Chapter Sixteen
SIXTEEN
“Wow,” Greg said.
Faye hadn’t been kidding. Devil’s Cave was nothing short of remarkable. His eyes drifted up to a hole in the ceiling where he could see the sky. A white cloud floated by before the sound of rustling leaves filled the tiny rotunda of stalagmites and stone they were standing inside. It was like being on the inside of one of Faye’s circular vases.
“Beautiful, right?” Faye said, stepping beside him.
His eyes caught on hers. “Beyond.”
“I told you it would put everything into perspective.”
He nodded. “Makes nearly killing myself on a rock totally worth it.”
He was kidding, of course. The cavern was only a short distance from the original entry point. The pathway flat and mostly clear. Indeed, the most difficult part of the beginner cave she had taken them to was the long hike through the woods from the parking lot.
As for the rock he had slipped on, that was also his own fault. He had been distracted on their hike up to the cave together. His mind was on Nelly and The Paper Boys. His eyes kept trailing over to Faye. Though she had warned him that the rocks beneath their feet had become slippery due to a stream just beyond the path, he hadn’t been paying attention.
“Thankfully,” Greg reminded her, “you were there to keep me from breaking an ankle.”
“Not me.” She held up her left hand, tapping on her wrist. “The red bracelet.”
He laughed. “Indeed.”
“Should we get started?” she asked.
Greg nodded, took off his backpack, and handed it to her. Faye got to work, laying both backpacks on the floor, pulling out and sorting items.
“How did you discover this place?” Greg asked.
“When I first moved to Woodstock,” she explained, “I was looking for things to occupy my free time. I tried out a whole bunch of hobbies. Cheese-making. Pickleball. Archery. But, for whatever reason...caving is the one that stuck. I guess it makes sense, being a ceramicist. I come here a lot for Jewitch rituals, too. When I need strong magic.”
“Hopefully, this will work then.”
The first item she laid out was a candle, which she had infused with flax, and with her fingernail alone, engraved with seven circles. Next was a small brass knife and a bowl, where she combined soot, water, and oil. Finally, she pulled out a mirror, laying it on the ground between them.
“First, you take the candle.” Greg did as instructed, and she lit it, the flame flickering upwards to the hole in the ceiling. “And now, you say the following. ‘Adam, Chavah, Abthon, Absalom, Sarviel, Nurial, Daniel...’”
Greg repeated, “Adam, Chavah, Abthon, Absalom, Sarviel, Nurial, Daniel.”
“And now—”
“Sorry,” Greg interrupted her. “I’m just confused. Who are all these people again?”
“Oh.” Faye tipped her chin. “I actually have no idea.”
“Really?”
“All I know is these names were used in a fifteenth-century Jewish divination ritual in Germany.”
That sounded legit enough for Greg. “Let’s hope it works then.”
“Agreed,” she said, and returned to her instructions. “Now, you repeat seven times, ‘Gerte, I conjure you here with these seven names I have mentioned, to appear in the wax of this candle, carefully prepared and designated for this purpose, and to answer whatever question I may ask of you.’”
He did as instructed, the flame growing wild between them, the wind rustling in the trees just beyond, as if she were kicking up into a storm. The room in the energy shifted. “And now,” Faye said, “cast your eyes onto the flame. And ask the universe your question.”
Greg swallowed. “Who am I?”
“Tell me what you see in the light.”
His eyes narrowed. The image of Faye dwindled, disappeared, until all he could see was the flickering light of the flame, stretching into eternity. And then, out of the fire, stepped a woman.
Her face was fuzzy, but he could make out the outline of her features. Straight hair down to her shoulders, a green turtleneck. She waved him forward. In his mind’s eye, he stepped closer, and she felt so familiar. Someone he recognized. Except, he didn’t know who she was. For the life of him, he couldn’t remember—but his heart ached in her presence. And that voice reappeared, melodic and soft, whispering a message. Justice, justice.
Greg squinted, unsure of the meaning. “What?” he called out to her.
“What do you see, Greg?” Faye asked him.
“A woman.”
“Tell me about her.”
Greg felt tears coming to his eyes. “She’s kind.”
“Yes.”
“And she’s good.” He said it again. “She’s so damn good...it’s remarkable.”
“This is great,” Faye said, her voice rising into a fevered pitch. “Just keep going with it. More!”
“I think... I think I might be falling in love with her.”
The woman transformed inside his mind and grew in clarity. The straight hair twisted into thick curls. Her angular features became round and pleasant.
“Who is she, Greg?” Faye asked.
He knew. “Faye...”
“Tell me.”
“Faye.”
“Ask for her name, Greg. Demand she tell you!”
“Faye!” Greg finally shouted. “Stop! It’s you.”
The sky above them rumbled. A breeze found its way into the cave. The light in the candle flickered out, smoke dancing upwards between them. Greg blinked awake. The spell had been broken. And, as was the tendency with Jewitches and magic, in the wake of the ritual...another one had been cast.
Faye paused for a breath and then, rising from her spot on the ground, began quickly blaming everything on a faulty Jewitch ritual. “It’s just a silly old divination space. It doesn’t mean anything.”
She began to pace—back and forth, like Hillel sometimes did when Greg put him in the laundry room—endlessly banging into walls. Greg tried to draw her back to the circle.
“Faye,” he said. “Please sit down.”
She was not listening. “I mean—” she waved her hands in the air as she spoke, talking to herself, to the universe, to everyone but Greg “—these things usually take two or three times at least to get an answer. I don’t think we really need to analyze it more than that.”
Greg tried again. “Faye.”
“It can’t happen, Greg,” she said, spinning around, pointing between them. “You, me... us ! It can’t happen.”
Greg didn’t hesitate. “I know that, Faye.”
He said it with the full finality of a funeral.
He said it resolutely, too.
She turned back to him. “You do?”
“Yeah?” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “This experience we’re having together, it’s temporary. It’s not going to last forever. One day, I’m going to remember who I am. I’m going to return to my normal life, whatever that is.” He really hoped it wasn’t as a Paper Boy. “And given all the impossibilities of this situation, I think you’re right.”
She blinked three times. “I am?”
“Yes,” he said, waving her back to the circle. “Look, I’m not gonna lie. I do like you, Faye. I think you’re remarkable. And, if I’m also being honest in this space, I am attracted to you, too.”
“You are?”
“I think you’re...stunning.”
“Stunning.” The word fell from her mouth in a whisper.
“Honestly,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck, “that doesn’t even feel like the right word, because it’s so much more than that. It’s the way you see the world, like a kaleidoscope, like the beautiful vases you make...not like some mass-produced vase you can buy in a market. And I love your sense of humor, and your books, and your magic cakes, too.”
She laughed a little, before her face went all squishy again.
“And I don’t know,” he continued, shrugging his shoulders, “maybe there are a million women like you on the planet, a million people who have all these shining shards made up inside of them. But I don’t know a million other women, Faye. I just know you. Because you’re the woman who found me.”
The tiniest little breath escaped her lips.
“All of which is to say,” Greg said, before holding up his left hand, showcasing his red bracelet between them, “we’re friends. I’m not gonna hurt you. I want the best for you, okay? But I’d like to know your story. I’d like to understand you better.”
She swallowed. “Okay.”
“So, why aren’t you with Eric?”
“What?” Faye nearly spit up the word.
“Eric,” Greg repeated. “Chief Eric Myers.”
“Why would you even ask that?”
“Well, for one,” Greg explained it simply, “both when he came to the store to check up on you, but also at the rally... I think it’s pretty darn clear that he likes you. It also seems to me that you enjoy his company, too. Whenever he’s around, you two are always sneaking off together to whisper, touching each other. So, I guess I want to know...what’s holding you back?”
She swallowed. Pressed her eyes to the wall.
It took her a long time to come around and answer him.
“Poor sweet Greg,” she said finally, softly. “You haven’t yet read about women with snakes instead of hair, who turn men to stone upon approaching?”
Faye could see Greg didn’t understand.
“Medusa,” she said, clarifying her previous statement. “It’s an ancient story, from Greek mythology, about a beautiful woman who was turned into a monster. Well, technically...a sea Gorgon. But the point is, Medusa had a head full of hissing snakes instead of hair, and she lived on an island, in a cave just like this one... And she was so horrifying to behold, that whenever any person approached her shorelines, had the misfortune to even look upon her for an instant...they immediately turned to stone.”
“Huh,” Greg said. “Sounds like a lonely life.”
“I suppose it was,” she said, quietly.
She sighed, and searched for her courage. Damn those self-help books. Damn all those Jewitch rituals. Was Greg even a real person? Or was she simply talking to some blank slate of a man who had filled himself up with her books?
But then she caught on his eyes. Those same eyes that had persuaded her to take him home from the hospital. Like his lips—all those mornings together, practicing words—until Greg could speak those most thoughtful and beautiful sentences. Her gaze drifted down to his hands, so large and masculine. She felt safe with him, didn’t she?
“He said I was too much.” The words fell from her lips.
“Who?”
“My fiancé,” Faye explained, filling in bits and pieces of the story. “Stuart. We had been dating for ten years, engaged for seven, and then, three months before our wedding...he dumped me during a snowmobile ride in Lapland.”
Stuart’s words echoed in her head. Just like she could recall every line in his face as he screamed at her. You’re too much, Faye. Everything you do, everything you are. No wonder your own mother couldn’t stand you.
“I’m so sorry, Faye,” Greg said.
“Thank you.”
Greg inched in closer. The red string on his wrist, still bound and knotted, dangled like a promise between them.
“So,” Greg said. His voice was clear, matter-of-fact. “Because of what happened with Stuart, you’ve given up on any chance of happiness with Eric?”
“No,” Faye said. “That’s not it at all.”
Her wrist was aching, acting up. She looked down to see the pointer finger on her left hand spasming without her. The pain in her hand stretched its way up to her neck, back, before landing in her chest.
“I told you a little bit about my mother,” she continued. “That she was sick, toxic...explosive. So, in order to prevent her from going off on one of these awful and violent rages... I would try to be the perfect daughter. I would try to be better than perfect. I would walk on eggshells, constantly, all to avoid triggering her.”
She began to describe some of her memories from growing up. How she once scrubbed the kitchen floors for hours, just for her mother to come in and start screaming that she had made the floors wet. That she would bring home good grades, try to excel in after-school activities and clubs, only to have her mother scoff, then exclaim her teachers must be idiots. And finally, she told him more about how her mother had broken her wrist.
“I had this scholarship to art school,” she said. “I was getting out, you know? Going off to New York City to live out my dream. And because I was going to be this great and famous ceramicist, my work was all over the house. I would try to clean it up, so that my mom wouldn’t get angry...but I’m seventeen. I’m not perfect.”
She had never been perfect.
She had never been good enough.
“One night,” she continued, “I left one of my modular designs sitting on the kitchen table. Minor infraction, I suppose...in most homes. In most homes, parents would be proud of their kids for being talented, or taking initiative. For working so hard that you get a full scholarship to one of the best fine arts programs in America. But in my home, it meant that at three o’clock in the morning, my mom would come into my room and tear down my covers...”
She swallowed over the words, over the memory, the ache in her wrist becoming unbearable.
“My mom could be violent,” she said. “Growing up, I remember being spanked. Slapped. My hair pulled. But this night, my mom goes berserk. She loses control of herself completely. She grabs me by my left wrist, and yanks me out of bed. Next thing I know I’m getting dragged down the hall, my legs banging into side tables, my head knocking over trash bins...and, of course, I’m screaming, ‘Mommy, it hurts, Mommy, stop’...and then, snap ...she broke my wrist.”
Tears began gathering in the corners of her eyes. She didn’t want to cry, admit vulnerability, show her weakness, but most of all, she felt shame. For what had happened to her. That she couldn’t be better. If she had just been good, loveable...her mother wouldn’t have hurt her. Hated her.
“Where was your dad?” Greg asked quietly.
“My dad?” She was caught off guard by the question.
“Didn’t he hear you yelling?”
Faye moved to defend him. “He was in his office.”
Greg squinted. “At three o’clock in the morning?”
She stammered, “It was in the basement.”
She looked away, pressing her eyes towards the wall of the cave. Because her father loved her. He loved her. Even though he never protected her. Even though he let Faye take the brunt of her mother’s rages. She needed to believe that her father loved her.
“You don’t understand,” she said. “My mother was toxic. She was...cruel. My dad was just trying to keep the peace.”
“Keep the peace,” Greg scoffed. “Faye...you were a child.”
“Don’t be mad at me!”
“I’m not mad at you,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m hurt for you, Faye. I’m angry for you, too. I’m angry that these people, who were supposed to love and protect you, failed you so miserably.”
The weight of all the pain she was carrying began to bubble over.
“I told my mother that something was wrong,” she continued. “I begged her to take me to the hospital, but my mother told me I was being ridiculous. She had yelled at me to go sleep, stop pretending. She sent me to school. And I buried how much it hurt. I kept my mother’s secret...for five long days.”
“Faye...”
He pulled away from her, rose from his seat, clearly wanting to comfort her. She held out one hand to stop him. “Don’t.”
“I just want to give you a hug.”
“No,” she said firmly.
She didn’t want to be touched. She didn’t want to be held, because she knew that if Greg wrapped his arms around her, he would say the right things. He would tell her it wasn’t her fault, that she deserved better. And then, he would leave her. She had given him her story, the truth of who she was, her worst and darkest moments. That had to be enough.
Faye sucked back her tears. Taking a deep breath, she got ahold of herself.
“It wasn’t until I went over to Miranda’s house that I said anything,” Faye explained quietly. “We were sitting at the kitchen table, doing homework together...and her mom saw I was having trouble. She went to look at my hand, saw the blue-and-purple welt there, and took me to the hospital.”
Her mother had splintered the bone in three places. Faye was in a cast for months. She probably should have gone to more than one session of physical therapy, but of course, her mom couldn’t get it together enough to make sure that her bones healed properly. Her hand never healed right. Her finger was permanently disabled. And from there, she lost her scholarship.
“Becoming a lawyer was never my dream,” she said sadly. “But it provided financial independence. It allowed me to escape from my mom and her rages. I suppose her jealousy, too. Until, one day in college, my father called to tell me that he was dying. I returned home to help, because I loved my father, and he loved me...and because, how could I leave him unprotected with my mother. It was during law school, at the point where he had lost both the ability to recognize me and to speak, that I met Stuart.”
“He replaced your father,” Greg said softly.
She nodded. “Looking back on it, I can see how he was just a fill-in for the things I needed. It wasn’t a good relationship, you know? We were toxic for each other from the start. But I held on, refusing to let go of him...because I never believed that I would find better. And because watching him walk away would prove this thing that I always felt. This bubble left inside my clay memory by my mother. That no one would ever love me.”
“Faye,” he said, scooting in closer. “Look at me.”
She met his eyes directly.
“You are not the bad that you endured, okay?”
She rolled her eyes. “What book is that from?”
“It’s not from a book.”
He seemed almost insulted.
She found herself staring at her left hand, her one disabled finger, and her sadness, coupled with rage, returned.
“You know, sometimes I look back on it,” she said. “And I see the irony of wanting to spend my life creating modular pieces. Pottery with pieces that can move in relationship with each other, without damaging one another. And there are lots of people out there who are modular pottery. They’re modular people.”
Greg shook his head, confused. “I’m sorry. I don’t...completely understand.”
“You see how Miranda and Shulamit are,” Faye explained. “You see how they support each other, nurture each other, make each other better...but they still have their own interests, their own goals, their own dreams.”
“They’re partners.”
“Partners.” She nodded. “That’s right. That’s another word for it, too. Because they’re both healthy people, so they can be in a healthy partnership with each other. But I’m not a healthy person, Greg. When I get into a relationship with someone, I don’t become a partner. Instead, I morph. I go back in time, and I become that scared little girl again, wondering what I did wrong, constantly worried about being perfect, giving up all my dreams and interests in the process...out of some desperate and pathetic need to keep this one person, this fill-in for my mother and her love, from leaving me.
“So, you see, Greg,” Faye continued, “it’s not about Eric. It’s not about Stuart. It’s not about you, or any man. In fact, even if the most perfect man in the world, my bashert , plopped down in front of me, like manna falling from the heavens... I still wouldn’t date him. And I’m going to tell you why. I’m going to tell you the exact same thing I said to Eric two years ago, too.”
“Lay it on me.”
“I have no interest in partnering with another human being. I have no interest in some great romance, or falling in love. I will never get married. Because I like who I am. I like who I’ve become since moving to Woodstock, running Magic Mud Pottery. I like that my life, where I eat, the hobbies I take on, what friends I see—are my choice, and mine alone. I’m in control. It took me three years to remember Faye Kaplan after Stuart...and it’ll be a cold day in hell before I ever risk losing her again.”
He was quiet for a long time. “Fair enough,” he said finally.
They lingered there together, unmoving, the space caving in around them. And then, Faye stood and wiped her hands clean of dirt. Outside, the skies were darkening. They needed to be getting home.
“We should probably get going,” she said.
Greg nodded, and they began gathering up supplies, and she resigned herself to one thought, one focused intention, which she played on repeat inside her mind. Whatever longing for Greg was inside of her was irrelevant. Whatever wants or dreams she had for a chance at true love had to be ignored. It could never happen. It would never happen. Because Greg was a man without a memory...
And she was a woman with too much.
Faye was quiet on the way back to the car, but the silence, along with the long hike through the woods, allowed him time to reflect on what she had just told him. The story she had shared had bothered him to no end. But even greater than his anger at the injustice she had endured, he hated how she saw herself.
Greg didn’t see her broken bits as flaws. If anything, it was the opposite. She was like that one vase in the store she had hidden behind the fancier and more elaborate-looking Seder plate. She saw herself as warped and damaged, undeserving of love and attention. Yet it was all the bubbles in her clay memory, the scratches and scars...that made her unique.
Faye went to throw the bags in the trunk.
“This Medusa lady,” Greg asked. “Did she have many suitors?”
“I wouldn’t call them suitors,” Faye said, “but yes, many men came to the island where she lived.”
“And all of them turned to stone?”
“Every single one except the last guy,” she informed him. “Perseus.”
“And what happened to him?” Greg asked.
“Well, there are different versions of the story, but all of them end the same way.”
“What’s that?”
“He killed her,” Faye explained succinctly. “He went to her island, with a cap of invisibility he had stolen from this goddess Athena and a shield made of mirrors, and when she saw her own reflection, she turned to stone. Or fell asleep. It depends on the version you’re reading. But after which, he cut off her head.”
Greg grimaced. “That’s horrible.”
“Yeah, well,” Faye mumbled, “nobody loves a monster.”
She closed the trunk and angled to leave him, heading for the driver’s side. Greg stopped her again. “You know,” Greg said, “I think you’re telling this story all wrong.”
Faye scoffed. “Oh really?”
“The way I see it...poor Medusa was just minding her business, trying to have a nice beach vacation...and all these jerks with swords and shields keep coming around and bothering her. No wonder she needed snakes for hair. It sounds to me like she was a woman who settled on protecting herself.”
“Actually,” Faye corrected him, “she was punished with snakes for hair.”
“It’s a feminist retelling.” Greg smirked.
Faye lifted her hands in open surrender.
Greg continued. “Now, personally, I like to believe that the problem wasn’t with Medusa, at all. Maybe what Medusa needed more than soldiers, more than cowardly men with weapons in their hands and something to prove, more than yet another Stuart in her life...”
She shook her head. “I knew you were going there.”
“Will you let me finish, please?”
She waved him forward.
“Thank you,” Greg said, continuing his tale. “What Medusa really needed in her life was not a weak man, some enervated creature who couldn’t even hold up the crown she was wearing...but a snake handler.”
“A snake handler?” She laughed.
“Heck yeah,” he mused thoughtfully. “And that’s how my version of the story is gonna end. Not the story that Perseus, a clear Chad, by the way, took back with him to the seawall and told all his buddies to make himself look good. My story is gonna end that Medusa and... Give me another name, Faye.”
“Harry,” she said.
“Medusa and Harry,” he said, imagining their first meeting, “famed snake handler, saw that beautiful crown full of serpents, hissing...and realized, right away, that he was staring at a Deity. And so, he did what men do when they’re standing in front of supernatural beings. He dropped to his knees and lowered his eyes, which immediately saved his life. And because he was worthy, because he was not at all afraid of her power...she welcomed him into her cave.”
“Very nice.” She clapped emphatically. “Excellent story.”
“Hold on. I’m not done here.”
“Alright.”
“And so, Harry,” Greg continued, very dramatically, “lay down by her side that night. He pressed his head upon her bosom, feeling the sweet caresses of those snakes as they wrapped around his skin, feeling them pulling him into her. And it was only then, sinking into each other, merging into one, with the tide rising around them, and the sea lapping at their feet...that he pressed his lips up to her ears, and whispered these words.” Greg wrapped one arm around her waist, pulling her close enough to whisper in her ear. “Don’t you see, my love? There’s no difference between a monster and a Goddess.”
“Greg!” Faye nearly fell out of her sneakers. “Have you been reading my romance novels?”
“No,” he asked, curiously. “Should I?”
“It’s just...” Her voice caught in her throat. “That was really good!”
He smiled. “I’m glad you liked it.”
“I loved it,” she admitted.
“Good,” he said, finally releasing her. “Because remember what you told me. You got to take stories with a grain of salt. You got to learn to look at them with discernment and nuance. Don’t believe everything you read. Or hear. And sometimes, what that means is...you gotta take a story that someone has told you your whole life and look at it from a new angle.”
It took her a moment, but she laughed. They faded into silence, and her eyes flicked upwards in his direction. He latched onto her, the heat rising in his chest as that desire to kiss her returned, a fire burning inside of him...which he was growing more certain would never be quenched.