The Others by Sarah Blau (best ereader for academics TXT) 📗

collapse onto the floor; the last thought shooting through my mind is how strange it is that you don’t actually see black when you pass out. You see a shining dark-red screen.

15

I DON’T KNOW how many people are aware of this, but fainting actually feels rather nice.

You’re floating, suspended between heaven and earth, your soul is a flowing liquid surrounded by twinkling fairy lights, your body weightless, your spirit untethered and unruffled.

But then you wake up with a violent start, and that’s not nearly as pleasant. And when you wake up to a reality like mine, it’s even less pleasant.

Well then, we’re past the point of denying or repressing it – whoever murdered Ronit, and probably Dina as well, knew the Others, knew us, knew me. No ifs, ands or buts about it. If anything, it’s highly probable that he was at the same Purim party as us, drank the same cheap booze courtesy of the student union. He must have seen Ronit dressed up as the baby-devouring Lilith, must have watched her declare with a smile, “I am Lilith the Terrible, I am the childless mother who eats her young,” to which we gave her our widest, teeth-bearing grins. That’s why he went and shoved that baby doll in her mouth.

I have no doubt that if the papers had published an illustration of Dina in the exact position she was found, I would have known all this already, would have seen the link between that party and these murders. And maybe understood in what position YOU will be found?

I come to with a violent start.

Micha is eyeing me with scrutiny. Strangely, his presence is the only one that calms me, maybe because he seems so calm himself. Too calm.

Apparently, Efraim freaked out when I fainted. I was told that I was out for a few minutes until someone called an ambulance. I vaguely remember those moments of sleep-like haze that afforded my brief escape from reality, remember the flickering lights of a wakening consciousness, the inquisitive faces hovering above me and an authoritative voice saying, “Give her room to breathe,” and then “Did she lose control of her bowels?”

That last question I heard loud and clear, and I think that’s what made me snap back into gear. I reached a panicky hand towards my bowel region, and thankfully found said hand dry upon return. I opened my eyes to a worried Efraim who helped me up and also helped me convince the spirited (and incontinence-obsessed) medic that there was no need for a visit to the hospital.

Efraim told me to go home and “take as much time off as you need, and come back when you’re feeling better,” and I couldn’t help but think, how convenient for you, Efraim.

And now Micha, in my living room, as darkness slowly descends.

This is the first time he’s been over at such an hour. If I had a cat it would start running around restlessly like any other nocturnal predator, but I don’t have a cat. All you have is that broom over there, in the corner, and the familiar, calm Micha.

But when he starts talking about the illustration of Ronit, he loses his cool. “We’ll catch the person who leaked it,” he fumes. “It could sabotage our entire investigation.”

“Do you know who it is?” I ask.

“We have our suspicions,” he replies. “We think he got paid.”

“But why didn’t you tell me that’s how you found her? With the doll in her mouth?”

His gaze wanders to the Witch of Endor painting. “You know why.”

“The only thing I know is that the killer knew all three of us,” I say, and in the spirit of full disclosure – mostly because I can’t be bothered playing cat-and-mouse games tonight – I add, “and he knew what our costumes were at the Purim party back in college. So I’m thinking maybe he was even there with us.”

The long capes swirling on the grimy auditorium floor, the clinking glasses of cheap wine. L’Chaim! To us! Our cheeks flushed, Dina’s eyes shining like diamonds, Ronit flashing her crimson smile like a blood-covered dagger, Naama harbouring a secret and me smiling under my pointy witch hat, smiling like I’ll never smile again. L’Chaim! And only Neria is standing on the sidelines, eyes still dry, but not for long… L’Chaim, girls, to the Others!

Micha fixes his eyes on me. “If I asked you to guess who the killer is, who would it be?” His voice is velvety soft and I can feel him close to me, feel those breaths.

“Micha, a moment ago I was your guess.”

“You know I don’t think that any more.”

Normally, I’d have something to say about that any more of his, but this is not a normal situation. I’m still weak and wobbly from my little fainting spell earlier, and being this close to him isn’t helping. Panicking that I’m going to pass out again here in front of him, I clench my pelvic floor muscles as hard as I can. That’s it, Sheila, clench!

“You’re finally afraid,” he says, still with that soft voice. “It took you long enough.”

I want to tell him that if he shared some of my memories, he’d be easily spooked as well, but when I look at him, I get the feeling that his bag of memories is packed with a few doozies of its own. He suddenly seems tired and vulnerable. Clench.

“And besides, you have an alibi for the night of the murder, although I have to say your nose looks fine to me.”

There’s something intimate in the way he says this, studying my face through keen and narrowed eyes, making me feel naked. The face is the most exposed part of our body, and I feel my mask slowly slipping.

It was cold that day at the sea.

With all due respect to Dina and her idea to “cap off the night at the beach,” Purim is still a loyal subject of winter’s kingdom. But there