Third Person Ch. 03

The next several weeks were a convalescence. We recovered from the injury inflicted upon our marriage.

I was angry, and I couldn't say why. I was the one who had cheated, but Phillip was so pleased by the whole thing. I didn't know what I had expected from him; I knew he wasn't the jealous type. But his obvious satisfaction enraged me.

There was another reason, too, but it was so irrational, so paranoid, that I didn't even like to consider it. Part of me, deep down, believed that Phillip had somehow orchestrated the whole thing. Had arranged for me to meet Amanda, had known that she could get me into bed. My husband, the puppetmaster, pulling strings for his own gratification. Crazy, I know, but I wasn't exactly in a rational state of mind.

For a solid week, I couldn't stand the sight of my husband. If we spoke more than ten words to each other, I would become annoyed. I made him sleep in the spare bedroom, and we might as well have been room-mates. Room-mates that didn't get along.

During this entire time, Phillip moped around like a puppy that had pissed on the rug. This only made me angrier. Him acting guilty helped to convince me of his guilt. He said he was sorry so much that I told him if he apologized one more time, I would divorce him. I meant it, too. If he would have got angry, yelled at me, called me a dyke whore, screamed into my face that I was the one who fucked around, and where the hell did I get off treating him like the criminal; if he would have done any of those things, that would have ended it. I could have forgiven him for my sins. But that wasn't Phillip.

Eventually, I just got tired of feeling this way. I let Phillip back in. Things slowly moved towards normal. The first time we made love after the cold spell was a conciliatory gesture, based on peace-making rather than passion. I was happy that we were healing the rift, but I felt nothing. I wondered if I ever would again.

I didn't see Amanda at all. I avoided the coffee house, of course, but as I did my business around town, I found myself looking for her. I didn't want to see her again and I did want to. I felt I owed her an explanation, and I knew that would be a mistake. I no longer desired her, I felt like my sexuality had burned out, but thoughts of Amanda brought such conflicting emotions that I avoided them at all costs.

I wondered if she had left town. Part of me hoped she had.

After about a month, everything was more or less normalized. Phillip and I pretended that nothing had happened. It was a mutually consensual delusion, and it served us both well. We talked, we worked, we made love, just as before. If it weren't for the dreams, I could have easily convinced myself that I had never met Amanda.

The same dream, wandering the upper floors, something watching me. Only it had evolved. Now, Amanda was the ghost which haunted the attic. She was trapped, and I was trying to find her, to free her. In the dreams, there was always the implication that Phillip had somehow imprisoned her up there. The dreams were vivid and very disturbing, even though nothing ever happened. It's just me, walking through rooms that do not exist, looking for a lost girl who I never find, feeling invisible eyes and heaviness in my chest.

On a morning about six weeks after my affair with Amanda, I found myself home alone, working. The radio was on, tuned to NPR. They were doing a feature story about rescue missions on Mt. Everest. I began to daydream about what it would like to be trapped up there. On top of the world when the snow hits, no oxygen to breathe, knowing that I'm going to die. The top of Everest was like the attic of my dreams. Disconnected; pulsing with death but irresistible. You keep going up and up, no matter if logic tells you otherwise. The difference being, Everest has a peak. The attic in my mind is infinite.

I chewed the eraser off a pencil, absorbed in my thoughts. I fantasized that I was a solo climber, lost, snow-blind, hallucinating from the hypoxia. I lose hope and sit down, waiting for the mountain to swallow me. I pictured this very clearly in my mind. The image was compelling. I wondered what the last thoughts to pass through my head would be. The last images my oxygen-starved mind would conjure. Would I see angels?

It's funny. I used to fantasize about sex.

I gulped down the last of my coffee and regarded the staircase. I knew I was going to go up there, had known it for weeks. It was necessary. My life was in a holding pattern. In order to move on, I would have to confront my fear of whatever was up there. Rationally, I knew that it was nothing but old boxes and dust, but I had not yet gone up there because there was nothing rational about my fear.

This morning I was endowed not with boldness, but with fatalism. I had to know. If whatever waited for me in the attic chose to swallow me, then so be it.

I stood up, determined. I changed out of my bathrobe into jeans and a sweatshirt. Then I grabbed a flashlight from the kitchen drawer. The lights worked in the attic, but I knew that if a bulb burned out and I was caught in darkness, I would probably lose my mind with terror.

I tested the flashlight to make sure the batteries were good, and then thought about what else I should bring, still thinking of mountain expeditions.

Get going, I told myself. Do it now, or you'll never do it.

Knowing that was true, I began my ascent.

The second floor was relatively innocuous. I thought this as I mounted the second flight of stairs. There were three bedrooms, two of which were devoted to the storage of Phillip's records and books, and a bathroom. Phillip and I sometimes went up there to bathe together in the massive, old-fashioned claw bathtub. Still, I hardly came up even as far as this floor. My dread was of the third floor, but the second was like a border town to purgatory.

I forced my feet to move and my thoughts to stop as I climbed. I realized about halfway up the second flight that I was not breathing and had to will myself to start again.

Like a fool, I thought of "The Exorcist." The scene where the possessed girl's mother goes up to investigate noises in the attic, and her candle flares up into a huge flame. This image was enough to actually turn me around and send me back down a few stairs before I realized I was being stupid. After all, I was carrying a flashlight.

Despite all my efforts to block such thoughts, I kept coming back to horror movies. This was a cherished cliche', wasn't it? Don't go into the attic. Scared woman, home alone, venturing alone into danger.

This isn't a horror movie, I told myself testily. This is real life. Stop trying to freak yourself out.

The stairs did not go on nearly long enough. I was on the third floor.

Half of the third floor was finished, with carpeting and plaster on the walls. These rooms had an ominous quality, like the floors and walls were just a facade. I thought of Edgar Allen Poe stories. But my business was not here. I walked to the back of the house and through the small wooden door.

Beyond the door was straight attic. Bare wood floors. Exposed ceiling. The walls were the inside of the house's skin, portions of it patched with pink fiberglass insulation. I pulled the chain on the bare forty-watt bulb hanging from the ceiling, filling the long room with thin yellow light. It was cold. Seventies outside, but it felt almost cold enough to see my breath in here. Maybe my imagination. Probably my imagination. I tried not to think of "cold spots" in books I've read on haunted houses. I failed.

I forced my slippered feet onward, my heart by now thumping loudly in my chest. I felt the dream feeling of being watched, the oppression in the air. I wanted very badly to turn around and go downstairs. But I knew that if I turned around I would run, and if I ran I would never come up here again. I would never be free.

I looked around. The walls were lined with boxes and crates, covered with dust. Very little of the clutter was ours. Our Christmas tree and decorations, a few other things. The rest of it was old, stuff that belonged to Phillip's parents, or maybe even his grandparents who had lived here before them. A pair of old, heavy ice skates hung by their laces from a nail in the wall. I wondered what generation of Aster had worn them.

I touched the boxes which contained familiar things, for reassurance.

I was breathing a little easier. The fear had receded, and I wondered what I had come up here to see. I poked around an ancient trunk, big enough enough to be a coffin. It creaked open, revealing a collection of dusty yellow books. These must have been from his family, otherwise Phillip would have tried to sell these by now. I opened a 'Dick and Jane' school primer and saw the copyright dated from 1935. The antiquity was fascinating, words unread for decades, the dry smell of old books.

Beside the trunk was a wooden crate. I swept aside the thick webs which covered the top and found one still occupied. A plump black spider, not happy about having its home destroyed. It scurried up my arm. I screamed as I picked it off and threw it across the room. My scream was raw and panicked in the close confines of the attic walls. I took four running steps towards the door.

Again I forced myself to stop, go back, confront whatever it was I had come up here to confront. It wasn't a spider. The crate the spider had protected contained old clothes. I picked through them, skin still crawling so badly I didn't want to touch anything. The clothes were men's pants and a suit jacket, about forty years out of style. I realized that whoever had worn this suit was dead now, and dropped the clothes like they were themselves rotten.

I nosed through boxes at random, avoiding the ones covered with spider webs, still not sure what I was looking for. I found a box of really nice china, wrapped in newspapers which referred to President Eisenhower in the present tense.

After about fifteen minutes of looking through boxes of old junk, I tried to tell myself that it was time to go downstairs. I was not retreating in fear, there was simply nothing to find.

I wasn't satisfied, though. There was something else up here that I was meant to see. I stood up and surveyed the boxes, wondering which one to try next.

It's not in the boxes, I thought.

Standing there, facing the back of the attic, I noticed something strange. The roof of the house came to a point, but only one of the attic walls was at an angle, the one to my left. The other wall was straight vertical. I realized that this part of the attic, the unfinished part, was only half as wide as the third floor.

I thought of the house in three dimensions and realized that there was space under the roof that wasn't accessible from here. Secret rooms.

This chilled me. It was so much like my dream. I was excited, too. I grinned even as the fear flushed through my system.

Hearing my heart thud in my ears, I felt along the flat wall section by section. Looking for a passage. I was methodical, starting at the front of the attic and working my way back. About three-quarters of the way back, I began to see light through the wall slats. It was dim and yellow, and I wasn't surprised I hadn't noticed it before. The sections of the wall with the light showing through didn't seem to be as solid as the other ones, they gave more when I pressed against them. It felt like I could break through the old, brittle wood if I pushed hard enough.

Then I found it. Between the third and the fourth studs from the back wall, a section of wall that moved when I pressed against it. Closer examination revealed hinges and a latch, cleverly camouflaged behind strips of plywood. It was a door. A secret door.

I took a deep breath and undid the latch. I swung the door open and climbed inside.

I was in a bedroom. Empty, except for an old feather bed which smelled of dust and must and years without fresh air. Ancient rodent droppings littered the floor and all the corners were thick with cobwebs. The light I had seen through the attic walls was coming from a single window above the bed, so dirty that the light coming through it was brown.

Laying on the bed was the corpse of Amanda, my illicit lover.

I didn't scream. I must have been terrified, but I didn't feel it at the time. I was only conscious of satisfaction that I wasn't crazy. My instincts had been confirmed.

I went to Amanda. She was laying on her back on top of the covers, wearing the same dress she had always worn. Her eyes were closed and she wasn't breathing. I touched her throat and felt no pulse. Her flesh was cool but not cold. Soft, not yet stiff. She must have just died. I couldn't make out any wounds. There was no blood, no bruises. She looked like she was sleeping.

Across the dimly lit room was a door. I opened it. It led to a staircase, going down towards the back of the house. I shined my flashlight into the darkness and realized that it must lead down to the storage space on the west side of the house. I never went in there, but Phillip dug around in there all the time.

That was how he did it, took her up the secret staircase into the secret room, to hide the body. I didn't know if he had killed her here or elsewhere, but I knew that he'd killed her. My husband was a murderer. This knowledge came surprisingly easy to me. It confirmed my darkest fears. I wondered if there had been others, over the years. Others he had killed, then let rot in this room.

My mind was cool, my thoughts coming slow and clear. I would go downstairs and call the police. After I showed them the room and the body, after Phillip was arrested, I would leave. I would go back to my mother and never set foot in this house again.

It was difficult to leave Amanda, though. Because she looked alive. I wanted to wake her up. I thought of "Sleeping Beauty" and shuddered when I imagined bestowing a kiss on her stiff cold lips.

"She's dead," I said aloud and this statement hung so heavy in the antique air that I finally became afraid.

So Phillip was the ghost. I had only heard the sounds when I was home alone because it was him, skulking around up here.

Suddenly, light filled the dark passage. A door was opened at the bottom. I stepped back, shutting the door in front of me as quietly as I could. I staggered backwards across the room, almost tripping on the edge of the death bed. Footsteps were ascending the stairs, slowly at first, but breaking into a run as whoever was coming up (Phillip, it had to be Phillip) realized that someone had found his secret killing floor.

I scrambled into the passage in the wall but did not make it halfway through before the door was flung open.

"Heather," Phillip cried behind me. "Heather, wait!"

He was going to kill me, too. I knew it. In blind self-defense, I hurled my flashlight at him, my only weapon. It struck him in the nose and he fell backwards as I scurried back into the other room.

"Heather, please!" Phillip choked. "She's not dead!"

This was perhaps the one thing he could have said that had the power to make me turn around. It was my most illogical hope, that the pulse-less, breathless woman on the bed was still alive. I poked my head back through the sliding panel.

"You fucking monster!" I spat.

Phillip blinked back at me, stung. He was clutching his nose, which was bleeding profusely. "Ow," he said, tilting his head back. "Heather, come back here, I can explain this."

"No goddamn way," I snarled.

Phillip went to the bed. He touched Amanda on the shoulder.

She opened her eyes. She spoke.

"Heather," Amanda said. "Please come in here. We need to talk."

I thought at first it was some kind of ventriloquist's trick. I just couldn't figure out how he was making her move. Then Phillip looked at me. The gentle, caring eyes of my husband, whom I loved and trusted.

"Please," he said. "I've been trying to tell you this for so long."

He took his hand off Amanda and she collapsed again, like she had no life unless he was touching her.

"Phillip?" my voice quivered. I had never before been this scared or confused.

He motioned for me to come to him. Then he sat on the bed, placing his arm on Amanda. She came to life again and sat up beside him. They put their arms around one another, like teen-age lovers. I felt an irrational spark of jealousy. Was he hiding her up here as his mistress? That didn't make any sense, but then nothing about this did.

Phillip and Amanda both watched me crawl through the hole in the wall to join them in the bedroom. Their gaze was eerily synchronized, like their eyes were linked by wires.

"What the fuck is going on?" I demanded.

Phillip removed his hand from his nose and Amanda inspected the wound. Both nodded gravely.

"I don't think it's broken," Amanda stated.

"I'm sorry I did that," I said. I wanted to go to Phillip and comfort him, but at the same time I felt way too close already.

"I don't blame you," they both said in unison. I gaped at them in horror.

"Sorry," Phillip said.

"Are you going to tell me what's going on?" I didn't like the sound of my own voice, ragged, on the verge of hysterics.

"Yes," Phillip said. "I'm just trying to find the best way to do it."

"Just say it," I begged.

They each bit their lip thoughtfully.

"And if you don't stop that twin act or whatever it is, I'm going to lose my fucking mind."

Phillip alone sighed. "That's just it," he said. "It's not an act. Heather, we're . . ."

"What?" I was sobbing now.

"We're the same person, Heather." Phillip said. Amanda just stared forward as if in a trance.

"What are you saying?"

"We're the same person," Phillip said again. "One mind, two bodies. I can go back and forth from one to the other. I can even work both at the same time, if we're touching, but it's sort of like rubbing your stomach and patting your head at the same time."

"Wha . . ."

"I know it's hard to swallow, but it's true. I've been able to do this since I was a little girl."

"That's . . . bullshit," I said, my mind reeling.

"No, Heather," Amanda said. "It's not. I think you see now why I haven't told you this before."

Amanda stood. Phillip slumped over on the bed.

"That's why I came to you in this body," she said. "I thought that if you could meet me like this first, it would be easier to . . ."

I went to Phillip and took him in my arms. He wasn't breathing.

"What did you do to my husband?" I demanded.

"I am your husband," Amanda said. She went to touch Phillip's cheek, but I slapped her hand away.

"Don't touch him!"

Amanda slid up Phillip's pant leg and grabbed his ankle. In my arms, Phillip came to life. I could feel the life-force, or whatever it was, fill his body instantly. It was like a switch being flipped.

"It's true, Heather," Phillip said. "It's all true."

I shook my head and cried. "It's impossible," I said over and over. "Impossible."

I buried my face in Phillip's shoulder and wept.

"It's time you knew," Phillip said. "I've wanted to tell you for so long. Hiding this from you has been the hardest thing I've ever had to do. I love you so much, Heather."

"I love you, too," I sniffed.

Then I felt soft hands on my shoulders, her hands. I shook them off.

"If you love me," Phillip said, "then you have to love all of me."

"This is part of me," Amanda's voice came from behind me. "I was a woman before I was a man. When you made love to this body, I was so happy. I had never been so happy. I thought you were accepting this other part of me."

"Stop," I pleaded.

"Let's go downstairs," Phillip said. "It's cold up here, and gloomy. I'll tell you the whole story."

Phillip let me go and stood up, Amanda leaning on him the whole time to maintain contact.

"This way's faster," they both said, then walked hand-in-hand down the back staircase.