When Through Deep Waters Read online

  “I’m surprised you remember,” Louise said. Her tone had a bite to it, and Alicen had to hide her glee. It wasn’t a secret how Louise felt about Betty, and unlike Alicen, Louise couldn’t care less about Betty’s impossible approval. Alicen was happy she didn’t have to face her mother alone.

  If looks could kill, Louise would be choking on the kitchen floor, but Betty’s expression didn’t even seem to faze her. She smiled at Betty and took a sip from her glass, waiting for whatever catty response Betty whipped out.

  Betty just smiled back. “Of course I remember. A beautiful house like this isn’t soon forgotten. It’ll be a real shame when they tear it down.”

  Alicen knew that one stung, but Louise kept it hidden well.

  Betty let the barb linger for a moment before continuing. “Lou, would you mind getting me a glass of whiskey or red wine—anything with a kick? Flying always gives me the worst headaches, and would you believe, they refused to bump me to first class from Denver to Billings, so I flew coach, which I haven’t done in years.”

  Alicen swallowed, trying to mask the tension building in her shoulders.

  “Actually, this is a dry house. We don’t have anything like that around,” Louise said. “But I’d be happy to get you some iced tea, water, coffee?”

  “Dry house?” Betty said, looking from Louise to Alicen. “Why on earth?”

  Alicen could feel her face turning red and knew that Louise was mere moments away from coming over the counter at Betty.

  Betty sensed the discomfort and gave Alicen a questioning look. “This is because of your tiny incident? Baby, you got help for that. Surely you don’t have to be sober your whole life?”

  “It was more than a tiny incident, Betty, which you would know, had you bothered to come to Santa Monica earlier this year,” Louise said.

  Betty cut her eyes at Louise and took a step toward Alicen. “Had my daughter needed me, I would have been there. But you,” she said, turning the blame on Alicen, “told me you were fine.”

  Louise huffed in disbelief and grumbled to the sink, where she slammed her cup inside violently.

  “Listen, Louise Watson—” Betty started.

  Louise spun around, ready for whatever Betty had planned to hurl at her, and Alicen knew she had to intervene.

  “Both of you, enough,” Alicen said, stepping between them and into their line of sight. “This isn’t helping.” Alicen turned to her mother. “The doctor recommended that I stay completely sober for a while, so I’m taking his advice; that’s all. But if you want to go get something to keep in the house, you are more than welcome to. I’m fine.”

  “Alicen—” Louise cautioned.

  Alicen twisted her neck to send a sharp look to her friend. “Lou,” she warned, “I’m fine.”

  Louise didn’t look happy, but she left it alone.

  Alicen turned back to her mother and waited.

  “Doctors aren’t always right, you know,” Betty said, needing to validate herself. “But if it’s helping you, then I can play by the rules.”

  “Thank you,” Alicen said.

  Thick silence filled the kitchen. Tension heavy enough to drag the three women to the floor hung in the air. On the rare occasion that Betty apologized first, it was only because it served her in some fashion. When she turned to Lou and said she was sorry for snapping, Alicen knew it was only to get back in their good graces because she needed a place to stay. There was a hotel in town, but it surely wasn’t up to her mother’s outlandish expectations.

  Louise nodded to accept Betty’s apology. “I assume you’re not planning to drive back to Billings tonight,” Louise said.

  “No, I was hoping to stay in Red Lodge,” Betty said.

  Louise shared a look with Alicen, asking with her eyes if she was okay with her mother under the same roof as her, and Alicen nodded.

  “I’ll go fix up a bed in an upstairs guest room,” Louise said and excused herself.

  “Oh, that would be wonderful,” Betty said as Louise stepped out of the kitchen, leaving mother and daughter alone.

  “I’m sorry, Alicen,” Betty said. “I didn’t mean to cause such a scene right away.”

  “It’s fine, Mom,” Alicen said.

  Betty stepped across the kitchen and reached for her daughter. She pulled her into her motherly embrace, and Alicen obliged. A quick hug and Betty was pulling back. She touched her daughter’s cheek, then tucked a loose strand of hair behind Alicen’s ear. A gesture she had done ever since Alicen was a little girl. An effort to make her more presentable. Polished. Alicen hated it.

  She took in her mother’s face. She really did favor her: same dirty-blonde hair, same blue eyes, same long face, same freckled nose. Both were average height and slim, because being slim was important. Alicen had learned that from her mother. Slim, pretty, and desirable. All were key in capturing the kind of life a woman deserved. A lot of good any of that had done Alicen.

  “It really is good to see you, baby,” Betty said.

  Alicen smiled.

  “Are you still talking to someone? Are you feeling okay?” Betty asked.

  Daughters shouldn’t have to lie to their mothers, but Alicen and Betty weren’t like most. Betty didn’t actually want the truth; she just wanted to hear what would make her feel best.

  “I’m feeling good, and yes, I’m still talking to someone,” Alicen said.

  Betty’s face broke out into a wide smile. “That’s good.” She brushed her fingers through the ends of Alicen’s hair again. “You know, I just want you to move past this and on with your life. Find a good man, have more children—you know, be happy.”

  Each word felt like a slap across Alicen’s face. And it was made worse by the fact that Betty wholeheartedly meant what she said. Alicen fought back tears and dropped her eyes from her mother’s face. She nodded to appease the woman and tried not to cringe when Betty leaned forward and placed a kiss on her forehead.

  Betty released her daughter and took a step back. “Now, I am exhausted. You know how traveling can be. I think I’ll just go lie down for a bit.”

  “Do you want us to wait on you for dinner?” Alicen asked.

  “No, I ate on the plane, but that is sweet of you to think of your mother. Will you help me with my bags, dear?”

  “Of course,” Alicen said. She had switched to autopilot, a function she reserved strictly for her mother. Being her daughter was a role that took more than it ever gave.

  “Thank you, Dr. Wells,” Victoria said. “That will be all.”

  The older man nodded and turned to head back down the hall toward his office. It was always a sensitive process, bringing on a new member to the Clover Mountain Retreat Center staff. There was a particular way of doing things, and Victoria didn’t have patience for suggested adjustments. Thankfully, Dr. Wells had yet to make any such requests and was complying with all of hers. She didn’t predict that he would be a problem, but it was still very early. He had only just had his first session with Alicen.

  A small group of chatting nurses turned the corner, and their conversation fell hushed as they offered Victoria knowing, polite smiles. She didn’t return the gesture. It wasn’t a requirement that people like her, only that they respect her. That was the way her uncle Donald had run the facility when he was head administrator, and Victoria now mimicked his leading. The nurses’ conversation picked back up after they had passed Victoria and put a safe distance between them.

  There had been a time when she’d longed for companionship with those who lived and worked on campus. But that was before she’d learned her truth. She hadn’t understood the reasons Uncle Donald had kept her separate from others until those reasons had made themselves crystal clear to her. One more thing her uncle had been right about. Turned out, he’d been right about everything.

  Victoria glanced at her watch. It was time. She walked down the hallway, turned the corner, and stepped into a large, open common room. Patients dotted the area. Nurses and visitors accomp
anied some; others occupied space alone. She could feel how her presence drew eyes as she crossed the room and exited through the back door to the outstretching grassy landscape.

  The air was still, the afternoon sun coming down from its high perch in the sky. Her feet moved down the path from memory. She’d grown up on these outside paths, knew every inch of the campus; every room was familiar to her. None more than the small, humble cabin that occupied the back left corner of the property. The home she’d been brought to live in with her uncle.

  She had spotty memories of her life before Clover Mountain. None of them were pleasant; none of them she liked to dwell on. Her father, Donald’s younger brother, and her mother had been trash. And they’d done what trash did: cluttered the earth and left their toxic mark on the planet even after their deaths. Victoria had been that stain, and she’d spent the last twenty-five years trying to clean up her space.

  Everyone in town could tell the story of poor Victoria Flowers. The child whose abusive, drunken father had shot and killed his wife and teenage son before turning the gun on himself after a bender late one night in October. All that remained after the violent implosion was a trembling six-year-old girl hidden in her bedroom closet. A tragic story indeed.

  People had often said how lucky Victoria was to have survived. Some luck, she thought. Her father had simply forgotten she was there to execute. An unfortunate side effect of being powerless and unseen. Traits that had followed her into her teenage years. Traits she’d finally destroyed. She wasn’t powerless and unseen anymore. She’d made sure of that.

  A couple minutes’ walk now separated her from the large main building that stood in the center of campus as the small house she’d called home came into view. A shiver ran down her spine, and she bit back the twitch that threatened to claim her.

  She could still remember the day she’d been brought to Clover Mountain. The pudgy social worker with frayed, graying hair and dull brown eyes had told Victoria she was fortunate as she’d driven her decaying tan car onto the campus.

  “Having a family member willing to claim custody of ya,” she’d said, “that makes you blessed in my world. Don’t screw it up, kid.”

  If only you had taken her advice, little Victoria.

  Victoria swallowed back her uncle’s haunting voice and approached the cabin door. She dug for the key in her pocket. Her hand twitched. She paused before placing the key into its slot and let her conflicting emotions swirl through her chest. To be so drawn to a place—a place that had served as her only source of comfort—but also to fear it was deeply chilling. She took a breath and slipped the key into the dead bolt. Click.

  The wooden door used to feel much heavier. She used to be much smaller. Weaker. Unable to defend against the darkness in the world. She’d gained some strength since then, and now the door pushed open with ease.

  Victoria stepped inside and flicked a nearby switch, illuminating the open bottom floor. It was modest; a midsize kitchen that bled into a dining room and sitting area occupied most of the space on the first level. The upper floor, easily reached by the narrow staircase against the left wall, was composed of three bedrooms and a single bathroom. Normal, Victoria had assumed. Nothing unusual about the place she’d called home.

  But then the things that made homes suspicious were never seen at first glance. People didn’t usually set their dirty laundry out on the couch. They hid it in their closets and sheds. Sealed with locks and fake smiles. The real trouble was found in the lessons taught and punishments received away from the watchful eyes of the neighbors. Not that the neighbors were watching very often. They were too busy covering up their own secrets.

  Trips down memory lane, I see.

  Victoria huffed and shook off her uncle’s voice.

  She’s bewitched you.

  No, Victoria thought, I’ve barely spoken to her.

  True, but you know her. You’re the same. Your trouble is the same.

  Victoria’s chin twitched, and she walked deeper into the cabin. She made her usual rounds. Checking to make sure everything was exactly as she’d left it. She didn’t stay here most nights. In fact, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept in this place.

  She spent nights on the couch in her office, and the attached bathroom and closet served well enough for everything else. But she still came here daily. It was part of a sort of routine that had developed. The cabin had been left to her with the assumption that she would move in. Victoria had considered remodeling it a couple of times but never could pull the trigger. She didn’t want it to change, but she couldn’t stand to be here in the state it was in, either.

  She took the stairs up to the second floor and without slowing turned the corner to the room at the end of the hall. The door was closed. It was always closed. She paused before opening it, something else she often did, as if preparing herself for him not to be there.

  Some days she wished he would be. Others she was glad he wasn’t. Victoria twisted the knob, opened the door, and was met with the same stale smell that always occupied her uncle’s bedroom. She didn’t step over the threshold; she was afraid to. A product of learning her place early. Even without him there, it felt like breaking a rule.

  Following rules is for your benefit. Hate to become like your father, wouldn’t you?

  “I’m not my father,” Victoria whispered.

  I had such hopes that you wouldn’t be.

  “He was a worm, filth; both of them were.”

  Yes, and you came to me with their filth. I tried to make you clean.

  “You failed.”

  No, little Victoria, you failed.

  A pulse of guilt spiked through her chest. Flashes from her past flittered through the hallway behind her like holograms. She turned and watched as a smaller version of herself trembled under the vicious force of her uncle’s wrath. He’d never needed to lay a violent hand on her; his words had been enough. They had drenched her soul and reminded her of what she was. He’d been trying to make her better. Trying to help her pay for the sins of her father.

  And he’d succeeded. Just not in the way he’d thought.

  He was right; she had failed, but she had fixed it. And she’d helped others fix their failures as well. Pay back their debts. She’d helped them make amends for their darkness. Deal with their trouble. Live out what was owed of them. A smile crept over her mouth, and she shut her uncle’s bedroom door.

  And you believe you can fix her?

  Victoria swallowed as she moved toward the bedroom she no longer slept in. She opened the door without hesitation and stepped inside. It was dim, the light from outside barely piercing the shades as they swayed from the overhead air-conditioning vent.

  “Why do you keep bringing her up?”

  There was a pause before he returned. Does she remind you of who you are?

  Victoria pushed back the painful memories that her uncle’s voice was drawing to the surface.

  Of what you’ve done?

  Anger rolled in her chest. When she’d been a child, his verbal abuse had driven her to strive harder for his affection. She shuddered to think of it now in these dark familiar hallways and chased the memories away.

  Then they’d committed their evil. Knowing what she was and what that meant, Victoria had destroyed any trace of it. And then she’d needed to destroy her uncle, too.

  The love she longed for so desperately had changed to hate. The plan had come to her in the dark hours of morning, shifting and formulating. It took her a decade to build up the strength and set her plan into motion. Constantly reminding herself there was no other solution until she believed it. Patience had been key. Control, which gave her steady resolve and absolution.

  Ethylene glycol, commonly found in antifreeze, was easy to extract, odorless, colorless, and sweet. Slipped into his tea, just enough so that it took months. Slowly metabolizing to razor crystals that sliced and diced his kidneys.

  His death had been ruled kidney failure. Not uncommon in a
man his age, and without the proper testing machinery, which the hospital in Red Lodge didn’t have, there was no way to detect the poison. And no suspicion to press the matter. Her uncle had been a master at keeping dirty laundry hidden.

  Victoria snapped closed the perfectly kept box of hidden secrets that lay in her brain and rolled her neck around, letting the motion press out the terror that had almost been unleashed. She was still in control. Even though the familiar spots of pain ached on her scarred wrists. She was still in control. Even as pictures of the sharp tools she kept hidden away in her dresser materialized behind her eyes. She was still in control. He was taunting her with her old weakness.

  Her teacher and bully.

  “She reminds me of what I’m capable of doing,” Victoria said. “I’ll fix her.”

  If you don’t, there’ll be hell to pay. And you’ll be paying it.

  “I will.”

  You’re weak, little Victoria.

  “I was strong enough to kill you and erase your stain.”

  Her uncle’s voice fizzled out, and Victoria felt a familiar buzz of power circulate through her body. She inhaled and closed the door to her bedroom, moving back toward the stairs.

  Yes, she thought, she was in control of everything.

  10

  Something tugged on Alicen’s shoulder, shaking her softly and rousing her from sleep. She opened her eyes slowly. The room was covered in darkness except for a tiny sliver of moonlight piercing through a broken shade. Alicen lifted her head off the pillow and strained with tired eyes to gaze around the room.

  Someone shifted out from the dark corner and into the single strand of silver light. The girl—same small white dress, same pigtails. She moved toward the bed on tiptoes as Alicen pushed herself up to a sitting position. Somewhere in her mind she thought maybe she should be afraid. But she wasn’t. In fact, she didn’t even feel surprised. Odd, she thought.

  “What—?” Alicen started.

  The little girl put a finger over her lips, and Alicen obeyed.

  “Follow me,” the girl whispered and started creeping toward the door.