Queen V.'s Arc

Chapter 8 of 13

Queen V. went back to bed but did not sleep. She lay beside Paul and listened to him breathe. Her eyes stayed open. When she finally drifted off, she dreamed that Alan James was Paul in the cellar, sitting in the recliner with a beer in his hand. She woke in a sweat. She got up and walked to the window. The sky was still dark. A puddle stretched across the driveway, reflecting the porch light in ripples. Beyond it, near the property line, she saw shapes moving. They looked like people at first, hunched over near what looked like blankets spread on the pavement. Then one stood up and she saw it clearly: a foam beer bottle with legs, wobbling near a wooden sign that read "Beer Creatures Sighting" in carved letters. She blinked hard and looked again. They were still there, three of them now, clustered around the blankets like they were having a picnic. She backed away from the window and sat on the edge of the bed. Paul stirred beside her but didn't wake. She pressed her palms against her eyes until she saw spots. When she looked out the window again, the shapes were gone. Only the puddle remained, still rippling from wind or something else. She didn't know if she had seen them or dreamed them. She didn't know if Alan James had really been in the cellar this morning or if that was the dream too. She stayed at the window until the sky began to lighten. The puddle stopped rippling. The property line looked normal. She made a decision then: she would not go back to the cellar. Not today, not tomorrow, not until the weekend was over and her guests were gone. Whatever was happening to her—the confusion, the exhaustion, the images that wouldn't stay put—it would stop once she had control again. She would run her event exactly as planned, and when it was perfect, when everyone had witnessed it, she would sleep. The cellar could wait. It had waited this long.