Pretty Marys All in a Row Read online

  Lew.

  Mistress crawls halfway up the wall, her vines the shape of spider legs, her dying foliage as sticky and pale as webbing.

  “Lew? Mack? Where are you?” Her voice is urgent, every word tumbling over the next, blurring together with the cadence of a drunken man. “Tell us, please, tell us, and we’ll come to you. I promise. We’ll come for you.”

  But there’s no reply. Not that we should be foolish enough to expect one.

  Mistress collapses on the stone floor, her hands veiling her face. “I’m so sorry,” she says, and I’m not sure if she’s talking to Lew or to me or to herself. I just watch as she rocks back and forth like a censured child, the weight of regret heavy on her body. It’s heavy on all of us, what we should have said and done and not taken for granted. The family we had together—and squandered.

  But they’re not the only family we’ve lost. From far away, the twins’ voices rattle through the walls. They shouldn’t be able to reach us here, but everything is permeable and unraveling.

  “Rhee? Red? Where are you?”

  “Can you hear them?” Red whispers to me, and I grip her tighter as we listen.

  “We found something,” the twins say. “Where are you? We need to show you.”

  But we’ll never know what it is. I focus on their voices and pull myself toward them, pull all of us toward them. But the darkness presses against me, and I feel it in my bones, so aching and heavy, that I can’t push past it. I can’t escape.

  There are others here too. Gladys calls out, her voice quaking and mournful. “Lew, darling, where are you? I can’t see you, Lew. Talk to me.”

  And David rings through for a moment as well, only he isn’t speaking to me.

  “It’s not what you think,” he says. “Or who you think.”

  His wife. He must be talking to his wife. I shouldn’t hear this, and I don’t even want to, but our world is bleeding into theirs, everything overlapping because we’ve gone to them so many times and now we’ve brought them to us.

  And if only we could get back to them. But it’s too late for that.

  Overhead, the bare bulb flickers and snuffs out altogether. The last light in the house is now gone.

  Are you ready, pretty ones? Because I’m ready for you.

  It appears first in the corner, curtaining toward us like billows of black silk. I rush to Mistress, my hands fumbling to pull her away, but she shoves me back, just as the darkness grasps her around the waist and uses her bloodroot and foxglove to wrap her up tight, her own body becoming a sarcophagus.

  Still free, the wayward vine—my old enemy—whips at the shadows, this way and that, frantic to save Mistress, but it’s not enough. With ethereal fingers, the darkness grips the green scamp and yanks hard, so hard that something cracks like bone. When he unclenches his hand, the vine has been severed in two, reduced to a crumble of cinders.

  I edge backward against the wall, not wanting to flee, to be so craven as to leave Mistress behind. But she looks at me, her eyes swirling black, her skin like dried brush about to ignite.

  “Run,” she whispers, her last word before the gloom envelops her and she dissolves into nothing.

  For once, I do as Mistress says. I mount the steps, Red clutched against me, her breath as ragged as mine. If we’re meant to die here in this house, then we won’t just wait for it. We’ll choose the place it happens.

  And we won’t hide. Not now. Not ever again.

  We’re up the stairs and out into the hallway. I swing open the front door, and the darkness meets us there.

  Not so fast, pretty. I’m not done with you yet.

  With a flick of an invisible wrist, the shadows knock me back, and I cling to Red as I hit the wall and topple to the floor. We crawl backward into the dining room, and I pull myself to the cabinet in the corner filled with Lew’s stash of booze. The darkness creeps closer, and I pitch the dust-caked bottles of mead and brandy and high-proof rum at the shadows, the thick glass shattering against the peeled wallpaper and flaccid velvet curtains. When those are all gone, I scamper to the sideboard and toss every hurricane lamp, dousing the decor with the sour stench of kerosene.

  The darkness chortles, and it ricochets off all the corners of the room. You can’t hurt me, pretty Mary. Nothing can.

  My chest constricts because I know he’s right. He’ll outlast us. He’ll keep going. It will never end. He’ll never stop, not until he’s captured every one of us.

  I glare into him, my hatred burning bright inside me. But if he’s going to take everything of mine, I can at least take something of his first. This house was furnished when we got here. It was ready for us. And I can do the next occupants a favor. I can make sure that there’s nothing left.

  David’s matchbook flashes up from the floor. If he’s sliding in and out, solid and not solid, maybe this souvenir is the same way. Maybe I can hold it in my hand.

  My jaw clenched, I focus on the blue paperboard, and like the reflection in the mirror, I change it. But instead of turning it liquid like the glass, I make it real and whole. All my lingering fear melts away, and I tear off one flimsy stick. If this ends tonight, let this be my last choice. And perhaps my best one.

  I strike the match and drop it where I stand. The flames crawl across the floor and blossom up the walls and curtains. In an instant, the whole room is alight. It’s warm and bright and glorious.

  The darkness grimaces and charges at us, but the fire estranges us from him, and he can’t breach the blaze. We’re inside a ring of flames, and he can’t touch us. This is better. This is so much better than I expected.

  But that doesn’t mean we’re safe. The fire turns the tips of my hair black, and embers dance to the floor.

  “Rhee,” Red says, the mirror heating up and turning liquid around the edges. “What do we do?”

  My skin seethes on my bones, and handfuls of me drip to the floor like colorless cake batter. This is it. One last try. I close my eyes.

  David. The highway. That place I’ve hated and dreaded and wanted to be free of forever.

  I see it in my mind. And I start pulling myself toward it. I pull Red and me toward somewhere outside this moment. The darkness towers over us, desperate to reach through the flames with his long fingers, but I won’t look at him. I won’t see the face he’s invented for himself, a masquerade to pretend he’s something close to human.

  The house shudders around us, its fiery death throes, and I know it’s almost too late. The walls tumble down, and the fire reaches my marrow, but I hold onto the image of the highway. I hold it tight. I won’t let the memory of who I was—who I am—slip away this time. The mirror cradled in my arms, I fall backward into somewhere else, leaving the house for the last time with the darkness behind me still calling my name.

  chapter eight

  We float through the here and there, our bodies suspended in nothing. I don’t know where we’ll end up, and I don’t care. At least we’re out of that house. For good this time.

  And then we’re on the highway. Right where I belong. But not quite. There’s a sharp glare blinding me, and beneath us, the concrete shimmers with heat. I’ve never seen it like this.

  In the daylight.

  “We’re on the wrong side of night,” Red murmurs inside the mirror, and she’s right. And the sunshine must act the same as the fire because the darkness isn’t here, whispering in my ear, his long fingers tugging at me.

  The mirror gripped in my shaking hands, I linger for a moment, exposed in the open. My body is scorched and tired and heavy from the fire. If I were still human, I’d be dead. But I’m not human, not anymore, so I’m fine. Or as close to fine as I can get.

  Inside the reflection, two candy-sweet voices whisper. “Bloody Mary.”

  Red turns to me. “The twins are calling,” she says.

  On the shoulder of the road, I nestle the mirror in the underbrush, keeping it safe from anyone who might find it here. I’m not even sure if it’s visible. I’m not sure
if I’m visible in the daylight either.

  “Bloody Mary,” the twins repeat.

  I reach through the reflection, and with a steady hand, Red guides me in. I try to pull her out instead, try to free her to be with me, but she just shakes her head, and I slip inside.

  “Bloody Mary,” they say and materialize through the reflection. It’s the middle of the day, but the two of them are still in those ratty wedding gowns, their veils curled over their faces, the curtains in their bedrooms drawn to enhance the flickering of their ivory taper candles.

  They glare at us in mock anger. “We’ve been calling you all night. Where have you two been?”

  Nowhere good, I want to say. But I ask something else. “Are you okay? I mean—” I hesitate. “Have you experienced any side effects from your visit the other night?”

  Like David. Have they become like David?

  The twins brighten. “Oh, that.” They stick their whole hands through the burning wax and giggle. “Cool, right?”

  Red chokes on air. “No, not cool,” she says, her lips peeled back in a stern line, looking very much like an angry big sister. “Vanishing like a ghost is not cool. It’s bad, okay?”

  The twins shrug. “If you say so.” They edge closer to the mirror, their breath fogging up the glass. “Do you want to hear about what we found?”

  “Yes,” I say.

  “We know where you belong, Rhee. Or at least where you’re from.”

  The mirror turns liquid, and they give me a folded piece of pink bubblegum-scented paper. I shouldn’t be able to touch it, but I can. Scribbled in block letters is an address.

  “The place is at the end of the highway you haunt,” they say. “At the county line near the airport.”

  I grip the note tightly between my fingers. This might be for nothing. I’m not sure if I can even move past the same stretch I’ve always taken on the highway.

  Red squeezes my arm, her hand warm and smelling of cinnamon and rose. “You’ll get there,” she whispers. “You’ll figure out a way.”

  The twins stare back at us, their complexions pale yellow in the fading glow of candlelight. “Will you come back to us tonight?”

  “If we can,” Red says.

  The twins nod as though this answer will have to do. They bow their heads, and their reflections fade away.

  Inside the darkened mirror, Red and I are alone, and it feels strange to know there’s only us now. No home. No family. Maybe no future past this moment.

  “We’ll wait for dark,” I say, still gripping the slip of paper. “Then we’ll go to this place.”

  Red shakes her head and starts to say something, but from far off, a voice comes for us—for her—and this time, it’s not the twins. This sound is all razorblades and poison apples.

  “Bloody Mary.” The words drape over us like a funerary shroud, and everything fades to a sullen gray. My body seizes up. There is no daylight here, nothing to keep the darkness out. He can reach inside the mirror if he wants. He can pluck us from this place like the last petal off a wilted corsage.

  Red gazes at me, her face bright and clear and brave. “It’s my turn now,” she says. “That leaves you, Rhee.”

  “Me?” My eyes blur with salt and sorrow. “What am I supposed to do?”

  The walls rumble around us as if the whole world is laughing.

  “Bloody Mary.” The sing-song burns through me. It’s nearer now, a hot breath on my cheek.

  Red’s hand grasps mine, and she steadies my quivering. “You need to leave now.” Her voice is burning and urgent and pressing into the sagging cage of my bones. “You can stop him, Rhee. I know you can.”

  I shake my head, and the tears come harder now. Tears I didn’t even know I could cry. “I won’t leave you.”

  “You don’t get to choose that,” she says. “I get to choose.”

  The glass turns liquid, and from every direction, the voice speaks into us. “Bloody Mary.”

  And we’re suddenly not alone. The darkness with its wide shoulders and ugly visage gawks at us through the mirror. It steps inside, joining us like a giddy schoolboy around a Ouija board.

  In this moment, the last moment, Red looks at me, her fingers still entwined with mine, and I sense it in her face before I feel it. I’m dissolving. I’m leaving this place. She’s doing this to me. With all the strength left in her, she sends me away into the here and there. Far from her and what’s come to claim her.

  I fall backward from her, and the last thing I see before I vanish is the darkness enfold her like velvet at midnight. The sinews that bind us together snap, and everything in me turns inside out, shredded and torn and destroyed.

  Before I can yell out, I’m on the highway, nauseous and disoriented. I collapse to my knees next to the mirror, sinking into the concrete, my bones slipping past the asphalt and potholes.

  The shadow laughs from inside the empty reflection, too craven to show himself in the light.

  I choke down salt and snot. “Don’t do this,” I say. “Not this time. Not to her.”

  It’s already done.

  The mirror shatters in my hands. Shards jab into my wrists and palms and fingertips, the blood warm and dark as mulled wine. For an instant, she’s there, all the broken pieces of Red. She parts her lips to scream, but she’s ripped away and melted from existence. And when it’s over, the pieces of the mirror are only glass, see-through and useless. There’s no more reflection.

  He’s stolen everything she was.

  Red might not be able to scream, but I can. My head lolls back, and I exhale a banshee wail that chases all the crows from the trees. The pain unfurls from me like black lace on a spool, like something yanked hard that unravels before you have a chance to stop it. Everything pours out of me, and I don’t stop until my throat is hoarse and my body too weak to fight or cry or move again.

  I curl in the dirt for what feels like a lifetime. I don’t want to leave this place. I don’t want to go to the address the twins gave me. I just want to wait for the end. But an engine cuts out next to me, and someone’s here to change my mind. Someone in a dinged-up station wagon.

  “You’re early,” I wheeze.

  David creeps closer, staring at me as if he’s not sure I’m real. He apparently believes in ghosts, just not ghosts in daylight.

  “I heard you,” he says at last. “From across town, I heard you screaming. It was like a thousand bubbles bursting in my blood.”

  That’s how it felt for me too.

  He sucks in a heavy breath. “And your sisters? Are they—”

  “Gone,” I say, and he nods as though he’d already guessed.

  In the backseat, Abby murmurs in her sleep, her dreams fitful and faraway.

  I gaze at her through the window. “She shouldn’t be here.”

  David grunts. “And where would she be safer?”

  “With your wife,” I say, but he shakes his head.

  “She’s gone,” he says. “Said it’s her turn now to have some space. She left Abby with me, and I’m not leaving her with anyone else.”

  I look hard at him. “And if you fade out like a ghost? If you just vanish?”

  “Then at least she’ll be here, so I can say goodbye.”

  I show him the address on the piece of paper the twins gave me, and we start there. At first, I’m convinced David will have to go without me and return with his best recap, but the car breezes past the cemetery fence, and I keep going, here in the passenger’s seat. This is daylight now. Everything is different. I’m not held in by invisible borders.

  But I’m the only one who’s still free. All the way along the highway, I can hear my family. From somewhere far beyond this road, Mistress weeps as do Lew and Mack. Red isn’t like them. She doesn’t just sob. She also calls my name, her wails mournful and thin. My skin buzzes because I can’t help her, not right now, not from here. All I can do is cover my mouth with both hands and try not to scream.

  “Are you okay?” David watches me.
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  “Hurry,” I whisper. “Please hurry.”

  We arrive half an hour before sunset. When it comes into view, I nearly choke on the sight. This isn’t what I wanted. It’s no beautiful dancehall where I had my last waltz or a lovely family estate passed down through generations. It’s less than a house, a simple shack, abandoned and forgotten, the cheap white veneer peeling off the siding as though even the paint wants to escape it.

  I climb out of the car and stare at it. This is everything I’ve dreaded. David doesn’t say anything at first. With an unsteady hand like he can’t trust his own body, he lifts a still sleeping Abby from her car seat and carries her behind me.

  “Do you remember this place?” he asks at last.

  I heave in, sniffling. “I hope not.”

  A plane passes over us, and the engines rumble deep inside me, familiar and lonely. I hold my breath as we open the front door.

  The inside is even worse. No art deco design, no vaulted ceilings. It’s a plain, square space, nowhere near as decadent and elegant as the expansive third floor I used to occupy. I creep into the living room. The picture window is cracked, the spider web just as I remembered it.

  David tracks behind me, and I just shake my head, because this can’t be it. This can’t be my home.

  In the sallow light of late afternoon, we turn down a narrow hallway and find a tiny bedroom at the end of the corridor. David opens the door, and the stale scents of motor oil and orange peel overwhelm us. Ragged curtains hang from all the windows. At first, I think the fabric is gray until I step closer and see it. A faded blue and white gingham.

  “Rhee?” David watches me, but I’m looking at something else.

  A cobweb-caked Victrola sits sullenly in the corner next to a pile of Glenn Miller and Louis Armstrong and Bennie Goodman, their faces fanned out and faded with sun and years.

  These records are mine. This place is mine.

  My knees weaken, and a whole lifetime passes through me in an instant.

  I remember everything. The loneliness, the nothing life I spent alone in this room, turning records and waiting for life to start. It never did, not for me.