Rose Madder

“Better come back, Rose!” he called.

“Last chance!”

“Come get me,” she called in return, and her voice sounded subtly different now, although just how it was different he could not have said.

“Come get me, Norman, it’s not far now.” No, it wouldn’t be. He’d chased her damned near halfway across the country, and then he’d chased her into another world, or a dream, or some damned thing, but now she was all out of ru

“Nowhere left to go, sweetcakes,” Norman said, and began to walk toward the sound of her voice, his hands rolling into fists as he went.

She ran into the circular clearing and saw herself, kneeling by the one live tree, back turned, head bowed, as if in prayer or deep meditation. Not me, Rosie thought nervously. That’s not really me. But it could have been. With her back turned, the woman kneeling at the base of the “pomegranate tree” could have been her twin. She was the same height, the same build, possessed of the same long legs and wide hips. She was wearing the same rose madder chiton-what the black woman had called a zat-and her hair fell down the center of her back to her waist in a blonde plait identical to Rosie’s. The only difference was that both of this woman’s arms were bare, because Rosie was wearing her armlet. That probably wasn’t a difference Norman would notice, though. He’d never seen Rosie wearing such an item, and she doubted that he would have picked up on it in any case, not the way he was now. Then she saw something he might notice-the dark patches on the back of Rose Madder’s neck and on her upper arms. They swarmed like hungry shadows. Rosie came to a halt, looking toward the woman who knelt facing the tree in the moonlight.

“I’ve come,” she said uncertainly.

“Yes, Rosie,” the other said in her sweet, greedy voice.

“You’ve come, but not yet quite far enough. I want you there.” She pointed to the broad white steps leading downward beneath the word MAZE.

“Not far-a dozen steps should do, if you lie flat on them. Just far enough so that you won’t have to see. You won’t want to see this… although you can watch if you decide you do want to.” She laughed. The sound was full of genuine amusement, and that, Rosie thought, was what made it so authentically awful.

“In any case,” she resumed, “it may be well that you hear what passes between us. Yes, I think that may be very well.”

“He may not think you’re me, even in the moonlight.” Again Rose Madder laughed. The sound of it made the hair on the nape of Rosie’s neck stir.

“Why would he not, little Rosie?”

“You have… well… blemishes. Even in this light I can see them.”

“Yes, you can,” Rose Madder said, still laughing.

“You can, but he won’t. Have you forgotten that Erinyes is blind?” Rosie thought to say, You’re confused, ma’am, this is my husband we’re talking about, not the bull in the maze. Then she remembered the mask Norman was wearing, and said nothing.

“Go quickly,” Rose Madder said.

“I hear him coming. Down the steps, little Rosie… and pass not too close by me.” She paused, then added in her terrible, thoughtful voice:

“It’s not safe.”

Norman jogged along the path, listening. There was a moment or two when he thought he heard Rose talking, but that could have been his imagination. It didn’t matter in any case. If there was someone with her, he would take that person down, too. If he was lucky, it might be Dirty Gertie-maybe the overgrown diesel-dyke had found her way into this dream, too, and Norman could have the pleasure of putting a.45 slug into her fat left tit. The thought of shooting Gertie had gotten him almost ru

It was chilly on the steps leading down to the maze, and Rosie noticed a smell that she had missed on her previous trip-a dank, decayed smell. Mingled in it were odors of feces and rotted meat and wild animal. That disquieting thought (can bulls climb stairs?) came to her again, but there was no real fear in it this time. Erinyes was no longer in the maze, unless the wider world-the world of the painting-was also a maze. Oh yes, that strange voice, the one which was not quite the voice of Practical-Sensible, said calmly. This world, all worlds. And many bulls in each one. These myths hum with truth, Rosie. That’s their power. That’s why they survive. She sprawled flat on the steps, breathing hard, heart pounding. She was terrified, but she also felt a certain bitter eagerness in herself, and knew it for what it was: just another mask for her rage. The hands in front of her face were closed into fists. Do it, she thought. Do it, kill the bastard, set me free. I want to hear him die. Rosie, you don’t mean it! That was Practical-Sensible, sounding both horrified and sickened. Say you don’t mean it! Except she couldn’t, because part of her did. Most of her did.

The path he was on finished in a circular clearing, and here she was. Finally, here she was. His rambling Rose. Kneeling with her back to him, wearing that short red dress (he was almost sure it was red), wearing her whore-dyed hair down her back in a kind of pigtail. He stood where he was at the edge of the clearing, looking at her. It was Rose, all right, no question about that, yet she had nevertheless changed. Her ass was smaller, for one thing, but that wasn’t the main thing. Her attitude had changed. And what did that mean? That it was time for a little attitude-adjustment, of course.

“Why’d you go and dye your goddam hair?” he asked her.

“You look like a fucking slut!”

“No, you don’t understand,” Rose said calmly, without turning.

“It was dyed before. It’s always been blonde underneath, Norman. I dyed it to fool you.” He took two big steps into the clearing, his rage rising as it always did when she disagreed with him or contradicted him, when anyone disagreed with him or contradicted him. And the things she had said tonight… the things she had said to him…

“The fuck you did!” he exclaimed.

“The fuck I didn’t,” she replied, and then compounded this astoundingly disrespectful statement with a contemptuous little laugh. But she did not turn around. Norman took another two steps toward her, then stopped again. His hands hung in fists at his sides. He sca