Paper Tigers (11 page)

She pushed up her sleeve, lifted her shirt, her pant leg. Ran her fingers through her hair. Touched her face again, reveling in the sensation of skin against skin. It was no illusion. Still, she stood by the front door wringing her hands.

They'll stare and they'll—

“Leave me alone,” she muttered.

Still, she put on a scarf, sliding the edge down over her forehead. She paused on her front steps, staring up at the sky. It should've been full dark by now, not twilight. She slipped back inside the house—leaving the door open because she was going back out—to check the time. Gauging by when her mother called, fifteen minutes had passed in the real world since she'd

fallen

stepped inside the

tiger

album, but she'd spent at least five minutes getting dressed, maybe ten, and she'd been inside the album longer than five minutes. She scoffed. House rules, house magic. Why should the time be any different? And did it matter?

She checked her face and arms again and locked the door, but her gaze returned to the sky and her stomach twisted with unease.

Red swept in.
Don't stand here staring at the sky, you can hide in your backyard and do the same thing.

“Fine,” Alison said.

She took long, easy strides, not bothering to check whether or not her toes went past the edge of the street sign, her head full of thoughts of clocks and time running too fast to catch. She wasn't tired at all. Not yet anyway.

She crossed the next street. A dark car drove by, its engine giving off an asthmatic wheeze and the heavy smell of burning oil. Wind scraped the scarf back from her forehead. Her hands fluttered like dying butterflies—she hadn't tied the knot tight enough—but when her fingers met the edge of the fabric, she could feel the silk soft against her skin, the thickness of the stitched hem, the heavy lock of hair that had slipped free. In one even movement, she removed the scarf, and the rest of her hair spilled over her shoulders, its weight unfamiliar.

A dark-haired man exited a shop and Alison cringed, but before she could turn away, he smiled. Her cheeks warmed.

At her. He'd smiled at her.

She walked faster, enjoying the way her muscles worked beneath her skin, the way her clothes brushed against her body, the feel of her sleeves sliding against her arms. Her cheeks tingled as the sky darkened and the temperature dropped. Everything was brighter, more alive—the colors of the window displays in the shops, the voices
of the a couple walking into a restaurant, the steady hum of the streetlamps, the rush of the cars.

She caught a glimpse of her reflection in a window—a pretty woman with dark hair, a wide smile, and ten fingers—and stopped, her breath caught in her throat. She touched her chin; the reflection did the same. Her eyes glimmered beneath matching dark eyebrows. A breeze lifted her hair, and she turned her face into the wind, arms swinging freely at her sides.

Not far ahead, a door opened, spilling out a torrent of music and a crowd of people. Four men, standing side by side and taking up the entire width of the sidewalk, coming in her direction.

“Did you see her face?” one said.

“That was messed up. I can't believe you said that.”

Another one laughed.

Alison jolted to a stop with her hands clenched tight between her breasts. She knew the flavor, the shape, of that laughter. It was bitter and sharp and cruel.

Go now. Go.

But there was nowhere for her to go. With a taste in her mouth like sawdust, she stumbled to the side, but there wasn't enough room on the sidewalk for all of them. She needed somewhere to hide, somewhere where they couldn't see her, couldn't make fun of her. She backed away. One step. Two. Three. A door. Somewhere to hide.

Without thinking, she darted inside. A moment later, the men passed by, still laughing, still talking. Through the glass panel, she watched until they were out of eyesight and sagged in relief. They hadn't been talking about her. They hadn't even noticed her.

A trickle of sweat ran down the center of her spine, and she dried damp palms on her pants. From behind came the steady rhythm of voices, and the slow realization that she was standing in the vestibule of a drugstore, the lights inside far too bright, washed over her.
Adrenalin sour on her tongue, she shoved open the door and bolted back into the night.

She slammed her front door shut, stood with her back against the wood, and burst into tears. It wasn't supposed to be like that. She didn't have to cringe and hide. She didn't have to run home.

Inside, you're still the Monstergirl
, Yellow said.

“Shut up,” she said into her palms. “Shut up, shut up, shut up.”

She wiped her tears with angry swipes of her hand. It would be easier the next time. She wasn't used to all those people. The voices. The noise. Next time, she wouldn't hide.

And she wasn't a Monstergirl on the inside, no matter what pity said.

Four hours later, her skin was still smooth. She wanted to go upstairs, but instead she had the television on, ignoring it while she paced back and forth. From time to time, her hand slipped up to touch her cheek, holding onto hopeful while waiting for the axe to fall, wondering if Anne Boleyn felt the same on the morning of her execution.

After another hour, she trudged up the stairs, leaning heavily on the railing. She climbed into bed and gathered the sheets to her shoulders, running her hands back and forth across the fabric.

“Please don't bring them back,” she said. “Please keep them away for good this time.”

Five minutes after she drifted off to sleep, the scars crept back in, slipping back into place. Stealthy soldiers sneaking in behind enemy lines. Alison sighed once, twice, and slumbered on, blissfully unaware when the air thickened with the smell of pipe smoke.

PART IV

NEW HURTS

He walks into the hospital room and stops in mid-smile. She looks up, tries to smile back, but she can't, it hurts too much, and the medicine makes her head foggy, but she sees him and thinks everything is okay, everything is all right because he is here. I'll love you forever, he said. Forever and ever.

Her mother leaves the room, leaves them alone, and she wonders why he won't come closer, she tries to hold out her hand, and he has tears in his eyes, and she wants to speak, wants to tell him how much she loves him, but she can't make her words work. He stands by the door, he whispers her name, and he sounds so sad, but she'll be okay, they tell her she'll be okay, then the medicine takes her down into a trembling darkness that makes the pain disappear, and when she opens her eyes again, he's gone.

CHAPTER 12

She knew the scars were back the moment she woke. She told herself she wouldn't cry, wouldn't get angry and, for a few minutes, she almost believed it.

The inscription had changed once again. More spidery lettering filled in some of the gaps.

Alison traced the spaces between the words with her fingers, her brow furrowed. Still not enough to make sense of things, but the words chime, stay, locked, and house were clear enough. Maybe once she unlocked the inscription, she'd unlock the secrets of the
album's magic. Maybe once all was revealed, her scars would stay away for good. Somewhere between the words and the spaces, there had to be a key.

She flipped past George's photo and the house to the room. The shadow remained motionless, and when she gave the page a tug, it didn't budge. With the edge of her thumb, she brushed the paper edges and the scent of flowers spilled out. The smell grew in intensity—a cloud of rotting flowers. Coughing, she slammed the cover shut.

Throw it out.

The voice twisted around her ribcage, but reason hid within the corset of fear. Photo albums could not heal, could not be real. Maybe it was a thing best left untouched. A place best left alone.

She rubbed her lower back near the hipbone, where Meredith said the scarring felt thinner. Although Alison couldn't see it, when she rubbed the back of her left arm against the skin, she thought she detected a slight difference there, and the thought was enough. She wasn't afraid of a smell or of a ghost fire, no matter how real it had seemed. And the girl had been saved.

There were nineteen Michelle Phillips listed online as living in Baltimore, and less than half had phone numbers included. The likelihood that one was the girl she'd seen in the house was slim, but Alison couldn't help but wonder. She turned her phone over and over in her hand. What was she going to say?
Did you see a scarred woman in the house that burned down when you were a kid?

She had to come up with something that made sense. She made a huffing noise deep in her throat. Maybe not sense, but something that seemed
plausible
. She brought up the website that listed Pennington House as haunted and tapped the edge of the laptop.

She yawned for at least the tenth time in spite of sleeping for fourteen hours straight, and rotated her shoulders back and around. A spark of pain flared beneath her right shoulder blade, warning her against doing it a second time.

She typed for a few minutes, reread what she'd written, deleted it, and wrote again. Finally, she had something that, at least on paper, appeared legitimate.

Her voice trembled when the first call was picked up. She read her words, and halfway through, the woman on the line said, “Not interested,” and hung up. The second Michelle Phillips at least listened to Alison's halting speech. “Nice,” she said. “Did Scott put you up to this?” Then she hung up, too. The third woman didn't let her finish, and the fourth was an elderly woman who couldn't hear what Alison was saying. Alison disconnected the call after shouting, “I'm sorry.”

By the sixth call, the speech came easy; the protection of the phone against eyes gave her confidence enough. The seventh went to voice mail, but the woman was older, far older than the Michelle she'd seen would be.

She dialed the eighth number. “Hello, I'm researching strange occurrences in Baltimore for a possible book and wonder if you'd be willing to talk to me about Pennington House?”

There was a sharp intake of breath. A long pause.

“How did you find out about that?”

“I, I found an article about the fire, and since the house was supposedly haunted…”

“This is crazy.” The woman laughed. “I was just talking to my husband about the house a few nights ago.”

Alison smiled, not caring that the skin twisted. “Did you happen to see anything strange when you were in the house?”

“The whole house was strange. Dusty and creepy as hell. I fell down and cut my forehead while we were exploring, and I still have
the scar to show for it. My brother found a secret passageway, but I refused to follow him in.”

“A secret passageway?”

“Yep, sounds like a cliché, doesn't it? Scary old house with a hallway behind the walls. Anyway, he went in and while I was waiting for him to come out, I started smelling smoke.”

Alison pressed one hand to her chest.

“Whoever started the fire probably didn't know we were inside, or maybe they did and didn't care. But things got really weird. I heard a voice and a clock chimed and it was just weird. Then I saw a man in old-fashioned clothes.”

Alison struggled to keep her grip her grip on the phone. “A man?”

“Yep. He was just standing there, looking pissed off, but I could see through him.” She laughed again.

“So you think he was a…ghost?”

“I know it sounds crazy, but yeah, I do. My brother yelled my name and when I looked back, the guy was gone, and that was it. After that, all I heard were sirens. Later, my brother said I probably imagined everything, but I don't think so. It was the same guy from the photo album.”

Alison's chest tightened and she struggled to find her voice. “The photo album?”

“Yeah, my brother said there was a room under the stairs and it had a bunch of junk in it. Old toys and stuff, and he found a photo album that he brought out with him.”

“He…” Alison swallowed hard. “Brought it out?”

“Yeah, he did. My brother was crazy like that. He wouldn't let the firemen take it from him either.”

Alison touched the album. “What happened to it?”

“My mother threw it out.”

“Did you see it?”

“Yeah, I did, and the first picture in it was the guy I saw. I'm sure
of it. The rest of the pictures were of the house and the rooms and some other people. It was weird.”

“Do you, do you think your brother would be willing to talk to me, too?”

Another audible breath. Another long pause. Then, “My brother's dead.”

“I'm so sorry—”

“It was a long time ago. Is that all you wanted to know?”

“Yes, I think so, unless you've seen a ghost or something strange somewhere else?”

“No, I haven't,” she said, her voice clipped and cold. “I have to go. Good luck with your book.”

Alison sat with the phone in her hand. So Michelle—Mitch—hadn't seen her in the house at all, but she'd seen George. And when her brother had brought out the album, somehow, as improbable as it seemed, the ghosts must have come along too.

Alison forced her back straight and her mouth to relax. Her mother had a smile on her face and a pie plate topped with tinfoil in her hand, but she stopped as soon as she stepped inside and took Alison's chin with one hand.

“Are you feeling okay?”

“I'm fine. I'm a little tired because I slept too long.”

“You have horrible circles under your eyes. And your skin looks pale. Too pale.”

“Mom, I
am
pale,” Alison said and laughed, pulling away from her mother's hand.

“Why don't you let me check your temperature?”

“I'm fine. Really.”

Her mother gave a little nod. “Okay, if you say so.” Alison followed
her into the kitchen, keeping her steps small. When she sat down at the table, pain radiated out from her hip to the middle of the back, and she stifled a gasp. Her mother frowned but held her tongue, and Alison put on a reassuring smile.

Wrapped in a towel, Alison left the bathroom, and heard a faint strain of music—piano notes and the soft, mournful tune of a violin. It reminded her of her grandmother, of a song in a snow globe, a delicate treasure of glass and glitter, with a tiny key at the bottom. “Don't touch,” her grandmother would say when Alison would visit. “It's fragile.” But she'd pick it up and turn the key so Alison could listen to the song.

Alison crept down the steps, holding tight to the railing, humming along with the tune and ignoring the tiny twinges of pain in her hips, back, and shoulder. The notes mixed with a touch of perfume. Lavender, maybe. When she stepped close to the coffee table, the cover of the photo album flipped open with a thump and the music grew louder.

Stay away from it. You don't need it.

The pages fluttered up and over, one by one—George, house, room, and then another. Forgetting the music, forgetting the perfume, Alison lowered herself to her knees and spun the album around.

The new picture revealed an elegant room, all dark wood, heavy draperies, and crystal sconces. A piano stood in one corner with a violin resting on top. In the lower right corner, a swirl of fabric had been caught in mid-motion. A full-skirted woman trapped forever on film despite her best efforts to leave before the flash?

A drop of water fell from the end of Alison's hair, hit the photograph with a small plop, and remained there, a tiny crystal ball glowing
with colors and light from within. Before she could touch it, it disappeared into the photo, retaining its shape all the while, leaving behind a dry surface and a dark spot on the fabric inside.