Secrets of the Hanged Man (Icarus Fell #3) (An Icarus Fell Novel) (12 page)

“
I’m fine. I’ll go back to my place. No big deal,” Cory said.

“
No way. You’re coming home with me.”

Despite his protests, they stayed their course.

Trevor inhaled, relishing the ability to fill his lungs. He’d recovered from Manny’s punches, but he noticed Cory limping, having trouble breathing; the mud caked on his overcoat and blood dried on his face didn’t improve his appearance.

“
We should go to the hospital.”

“
No hospital,” Cory grumbled and stood straighter. “I’m fine. Really.”

“
All right, but let’s clean you up a bit before we get to my place. My Mom’ll freak if she sees you like this.”

They didn’t rush on the way to Trevor’s, taking the time to stop at a gas station to wash the blood off Cory’s face and wipe the mud from his coat. When most of the dirt didn’t come off the overcoat, Cory removed it and jammed it into the washroom’s garbage can. It stuck out comically, looking as though someone stuffed a muddy dwarf into the trash receptacle.

“Hey. Don’t throw it away.”

“
Whatever.” Cory waved his hand at it and left the washroom, Trevor close behind. “I’ve got another one. They were my step-father’s.”

Trevor stared at his shoes as they walked, questions he didn’t ask rebounding around in his head as he waited to see if Cory might volunteer answers on his own. He didn’t, so when they turned onto Trevor’s street, he decided it was time.

“Thanks again,” he began. His friend grunted. “But what were you doing there?”

He glanced at the older boy and found him also examining his footwear. His earlier limp had dissipated, but he took an occasional stutter step, like attempting to remove his underwear from the crack of his ass without using his hands.

“I went for a walk.” He snorted and spit bloody snot on the ground in front of them. “Sometimes a guy has to get out of the house.”

“
But why didn’t you fight back?”

“
Would you?”

“
Sure,” Trevor said, though he didn’t know that he would.

“
No point,” Cory said echoing Trevor’s thoughts. “They’d have kicked the shit out of me no matter what. Probably worse if I fought back.”

“
But you stepped in anyway.”

“
Yeah. You’d do the same for me.”

Trevor’s cheeks burned as he wondered if he would. He didn’t respond.

I didn’t stop them this time.

They made their way along the chipped sidewalk, past the leafless sticks pretending to be trees planted at the edge of the street on the way to Trevor’s house. He started down the path to his front door but Cory hesitated.

“I don’t know. I should go home. My mom might wonder where I am.”

“
Really?” Trevor looked at his watch. “It’s not four yet. Dude, you old lady needs to relax.”

“
Yeah. I guess.”

“
Come on.”

He strode the rest of the path to the door, stopping to look back when he’d opened the door. Cory was right behind him. He tried to peer around Trevor into the house.

“Are your mom and dad home?”

“
Nah. Mom and Ashton are at work. He’s her boyfriend. My dad’s...dead.”

“
Something else we have in common. I’ve got a bunch of dead dads.”

Trevor raised one eyebrow but didn’t ask. Instead, he led Cory through the door, leaving it for the other teen to close behind them.

***

Cory excused himself from the dinner table and slouched down the hall to the washroom. The pain of the bumps and bruises he’d incurred while the three teens threw their fists and feet against him had pretty much subsided, but the lump at the top of his ass crack hurt enough to make sitting an excruciating experience.

He closed the door and locked it, but didn’t flip the light switch on. Instead, he stood in the dark, rubbing the bump through his pants. It seemed smaller, he thought, but the pain flaring each time he touched it was more than before. He sighed through his nose and sat on the edge of the bathtub.

I shouldn’t have come.

At the best of times, being around people caused him pain, but engaging in conversation and socializing was worse. Trevor was the first person he’d found in as long as he could remember that he could be in the presence of without nausea overcoming him, though he didn’t know why. He reached over his shoulder and rubbed the hard spot above his shoulder blade.

Both Trevor’s mother and her boyfriend pretended to be accommodating, but he understood they weren’t happy with their son for bringing an unannounced guest to dinner. Cory saw it in the displeasure in their eyes, alongside the same discomfort his presence brought to most people.

It’s time to go.

He stood gingerly, twisting his hips to avoid putting pressure on his inflamed tail bone, then flushed the toilet and ran water in the sink in case anyone was listening. He opened the door and started along the hall but stopped to eavesdrop before entering the dining room.

“...told you about bringing home strays.” The voice belonged to Trevor’s mother’s boyfriend, Ashton.

“
He’s not a stray. He’s my friend.”

Trevor’s use of the unaccustomed f-word unsettled Cory.

Are we friends? Do I have a friend?

“
Pfft. Some friend. He looks like a druggie. And you get into fights when you’re with him.”

“
The fight wasn’t his fault,” Trevor protested. “I--”

“
You shouldn’t be hanging out with trash.”

“
Ashton--” Trevor’s mother started.

“
Stay out of this, Rae. You’re too easy on him.”

“
You’re not my father,” Trevor said, the volume of his voice rising. Cory figured this wasn’t their first conversation on that subject.

“
No, I’m not,” Ashton replied in a tone suggesting suppressed anger. “If I was, things would be different.”

“
You are--”

Cory decided the time had come to end the conversation, or at least provide some relief, so he stepped into the doorway. Three sets of eyes turned toward him.

“I think I should go,” he said looking from one to the other. Trevor looked angry; Ashton disdainful. “Thank you for dinner, Mrs. Fell.”

“
You’re welcome.” Her lips quivered into what might be a sweet smile if not for the tension of distress hardening her face.

“
Cory, you don’t--”

“
It’s okay, Trev. I gotta go home and take care of my mom, anyway. I’ll let myself out.”

The door closed behind him and their voices rose in anger again. He paused outside for a minute, listening to their tones in the darkness of the early evening, though their words were indistinguishable. Night had a tendency to throw sounds farther than they might carry at other times of the day. The window muffled their conversation, but there was no doubt of the feelings behind it.

Cory sauntered down the path and walked along the uneven sidewalk on his way home, thinking he might have to take action to change his friend’s situation.

8 Years Ago

“
Smile.”

Cory didn’t. He sat with his hands between his knees, glaring at the photographer. The guy waved some weird stuffed animal at him—a cross between a clown and a lion that provided no reason for him to change his expression. If anything, seeing such a strange thing confused him, offended him, made him angry.

“Come on, kid. They don’t pay me much for doing this.” The photographer grinned. “I do it for the fun of hanging out with a bunch of grade four kids.”

The stuffed thing waggled again, a bell on its blue hat jingling. Cory scowled.

“At least move your hair out of your eyes.” He paused, waiting for Cory to do what he asked. Cory didn’t. “All right, but your mom and dad aren’t going to be happy.”

The photographer—a young man in his mid-twenties with a scruff of beard and hair a little too long—offered a last pleading look. When it still didn’t work, he rolled his eyes and pressed the shutter release. The bulb set in the middle of the big silver umbrella flashed and Cory squinted, blinded for a second. He blinked away the green dots in front of his eyes and moved to crawl off the stool, but the photographer stopped him.

“One more in case you closed your eyes.”

The light popped again; Cory blinked on purpose.

“Are we done now? Can I go?”

“
Yeah. Get out of here, kid.”

Cory slid off the stool as the photographer glanced at his watch, cursed under his breath, and ushered the next child—a new kid named Manny—into place. Manny wore a button-up shirt with a clip-on tie and his hair parted to one side. He smiled when the young man told him to.

Cory crossed to the other side of the gym to the group of kids who’d already had their pictures taken. Mrs. Granger stood at the head of the throng and furrowed her brow at Cory in disappointment as he joined them.

“
You couldn’t smile for the man?” she asked. Cory turned away from her.

The other kids chit-chatted while waiting for their classmates, but none of them talked to Cory. He wended his way to the rear of the pack and leaned against the wall, arms crossed in front of his chest as they talked and teased, played and sang. Mrs. Granger shushed them every once in a while, and the volume level dropped for a minute before returning to its previous cacophony.

Finally, the scruffy photographer took Susie McKinnon’s picture and she made her way across the gym to join her classmates. When she walked, her hair bounced and floated around her head like an angel’s halo, enthralling Cory. The pink bow on top of her head accented the chestnut color of her locks while matching the modestly-heeled shoes clicking on the gym floor; her purple dress hung to her white tights-covered knees.

Beautiful.

Cory straightened at her approach, standing erect and dropping his arms to his sides. He wiped his sweaty palms on the thighs of the black pants his mother had made him wear instead of his usual jeans—the dressiest pair of pants she found in his size at the Salvation Army Thrift Store. Being big for his age and so skinny made buying clothes difficult, especially after Ugly Robert lost his job.

Susie headed straight for him. He swallowed and rehearsed in his mind what he’d been planning to say to her all week. Simple words, and not many of them, but they may be the most important ones he’d uttered in his life.

“Will you go to the dance with me?”

It was an afternoon sock hop, not a real dance, but it was two days away and Cory had put off asking her as long as possible. Now or never, as he’d once heard someone sing.

She reached the other students and pushed her way through them toward the back. Cory chewed his bottom lip, worried the others might notice him vibrating with his attempt to catch her eye. When he did, she smiled, and warmth spilled out of his chest, filling him; his mouth twitched into a nervous mockery of a smile and he wiped his sweaty palms on his pants again.

You can do it, Cory. You can do it.

He parted his lips to show his teeth and make his smile bigger. When he breathed, he inhaled the cologne he’d swiped from the bottle Ugly Robert kept in the medicine cabinet. It made his head light, threatened to start it aching, but he remembered his mother saying how much she enjoyed it. He hoped it appealed to Susie McKinnon, too.

“
Hi,” Susie said, throwing her arms open wide.

“
H-hi,” Cory stammered. “S...Susie, do you--”

She embraced Grady Burrows standing in front of him and giggled in the other boy’s ear.

“You look pretty today, Susie,” Grady said.

“
Thanks, Grady.”

“
Do you want to go to the dance with me on Friday?”

Cory’s heart skittered and skipped a beat. The sweat on his palms jumped to his forehead; the smile he worked so hard to keep on his lips fell away like leaves from a tree in autumn.

Say no. Say no. Say no.

Susie gazed at Grady, her eyes sparkling delight and excitement. Cory held his breath and concentrated on keeping his knees from shaking as his legs suddenly felt made of Jell-o.

“I’d love to,” she said.

“
Susie, no,” Cory’s mouth blurted without his mind wanting it to.

Both Susie and Grady looked at him. Susie’s smile remained, though the expression wasn’t reflected in her eyes. Grady’s upper lip curled up in a Billy Idol sneer.

“Did you say something, Scarecrow?”

He emphasized the last word, spitting it out like a mouthful of phlegm. Cory shook his head vigorously.

“Didn’t think so.” Grady took Susie by the arm and led her away. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

Susie peeked over her shoulder as they walked away and Cory recognized the look in her eyes, because he’d seen it many times in the expressions of his classmates; this was the first time he’d seen it from her.

Disgust.

“
Okay, everyone. Time to go back to class,” Mrs. Granger said and waved her arm for the class to follow her.

Cory waited while the other kids filed out of the gym and into the broad hall. With no one paying attention, he slipped out the side door and ran all the way home.

***

The back door was unlocked, as usual.

Cory opened it slowly, pausing each time the hinge let out a squeak. When he’d opened it wide enough, he stepped through into the kitchen and pushed it closed with the same gentleness and care.

The kitchen smelled of the baked beans in the pan on the stove. The handle of a spoon protruded from it and the open can sat on the counter, the top stuck to the magnet of the electric can opener his mother and Ugly Robert had received as a wedding gift from his grandmother—they’d been married less than a month when she died of pneumonia. A sheen of tomato sauce clung to the top, a few drops spattering the counter beneath.

Cory stole through the kitchen and into the hallway, because the noise of afternoon television programming and the odor of beans suggested someone was home. On Wednesdays, his mother cleaned Mrs. Parkerson’s house, so it had to be Robert lounging on the couch instead of looking for a job as he told Cory’s mother he did.

Cory didn’t go into the living room; he took a left into the bathroom and shut the door behind him, instead. He held his breath when the latch clicked closed, but knew it was too quiet to be heard above the grunts and moans emanating from the TV. Satisfied Ugly Robert hadn’t noticed him, he locked it.

The faint scent of the lavender air freshener sitting on the back of the toilet mixed with a recent bowel movement made for a sickening odor; Cory ignored it, holding his breath as he opened the drawer in the vanity. As he slid it open, the toenail clippers, travel size shampoos and tubes of hair gel clattered together. He shifted things around, searching through brushes with broken handles, combs, wayward Q-tips, sample packages of body lotions. At the bottom, wedged in the back right corner, he found what he searched for wrapped in a piece of white tissue paper.

He took it out, unwrapped it, and held the razor blade up, letting the light shining in the window glint on the sharp edge. Amazing such a small thing contained such danger.

Cory set it on the counter and pulled his tee-shirt off over his head, folded it, and placed it on the toilet, then did the same with his pants, underwear, and socks. He stared at himself in the mirror, at his narrow chest and shoulders, his prominent ribs, his long, skinny arms.

No wonder they call me Scarecrow.

He’d hated the moniker ever since some kid labeled him with it in grade one. He didn’t remember the kid’s name, although the boy had picked on him all through first grade; he and his family died in a plane crash the next summer, and Cory hadn’t thought of him again until now. But the memory disappeared from Cory’s mind as he pictured Susie again, the revulsion in her eyes. With a sigh, he retrieved the razor blade from the counter, stepped over the edge of the bathtub and sat down. The cold surface of the enameled tub against Cory’s ass and back made him shiver until his body heat warmed it.

He didn’t know why he’d bothered to fold his clothes and get into the tub, it wasn't like he'd have to clean up the mess, but it seemed the proper thing to do. Ugly Robert wouldn’t care, nor would Susie or Grady, Mrs. Granger or the photographer who took the school pictures, no one except his mother. She’d be the one left to sponge up his life.

Cory held the blade in his right hand and raised his left arm, the flat of his forearm facing upward and his hand curled into a fist. The razor hovered in the air above his wrist, his hand shaking, and he thought about the way Ugly Robert treated him, about how his mother had withdrawn further from him since Kaitlin died. Finally, he thought of Susie and the others with whom he’d never fit in, children who’d never be his friends.

He pressed the corner of the razor blade into his wrist, finding the vein between the tendons. His breath whistled between his teeth when he drew it up his arm toward his elbow; blood squirted out of the wound, spattering on the white tub, landing on his bare leg. Wet and warm.

Cory leaned his head back and closed his eyes, waiting for the end.

***

“Wake up.”

The whisper sounded as though spoken directly into his ear, the breath carrying the words tickling his neck and stirring his hair, but he didn’t open his eyes; it couldn’t be real, he must have imagined it.

“Wake up, Cory.”

The hardness of the tub pressed uncomfortably against Cory’s back and he inhaled the scents of coppery blood and sickly lavender, licked his lips and tasted saltiness. He flexed his left hand, the skin tightened with drying blood, but found no pain in his wrist where he’d cut himself. He didn’t open his eyes. It could only be Ugly Robert standing beside him, rousing him, and he didn’t want to face him, of all people.

Unless I’m dead.

“
You’re not dead, Scarecrow,” the voice whispered. “It’s not your time.”

Not Robert’s voice.

Cory opened one eye a crack, his eyelids stuck together where blood had squirted on his cheeks, and saw a shape leaning over him.

“
Who are you?”

He leaned forward and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand, smearing blood across his face. This time, his eyelids separated and he stared up at a boy around his age standing beside the tub, hands on his hips. Cory blinked to clear his vision and the boy was gone.

The nausea and despair in his stomach that drove him to take the razor blade from the drawer had left him. He glanced down at his wrist covered with blood, wiped at it, but succeeded only on smearing it, so he leaned forward and cranked the tap on.

Cory didn’t notice the cold water against his skin. He held his arm under the faucet, watching the water washing over his wrist and forearm tinted pink by the layer of blood. After a moment, he removed it and stared at his wrist.

Not a mark.

Did I imagine it?

The blood on the sides of the tub, splashed on the inside of the plastic shower curtain, and the razor blade lying at the bottom of the tub between his legs told him he hadn’t.

He climbed to his feet and leaned out of the tub, casting about for the boy he’d seen but he was alone and there was nowhere to hide. He’d imagined the boy.

Confused, he drew the shower curtain across the tub and pulled up the pin on the faucet, switching the flow from bath to shower, allowing the water to hit his body and wash the blood from his skin.

He doused himself, splashed the sides of the tub, washed blood off the tile wall, the shower curtain, the built-in soap holder. By the time he became aware of Ugly Robert hammering on the bathroom door, he’d cleaned himself and the tub; he twisted the tap, shutting the water off.

“...the hell is in there? Get out here right now before I call the cops.”

Cory patted himself dry, pulled on his pants and gathered the rest of his clothes in his arms as the door shook with Robert’s insistent knocks. Cory grabbed the knob, but hesitated when the shiny glint of metal in the bottom of the tub caught his eye. He retrieved the razor blade and stuck it carefully in his pocket before opening the door.