[ WP ] You can see the darkest secret of everyone you meet . As you enter your house , expecting to see the usual abusive father story of your spouse , you stop ; it has changed .

I was six when I first realized that I could see the knot in people, black and twisted and hanging there in the middle of their stomach. I did n't know that no one else could see it. It was so blatantly *there* that I thought it was obvious to everyone around me, too. I remember pointing it out with my uncle, my Mom's younger brother and drug addict who used to come over and try to bum money off my parents. I could see it, pulsing there, under his shirt, and when I tried to poke it, and told my Mom that it was kind of squishy, everyone in the room suddenly got really serious. My uncle left, in a hurry, and we did n't see him for a while after that. 
 
 That was about when I met Ron, the child psychologist, and his sweater vests and shitty cologne. My Mom took me once a week for about six months, and sat in the reception area of his house, read old Reader's Digests, and smoked. You could do that back then. 
 
 Ron had a knot, too, but he asked so many questions about them and what I saw and how I saw it, that I figured out right away that it was a problem with a capital P if I did. I do n't know what he expected. No kid wants to be isolated, so I lied, like almost every kid lies when forced to stand out. After a while, he got tired of the lying and just gave up, I think, because we went less and less often, and he got more and more distracted each time. He sure liked my Mom, though. 
 
 The first one I unravelled was my girlfriend's knot in High School. Hers was kind of new and we did it on a Saturday when we were just hanging out in my room, fooling around. She wanted to kiss and stuff and to be honest, I really wanted to with her, but I also wanted to play with the knot she had because it was so new that it almost had a kind of glow about it. I could see it right through her shirt. I know she thought I was working up to taking her bra off and I'm pretty sure she got a bit frustrated, but when I started pulling it apart, I just could n't stop. I had to see what was at the centre. It was an obsession. What I saw there scared me, and I know she saw my fear in my face, because she got up really quickly and crossed her hands over her stomach. I tried to get her back on the bed to make out some more, this time for real, but she left and we were n't boyfriend girlfriend after that. I'm kind of glad, though, because of what her Dad did to her. That was n't right. 
 
 After a few more incidences like that, I just stopped looking. I did n't need to see everyone's sin writ large to realize they were sinners. The knot was proof enough after a while, and that's just how I liked it. I did n't want the nightmares, any more. 
 
 But Ophelia was different right from the start. She had one, and normally I steered clear of people with one, but she was like a ray of light with everything she did. She worked at the local drug store, and she was a year older than I was, wiser by far, and had that old-world look in her eyes. After talking with her at the coffee shop, I could n't help but feel I knew her from somewhere, and so I asked if I was familiar. No. Could I be? She laughed, and that laugh was like rain drops on glass to me. I could listen to it for days. The coffee turned into lunch and into a movie and then her in my bed the next morning. It never really stopped after that. 
 
 Two years later, we got married, and in that entire time, I can honestly say I was never once curious about what was in the knot. I did n't care. I loved her, she loved me, and we were happy. As the photo albums started to fill with pictures and meaning, we built and built and built and that edifice started to have a shape of its own. I liked us. We were really something. We did n't just fit, our families fit, and our pets fit, and pretty soon Jessie and Sawyer fit, and our little maelstrom was complete. I was happier at that moment, which was yesterday, than at any time in my life. I felt guilty I was so happy, like I was stealing it from someone else. 
 
 Today, though, her knot was different when I woke up. Bigger, darker, moist and honestly startling. I could see it seeping through her hoody, even if she could n't. I could feel the ache coming off of it in waves. I tried to avoid it, I really did, but as she walked past me in the hallway on the way to the bathroom and gave me that sideways kiss on the edge of my mouth she does, I could feel it brush my arm. It just felt wrong. I ca n't put a word on it, but it was repugnant, as if it should have burned me, but did n't. I could see it moving with her motion as she washed the dishes, and when she tucked the kids into bed. It was like a black sore on her stomach in the bath tub when I read to her and played with her until she came. I almost could n't finish her off with it bobbing and tensing just above my hand. 
 
 I know what I expected: abuse. Something long ago, old and dessicated, suddenly given new life because it was revisited. Father? Grandfather? The only way to know was to unravel it, but I had n't done that in years. Whatever it was, it was newly reborn and that was something I could n't ignore. 
 
 I started pulling it apart when she was asleep. String by string, under and over, through and back, and it was massive. I felt like a thief or a rapist and a couple of times I stopped myself, hands shaking and sweating profusely, wondering what the hell I was doing. Do n't fuck with it, I said to myself. This is good, really good. You're going to screw it all up and wreck this beautiful us. I imagined all the ways that my happiness could self destruct, over and over, but it was beyond control by that point. 
 
 A half an hour later, the immense skein was free and I could see it. The small white hands around her throat, the tendons taut as the grip got tighter and tighter. The panic in her eyes as she realized death was coming. The kicking and struggling. The near escape as she caught some purchase and got some leverage, but then the inevitable pressure of that awful strength. I could feel terror and pleasure both from her, as the life leaked out in slow, strangled gasps, smaller and smaller until it was punctuated at the end by a truly awful silence. I saw her face mirrored on itself, grinning in death. 
 
 It was my sobs that woke her up. She rolled over and threw her arm around me, spooning me from behind, and nuzzled my ear, comforting. 
 
 `` You know, you should have just asked. ``, she whispered. I could n't talk, and she just let the silence linger and fester for a while because she was patient, if nothing else. 
 
 `` What's going to happen to us? ``, I choked out, my voice a mess of gravel and tears. I started to sob, again. 
 
 `` I do n't know. My kind never really settles down, but I guess we'll talk about that after breakfast. It's Saturday, and I can get the kids up early and take them to my Mom's. They wo n't get in the way and we can have a good talk. You know what? I'm kind of relieved you know.'' She sounded almost exuberant, so I believed her. 
 
 `` What are you? ``, I said, rolling over to confront her. 
 
 `` A hunter. ``, she replied matter of factly, as I stared back into my own face, grinning.
