Slice Of Cherry (11 page)

Fancy scuffed her shoe on the path, feeling the burden of conversation.

“Are you shy?”

“I never do the talking.”

“You should. People would listen.” She brushed the backs of her fingers against Fancy’s throat. Fancy felt a tingle, as though Cherry had soaked her fingers in menthol.

“What is this place?”

When Cherry smiled, she looked so much like Madda it was creepy. “What would you like it to be?”

Fancy thought about it, and between one blink and the next she and Cherry were in the cellar.

“I’m sorry.” Fancy chewed her finger, her words muffled and ashamed. “I don’t know why I chose here.”

“Don’t you?” Cherry didn’t seem upset to find herself in the Bonesaw Killer’s lair. “You’re more in control here. Happier.”

A moontree sprouted painlessly between Cherry and the cot, shooting up and then spreading quickly, like a beach
umbrella. Unlike the moontree at Cherry Glade this one was alive. It had deep purple leaves and tight white buds like pursed mouths that would only open in the moonlight. Fancy was amazed that such a huge tree could fit in her small cellar, but somehow it did.

“Now we’re both at home,” said Cherry, satisfied, descending gracefully to the floor. She patted the space beside her, and so Fancy sat next to her and marveled at the way Cherry glowed, even in the shade of the tree.

“If you lie beneath a moontree, you’ll die in thirty days,” she added, quoting a well-known Porterene superstition. The moonflower buds hung quivering over Fancy’s head, like fat acid drops waiting to drip and burn her.

“The reason people die in thirty days is cuz those flowers are poisonous.”

Cherry reached up without looking and plucked one of the flower buds. “So are lies.” The plucked bud bloomed in Cherry’s hand, fragrant and intoxicating. And toxic. Cherry pressed the flower into Fancy’s hands.

“I want to talk about what you wished for,” said Cherry. “And I want you to be honest.”

“I want me and Kit and Madda to stay together. I don’t
want anything to split us up.” The flower seemed to draw the words from her. “And I keep thinking, for that to happen me and Kit need to be able to get rid of people without getting caught. People like the old man.”

“You already got rid of the old man. You won’t get caught.”

“But it’s not just him. I’m thinking about the future, too. Kit and me, we are who we are. That won’t change. And then there’s Franken.”

“You want to get rid of Franken?” Cherry said, disapprovingly. “You saved his life—that makes you responsible for him.”

“I
have
been responsible. He’s still alive. So far. We decided to give him a lobotomy, but that might accidentally kill him. Or it might not work the way we need it to. I’d feel better if I had something more certain. Like a doorway to shove him through.”

“If you want a door to open, all you need is a key.”

“This?” She showed Cherry the silver Porterene key she always carried on her necklace.

“That’s the wrong kind. For what you need you’ll have to go into the dark park.”

“The dark park?” Fancy’s stomach dropped to her feet, and she wondered briefly if that was what evisceration felt like. “No way. I’m not going in the
dark park
.”

“If you want to get rid of Franken without ‘getting rid’ of him, it’s the only way. I’ll help you as much as I’m able, because we’re kin. But if you want this, you’ll have to earn it.”

Fancy remembered all the stories she’d heard about the dark park—
hundreds
of stories—about people who had entered it and were never seen again.

“Maybe Kit and me should just be satisfied with a trip to the South Seas.”

“
You
want to go to the South Seas. Not your sister.”

“Kit likes what I like. And we like to do things together. She even made a wish for us to be together forever.”

“Did she?” Cherry stood and crossed the room toward a kinetoscope exactly like the one in Fancy’s cellar. She knew it wasn’t her kinetoscope, though, because this one had the crank that hers was missing. Cherry waved Fancy over and cranked the kinetoscope, but instead of an image appearing on the screen, the image projected around them, so that Fancy felt like she was standing in the middle of a film. A film starring her sister, whose flickering, sepia image sat at their desk in the sleeping porch writing “true love” in large red letters on a piece of paper. She even drew a heart around the words before putting the paper into her pink bottle.

Fancy stood in shock as the image disappeared. Cherry had released the crank and simply watched her.

“True love? She wasted a wish on
true love
?”

“That’s what she wants.”

“It is not! Besides, who’s there for her to fall in love with? Everybody in town hates us.”

“They wouldn’t if you and Kit were less selfish. Gifts are meant to be shared.”

“What gifts?”

Cherry turned the crank again. The kinetoscope projected an image of Fancy and Kit giggling at the images in the bubbles of Madda fighting the mean women. The image vanished almost as quickly as it had arrived.

“That’s no gift,” said Fancy. “Well . . . I guess having the sight is sort of a gift, but it’s mostly useless except for eavesdropping. Or make-believe.”

“Because that’s all you use it for.” Cherry stroked the kinetoscope. “Finding the key will expand your ability.”

“Which one? The sight or killing?”

“Either one.”

Fancy studied Cherry carefully, heart thumping. “You don’t mind? About us being killers?”

“Why should I mind? I’m not your judge. I’m your kin—I only want you to be happy.”

“Killing doesn’t make me—” Fancy rethought the wisdom of lying under the moontree. “Maybe it makes me a
little
happy. But Kit talked about having a hole inside her. I have it too.” Fancy hadn’t known that was true until she heard the words pouring out of her mouth. “And not even killing can really fill it.”

“Maybe because you don’t use it to make others happy. A world of people could use your help.”

“Helping people.” Fancy took out her bubble solution. “You sound like Kit.”

“More than you do. Strange that two girls who swear they are the same person have so little in common.”

“We
are
the same,” she said, filling the cellar with bubbles. “We share everything.”

“Then why are you here without her?”

Cherry extended her palm, and one of Fancy’s bubbles settled into it and expanded until it was so large, Fancy could no longer see Cherry behind it. Because Kit was inside it, wandering away from the bottle-filled moontree, stretching as if waking from a deep sleep. She looked around, confused, as if she’d lost something.

“She’s looking for me,” said Fancy, feeling a twinge of guilt as she put her toy away. “How do I get back?”

But she couldn’t see Cherry around the huge bubble, and not through it. She reached out to Kit, and the bubble exploded.

Fancy gasped, all the breath knocked out of her. She blinked to find not only the bubble gone, but the cellar and Cherry gone as well. There was only the dark and the path, glittering pinkly but dimming like a guttering candle flame.

Fancy raced back the way she had come, frightened of what would happen if the path vanished before she could return to her family. And it had taken such a long time to reach Cherry. The path would probably fade before she was even halfway—

Fancy rushed out of the dark, otherworldly woods and into the glade, blinking at the brightness, wincing at the loud voices surrounding her even as she welcomed the noise. She’d never been so glad to be among people.

“Fancy, what’s wrong?”

It was Madda. Fancy, blinded by so much light after so much darkness, stumbled and fell. Into someone’s lap.

“Man. I didn’t think Cherry’d grant my wish
this
fast.”

Fancy’s eyes adjusted and narrowed on Ilan, grinning at her in extreme close-up. She shoved him into a plate of corn on
the cob in her hurry to flee his grip. She ran to Madda, who was sitting across from him.

“Why are you sweating like that? And shaking?” Madda felt her forehead. “You getting heatstroke?” She poured Fancy a cup of lemonade. “Drink this, and stay out of the sun for the rest of the day.”

Fancy leaned against Madda’s side and drank the lemonade, glaring at Ilan the whole time. He was still just sitting there, dabbing at the smears of butter on his dress shirt. “What’s
he
doing here?”

“He came to keep me company.” Madda smiled at him. “I told you, we’re old friends.”

He seemed a lot more relaxed than the last time she’d seen him, less tense. Maybe because his brother wasn’t around.

“That’s the second time I heard you talk in public,” he said, smiling at Fancy. “Your ma said you could, but I didn’t believe it.”

“Whyn’t you go talk to your
own
mother?”

“Fancy!”

“I can’t.” He gave her a brittle smile. “She pissed off when I was ten.”

Madda reached over and smacked Ilan upside the head. “Don’t say ‘pissed.’”

He rubbed his ear good-naturedly. “Sorry. You might be wrong about her not being ready to socialize, though. She looks ready enough for me.”

“I don’t mean physically. Stop leering at her.”

“I’m not leering. I’m
appreciating
.”

“Oh, well, that’s different, then.”

The familiarity between them was infuriating. Fancy backed away from it, out of Madda’s arms. “Where’s Kit?”

Madda’s jaw dropped. “Don’t you know?”

“She’s with Gabe,” said Ilan, still appreciating her. “I can see through your dress.”

Madda groaned, staring at Fancy as if she’d never seen her before. “What did I tell you about wearing a slip? And a bra! Good Lord.”

Fancy crossed her arms over her chest and hid behind Madda. Ilan, unable to look through her clothes, was forced to make eye contact.

“They’re over there in the trees,” he said. “Near the girls playing jump rope.”

Madda grinned.
“They?”

Fancy bolted from the table, past the girls singing “Shimmy, shimmy, cocoa pop!” and glimpsed Kit and Gabriel through the
trees. They were slow-dancing to “Signed, Sealed, Delivered,” which was
not
a slow song, and sharing an ice-cream cone. Gabriel was almost a head taller than Kit, and it was strange to see him towering over her—Kit had always seemed so much bigger than everyone else.

“Why’re you being so nice to me?” Gabe asked.

Kit took a lick of the vanilla ice cream—Kit didn’t even like vanilla ice cream!—and then held the cone to Gabriel’s mouth. “You think I’m nice?” She was surprised and open, letting him see her.

“A nice change.” He seemed to like what he saw.

“From what?” When she held the cone out of reach, he tickled her until she lowered her arm.

“People who don’t know how to act around me,” he said. “People who think I need to be patted on the head or something. Because of what happened to my pop. You know?”

“I know.”

He let her go long enough to unfasten his necklace. “Take this.”

She hesitated, staring at the cross dangling from the end of it. “I’m not religious. Not really.”

“That’s not why I’m giving it to you.” Since she wouldn’t
take it, he fastened it around her neck himself. “Look. It’s got my name carved on it. So now you get to carry me close to your heart.”

“And between my boobs.”

“I told you”—he wrapped her in his arms—“I’m always at the right place at the right time.”

They leaned in close.

“Kit!”

Fancy charged forward as they jerked away from each other guiltily.

“That’s . . .
unsanitary
.” She pointed to the ice-cream cone in Kit’s hand.

“You should feel honored,” Kit told Gabriel. “Fancy only talks around people she likes.”

“I wasn’t talking to him!” Fancy grabbed Kit by the hand and pulled her away so sharply her ice-cream cone tumbled into the grass.

“Damn it, Fancy.”

“Why ain’t you with your brother?” she asked Gabriel, ignoring Kit. “He don’t care enough about you, so you gotta come over and bother my sister?”

Gabriel jerked as if he’d been pushed in the back.

“Stay away from my sister!” Fancy grabbed Kit’s hand and stalked off, dragging Kit behind her.

But Kit didn’t want to be dragged. She jerked free of Fancy’s grip. “What’s your problem?”

“Don’t act like
I
did something wrong, when you’re the one who didn’t even notice I was gone.”

“Gone where?”

“I was off in the woods. Cherry called me.”

“
Our
Cherry?” said Kit, first stunned, then disbelieving. “Were you dreaming? I didn’t hear anything except bottles tinkling.” A faraway look clouded Kit’s eyes. “Like a woman laughing.”

“I didn’t hear any laughter. Just a voice. Cherry’s voice.”

“You met Cherry?” Kit saw the truth in Fancy’s eyes and met it with awe. “Holy shit, Fancy! What did she say?”

“You didn’t notice I was gone. Or is it that you didn’t care cuz you were too busy making kissy-face at that holy-rolling weirdo?”

Kit looked back at Gabriel guiltily. He stared at her, too, like he wanted to come over but didn’t dare. Fancy poked out her tongue at him.

“Maybe Cherry put a spell on me,” Kit said.

But Fancy wasn’t ready to let Kit off that easily. “She said
you wished for true love. Even though you were
supposed
to wish for us to be together forever. How could you do that to me? For a boy you don’t even know. And who doesn’t know you. He called you
nice
. Not only is he a weirdo, he’s brain-dead.”

“I could be nice if I wanted,” Kit snapped. “It’s easy when you hang around with nice people.”

“So go be nice to him!”

Fancy stormed away, and even though she was angry—Kit thought that weirdo was nicer than her?—it pleased her to see Kit’s shadow intermingling with hers as Kit hurried to keep up.

At their isolated picnic table Fancy was glad to note that Ilan had joined the long list of people who had abandoned their family.

Fancy came up behind Madda, who was clearing away the food, and hugged her. “I’m tired. Can we go home now?”