That tough no-bullshit voice spoke up then, as if Jessie had rubbed a magic lamp. Remember that Nick Lowe song you heard onWBLM when you were coming home from your pottery class one day lastwinter? The one that made you laugh?
She did. She didn’t want to, but she did. It had been a Nick Lowe tune she believed had been titled “She Used to Be a Winner (Now She’s just the Doggy’s Dinner)', a cynically amusing pop meditation on loneliness set to an incongruously sunny beat. Amusing as hell last winter, yes, Ruth was right about that, but not so amusing now.
“Stop it, Ruth,” she croaked. “If you’re going to freeload in my head, at least have the decency to quit teasing me.”
Teasing you? Jesus, tootsie, I’m not teasing you; I’m trying to wakeyou up!
“I am awake!” she said querulously. On the take the loon cried out again, as if to back her up on that. “Partly thanks to you!”
No, you’re not. You haven’t been awake-really awake-for a longtime. When something bad happens, Jess, do you know what you do? You tell yourself, “Oh, this is nothing to worry about, this is just a baddream, I get them every now and then, they’re no big deal, and as soonas I roll over on my back again I’ll be fine.” And that’s what you do, youpoor sap. That’s just what you do.
Jessie opened her mouth to reply-such canards should not go unanswered, dry mouth and sore throat or not-but Goodwife Burlingame had mounted the ramparts before Jessie herself could do more than begin to organize her thoughts.
How can you say such awful things? You’re horrible! Go away!
Ruth’s no-bullshit voice uttered its cynical bark of laughter again, and Jessie thought how disquieting-how horribly disquieting-it was to hear part of your mind laughing in the make-believe voice of an old acquaintance who was long gone to God knew where.
Go away? You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Tootsie-Wootsie, Puddin” “n” Pie, Daddy’s little girl. Any time the truth gets too close, any time youstart to suspect the dream is maybe not just a dream, you run away.
That’s ridiculous.
It is? Then what happened to Nora Callighan?
For a moment that shocked Goody’s voice-and her own, the one that usually spoke both aloud and in her mind as “I'-to silence, but in that silence a strange, familiar image formed: a circle of laughing, pointing people-mostly women-standing around a young girl with her head and hands in stocks. She was hard to see because it was very dark-it should still have been full daylight but was for some reason very dark, just the same but the girl’s face would have been hidden even if the day had been bright. Her hair hung over it like a penitent’s shroud, although it was hard to believe she could have done anything too horrible; she was clearly no more than twelve or so. Whatever it was she was being punished for, it couldn’t be for hurting her husband. This particular daughter of Eve was too young to have even begun her monthly courses, let alone have a husband.
No, that’s not true, a voice from the deeper ranges of her mind suddenly spoke up. This voice was both musical yet frighteningly powerful, like the cry of a whale. She started when she was only tenand a half. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe he smelled blood, justlike that dog out in the entry. Maybe it made him frantic.
Shut up! Jessie cried. She felt suddenly frantic herself Shut up,we don’t talk about that!
And speaking of smells, what’s that other one? Ruth asked. Now the mental voice was harsh and eager… the voice of a prospector who has finally stumbled onto a vein of ore he has long suspected but has never been able to find. That mineral smell, like salt andold pennies-
We don’t talk about that, I said!
She lay on the coverlet, her muscles tense beneath her cold skin, both her captivity and her husband’s death forgotten-at least for the time being-in the face of this new threat. She could feel Ruth, or some cut-off part of her for which Ruth spoke, debating whether or not to pursue the matter. When it decided not to (not directly, at least), both Jessie and Goodwife Burlingame breathed a sigh of relief.
All right-let’s talk about Nora instead, Ruth said. Nora, your therapist? Nora, your counsellor? The one you started to go seearound the time you stopped painting because some of the paintingswere scaring you? Which was also the time, coincidentally or not,when Gerald’s sexual interest in you seemed to evaporate and youstarted sniffing the collars of his shirts for perfume? You rememberNora, don’t you?
Nora Callighan was a prying bitch! the Goodwife snarled.
“No,” Jessie muttered. “She was well-intentioned, I don’t doubt that a bit, she just always wanted to go one step too far. Ask one question too many.”
You said you liked her a lot. Didn’t I hear you say that?
“I want to stop thinking,” Jessie said. Her voice was wavery and uncertain. “I especially want to stop hearing voices, and talking back to them, too. It’s nuts.”
Well, you better listen just the same, Ruth said grimly, because youcan’t run away from this the way you ran away from Noratheway you ran away from me, for that matter.
I never ran away from you, Ruth! Shocked denial, and not very convincing. She had done just that, of course. Had simply packed her bags and moved out of the cheesy but cheerful dorm suite she and Ruth shared. She hadn’t done it because Ruth had started asking her too many of the wrong questions-questions about Jessie’s childhood, questions about Dark Score Lake, questions about what might have happened there during the summer just after Jessie started to menstruate. No, only a bad friend would have moved out for such reasons. Jessie hadn’t moved out because Ruth started asking questions; she moved out because Ruth wouldn’t stop asking them when Jessie asked her to do so. That, in Jessie s opinion, made Ruth a bad friend. Ruth had seen the lines Jessie had drawn in the dust… and had then deliberately stepped over them anyway. As Nora Callighan had done, years later.
Besides, the idea of running away under these conditions was pretty ludicrous, wasn’t it? She was, after all, handcuffed to the bed.
Don’t insult my intelligence, cutie-Pie, Ruth said. Your mind isn’thandcuffed to the bed, and we both know it. You can still ran if youwant to, but my advice-my strong advice-is don’t you do it, becauseI’m the only chance you’ve got. If you just lie there pretending thisis abad dream you got from sleeping on your left side, you’re going to die inhandcuffs. Is that what you want? Is that your prize for living yourwhole life in handcuffs, ever since-
“I will not think about that!” Jessie screamed at the empty room.
For a moment Ruth was silent, but before Jessie could do more than begin to hope that she’d gone away, Ruth was back… and back at her, worrying her like a terrier worrying a rag.
Come on, Jess-you’d probably like to believe you’re crazy ratherthan dig around in that old grave, but you’re really not, you know.I’m you, the Goodwife’s you…we’re all you, as a matter of fact.I have a pretty good idea of what happened that day at Dark Scorewhen the rest of the family was gone, and the thing I’m really curiousabout doesn’t have a lot to do with the events per se. What I’mreally curious about is this: is there apart of you-one I don’t knowabout-that wants to he sharing space with Gerald in that dog’sguts come this time tomorrow? I only ask because that doesn’t soundlike loyalty to me; it sounds like lunacy.