The Tribunal

by Lily Degorge

  It always starts with a dream.

   That is what Quirine thinks as she washes the knife with shaking hands, the eerie hum of voices on the television just barely intelligible over the faucet: when you have a dream, you do anything to get it, and soon enough, you face your ruin.

    Quirine had once dreamed of a better life. A place of her own on the West Coast, a steady job as a nurse in some small hospital in town, maybe a dog, definitely a husband who swept her off her feet and who she’d grow old with.

   She thinks of how incredibly stupid she’d been to think a man would be the key to everything.

   When she can see her reflection clearly in the knife once more, she drops it into the sink with a clatter that reverberates deep in her body and turns off the faucet.

    The television drowns out the sound of her labored breathing.

#

   It was the coldest winter Raleigh had seen in years, and Quirine had felt stranded in the small apartment she rented with her boyfriend, Joseph.

    Being down a car—Joseph had taken to using hers after his transmission blew and it’d been too expensive to fix—and having the streets covered in icy, gray slush, Quirine had few options on what to do with her life.

   She’d always joked that having no responsibilities would be a good thing. To get to stay home all the time, never worrying about a thing. Who could find anything wrong with that? But no one prepared you for the cut-off from society, the boredom that came from life revolving around a singular person.

    Admittingly, Joseph was not great company. He’d been on edge these last few months, working double the hours, always exhausted, always looking for a fight. He found that his fists on her flesh were a welcome relief from the pressures in his life.

   But he was gone so often, either working or cozying up in one of the bars downtown, that it wasn’t just him alone that had driven her to the brink of insanity. It was the crushing weight of silence the apartment had; this place had become her tomb.

   One afternoon, rain battering against the apartment window, a half-eaten bag of chips discarded at her side, Quirine sat on the dingy living room couch and flicked through the episodes of a crime show she’d started watching. She had already watched most of the good stuff and all that remained were these morbid shows.

   At first, they served as awful reminders of everything bad about the world. But somewhere along the way, it grew to be some sort of sick comfort, to watch these episodes and be reminded that, hey, life sucks, but at least you’re not dead!

   She’d sit on the couch in the living room, wrapped in an old quilt beginning to fray at the edges, the glow of the television illuminating the darkness.

   Oddly enough, the crime shows kept her sane.

   She saw almost all of them by now, skipping the one about a child and pressing play on the one about some forty-something-year-old woman strangled to death by her boyfriend.

   Quirine shifted as the episode played, frowning as it switched between all sorts of photos and security footage and medical records and crying family members and shocked neighbors.

   The woman’s name was Eleanor Bowen, and she’d been a mother, an avid reader, a customer service employee, and a raging alcoholic. She hadn’t been sober when she was killed. Hadn’t been sober for a long time before that, either.

   Some people said maybe she deserved it; maybe it was karma for the things, the people, in her life she destroyed. Maybe bad things happened to people who deserved it.

   Quirine thought that was a fucked-up thing to say about a dead woman.

   When Eleanor’s daughter spoke on the screen, she had tears pouring down her face.

   “She did terrible things. But that didn’t make her terrible,” the child said.

   They showed photos of Eleanor, her blonde hair threaded through with gray billowing around her as she smiled broadly at the camera, standing at the edge of Niagara Falls surrounded by family.

   Then they showed a picture of the bruising on Eleanor’s crushed neck—Quirine remembered a fight with Joseph that ended after he’d held her against the wall by her neck until her face was nearly purple.

   Eleanor fought back, the narrator said. She fought back and, in the end, it made no difference at all.

   When the credits rolled, Quirine stared at her reflection on the large screen. She didn’t remember putting it there, but her hand gently clutched her neck. She promptly dropped it into her lap.

   “Jesus,” she muttered. She squeezed her eyes shut.

   It was easy to get lost in these stories; that’s why she liked it. It made her focus on the danger outside of the apartment and distracted her from the one within. But this time felt different; like the person she’d been watching could very well be her one day.

   She pictured herself on the television, her tanned skin all purple and blotchy, her brown hair matted with dirt, her brown eyes lifeless.

   Quirine got so lost in the spiraling thoughts of her own murder that, when she turned toward the window overlooking the lake and found Eleanor Bowen tucked into the corner, staring blankly, she didn’t move an inch. She stopped breathing, though. She felt the whoosh of air sucked out of her as she maintained eye contact.

   “You should kill him,” Eleanor rasped. Her throat was purple and blotchy. “You should gut him like a fish and throw him in the lake where he belongs.”

   Quirine stared in horror and said nothing.

   Eleanor’s jaw twitched as she raised her fist and knocked it back so hard into the wall that its picture frame fell to the ground and shattered into a million pieces.

   She smiled when Quirine shrieked, nothing but menace in her gray eyes. For a moment, it seemed like Eleanor might step closer, but her eyes flickered towards the sound of keys jangling outside.

   Quirine glanced toward the door. She released a small cry when she looked back and found the corner empty and the frame perfectly intact on the wall.

   Quirine was still staring at it when the door flew open, her shaking hands clenching the blanket around her shoulders.

    Joseph barreled in, cursing at the pouring rain. He had a pack of beer in hand. His face was dirty, and black grease stained his cheeks and arms from working in the garage downtown.

   His eyes met hers as he shut the door, taking in the pajamas she hadn’t bothered to change out of.

    “Just been watching TV all day?” he asked.

     It took everything in her to tear her gaze from the wall, looking to Joseph and nodding like an idiot, her mouth refusing to speak.

    Joseph let out a humorless laugh, banging the pack of beer on the counter.

    “You could’ve cleaned up,” he said from the kitchen.

     She remembered the plate left in the sink from lunch and resisted the urge to let out a long sigh.

    “Sorry.” She untangled herself from the couch, glancing at the still-empty corner, and hurried into the kitchen. “There’s a plate in the fridge. Chicken and rice.”

    Joseph took a swig from the bottle. “Heat it up for me. Gotta take a piss.”

   Quirine did what he said, taking off the foil and crushing it in her hands. She tossed it into the garbage bin. Pressed start on the microwave. Cleaned her dish in the sink and put it away.

   By the time Joseph finished up, his plate was set out on the small table in the kitchen, steaming. He took it to the living room and plopped down on the couch with a heavy sigh.

   He grimaced when he saw what she’d been watching. “Why are you always watching this creepy shit?”

   “I’m kind of over it now.”

    They spent the next two hours watching some pawn shop reality show that Joseph couldn’t get enough of, his hands finding the skin beneath her sweater between commercial breaks, her empty gaze on the wall as he did what he wanted. He tasted like cheap beer.

   Sometime after midnight, he retreated to bed and she stood in the kitchen, scrubbing his dirty plate.

   Quirine was exhausted, eyes struggling to stay open. She finished the dish and shut the faucet off.

   When she reached for the dishcloth, she nearly dropped the plate when she caught a flicker of movement in her peripheral—a glimpse of blonde hair in the kitchen's fluorescent light that vanished when her head whipped toward it.

   She stood still, all but her shaking hands, looking around.

   There is nothing there, she told herself. You’re just tired.

   Quickly, she dried the dish, placed it in the cabinet, and rushed to the bedroom, climbing in beside Joseph’s sleeping body and pulling the ratty comforter over her body.

   Sleep did not find her easily.

#

   The next morning, Quirine awoke long after Joseph had left for work.

   For a while, she laid nestled under the covers, blinking in the late morning light that filtered through the blinds.

   She wanted to stay in the comfort of the bed, stuck between the limbo of sleep and alertness. In it, she heard a voice. Lovely, soft, anchoring her in bed. She began to drift off again, and still the voice went on.

   Strange, she thought.

   She couldn’t tell the exact moment the peace leeched away, replaced by a sinking fear. Just that a cold swept through her so strong that her eyes flew open, her arms pushing her up.

   Something was not right.

   The voice continued, a light hum that came from the kitchen.

   It felt like a dream when Quirine pushed the comforter off, her bare feet meeting the carpet. She walked toward the voice, and though her heart hammered in her chest, she couldn’t stop herself from opening the door and padding toward it.

   In the kitchen, Eleanor stood before the five empty beer bottles lining the counter, facing away. Her arms were crossed, fingers tapping her bicep. She swayed as she hummed, lost to the world. She wore a blue-and-white-striped sweater and dark jeans that hung loose around her hips. She had no shoes on.

    Quirine swallowed.

   The humming stopped. An unnatural quiet filled the room, a chill sweeping down her spine as Eleanor turned to face her. When she smiled, it was warm, her blue eyes crinkling at the edges, and it felt so incredibly wrong.

   “You’re not real,” Quirine said. She took several steps back until her thighs hit the couch and she could put no more space between them. “I’ve gone crazy.”

   “Crazy?” Eleanor laughed, tipping her head back slightly. “Everyone loves to throw that word around.”

    Quirine shook her head. “You’re dead!”

   Eleanor frowned. “Of course I’m dead, you idiot.”

   Quirine let out a shocked laugh, then another when Eleanor Bowen’s face didn’t so much as twitch. She wiped a hand down the side of her face. “I must be dreaming.”

    Eleanor scoffed. “This is not a dream. I’m real. I’m here because I heard you. I felt you.” She walked towards Quirine. “I felt the despair and the fear. I recognized it.”

   Quirine’s hands clenched at her side as Eleanor walked forward, until they were a breath apart. 

   “You need to go away,” Quirine said, her eyes clenched shut.

   “I cannot. I’m here because you want me to be, whether you admit it to yourself or not.”

   “Why would I want you here?”

   “You know why,” Eleanor whispered, trailing a finger along Quirine’s jaw.

    Quirine shook her head, lips trembling.

    “For nearly two decades, I’ve had to come to terms with my fate,” Eleanor said. “That I was killed, that there was never any other path for me. But here you are, still alive. You have choices, and you’re going to make the right one—the one I should’ve made.”

   “And what is the right choice?”

   Eleanor glared. “You know better than anyone that people like him don’t listen. They don’t get punished. They charm, they manipulate, they spin the narrative. And when the façade drops, it’s too late for us. I didn’t get to live. But you can. So, we kill him.”

   Eleanor said it like a judge declaring a sentence, like this was the only right choice, leaving no room to debate. And Quirine shook as tears pricked her eyes.

   “I would never do something like that,” she whispered.

   Eleanor sputtered out a laugh. “Not right now, yes. That much is clear.” She stepped closer, the fierceness in her eyes fully visible. A promise. “I will make it so you must.”

   Eleanor Bowen kept her word.

   For days, the woman didn’t leave her side – a leech that refused to let go.

   At first, Quirine took it as some sleep-deprived apparition. After the conversation in the kitchen, she stalked back to her room, closed the door behind her, and climbed back into bed.

   When she awoke later, Eleanor was seated at the foot of the bed, and Quirine sobbed for an hour straight.

    Eleanor didn’t say much when it was just the two of them; she’d always be a few paces behind, watching. Sometimes she took knives out from the drawers, lining them up on the counter from biggest to smallest. When Quinine woke from a nap one afternoon, a knife was placed on the pillow beside her head. Soon enough, Quirine stopped sleeping.

   One morning, Joseph bolted into the kitchen, muttering about being late.

  Quirine, exhausted from staying up for three days straight, paranoid from the looming presence of Eleanor Bowen, didn’t process what was happening until the cup of scalding coffee in her hand went flying all over Joseph, staining his shirt and causing red welts on his arms.

   By the time Joseph left for work, Quirine sat crumbled on the kitchen floor, holding her bleeding nose.

    Eleanor paced around her, enraged. “You have to kill him. You have to fucking kill him.”

   She repeated this for an hour until Quirine screamed at her to shut up, tears mixing with the dried blood crusting on her cheek.

   At dinner that night, Quirine ignored the whispers in her ear as she sat across from Joseph at the small kitchen table, focusing on the sound of the television from the living room.

   She felt the caress of Eleanor’s finger on her cheek as she whispered, “You could kill him now. Slit his throat, Quirine, quick and easy.”

   Quirine stared off at nothing.

   “What’s wrong with you?” Joseph stabbed a piece of chicken with his fork. “You look fucking crazy.”

   “I’m not crazy,” Quirine whispered.

   “I didn’t say you were,” he said, sighing in annoyance. “I just said you look it.”

   “What right does he have to say that?” Eleanor said, throwing her hands up. “Anyone would go crazy living with someone like him.”

   “Stop it,” Quirine said under her breath.

   Joseph’s eyebrows furrowed. “What do you mean ‘stop it’?”

   Quirine realized her error. “I—Not you. I was just thinking out loud.”

    “Quinnie, please, please, please just slit his throat,” Eleanor begged, towering over her. “He’ll bleed out so quickly he won’t even know what hit him.”

   Quirine shoved her chair back and stood, letting out a sound halfway between a scream of frustration and a cry of desperation.

   Joseph rose from his chair, too, staring at Quirine with apprehension.

   “Do it now!” Eleanor shrieked.

    “You have to leave, Joseph,” Quirine said, stalking towards the kitchen. “You really have to leave. Right now.”

   “Quirine, what the hell are you talking about?” he said, following her into the kitchen.

    Joseph grabbed her shoulder and turned her so they were facing each other. He stared at her intently, searching her face for something, anything. For a moment, he looked like a confused little boy. But then his face twitched as his confusion turned to frustration, and that turned into anger. The moment was gone.

   Eleanor Bowen stood behind her, repeating kill him, kill him, kill him.

   Quirine stared at Joseph, her whole body shaking, mind feeling as if something had shattered and the sharp edges pressed against her skull, ready to burst.

   And she understood that none of this would go away unless he did. Eleanor would never leave, Quirine would never get a night’s sleep again, and soon enough, the pressure of it all would kill her. She did not want to die.

   Quirine Meadows plucked the knife from the countertop. She held it firm. Felt the weight of it.

   She raised her arm before Joseph fully understood what was happening and plunged the knife into his throat repeatedly, even when he fell to the ground, his grip tight on her arms. She stabbed until his shaking body stilled.

   Then there was only her labored breathing, the buzz of conversation coming from the television, and her instant horror at what she’d just done.

   A floorboard creaked.

   Slowly, Quirine turned her head in time to see the retreating figure of Eleanor Bowen as she walked out the front door.

   “Eleanor,” Quirine called out, her voice breaking. “Eleanor, come back. You can’t just leave me with all of this. Eleanor. Eleanor!”

Quirine’s screams echoed in the silence.