Dusssie (2 page)

But it wasn't. I was hearing snake voices. Or not voices, exactly, but snake thoughts. Somehow their brains were hooked into my brain—well, no wonder, since their spines were sprouting out of my
skull
—and since I think in English, I was hearing them that way. In words, but majorly weirded. Once I started to pay attention, it scared me, it was so—so not me. Not even human. Like there were smells to the thoughts: moss, frog, earthworm, leaf loam, musk. And the smells were tastes, but the tastes had colors. Greenish, brownish, scarlet, flickering forked-tongue black. It was way strange.

…
jussst a common colubrid, of no dissstinction …

… hungry …

… sssalamandersss under the ssstones by the ssstream.

… golden ssstripesss
…

I'm a black raser, not a blacksssnake.

… russstle my tail in the dry grasss and ssstrike …

… baby pigeon crushed in my coilsss …

Blah blah blah, yada yada yada, hiss hiss
hiss
. I couldn't stand it. I screamed, “Shut up!”

In the sudden silence the TV sounded very loud. Paying bills at her glass-and-chrome desk in the corner—Mom decorated the way she dressed, artsy and extreme—she jumped in her corkscrew chair, swiveling to stare at me.

No need to vibrate usss
, someone in my mind declared peevishly.

Mom said, “Dusie, just turn it off if—”

“Not the tube. The stupid snakes.”

A coldly regal voice said in my mind,
We prefer to be addresssed as ssserpentsss.

“I would prefer if you would
shut up!
”

I heard a hissy murmur from the crowd, and the regal one said,
Be polite. We bite
.

Ooooh, I just wanted to kill them. All of them. My fists clenched, and my mouth opened to tell them off, but I saw Mom peering at me. “Dusie?”

“They're talking at me inside my head, Mom!”

“I beg your pardon?”

Right away I knew I had made a mistake. I mean, I was assuming her snakes did the same, but from the expression on her face, nuh-uh. And there are some things you shouldn't let your mom find out. Like, I don't know, if you got a tattoo on your butt, that might be one. Or if you're hearing what should have been your hair yakking inside your mind.

“You're hearing
voices?
” Mom exclaimed.

I mumbled, “It's just the stupid snakes.”

Ssserpentsss
somebody on my head objected. I ignored them.

In a too-sweet voice Mom was saying, “But, Dusie, honey, snakes don't talk.”

“I
know
that.”

“But you're hearing voices in your mind?”

I rolled my eyes. “Mom, forget it, okay? I'll handle it.”

“But sweetie, if you're having, um, a mental episode, it might be due to, um, a chemical imbalance due to, ah, hormones. I'd better make you an appointment to see—”

“Mom, no!” As if things weren't miserable enough.

“To see a specialist.”

“Mom, I'm
fine!
” Well, as fine as anybody could be with snakes for hair.

“That's for the doctor to decide, Dusie.”

Oh. Just. Great. But I felt too worn out to put up a good fight.

sssee what happenss when you fusss?
said my most unfavorite voice. They were such—such
creeps
. I hated them. I wanted to smack somebody, but I was too tired. All I could do was wrap a very big, very thick towel around my head and go to bed.

TWO

In the morning, I made Mom get up before dawn. There I was, miserable and wide awake, so why should I let her sleep? I'd been trying to think what to do, and what I'd come up with was to make her cover my snakes all over with facial mud so they would look like dreadlocks—okay, really disgusting dreads, not soft like Keisha's, but at least maybe I could go to school? Not that I loved school so much, but at that point I really needed to at least pretend I was normal, not half-human and definitely not a junior Medusa. I guess I was being stupid, not facing the facts, but I felt like everything would be okay if I could just act like it was. Go do everyday things. Be with my friends.

I still hadn't eaten, I hadn't been able to sleep much, and I felt like a zombie. My snakes acted like they were hibernating. “If you stay calm, so will they,” Mom said, slathering mud on them like it was something she did every day.

“Mom, I
know.
” Like I needed her telling me stuff at six o'clock in the morning?

“How would you know?”

“I'm not stupid!”

Mom didn't like being vertical at six
A
.
M
. any more than I did. “You know so much, you do this yourself from now on,” she grumbled, slapping mud onto my head.

“No way.”

“Yes way.”

“I'm not touching them.”

“Yes, you are. I'm not doing it for you after today. Wear my turbans if you're so squeamish.”

“Ew!” Not her turbans, never my mother's turbans. I tied my biggest do-rag over my dreads, looked in the mirror, and felt an urge to flush myself down the toilet. I didn't even bother with makeup; what was the use? I just gulped down a bowl of Frosted Flakes, stuffed Kotex and some spare mud into my backpack, then left.

I felt so ugly I took the subway, and I hated every woman on there with hair, even the greasy-headed bag ladies. I felt so low I wanted to stay underground, but I got off at my stop. Seeing homeless people huddled on the platform didn't make me feel any better. I climbed the stairs, ducked into a narrow back street nobody used, and tried to sneak toward my middle school.

I never made it.

Before I got halfway there a male voice said, “Hey, cool hair.”

I turned, and oh, God, it was the boy I liked, the tall one with eyes the color of tarnished silver, walking up to stand beside me. My heart started pounding, and I felt crawlies on my scalp, oh no, snakes starting to rouse. I had to calm down fast. Right now. It wasn't like I could ever have a boyfriend anyway, not with a head full of snakes. Forget flirting, forget dating. Forget soft kisses. Forget all those dreams of true love.

Calm. Had to be calm. I managed to act bored and say, “Oh, hi, Troy.”

“Oh, hi, Dusie,” he mimicked. “Aren't you somebody. New hairdo go to your head?” He grinned, teasing, and suddenly his hand shot out to yank my hair.

Only it wasn't hair. It was snakes.

He was just trying to make me giggle and squeal, but I jumped away. “Don't!”

“Why not?” He tried again.

Because I couldn't let him find out about me, that was why not. I yelled, “Get
off!
” and whacked his hand down, but that just made him laugh, like it was a game, and he grabbed for my head again.

I blocked him with both arms. “Troy, it's not funny! Let me alone!”

One of the creeps on my head, in my head, whatever, sounded a warning.
sssevere vibrationsss
.

Predator!
another one of them cried.

Yet another hissed,
prepare to ssstrike!

Trying to ignore them, I walked away from Troy, but he followed me, and that pissed me off. I mean, recent events had put me in sooo not a very good mood anyway.

Apparently my head residents didn't appreciate being followed any more than I did. Their voices got louder and more urgent.

Ssstalker!

Prepare for ssself-defenssse!

Someone else chimed in.
Musssk!

Deploy musssk! Deploy fecesss!
Their loud brown thoughts
smelled
like snake musk, which believe me did not improve my mood.

I had to keep looking over my shoulder at Troy, to make sure he wasn't getting too close to my “hair,” and he grinned.

“What's the matter, Dusie?” he teased.

“You're ugly, that's what!” I said just because he wasn't.

“Ooooh, that's
harsh!
”

“Get away from me!”

“Hey, I'm just going to school.” He kept grinning and kept following.

The snake chorus crescendoed, darker and darker.
ssswell necksss! musssk! cannot deploy musssk! cannot deploy fecesss! No tail, no cloaca! ssshhh! Forget musssk! present necksss! Flatten necksss! Prepare to—

I told Troy, “Go away and let me alone!”

“What if I don't want to?” And he grabbed me. By my right wrist, as his other hand shot toward my “hair” again.

That did it.

Without even thinking, or maybe letting my headful of creepy crawlies think for me, with my left hand I snatched off my do-rag. Flakes of face mud fell all around me as my snakes reared and showed their colors, threatening, hissing, spitting.

Troy turned white, dropped my arm like it burned his hand, and took a step back, screaming, “What the—talk about ugly!”

He never got to say any more. If looks could kill … but mine could. I didn't realize in time, but I felt it happen as anger blazed in me, my snakes thrashed and struck at the air, my eyes flared fire, and Troy … Troy turned to white stone.

“Did anyone see you?” Mom demanded.

“How should I know? I just pushed him over, rolled him into the alley, and ran.” In other words, I'd panicked. Even now, at home, with the apartment door locked behind me, I was still pretty much hysterical. I kicked the sofa, then yelled, “Ow!” and burst out crying. I felt awful. Troy. Dead. Or petrified, whatever. Just for trying to yank my hair.

On/in my head, some snake said to another snake,
We sssaved her
.

She hasss to like usss now
, another one agreed.

I did not like. Not. Like. Snakes on my head. I must never go snake-crazy again. I must never do the killer look to anybody again. Never. I had to make sure not to let it happen ever again. Never never never.

I wailed at Mom, “Why didn't you
tell
me not to turn people to stone?”

“I was hoping … I thought …” Her voice shook. She spun around and ran to the kitchen and hurried back with black plastic garbage bags; they rustled in her grip because her hands were shaking, too. “They're such
little
snakes,” she managed to say, “I didn't think you could. Or I was hoping you couldn't. You're half-human.” She grabbed her coat, stuffing the garbage bags into her pockets. “Wrap something around your head,” she ordered, “and come on. We have to go get him before …”

She didn't say before what, and I didn't ask, just grabbed one of her silk scarves out of the coat closet, tied it over my snakes, and followed her. On the street, she got us a cab. We perched in the backseat. I dried my face on my sleeve, sniffled, and tried to calm down. Mom stared straight ahead.

“It's probably okay,” she said softly after a while. “In New York, most people just blink and keep walking.”

I knew it was not okay and it never would be okay.

“I've been through this before,” Mom went on. “If anybody notices, they'll think it's something that fell off a truck. A garden gnome. Or somebody's art project.”

She was trying to help. But she wasn't helping.

She had always been, like, my rock. Kind of a strict, old-fashioned rock—well, duh, she
was
way old, and so are rocks—but solid.

But now my thoughts were making me feel as if I could never trust her again.

“Your sculptures,” I said after a while, running some of them through my mind:
Gladiator, Celtic Elk Hunter, Napoleonic Fusilier, Spartan Warrior
, to name only a few in her Attacker series—the critics were always talking about how startlingly vital they were, coming at the viewer with weapons as if to kill, all so lifelike—
Spartan Warrior
with actual sword wounds,
Gladiator
with whip scars—done with what the critics called “nearly supernatural authority,” as if she had been there …

Well, she
had
been there. Hundreds of years ago.

And I knew now how the “artworks” had happened, and even to me my voice sounded dead. “Your sculptures. All so realistic. All in stone.”

“Hush,” Mom said.

I couldn't hush. All of a sudden I hated her. I mean really, really hated her, because when I was a little girl I'd wanted to grow up to be just like her, but now—since “becoming a woman”—ow, it hurt. “Where are we going to take Troy?” I demanded. “To your studio?”

“Yes.”

“Oh,
lovely
. Are you going to exhibit him? Give him a title? ‘Schoolboy Stricken with Horror of Hideous—'”

“Stop it,” Mom ordered, and even though it wasn't time yet, she signaled the cab driver. “Let us out here.”

I managed to keep my mouth shut until she'd paid him and he drove away.

Then I demanded, “How many people have you—”

“
Stop it
, Dusie.”

We strode, hurrying, through the hardest, grayest place I'd ever been to. Hard gray street and hard gray sidewalk in the cold shadow of gray buildings under a gray winter sky.

In a gray voice Mom said, “I've managed not to—not to lose control for centuries now. The sculptures are from long ago; I keep them in storage and bring one out when I need a new work.”

My mother had been lying to me. All my life. She'd let me think that while I was in school she spent her days at some studio somewhere, chipping away like Michelangelo, when really … really she was a serial killer, sort of.

“Most of them deserved it,” she added, glancing at me, hard-eyed.

“Mom!” Suddenly I was almost crying. “Mom, no!”

“I'm not a
murderer
, sweetie. It just happened. Usually to some thug who was trying to kill me. The ‘Attackers' are just enemies I had stashed away. A couple of dozen in the last four thousand years; that's not so bad.”

“
Sure
it's not.”

“Merciful heavens, honey, when I was your age, the king of Gaul used to kill more people than that on an average day before breakfast.”