Page 57 of What You Left Me

It’s all too much.

I head back up the stairs, my eyes on my feet as they drag forward, each step heavier than the last.

29

A waltz, lilting and slow, booms from overhead speakers. Paired up in twos on a parquet floor in the middle of Petra’s living room, people dance along in synchronicity. Everyone wears masks. Most are gold with long, pointed noses. Some are silver and fitted to the face. Petra, in a mask of the latter fashion and an ornate lavender ball gown that tapers in at the waist then flairs out in dramatic fashion, dances her own flowing waltz, weaving in and out of the pairs, exhilarated by the mystery of it all. She is the only one without a partner.

A man abandons his companion to grab Petra. She does not stop dancing, not even for this rude interruption, and the music accelerates with her actions, building to a feverish tempo. The man has no choice but to accompany her, and though Petra does not need a partner, she allows it, so long as she has the lead. As she pivots the man, he uses his free hand to tug on the long snout of his mask. It can’t be removed.

“It’s me,” he says.

Petra doesn’t react. The man claws at his mask again, but it will not budge. Instead it changes, the long nose growing into autumn leaves.

“Who are you?” Petra asks, twirling the man with the morphing mask, feigning amusement.

He yanks on the leafy branch representing his nose, desperate to remove it. “Martin!” he cries. His mask morphs again, turning blue, almost melting into his skin.

Petra spins him in a constant, cruel circle. “You see, I’m having too much fun to be bothered by you,” she says. She speaks like she’s older than she is. Wiser and less afraid.

The man grabs her shoulders, trying to make his eyes meet hers. He digs his heels into the ground to stop the whirling.

“Fine,” Petra says. “But I already told your friend about your letter.”

The violins reach a shattering crescendo. The floor vibrates. Dancing pairs make frenzied figure eights around Petra and the masked man, who she knows to be Martin, though it isn’t a Martin she wants to know anymore.

“I know you did,” he says. His mask changes again, becoming almost animalistic, made of rotting flesh from unknown sources, looking less like a mask and more like excess skin on a feral beast. “Thank you.”

The ceiling disappears. A bolt of lightning strikes the floor between where the two stand.

“I didn’t know how to help you in your last dream, and then I disappeared,” he tells her.

The dancers around them continue. The quality of their movement sours with the music. Everything is minor chords and dissonance. Disjointed, ever-changing tempos. Rain begins to pour down.

“What do you mean?” she asks, feigning innocence.

“In your other dream. With that guy in the car. I wasn’t thinking right. I was trying to become nothingness to see if that would make me wake up.”

She turns from him. “I don’t need you to help me. I do fine on my own.”

“No, I know.” He shakes his head, rubbing his hands where his temples would be if there wasn’t a mask covering his face. “I didn’t mean it to come off like that. I don’t know what was going on, but the part I saw before I left didn’t look good.” He pauses. “I meant I’m sorry that happened.”

“It’s none of your business.”

“No, it isn’t. But if something happened to you, I’m still upset.”

She picks up her heavy skirt and runs. Her house no longer has any doors. It is one endless, ceilingless living room, the parquet floor expands, building to follow her every step. Unable to hold her dress up and run at the same time, she stumbles and falls, helplessly, soundlessly.

Martin catches up. The powerful spray of rain has made his mask more heinous. He looks like a creature risen from deep beneath the ground.

“Don’t touch me!” Petra tries to say, but it’s as if she’s only mouthing it. The chaos is too loud. “Leave me alone!”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he tells her, and he means it. “I’m scared too. They say you shouldn’t fight quicksand, but then how do you escape? I’m running out of ideas.” He crumples. “I need help.”

Petra considers relenting. He’s understood her, even when she can’t be heard. She thinks better of it and continues cowering.

Martin is careful not to touch any part of her, even the trim of her puffed gown. “I’m stuck between living and dying. That’s what I’ve been trying to say to you all this time.”

“I already know that,” Petra says. Her head is buried in her arm, and the rain sneaks around her hair to form a puddle in the basin created from her elbow and forearm. “There are brain bleeds. We don’t know how bad it is.” The water tickles her nose as she speaks. She quite likes the feeling of the cool refreshing wetness underneath her own mask. It makes her feel safe. Close. Protected from the monster on Martin’s face.