The Hunting Party

by Lucy Foley

Katie has always been there to usurp me, in the past. She and Miranda have always been so tight-knit. So much so that they’re almost more like sisters than friends. In the past I’ve felt excluded by this, all that closeness and history. It doesn’t leave any new friendship with room to breathe. So a secret part of me is—well, rather pleased.

Hmmmm

Heather is a good person. He is not. Before he came here, he did a terrible thing. More than one thing, actually. A person like her should be protected from someone like him.

Dougie is a badddd boy

He has taken lives, many of them in fact. And not just animal. He knows better than anyone that it is not something to boast about. It is a dark place from which you can never quite return. It does something to you, the first time. An essential change somewhere deep in the soul, the amputation of something important. The first time is the worst, but with each death the soul is wounded further. After a while there is nothing left but scar tissue.

I beg your finest pardon????

Remove all of the distractions, and here, in the silence and solitude, the demons they have kept at bay catch up with them.

If the guest had somehow left by taxi—or even on foot—the evidence would be here. There was nothing.

Mom im scared

have found myself falling back on Emma’s company instead. A definite third choice.

Thus ismy actual worst nightmare

For a moment the old dark feeling threatens to surface, that sense of being watched. The feeling I have carried with me for a decade, now, since it all began.

As we stumble along the path to the Lodge, I happen to look over toward the sauna, where I saw the second statue, earlier, the one that had been facing toward us. But, funny thing, though I search for it in the light thrown from the building, assuming it must be hidden in shadow, I can’t see it. The statue is gone.

Absolutely not

Some people, given just the right amount of pressure, taken out of their usual, comfortable environments, don’t need much encouragement at all to become monsters. And sometimes you just get a strong sense about people, and you can’t explain it; you simply know it, in some deeper part of yourself.

I’m not saying that I have a drinking problem; I don’t. But I don’t ever drink for pleasure. I do it out of necessity. I use it as another painkiller: to blunt the edge of things, to alleviate the chronic, aching torment of memory.

Well damn heather

Look at her now. It’s difficult to be objective, as I’ve known her so long that she’s practically a sister, but I can see how some men might find her attractive. Sure: she’ll never be pretty, but she has learned to make the best of herself.

I cant with this woman

What was so odd, I thought, was that Emma didn’t even seem particularly shocked. I remember thinking that she must have seen this side of Mark before.

I know immediately that I can’t take one—I can’t handle the loss of control. The one time I did it went horribly wrong.

Miranda is the sort of friend who makes you bold. Who can make you feel six feet tall, almost as radiant as she is, as though you are borrowing a little of her light. Or she can make you feel like shit.

And I’d understand then why my mother seemed to use alcohol like medicine.

I enjoy the idea of being the one with the perfect life, the friend who has it all. Always ready to step in and offer advice when needed, from her lofty position. It would take more than a few arguments, a few months of infrequent sex, for me to want to give that up.

“I’m very sorry to tell you that she’s dead.”

And then, perhaps in the majority, there are those who settle. And I think we’re the sensible ones. Because love doesn’t always mean longevity.

This pales in comparison to Mark’s experience. His dad beat him. Not a couple of ill-advised slaps for being naughty. Proper, old-fashioned, barbaric beating.

Mark desperately does not want to turn out like his father. But I also know that, at times, he is frightened that he is becoming him.