seated herself and uncovered the keyboard. Catherine stood next to her, looked between her and the basement door. It felt as though she were dreaming—that she could be standing there with Kellie now, while only moments ago she was…

  She shook her head, tried to put it out of her mind.

  “Show me what you remember.”

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  By the time Kellie’s lesson was nearly over, Catherine was on the verge of tears. Several times as Kellie practiced, looked to Catherine for approval or criticism, she caught glimpses of the battle taking place behind Catherine’s eyes, and Catherine did her best to hide it away.

  “Are you okay, Miss Blake?”

  “Oh, of course.” Catherine shook her head. “Let’s try it again.”

  Toward the end of Kellie’s hour, Catherine caught herself watching the clock obsessively. She tiptoed away a couple times to check out the window to see if Kellie’s mother had arrived early to pick her up. But no. Kellie’s mother arrived just on time.

  Catherine opened the door and let Kellie out. She stood by her mother, who placed an affectionate hand atop her head.

  “How was it?” she asked her daughter.

  “Good.” Kellie answered—an automatic response.

  Her mother thanked Catherine and then they left, much to Catherine’s relief. When she shut the door and locked it, watched them retreat to the car at the curb through the door’s eyehole, Catherine shook with sobs she couldn’t hold back any longer. She hurried to the box of Kleenex on the small table beside the couch and dabbed one at her eyes, doing her best to rest her face and not break down completely.

  Crying is horrible for your face. Pulls all your muscles in the wrong ways, scrunches up your eyes. Terrible for skin. Ages you…

  She sat for a minute and composed herself. Their car pulled away outside, faded down the street.

  After a moment, she went to the piano and straightened the bench. She lowered the fallboard. She looked again at her row of photographs on top. There were four in all.

  Feeling hungry, having not eaten all day, she opened her refrigerator in the kitchen and saw nothing appetizing. Her stomach rumbled, but her mouth, her taste buds, couldn’t have cared less. She closed the fridge.

  A fasting day. That’s what today is.

  She stood at the kitchen window for a while, watched as the sky slowly started to dim on its way toward nightfall. No matter how hard she tried to think of anything else, her thoughts returned to Kellie. Before she knew where she was headed, her feet led her back to her foyer, toward the piano with the four photographs on top. She stopped herself halfway there in front of the basement door. A suffocating emotion began to grow in the pit of her stomach. Hot, intense, overwhelming.

  She opened the basement door instead. The light was still on at the bottom. She hurried down the steps, fists clenched at her sides. The man was leaned against the wall. The glass of water was half empty next to him. The tray of food was mostly untouched. She towered over him, brushed the hair from her hardened face.

  “You don’t deserve any of this.” She bent with trembling knees to take the glass of water. She stood straight again. Her breath shuddered from her flared nostrils. She dashed the water across the man’s sleeping face. Dripping, he remained unaffected, unreactive. “Wherever you are, I hope it’s the worst hell you’ve ever known. You’re going to stay there.”

  She set the empty glass on the tray of food and carried it with her back up the stairs. At the top, she
shut the door and locked it.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Catherine woke from a nightmare. She stared into the dark, unblinking, collecting her wits, her whereabouts. Then in an instant, she cracked. She turned onto her side and pulled her pillow against her face to sob into.

  In the middle of this, a frightening thought occurred to her. She sat up, frantically searched her bedside table, felt her hand along her lamp, switched it on. She grabbed her phone and streamed through her numbers and dialed. It rang, and rang, and rang. Just when she thought no one would answer, the other end picked up. A young woman’s voice, tired and dry.

  “Yes?”

  “Lara? Are you all right?”

  “Um… yes, I’m fine. I’m… I’m sleeping. Do you know what time it is?”

  “I’m sorry,” Catherine said. “It’s just, I had this awful dream. I had to call and make sure… I had to call and make sure everything was okay.”

  There was a long, heavy silence on the other end, and for a moment Catherine wondered if her daughter had hung up. She wouldn’t have been surprised.

  “Hello?” she asked.

  There was a tired sigh—or maybe an exasperated one. “I’m here.”

  “Oh, good.” Catherine looked around herself in her dim bedroom. She looked at the clock on the nightstand and saw it was nearly midnight. She hadn’t even checked the time before, but now that she had—now that her sleep-foggy mind had gathered itself and she realized suddenly how silly it all must seem—she thought quickly for an excuse. “I just… I woke up and saw the time and thought maybe you might still be out having fun. I thought maybe you’d be doing something with Rob tonight.”

  “No. I’m not doing anything with Rob tonight. I’m at home, sleeping.”

  “Okay. I’m glad.” Catherine gave a sigh of relief, and then began to laugh, a quiet, polite kind of laugh. A laugh that asks forgiveness. “This was very silly of me, wasn’t it?”

  Lara didn’t answer. Almost immediately, Catherine’s mind grew suspicious that she’d hung up on her for sure. Her heart, which had slowed since waking, began to beat harder again.

  “You should go back to bed, mom.”

  Catherine nodded to herself. “Yes. You’re right.” She paused. “I suppose, if everything’s okay, I at least wanted to wish you a happy birthday one last time before it’s too late…” She looked at the clock again. “Fourteen more minutes. Ha!”