But I already know why. It’s because Maria matters to me. The patron saint kept in a glass coffin, the little girl who never grew up. Part of me thinks that if I can save her, I can save myself—althoughif I were to really think about it, that’s the sort of hyperbolic bollocks that would make Cathy roll her eyes and say,Get down off the cross, honey, somebody needs the wood!Even so, the truth is buried in there somewhere, like light shining through cracks in a rock. If I can save her, maybe I can be free.
Something cold drapes over the back of my neck. A wet scarf of hair, like an appendage. I think of that mottling, so like livor mortis. She draws in close enough that I can smell her rotting-seaweed odor, the raw, lipless slot of her mouth moving close to my ear.
There’s a path. Up by the graves on the right. That’s why he made you wear that pillowcase, so you wouldn’t see it. It won’t take you straight to town, but it will take you to the old back road that winds up past the ridge. You could make it before dark if you leave now. From there you can get a phone signal. By midnight you could be home, soaking in a hot bath. A glass of wine, some fruity red, aged and mellow, and all this would be left behind, like fingerprints on glass. One day you would forget completely.
I allow myself the luxury of thinking about that, just for a second. A clean bath, hot water. A plate of steaming pasta, glossy with oil. My stomach rumbles. But the divorce papers would still be waiting for me, and my life would still be packed into boxes in the garage, and nothing will have changed.
I can take care ofhimfor you. I’ll put my mouth over his in the dark. His feet will beat a tattoo onto the mattress.
She leans against me, heavier than I remember. The feel of her is like the slimy clog of gelid hair you pull out of a drain.
All I ask is that you give the girl to me, Hazel.
“No.”
She coils tighter around my neck. Cold and sinuous. Muscular. Dirty hair tickles my cheek.
I’ve been all around this house. I’ve been into the eaves where many years ago a man once swallowed so many hat pins that they perforated the walls of his stomach and stuck out of him like quills. He died up there and left a black stain on the floorboards that can’t be scrubbed away.
I try to shift away from her, but she holds me close, her strength filling me with dismay.
I’ve seen the barn where Joseph Bray took an axe to his children and stained the winter snow red. In the floorboards of the kitchen one of his wife’s teeth is embedded still, like a pearl in the wood.
Her voice is bruised, quiet. Words, slippery as oil.
Squatters broke in once, but only two stayed. The others said they felt a bad presence here, and they were right. The woman left behind had her head caved in. A soft light had oozed out the rupture, like something inside her was escaping.
The feel of her against me fills me with revulsion. Cold, wet. Like handfuls of dead autumn leaves. Like mulch.
This is a bad place, Hazel. It puts devils inside the heads of men.
My own brain feels soft and atrophied. Maybe it’s whatever was in that needle, lingering like a hangover, but not entirely. Some of it, I suspect, is the effect of my other sister and her gurgled, slithering words. My therapist—the woman, not the twitchy, nervous man who thought I should be shocked back into sanity—had asked me, “What happens when you try ignoring her?” and so I’d told her about the hives. How the smell of them burning was beautiful: scorched honey, rich, molten wax. The light of the late afternoon, the low, somnambulant drone of the dying bees, trailing curls of smoke as they rose into the air like scraps of smoldering paper. She’d nodded silently, the therapist, and written something in the notepad she kept balanced on her lap. “Your other sister didn’t like your husband, then?” No, I told her. She doesn’t like anyone except me. The therapist had tilted her head enough that the sunlight had slid over her glasses, momentarily turning the lenses into molten gold. “And a part of you likes that, doesn’t it, Hazel? Being the favorite?” No wonder my other sister had hated my therapist. She was right.
I’ve watched Andrew when he comes back to the house. He has a locked room upstairs which is all his own. There isn’t much in it. A chair. A covered table. Tarpaulin on the floor to catch all the blood. He likes to walk around this room. He likes to remember. You can smell death in there. It covers everything, like spores. Rich and sweet, spoiled pork. Like farrowing, murderous sows.
“Stop it.”
I’ll saveyou, Hazel. Just give me the girl.
I don’t answer. I’m thinking. Maybe Iwillgive her Maria. After all, I’m not a brave woman. I once sold my sister out by telling my parents that she’d stuck her finger up at Mr. Jenner because I was frightened I’d end up getting into trouble. Besides, she might be telling the truth about the path. I could make it home by tomorrow. Cold and hungry. Butalive. My other sister is vibrating with expectation. She senses my indecision. It feeds her, I think.
A rattle at the top of the stairs, the clunk of the locks being drawn. I straighten up but don’t stand. Andrew is whistling as he comes down the stairs. He sounds cheerful, upbeat even. The last time I’d seen him, his lips had been peeled back from his teeth in anger, eyes narrowed to dark slits. There had been a red stripe of inflamed skin like a bandit mask where I’d sprayed him in the eyes. Now as he appears in the doorway of the basement room, I can see the skin is still raw and angry looking, like blistering sunburn. But at least he is smiling, although I don’t trust it, not a bit.
“I’m going to need you to come on over here.” He is carrying a chair in one hand—a plain wooden dining chair, nondescript—which he places on the floor in the center of the room. He points to it. “Take a seat, Hazel.” As he speaks, he pauses to sniff the air.
Although my other sister is no longer visible, traces of her linger: a long black hair coiled around my finger tightly enough to turn it white, the smell of drains and decay. He senses her, I know he does. Cathy was the same when we were kids. She used to say that walking into my bedroom always felt as if she was interrupting a conversation.
“I’ll do anything you want as long as you tell me what you’ve done with Scout.”
He grins, giving me a flash of that gap in his teeth. His eyes are still watery, painful looking.Good, I think.
“You’re in no position to bargain with me.” He lifts his other hand. There is something in it, a compact machine, small and slim.
At first glance it looks like a Taser, and I turn horribly cold all over. Then I realise that it is only a pair of clippers, the sort you use on hair.
He sees me notice, and that grin widens. “That’s right. It’s time. I’m told that shaved heads are quite de rigueur these days, so think of it as a fashion statement.”
I still don’t move. “Why do you need to shave my head?”