Black Feathers (11 page)

“You look cold,” he said, as friendly as could be. He knew how he looked: the minivan, the haircut, the smile.

He looked like a dad. Not a father: a dad.

She clutched the edge of the window with both hands. “A little, yeah.” Up close, he could see that he had been right: she was maybe fifteen, cheeks still slightly rounded with baby fat. Her skin looked like it would be smooth and clear, once he scraped off the heavy makeup.

When she smiled, her teeth were a little crooked, like they didn’t fit her mouth. None of her seemed to fit together quite right, like she wasn’t quite set yet.

“Why don’t you get in, try to warm up a bit?”

She looked at him for a moment, and he thought of the poster in the coffee shop, the warnings and advice.

“Are you a cop?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “Are you?”

She smiled, as if it were the most ridiculous thing she had ever heard, then opened the door.

He watched her as she climbed into the van, the gawky, awkward angles of her, the paleness of her skin, the way she seemed to glow in the dim light.

Cassie and Skylark had spent the previous hour listening to music from Cassie’s CD player, trading out discs from the dozen in the wallet, sharing Cassie’s earphones, one ear each.

It was only when people started unrolling sleeping bags and unfolding blankets that Cassie realized something had changed.

“Are there more people here tonight?” she asked Skylark, making her own bed against the wall.

Our spot,
as she had come to think of it.

Skylark took a slow look around the area. “That’s what’s been happening,” she said. “There were only a few people here at the start.”

“Were you one of them?”

Skylark shook her head. “No, I didn’t get here till later. There were a dozen or so of us then.” She spread out the comforter she used as a groundsheet, lining up the edge against Cassie’s.

“How long ago was that?”

Skylark thought for a moment. “Last Tuesday?” she said, sounding not entirely sure.

Cassie was sure that she had misunderstood. “Last Tuesday? Like a week ago?”

“That sounds about right.” Laying down her blankets, then the ragged sleeping bag over the top.

“Seriously?”

“What?”

Cassie shook her head. “I don’t know. Listening to Brother Paul talk, it sounded to me like this place had been around a lot longer.”

“Well, that’s sort of his thing, right? That this has always been our place.” She fluffed the pillow she had pulled from the bottom of her knapsack before placing it at the foot of the wall.

Cassie flattened out her blankets.

“That’s not enough.”

“What?” Cassie stopped in her tracks, trying to figure out if she had missed something.

Skylark pointed at her bed. “You don’t have enough blankets. You’re going to freeze.”

“I’ll keep my gloves on. And I’ve got a scarf.”

But Skylark was already in motion. “Here,” she said, taking Cassie’s bed apart. “If we put all the blankets together”—she laid Cassie’s blankets over the top of her sleeping bag—“we’ll probably be toasty. Is that all right? I figure the two of us can keep each other warm.”

It was the matter-of-fact way she said it, the complete guilelessness of the comment, that caused Cassie to nod.

“Is it all right? I don’t mean anything weird by it or anything. I just figure …”

“No, that’s fine,” Cassie said. “That’s a good idea.” She glanced around the breezeway, Bob’s last taunt ringing in her ears.

They were just keeping warm, that’s all. They weren’t friends like that.

She thought of Ali, her pale, strong hands, and felt herself starting to blush.

She was about to turn back toward the bed, back toward Skylark, when she saw Sarah.

The old woman was sitting across the breezeway, nestled in the lee of one of the pillars, a shapeless grey lump of jacket and scarf and hat.

The only part of her visible was her eyes.

And she was looking straight at Cassie.

Cassie froze under her gaze, not sure what to do. She tried smiling, but the woman’s eyes didn’t change. She didn’t blink, and her stare never wavered.

Cassie waited, expecting her to say something, or gesture, anything to indicate that she had actually seen Cassie. Instead, she just stared.

It was like she was looking through her.

Pushing down her feelings of unease, Cassie turned back to Skylark, who was unlacing her heavy boots, tucking them away. Rolling slightly, Skylark shimmied under the covers, letting them fall around her lap as she crossed her legs. Cassie watched as she wound the scarf around her neck once, twice, some sort of twist that created a loose width of knit around her throat, then lay down.

“Are you coming?”

“Yeah.”

She sat on the foot of the makeshift bed and untied her shoes. It was only when she was putting them under her backpack that she realized she was doing exactly what Skylark had done.

Copying her.

That made sense. Skylark knew how to do things and how things worked. There were worse people to use as examples.

Worse people to have as friends.

Rewrapping her scarf roughly around her neck, Cassie crawled into the bed.

She glanced back out at the breezeway as she settled. There was still no sign of Bob and his friends; Brother Paul was crouched in front of Sarah, talking to her in hushed, gentle tones.

“Is this okay?” Skylark asked again, close enough that Cassie could almost feel every word.

“Yes,” Cassie said, though the word didn’t seem to be or say enough, as she lay down.

“Good,” Skylark said, snuggling closer. “I’m glad.”

He washed himself in the icy water.

Balancing precariously on the rocks, he dipped his hands into the waves, rubbing them briskly together, splashing up his arms where the blood had sprayed: it was starting to get tacky, drying too fast.

In the silver snowlight, the blood on his hands had looked black: now he imagined the seafoam tinged pink.

He scrubbed his hands until they gleamed ghostly white. The water burned, but it felt good. Like a cleansing fire.

Clean again. Fresh. New.

She hadn’t fought much.

But then, she hadn’t had much of a chance.

They had talked a bit while he drove. She was such a cliché:
claiming to be a student at the college, only doing this to get enough money to get home for Christmas.

Poor little girl.

Then they had talked price.

Getting the business out of the way meant there was no delay. He had pulled into a deserted spot close to the water, and the moment he had turned the key in the ignition, her head was in his lap.

She had unzipped him with admirable skill, and he was still partly soft when she had taken him into her mouth.

It seemed like eagerness, but he knew that she just wanted to get it over with.

He luxuriated in the feeling for a moment, closing his eyes as he got hard, then he wrapped his hands around her neck and squeezed, pulling her mouth away and tightening his hands in a single, smooth motion. She jerked, turned to look at him, her eyes wider than he would have thought possible. She tried to scream, but there was no air, and the change in her position meant he could adjust his grip, get his thumbs and fingers just right.

It didn’t take long at all.

He had squeezed until she stopped flailing and kicking, until her body sagged heavy against his, until her eyes went red and dull.

Then a little longer.

After a time, he pushed her back into the passenger seat and zipped himself back up. He was fully hard now, his pants almost painfully tight.

Going around the van, he pulled her from the seat and dragged her to the rocky beach. He had to go back for the knife.

He took his time.

He savoured every moment: dabbing tenderly at her cheeks
and around her eyes with the baby wipes from the glove compartment, getting rid of the caked-on makeup. The sighing sound that came from her as he cut across her throat. The puff of steam as he ran the knife up from her belly button to her breastbone. The way the blood oozed onto the rocks as he cut her apart, moved her around, cut into her again.

When it was done, he stood up and stepped back, looking down at what he had done.

She was so beautiful, it almost broke his heart.

He leaned back down, tugged at her jaw to open her mouth. Just one more thing.

As he worked with the knife, there was a sound like metal scraping against metal. A crow had landed on the roof of the minivan. Rocking back and forth, its claws scritched against the paint. Its black eyes gleamed in the dark.

It had all gone so well.

Driving home, though, he felt a niggling sense of regret. It had all been over so quickly. After all that waiting, that joyful, painful anticipation, it had gone by so fast.

Like Christmas. All that preparation and then—he snapped his fingers—it was over.

Had it been everything he had hoped for?

No, it hadn’t. There was so much more that he wanted to do.

Next time. He’d do better next time. He’d take his time, not get caught up in the moment. Really enjoy it. Get the most out of the experience.

Wasn’t that what life was all about, really? Truly feeling the joy when you experienced it?

Next time.

He turned up the CD player, sang along as he drove home.

Next time.

From out of the shadows, Cassie was watching.

Everything was silent, calm. Everyone was asleep, small clouds of breath hanging in the still, cold air.

No, not everyone.

She wasn’t asleep.

“Sarah,” she called, her voice high, to carry in the dark.

The grey blankets close to one of the pillars shifted, moved. The older woman emerged, rumpled and grey, and shuffled toward the square.

“Sarah,” she murmured, her fingers tightening around the hilt of the knife.

She felt herself moving closer, as if they were drawn together by some strange magnetism. Closer, closer, ever closer.

Her hand began to ache around the knife.

And then she was behind Sarah, following her through the square toward the parkade. She could hear her breathing, the rustle of her movements, the echo of Sarah’s footsteps.

Closer. Ever closer.

Close enough now to reach out, grab her by the hair.

Sarah stopped. “I know you’re there,” she said, without turning, perfectly still.

Cassie circled around her, staying to the shadows.

And then their eyes locked.

“I knew it was you.”

Cassie buried the knife in Sarah’s throat before she could say anything else, twisting the width of the blade in her windpipe, grinding against the flesh and the bone as blood gushed forth, spilling onto the snow.

The blood steamed and sizzled where it fell.

“I knew it was you,” Sarah said again, each word spraying a fine mist of blood.

Cassie twisted the knife again.