Bleeding Violet (22 page)

“He said, ‘I
still
love her.’ So I walked to the couch and sat next to him.”

“You sat next to him!”

“He was a ghost,” she assured me. “He didn’t have a real body, just an image of one. He didn’t even make a dent on the couch. And anyway, I had this big thing inside me I had to say, and I knew I needed to be sitting down when I said it.”

“What did you say?”

“I said, ‘I wish Daddy loved
me
.’ And then I started crying.”

She paused again for a long time, like the words were still big enough all these years later to choke her. “I cried for a long time. But it was the last time I cried. Cuz Runyon told me—I’ll never forget it—‘Love is a trap. Don’t ever get caught.’

“When I asked him how to avoid it, he said, ‘I can show you.’ His eyes got huge like tunnels and sucked me in, but
he
was the one who came into me.

“Almost right away I felt a change. I walked out of his house, and it was like I could do anything. I didn’t care what Daddy thought or what the neighbors thought. Not even the Mortmaine, who were out in the dawn light carving glyphs into the sidewalk to make the ward. You should’ve seen how they looked at me. Normally I would’ve been apologetic, but I just walked right by ’em. From then on, I was gone do what I wanted when I wanted.”

Rosalee’s lip curled humorlessly. “That lasted about five minutes. While I was walking home, a car lost control in the rain and plowed right into me. I fractured my skull. I think I was in a coma for two months? Something like that? I forgot all about Runyon and my trip into his house, but I never forgot what he said: Love is a trap.”

I picked at the porch screen. “Pop Goes the Weasel” tinkled
merrily in the street as the ice-cream truck made its daily rounds. “Do you still feel that way? That love is a trap?”

“Yeah. But I can’t seem to make it apply to you.” She nudged my knee with her foot and smiled tiredly at me. “Maybe because I carried you inside me. Maybe that shit really does make a difference. Even Runyon agrees; it’s different when you have a kid.”

Runyon agrees?

“He’s
talking
to you?”

“Yeah.”

Her insouciance was mind-boggling.

I sat forward and grabbed her ankle. “Isn’t that a bad thing? That you’re
possessed
? Shouldn’t we tell someone?”

“It doesn’t feel bad,” she said, using her other foot to pry my hand off her ankle. “He’s not a monster, you know. Like I said, he used to be Mortmaine; it’s just that when he lost his daughter, he went off his head.”

I looked for any sign of strangeness—a forked tongue, slit pupils—but I saw only Rosalee, with her big, dark eyes and unhappy mouth, awaiting my judgment.

“Is he the reason you’re being nice to me? He misses his daughter and it’s just … rubbing off on you?”

Rosalee looked offended. “He doesn’t control my feelings. He doesn’t control
me
.”

I exhaled a deep, relieved breath. “Then I guess you know what’s best for you … but just know, if your head starts to spin around, I’m calling a priest. Deal?”

“Deal.” Her smile nearly singed my eyelashes.

When she smiled like that, it was hard to care that she was sharing her body with someone else, impossible to care about anything but making her happy.

As long as she was happy, what else mattered?

The following Sunday evening, I was in my room taking Rosalee’s measurements as she hummed along to her Billie Holiday CD. I listened to the morbid recitation of “Gloomy Sunday,” uneasy as I noted Rosalee’s hip size, handling her like nitroglycerine …

… wondering whether Runyon was looking out at me through her ear.

I’d barely thought about him since she’d told me her story, but these weird imaginings crept up on me at the most random moments.

When I’d finished with her, she went to the dress form near
my sewing machine and stroked the black jersey fabric that draped it. “I can’t believe you’re almost finished with this. How can you sew so fast?”

Since my hair was twisted into an intricate knot atop my head, I could only pretend to flip my hair over my shoulder. “I’m extraordinarily gifted.”

“And extraordinarily big-headed.” Rosalee’s expression turned thoughtful as she fingered the dress. “This don’t really seem like me.”

I followed her to the dress form and sat before it. “It is you. You’re beautiful. Why not wear beautiful things instead of …” But I didn’t have to finish the sentence—she knew how slutty her clothes were. “I’ll make you some other things too.”

“You don’t have to.”

“Sure I do. I need something to take my mind off stupid Wyatt. He wasn’t in school Thursday or Friday. I was all prepared to freeze him out, but he didn’t even have the decency to show up.”

I glared at the green angora coat I’d made him, hanging on the metal clothes rack against the wall. I’d like to put
him
against the wall, with a firing squad at his back. “I hate boys.”

“That’s my fault.” Rosalee sat on my platform bed, watch
ing me pin the hem of the dress. “Boy hating is genetic.”

I gave a heartsick sigh. “So I won’t grow out of it?”

“I haven’t, and I’m thirty-six. Maybe by the time I’m forty?” She gave me an ironic look. “Or maybe by the time you stop being so chickenshit about going to therapy.”

I pricked my finger on one of the pins.

“Don’t think I didn’t notice that you missed your appointment last Wednesday,” she continued. “You know when you miss your appointments, I still gotta pay for ’em?”

She did her Easter Island thing, waiting for an answer. “I’m sorry,” I told her. “I’ll go this Wednesday. I promise.” An easy promise—Wednesday was days away.

My cell beeped.

“You gone answer that?”

“After I finish this hem,” I said. “People who hang up quickly—”

“Never want anything important.” Rosalee snorted. “Järvinens.”

I finished the hem and snatched the persistently beeping phone off the nightstand, falling onto the bed next to Rosalee.

“Who is it?” she asked, looking over my shoulder.

“Wyatt.” I showed her the text message.

“What’s RUT?” she asked.

“Are you there,” I explained. I typed
NO
!

The phone beeped again. “IMS?” Rosalee asked.

“I’m sorry.” I typed
SO
!

When he texted me back, Rosalee said, “Jesus, ain’t the boy ever heard of vowels?”

So I translated for her.

“‘You don’t need me, but I need you. Only girl I trust. Only girl I can talk to. Only girl who understands my freakish ways.’”

“Freakish?” Rosalee sounded intrigued.

“Long story,” I said, then continued translating. “‘Please be my girlfriend? You won’t have to share me.’”

“Share him with who?”

“Petra,” I explained. “His ex. He’s having trouble letting go.” I frowned down at the cell’s glowing screen. “But that’s just it. How can I know he’s really over her?”

“Make him invite you to church,” said Rosalee. “No guy invites you to church in front of God and his folks and everybody unless he’s serious about you.”

I typed Rosalee’s suggestion, and Wyatt immediately responded, with
OK
.

“No hesitation, see? That’s a good sign.”

“‘Next Sunday,’” I read. “‘Eleven a.m. Mass.’”

Maybe I wouldn’t make him face that firing squad after all.

“Come to church with me and meet him,” I said, tossing the cell on the nightstand.

Rosalee raised her eyebrows. “I already met him.”

“When?”

“On the porch.”

I had to think back. “You mean after you kneed that snake in the groin and breezed into the house without saying hi or even looking at Wyatt?”

She shrugged. “That’s how I meet people.” When I just looked at her, she said, very ungraciously, “
Fine
. I’ll meet him.” She fell onto her back in an elegant sprawl, plumping the comforter. “I ain’t been to church since I was your age. I don’t even
have
any Sunday clothes.”

I pointed at the dress form. “The little black dress?”

“I don’t want to waste it on
church
. Besides, you can’t wear black to church.”

“Really?”

“It’s the one day of the week when it’s okay to draw attention to yourself, okay to sparkle. Reasoning is, if you can’t be safe
from monsters in the Lord’s house, you can’t be safe nowhere.”

“Then I’ll make you a red dress.”

She lit up. “I love red.”

“I noticed.” I grabbed a notebook, stretched out beside her, and did a sketch to show her what the dress would look like. But the more I sketched, the more her face fell. When I finished the design, she looked like someone had died.

“I’m gone look like Carol Brady in this thing.”

“It’s church.” I brushed her cloud of wild hair to the side and gave her the bad news. “You’re
supposed
to look like Carol Brady.”

She shied away from my hand and stood, pursing her lips. “I don’t know. Maybe it’ll look less prissy on a full stomach. You hungry?”

“Starving.” And spurned. Why would she never let me touch her?

“Smiley’s makes these chili cheese corn dogs.” She made a yummy sound. “Want me to pick us up some?”

“Sounds good.” I put on a happy face. After all, I couldn’t expect miracles. Touching aside, things were great between us, especially compared to the way things had been when we’d first met.

She’d stop flinching from my touch one day.

I continued to work after she left, running on adrenaline and happiness, much more potent than caffeine. I finished her black dress and then got to work on the red church dress. I had the perfect fabric—scarlet silk chiffon, which I’d bought in the days before I’d gone all purple.

I’d just meant to start the dress, but when I finally looked up from the sewing machine, I realized I’d finished it.

I hopped up and put the red dress on the rack, neck sore, fingers sore, eyes tired, but
I
wasn’t tired. I could have made ten more dresses, but I was beyond starving. Where were those corn dogs?

I checked the time and then rechecked it. It was midnight. More than six hours had passed.

Forget the corn dogs; where the hell was Rosalee?

She might have come up to eat with me, but then hadn’t been able to get my attention. Sometimes when I was working on something, I didn’t connect with what was going on around me.

I went downstairs and switched on the stair light. Two bags from Smiley’s lay abandoned by the front door. Even cold they smelled good, and my stomach rumbled, but my hunger had been superseded by growing fear.

“Momma?” I found her once again in the hallway before the carved-up linen closet, kneeling before it as if in prayer. Only she wasn’t praying or carving; she was whimpering.

I turned on the hall light and knelt beside her. “What happened?”

Her eyes were wet, but she wasn’t crying—even though her hands were wrapped in blood-soaked bandages.

“What happened?”

“I don’t remember.” Her face was a study in pained bewilderment. “I went to get the food … and then I was holding this door knocker. Only it’s not really a door knocker—”

“It’s a Key,” I said, understanding then what must have happened to her hands. “Wyatt’s Key.”

She looked surprised. “You know about the Ortiga Key?”

I nodded and left it at that. “What did you try to wish for?”

“Not me.
Him
. All I wanted was food. He wanted the Key.
Wants
it. He says it’s his. That it’s the only thing that’ll get him into Calloway.”

“Into where?”

She paused, head cocked in a listening pose. Listening to
him
. I tried not to shiver. “He says he thinks that’s the world his little girl disappeared into.”

“I thought he was over that. What happened to his ‘love is a trap’ philosophy?”

“That was for me, not him. It’s too late for him.”

“But you said he couldn’t control you.”

“He’s not controlling
me
, just my body.”

“Just?” I looked at her bloody hands and decided not to split hairs. “What did the Ortigas say when they saw you?”

“They didn’t see me. I don’t even think they were home. I had to pull and pull to get free.” She studied her mangled hands as though they’d let her down.

“The Ortigas have some kind of paste that’ll fix your hands,” I told her. “Just tell them—”

“I ain’t going back there! You think I want them to know what I tried to do? God, how fucking
humiliating
.”

“Then I’ll get the paste for you.”

“How?”

I looked at my perfectly healed hand and made a fist. “I’ll figure something out.”

I was sitting in the same yellow chair as before, only facing Sera instead of Asher. I felt like I was facing the firing squad I’d wished on Wyatt.

For Sera, Christmas had come early. She scooped the paste from the brown jar and spread it ungently into my burnt palm, wallowing in my every wince of pain. At least I’d played it smart and used my left hand this time around.

“What did we say about trying to make wishes?”

“Not to.”

“Did you try to be clever and wish for an infinity of wishes?” Her eyes never left my face, not just listening for a lie, but looking for one too. “So you could come back here and make wishes at your leisure? I guess you found out the hard way that old trick don’t work.”

“Busted,” I said, glad she was doing the work of making excuses for me.

“You’re not the first one to try,” she said grimly. “Won’t be the last, either. Some idiot was here earlier getting scorched. He was gone by the time I got to the door, but he’d left half the skin of his hands behind. At least you had the sense to wait and be released, so I hope you have sense enough to listen.”

She leaned into my face so I could see her contempt of me right up close. “This is the second time you tried to wish on our Key without permission. You do it a third time, you don’t get your hand back. Understand?”

I nodded. Tried to swallow. “Can I have a glass of water, please?”

She leaned back, amused to have intimidated all the spit from my mouth. When she went into the kitchen, I hurriedly removed the small jelly jar from the roomy pocket of my apron dress and transferred a substantial amount of the popcorn-colored paste into it. By the time Sera came back with my water, the jelly jar was filled and once again stashed away.