Meg Toth
Then
It is the late-eighteenth OR nineteenth century.
You are fourteen/fifteen/sixteen years old, and you’ve suddenly become an orphan.
Your parents died in a tragic accident OR your mother died in childbirth/when you were very young, so you have no memory/one vague memory of her, and only your father died in the tragic accident.
Either way: misfortune.
You are put under the guardianship of an uncle/great-uncle/great-great uncle/grandfather/older cousin/family friend you’ve never met. OR You meet an attractive but enigmatic man who finds your grief beautiful. (You should pause to think about this, but you don’t.) The attractive but enigmatic man proposes. You have some misgivings—your sorrow, your comparative youth—but you accept.
***
Now
It is present day.
You are in your twenties/thirties/forties/fifties, and you may or may not be an orphan.
If your parents are living, you are estranged OR exceptionally close OR something in between.
You live in a city/suburb/small town/rural area. You have a job. You have friends. You have a cat/dog OR you’re allergic. It’s possible you have a goldfish.
In childhood/young adulthood, something happened to you. A misfortune. You mostly healed, and perhaps you’re even thriving. But it’s always there, the ugly thing that happened. It sits perched upon your shoulder, waiting to pounce.
You meet an attractive but enigmatic person (male OR female OR non-binary). One night, after sex, you tell them about the thing on your shoulder, and they respond with such tenderness that you cry. It becomes a pattern: Sex, Share, Tenderness, Tears. Soon the pattern becomes Sex, Share, Tenderness, Tears, More Sex.
(You should pause to think about this, but you don’t. It won’t be until years later, in therapy sessions that cost $150 [without insurance] OR $80 [with insurance], that you finally understand the pattern.)
You think you might be healing in a new kind of way. A truer kind of way. For whole stretches at a time, the thing perched on your shoulder vanishes, scurrying off to who knows where.
You think you might be in love.
***
Then
You travel to your new home, a mansion/estate/castle/former abbey in an isolated area. There are no neighbors for miles around. Someone—coachman/tradesman/shopkeeper in town/random well-meaning stranger—actually says this to you.
“There are no neighbors for miles around,” they say. “Won’t you get lonely, Miss?”
Then, rubbing their chin OR twisting a handkerchief, “Couldn’t do it myself, live all the way out there. Like to drive a person mad, all that empty space to rattle about in.”
The mansion/estate/castle/former abbey, once grand but now fallen into disrepair, does indeed have empty space to rattle about in. Too much, you think, as you tour the place upon arrival. You ask your new guardian/husband about a particular room/floor/wing that is locked/closed off. They grow evasive.
The first night in your chamber, you get little sleep, kept awake by the newness of it all. And what is that strange sound you keep hearing? OR You slumber so deeply that when, over breakfast, your guardian/husband asks how you fared, you say, in wonder, “Why, I believe I had the best sleep of my life. But I had the strangest dream…”
Either way: harbinger of things to come.
***
Now
You are in love.
You decide to move in together. Your partner moves in with you OR you move in with them OR you find a different place together.
At first it’s great, but then things begin to sour. It’s so subtle that EITHER you sense it immediately and push it away—Why do you always have to ruin good things?—OR it dawns upon you gradually.
One day, you text your partner after work.
Getting drinks with the crew here. Home by dinner. xoxo
You have a drink, your phone forgotten. Later, you see that your partner has texted nine OR sixteen OR twenty-one times. When you get home, you argue.
“It was just drinks with friends,” you say, finally losing your temper. “I can’t believe you’re making such a big deal out of this!”
“I was really worried,” they say. “When you didn’t respond, I thought you’d had an accident. It’s just… [I don’t know how I’d live without you./I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone./If something happened to you, I wouldn’t want to live.]”
You feel guilty. Then moved. You forget the angry-toned texts and remember the concerned-toned texts.
***
One OR two OR three months pass, and again you text after work.
Doing drinks tonight. Back by dinner. Miss you! xoxo
Immediately your phone buzzes.
Do you have to?
As you look at the words, another message comes through.
I just feel like I need you right now.
A curious sensation floods your belly, equal parts affection and resentment. Before you can respond, they text again.
It’s OK. I’ll be alright. It’s just… you know the thing on your shoulder? I feel like it found me.
You tell your co-workers you can’t go out. You’re worried. So worried that, in your hurry, you haven’t texted back. Just as you reach your car/the bus/the subway, your phone buzzes.
Sometimes I can’t believe how [selfish/narcissistic] you are. Just forget it. Have fun with your “friends.” Is that [asshole/bitch] that [wants you/hates me] going to be there?
The words slap you across the face.
***
Then
Peculiar things begin happening. Mislaid objects reappearing elsewhere. (“But I could have sworn…”) Candles extinguished. (“Now how did that…”) Unnaturally cold areas. (“Just a draft, Miss.”) Apparitions. (“Well I didn’t see nothing, Miss.”)
And what is that strange sound you keep hearing?
You convince yourself these things are unimportant. Your guardian/husband is usually away on business (land sale/mining/convoluted legal case), and you’re left much to yourself. You’re probably just lonely. You’re probably just nervous. You’re probably just imagining things.
Suddenly, a flower of panic blooms wide inside your stomach. What was it that the coachman/tradesman/shopkeeper in town/random well-meaning stranger said about living out here? It was something dreadful. Something horrid.
A voice whispers right inside in your ear.
“Like to drive a person mad, all that empty space.”
Could you be going mad?
When your guardian/husband visits, you try to speak to him about the peculiar things.
“Does the little [girl/duck/imp] think she saw a ghost?” he laughs.
His laugh sounds merry, but there’s something underneath it. At first you only sense it, but then it’s there, right there: an eel slipping through thick, dark waters. Will it come to the surface, wrap its slick body around your neck?
You feel your throat constricting. You shudder. But you find the strength to continue.
“But only yesterday when I was in the sitting room, I—”
“Stop this nonsense,” he says, now imperious. “When I indulge you, it only makes things worse.” He fixes you under his hard stare. “You’re ill. I’ve known it for weeks. I’d hoped it was a touch of the vapors, that you merely needed time to adjust to your new surroundings. But evidently I was wrong.”
You haven’t felt ill. Have you?
But now that he says it, you think, yes, perhaps I have felt ill. Out of the corner of your eye, you see the eel sliding along the arabesque carpet. It slips inside a pattern and grows quiet, so you do, too.
***
Now
Time passes. More unpleasant things happen. You convince yourself they’re unimportant.
There’s one thing, though, one important thing. It’s about the pattern. Without you noticing, it has become Sex, Tears, More Sex. Where has the sharing gone? Did it run off with the thing that perches on your shoulder? Did they take the tenderness with it?
One night, you try talking to your partner about it. They become enraged OR inconsolable and then enraged. The room crackles with static, and you remember the electric eel you once saw on a field trip/wrote a grade school report about. Six hundred volts, enough to kill an alligator. Enough, even, to kill a human.
It isn’t the shock that does it. It’s the paralysis, then the drowning.
You’re afraid something bad is about to happen. You can’t move, can’t breathe. You’re terrified. And yet part of you has expected this.
You wonder if this new bad thing will perch on your shoulder alongside the old bad thing, if, from this moment forward, you’ll walk lopsided into your future. OR maybe it will take the other shoulder, and you’ll spend the rest of your days hunched over, a curve of despair.
***
By the next morning/week, you’re convinced everything is your fault. You shouldn’t have brought up the pattern in the first place. You should have just kept your mouth shut.
By the next week/month, you’re back in the pattern.
By the next month/year, the pattern has changed again. Now it’s Tears+Sex.
Does your partner find your grief beautiful?
More time passes, and other questions creep in. For starters, is everything really your fault? You think maybe it isn’t. You think that, just maybe, your partner has told you it’s your fault for so long that you’ve started to believe it yourself.
You wonder if you should leave.
***
Then
You finally discover the truth about your guardian/husband. You explore the room/floor/wing that is locked/closed off. It’s the eel that leads you there, the eel that shows you the way inside.
In the room/floor/wing, you find a painting OR diary OR packet of letters. Perhaps a keepsake OR book OR scrapbook. Whatever you find, it explains everything. You’re not mad after all.
“I’m not mad after all!” you say out loud, throwing your head back and laughing with abandon. Then you catch sight of yourself in a mirror, and you’re not so sure.
You try to escape. Part of you is frightened, but the other part of you is thinking, yes, of course, this is where things were heading all along.
Innocent lives might be lost. (Have we discussed the little dog? Your only companion, your one true comfort? If there’s a dog, it will die.) Guilty lives will be lost. Your guardian/husband dies, possibly a cunning maid/butler/other accomplice, too.
The mansion/estate/castle/former abbey gets destroyed. Odds are good it will be a fire, but it also could sink/get swallowed right into the very earth.
But you—you survive. The eel helps you to escape OR tempts you to surrender, speaking in seductive sibilant strains. There’s a point where you almost give up, but you persist.
You leave, never to return, except perhaps in your dreams.
It will take some time for you to piece everything together, but you have all the information you need to understand your guardian’s/husband’s motive. It was one or more of the following: your inheritance/a familial secret/a familial ritual/a familial legacy/incest/a vague religious conspiracy/a pseudo-scientific experiment (possibly involving eugenics)/a cycle of indoctrination and violence.
But it doesn’t make sense, not really. The motive only seems to have been explained. It appears you were the victim of a plot hole.
***
Now
You know you should leave, but it seems impossible. Seismic.
You make a list:
- Find apartment
- Arrange movers
- Pack
You stare at the list for a while and then pick up your pen again.
- Find therapist
You feel a burst of confidence, looking at the list. You can do this! But it deflates almost immediately, as you hear your partner’s voice in your head.
[Why would you do this to me?]/[You’re not strong enough to do this.]/[You won’t get far with this—everyone knows you’re crazy.]
Over time, their voice has crept inside you. It’s always there. In fact—and this is the worst part—you now create the voice yourself.
***
On some days, all you can do is make lists. As long as you’re writing, the voice sinks low—down, down, down, like a fish swimming in dark waters.
- Find apartment
1a. Sit down at desk
1b. Turn on computer
1c. Go to real estate website
1c1. Click on search bar
1c2. Type in domain name
1c3. Hit enter
1c4. Breathe in and out
At first it’s just a way to keep the voice at bay, but then you realize that, broken down like this, it’s not so seismic after all.
One day—sooner than you think OR much later than you’d hoped—you discover that you’ve accomplished all the tasks. The voice, sunk low, hasn’t appeared for weeks. Perhaps the fish went blind in the murky silt and can’t find its way to the surface.
It’s time to leave.
You tell your partner you’re leaving. EITHER they accept this OR they don’t. EITHER it’s much easier than you expected OR it’s much worse than you expected. EITHER it’s anticlimactic OR it’s climactic.
Whatever happens, you survive.
***
Then & Now
Days/Weeks/Months/Years pass. One day, you’re ready to change your narrative. You deserve a new life, a new genre.
You lie in bed at night, watchful. You recall similar nights from your girlhood, when you were afraid of the strange-shaped shadow by your closet door. What you’d do then is make up stories. Make them and live them.
In one, you had secret wings that let you fly into the night sky, where you ate moonglow and danced with the stars.
In another, you rescued a town of talking mice imprisoned within their city walls by a wicked cat.
Your favorite was the one where you found an empty cottage in the woods. Nothing happened, really. There was no witch, no enchanted prince. You just planted a garden and papered the walls and invited your woodland friends to tea. You were at peace.
Where did this story go? Does it still exist? If you close your eyes and wish very hard, will you suddenly find yourself in—
You open your eyes and blink rapidly. Out of the corner of your eye, you see the cottage table. It’s set with the blue teacups and the dainty rose-patterned plates, the friendly yellow teapot. You smell the spiced sweet buns baking in the oven. You hear your friends—the birds and chipmunks and rabbits—at the door. Maybe the Mayor of the Forest, a plump red fox, is with them, unless his schedule is too full.
You smile in anticipation and move to greet them.
#
Meg Toth has taught college courses in film and literature for over fifteen years. While she has lived in New York City for most of her career, she was born in Cleveland, and Ohio—and the Midwest more generally—appears frequently in her writing. That said, she is currently querying her speculative novel set in near-future Hollywood. Her recent short fiction has been nominated for the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers and the Pushcart Prize. She enjoys birdwatching in Fort Tryon Park and roaming the five boroughs with her partner, especially if it involves far-flung eating adventures. To learn more, please visit https://www.megtoth.com/.