When Darkness Loves Us

When he’d had enough, he stopped short and hid quietly in a turn of the tunnel. When she skipped past him, he reached out and grabbed her. “Sally Ann. Am I on the right way out of here?” She laughed. “Tell me.” He shook her until she felt her eyes rattle in her head.

“Oh, Michael. Don’t be a spoilsport. Of course you’re on the right way. I wouldn’t let my little baby, the love of my life, get lost in these dark, dirty tunnels, now, would I?” He threw her to the side and continued on, weak from hunger, heartsick and tired. He entered Monster Cavern. She followed, making monster noises, taunting him, wearing him down.

“Come here, Sally Ann.” His voice was calm, quiet.

“No, You’ll hurt me. You’ll feed me to the monster.”

“Don’t be a petulant child. Come here. I want to talk to you.” He was sitting on a rock at the edge of the lake. She heard him pick up a handful of pebbles and start throwing them into the water. They landed with little plops. “Sally Ann, I want you to come back with me. They have places for people who need help readjusting to a new environment. I’ll pay for it, and you’ll like it there. There’s no reason for you to stay down here and . . .”

“And ROT?” She shouted in his ear, surprising him. He stood up quickly, and his foot slipped on the rock. Arms waving wildly, he couldn’t regain his balance, and he fell backward into the water. Sally Ann sobered immediately and went to his aid, but she heard splashing and slapping sounds in the water and the old fear once again took over her mind. She crouched on the path and whimpered.

“Sally Ann . . .” he gasped. “Oh, God! Sally, help me. Something’s caught my leg. Sally! Oh, please.” There was silence while he ducked under the water. He surfaced with a splash. “Sally!” One last scream, then he was gone. The surface of the water continued to agitate, and the waves lapped at her shoes as she stood in the middle of the path, horrified. Then all was silent.

“Michael?” she called out softly. Silence. “Michael, don’t play any games with me. Come out of there.” She backed up, toward the entrance to the cave. “Michael?” A little louder, a little braver. “Oh, God, Michael!” She turned and ran.

4

Clint didn’t need to be told what had happened. He read it in her face, in her body, as they felt each other in greeting. He knew that an era was dead, that he no longer needed to view the other world as a threat. It was over; she was his now, like Mary, like the boys. He felt her loss. It was, after all, what had sustained her all this time. She would get over it. She was a survivor. Like him.

The angry meanness that had consumed him soon after his mother had gone vanished with her return. He lay on his bed of moss, the only one awake, and contemplated his growing empire. Mary was pregnant again, but it wasn’t soon enough. He told her she had to have a girl.

He would build something here far superior to anything up there. He and his mother. She would help him.

She needed some time, he knew, to let the wound heal. Then they would go up there, together, and get what they needed. Two more girls should be enough. Young ones.

He turned over on his side and snuggled up to Mary’s back. His hand felt the smooth swell of her baby. Yes. He smiled to himself. This baby girl and two more.

BEAUTY IS . . .

CHAPTER 1

Martha Mannes was forty-seven years old when her parents died. Her father died first, and she watched as her mother called Mr. Simmons who drove out from town and took her father away. So when her mother died, Martha left her in the bedroom and called Mr. Simmons. He held Martha’s hand for a moment, looked at her carefully, and kissed her on her forehead; then he left with her mother in the back of his long black car.

Martha was alone.

It was hard to remember just what her parents looked like. There was an old picture on her father’s desk, of a man, a woman, and a little girl. They looked vaguely familiar, so this was the woman she thought of when she thought of her mother.

After her mother had gone, Martha continued to do all the things she’d always done. She baked bread, she went to town for groceries, she fed the chickens and gathered the eggs. She set three places at the table, and cleared away two unused.

Sometimes she missed them, but most of the time she just missed all the things they used to do.

Father used to yell a lot. “Tell your retard to chop some wood and start stacking it,” he’d say to her mother. Martha would see the stricken look on her mother’s face and get up to chop wood. She didn’t know why mother looked that way. Mother called her Martha; Father called her Retard.