Chapter Text
Joe Vault eluded them on their first day in Ohio.
Columbus Correctional was a big hunk of brick, flanked by a railroad track. "More like an institution than a prison," was Bill's comment. Holden had been thinking of a church, or a palace that would've been right at home in a course on Russian Lit. It was several storeys high and cordoned by a chain link fence, topped in flossy barbed wire. The front of the building was still. They pulled into the car park by its side. From an angle, it was clear that the prison went on further than the eye could see.
Bill shut the car door. "Place is already giving me the heebie-jeebies. Who'd you say we were seeing again?"
Holden cleared his throat. The sky above them was threatening rain.
"I didn't say," said Holden, closing his door behind him and heading for the entrance.
Pre-plane jitters. That's what Bill would think. He would not think about the elephant in his living room, who was no longer in his living room, but in Holden's. Contained. Like a fire in a microwave. Out of sight, out of ...
Holden could relax into the procedural. This part was always the easiest. Walking to the guard. Badge, keys, holster. Sometimes a little metal detector. He could respect being thorough. There was sometimes a discussion about the briefcase. Comment on the make, or the equipment inside. This was the part he left to Bill, the small talk, getting the guards to relax, see them all as equals. A little back and forth, but not too much before Holden started checking his watch.
"You two from the FBI?"
They had been stopped right past the gate. Bill turned first. "Guilty." Holden kept his hand in his pocket. Probably doing that thing he sometimes did with his face: telegraph his impatience.
"I'm gonna need you to step into my office." This got his attention. Holden swung around, letting out a sigh. The man was deeply flushed, with a golden handlebar mustache, and a gout ridden stance. He shook both their hands with a wet palm. "I'm Warden Stoltzer."
Warden Stoltzer had a giant ceramic mug shaped like a log on his wall, next to a line of golf trophies, some blue ribbons from the local pumpkin growers festival, and a photo of his wife and kids. He had a dry little cough that made itself apparent on words ending in 't', which shot flecks of spittle, highlighted by his desk lap, onto the pile of documents he kept in front of his typewriter.
He offered them both a cup from a pot of tepid black coffee. They declined. Holden sat with one of his legs folded over the other, bouncing his knee. Bill kept clearing his voice and shooting him a sidelong glare. Holden ignored him.
"You know, we don't get many folks interested in prodding around up here," said the Warden. "Now I know it's nothin' to scoff at, some of the fellas we got behind bars here. But when you see the folks across the way in California?" He made a sharp click with his tongue. "I mean they got journalists camped outside, and women writin' to 'em, they're like celebrities, that lot. Manson, Ramirez, Bundy. What d'you think they got in the water?"
"Not enough to grow a prize winning pumpkin," said Bill.
Warden Stoltzer honked in amusement. "You like 'em, do ya? I'll say. My Mavis, she says I'm real vain. Like it's something to scoff at, taking pride in one's work."
"Look," said Holden, "with all due respect, for your time, and ours, let's cut to the chase. We're here because you have an inmate—"
"Ah!" The warden clucked his tongue. "I'm gettin' to it, I'm gettin' to it." He turned to Bill, shaking his head. "All these young bucks, so damn fast. They don't care about their people skills anymore. Word of advice. Slow it down! You'll wanna hear a few things before I let you in the lion's. Things that you'll thank me for afterwards."
"I find that highly unlikely," said Holden. He reached into the front pocket of his brief case and pulled out a manila folder, sliding it onto the desk. The warden frowned. "Everything I need to know about Joe Vault and his crimes have already been meticulously compiled in this document by myself and my colleagues."
Before Holden could react, the warden had reached across to the file and pulled it closer. His small, bulging eyes swept the first page, dipping his fingers into his mouth to turn to the next. Bill leaned over in his seat. "Would a little patience kill you?" Holden didn't respond. When the warden was done, he placed the file on top of his paper, coughed onto it, and sank back in his chair.
"You're missing something," said the warden.
"And what would that be?"
The warden narrowed his eyes. "He doesn't eat meat."
Holden refused to look at Bill. Would a little patience kill him?
This ambiguity between the two men was not missed by the warden. "You do know who Joe Vault did. Well, what he did, and who he is, right?"
Sighing to buy time, Holden gestured helplessly to the folder. "Clearly, I am aware."
"But maybe we would like a refresher," cut in Bill. "From your perspective." When the warden didn't immediately budge, he leaned forward. Ran his hand across the top of his high and tight clip job. "We'd be willing to work with whatever you'd find ... Ameliorating."
The warden turned pink in the cheeks. "I, well, I couldn't impose ..."
"On the contrary, you're doing us a favor," said Bill.
"I mean, if you insist ..."
"I don't think this is necessary—" said Holden
"Holden," said Bill. He put a hand on the back of his chair. "Do I need to remind you of who, or what, I offered my roof to?"
Holden sank into his seat as Warden Stoltzer took to the story with a pair of garden shears. He knew the warden wouldn't let them through, not yet anyway. They'd have to curry favor first. Tour the facilities. Take the photos. Well, Bill would. Holden had work to do.
Maybe he'd been naive to think he could patch this all over. Was what he'd done wrong? In retrospect, it seemed justified. He'd met a girl. He'd been interested in said girl. He'd run a background check. Standard stuff. But her slate had been too clean. Scrubbed. So Holden had done what he did best. Pursued the lead. Let the seams fray at the tug.
What had he found? First, Joe Vault. Son of Emile and Deborah Vault. Born in Fort Bragg. Whip sharp, on all accounts, but low achiever. Bullied by the other army brats. Absent father. Overeager attachment to his mother. Then Emile was dispatched from service. Lost half his hearing but earned his brass. Was said to have had a change in temperament, some evidence he'd been seeing several military shrinks. Unable to serve, he'd moved the family to rural Ohio.
Carmen's existence in the archives was singular. A birth certificate with another name and a record from the NICU. She marked the disappearance of her own family from public records. Then there was the crime itself, the evidence sparse and circumstantial, yet undeniable. He had thrown them up. The obscenity was open and shut. Carmen had been young enough to be erased. Small mercies, Holden thought. He closed the lid on all the rest.
"That'll be enough for now," said Bill. He was looking more than a little perturbed by the state of Holden's handiwork, reaching across to close the manila file. "When might we be able to meet with our Mr Vault?"
"Oh soon, soon. Not today, you know, we have a thing called a routine around here, but tomorrow, the next day, maybe we can work something out." There was something the warden was not saying. "For now, I think it's best we all sleep on this."
"Mmhm," said Bill. "Thank you for your time. We'll be back, I can assure you of that much."
Out in the parking lot, he tossed Holden the keys over the hood. "You can talk and drive, can't you?"
Holden didn't respond. He'd known this was coming. Bill wasn't an idiot. He'd have put two and two together. Holden set the thermostat slightly below temperature. Too high and the air would turn to soup, giving him a reason to not breathe.
They pulled out of the parking lot.
"Who is she, Holden?"
Holden flicked on the indicator. It felt like an impossible question.
"She was in my house. She was on my couch. I have a kid. Brian, I'm not sure if you remember him, or Nancy, or anyone else for that matter."
"She isn't a danger."
"No, but she's related to danger, isn't she?" When Holden didn't respond, Bill clicked his tongue and fell back into his seat. "Jesus H Christ, what do you think you're playing at? A cannibal? His sister?"
"It fell into my lap."
"So when you said you were revising the approach, what you really meant was that you're getting involved in the life of a victim," said Bill. "And now you've made me complicit, really complicit, in a situation that you cannot patch over."
"I mean, why don't we interview victims?" Holden retorted. "See what they know that we don't. It's only because the evidence was undeniable that Vault got convicted. The 'why' is completely opaque. I mean what compels a person, a teenager, to kill and eat his own family."
"You're not hearing yourself."
"Then spell it out."
"We don't interview victims because they've been through enough," said Bill.
"What if she doesn't remember?" said Holden.
Bill gave him a long, hard look. "In this case, I would say not remembering is a blessing."
It was pure road until they reached the motel. The passenger door swung open before Holden had the chance to pull the handbrake. He lingered, watching Bill cross to the motel clerk's office. Holden adjusted the rearview, caught a look at the size of his pupils. Locking the car, he opened the boot of the rental and rifled around in the front pocket of his luggage. The orange pill bottle. He was always forgetting. Missing by an hour was a one way ticket to the tremors, the shivers, the vomiting up his breakfast. Holden dry swallowed the dosage, two flatheads that left their indent against his throat on the way down. He shut the trunk. Bill held up a set of keys. Room 13, just their luck. At least it was still a Monday.
That night was spent in stilted silence. They ate dinner from the shake shack on the corner. Bill watched the news from his king single, then turned in without a word. It was midnight when Holden finally pushed back the covers. His bed was closest to the window. Watched headlights dart across the nylon curtains. He slept without dreams. The morning brought black coffee, a too bright sun, and the smell of shaving cream. Bill swore at a nick on his jaw.
Holden found he'd slept in his day clothes.
"Well," said Bill, "at least we'll be on time."
This time, Warden Stoltzer met them at the gate, tapping the roof with an open palm. Holden's back was twinging from the mattress springs, swinging the briefcase in compensation. It hit against his side like a mallet. Thwap, thwap. The walk took them past cells, the mess room, commissary. Visitation was taken in a room with a view to an interior yard, a long open air quadrangle, lined with a low concrete wall and a contained walkway. A comparison to a cloister would have been more apt. Prisoners milled around in its center, looking decidedly unpriestly. The only thing separating them was a wall of tempered glass.
"Interesting design feature," said Bill.
Warden Stoltzer coughed into a yellowed handkerchief. He spoke into the fabric. "Shyesh! Thish ish a quirk fwom the lasht tenantsh."
"And who were the last tenants?"
He never answered, because as soon as Holden had set himself in place at the metal table, the buzzer had sounded. The warden left. The subject entered.
It was all over in ten minutes.
Warden Stoltzer denied Bill's offer of a cigarette, but kept eyeing it enviously. The air felt heavy for the time of year. Holden shut the boot and shook off his jacket. Bill would not meet his eye.
"I think you could have told us more than his dietary habits before we headed in there," said Holden.
"Folks never listen! You need to show 'em to really get it. You think you're the only one who's poked around here?" Warden Stoltzer shook his head. "A couple years back, some ancient shrink was faxing here for months. I told him, I did, that ol' Joe hasn't spoken a peep in all the years he's been here. And what does he do? He shows up and gets disappointed. The trip took it out of him too. 'parently, according to a nurse friend of mine," he knocked Bill in the ribs, the latter dropping his cigarette, "poor fella ended up in hospital. Emphysema!"
"Huh," said Bill, unable to hide his annoyance. "Sounds chronic."
"Or ... Encephalitis. One of those two."
Holden's ears had perked up. "What was his name?"
The warden waved his hand. "When I say ancient, I mean it! He's dead as a doorknob. You need your ears cleaned out!"
"What did he want?"
"What you all want," said Warden Stoltzer. "To tap the glass."
Holden felt his throat tense. He said nothing in return. Slipping a cigarette from the box, Bill began to fiddle with the handle of the driver's side. "I think that'll be all for today. Thank you, warden."
"'S no problem. Sorry I couldn't be more help to you all," Warden Stoltzer flashed a smile that looked more like a grimace and departed.
They waited to make sure the warden was gone before turning to one another.
Bill eyed him over his lighter. "You sure you didn't know this?"
"That he wouldn't speak?" Holden frowned. "How could I?"
"Yeah, okay," said Bill. He lingered a moment too long. "Well, I guess we'll head back tomorrow."
"I don't think I'm done here," said Holden.
Bill could no longer couch his disdain. Yanking the car door open, he took a long, audible inhale, and let the smoke form a puddle in the cleft beneath his lip. The wind washed him clean.
"Be straight with me. This is about the girl."
"She's not a girl," said Holden.
"No. You're right. I think she's a ghost to you. Something to tack a bunch of bullshit on without thought for the consequences." Bill shook his head. "Does she know you're here?"
Holden stammered. "Not in so many words."
"Let me phrase it differently. Does she know why?"
"I told you, she doesn't remember."
Bill shook his head. "Wasn't what you said, Holden." He paused, looking away. "And she doesn't know that you know who she is, does she?"
Holden couldn't justify such an obvious question with an answer. Wordless, he got into the car. He waited for Bill to join him. Instead, he watched, as Bill started back toward the prison. Holden turned around in his seat. The other man disappeared around the bend.
Half an hour later, Bill returned.
That night, they didn't eat together. No news and Bill took a long shower. Holden went for a walk. The streets in Columbus were busier than Virginia. He made it to Bicentennial Park before he turned back around. There was nothing of her here, he realized. He had gone searching for a sign, though a sign of what, he didn't know. Holden was fairly certain of what Bill had done. He'd pulled Holden up. Whether he'd gone to Wendy, or he'd done something else, there was only trouble waiting for him back home.
Trouble, and Carmen.
Was she going through his things? She wouldn't find much. He hadn't meant to set up his life so as to never leave a trace. That was simply how the cards had fallen. This, he rationalized, was why it'd been easy to let her in. Easy because there was nothing to find. When he'd broken into her home, he'd found the opposite. Carmen, staged like a crime scene: jumbled up suitcases, jar full of cash, mattress on cardboard, feverish denial. He was meant to tell her that day, that he couldn't see her anymore. That would've been the end of it. Instead he'd taken her to Bill. Cooked her dinner. Left her the key.
Bill was in bed when Holden returned. Awake, but unresponsive. Holden took his pills in the yellow of the bathroom. Left the tap running on hot to fog up the mirror. Sat on the closed toilet lid, spinning the canister's serrated lid against his palm.
He hated the pills. They skewed his focus. Killed his libido. And worst of all, they didn't work. He'd let it happen again. The panic attack. She'd seen him. Guided him back from the edge. How had it started? With Debbie. Debbie. She hadn't been his first of everything, but she'd been significant.
He'd never been taken seriously. The girls back east liked guys who could rub a little dirt in it. He'd been too much of a boy scout. His childhood was well-adjusted enough. A stable house, early dinners, long weekends. Skipping rocks on the Long Island Sound, riding bikes through the estuaries. His mother, overbearing, but some mothers simply were. His father, disappointed and disappointing. The worst thing that'd happened to him had been the family dog being put down without his say so. Cancer, he'd learned after the fact. He'd wanted to become a vet after that. Never let another kid lose their pet without the truth. But Holden was suburbia, and one summer on a farm taught him he didn't have the stones. Back to the drawing board. He'd find a different way to play hero.
He'd always been average in school, but at Quantico, he found his footing. A book of rules, a code to abide by. The FBI had been structured like the military, but rewarding of cognition. He'd shot to the top of his class. Then he'd been let out into the wild. Well, the wild didn't care about textbooks, or accuracy stats on a gun range. It cared about reality. Holden had been unprepared. When he'd recovered from the humiliation of failure, he'd known it wasn't him. It was a system that hadn't known how to account for the human element of crime.
Holden didn't want to be a cog. He wanted to be the machine. Profiling was just that: a code waiting to be cracked. So he'd cracked.
Where had he been? Oh, right. Debbie.
He watched the night play out against the ceiling, hands folded against his chest, using pressure to distract from the palpitations of his heart. He couldn't go back. Not yet. Joe Vault wouldn't speak and neither would Columbus. Holden shifted his gaze to Bill's back. The chance that he would arrive back home and find his apartment empty was not impossible. Whatever he was going to do, he'd only have a few hours to decide.
The case file was closed on the bedside table. Holden reached over without turning on the lamp and leafed through it. A wedding photo, Emile's military portrait. Parent teacher interviews. Police reports. Then the crime scene. Joe's intake photo. A scrawny kid with a spaghetti red mouth.
A before and an after. Holden needed the middle.
He took the car before sunrise. Stashed the pills in his pocket. Stopped in a gas station for a map and a can of coke. Vinton County was an hour and a half drive through grey gravel roads and winding forest, but the address on record was another hour from the township. The surroundings luxated, fields folding into valleys. It was a full sun day. Holden wound down the window and let the wind buffet his skin.
She'd been important to him, in the beginning. Someone to root for him, to push him, to challenge him. The pride and the confidence, he felt it welling in his chest, buoyancy that felt as potent as the first time she'd set eyes on him. Back when he wouldn't cuss, when he'd never smoked weed. Back when he couldn't indulge in a woman's body without becoming overwhelmed. She was eons from his league. Sexy, well-spoken, a straight shooter. She'd taken her time with him. She'd given him it all, then more, without return. The drip feed to his ego, a slow but earnest poison. When had it turned? The depth in himself he'd thought he'd uncovered, plummeting to an infinite appetite. Work, his hedonic treadmill. Her creeping dissatisfaction at his growing inadequacy. He'd tried to flip the script. He'd been benefiting her, letting her see behind the curtain. Most men didn't speak to their girlfriends like he spoke to her. He was better. Better than bad. Why couldn't that be enough?
Holden knew he was wrong, even though he'd never say it. All that truth, welling up behind his eyes.
He'd missed the turn. Stopped half a mile away and reversed back. Only recognized his destination by an old mail box, stalk split in half, like a golfer aiming his backswing. The driveway was overgrown on either side with long yellowed grass. It was midday and the sun was at its highest. There was no sight of the house as far as the eye stretched. Beyond the field, a dense forest with low branches that swept the path. Holden hooked right.
The driveway quickly petered out. Holden parked, shrugging his jacket and leaving it strewn across the wheel. The grass was high, it felt more like wading than walking. The noise built as he approached the forest. Cicadas in the undergrowth, bird song in the trees. His hand tensed at his holster, to remind him of its presence. At the borderline, the grass fell away and he descended into the gully.
The forest floor was strewn with bark and rock and rubble. Every step dislodged a piece of foundation, sending it skittering down, or else, into a tangle of tree root and stump. Holden braced himself against the branches that would hold his weight. It was slow going, and warm. Humidity clung in the foliage, the atmosphere dense. Holden found himself rolling up, unbuttoning, finally shaking loose. He strung his long sleeve over the shoulder of his undershirt, collar clinging to his skin. He could hear the rush of water.
Debbie, on Carmen's lips, hair tie on her wrist, her hair, the two of them folding together, and blurring. Embracing. Hugging.
Holden gasped for air, bracing against a rough barked tree. He was out of breath. All that sitting around. He'd been a runner. Marathons on the weekend, in his youth. No time now. Hadn't learned to pace himself. No matter what was the subject, always pushing, always exhausting, always more, more, more.
The river was roaring from a night of rain fall. He stopped to wash his face. Parched on the tongue, but refusing to drink, who knew what was in the water. He assessed his options. Attempting to wade might wash him down clean. There was a path across, of rocks, green with lichen, some spaced further than others: a challenge. He looked back up the slope. He hadn't expected to be put through his paces. If he wanted this, he'd have to work for it. He tested the first rock with his hand. It showed itself unsteady.
Holden laid his button up on a dry rock and coupled it with the gun. He'd need his balance for this.
What had been on his mind, that day, at the grocery store? Work. Pills. Work. Debbie. Work. The only proof of himself was a shopping list full of non-perishables and his FBI badge. She'd walked into him. He remembered the crunch of glass and the smell of blood. His gas had been cut. Holden had wondered, from the beginning, if that had been her. The way it'd unfolded had felt too much like fate. A white rabbit with her pocketwatch. A dream to climb into.
There had been a time, before he'd done his digging, where life had slipped into a lull, and slowed. The minutes caught in focus, by the memory of her. He hadn't been charmed. Curious, mostly. She had had the affect of a fugitive. She'd seemed at odds with her own existence. And there'd been something in her voice, no, in her breath, the sound of it, its offbeat pace, that had made him want to listen. To know her buttons. To find out what he could do to her, if she let him.
One rock, two rocks. These were the easiest, heavy with good grip. He couldn't feel the river beneath him just yet. Holden found himself smiling as he looked down at the water. A memory floated to the surface. Fly fishing in the lake near his childhood home. A solitary endeavour. He'd pack his tackle box just like his father, cut the crusts off his sandwiches, set out on his own. Settle in the lip of the bank, where the reeds hid him from view. He caught minnows and measured them on an old roll of tape. When the sun began to set, he heard his mother's voice calling over the crow song. Releasing his last catch of the day back into the water's edge.
Things were beginning to get tenuous. He had to crouch in the middle, the river moving so rapid that the rock had begun to shake. Like a loose tooth, like his swimming vision. The shakes. Had he taken his dose before he'd set out? The pills were in his shirt pocket, back over the bank. Holden knew he would have to press on. The spray clung his pant leg to his ankles. This better be worth it.
Worth what?
The last stretch would require a jump. Holden poised himself, steadying his hands below. Rising. Aiming. Leaping. He heard his own voice as he aimed for dry land.
"You know what it's like to lose yourself in another person. Don't you?"
"As in, love?"
He landed on the other side but lost his footing, his knees buckling beneath him. He fell to the dark sand. The wind from him, knocked. He'd clipped his elbow, it stung with blood. He held it against his chest. His tongue felt heavy, his heart was racing. Jaw locked up. The sun beat down. Like something washed ashore, he unfolded with the heat and stared into the sky. The panic washed through him in shudders and starts.
The night could have gone two ways. Behind those doors lay someone splayed on the floor. It had been his intent for that someone to be her. That was how he'd have ended it, hot blooded, like a man. Fuck her and then cut the chord. But then Debbie. But then that word.
"As in, love?"
Holden beat his fist against his chest. The air was all around him but it would not go in. Constriction. Tightening up against his body, like the death grip of a snake. He squeezed his eyes shut. Kemper. Six foot nine inches, dense as a brick shithouse. In the prison. Dissecting the details of each and every of his crimes. In the hospital. Messages left with reception, like from an overzealous date. And who could blame him? Wasn't it nice to be seen, to be listened to, to be heard. Wasn't it nice to know someone could be inside your head.
If Debbie had been his first, but not, then what had he been to Kemper? What had Kemper been to him? Holden had thought himself above, once again. He could map it all into a method, understanding behind a wall of glass. Kemper had been essential to his development. The profile would never have been the same without him. But when Kemper had hugged him, he'd realized, that as long as he'd been looking at Kemper, Kemper had been looking right back.
Holden rasped. The breathing had gotten easier but something still stuck in his throat. That was a truth, but it wasn't the whole. He couldn't get away from himself so easily.
Because it was more than the hug that had haunted the living room.
It was what he had felt, looking across at her. The dark drive. Domination. Death. The knowledge he needed to stomach those men. Horrible men. Angry at their mothers, their wives. Who got what they wanted. Who didn't ask for permission.
Love? From her mouth, it had felt like an insult. Reduced his cry for help. Stripped him to nothing. And for that split second, he'd understood, truly, how little it would take to cross that thin blue line.
"I'm dying," he'd said, and it had felt true.
His cheeks had dried, sticky and prickled, by the time he had caught his own breath. Holden sat up, propping his hands into the sand. For a long time still, he stared across the river.
Then he brushed himself off and rose. There was still some length to go. He found a path. The bricks emerged beneath his feet. It was routed through the clearer parts of the forest, and he felt relieved, to be able to hear his own footsteps again.
Holden had wanted to wake her before he left. He'd wanted to apologize for what had happened in his head. How could he explain that to another person? He'd never considered the work to be a burden, not like this. When Bill had told him about Brian finding crime scene photos, that Nancy had started to look at him differently, he'd told himself that was Bill's life. Holden was different. Holden had resolve. Or at least, he'd thought he'd had. Propping open the door, to see the long shadow of dawn falling across her fitful sleep, he'd seen a piece of himself. The part of him that could not stomach the misery. Maybe it didn't need to be that way for her. He'd booked the tickets to Columbus for pride. He would fly home for answers. He'd fix this for her, find the middle, make her whole.
The trees began to clear, until he could see them breaking, where the sun marked a clearing, and the house emerged.
Three storeys, big red barn, white cross, tin work shed. Burn pit, shovel, and a front yard of old cars. A well with a wooden basin, big enough to fit a child. The glass of the windows had been long cracked. The front door busted down from the inside out.
Holden stood at a distance and surveyed the area. Twenty odd years had left it in disrepair, but the bones of the place were solid, almost untouched. There was a crest in the land to his left, where the trees had been cleared, and a makeshift driveway fed up into the field. Holden realized he'd taken the long way. But the property itself was backed by another wall of trees, and he wondered what kind of a life could she have hoped to live, growing up in a place like this, off the edge of comprehension.
He had done it. Made his way back to the scene of the crime. But as he swept the exterior, working his way round and around, Holden felt a new kind of dread dawning. This place was as devoid of her as the roads of Columbus.
A bevy of clouds moved over the sky. The leaves of the trees grew still. The wind changed direction.
Holden heard the horse before he saw it. He turned to face the ridge. It galloped toward him from above, gravel skittering beneath its feet. He backed toward the house. As it reached the scatter of cars, it slowed into a trot. It was so white, that in the midday light, it seemed to glow. As it came closer, Holden noticed it was limping. By the time he caught sight of its leg, it had come to a stop in front of him.
He ghosted his hand along its flank, as though testing his shadow against it. Checking if it was real. The horse snorted, but didn't flinch. It had raised its foot, and he took a step towards its rear. The horse backed up, swinging its head to face him directly.
"Woah, now," said Holden.
He raised up his hands. He could see his reflection in the glint of its eyes. His inadequacy. It wasn't enough to know what was wrong. Gently, he reached out his hand. The horse raised its head. There was a long patch on its nose, like a streak of ruddy paint. Holden ran his hand against its terse fur. Once, then again. Soon he was patting it.
After a while, the horse relaxed, and took no issue when he approached its foot again. "Hoof rot," he said to himself. "But it's not terminal. Someone's looking for you, aren't they? Someone who cares."
The horse snorted at this. They both knew the other had failed them. At least, thought Holden, he had tried.
The wind started back. The clouds drifted away. The horse flicked its ears towards an unknown sound. Holden cast his eyes in the direction of their swing. He felt the horse slip away, watched it pick up its pace to a canter.
Up the ridge, and out.
He had stumbled, without realising, directly in front of the entrance of the house. His foot clipped the corner of the door. Holden stared down the hallway. The brightness of the sun stripped his vision. The inside was opaque. To translate this place, he would need her by his side.
He would not enter without her.
Holden cut the same path back. After the river, he shrugged his shirt back on. He reached into the chest pocket and pulled out the bottle of pills. Holden walked to the edge of the river. He unscrewed the lid and emptied the pills into the current, then dropped the container, and let it soar along and away from view.