Darkness My Old Friend

Ray gave a noncommittal lift of his shoulders, a quick bob of the head. “She saw something. I don’t know what it means.”

“Tell me.”

Michael had never wanted to be away from her. Even when he was too old to want to be with her all the time, he did. At sleepovers he’d often slip out and ride his bike home, causing much commotion in the morning at his friend’s house when he was discovered missing. He didn’t like to sleep away from his mother. She needed him. She’d said so. More than Cara, more than his father, she needed Michael. Or maybe she hadn’t said so; he couldn’t remember when she had. But somehow he just knew. That’s why he didn’t understand, could never understand, how she would have left him behind.

That night she’d wanted him to go. He remembered that. “You’re too old for this, honey. Most kids love sleepovers-scary movies, pizza, candy till you drop. You don’t want to sit home in your room while all your friends are having fun.”

Were they really his friends, though? He and Brian used to be friends in grade school. They used to play in the woods behind Michael’s house, explore the abandoned structures, climb into the forbidden mine heads, and walk the dark tunnels. But now that they were in middle school, things were different. Michael still wanted to do those things. But Brian wanted to play baseball, talk to girls. They didn’t really hang out anymore, even though their mothers were still friends. In the hallway the other day, Michael had heard someone call him a freak. When he turned around to see who it was, he saw Brian standing in a group of jocks. Brian wasn’t looking at him, but the other guys were laughing.

These sleepovers were really just about baby-sitting: I’ll take Brian this Saturday; you’ll have Michael next week. But he went, because she wanted him to go. He knew that his father wouldn’t be home until late. Cara would have Mom all to herself. Sometimes he wished he were small like Cara, could still fit into his mother’s lap, that she still brushed his hair and buttoned up his coat. Why can’t I go on a sleepover? Cara had wailed as he left on his bike. The irony of it.

There was pizza, candy, and a scary movie. But Michael and Brian barely exchanged a word that whole night, skulking around each other, both sullenly enduring what had been demanded of them. And when everyone was sleeping, Michael crept out the front door, climbed onto his bike that tilted in the driveway, and drove home. That ride, the high white moon, the strips of gliding clouds, the smell of skunk and cut grass, the chill of the air. That was all he remembered, really. He didn’t remember letting himself in, or creeping up to his bedroom, or going to sleep. But that’s what he must have done, because he woke up in his bed the next morning.

It wasn’t until this afternoon, talking to Jones Cooper, that he remembered the raised voices, the fighting he’d heard. He did remember that now; it had been coming back since he’d talked to Mrs. Miller. But that was it. Maybe it was clearing up the clutter that was jogging his memory. He’d heard about that, how cleaning out your house could cleanse your mind and your spirit, change your life. The clutter represented trapped energy, a repressed past. Not that this was his house. But in a way it was, because he’d never made another home for himself, not really-just a string of dorms, rooming houses, and studio apartments. In a way he’d never really left this place.

Ray told him about Eloise’s vision, about men chasing a woman through the woods-two men, voices raised, calling behind her. Hearing Ray talk about it, Michael felt his stomach start to wrench and cramp.

“Eloise wants me always to be careful to say that these visions might not be related to your case,” said Ray. “But she saw these things while wearing your mother’s shoes.”

They were standing outside on the front step. Ray didn’t like to come into the house. Michael didn’t blame him.

“So what does it mean?” Michael asked. “What happens now?”

Ray had a way of looking at Michael that sometimes made him uncomfortable. It was a calm and searching gaze, a careful examination of what stood before him. He always looked slightly mystified, as though he couldn’t quite believe his eyes.

“Sometimes her visions deepen, meaning that she’ll see greater detail over the next couple of days. And if she does, then we might have more to go on; she might see faces, or the voices might become clearer, or maybe she’ll hear a name. But right now it sounds to me that the area she described is about a mile into the woods behind your house. There’s a clearing with an abandoned building. The locals call it the Chapel. Do you know it?”

He knew it. Of course he did. Inside, he heard a kind of white noise. A lightness welled up from his stomach, and he started to feel so hot. Beads of sweat trailed down his back. He sat on the step and put his head in his hands, willing himself not to throw up.

“Michael. Are you all right?”

No, man, no. I am really not all right. My father is dead. My mother has been missing for so long, and I cannot stop looking for her no matter what I do. And I’m starting to remember things, ugly things about the night she left. Christ.

“I’m fine,” he said instead. “Just overheated, I guess, or breathing in some bad air. I’m trying to renovate the kitchen.”

Ray was quiet, sat down beside Michael. Michael told him about Jones Cooper’s visit, about how he remembered raised voices in the house that night.

Mikey, be a good boy for Mom, okay? I love you more than anything. Those were the last words he remembered hearing from his mother. He’d replayed them, the quick kiss that followed, the feeling of her hand patting him on the back as he left. She always said that: I love you more than anything. Her tone was light, harking back to when he was small, and she’d say, I love you more than all the stars in the sky and all the fish in the sea and all the flowers in all the fields. And he’d say, I love you more than all the ladybugs and dragonflies and butterflies. She’d say, I love you more than all those things, times ten. I love you more than anything. He’d heard her say it to Cara, too. Which hurt in a way he knew even then that it shouldn’t. He turned back once as he got on his bike. But she wasn’t standing in the door waving as she usually did; she was tending to Cara’s misery. If she had known that it was their last moment together, he would have felt it. But it was a parting like any other casual parting, quick and perfunctory and see you in a bit, honey. There was no charge to it. It was this moment, more than any other, that made him think that something had happened to her, something not of her choosing.

“It was your parents’ voices you heard?” asked Ray.

“I think so.” He hadn’t considered that there might have been someone else in the house. He still had his head down. The world was wobbly; it could tilt on its side and dump him into space.

Michael knew he should say something about Jones Cooper’s seeing him out there, digging in the very spot where Eloise had had her vision. But he didn’t. For the first time, he allowed himself to consider that he wasn’t back there digging for that lost mine. After all, it was a shot in the dark. He had no idea where that mine was. No one did. The story was folk legend; he’d never found anything about it in all his research. It was just a story his father had told him.

Michael’s father was fascinated by the idea that men thought they could blow great veins in the earth and take what they found there. And they left these massive scars, these deep valleys in the ground. If you looked carefully, if you observed them, Mack believed, you could learn about the planet and about the people who were its current inhabitants. We will seek to take whatever we want, not for one second worrying about the damage we do, his father told him. And the earth, this patient mother, slowly heals herself of the wounds we inflict. But one day, she will tire of us, her incorrigible children. There’s going to be a cosmic time-out. The earth will reclaim herself.

“Are you sure you’re okay, son?” Ray asked again.

Michael made himself lift his head and look at Ray. “I’m just not feeling well. Everything is starting to get to me.”

Ray put a hand on his arm. He glanced over at the neighbor’s yard.

“Your neighbor, Claudia? She won’t talk to me. I’ve tried twice.”

“She’s a bitch,” Michael said. Ray’s face registered surprise, and Michael realized he’d said it with more heat than he’d intended. “She always has been.”