White Horse

The Roma camp lies miles behind us now. I don’t know how many. Two days’ worth, however many that is. I’m on the path to Delphi. Yes, I remember what the Roma said about the monster woman who lives there. Medusa, they said, with her snake hairdo and petrifying gaze.

Another day slouches by, followed by the night, and on its heels another day. The road narrows the closer I get to Delphi. Or maybe it just seems that way, compressed and colored in ominous tones by the Roma stories.

My imagination doesn’t conjure up the earth’s split lip as we round the road’s gentle curve. The chasm is real and it’s separating me from where I need to go, so deep and so wide is the injury. There’s a flip-flopping in my belly, as though the little person growing in there senses my longing and finds me pathetic with need. Pressing a not entirely reassuring hand against the bump, I stop to figure my way through.

There is another road, though it is less traveled. Instead of asphalt, it’s a flattened grass dogleg that jags north, then east, then north again until it fades from sight. It’s not its disappearance that bothers me but the where it’s disappearing to. While the road slices through towns and countryside, the lesser path delves. Into a bank of brush and olive trees it slithers, parting the greenery just enough to dip its tongue inside.

There should be a sign, one fashioned from weather-worn planks, staked into the ground. There should be a fading message in once-white paint, warning me to turn back or die. But there’s nothing, not even a dent in the grass where a stake might have been shoved into the ground. The lack of a sign is a sign in itself: Keep Out.

Foreboding fills me until I’m bloated with dread. What would Nick say? If it was just we two sitting in his comfortable office, batting banter across the low table, what would he tell me about handling this situation? I suck in my breath, hold it until my chest stings, then let it out nice and easy because I know what he’d say.

He’d tell me to take a chance. To not be afraid to explore the unknown. It’s only strange until we stare it in the face and say, Hey, how are ya doing?

“Hey, how are ya doing?” I mumble the words, don’t inject any substance or volume. The last thing I want to do is tempt fate by announcing my arrival. So I stare down the unknown, hoping to dispel its air of doom.

Esmeralda snorts, her hooves suddenly stamping an agitated dance on the blacktop.

“Settle, girl. Easy.” I whisper the words and listen. The sensation of someone— or something—else creeps over me like a smallpox blanket settling around my shoulders.

Out there, alien breath is held as fast as mine. It eases out in time with my own. Could be paranoia, but it’s not paranoia if they’re really out there. Isn’t that how it goes? I’ve long tired of this world where I’m constantly stalked by things I can almost see, things that hide on the edges of plain sight. Once upon a time, just a few months ago, if you held your bag tight, stayed away from dark alleys, locked your doors and windows, you were relatively safe from harm.

My hand tightens on the rope that binds us. Judging from the defiant head toss and the challenging snort, she’s not happy about me leading her off the path and into the olive grove. She doesn’t have to be comfortable with it, she just has to follow and watch my back.

The bushes and undergrowth have become set in their ways and they’re reluctant to part when my boots tamp them down and shove them apart. We come to an uneasy agreement where they spread enough to let us through, then spring up into their previous position. This way they retain their wild dignity and Esmeralda and I have more or less safe passage.

The wall of silvery green swallows us whole, presenting me with a double-edged blade I have no choice but to grasp. Along one honed edge, that presence dances with its copycat breath, while the unknown glides along the other. Choose the evil you haven’t looked in the mouth and counted its iron fillings. Risk the other choice being your salvation.

Nonetheless, the choice is made and I press on with my ass on my ass. Laughter burbles up my throat. This is ridiculous. Nothing about any of this is sane. Each tragedy has stacked up on the last so that I’m left staring at a teetering tower of black blocks. And yet, the harder I stare at them, the less real they become.

“If I’m crazy, do I know I’m crazy or am I in denial?”

Esmeralda says nothing. She plods along behind me without expression. We walk quietly, although not silently, and I hope that the sounds of nature’s takeover are enough to drown out the us.

“It’s not just a river, eh?”

We walk and I watch for her, the wild snake-haired woman of the woods.

DATE: THEN

Nick laughs when I say, “If you need to talk, I’m here for you.”

“Did Morris send you to do my job for me?”

“Yes.”

“But you didn’t want to.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

I look up at him and, despite myself, my lips twitch upwards. “Are you analyzing me now?”

He gives that half smile, the one that should be delivered over drinks in a dimly lit bar instead of this makeshift infirmary.

“Why not?”

I laugh, shake my head. “Don’t even try it. I don’t want to be picked apart like meat from a chicken bone.”

“Why not?”

Why not, indeed? But I know why. I don’t want him rooting around inside me, helping himself to the bits and pieces I stash away for safekeeping. Gadgets and walls, some of them hiding silly things like my attraction to him.

“Because… because it’s easier to keep all this together, to keep the horror in perspective if I wrap it up in pretty paper and stash it in a box marked Do Not Touch. That’s why. Giving it a poke won’t lead to anything good.” I expect him to laugh again but he doesn’t. Instead, he nods. His booted feet swing up until they’re resting on his desk. Mine mirror his. For a moment I think we’re two people who look comfortable together, and maybe part of me is, but there are pieces of me that are anything but comfortable with Nick. Looking at him pokes and prods me in tender places I don’t want to be touched.

Hands clasp behind his neck. He shifts in the chair, and as he does, his eyes slide from my neck to my navel and back up to meet my eyes. “So pick me apart. Analyze me. Do what Morris ordered.”

I swallow slow, wishing I could rise from the chair and walk away, but I know if I do, the movement will be clunky and herky-jerky. And if there’s one thing I don’t want, it’s to look anything less than cool and composed in front of him. I don’t want him to see what’s there. I don’t want him to see what isn’t there.

“I think you’re like me.”

“Go on.”

His words embolden me; my thoughts begin to pick up steam, and along with them, my mouth.

“I think you’re functioning on autopilot, doing what has to be done. Part of you died in that war because you’re a doctor, not a killer, and being ordered to kill made you feel like shit, then you came back here, to hell, and all you found was another serving of death, only bigger and scarier and more personal, because it took everyone you loved. I think you want me because I’m from before, when things were normal and sane. I remind you of the way it used to be. It’s not me you desire, it’s the memories I evoke. I belong to that other world. And any ‘us’ there could have been belongs to that world, too.”

On that note, my voice dies so I sit and wait and watch. At first there’s nothing, but I can see him chewing on my words and I’m half afraid he’ll tell me I’m right, that it’s not me, really, he wants, but the past and me by default because I’m a relic from that time.

“You know what I want right now?”

A thousand things spring to mind, all involving twisted sheets and bodies slick with sweat. My eyebrow lifts, asking the question because my mouth can’t be trusted.

When he smirks, I can’t discern if he’s inside my head without permission or if I’m wearing my lust on my face for him to see.