Shadows of Shadows - 4. Star Search

Dew soaked through the seat of Susan’s pants, but she reveled in it. She was perched on the hood of her car in the chill morning, the cold seeping through her clothes a stark reminder that she was back in the realm of reality. The clear air felt like a balm to her frayed nerves. After clambering down the stairs last night, she'd rocked back and forth on the sofa for what felt like an eternity, trying to shake off the unsettling events. Sleepwalking? She'd never done that in her life. But what other explanation could there be? Eventually, exhaustion had pulled her back under, and she’d awoken, undisturbed by visions, to the gray dawn streaming in -- and, thank goodness, still on the sofa.

Now, she dangled her feet, cradling her phone in front of her, the screen a small beacon of comfort. She stared at the clock, waiting for 7am to push “Call.” The moment arrived, and she immediately thumbed the green icon.

“Hey, Cutie!” Makayla’s voice was like a lifeline.

“Makayla! Thank you so much for answering. Are you at work yet?”

“Almost. Are you all right? What’s wrong?”

“Oh, you noticed,” Susan giggled uncomfortably, the sound thin and brittle. “Hey, don’t tell Mom, but this is not going well for me. I’m all alone, there’s so much to do, everyone here is old and weird …”

“Say less! When do you want me?” The immediacy in Makayla’s response brought tears to Susan’s eyes.

“Oh, God, thank you, Makayla!”

“I was supposed to go in tomorrow, but I’ll call out. Wendy’s will manage without me. It’s actually a lot easier just doing drive through. I’ll leave as soon as I can after work today. Do you need me to get stuff from your parents?”

“No. Just bring whatever’s at your place.”

“You got it, baby. Hang in there! I’ll text when I’m on my way.”

Susan ended the call, a wave of relief washing over her. She looked up at the sky, the soft morning light casting a gentle glow over the world. For the first time in days, she felt a flicker of hope. Makayla was coming. Everything might just be okay.

***

With Makayla’s imminent advent, Susan’s mood brightened. She hummed and sang as she bustled around, taping up the upstairs boxes. “Coming in!” she called out at the door of grandma’s room. “Are you decent?” But it was unchanged from the last time she’d seen it the night before. With a deep inhale and a long sigh out, Susan stripped the bed in one motion. No skeletons underneath, only decades of grime and sweat. She wadded the sheets and crammed them in the last open box and sealed them up.

“Heading down!” announced Susan from the top of the stairs, before descending at a measured pace. She hummed “Shake It Off” as she passed though the living room to the kitchen, where she had new boxes stacked. Picking up about five, she said, “I’m going to pack up the downstairs bedroom. After that, I’m throwing out food.” She paused, then, “if you want to save anything, get it while I’m not looking!”

The contents of the bedroom’s deep closet were in some disarray. Mom had ransacked it for photo albums and left the organizing to Susan. Susan hailed and farewelled each item she packed up. Eventually, she came across a VCR, sitting atop a sealed box, already labeled “Tapes”. She extracted the package with a cheery, “Well that’s some work saved for me!”

Curiosity, however, overcame her. She keyed open the box, raised the flaps, and there it was: “The Uninvited”. She pulled out the cassette and twiddled it, listening to the rattle of the reels inside. “Let’s not watch this tonight! Bad idea!” she declared. Curiosity lingered, though. She sat on the bed and pulled out her phone for a search of the title. Released in 1944, 100 minutes long, based on a novel, and -- what’s this? -- an example of lesbian representation in classic cinema! Susan scrolled through the blogs. That’s right, the villainess had been unusually attached to the dead lady. “We’re always the bad guys, right?” she asked the room. Makayla loved movies, and especially closeted queer movies; maybe she hadn’t seen this one, and she wouldn’t be scared when they were together. Susan carried the cassette and the VCR to the living room TV for later.

Susan ransacked the kitchen, cramming garbage bags with expired food, narrating the cans, boxes, and bags. The afternoon was waning by the time Susan heaved the massive sacks into the car. Hurried though she was to get to the dump in time, she paused to read a text from Makayla. The girl wasn’t playing around. If she didn’t stop too much, Makayla was going to show up at like two or three in the morning.

Winding her way out of the village, Susan saw a familiar hat on her side of the road, swaying in her direction. The figure lifted a stiff arm and weakly gyrated the outstretched hand. Susan braked to a crawl, and Cowboy Lady boldly doddered into the middle of the road. Susan looked ahead and behind, but of course there was no danger. Two cars might come through an hour during normal times; in the Pandemic, you might see that many in an entire morning. Cowboy Lady, mused Susan. Should I find out what her real name is? The old woman drifted up to the driver’s window, and Susan obligingly rolled it down, slightly hanging a hand out and squinting into the descending sun over the waterfront.

“You left your lights on all night,” Cowboy Lady remarked, in the tone of one fingering the killer in a murder mystery.

Susan panicked, but swallowed it down hard. “Oh, I fell asleep reading,” Susan said, then added, “I’m fine, nothing’s wrong. Really.”

The lady shook her aged head. “I wouldn’t leave my lights on. So many strange people live here now. The Mexicans come down here to work the fields. I wouldn’t want anyone to find out there’s a pretty young girl out here by herself.”

Susan’s jaw came unhitched, but before she had a chance to respond, Cowboy Lady went on, ”Did you find any old photos of your grandma, or of anyone from when she was growing up here?”

“No, my Mom took all the pictures she could find. She wanted to sort them out at home.”

The old woman sighed in frustration. “Tell her that there are a lot of people here who want to see them again, too. Can you see if you can bring them back, please?” Susan’s skin crawled as Cowboy Lady earnestly gripped her hand.

“Uh, yeah, I’ll ask her.” Susan couldn’t make herself pull away, but she was released. Cowboy Lady patted her arm once more and said,

“I’ll let you go. Be careful, okay?”

Susan had the sudden presence of mind to ask hopefully, “Do you need anything from the store?”

“You’re such a sweetheart to ask. Not today, thank you.”

“Okay,” Susan said, masking disappointment. “I’ll see you later.” She rolled up her window and waved once more through the glass before speeding away, leaving the old woman hobbling back to the side of the road in her mirror.

That evening, another frozen dinner and sandwich were accompanied by the radio, since Susan couldn’t very well talk to the house with her mouth full. The house didn’t seem to mind. Sitting at the supper table, though, Susan caught a whiff of herself, and twiddled her hair, just beginning to wither under grease. Before Makayla showed up, she needed to coax the cantankerous shower to life. She walked upstairs carrying clothes, towels and shampoo, repeating once or twice, “No peeking!”

Clean and pretty again, Susan fixed tea and took her place on the sofa. It was still a few hours before Makayla was due. She didn’t feel like she could fall asleep while waiting for her, but what to do?

The scarlet covered paperback beckoned. She picked it up and located the dogear.

“Chapter Six …”

***

“I loved Mary Meredith …” blared the TV.

It was still dark out, but all the lights were blazing bright in the house. The VCR was hooked up and whirring away with “The Uninvited". The nasty woman was fawning over the portrait of the dead lady.

Makayla had driven up in the small hours, and for some reason had wanted to watch the ghost movie as soon as she'd sat down. Her arms were bound up with Susan’s on the sofa. Susan was considering never letting go. She asked, "Is this the gay part?”

“It’s implied,” replied Susan. “We’re the bad guys, remember. I should call my senior thesis advisor; I think there’s a paper in it.”

“We’re not the bad guys, not the bad guys,” echoed Makayla. Susan’s serenity foundered into a sinking feeling. She picked up her head to see Makayla’s eyes focused a thousand yards beyond the wall. Makayla turned her eyes to look through Susan’s face and said, “You shouldn’t leave your lights on. You’re too pretty.”

Susan tried to escape, but was paralyzed. Her heart pounded and her skin felt boiling hot. The impostor Makayla asked, “What if someone knocked on the door?”

Knock, knock, knock. The rapping came not from without, but emanated from inside the closed downstairs bedroom.

“You should open it. I won’t come in if you don’t open, but I’ll be sad,” the Makalya figure chanted. “Please wake up, It’s nobody but us. She’s going now”

Susan felt the cool freedom in her limber limbs. Makayla rose and wandered out of the scene. Knock, knock, knock. Knock, knock, knock, insisted the door. Susan rose slowly, concentrating to keep the dream together as the unreality shuddered around her. She touched the bedroom doorknob, and the door between her and the dream woman faded away.

She was a bit taller than Susan, slim and red-headed, with hair below her shoulders. Soft cheekbones supported an oval face adorned with freckles and an upturned nose. She wore the same embroidered nightgown that Makayla’s dream self had appeared in.

“Who are you?” Susan asked, her voice echoing in the wavering walls.

The dream woman looked about to cry, scream, laugh, and vomit all at once, holding herself together by the finest of threads. “I’m -- I’m with you -- alone with you.” The face blurred, but quickly reassembled. “He was here. He’s so terrible.”

“Are you in danger?” Susan asked, the stupidity of the question filling her.

“No, no danger. He’s gone and it’s just us, nobody but us. Your story. I listened to your dreams in the lights. You’re like me. Nobody’s like me. I’m a bad guy. But we’re not the bad guys.”

The woman fell forward. Susan caught her. The shock sent the dreamworld shaking again, and Susan felt fluttering wakefulness in her eyes. “Don’t go! Don’t go!” sobbed the woman. Susan took a long, cool breath. The house around them solidified again, dark around the edges, and the woman stood on her feet, still in Susan’s arm. She kissed Susan on the cheek, and Susan compulsively stroked the firm body beneath the nightgown.

“I’m better now,” said the woman. She stepped back, still holding Susan’s hands, and asked “Who is the other one? The Negro? She always gets here first.”

“Uh, er, that’s Makayla, I mean, that’s what my girlfriend looks like.” It then occurred to her to add, “We -- we don’t say Negro. Black, or African-American, those are better, I mean if you have to say anything at all. But, why am I in this dream? With you?”

“It’s not a dream. I don’t know, maybe. I can’t tell. He’s gone, and I’m free.”

“Who’s gone?”

“I married him. I thought it was best. But he screams. He breaks my things, He taunts me. I wished he would go and he did. Now it’s nobody but us. You never worried about men, did you?”

Susan thought she detected some sanity trickling into the conversation. “No, I’ve always had girlfriends. No one really cares, at least in Massachusetts -- that’s where I live.”

“You don’t live in Massachusetts, silly. You're here, you're like me, and you love it. We can love just like we want. I searched everywhere for someone like me. There was Marian, once, but she said it was the Devil’s work. The Devil doesn’t exist.”

The woman dragged Susan to the kitchen door. “Your story. The story you read to me. Lucy and Lady Moth. They see the stars. I love the stars, but they’ve gone away. I think you can see them for me.” The house faded away, replaced by a dazzling jeweled sky. Susan immediately knew she was looking at the stars over Death Valley, from last year’s family road trip.

The woman led Susan by one hand into slow, looping circles, and gasped at the heavens. “Your stars are so beautiful,” she squealed. She stopped short and pulled Susan in front of her face. Marian kissed me, but couldn’t believe herself. Before you go, I want to kiss you and believe.”

“Is it that kind of a dream?” asked Susan. The woman grinned slyly, pulled their bodies roughly together and ran her fingers through Susan’s hair.

“If it is, Makayla will never know.”

At the edge of submitting, Susan was suddenly surrounded by light. The woman evaporated, and reality asserted itself in the shape of two shining headlamps. A dark, lithe woman ran toward her and grabbed her arms. Makayla, the unmistakably real Makayla, shouted, “Susan! Susan! Oh, my God! Get out of the road!”