Paper Tigers (22 page)

“Go to hell,” she said.

She gathered her thoughts of photographs, parties, and false promises, tucked them away in a box, and locked it tight. Even the steel bands of self-pity she'd grown so accustomed to (and welcomed, if she was going to be truthful, welcomed and hid behind, which was what got her into trouble with the photo album in the first place) finally loosened their grip.

For the first time in a long time, Alison felt something close to normal on the inside.

She invited her mother over for tea, and when she walked in, the first thing she did was take Alison's chin, tip it to one side, and then the other.

“You look wonderful. The circles are gone from under your eyes and your coloring is much, much better. I was getting so worried, and then I—”

Alison couldn't help but smile. “I understand. Everything's okay, I promise. I needed some time to myself.”

“Are you sure?”

“I'm positive. I want to apologize, too, for yelling at you about Meredith.”

“No, I was in the wrong. I should have asked you first before I spoke to her.”

Alison took her mother's hand. “Let's let it go, okay? I've been taking a lot of walks lately and doing a lot of thinking. I know the past few years have been rough for you, too.”

Her mother choked back a cry and swallowed convulsively before speaking. “I was so afraid you were falling into another depression, like the one after the fi—I mean, the accident…”

“Mom, it's okay. You can say the word fire.”

Her mother blinked away a shimmer of tears. “You still look too skinny. I'll need to bring things over to fatten you up. Pie and cakes and cookies, maybe donuts.”

“You know there's a donut shop around the corner, right?”

“Yes. Maybe I should go and get you some right now.”

“Why don't we go together?”

They did, and when they passed by a small group of people, Alison didn't drop her chin. A woman did a double take, but her gaze didn't linger.

Of Yellow, there was no sign. In fact, good old Yellow seemed to have gone on permanent holiday. Perhaps Alison had left it behind in Pennington House. If so, good. George could choke on it, for all she cared.

She took the newspaper clipping, the tiny diamond ring, and the plastic hospital identification bracelet from her jewelry box. She held the ring up to the light, watching the rainbows dance inside. Once, she'd thought of sending it back to Jonathan, but she hadn't wanted him to know how deep his abandonment had cut her, unaware then that she'd cut herself even deeper by keeping the ring.

How much hurt can you hold inside until your soul gives way, crumbling beneath the weight? Too much. Far too much.

She carried everything, along with a pair of scissors, into the bathroom, snipped the bracelet into a hundred tiny pieces, and dropped them into the toilet. With a deep breath, she tossed in the clipping and the ring, too. One push of the handle carried them all away.

All shall be well.

PART VIII

NEW HAUNTS

She's in bed when the thunder begins to roar, deep and growling. She can't remember any clouds in the sky, but in Baltimore, the weather changes in an eye blink. She reaches out and touches empty air in the bed. Jonathan isn't home yet. She rolls over, inhaling his scent.

Then she smells the smoke.

She cries out when she touches the doorknob and heat kisses her palm. Dark, oily smoke sneaks in around her feet, creeping into the space between the carpet and the floor.

The walls shudder. Their tiny apartment is on the top floor of the old house. The only way out is through the front door into the hallway and down the stairs. Heat pushes up from the floor and the wood creaks in protest. She touches the door again. Too hot, it's too hot, but she can't stay in the room and the window is too high.

Think, think, she tells herself, but there's no time to think. She has to get out. She wraps herself in a blanket and opens the door.

Smoke stings her eyes and the thunder rolls in.

And then the blanket is on fire and she is on fire because she opened the door and why did she open the door, only a stupid fool would make such
a mistake, but she drops the blanket and then she hears the baby crying. The neighbors have two children, one a newborn. Are they trapped?

The baby cries again. Why would they leave the baby? The door to their apartment is open and she runs in, runs through the smoke, pushes through the smoke, toward the crying. Down the hallway and there's so much smoke, but the baby, the baby, the baby.

She follows the cries to the last bedroom and there on the floor, not a baby, but a doll, and there's no one else in the apartment, the baby is safe, they're all safe, and she's close to the front door but the ceiling falls and then everything is on fire, she's on fire, and she smacks away the flames, but there are more and more and she screams, filling with smoke, filling with pain and she can't see because everything is orangeredorangeredorangered and hurt and screaming shouts that taste like smoke and the wood creaks and groans and the walls shake and she has to get to the door, the front door, the only way out, and then she'll be safe, away from the orangered.

And sparks dance like fireflies in the air…

CHAPTER 21

On a cold February afternoon, with snowmelt dripping from the eaves, Alison curled up with a cup of hot chocolate, a fleece throw, and her homework. She was only taking three classes this semester but planned to take five in the fall; everything she needed for her degree was offered online by a local university.

She rolled away the stiffness in her shoulders. In the months since she'd returned to the real world, returned for good, she'd had several appointments with Meredith. The first, filled with apologies and reparations, but no mention of the camera; Alison couldn't quite bring herself to mention that. The second, with small sighs of disappointment, when Meredith pointed out the improvements in her scars had gone away, and fears that maybe she'd been mistaken.

Yet Alison knew the truth. Once she'd severed ties with the paper world, all glamour and false hope vanished.

She bent forward to set down the mug, and the sharp-sweet scent of tobacco hit her full on. She exhaled with a loud whoosh and dropped the mug on its side, ignoring the tiny chocolate pool that spilled out.

No, no, no.

Closing her eyes, she wrapped herself in white, but the smell crept in, sneaking like dark little fingers into her mind. She refused to believe it anything other than her imagination or maybe from somewhere in the neighborhood.

But all the windows were shut. And the album was gone. The tobacco was strong enough to taste; strong enough to say it was not
imagination. The heat clicked off, leaving behind silence. The missing pinkie on her right hand started to itch, and she curled the remaining fingers toward her palm. Purple coils she'd nearly forgotten came to life, and with the fear holding her heart a heavy prisoner inside her chest, she turned her head slowly from left to right and back again, terrified to look, too afraid not to.

No smoke hovered in the air.

A neighbor slammed a door, the sound reverberating through the connecting wall. Alison jumped. Pressed her fingers to her temples.

The sleeve of her shirt slid back, revealing her right arm up to the elbow. In the light, the scars were slashes of sickly color.

Ugly, ugly, ugly.

The words snuck in before she could stop them.

“Knock it off,” she said and yanked the sleeve back into place.

She stomped into the kitchen. Refilled her mug and grabbed a handful of paper towels. Then she saw the scrap of paper, a square shape with torn edges, on the floor near the base of a cabinet. She bent close; the ruined side of her own face peered back. Despite its small size, the paper reeked of tobacco.

With a shuddering sigh, she dropped the photo into the trash can. It turned end over end before it landed with the white side down, and a tiny thought burrowed deep. She'd thrown all the pieces away.

It was conceivable that one piece had fallen from her hand in the process, yes, it was
rationally
conceivable. She'd been wearing gloves; she might not have felt it fall, but how many times had she walked through her living room and kitchen since then? Too many to count. Unless the scrap of photo had stuck to her shoe or sock and traveled into the kitchen, but even then…

No. It was over and done with. All of it. The album was gone.

Alison watched through the peephole as a man in a brown uniform approached her house. She flipped her hair over the side of her face, and if he noticed her shaking hands or her missing fingers when he handed over the package, he gave no sign. She kept her chin tucked, though, and when she closed the door, she grimaced. She should've looked up, not down. Well, there was always a next time.

She carried the box, as long as her forearm in length and half that in width, into the kitchen and split the packing tape carefully with a knife. Inside sat another box, this one wrapped in shiny gold paper and topped with a dark blue bow. Her mother said she'd sent a present, and despite Alison's prodding, refused to give out any details other than that.

A tiny notecard affixed by the bow read:

Alison,

I found these and couldn't resist. I know your birthday is still a month away, but I'd like to take you to dinner that night, if you think you're up to it.

Love,

Mom

Inside the box, beneath a mound of tissue paper, she found a pair of pink flannel pajamas adorned with smiling cat faces. They were completely silly and utterly fantastic. Beneath the pajamas was a dress. She held it against her; the rich blue fabric hung in folds, and the cut would cover most of her scars. Then she spied a smaller box, half-hidden in the paper with another note attached.

I read some good things about this and thought you might want to try it. If not, throw it out and we'll never speak of it again.

She immediately recognized the brand name of the makeup. Her mother had mentioned it once before. She'd snapped back that it wouldn't help and refused to listen to anything else about it, but that
was before she understood that being whole meant acceptance, not wallowing in a stinking vat of self-pity. The makeup came with a compact of setting powder. She held it in her hands, turning it over and over. Unhinged the clasp, caught a glimpse of the mirror within, and snapped it shut.

She thought of the girl in the hospital and the nurse with the mirror. She remembered how it felt to see what she'd become; how her world crumbled, how she fell apart.

But she wasn't that girl anymore.

The scars were every bit as terrible as she remembered. She dropped the compact in her lap and cried into her hands. When her tears were spent, she took a deep breath, and tried again. This time, the scars were not nearly as terrible as she feared. She was still human, still of worth, still Alison. Not a Monstergirl. Simply someone who'd been in a terrible accident.

In the picture, the wig was close to her natural hair color, and Alison held her lower lip between her teeth. The wig was expensive, and although synthetic, it resembled real hair far more than the cheaper options. She tapped the edge of her laptop, exhaled through her nose, and placed the order. If it looked terrible, she could always send it back and try another one.

Then she heard the rolling noise overhead. She cocked her head to the side, listening. Sometimes the heating vents rattled, but this sound was oddly rhythmic. It grew louder and as she got up from the sofa, a new noise took its place. An almost metallic tap. Then another. Coming from the stairs, coming
down
the stairs.

She cupped her elbows in her palms and crossed the room. The tap came again. She didn't want to look because it was the sound of something wrong, but she was neither coward nor child, and although
she'd run from the ghosts and the tiger, she wouldn't run from a sound in her own house. She would
not
.

The old-fashioned round glass eye traveled up and down in an improbable arc, the same height each time, as it bounced down the steps. With each bounce, it spun to reveal a flash of iris, a glimpse of pupil. Never mind that she threw it away; never mind that it should not be in her house; never mind that it should not
be
at all.

From deep within the tapping sound, the tiger's voice said, “Do you see me? I see you? Come back so we can
all
see you.”

She backed away from the stairs as the eye bounced off the last step, rolled in a wide circle, and came to a stop at the edge of the landing, hovering without a wobble with the iris-side facing out. Facing her.

If she picked it up and put it in, would it tease her by taking the scars away? She thought it would. If it held enough glamour to come back, it would hold enough glamour to make her feel whole. At least for a moment or two. A final bite from the tiger to say, “See what you gave up?”

With a snarl twisting her mouth, she put on her snow boots, gloves, a warm coat, and a scarf and grabbed the eye.

“We're still here and we're waiting,” it said.

She shoved it deep in her pocket and the voice turned to muffled nonsense.

“Go back wherever you came from and leave me the hell alone,” she said.

She trudged out into the slushy snow as the last traces of the day bled into the night. Wind chimes pealed a jangle of music into the growing dark, and her skin broke out in goosebumps.

Her cheeks burned but she kept on, neither counting her steps nor giving the street signs anything but cursory glances. A few people hurried by, but they paid no attention to the

Monstergirl

girl bundled against the cold because they had their own paths to make, their own ways to go.

I have miles to go before I weep. Before I scream.

A knot grew in the center of her chest and the air pushed a cold trail deep into her lungs. Dimly, she heard her mother saying, “Slow down. You'll make yourself sick,” but it might have been her own voice playing charades. Either way, she didn't slow down.

Pausing to catch her breath, she wasn't surprised to find herself standing in front of Elena's Antiques. Every ending had a beginning; every beginning had to end.

At the end of the block she turned into an alley awash in weak yellow light from the lamp on the corner. Not bothering to keep her steps quiet, she splashed dirty snow this way and that.

Finally, she reached the back of Elena's stupid store of useless junk. There were no windows, only a wide wall of brick. A row of trash bags sat next to the back door, and she caught a whiff of wet paper and old food. She fished the eye from her pocket.

“Come back and—”

She didn't let it finish, but put all her weight into an overhand throw. The eye whistled through the air, carrying one word along its path.

“…see…”

It struck the brick, and she held her breath, waiting for it to bounce off and land in the snow near the trash bags. And maybe roll back to her feet. Would it be a surprise? No more than it rolling down her stairs had been.

But the eye shattered with a sharp tinkle of glittering glass. The pieces fell down, pattered on the plastic bags, and tumbled into the snow. Alison shoved her hands in her pockets and watched until the muck swallowed every last one.

Covered with makeup, a scarf worn Audrey Hepburn-style, and a turtleneck with sleeves long enough to cover half her fingers (at least she had fingers and hands and not bloody stumps), Alison sat with her mother at a small neighborhood café. They'd come well after the lunch rush, and their table in the back, away from the windows, was one of only three that were occupied.

She held the menu in her hands, but ribbons of violet lashed at her insides and blurred the words. She told herself having lunch in a café, in public, was the reason, and yes, perhaps it held some of the blame, but not all. The bigger reason was the question in her mind, the question she'd avoided last night.

How did the eye come back?

It didn't fall out of the trash bag and roll its way back into her house. It wasn't even real. But the weight of it in her pocket had been real enough along with the way the glass shattered. If it could come back, could something else from the paper world do the same? What about the torn piece of photo? Perhaps it hadn't fallen from her hand. Perhaps it, too, had returned. And if so—