The Ice Queen

The Seth Jones on record had had a library card for nearly twice as long as my Seth Jones had been alive. No wonder he’d been taking out an old man’s books. No wonder his house was dust-filled, his bookshelves untouched. Either the original Seth Jones was an old man or Lazarus was pretending to be someone he wasn’t.

Now I wanted to know whom I’d been sleeping with.

I’d left Giselle out for the day and now she came to rub herself against my legs. Who would ever think that September could be too hot? I watched the cat poke around in the weeds. I wasn’t expecting my brother, but he pulled up and honked the horn. Same car as Nina had been driving the other night. It took all my effort to lift my arm and wave.

“I heard you were at the cardiologist today,” Ned said as he came to join me. “Old Craven gave me a call.”

“Busybody,” I said. “Both of you.”

“I’m just making sure all the docs in the study treat you right.”

Ned had a tall Styrofoam cup in one hand; he went to fetch some lawn chairs from the porch, which he brought down to the scruffy yard, the worst one on the block. Probably the worst for miles around. “Oouf,” Ned said as he set the chairs down. “These weigh a ton. Wearing your harness?”

“Twenty-four hours. Then I’m ripping it off.”

My brother had stopped at the student union on his way over and picked up a large iced green tea. I supposed the research project he was at work on was taxing; he looked exhausted. He took a sip of his drink.

“You don’t like green tea,” I reminded him.

Was I supposed to tell him what I knew? Warn him? Protect him? Tell him all about Lazarus Jones? Reveal my secret life, his secret wife? Should I have said, Your wife isn’t who you think she is. She’s wandering around in the night, searching for ways to die. Not just one or two, you understand. That’s not enough for her. A hundred different ways. Even more than I know, the expert, the death-wisher.

“Antioxidants,” my brother said. “Nina says we should all drink three cups of green tea a day. Oh, and tofu and miso, she’s a big fan of those as well.” Ned looked happy, as he had at his party. Just the idea of her. Just the thought. He was brightened somehow. Uplifted. He leaned his head against the lawn chair and gazed at the sky. Maybe the moon was red, maybe it was gray; I had no idea. “Did you know you had bats?” Ned asked.

“Very funny.”

My brother appeared older now that he’d begun to lose his hair, but when I looked more closely, he was still the same.

“Seriously. Fruit bats. Over by the hibiscus.”

The tall hedge covered with large colorless flowers.

“Is that what that is? Hibiscus?” I leaned my head back, too. A black cloud flitted across the sky. Bats. “Shit. You’re right.”

“You don’t have to worry. You don’t have hair anymore. Long hair,” he corrected when I glared.

“What about you?” I said. Charming me. “You have less.”

Ned ignored the remark. He always did that, left you hanging with your own nastiness. “And you’re not wearing red or yellow. That’s what they’re attracted to.”

“Shoo.” I clapped my hands. My grandmother always told me that would keep bats away. The noise echoed and they left you alone. But the bats in my yard actually came closer.

“They think you’re calling to them,” my brother said. “They hear it as a love song. That’s why they smack into the engines of planes. They think they’re being seduced by some huge horny bat made out of metal and then — kaboom — crushed, mashed, and decimated.”

Proof of my theory: Love destroyed you.

I couldn’t help but think of Nina, that book in her hands, her nightgown, her bare feet, the way she looked right through me.

“If I knew a secret,” I asked Ned, “would you want me to tell you?”

“A riddle, right?” He grinned. He liked games. The more mathematical the better.

“No. I really want to know, Ned. Would you?”

My brother thought this over. He was wearing a sport shirt and chinos. I hadn’t made it to his and Nina’s wedding. My grandmother had already been ailing, and I hadn’t wanted to leave her, but now I wished I’d managed to attend.

Ned had thought enough. “Secrets are only knowledge that hasn’t yet been uncovered,” he told me. “Therefore, they’re not in fact secrets, but only unrealized truth.”

“Bullshit.” I snorted and looked up at the bats.