Page 33 of Cut Off from Sky and Earth
Then, as I was dragging myself to my knees, our mother rushed out of the house, phone in hand, and screamed at him to leave before she called the police. He left. But first he ripped every plant out of our succulent garden, scattering them across the lawn, then sauntered down the front walk, pausing to spit tobacco juice on the sidewalk before getting into his truck and speeding away, tires squealing.
Mom helped me inside, cleaned me up, fixed me a bowl of soup, and made me promise to never tell my stepfather that Tate had come to the house. The next day, we went to the nursery for new succulents and replanted the garden. When he returned from his work trip, he asked what happened to the old plants. We told him the haboob had torn them up, which was more or less true.
I only asked my mother once where Tate had taken her that day. After I’d had some soup and the painkillers had kicked in.
She took so long to answer that I thought she wouldn’t. But then she said in a dull voice, “He told me he’d been working at Arizona State. Landscaping. He said he thought I’d like to see the orchard.”
That didn’t sound like the Tate I knew.
“What happened, Mom?”
She turned away, her shoulders shaking. “The orchard was blocked off.”
“Downed trees from the storm?” I asked, confused.
She started to cry. “No, police tape. It was a crime scene. One of the dorms behind to the left of it … someone was hurt there.” She let out an inhuman wail, like a wounded animal. Then she ran, sobbing, up the stairs and into her bedroom.
I could hear her crying up there, but I wasn’t sure how to comfort her. So I stayed where I was. Eventually, I turned on the TV hoping for a distraction. Instead, I got a breathless local news report that Dana Rowland, a student at ASU, had been brutally murdered, stabbed to death in her dorm room during the storm. I jabbed the remote to shut off the TV and sank to my knees on the carpet.
Later that night, I knocked on my mother’s bedroom door.
“Come in,” she called in a faint voice.
She was sitting in the big chair in the corner where she liked to read. She called it her book nook. Her expression was vacant and tired.
I crouched near her chair. “I saw the report about that college girl.”
She hugged her arms around herself and rocked back and forth.
“Mom, we have to tell the police.”
She turned her head and gave me a bleak look. “Tell them what, honey?”
I swallowed hard. “Tell them what we know. That Tate?—”
She shook her head. “We don’t know anything. Dark suspicions aren’t facts.”
“But they can investigate. That’s what they do,” I argued.
“Is it? That’s not what the police in Windy Rock did when Lexi was stabbed.”
It was the first time since we’d moved away that she’d brought up the attack in Windy Rock. My frustration outweighed my surprise, and I frowned, wondering how to make her see we couldn’t stay silent.
Finally, she gripped my hands in hers. Her skin was cold as ice.
“Tristan, if the police interview Tate, he’ll know who pointed them in his direction. Think hard about what he might do.” Her eyes pleaded with me, full of fear and helplessness.
I hung my head and dropped my gaze to the carpet.
She kissed the crown of my head. “You’re a good boy. You’ll be a good man.”
When my feet cramped, I stood up, brushed my hand against her cheek, and left her sitting in her book nook. Then I crept downstairs.
My heard pounded and my fingers shook as I called 911 and anonymously suggested the authorities take a close look at the gardening staff at ASU—in particular, a man named Tate Weakes.
Part II. The Darkness
[T]he King flew into a passion, and ordered a dark tower to be built, into which no ray of sunlight or moonlight should enter. When it was finished, he said, “Therein shalt thou be imprisoned for seven years, and then I will come and see if thy perverse spirit is broken.” Meat and drink for the seven years were carried into the tower, and then she and her waiting-woman were led into it and walled up, and thus cut off from the sky and from the earth. There they sat in the darkness, and knew not when day or night began.
