The Weird Part 148

'I'll call later,' Ian said.

'Do. I'll talk with Kit. We'll arrange things. But, Ian? Diane needs you.'

'I know she does. I don't want to leave her. Especially now, I just...'

'I didn't mean don't go,' Tohiro said. 'I meant don't get caught.'

The home visit was less than he expected. Two women in casual businesswear appeared at the appointed hour. One took Diane away, the other asked him profoundly personal questions Why had his wife left him? Had he been in therapy? Did he have a police record? Could he describe his relationship with his daughter? Only the last of these pushed him to tears. The woman was sympathetic, but unmoved; a citizen of a nation of tears from innocent and guilty alike.

She arranged a time and place for Diane to see a doctor a woman doctor and Ian hadn't even had to ask. He promised that Diane would be there, and she explained the legal ramifications if she were not. The other woman appeared with Diane at her side. Diane's face was grey with exhaustion. Ian shook their hands, thanked them explicitly for coming, implicitly for not taking his child from him.

When they had gone, Diane went out to the back steps, looking out over a yard gone to seed long gra.s.s and weeds. Her head rested in her hands. Ian sat beside her.

'Not so bad, was it?' he asked.

'She asked me a lot of questions,' Diane said. 'I don't know if I answered them all right.'

'Did you tell her the truth?'

'I think so.'

'Only think?'

Diane's brow furrowed as she looked at the horizon. Her shoulders hunched forward.

'She asks if things happened. And sometimes I think they did, but then I can't remember. After a while I start getting scared.'

'It's like you're living a life you don't know about,' Ian said, and she nodded. He put an arm around her shoulders, and she leaned in to him, trembling and starting to cry. Her sobs wracked her thin body like vomiting. Ian, holding her, wept.

'I'm not okay, Daddy,' she wailed to his breast. 'I'm not okay. I'm not okay.'

'You will be, sweetie. You will.'

The picture is cropped. In the original, things had been happening as unnatural to paper as they would be to a child. In this version, only the man's chest above the nipples, his shoulders, his face, his smug expression. These are all the details that matter. In this photograph, he could be anyone, doing anything. It is a headshot, something to put down on a bar or store counter, the sort of photograph that seems to fit perfectly with the phrase 'I'm looking for someone; maybe you've seen him.'

The original photo has obscenities and suggestions written on it. There is no writing on this copy, no note to accompany it. Nothing that will tie it back to Ian, should the police find it and not him.

He had driven to Seattle a two-day trip in a day and a half. Flying would have been faster, but he'd taken his pistol out of storage. Driving with a handgun was easy; flying impossible or, if not impossible, not worth doing.

He arrived in the city late at night and called Diane from a payphone using a card he'd bought with cash. She was fine. School was boring. Kit was a b.u.t.thead. Her voice was almost normal if he knew her less, he might have mistaken it. He was her father, though, and he knew what she sounded like when things were okay and when she only wanted them to be. They didn't talk about the nightmares. He told her he loved her, and she evaded, embarra.s.sed. With the handset back in its cradle, the gun in his jacket pocket pulling the fabric down like a hand on his shoulder, Ian stood in the rain, the cool near-mist soaking him. In time, he gathered himself together enough to find a hotel and a bed to lie in while his flesh hummed from exhaustion and the road.

Finding Lecky took all the next day and part of the night, but he did it. The morning sun gave the lie to the city's grey reputation clouds of perfect white stretched, thinned, vanished, reformed against a perfect blue sky. Nature ignoring Ian's desperation. The kids spare changing on the street corners avoided his gaze.

It was early, the morning rush hour still a half hour from starting. Ian didn't want the beast to go off to work, didn't want to spend a day waiting for the confrontation. He wanted it over now.

The house was in a bad part of town, but the lawn was trim, the windows clean. Moss stained the concrete walk, and the morning paper lay on the step, wrapped in dewey plastic. Ian picked it up, shaking the drops from it, and then rang the doorbell. His breath was shaking. The door opened and the beast appeared, a cup of coffee in one hand.

There was no glimmer of recognition, no particular sense of confusion or unease. Here, Ian thought, was a man with a clear conscience. A man who had done no wrong.

'I need to talk to you,' Ian said, handing the man his newspaper.

'I'm sorry. Do I know you?'

'No. But we have business in common. We have people in common, I think. May I come in?'

The man frowned down at Ian and put down the paper.

'I'm sorry,' the beast said, smiling as he stepped back, preparing to close the door. 'I have to get to work here, and really I don't want whatever you're selling. Thanks, though.'

'I've come for Flat Diane.'

The man's expression shifted surprise, chagrin, anger all in the course of a single breath. Ian clamped his hand on the b.u.t.t of his pistol, his finger resting against the trigger.

'Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about,' Ian said. 'I have the pictures.'

The beast shook his head, defensive and dismissive at the same time.

'Okay,' the man said. 'Okay, look, so it was a bad joke. All right. I mean, it's not like anyone got hurt, right?'

'What do you know about it?'

Something in Ian's voice caught his attention. Pale blue eyes fixed on him, the first hint of fear behind them. Ian didn't soften. His heart was tripping over like he'd been running, but his head felt very calm.

'No one got hurt,' the man said. 'It's just paper. So maybe it was a little crude. It was just a joke, right? You're, like, Diane's dad? Look, I'm sorry if that was a little upsetting, but...'

'I saw what you did to her.'

'To who?' The eyes were showing their fear, their confusion.

'My daughter.'

'I never touched your daughter.'

'No?'

It was a joy, stripping his certainty away, seeing the smug, leering face confused and frightened. Ian leaned in.

'Tell you what. Give me Flat Diane,' he said, 'and I might let you live.'

The panic in the pale eyes was joyous, but even in his victory, Ian felt the hint that it was too much; he'd gone too far.

'Sure,' the beast said, nodding. 'No, really, sure. Come on, I'll...'

And he tried to slam the door. Ian had known it was coming, was ready for it. His foot blocked the closing door and he pulled the gun from his pocket. The beast jumped back, lost his balance, toppled. The coffee fanned out behind him and splashed on the hardwood floor as Ian kicked the door closed behind him.

The beast was blinking, confused. His hands were raised, not in surrender, but protection, as if his fingers might deflect a bullet. A radio was playing morning show chatter. Ian smelled bacon grease on the air.

'Please,' the beast said. 'Look, it's going to be okay, guy. Just no guns. All right? No guns.'

'Where is she?'

'Who?'

'Flat Diane!' Ian yelled, pleased to see the beast flinch.

'It's not here anymore. Seriously. Seriously, it's gone. Joke over. Honestly.'

'I don't believe you.'

'Look, it's a long story. There were some things that happened and it just made sense to get rid of it, you know? Let it go. It was only supposed to be a joke. You know Candice...'

Ian shook his head. He felt strange; his mind was thick as cotton and yet perfectly lucid.

'I'm not leaving without her,' he said.

'It's not here!' the beast shouted, his face flushed red. He rolled over, suddenly facing the back of the house. Running. With a feeling like reaching out to tap the fleeing man's shoulder, Ian raised the gun and fired. The back of the beast's head bloomed like a rose, and he fell.

Oh Jesus, Ian thought. And then, a moment later, I couldn't have made that shot if I'd tried.

He walked forward, pistol trained on the unmoving shape, but there was no need. The beast was dead. He'd killed him. Ian stood silently, watching the pool of blood seep across the floor.

There was less than he'd thought. The morning show announcers laughed at something. Outside, a semi drove by, rattling the windows. Ian put the gun in his pocket, ignoring the heat.

He hadn't touched anything, not with his hands. There were no fingerprints. But he didn't have Flat Diane. He had to search the place. He had to hurry. Perhaps the beast kept plastic gloves. The kind you use for housework.

He searched the bedroom, the bath. The kitchen where half an egg was growing cold and solid on its plate. And then the room in the back. The room from the pictures. He went though everything the stacks of p.o.r.nography, the camera equipment. He didn't look away, no matter how vile the things he found. Rape p.o.r.n. Children being used. Other things. Worse. But not his daughter.

He sat on the edge of the bathtub, head in his hands, when the voice came. The house was a shambles. Flat Diane wasn't there, or if she was, she was too well hidden. He didn't know what to do. The doorbell chimed innocently and a faint voice came.

'Stan?' it said. A woman's voice. 'Stan, are you in there? It's Margie.'

Ian stood and walked. He didn't run. He stepped over the corpse, calmly out the back door, stuffing the rubber gloves into his pockets as he went. There was an alleyway, and he opened the gate and stepped out into it. He didn't run. If he ran, they'd know he was running from something. And Diane needed him, didn't she. Needed him not to get caught.

Ian didn't stop to retrieve his things from the hotel; he walked to his car, slipped behind the wheel, drove. Twenty minutes east of Klamath Falls, he pulled to the side, walked to a tree, and leaning against it vomited until he wept.

'I didn't mean to,' he said through his horror. 'Christ, I didn't mean to.'

He hadn't called Diane from his room. He hadn't given anyone his name. He'd even found a hotel that took cash. Of course he'd f.u.c.king meant to.

'I didn't mean to,' he said.

He slept that night at a rest stop, bent uncomfortably across the back seat. In his dreams, he saw the moment again and again; felt the pistol jump; heard the body strike wood. The pistol jumped; the body struck the floor. The pale head, round as an egg, cracked open. The man fled, heels kicking back behind him; the pistol jumped.

Morning was sick. A pale sun in an empty sky. Ian stretched out the vicious kinks in his back, washed his face in the restroom sink, and drove until nightfall.

He hadn't found Flat Diane, but he couldn't go back for her not now. Maybe later, when things cooled down. But by then she could have been thrown away or burned or cut to pieces. And he couldn't guess what might happen to Diane when her shadow was destroyed freedom or death or something entirely else. He didn't want to think about it. The worst was over, though. The worst had to be over, or else he didn't think he could keep breathing.

Tohiro and Anna's house glowed in the twilight, windows bright and cheerful and warm and normal. He watched them from the street, his back knotted from driving, the car ticking as it cooled. Tohiro pa.s.sed by the picture window, his expression calm, distant and slightly amused. Anna was in the kitchen, the back of her head moving as her hands worked at something; washing, cutting, wringing there was no way to tell. Somewhere in there, Kit and Diane played the games they always did. The pistol jumped; the body fell. Ian started the car, steadied his hands on the wheel, then killed the engine and got out.

Tohiro's eyebrows rose a fraction and a half-smile graced his mouth when he opened the door.

'Welcome back,' Tohiro said, stepping back to let him in. 'We weren't expecting you until tomorrow. Things went better than you thought?'

'Things went faster.'

Curiosity plucked at the corners of Tohiro's eyes. Ian gazed into the house, willing away the questions that begged to be asked. Tohiro closed the door.

'You look...' he began.

Ian waited. Like s.h.i.t. Or maybe pounded. The silence stretched and he glanced over. Tohiro's face was a soft melancholy. Ian nodded, barely moving, half asking him to finish, half daring him.

'You look older.'

'Yeah, well. You know. Time.'

A shriek and the drumming of bare feet and Diane had leapt into his arms. His spine protested the weight. Ian held her carefully, like something precious. Then, as if she'd suddenly remembered that they weren't alone, she drew back, tried to make it all seem casual.

'Hey,' she said.

'Hey. You been good?'

Diane shrugged an I guess gesture.

'We were just about to have supper,' Tohiro said. 'If you'd like to join us?'

Ian looked at Diane. Her face was impa.s.sive, blank, but at the edges there were the touches invisible to anyone else, anyone who didn't know her as he did.

'I think I'd rather just roll on home,' Ian said. 'That good by you, sweetie?'

'Sure,' she said, upbeat enough that he knew it had been her fondest wish. He let her ride him to the car, piggyback.

That night, they both suffered nightmares. It struck Ian, as he calmed Diane from hers and waited for his own to fade, that there would be more nights like this; screams from her or from him, then warm milk and nightlights and empty talk that gave the evil some time to fade. That if they were lucky there would be many more. Nothing more would happen to Flat Diane; justice would not come to call for him. It was the best he could hope for.

'It's okay,' he whispered to her as she began to drowse. Curled into her blanket, her breath came deeper, more regular. 'It's over. It's over, sweetie. It's all right.'

He didn't add that just being over didn't mean it hadn't changed everything forever, or that some things don't stop just because they've ended. Or that a girl set voyaging takes her own chances, and no father's love however profound can ever call her back. Those weren't the sorts of things you said when all you had to offer your child were comfort and hope.

Singing My Sister Down.

Margo Lanagan.

Margo Lanagan (1960) is an Australian writer primarily known for her dark fantasy short stories, some of which are influenced by folktale. Although Lanagan has been a published author since 1990, she first came to the attention of readers outside of her own country with the collection Black Juice (2004), for which she won a World Fantasy Award and a Michael L. Printz Honor Award. Subsequently, Lanagan has become perhaps the most critically acclaimed contemporary Australian fantasist, and her novel Tender Morsels (2008) also won a World Fantasy Award. New work includes the novel Watered Silk (2011) and the story collection Yellowcake (2011). The horrifying 'Singing My Sister Down' (2005) is Lanagan's most anthologized story and continues the thread of 'weird ritual' stories in this volume.