Come Closer Read online

  Five copies of Possession, all burned beyond restoration, the letters of the title just barely visible on the spines.

  I gave up on Possession and found another book that looked promising—Demon Warfare Today—but she knocked it from my hands again. I bought Protecting Yourself from Evil but it vanished between the bookstore and the loft. I had put it in my purse, but when I got home it just wasn’t there. Soon I found myself unable to even set foot in a bookstore; I would start out with the best intentions and at the door I would find myself turning away, never able to open the door. I would end up getting an ice cream from a street vendor or stealing another lipstick from a drugstore. The same thing happened if I tried to enter a church, or a synagogue, or even the Society for Ethical Culture, as I tried one bright fall afternoon. Even if I had had the capacity to schedule and keep an appointment with a therapist, I wouldn’t have gone. I was sure that there was no one I could trust.

  The battle was all mine, and I was quickly, obviously, losing.

  SOON I DIDN’T HAVE A moment alone. When she wasn’t inside me, I could see her scurrying around, looking over my shoulder, ready to jump in if necessary. In the apartment I would see a lock of dirty black hair or a small white foot hiding in the shadows out of the corner of my eye. At the office I would catch sight of her hand, with its long unpolished nails, scribbling alterations over my designs.

  Blackouts became common. Ten minutes on the way home from work, an hour, then two or three, then whole days. Ed’s birthday came and went and I didn’t remember a moment of it. Apparently it didn’t go well—the next day he wasn’t speaking to me.

  Most of the time I was in between the two extremes. I would start a thought—“I really ought to let this person merge in front of me”—and she would finish it—“but why should I?” Or she would start—“We won’t go to work today. Instead, I think, we’ll get dressed up and go back to that little bar where the bartender had those strong legs.” I would scream and cry and beg and fight every way I could imagine, but she would always win. She was stronger, and so she always won.

  MY NEW PSYCHIC vision, which had seemed like nothing more than a clever parlor trick before, started to turn on me. In early November I was in the Fitzgerald house alone, double-checking the measurements of a wall where a closet would go. I was on the third floor, measuring, when I noticed a dark brown stain on the plaster, one big splash surrounded by an increasingly finer spray. It looked like blood. I tried to avoid the marks but while pulling a tape measure across the wall I couldn’t help brushing the side of my hand lightly against a splatter of the stain. The dry skin on the side of my hand, under my smallest finger, barely brushed against the smallest dots of the stain.

  When my hand met with the cold wall the world stopped. It all stopped and was instantly replaced with another world. Same room, but it was crowded with cheap, fading clothes. The air was hot and smelled like dirty laundry and cigarette butts. Summertime.

  The room was quiet except for the grunts and footsteps of two men grappling in what looked like an equal struggle. The two were of similar size and shape and looked alike. Both were black, of medium build, and dressed in cheap pants and sweat-soaked shirts with wide collars. I couldn’t see their faces clearly but their backs looked alike. They could have been brothers.

  The man closer to me had something shiny in his right hand. I focused on his hand and my vision zoomed in, like a camera. It was a small knife, an open penknife with a black textured handle. In one lightning-quick motion he freed his right arm from the other man’s grip, drew his arm back, and stabbed his brother in the side of the neck. The dying man fell against the wall, where his blood shot out against the plaster and sprayed to where my hand had touched ...

  And then it was over. I was back in the empty, quiet room. I let out a little yelp, ran out of the house, ran to my car, and drove away as quickly as I could.

  It didn’t end there. The Chinese vanity I had loved so much now had to go. Each time I touched it I was overwhelmed with a flood of sadness that the previous owner had left behind. He was a miserable little man, an antique dealer living alone in the back of his shop, whose main occupation was buying and reading porn. I traded the wardrobe for a plain Shaker-style dresser which carried no emotions at all, just a general sense of industry. A vintage yellow dress I had saved for special occasions now made me nauseated—its previous owner had been a drunk, and when I wore it I felt my liver burn with cirrhosis.

  ON THE first day of December I set out to buy Ed a Christmas present. Over the summer he had admired a little silver salt bowl in a ridiculously overpriced shop uptown, and I wanted to see if it was still there before I bought another blue sweater.

  I was amazed at how quickly we’d fallen apart after the weekend at the beach. Even peaceful moments were glazed over with anger and resentment. No more laughing at bad movies. No more pet names. No more talking in our own secret code. Our time together was all very formal now.

  “Are you going to the store?”

  “Yep. You want something?”

  “Can you pick me up some orange juice? The one—”

  “Yeah, I know. Sure.”

  “Thank you.”

  “No problem.”

  I was walking down a quiet, tree-lined street on my way to the store. The air was cold and dry even though the sun was bright. On either side of me were the huge gingerbread limestone and marble houses that made the neighborhood famous. Most of them were apartment buildings now, or private schools. I walked and daydreamed. She would leave me, eventually. She would grow sick of me, get tired of the fighting, and leave me alone. I would finally be able to tell Ed the truth and he would have to forgive me.

  A door to my right opened up and a crowd of girls poured out, nine or ten years old, each seemed to have the same fine creamy skin, and thick hair held back in a ponytail. A few were wrapped in scarves and gloves and earmuffs, but most wore their coats open. I stopped to let them go. I wasn’t in a hurry. I lit a cigarette and watched the girls pass. Behind the crowd were two women—teachers, I guessed. They looked at me pointedly. Just doing their jobs, I thought, the girls were their commodity, to be guarded with their lives. One of the girls was running in my direction, to catch a bus or an after-school dance class, and she turned her head around to call to a friend—“Call me tonight! Don’t forget!”—And ran right into me. I grabbed her elbows to keep her from falling. She was momentarily stunned.

  “I’m sorry!” she said. She was a brunette with a worried look on her little face. It was clear she expected a talking-to. I let go of her elbows and gave her a smile.

  “Don’t worry,” I told her. “No harm done.”

  She smiled with relief and went running on her way. To my left I saw Naamah’s shadow, standing behind me.

  The crowd of girls thinned out and I went on. But further down the block I was hit again, this time by a woman a little older than me, barreling down the street in such a hurry I couldn’t jump out of her way quickly enough. She stumbled a bit when she ran into me, and I took her arm to steady her. Her blonde hair was crisply fluffed around her face and over her forehead, arranged to hide her wrinkles.

  “Excuse me,” she said, cold and sarcastic. She tried to pull her arm back. I wanted to let go of her wrist. I wasn’t that angry. But my hand wouldn’t comply.

  “You shouldn’t talk to strangers,” I told her. “You should look both ways before you cross the street.” My eyes shifted out of focus and the world turned a hazy black streaked with red as I heard myself speak.

  Finally the words slowed to a stop and the haze cleared back into focus. The woman lay on the ground, sobbing. I had snapped her wrist in two.

  I TRIED to tell Edward. I tried to tell anyone who would listen. But now, I found, it was too late. I opened my mouth to speak and the wrong words came out. Edward, help me, became Edward, pass the salt. I’m possessed turned into I’m tired.

  I tried to catch her off guard, to scream out the truth at an unexpect
ed moment. But you can’t surprise a thing that lives inside you. The screams came out of my throat as long, dry coughs. Help me, I was screaming inside, save me—but all anyone heard was a long ahem.

  Each day I would wake up and say to myself Today, no more of this nonsense. Today I am going to put all this craziness behind me and be a normal human being.

  And she would answer: But I love you, Amanda. I love you and I’m never leaving.

  Go! I would silently scream at her. Get out!

  Oh no, she would answer, I’m not going anywhere. Then, first thing, she would start a fight with Ed. He would say “Good morning” and I would try to say “Good morning” back and nothing would come out. I would struggle and twist and try to use my vocal chords to speak and I couldn’t. My throat was hers now. So I would say nothing at all. “Well someone’s in a good mood,” he would say, eyebrows raised. Or maybe after “Good morning” she would say “What’s so fucking good about it?” or “Why isn’t there more coffee?” or—and this was the worst—she would say “Good morning” back, the words so swampy with sarcasm that Ed would slam down his coffee and leave for work without saying good-bye.

  EVERY NIGHT NOW, after I fell asleep, she took me to the crimson beach by the red sea.

  “Why,” I asked her. “Why me?”

  “Why not you,” she answered. “Who would be better?”

  I couldn’t answer that. “I don’t know what you want,” I told her. “Tell me. I’ll give you anything, whatever you want.”

  “All I want is you,” she said. “I can’t have fun without you.”

  “What do you want?” I begged. “What fun?”

  “This.”

  WE WERE back on solid ground, in a big glistening room with thousands of tiny lights. Chandeliers. A party. Black tie. The noise of the party was a steady, faraway roar.

  I was standing by the bar, one finger tracing the neckline of my dress. It looked like me, it was me, but it was her. I was dressed perfectly. Black dress, sheer hose, shiny spike heels. I felt a thick coating of makeup on my face and a strain on my scalp where my hair was pulled into an upsweep.

  There was a tap on my shoulder. I turned around; a man stood behind us, smiling. He was young and blond with a big smile. In his tuxedo he looked almost like a boy playing dress up.

  “I thought you were meeting me on the dance floor,” he said.

  I shrugged. “I don’t feel like dancing. Why don’t we go for a walk instead?”

  “Where to?”

  “Around.” I took his hand and led him across the big room to a little hallway hidden behind the dance floor. We walked; the hall got darker and the wallpaper ended and the carpet stopped. The sounds of the party were gone. We walked down a short flight of stairs to a concrete basement. The mechanisms supporting the party were hidden here—a walk-in freezer, a boiler, pipes that led from one mystery to another. The room was lit by a few bare bulbs.

  “What are we doing here?” he finally asked. He smiled again but the smile was now a little nervous, a little forced. He was scared. I stepped towards him and kissed him, and he relaxed into my arms. While we kissed I began to take off his clothes: first the jacket, then the tie, then the shirt. The skin on his back was perfectly warm and smooth. I was lost in his skin and his lips, against the back of my eyes I saw a deep dark red. I was running my nails hard over his back, biting his lip, his tongue. He tried to push me away but he couldn’t, I was too strong. Blood was trickling down his chin from his lip. He tried to scream but I muffled it with my mouth. I dug my nails deep into his back until the perfect skin was ripped. He tried to get hold of my arms, tried to do something, anything, but Naamah was stronger. She was bringing one hand up to his neck when we were interrupted.

  “Hey!” we heard from the top of the stairs. “Who’s down there? Come back up, no one’s allowed—”

  I dropped him and ran.

  WE WERE back on the red beach. Crimson fish jumped in and out of the ocean. The wind blew my hair around my face.

  “Why?” I asked her again.

  “Why, why why?” She was making fun of me. “You know why, Amanda. You let me in. You invited me.”

  “You’re LYING,” I screamed. “I never wanted any of this.”

  “Look!” she pointed to the horizon. Across the sky a scene was played out. It was me and Ed in the loft, the night I burned him with a cigarette. We sat on the sofa, I moved my arm to put out my cigarette, and just like I remembered, my right arm made a quick turn to stick Ed in the leg with it. He screamed. I screamed. And then the vision froze. In that split second after the scream, a quick, small smile flashed across my face. I was glad, glad because Ed deserved it, that and worse.

  “You made me!” I screamed. “You made me do it and you made me like it! All of it.”

  Naamah sighed, clearly impatient. “I never made you do anything,” she said. “I only let you do what you wanted. I told you, Amanda, I can’t have fun without you.”

  MY PERFORMANCE at work started to slip. I came in late, I left early, I often skipped important meetings altogether. The work that I did do was creatively brilliant but technically sloppy. The demon had no mind for specifics—she didn’t even care if a design was physically possible, for that matter, as long as it was pretty. My coworkers grumbled but I had been well liked before. Everyone, I imagined, wanted to give me another chance.

  Everyone except James Cronin. He went to Leon Fields and John Carmine, ratted me out on the few shortcomings they hadn’t yet noticed, and got himself placed in charge of the Fitzgerald house.

  Nothing happened for the first week. And the second went off fine. But halfway through the third I was not surprised to find myself at the office late one night, asking him out for a drink.

  We were alone in the office. James, Naamah, and me. He was sitting at his desk and I was standing next to him, unclear of how I had arranged for us to be there. Most of the lights were off. Only the one fluorescent fixture above his desk shone down on us, casting the room beyond into shadow.

  “How about a drink,” I heard her ask.

  “Huh?” James asked.

  “Come on,” she said. “One drink. I’m not ready to go home yet.” I felt my lips turn up. One eyebrow arched and my head tilted slightly toward the right.

  “Sure. Why not?” He stood up and reached for his coat. Then the edges of my vision turned darker and darker until I was seeing through a pinhole, and before we were out the door everything was black and I wasn’t, I no longer was ...

  And then I was back. A horrible smell, years of urine and decay. Darkness. After a moment my eyes adjusted and I saw that I was outdoors, in an alley. No, not an alley, but a tunnel. I turned around. The tunnel was about fifty feet long and ten feet wide, with a dim light at either end. Under the smell of piss was another smell, familiar, a mix of grass and dirt and shit. The park. I was in a tunnel under a hill in a city park.

  I was standing above James Cronin’s body. He was lying on his back. His neck was bent so his head was parallel to his shoulders and behind it I could see a thick pool of blood.

  I stepped over James and walked ten feet south. Aside from my footsteps the tunnel was silent. Along the wall were the remains of an old water fountain, a stunning mosaic of Medusa, snakes coiling from her head; in better days water would have flowed from her mouth. Her eyes looked at me with complete understanding. I had always loved that fountain.

  I walked back to where James lay and crouched down to look at him. Of course he hadn’t moved. His jacket was open and the top of his pants was undone. He had probably been promised a little lurid semipublic fun. His face looked like it always did; even dead he looked smug.

  There was nothing I could do. So I stood up, walked out of the tunnel, walked through the park to the streets of the city, and then hailed a taxi to take me back home.

  JAMES, NATURALLY, didn’t come to work the next day or call in sick. At lunchtime a collective anxiety began to swell in the office. It wasn’t like James
not to show up. It wasn’t like James not to call. A few people left messages on his answering machine. James, we just want to know if you’re okay. James, we’re worried-please call the office. The anxiety grew and by four o’clock we were asking each other, does James have a girlfriend? Do you know any of his friends, relatives? Well, it’s just one day, we reassured each other. Just a day. If he’s not in tomorrow, we’ll do something. No one knew what, exactly, we would do, but we were quite sure if he wasn’t in tomorrow we would take action.

  At lunchtime the next day Ginny McPhee called the police. Alex Levaux told her she was overreacting.

  “I don’t care,” she said sharply. “It’s wrong, to sit here and do nothing when James could be in the hospital or sick or something.”

  Two officers in blue uniforms came. Ginny gave them the general lowdown. They asked the questions you would expect, each one irrelevant. Was James a drug addict? Alcoholic? Gambler? Did he owe anyone money? I listened from my desk nearby.

  The anxiety built to a crescendo when Ginny McPhee phoned the police again the next morning and was told that James was now officially missing. Fields & Carmine called his family in Ohio. Ginny checked in with the police every day. No leads, no evidence, no clues. Then something happened at Fields & Carmine I wouldn’t have expected—we got used to it. We stopped talking about it. Stopped thinking about it. The office settled into a new pattern, a pattern where James was gone and that was that. Like the good stapler that was on your desk every morning for years, the best one that never jammed, and then one day it was gone. You spent a few days poking around for it and then you got a new one, and went on with your life, and accepted the disappearance as one of life’s little mysteries, never solved. That’s what we did with James.

  Except Ginny McPhee. She cried at her desk. She talked about him all the time. She called the police every day until they finally had an answer, two weeks after his death: James had been mugged and killed in the park after leaving work on Tuesday. His body had been found the next morning but there had been a little mix-up with the ID. It was unlikely that the man who did it could be caught this long after the fact. So unlikely that the police made it perfectly clear it wasn’t worth putting a lot of time and money into the thing. Fields & Carmine closed the office for the rest of the week and on Sunday we all cried at his funeral. Then on Monday we all went back to work and settled back into a new routine, a routine where one of our coworkers was dead, and that was the end of James Cronin.