I shook my head and her lip twitched as she tsked. “Didn’t suppose you had — but you never know. It’s like a windigo.”
I searched my Risperidone-addled brain. “North American monster. A demon or something, no?”
She half nodded. “A cannibal to be precise, with maybe a little magic thrown in — don’t look at me like that, Ricky. It’s not some mystical insight. I studied First Nations culture and legends as part of my anthropology course in the nineties. Was interested in the stories my grandfather used to tell me.”
Marnie coddled the baby. A bottle appeared from inside her bag, the nib disappearing into the baby’s eager mouth. “Wechuge is the Western, not so psychotic version of the windigo — if there is such a thing as a nicer, nonpsychotic cannibal.”
I gave her a terse smile. “I’m pretty sure Murray won’t go for a cannibalistic First Nations monster as a murder suspect.”
Marnie shook her head. “Never said it was. One of the stories my grandfather told was about a Ukrainian fellow out in Saskatchewan in the early twenties. According to my grandfather, the Ukrainian fellow made a deal with a wechuge spirit to get vengeance on the folks he thought wronged him — farmers, local police, and then a priest, though the priest probably deserved it, even if the others didn’t.”
I shook my head and braced myself as the Chinese woman in calico appeared behind Marnie. She was a faded visage now, barely perceptible if I angled my head the right way so that the sunlight drowned her out. “Completely different from a dead Chinese woman.”
Marnie shrugged. “Wechuge or not, the man was real enough. Caught and hanged him for murder — and worse.” Marnie tsked again. “The wechuge’s price was flesh from the victims. He ate a bit of all of them, strips of flesh, fried up like bacon with his breakfast. Farfetched, but still, my grandfather described those same markings. Three strips carved out of the skin. There’s even a public record. I found it a few years back. And you’re missing my point.”
“Which is?” I did my best to ignore the ghost’s grotesque pantomime of strangling Marnie. The figments of my imagination no longer satisfied with misbehaving, now acting out. I clenched my teeth and forced a smile as Marnie placed the baby back in the stroller, pocketing the bottle and accessories.
“If a crazy Ukrainian man a hundred years ago figured he’d made a deal with a devil to exact mystical vengeance on a whole town through consuming their flesh, who knows what your killer came up with? That’s the thing that doesn’t change about people. They always try to justify their craziness.” Marnie winced as she stood, from sore joints and stiffness. “And on that morbid note, I hope you find the baby.”
“You say that every time.”
She waved over her shoulder. “I mean it every time. And try to take care of yourself. You never do.”
I focused away from the ghost on the baby fussing in the stroller, her bare foot with the dark birthmark kicking free.
I went back inside and checked through the pictures that both Yoshi and Murray had sent me of June. None of my contacts had given me any inclination they’d heard of a baby being moved. It had been a long shot at best. I stopped the scroll of my screen on one of June’s social media images. A birthmark, dark and prominent on the baby’s foot. Very much like Marnie’s granddaughter’s.
My hands shook. It couldn’t be. I’d seen the baby with Marnie before... starting the night June had died.
Halving my Risperidone had been a mistake.
But what if it wasn’t? Marnie would understand if I just went to check.
I ran up the steps to her apartment — 308 was what she’d told me. I banged on the door three times. “Marnie? Answer the door, it’s important.”
The door swung open before I could knock a fourth. The woman who answered was blond, late thirties or early forties, Caucasian. It took a moment for my mouth to recover.
“Ah, is Marnie here?” I asked.
She stared at me as if I were crazy.
“I’m sorry, I live in the building,” I stammered. “She must have moved out. I’m sorry.” I hated my fluster, I’d had enough practice with this over the years, but when they surprised me...
I stumbled back and waved as she closed the door. My heart pounded so hard on the flight of stairs back to my own apartment that I barely noticed turning my lock.
I opened my laptop and entered: Marnie Wallace 1990s. That was the decade Marnie had said she’d graduated in. There she was staring back at me from the screen. Marnie Wallace, Criminology, third year, survived by a daughter. Death, 1997.
I closed the computer, my mouth dry. My memory had conjured her from a case file I’d read. My mind had fooled me. Worse than last time.
Yet I’d seen the baby before I’d seen June’s body, the night before, the stroller creaking down the sidewalk.
It took me two tries to raise the phone to my ear.
“Ricky?” Murray answered on the fourth ring.
“Murray, I’m—” Where to start? I couldn’t get the image of the birthmark out of my mind.
“You don’t sound so good.”
I had to tell him, to say something. “I think I’ve got a lead. On the baby.”
“Won’t do much good, Ricky. We found her in the water an hour ago.”
“I know this is going to sound crazy — crazier than normal.” How to convince him? I wetted my lips. “Have you ever heard of something called a windigo?”
More silence, followed by a sigh. “I knew it was too soon to bring you back in.”
He didn’t believe me. My heart pooled into a dark pit. “No, I’m fine.” I ran my hand violently through my hair, longer than I should have let it grow.
“No, you’re not.” His voice was firm. “Just stay there. I’m coming over.”
“Murray, wait. Shit.” He’d hung up. I redialed but there was no answer.
“Don’t feel so bad, Ricky.”
I spun around. Marnie was behind me, holding the infant. This time I could make out their faint translucence.
“You weren’t exactly coming into this with a full deck of cards.” She smiled at me, a glimpse of teeth that were dark, pointed, menacing. She nodded at the binder and laptop. “Was supposed to have a granddaughter but my daughter wasn’t so good with keeping to the straight-and-narrow. Little girl didn’t stand a chance. Died a few days after she was born, a poor sick little thing.”
I tried to speak but words caught in my mouth, dry from the medication.
“Reality is such a strange, fragile thing, isn’t it? And sanity. That’s something I suppose you value, though, Ricky, much like I value my grandchildren.”
June appeared behind Marnie, wielding a kitchen knife that she drove into her back, over and over. It made no difference.
“You can’t be real,” I finally managed.
Marnie arched an eyebrow. “Wouldn’t you like to know? That’s the problem with the sane nowadays, they never believe what’s possible until it’s too late.”
There was a knock on the door. “Ricky?” Murray called.
“You should get that,” Marnie said, but both she and June were standing in my way.
I let the knocking continue. I didn’t plead for my life, didn’t beg. I still wasn’t sure any of it was real.
“You killed them,” I whispered.
She inclined her head and tsked. “Think of me less as a cannibal, more of a carrion cleaner. I take people’s burdens, the ones festering under their skin. June’s unwanted family, this woman’s guilt over not raising a child right, the Ukrainian man’s vengeance for a murder left unpunished. I take their despair.” Her eyes glowed with warmth. “Your madness. I’m not just a killer or a cannibal. I’m a release.”