I don’t recognize thetwo boys out there, but I know the girl with the dark curly hair and long eyelashes, her round face tilted toward the upper windows of the house. I saw her photo in Alice’s bedroom.
“That’s Vicky Matherson,” I say, peering through a gap in the curtains. “That’s her? That’s Alice’s friend?”
“That’s Alice’s friend?” Sam is leaning close to the glass, his arms folded.
“WasAlice’s friend,” I correct him. “She’s the one who tricked Alice into going up to Tanner’s Row and getting that bottle out of the chimney. Before that they used to hang around together all the time.”
Sam looks at Lisa who is hanging back in the darkened sitting room, one arm around Tamsin, another around Billy.
“Where’s Alice?” he asks her. She points to the ceiling.
“Upstairs. She hasn’t come out of her room all day.”
There’s other people out there, too, massing outside the gate. Someone lets off a firecracker and there is a loud whooping cheer. Music is playing from a car somewhere farther down the street, muffled bass like a heartbeat, furry and distorted. I can feel a crackle of hostility. This isn’t like before. These people, they don’t think Alice is holy. Sam and I exchange a glance.
“Lisa, take the kids upstairs,” Sam tells her, as another firecracker blasts outside. One of the boys with Vicky is wearing a vest that readsTUFF SHITand has a skinny, malnourished look about him. He might be eighteen or twenty even, older than theothers. Mean-looking. The other boy has a buzz cut and flat, expressionless features. There is a scrim of fuzzy hair above his upper lip. His voice is deep and surly as he calls out, “Where’s your broomstick to, Alice?”
“I’ve got a broomstick she can ride on!” Tuff Shit yells, grabbing a handful of his crotch. There is a ripple of sneering laughter. Vicky looks around her and just before she lifts her hand, I see she has something round in it, something white. I think at first it is a stone—ahagstone,maybe—but as she launches it toward the house I realize it is an egg. It hits the window with a wet, ugly sound. More hooting. Snotty yellow yolk drips from the glass.
“What do they want?” I ask Sam, feeling the white heat of adrenaline building in the pit of my stomach.
“Mina, listen. We have to—ohshit.” Sam jerks upright, his gaze darting beyond my shoulder and out toward the hallway. “No, Alice. Stay where you are! Don’t go out there!”
Alice has appeared at the foot of the stairs. Neither of us heard her come down. It’s as though she just materialized there, wearing that baggy T-shirt over a pair of denim shorts.Crack!Another egg hits the front door.
“Alice?”
She doesn’t turn to look at us but she smiles and it’s all teeth. Her lips slough back wetly. The top half of her face barely changes, her eyes hard and flat and utterly empty. The smile doesn’t touch them. It just stretches the skin. I feel something cold tighten around my spine. Outside they have begun chanting her name,“Ah-liss, Ah-liss, Ah-liss.”Sam moves toward her but hesitates. Perhaps he sees that vacancy and, like me, is afraid. There is a cracking sound as more eggs are pelted, knocking over the offerings that have been left outside the porch like skittles. The candle rolls over, flame winking out, glass cracked. Someonecheers, stamps their feet. I hear that deep voice again, hoarse with a barely controlled delirium. “Wrap her up in barbed wire, coming to set your hair on fire!”
Vicky is cackling, climbing up onto Buzz Cut’s shoulders, dress hitched around her waist. I turn to call out to Alice but she is already walking toward the front door, hands raised to open it.
SEVENTEEN
The heat slams into me as I push past Sam and chase Alice out into the yard. She is barefoot, golden hair unraveled from her ponytail like some febrile Lady Godiva. The crowd of teenagers—more than a dozen, I’d say at a brief glance—jeer and bark and whistle as she steps out of the house. The noise is jolting and provocative and I expect Alice to shrink away, maybe turn back and run inside. She does neither. She simply stands there, absorbing it, her face a blank and bloodless mask. I’m almost pleased to see that empty expression. Anything is better than that ghastly smile.
“Alice, come inside,” I tell her, grasping her shoulders so that she is forced to look at me. “You’re doing exactly what they want you to do. You have to ignore it.”
Her eyes are glassy and don’t flinch as the first egg snapsagainst her in a wet spray. I see it happen almost in slow motion; the spatter of albumen, the jerk of her shoulder, Vicky’s face contorted into a sick, dazzling smile.
“We know what you are!” she’s screaming, face raw and strained with the effort. “We know what you are, Alice Webber!”
Then another egg, and another. That music, still.Thud, thud, thud.Farther down the road a few neighbors are opening their doors, presumably to see what all the commotion is. An egg hits Alice square in the chest, causing her to sway backward. Beside her I’m splattered with yolk, stringy and viscous. Vicky is shrieking laughter, hands held high in the air. I grab Alice’s arm and I’m astonished how cold her skin is, like grasping wet cement. A wasp lands on her hand, crawling over the ridges of her fingers. Eggshell crunches under her bare feet as she takes a couple of steps forward, ignoring me.
Vicky hawks up a mouthful of phlegm and splits her fingers into a V shape, spitting through them at Alice and laughing wildly, looking around for approval. Tuff Shit has reappeared, cigarette behind his ear, hand reaching down the front of his trousers. He’s belligerent but it’s all for show: the swagger, the cocky sneer, the pecking motion of his head. I’ve seen it before in other boys his age. In my experience, there’s a vein of fear running through them as hard and bright as crystal.
“Alice,” I say firmly, trying to be heard above it all, “Alice, come on. Come back inside.”
But that smile has resurfaced and there is nothing behind her eyes. She doesn’t hear me. She is as cold and distant as Venus. For a moment I think she is speaking—I can see her shoulders twitch, her mouth slowly moving—but the voice I hear is slurring and thick, heavy. Like a throat full of molasses. It is a language I don’t recognize, Germanic maybe. The words spreadlike a ripple, like oil on water, dark and tainted. It fills me with something icy and unknowing and I taste the bitterness of bile in the back of my throat.
“Alice,” I’m pleading with her, my voice high and taut as string, and I don’t know what I’m begging for but I know something terrible is coming, Iknowit, and I want to stop her. “Alice, don’t—”
Vicky is on Buzz Cut’s shoulders and then suddenly she isn’t. I watch her fall with a sickening thud, toppling as if she were struck. Everyone goes very quiet, eyes big and round as zeros, heads turning. I reach the gate at a run, bursting out onto the pavement and pushing through the dense mass of people to where Vicky lies twitching in the road. The neck of her T-shirt is torn. Behind me one of the boys starts laughing. It’s breathless, slightly hysterical, and when no one joins in he stops.
I kneel beside her. I’m the only one. No one else seems to want to go near her. The crowd steps backward in an almost uniform motion, eyes seeking each other out for reassurance. Vicky must have been holding an egg when she hit the ground because there is eggshell all over the pavement and in the curls of her hair. At first I think it is flecks of bone as if her skull has shattered like porcelain and my stomach turns over queasily. The bitumen is hot and sticky and bites into my knees. Vicky’s hand is reaching for her throat. She makes a noise.“Urrrk. Urrrk.”Like a seal. Like she is gargling mouthwash. Her back arches and her feet drum into the ground. One of the boys says her name like a question, “Vicks?” His voice sounds small and frightened, very sober. I don’t know if it is Tuff Shit or the other one. They are all looking at her with wonder, as if they can’t believe their own eyes.
Vicky’s lips are turning blue. She grips the neck of her T-shirtand tugs as if trying to be free of it. She twists and bucks but can only dig her heels into the road so hard they have started bleeding. Her eyes bulge. One shoe has flown off her foot, landing a few feet away.
“Alice, call an ambulance! Alice!”