Chapter 19 - The Man of Wind and Moss

In the morning, Marco texted Pansy a firm I’m coming over. He wasn’t certain what he was going to say. He didn’t know how he’d possibly approach the topic of Doll, Erether, or “what Sasha did,” and he was positive that if he made any remark about her pregnancy or Dean, he’d get thrown out on his ass. But he had to say something. How could he just stand by and let it happen? Maybe there was something he could glean, a hint or clue that could help Sasha put a block on her. Or maybe he could just apologize and say goodbye.

The drive from his house to hers made him shake the way those old “can I come over?” texts she used to send in college had, only this time it was worse. In the rearview mirror, he thought he saw Dean’s truck again. In the passing trees, he thought he saw Doll’s face. When he first got into the car, even the GPS took a second to reorient like it wasn’t sure of what Marco was requesting. Looking at the little arrow made him think of the map in the woods, and as a result, he ignored the GPS and missed several of his exits. Everything about going to see Pansy already felt off. Know. Your. Place.

When he pulled into her driveway, the first time he’d ever done it, surprisingly, he was shocked at just how little her house was. Tiny compared to Keith’s. It was a beige box with an ill-fitting, stumpy driveway that barely allowed the length of one car. The grass was tight and tidy, and the place was clean, but just looking at the house made Marco feel claustrophobic. Like the roof was being crushed down. Marco got out of the car and looked up and frowned. The sky, cloudy and overcast, lowered itself on the people of Florida. It was coming down to snuff them out for good, and Marco welcomed it.

He climbed up the tiny steps to the house and knocked twice on the door and looked at his phone quickly to check his smile. Thanks to his screaming match with Sasha, the swelling hadn’t gone down much. Plus, his braces were still jarring to see. He felt like a sex offender making the rounds. He also felt, endlessly, that he was being watched. He looked back at his mom’s car in the driveway, its back wheels hanging off the edge. If Dean’s truck pulled around the corner and saw him visiting, he’d be screwed. Everything was a nightmare. He wanted to the get the hell out of there, but the door opened, and he froze.

Pansy stood in the doorway sullen, and Marco stepped into the house, and it was the reverse of every other time before. He tried to remember what his routine was when she’d come over. How, the first few times, he’d anxiously not prepare anything out of fear of scaring her away. How, later on, he’d dash around the house and heat up leftovers for her, clean the dishes, turn off the TV, fluff the pillows, and be the warm embrace she may or may not require. This time, when Pansy let him in, she wordlessly moved to the den and put the onus of following on Marco. Again. Always following her.

The den was as depressing as you’d expect. Flowers, picture frames, gifts, and drab, pale cards were piled on every surface in the house. The kitchen had stacks of cleaned-out casserole trays and Pansy tossed another plate into the sink. Then she sat on her family’s couch and poured the second half of a Diet Coke into an iceless glass. Marco looked for where to sit and decided on her dad’s beat-up recliner. He shifted in the leather seat to face her. He rested his hands on his lap, and they looked at each other for a little bit. He had the unshakable feeling that he was about to get jumped. That someone would barrel down the hallway with a hunting knife and plunge it between his ribs.

“I guess you want to pick up where we left off,” Pansy said. She laced her fingers around her glass of soda.

In any other universe, at any other time, Marco would play coy and dumb and, for fear of losing her, keep his mouth shut. But looking at her now, looking at her stoic green eyes, and her almost corporate positioning with her beverage, he knew that she was gone. He had already lost her.

“I regret the timing of when I said it,” Marco started, “but I don’t regret what I said. I know we’re shot. I know that. There’s not a world where you, me, and Sasha can put this all behind us, but—”

“Marco,” she interrupted. He was about to say, “But that’s not why I am here,” but he didn’t and instead he let her talk first. “I just don’t have those feelings for you,” she said.

Though he expected as much, his heart still broke in a way that the only matching sensation was hard to describe. It was on the tip of his tongue. It wasn’t just this romantic rejection, but a personal rejection, and there was a real difference, everyone knew. His brain dug deep and looked for the memory of when he last felt this way, but his heart, now in shards, hid from the past and focused on the present. “You’re lying,” Marco said. It came out sniveling and his jaw got tight again. He took a breath to keep from clenching his teeth. “You’re lying to me.”

“Marco, we’re just friends.”

“Oh, fucking save it,” he said. “I’m not . . . No, no. I’m not going down like this. I’m not going to let you put me in this position where I have to crawl out of the friend zone like some asshole. You got in my bed naked, Pansy. You got into my bed like thirty fucking times and one of those times you were naked. What the hell are you talking about?”

“Dude, it wasn’t that deep,” she said.

“Then why did you do it?” The conversation was spiraling faster than he could stop it. He didn’t come for this! Honest! But it was happening quick and sloppy.

“You were really sad, and you needed it,” she said.

“What? What does that mean?”

“You were in a really bad place.”

“How? Why?”

“It was after Ray left.”

Ding, ding, ding! Marco’s brain grabbed the memory like a trophy and waved it at the camera. That was the matching sensation. When Monchito explained in a long message to the family group chat that he was moving to Puerto Rico and never coming back. When he went off at length about how all of his friends and family had absolutely nothing to offer him. When he put in text that their father never loved them and that their mom was too weak to tell the truth. When he essentially blew up the entire family and walked away. Then, when Monchito texted Marco, privately, saying that he was sorry but that he had to go to the next level, whatever that meant, the next level. Marco was in Brooklyn and was beside himself and then Pansy did what she did. No bucks, all whammies.

“You know I told Dean about that one,” Pansy said.

Marco’s stomach was boiling. “What?”

“He had already known about some of the times, but that one specifically I told him about. And he got so mad. So mad. He was screaming about you and your brother. God, he hated Ray. I don’t even know why, he had only met him like once or twice. But yeah. I told him everything.”

Marco couldn’t think straight.

“You don’t get to do that,” he mumbled to her feet. His jaw, clenched to hell, hurt double from trying not to cry. “That’s so fucked up,” he continued. “I’m a good, normal person. I wouldn’t have hallucinated this. I wouldn’t have conjured this out of nothing if you weren’t giving me signs. You told him? Okay. Fine. Fine! That time was out of, I don’t know, fucking charity. But what about the other million times you did it? Back at FSU. Showing up to my room wasted night after night when Dean was mad at you. What about doing it again when you moved to the city? What’s your excuse for all of that?”

She said nothing but slowly rotated her glass of Coke. Marco, in an effort of self-preservation, pulled his eyes from her. He looked at the drab kitchen. He looked at the tiny hallway where Doll’s bedroom was. The door was covered in flowers and bouquets, and he thought of Doll’s face among the vines and his heart started racing. This conversation was ridiculous and unnecessary, and didn’t he just see her sister fused with a tree?

“I guess I thought you could handle it,” Pansy confessed.

What else could you really say after that?

Marco kept his hands firmly on his lap. He didn’t want her to see his tremor. A minute stretched. Pansy’s stumpy driveway beckoned for him to evacuate. A headache formed.

“And what about Sasha?” Pansy asked. “She’s my friend too, you know.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean are you going to lead her on forever?”

Marco stammered. The gall of her to ask something like that. “You knew she liked me, and you still came over to fuck with me?”

“Jesus, Marco, are you really gonna be a baby about this? It was nothing.”

What did I expect? That was the clearest thought in all of this. Pansy is Pansy, was what Doll said in the drive to the cabin. Pansy was impulsive and passionate and did what she wanted. Pansy never took responsibility and wanted people to build their world around her decisions. Maybe, in reality, Dean was the only one who could handle Pansy. He was the immovable object to her unstoppable force.

“Marco, people are dead,” she said. Her eyes finally softened, and she sniffed and wiped her sleeve across her nose. “My sister is dead, and the father of my child is missing.”

He regretted it all: Paula’s advice, the cabin, the confession, all of it. It wasn’t fair and it was tangled and gross and it wasn’t fair, but where did his responsibility end? He didn’t summon the Man of Wind and Moss, Sasha did. He didn’t make the horrific trade, Sasha did. He didn’t make Dean go missing either! Why was he the one scrambling to pick up the pieces of this disaster? And how could he possibly key Pansy into what was happening? Hey, Pansy you can’t have that kid, or it’ll be come out dead. But if you get rid of the kid, you’ll die too. Also, your sister is foliage now. Marco tried to think his way through the puzzle. Sasha had said the phrase, “outstanding balance.” Both he and Pansy were outstanding balances. With that in mind, what ended up coming out was a simple question. “Have you been having nightmares?”

Pansy froze. She looked scared. He had successfully reached through all the petty “why don’t you like me back” bullshit and grabbed something that was actually bothering her. She swallowed. “Yeah. Of course.”

Marco had to pull the thread carefully.

“Not just nightmares about what happened,” Marco said. “Have you been seeing things?”

“Like what?”

“Like . . . yellow eyes.”

Pansy stared him down. Her face hardened in a way that seemed performative. Like she didn’t want to let him in. “Maybe.”

“Me too.”

“Okay.”

“What else have you been seeing?”

Pansy’s eyes drifted. The den was gray and outside was overcast. The fridge made noise, and the ice machine grumbled. Marco felt something happening over at Doll’s door. There was movement there, in the blur of his peripheries, but he refused to look.

“Sometimes I can see someone through the space between branches,” Pansy said. “Like a figure. And he’s so scary. And he’s everywhere I go, staring down at me. And when I see him, I feel so cold and empty and depressed. And I can’t explain it.”

“I feel that way too,” Marco said. “It’s real.”

Shit. That was wrong. He knew it right when it came out. What was real? What did real mean? Undo, undo, undo.

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

Marco didn’t know how to respond. That movement at the side of his vision finally won, and he looked at Doll’s bedroom door, and he saw the flowers and vines moving. He saw Doll’s face emerge from under the door like a slice of deli meat. He must’ve made a face of horror because Pansy spun over her shoulder. “What? What is it?”

Marco shook it off. He brought a hand to his face to block the right side of his vision so he wouldn’t have to see Doll’s door and whatever it was or wasn’t doing. “I think Dean is still alive,” he said.

“I appreciate the optimism.”

Sure. Optimism.

“And I’m going back to the city with Sasha.”

“Good for you.”

“In the cabin, Dean pulled me aside and made a big show about how once he went into the Army, I was supposed to check in on you. I’m not so sure that’s really appropriate anymore. So, I wanted to say goodbye. I’m sorry for, uh, making it awkward. And I’m sorry about Doll and Dean and—” He almost gestured to her stomach, to her baby, but he didn’t, thank God. Instead, he quickly moved his hand to his mouth and rubbed his face. “—I’m just sorry. About everything. Okay. I’m going to go.”

And that was that. The conversation was over. He stood up and felt for his keys and phone and wallet. He went for the door. He put his hand on the knob. He stood there, hoping to hear something else from Pansy, but nothing came. He let himself out and shut the door behind him.

The conversation had been a disaster, but how could it be any other way? Their avenues of communication were nonexistent. Short of telling her the truth—something even he had a tenuous grip on—there was nothing to say that wasn’t in the shadow of his confession of love. He knew how he looked. He was a putz! A chump! A total simp! And it was his big cabin idea, to wring his hands and say, “Will you pwease give me a chance?” that caused this entire debacle. There was nothing he could say to her that could save him from the humiliation of having been the “Why don’t girls like nice guys?” type of guy. He was cooked! Fried! Stick a fork in him, he was done! But he had to undo this madness. It was the right thing to do, and he had to do it before her baby was due. The clock was ticking.

“Marco!”

He spun around.

Pansy was in the doorway. She was covering her mouth and pointing up to a tree in the driveway. She was horrified. Face ashen, eyes wide, and knees trembling. Absolutely horrified. Marco knew what she was pointing at. The Man of Wind and Moss was right above his head, hunched over in the branches. But Marco didn’t want to look. The terror was too bright and too cold.