Mud Vein

  “I brought you here? You think I brought us here to starve and freeze? For what?”

  “It was convenient that you were the one to cut me free. Why weren’t you the one tied up and gagged?”

  “Listen to yourself,” I say. “It wasn’t me who did this!”

  “How do I know that?” His words are sharp, but he says them slowly.

  I shift my feet and rice fills the spaces between my toes.

  My chin trembles. I can feel my bottom lip shaking with it. I clutch it between my teeth.

  “I guess you have to trust me.”

  He points to the living room where the chest is, where the books lay in piles.

  “Your book, Nick’s book, and now your mother’s book? Why?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t even know my mother wrote a book. I haven’t seen her since I was a kid!”

  “You know who did this,” he says. “Deep down, you know.”

  I shake my head. How can he possibly believe that? I have searched—wracked—my brain for answers.

  He backs up, covering his eyes with his palms. His back hits the wall and he bends at the waist with his hands on his knees. It looks like he can’t breathe. I reach a hand out to him, and then drop it to my side. It’s no use. No matter what I say, I took his wife and baby away. I birthed this psycho’s obsession.

  Three weeks later, Isaac removes my cast. He uses a kitchen knife to cut it off. It’s the same knife he carried around on our first day here. We are both wide-eyed and short of breath as the fiberglass falls away. What will we see? How much more broken will I be? In the end there is just a hairy, skinny leg that looks a little off. It reminds me of blood in a cup, a sweater in a bathtub, a rock in a mouth. It’s just visually off and I can’t tell why.

  I still have to use my crutch, but I like the freedom I feel after all those weeks lying in bed. Isaac still won’t speak to me. But the sun has returned. It rises again. We stop using the lights to save the generator from burning gas. I read all of Knotted, but surprisingly it doesn’t hurt as much as the nameless book my mother wrote. I see Nick a little differently; less glimmer. It’s his best work, but I’m left unimpressed with his love note.

  Isaac carries the rest of the supplies up from the well at the bottom of the table. He fills the cupboards and the fridge and the wood closet. So we don’t have to climb down there anymore, he tells me. It takes him all day. Then he puts the table back together. When he goes to his room I come down from the carousel room and creep into the kitchen. I’m still in my robe and my legs are cold. I feel naked without my cast. I press the back of my legs to the lip of the table, and hop up. I scoot back until I’m sitting, my legs hanging over the side. My runner’s legs look spindly and weak. A scar runs like a seam across my shin. I trace it lightly with the tip of my finger. I’m starting to look like a stitched-up Emo doll. All I need are the button eyes. I reach up, slipping my hand into the opening at the top of my robe, running my fingers across the skin on my chest. There are scars there too. Ugly ones. I’m used to being disfigured. It feels like parts of me keep being taken; eaten by disease, hacked off, snapped in two. I wonder when my body will become tired of it and just give up.

  I’ll never be able to run like I used to. I walk with a limp. I haven’t told Isaac, but my leg aches constantly. I like it.

  It’s dark in the kitchen. I don’t want to put the light on and risk Isaac knowing I was in here. If he is trying to avoid me, I’ll help him. But when I look up he’s standing in the doorway watching me. We stare at each other for the longest time. I feel anxious. It looks like he has something to say. I think he’s come to fight some more, but then I see something else in his eyes.

  He takes the steps to reach me. One … two … three … four.

  He’s standing in front of my knees. My hair is wild and unruly. I can’t remember the last time I brushed it. It’s grown past where my breasts used to be. Now it’s sort of a shawl across my upper body, so that even when I’m naked I don’t have to see myself. I don’t even bother to hide my white streak behind my ear like I usually do when Isaac is around. It curls in front of my eye, partly obscuring my vision.

  Isaac pushes my hair over my shoulder and I flinch involuntarily. Then he puts his hands on my knees. Their warmth stings. He pushes outward, spreading my legs, then he takes a step forward until he’s standing between them. He bends his head until our mouths are almost touching. Almost. The fingers on both of my hands are splayed on the tabletop behind me, balancing myself. I can feel the grooves of my carvings. The carvings Isaac helped me make. He doesn’t kiss me. We have never spoken about the kiss we shared when we thought we were dying. He breathes into my mouth as his hands run up the length of my thighs. His hands feel like warm water running across my skin. I cold shiver. My robe is hiked up to the top of my thighs. When his palms leave my legs, I want to cry out, No! I want more of the warmth, but he reaches up and grabs both lapels of my robe, pulling it open and exposing my chest. I’m frozen. Numb. He touches my scars. My barren womanhood. Frozen … frozen … frozen … and then I break open.

  I gasp and grab his hands, pushing them away. “What are you doing?”

  He doesn’t answer me. He lifts his hands to my neck. Wherever he touches me there is heat. I roll my head back and his thumbs graze my jaw.

  “What I want,” he says.

  I roll my head to the left to try to pull away from him, but he pushes his hand into my hair at the back of my head, and kisses the side of my neck until I’m shivering. He has me at a disadvantage; I’m trying to keep myself upright with one hand and push him away with the other. Eventually, my hand slips out from under me and we collapse on the table.

  He kisses me. Hard at first—like he’s angry—but when I touch his face he softens. It’s when his lips drag slowly across mine, his tongue darting in and out of my mouth that I relax. My legs lift off of the table and my feet cradle his waist. Heat; heat on the arches of my feet, heat on my mouth, heat pressed between my legs. He reaches down and pulls my robe open all the way. I lift my arms out of the robe and wrap them around him. Then he rolls me until I’m on top of him. I sit up and he lifts me at the waist until I’m hovering above his erection. He’s right there; the tip is touching me. All I have to do is push down and he will be inside of me. And I want him to be. Because I need to touch and be touched.

  But Isaac is hesitating. He doesn’t want to let go of my waist. He’s thinking of his wife; I’m thinking of his wife. I’m about to tell him, forget it, when he abruptly releases his hold on my waist. Without him suspending me, and with no warning I slide onto him. I suck air loudly. It’s a gasp if I’ve ever heard one. One minute I’m empty, the next I’m full. A deep, slow panic. He does not belong to me. What am I doing? I try to climb off him, but he grabs my wrists and rolls on top of me, pinning me down. He kisses me slowly with both hands pressed against the sides of my face, all the while moving slowly in and out of me.

  “I want to be with you,” he says into my mouth. “Stop it.”

  So I stop it. I let him kiss and stroke and touch and I don’t fight him. We’ve only had sex once; in the rain, on the carousel, with me on top. Now, it doesn’t feel so much like sex. It feels intimate. I’ve never done what we are doing. Not with anyone. Not even with Nick. I’ve never laced my hands in a man’s hair and breathed into his mouth with abandon, and wanted him to be as deeply inside of me as he could—because it felt more real that way. And a man has never buried his face into my neck and moaned, like every movement inside of me is worth a reaction.

  But we are here on the table, rocking against each other and having the kind of sex that is breathless and tender and hard all at the same time. He is touching me everywhere. His fingers roving over my chest and back and thighs. It makes me feel like I am something beautiful rather than this atrocity that life has turned me into. And while Isaac is inside of me I forget everything. I forget that I am a captive, and that bones have been broken, and that we’ve almost died. I
forget that he has a life with someone else. I forget that I was raped and that I have no breasts. I forget that I fight so hard not to feel anything. Isaac is making love to me, and all I feel right at this moment is valued.

  He carries me up to his bed, and lays me down on the mattress. I can feel him trickling down my thigh as he climbs into bed and stretches out beside me. Hold me, I think. Only words in my head, but Isaac turns his body and folds himself around me. I crush my eyes together.

  Pitter patter, pitter patter…

  Fear, light footed, dances around me. She whispers seductively in my ear. We are lovers, fear and I. She calls to me, and I let her in.

  Go. I tell her. Let me go, let me go, let me go, let me go.

  “Tell me a lie, Isaac.”

  His fingertips trace a curlicue on my shoulder.

  “I don’t love you.”

  He cannot see my face, but it writhes: eyelashes, lips, the cutting of lines across my forehead.

  “Tell me a truth, Senna.”

  “I don’t know how,” I breath.

  “Then tell me a lie.”

  “I don’t love you,” I say. I sink beneath the weight of it all.

  Isaac stirs behind me, and then he is leaning over me, his elbows on either side of my head.

  “The truth is for the mind,” he says. “Lies are for the heart. So let’s just keep lying.”

  I kiss the man I lie to. He kisses me with truth. I am set free.

  Two days later Isaac gets sick. It’s the kind of sick that scares me. At first when I question him, he tells me that nothing is wrong. But then the tiny beads of sweat start to collect on his brow and upper lip like condensation. I narrow my eyes at him as we eat. He’s clearly forcing down his food. His skin looks like wax—shiny and colorless.

  “Okay, doctor,” I say, setting down my fork. “Diagnose yourself, and then tell me what to do.”

  My voice is light, but something in my gut is telling that this is bad. We don’t have any more antibiotics. We don’t really have any more anything. I checked our supplies earlier: a couple tubes of burn cream and a surplus of bandages and alcohol wipes. We’ve been trying to save the power and use the logs from the well, but we are running low on those, too. I realize I’ve been waiting too long for Isaac’s answer. He’s staring at his plate, not really seeing anything.

  “Isaac…” I touch his hand and my eyes grow wide. “I’d say you have a fever.”

  My lips feel dry. I flick my tongue over the top of them while considering Isaac’s fever. “Let’s get you upstairs, okay?”

  He nods.

  An hour later he is trembling uncontrollably. I’ve shaken like this—I can remember each time. But my trembling was emotion. The body deals with attacks the same way—emotional or not. Isaac was always the one to make it go away. I can’t do the same for him. What he needs is beyond what my body can do for him.

  I can’t get him to wake up. He never told me what to do. His body says he’s hot—too hot—but this cabin is a freezer. Do I keep him warm, or cool him down? I sit next to him and try to pray. If I lean close to his face I can feel the heat rising off his skin. No one taught me how to pray. I don’t know who I’m praying to: an obese god who is always grinning? A god with a woman’s head that sits on a man’s body? A god with holes in his hands and feet? I pray to whichever it is. My mouth moves with words—begging, pleading words. I’ve never spoken to God before. I partly blame him for the bad that’s happened to me. I say I don’t, but I do. I’m willing to never blame him again if he just saves Isaac.

  I think he’s heard me when Isaac’s shaking suddenly stops. But when I lower my head to his mouth his breathing is shallow. I pray directly to the God with the holes in his hands. He seems like the one to talk to. A God that understands pain.

  “That’s Isaac,” I tell him. “He helped me, and now he’s here. He didn’t do anything to deserve this. And he shouldn’t have to die because of me.” Then I appeal directly to Isaac.

  “You can’t do this again,” I tell Isaac. “This is the second time. It’s not fair. It’s my turn to almost die.”

  I lean down and touch my forehead to his. I want to lie on him and take his heat, but now is not the time for being cold. I pull my head up and stare down at him. I’m afraid to leave him and go look for medicine. We closed off the hole below the table weeks ago. But maybe he forgot something. Maybe there is still medicine down there: a pill in the dirt. A miracle in a dark corner. I know it’s a long shot, but I can’t just sit here and do nothing. I kiss him on the mouth and stand up.

  “Don’t die,” I warn him. “I’ll chase right behind you if you do.”

  If he can hear me, threatening him with my death will work. He will hold on just to keep me alive. I dart out of the room and head for the kitchen. The tabletop is easier to push aside this time. I’m stronger. I grab the flashlight and climb down the ladder he left in place. There are still grains of rice scattered across the floor from the day I knocked the bag over. They pierce my socks and make my toes curl up. The floors and shelves are bare. I run my hands along the back of them, feeling for any lucky leftover. I catch a splinter in my palm and pull it out. The metal box with the medical cross on it bolted to the wall is open. There is nothing on the shelves but dust. I grab the box and try to rip it off the wall, but the box is bolted down. My muscles are more inefficient than my anger.

  “I can’t even rip something off the wall right!” I yell at nothing.

  I stick my fingers in my hair and pull until it hurts. First, I feel helpless, then I feel hopeless, then I feel overwhelming grief. I can’t handle it. I don’t know what to do with myself. I fall to my knees and clutch my sides. I can’t do this. I can’t. I want to die. I want to kill. All of my feelings are coming at once.

  You’re selfish, I hear a voice say. Isaac is dying and you’re thinking about how you feel.

  The voice is right. I stand up and dust the rice off my knees. Then I climb back up the ladder; the only indication I’m on overload is the trembling of my hands.

  I go back to the room to check on Isaac. He’s still breathing. That’s when I remember the book I found in the chest, at the base of the carousel bed. It always struck me as strange that our captor would put that book in the same house with a doctor.

  I shove open the lid to the chest and see the book lying at the bottom. There is a single puzzle piece resting on its cover. I dust it away. This was the only book I saved when we burned everything to keep warm. It makes no sense why I’d save it. I had Isaac to answer my medical questions. Isaac to stitch me up. I saved it for myself. Because on some level I knew the zookeeper put it here for me. My stomach clenches. I flip through the index. Page 546. Fever.

  The part I am looking for is highlighted. In pink. It’s a coincidence, I think. An old textbook bought at a yard sale or something. This person couldn’t possibly have known that Isaac would spike a fever that could kill him. Could he? I suddenly get chills. I look up, and when I do, I’m eye-to- eye with the black horse. I drop the book.

  This is a game. This move is mine. I go to the wood closet. There is no more shed; Isaac started storing the tools in the Chapter Nine wood closet. I pull the axe from where it is propped, ignoring the glossy pages that run up and down the inner walls. I touch the tip of my finger to the blade. Isaac kept it sharpened. Just in case. Just in case Senna loses her mind and needs it, I think. I make my way up the stairs and turn right into the carousel room. The book is facedown on the carpet where I dropped it. An ungraceful splat on the floor. I kick it aside and look at my horse. Right in the eye. This horse and I bonded once upon a time over an arrow through the heart. I feel as if it betrayed me. Made me love it with its bone saddle and death tokens and morbid obesity—morbesity. Fattened me up for the fall.

  “Give me what he needs,” I say. “I’ll do whatever you want. Just give me what he needs.” And then, “Checkmate.”

  I lift the axe and don’t stop lifting the axe until my arms are jello-fi
ed and my teeth are clanging together hard enough to deliver a headache, and the horse is just a mess of jagged, ripped metal. It reminds me of the inside of a Coke can I once cut open with a knife.

  Now he can’t see us anymore. Why did it take me so long to figure that out?

  I lie beside Isaac, still as stone. I can hear the wind whipping the snow around outside. There is no window in Isaac’s room. It’s on the side of the house that faces the cliff and the generator shed that the zookeeper didn’t want us to see. But across the hall is the carousel room, and the noise filters in from there. It sounds like a blizzard. I’m unconcerned. I’m already cold. I’m already hungry. I’m already hopeless. I’m stuck in reverse; always trying not to die.

  I lift my head and check his breathing. Shallow. He needs fluids. I hold a cup of melted snow to his lips, but it just runs out of his mouth when I try to make him drink. I read the highlighted portion in the book and I do everything it tells me. Though there isn’t much. Cool cloth to the forehead—we are in the arctic. Keep room at cool temperature—we are in the arctic. Cover him with a light blanket, doesn’t matter if it’s made of fur—we are in the arctic. Fluids. That’s the most important thing, and I can’t get him to swallow anything. There is nothing I can do.

  He starts to mumble, his eyelids flickering from the turbulence of his dream. They are just words that drop off before he can finish them. Tormented moans and gasps intermingling with the chattering of his teeth. I lean my ear close to his lips and try to make out what he’s saying, but as soon as I do, he stops. I am scared. I am really fucking scared. He’s probably calling for his wife. And all he has is me.

  “Hush,” I tell him. “Save your pluck.” Though I get the feeling I’m really telling me.