Masonic Pt. 1

Whether or not it was really a woman making that sound I never did find out. I wasn't sure I cared to from the start. It was just the slightest push of noise, no louder than a sloppy whistle, no higher in pitch than a child's singsong. For all I knew it could've been a goat with a wolf at its neck, gurgling a cry for its kids as air pushed up on its mortal wound and blood slipped out. Still, when he got sick of the bonfire and wanted to investigate, I took it as an excuse to follow him down through the fields, trampling the dry grass and cutting up my ankles along the way. The first opening in the woods' fortress stood before us like the gate to some grand, protected institution, left ajar just once due to negligence, chance. It seemed it was now or never, as if backing away at this moment would forever eliminate the option of entry. The moon shade hung heavy at the gap in the trees. I watched him go first, breaking branches and scuffing the earth with his foot to mark the way home. I followed his makeshift path with all the speed and enthusiasm I could gather, though it was dark as hell and I'd grown tired since backing away from the big fire we'd warmed ourselves in front of for the better part of the evening.

But I paced after him without complaint. He was dogged, the way he charted the trees, chasing after that persistent sound. He never said a word to me until we'd reached the mouth of the river and the small clearing that surrounded it. I could see him in this cool light better than I had before. His little nostrils were flaring in and out and the smallest bit of sweat had dried off the hair on his temples, leaving the skin beneath dewy, porous, something like a film star from before our parents' lifetimes. He was worked up, in a sense. The night sky glared off his large eyes as he told me we were standing in the spot where they found the arm.

Everyone had heard about that arm. A couple of boys from the public school had stumbled upon it when they snuck out in the middle of the night with a couple of beers. They must have dropped whatever they carried when they came upon it, so cleanly cut and laid out on the ground without any context, without any signs of the body it was severed from. This was months ago, and the detectives on the case still knew very little. A woman's arm, mid thirties, Asian--no more. I had no idea the crime scene was so close to his house. Instinctively I looked at his arms, attached, but dangling aloofly like storybook jungle vines. Dense with muscle for his thin frame, veins raised. Why did he tell me? Was he trying to scare me? To make me afraid so he could act heroic? Was this romance? For a moment I thought he might rape me, and I froze up in the dead night air. But he turned his head so slightly--the cry had grown louder--and walked out of the clearing into the dense mess of trees, purposeful as a hound.

I wasn't afraid of him anymore, but my head throbbed the way anyone's might when brought this close to death. Stalling, I watched the river froth for a minute. They had dragged the water, I was sure, in their quest to recover that armless body, but I couldn't stop picturing a corpse wrapped up in seaweed, moored to the bottom like the bust of a figurehead from a phantom ship sunk long ago. I checked the woods. He had disappeared, surely disinterested in waiting for a pioneer as clumsy and slow as myself. But the sound kept on, and I was sure he'd followed it, so I kept on after his trail markings, hoping I might catch him. This part of the forest was thicker, shadier. Thorned branches needled me every which way. Without him before me as an Indian leader, I took my time to push the stray tree bits aside, careful not to disturb his elaborate code that spelled my route home.

All at once I arrived at a break in the stream. A small cliff scraped the skyline just a jump beyond. There was nowhere else he could have gone. I started to scale it, cutting the bottom of my foot on the rock as my shoe slipped slightly off my heel. By the time I reached the top, I was panting. My mouth tasted of iron, like blood had floated into and up from my lungs into the space behind my tongue. It was a slow climb. I would've liked his help in pulling me to the top. I grasped out for him, and sensing he'd moved on ahead, bellied up onto the flat rock, pushing myself up the face of the rock with the rounds of my knees. With some effort I rolled onto it, then stood.

The top was no longer than five strides in any direction, and ended at the river. It was empty. He was gone. Saw nothing, heard nothing. Even the sound of the woman had faded out of earshot. How long ago had I heard it? I'd worked so hard to keep up with him I'd forgotten to listen. I started to mouth his name. At first quietly, then with power. There was nothing. The river and woods stretched around for miles, and there I sat on top of it all, overlord of my own unwanted kingdom.

It must have been a joke. He must have been kidding me. But we had barely spoken before tonight. To abandon me in the middle of the night so far from help would have been too cruel too soon. I edged myself toward the other side of the cliff overlooking the water. Had he fallen in? Or had someone gotten to him first?

Some measureless time passed. My eyes began to tear. I had to get home. I crawled slowly down the face of the rock as the growing daylight melted out over the woods like a curse. It meant the night had been real, and that it was coming to an end, and that he was still gone. Carefully, so precisely--I followed every broken twig, every raised mound of dirt--I found the clearing he'd pointed out earlier. My fantasy was that he'd be waiting there for me, arms dangling nonchalantly as if he'd done nothing to worry me. It was a dream, though. From there I found the way quite easily, last embers of the fire still burning, guiding me back to the house like a hag lantern.

Did I tell anyone what happened? I wish I could say I had, though they were all so disoriented I'm not sure it would have made a difference. It was weeks before the next arm was found, anyway.