The Dirt Under Her Nails
The dirt wouldn’t wash off.
Iris stood at the bathroom sink, scrubbing her hands with soap, then more soap, then dish detergent, then a scrub brush she found under the cabinet. The water ran brown, then gray, then pink as her skin began to break. But the dirt remained — lodged beneath her nails, embedded in the creases of her knuckles, streaked across her palms like a second skin.
She stared at her hands in the mirror.
Her face stared back.
She looked tired. Dark circles under her eyes, hair unwashed, lips cracked. She looked like someone who hadn’t slept in days. But she had slept. She had dreamed. And now she was here, in her apartment, with dirt on her hands and no memory of how it got there.
Oliver meowed from the bedroom doorway.
“What happened to me?” she asked.
The cat blinked.
She dried her hands on a towel and walked to the kitchen. The clock on the microwave read 7:23 AM. She had woken up at 6:00. She had been scrubbing for over an hour.
The coffee maker was already on. She didn’t remember starting it.
She poured a cup and sat at the small kitchen table. The morning paper was spread across it — yesterday’s paper, she realized, the one she had brought in from the hallway but never read. The headline was about a murder, a woman found dead in her apartment on the other side of the city.
Strangled in her sleep, the article said. No signs of forced entry. Police have no suspects.
Iris set down the paper.
She looked at her hands.
The dirt was still there.
She called in sick to work.
Her boss sounded annoyed but didn’t push. Iris had never called in sick before. She was reliable, punctual, the kind of employee who showed up early and stayed late. But today, she couldn’t leave the apartment. She couldn’t let anyone see her hands.
She spent the morning on the couch, watching television she didn’t remember turning on. The shows blurred together — talk shows, soap operas, infomercials. She wasn’t watching. She was thinking about the white room.
The light. The silence. The voice.
You’ve been here before.
She had been there before. In the dream. But also before the dream. In the basement, when she was seven. Locked in the dark, crying for help that never came.
She had never told anyone about the basement. Not her mother, who would have blamed herself. Not her teachers, who would have called social services. Not her therapist, who she had stopped seeing after six sessions because she didn’t want to talk about her childhood.
She had buried the memory so deep that she had almost forgotten it.
But the white room had dug it up.
And the voice wanted more.
The afternoon passed slowly.
Iris tried to eat, but the food tasted like cardboard. She tried to read, but the words blurred together. She tried to sleep, but every time she closed her eyes, she saw the white room, the light, the figure in the darkness.
Her own face. Older. Wearier. Sadder.
You. In ten years. If you don’t get out.
Get out of where? The room? The apartment? Her life?
She didn’t know.
She didn’t want to know.
The knock on the door came at 4:00 PM.
Iris looked through the peephole. A woman stood in the hallway — mid-thirties, dark hair, plain clothes. She looked familiar, but Iris couldn’t place her.
She opened the door.
“Can I help you?”
“I’m Detective Marcy Walsh,” the woman said, holding up a badge. “I’m investigating the homicide on Maple Street. A neighbor said they saw you in the area last night.”
Iris’s blood went cold.
“I was home last night. I was asleep.”
“Do you have anyone who can verify that?”
“I live alone.”
The detective nodded, her expression unreadable. “Do you mind if I come in?”
Iris stepped aside.
The detective walked through the apartment, her eyes scanning the rooms. She paused at the kitchen sink, at the scrubbed-clean basin, at the towel stained with dirt and blood.
“Have you been gardening?” she asked.
“I don’t have a garden.”
“Then what’s the dirt from?”
Iris looked at her hands. The dirt was still there, still dark, still crusted beneath her nails.
“I don’t know.”
The detective turned to face her. “Ms. Cole, a woman was murdered last night. Strangled. Her apartment is four blocks from here. A witness placed you in the area around the time of death.”
“The witness is wrong.”
“Maybe. But I’d like you to come down to the station. Answer some questions.”
Iris’s heart pounded.
“Do I need a lawyer?”
“That’s up to you.”
The voice whispered in her head:
Don’t go with her.
Iris ignored it.
“Let me get my coat.”