Chapter 7

June 23, 1997

THE CABINETwhere they kept Gem's supplies stood in the corner of her room, well-stocked by one of Gloria's seekers who worked at the hospital and came regularly for appointments. The seeker, a nurse, had a son who had died at seven of leukemia, and she talked to him often, via Gloria, via Gem, in exchange for the supplies to keep Gem going. Luce riffled through, making sure they had what they needed for the coming week. Moose, the good boy, lay beneath Gem's bed, and Luce stooped down every few minutes to rub his belly or scratch behind his ear. She liked to give him extra attention in this room so he'd sleep in here when Gem was the only one home, her own little guard. Gloria was out somewhere, Luce didn't know where. She was happy for the space after admitting to the note. Maybe, possibly, it wouldn't be that big of a deal. Her mom had been weirdly calm—forgiving even. And then in the hours since, so distracted, thumbing through pages and pages in a notebook, muttering to herself like a crone, hello stereotype, as she stomped through the house, barely acknowledging Roo when he said he was hungry. Always hungry, that kid.

The phone was no longer ringing incessantly, but the silence was even more eerie.

Wind rattled a branch against the window, and Gem twitched her arm at the same moment, as if the wind had rustled her, too. So many strange moments with Gem where she seemed to be almost responding to nature, her skin plump and relaxed in the wet spring, brittle during the summers of drought, as this was. Luce worked lotion into her arms.

Part of their agreement with the nurse was that she couldn't talk about Gem back at work—they didn't want bullshit agencies coming to their house and telling them what they were doing wrong, as if they hadn't kept Gem alive all on their own for these years. Gem was an amazing case, people in the community always said so, but it was especially true when the nurse said it. Gem had progressed from a coma to something called unresponsive wakefulness syndrome, though Gloria referred to this state as everdream. An everlasting waking dream. It was surprising that there wasn't a greater trail of concern following such a violent case, but there hadn't been. Gem's story was quickly washed away by a woman killed by her estranged boyfriend the next day, then two kids stabbed on a playground, a shooting in the post office, and on and on. They'd taken her out of the hospital eventually, and that was that. Nobody needed their new address. Nobody asked about her.

At first they'd been told that Gem had at most a few months to live, but as soon as she arrived in the Red Grove, her blood pressure stabilized, her oxygen levels increased, and her skin shifted back to its olive hue. As if she were pulling vitality from something on the land. Gem wouldn't die. That was the thing nobody said out loud, but everyone thought. She should die, but she just kept on not dying.

Luce rubbed a warm washcloth along the underside of Gem's arm, the skin loose and fragile, like tissue paper. She scrubbed at the pit, not too hard, and circled the bicep, elbow, forearm, ignoring the pink trail that was left because of how little it got rubbed. Poor skin. Sure that she was alone with Gem, she leaned in close and, with her tongue against the roof of her mouth, made a clicking sound. It wasn't her thing, she knew, but it was worth a try from time to time to see if it would grant her, like her mom, access to that in-between space where Gem lived. She clicked again. But Gem's eyes never shifted from the wall.

Luce took small sips of air, breathing through her mouth when she could, always a little queasy from the smell, not just the urine but also the body smells of sweat and yeast and decay, the stagnant air of a body held still for too long. But this was her person, her Gem, and so she never complained, not to Gem, of course, but never to her mother, never to a friend. She kept it private, smiling at Gem even when Gem wasn't looking at her, trying to say, all the time, You are loved. And then sometimes, still smiling as she backed out of Gem's room, blowing her a kiss, she locked herself in the bathroom, both hands clasped over her mouth, and wept. It's okay, sweetie, she would say to herself. Or if it was really bad, and she could not break out of her own grief, she would go to her room, pull a book off the shelf, and begin reading. The one about the guy who dismembered the women. Or the one where he ate them. The one where he never disclosed the hidden bodies of dozens of women, so they remain out in the world somewhere, lost. They are lost, and Gem is not. Remember how much worse it could be. Gem is here, and a ray of sun is warming her arm, and she has lavender by the bed, and she is safe.

Once, Luce had told her mother that she didn't think it was right using Gem like this. Gem wouldn't like it. You don't know what she would or wouldn't like, her mother had said. Bullshit, Luce said, I know her more than I know you. Gloria had not disputed this, but told her daughter that Gem's participation separated her from the ho-hum two-bit charlatans using tarot cards or crystal balls or palm readings or other predictable channels. And when Luce rolled her eyes, Gloria had asked her daughter whether she liked having their lights turned on and food on the table? Yes? Then let it go.

Luce used the washcloth to massage the thin bones of Gem's hand, to scrub in the crevices between digits. She kneaded the muscles, bent and flexed the joints, and then she heard the unmistakable low thumps as a heavy body climbed the steps up to the deck. The house was announcing the arrival of an outsider, and she felt, with hair raising on the back of her neck, watching Gem's arm grow goose bumps at that same moment, that they were not welcome.

She moved fast. Dropped the washcloth, leapt up, and closed Gem's door. She hollered for Roo to stay in his room. She would handle this alone. But instead of pounding wildly, like she'd expected, he knocked politely. She imagined throwing open the door, standing tall and straight, and telling this man to fuck off. That he couldn't come into the Red Grove whenever he pleased, but she thought about the note. Yes, she'd intended to be helpful, but as she well knew from the testimonies of people convicted for involuntary manslaughter, intentions weren't what mattered. If she had a tail, she'd tuck it between her legs, feeling foolish, and sorry. Luce opened the door a few inches, offered a smile. She considered him, tried to decide if he looked like his father, and he did, something about the pinched eyes, his big frame. The fact of his size and presence insisted that she evaluate his strength, and even the smallness of that shift, the power he claimed by being huge and mad and not leaving them alone, opened a sliver of rage in her. She had to resist it.

"I don't want to be here," the man said through the crack. In his left fist he held a blue umbrella with dinosaurs printed on the fabric. A child's, Luce thought. How strange to have an umbrella on this hot day. The knuckles gripping his umbrella were sharp against the skin, angry bone taut inside. Breathe, Luce told herself. Breathe. "But your mother isn't answering the phone. I don't know how else to reach her. I need to talk to her."

Luce agreed—it did seem like maybe her mother could talk to him, sort it out, calm him down, let them all move on. "She's not here, but I'll tell her to call you," Luce said, and remembering that he had just lost his father, added "Sorry about your dad." She began shutting the front door, but he stuck out a toe before the door clicked closed, blocking it. She felt the blood pump a little faster in her chest, her throat. There was the sound of a board creaking beneath his weight on the deck. A bird outside loosing its call. Her own heartbeat thrumming in her ears.

"You listen, then," he said, and kept his foot in place. It was so close to her, the dirty tread on his boot's sole. This foot that should not, should not, be here. And why didn't he know that? "You pass this on to her, that Gloria, thinking she's all special tucked away and hidden up here. Well, she's not. None of you are. This whole man-hating commune thing is bullshit. You tell her she better straighten this shit out." He ran his hand through his hair, thin, sweat-streaked. "I know you did something to my dad. I'm going to expose you so everyone knows, and you'll never be able to brainwash anyone again."

There were three clear crystals hanging by fishing line in the door's glass panels, swaying from when she'd tried to close the door. As they spun, blades of rainbow light traveled Luce's face, caught in the center of her eye, and blinded her. She gritted her teeth, blinked each time the light came, but she didn't want to hold her hand up against her eyes for fear it would show the brand-new, soft, quivering feeling she felt, which she wished was not so easy to identify, but like a song she'd once known and was played again, she recognized it—fear. She felt fearful. Of a man. In her own home. It was new, this feeling, sending a hot wash across her whole body. Well, hell no. She would not let that stand. Her hand wished for the sharp, carved bone she'd found up on the ridge to wield at him like a knife, but she'd left it in her room.

She had learned about the mindful techniques of de-escalation in school, and peaceful conflict resolution and negotiation, and the power of vulnerability, the strength of softness, and also about women warriors who used tact and skill to outwit their foes. But she had not learned much about when to choose which tactic, or why. She thought fast.

"Come inside, let's talk," she said, stepping back a half step, gripping the inside of the door handle tightly. The man hesitated a moment but began stepping inside. He placed his hand—the empty one—on the inside of the doorframe, and that's when she gathered all her might and slammed the front door closed. The edge of the door crushed his fingers. He called out, pulling his hand up to his chest, staggering back from the door, and she slammed it all the way then, leaning hard into the wood and latching the dead bolt.

A crystal bounced against the door and hit her cheekbone, but she didn't retreat and pressed her face to the small glass panel, watching. The man cursed, cradling his hand, pacing up and down the old bleached wood of the deck, in and out of the shadows of the giant redwood trees all around, his body going purple in the darkness and then almost crackling with brightness when he emerged into the light.

Her muscles were tensed. She was ready for him to charge the door, punch the glass, kick the wood, something. But he stopped moving. Held still. He was standing at the top of the deck's steps, looking down, his body in one of the pillars of light escaping the tree's canopy. Cradling gnarled fingers in his other hand. Slowly, he turned his head so he was looking at Luce through the door. He spoke.

"‘And if a man cause a blemish in his neighbour; as he hath done, so shall it be done to him; breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth.'"

Heat in her throat, her chest. Luce looked at him through the small glass pane on the door, trying to come up with an explanation, reaching desperately for something to say to lessen his anger, her mind spinning, lurching, but he looked at her one last time, bit his upper lip in a way that looked, horribly, like a snarl, and was gone.

In the center of the deck, the dinosaur umbrella, stilled and forgotten in a bruise of shadow.