Slice Of Cherry (32 page)

“We ain’t like him, Madda.” Fancy turned the sheet music, her hand shaking, as Kit played on, neither of them daring to look back at their mother.

Madda reached between them, startling them, and snatched the sheet music from the piano. They turned then and watched her rip it and the letter she’d received into pieces. “You’re just like him.”

“No, Madda.”

“You know how I feel about being lied to!”

Fancy turned away, hating the look on Madda’s face, that look of betrayal and heartbreak. She faced forward and let Kit deal with it.

“We know, Madda, and we’re not lying. There’s a reason there ain’t a mob with pitchforks and torches standing outside our door, and the reason is we’re
not
like Daddy. You can trust us.”

“Okay.” Whatever Madda heard in Kit’s tone seemed to calm her. Slightly. “I gotta get ready for work. You girls be good,” she added fiercely. “You hear me?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said the sisters in unison.

Madda stalked back the way she’d come and slammed the door to her room.

The sisters looked at each other. “We are so fucked,” said Kit.

Fancy nodded. “Completely. What’re we gone do?”

“Tell her the truth.”

“She’ll hate us! Not like the way we hate each other sometimes. But, like, real hate. The way she feels about Daddy. We can’t trust her with this.”

Kit dropped to the floor and began to gather the ripped sheet music and puzzle it back together. Fancy went into the kitchen and scrounged up a roll of Scotch tape. When she came back into the living room, Kit was staring off into space.

“What is it?”

“Just imagining if Madda stopped loving me.” When she looked at Fancy, her eyes were wet. “I think it’d hurt, the way torture hurts.”

“Kit.”

“No,” she said, when Fancy would have come to her. “It’s fine. I learned a whole lot this summer. And one of the things I learned is that I don’t have to depend on Madda for love. Other people love me.
Gabe
loves me.”

The name “Gabe” shivered in Fancy’s belly like a poison dart.

“Still,” Kit continued, “if Madda could ignore the murder and mayhem and love me anyway, I think I’d have everything I want.”

Fancy threw the tape at Kit and nearly hit her in the eye. Instead it sailed past her and disappeared into the shadows of the shuttered room.

“Nobody gets everything they want. Why should you be any different?”

I
T WAS RAINING AND
I
COULD SEE
D
ADDY’S FACE IN ALL THE RAINDROPS.

That Friday, after Kit and Gabriel had left on their trip, Fancy was hanging the laundry in the backyard when a police car pulled into the driveway. She tried not to panic when Sheriff Baker got out and approached her. He wore a brown uniform and hat and always reminded Fancy of Smokey the Bear, only less friendly.

“Fancy.” He tipped his hat to her. Cops didn’t salute people they were about to arrest, did they?

“I heard about what you been doing.”

Fancy dropped the clothespins.

“About those transies. About Datura Woodson. About
Annie Snoad.” Sheriff Baker picked up the clothespins and helped Fancy pin the bedsheet she was fumbling with to the line. “That’s real good of you.”

“Good?”

“If your pa had been of a mind to be as helpful as you and your sister, I could have worked with him, maybe got him a different outcome. Of course what I’m telling you is strictly between us.”

“Everybody keeps saying that,” Fancy exclaimed, “that everything’s a secret. That they’ll never tell anyone, but . . . everybody
knows
everything!”

Sheriff Baker chuckled. “You know better than to try to keep a secret in a small town. We’re all like one big family here.” He mopped his brow with a red handkerchief, and she noticed the last two fingers of his right hand were gone; deep teeth marks were grooved into his remaining flesh. “That’s what I never could stomach about your pa, that he could hurt his fellow Porterenes that way. We have enough trouble keeping safe in this town without worrying about our neighbors hacking us into pieces. Anyway, I thought I’d come over and pay you a visit. Let you know I’m watching your back.” He
gave her a sly look. “And if
I
should run across any unsavory characters who need to be taken care of away from the eyes of the law . . .”

“I’ll watch your back?”

“Atta girl.” He clapped a hand on her shoulder and steered her away from the laundry. “Come walk me to my car so I can give you the batch of muffins my wife made specially for you.”

As they walked to the car Ilan pulled up in his Oldsmobile. After he jogged over, Fancy let him grab her and kiss her cheek, but she wouldn’t allow anything more, gesturing toward the sheriff, who watched them openly.

“Hey, Sheriff.”

“Ilan.” The sheriff looked as if he couldn’t decide whether to handcuff Ilan or shoot at his feet to run him off the property. He turned to Fancy. “Your ma still at work?”

“She’s at the store.”

Sheriff Baker handed her the plastic-wrapped plate of blueberry muffins and said, “Well, you two stay outdoors, then. Ain’t right for boys to come sniffing around young girls when they folks ain’t home.”

“Yes, sir,” said Ilan, struggling to appear innocent. And failing.

“Enjoy those muffins,” the sheriff said to Fancy, after giving Ilan a final warning stare. “I’ll be seeing you.”

As soon as the sheriff ’s car was out of sight, Ilan kissed Fancy as non-innocently as possible and said, “Please don’t tell me you were about to kill the sheriff.”

“Ha-ha.” She pushed away from him. She liked kissing him, but it was too hot for long embraces. “He just wanted me to know that he knew about all the killing,” she said. “And that he doesn’t mind so long as he can get in on it.”

“Nice. It’s kinda hot watching you do good deeds,” he said as she led him to the stairway leading down into the open cellar, where the cool underground air could waft toward them. “I oughta buy you a fairy-princess wand so you can really get into the part.” He sat awkwardly on the steps, his knees bent as if he didn’t want his legs to stray down into the shadowy pool at the bottom of the cellar.

Fancy unwrapped the muffins in her lap. “I got seven wands. I’ll let you borrow one sometime. Kit don’t like playing fairyland anymore. But
we
could play, if you want.”

Ilan laughed like he thought she was joking. But his laughs were as contagious as his smiles, and she laughed with him, fiercely glad all of a sudden that he was there with her and not down in Huntsville.

“Why didn’t you go with Kit and Gabriel?” she asked.

“Gotta work this weekend.”

“Where?”

“Pinkerton. I’m a bellhop.” He stole a bite of her muffin. “Why didn’t you go?”

“Same reason I skipped class today: I hate everybody.”

“Even me?”

“No. But when I’m mad . . . I didn’t wanna accidentally do something to you. Or Kit. Or
Gabriel
.”

“I’d rather you hurt me than Gabe. I’m responsible for that little punk. But just stab me or something quick. I’d rather not live on somebody’s ass cheek the rest of my life.” He waved down into the cellar. “Or disappear into your version of hell or wherever.”

“It’s not hell,” said Fancy, indignant. “It’s nice, usually. I just been in a bad mood lately. You wanna go over?”

He ducked his head, trying to see all the way down the steps but unable to because the angle was bad. “I dunno.”

“I’ll take care of you.”

“You mean that in a nonmurderous way, right?”

“Do I really have to answer that?”

“Yeah, you really do.”

“I promise I won’t—”

“I’m kidding. I trust you.”

“You do?”

“What the hell. You decided to trust me when I didn’t let your dogs kill me. You trust me enough not to lie to me. So I decided to trust you back.” He frowned when she looked down at the plate of muffins in her lap. “I can trust you, can’t I?”

Fancy shrugged. “Sure. I won’t do anything.” She stood and waved him down into the cellar and watched as he descended.

“Not to you,” she whispered.

“Is that a new tree?” Ilan asked, walking to one of the stone circles on the platform.

The moonflower Fancy had taken from her backyard and planted in the happy place after Gabriel had attacked her had grown into a tree with yummy-smelling fruit in the shape of tiny white crescents.

“Yep. It’s the only tree here that wasn’t grown from a corpse.” She plucked one of the crescents. “Try one.”

She fed the crescent fruit to Ilan and laughed when he nipped her fingers. “How is it?”

“Great.”

She stilled then, as his dark eyes became as milky white as the moonfruit and his gaze as blank as a doll’s. She grabbed his hand; even his hand felt fake. Plastic. “Can I ask you something?”

“Anything.”

“Why did you really push Gabriel down the stairs?”

“Because I love him.”

“That’s not the only reason.” She shook him when he didn’t answer. “Is it?”

“No.”

“You were mad at him, weren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me why.”

“Because of what he wanted to do.” Even his voice was wrong, more like the recording of a voice, rather than a real one. “He was just a dumb kid.”

“So you helped him cover it up?”

“It wasn’t Gabe’s fault. I just wanted to protect him.”

“You can’t protect him forever, Ilan!” Fancy yelled at the white-eyed thing standing before her. She wanted
her
Ilan back, the real one, but maybe he wasn’t coming back. Maybe she’d . . . broken him. If she had, she at least wanted to hear the truth.

“I know what Gabriel wanted to do,” she said. “What he did do. Admit it—you pushed him down the stairs because
he’s
the one who killed your dad.”

G
ABRIEL KEPT EXPLAINING TO EVERYONE HOW HAPPY HE WAS.
H
E TOLD ME EVEN HIS NAME MEANS HAPPY.
B
UT
I
LAN CALLED HIM A LIAR.
H
E SAID
“I
LAN” MEANS HAPPY AND
“G
ABRIEL” MEANS LIAR.
G
ABRIEL CRIED CRIED CRIED.
A
ND HIS TEARS WERE SORDID AND THICK, LIKE HE WAS SO ROTTEN INSIDE, HE WAS LEAKING.

Ilan blinked. “What?”

“I asked you about Gabriel.”

“What about him?” He spat as if he had a bad taste in his mouth and sat on the stone circling the tree. When he looked up at Fancy, the white had cleared from his eyes and they were pale brown again. Fancy was so happy he’d shaken off the effects of the moonfruit, so happy he was aware and real and not broken, that she almost didn’t care that he hadn’t answered her question.

Almost.

She sat beside him. “You don’t remember what I asked you
five seconds ago
about Gabriel?”

“Why you always wanna talk about other guys when I’m with you?” When she just stared at him, half irritated, half relieved, he spat again. “That aftertaste is killer.” He popped an Altoid and offered her one. And then he studied the fruit growing over his head.

“So what’s in that fruit? Truth serum or something?”

She nodded and sucked on the Altoid, marveling at Ilan’s Kitlike ability to brush her games aside like cobwebs. Sometimes it was hard to remember that she hadn’t known him for years. “Looks like it takes more than one moonfruit to keep people under long enough to get anything useful outta them. Live and learn.” She cut her eyes at him. “Are you mad?”

“No,” he said, after such a long pause she wasn’t sure she believed him. “If I were you, I’d want answers too. But don’t ever drug me again.”

“Or what?” asked Fancy, honestly curious. “You wouldn’t push
me
down the stairs, would you?”

“I might. If I had to.” That she believed. “Does that scare you?” he asked in a faux-creepy voice.

“Nothing scares me. Except monsters. I’m just very protective of my family. I hardly have any left.”

“I know the feeling. But trust means not drugging people
in order to get answers from them. Trust means giving people a chance to come clean on their own.”

Fancy understood then that Ilan wasn’t mad; he was hurt. His
feelings
were hurt.

“I’m sorry,” said Fancy, unsure what to do about his feelings.

“Promise not to trick me again and I’ll forgive you.”

She crossed her heart. “I promise not to trick you again.”

“Now give me a kiss so I’ll believe you.”

She kissed his ear. That’s what Kit liked whenever her feelings were hurt. But Ilan seemed disastrously unmoved. So she kissed him the way she had that night in her backyard.

When she pulled away, he was grinning ear to ear. “See? Kiss me like that, and I’ll believe anything.”

Fancy filed the information away for future reference. “Wanna see the rest of my happy place?”

“Is that code for . . . ?” He laughed at the blank look on her face. “Never mind. Lead the way.”

“Baron von Big Ears can give the tour.” She took a pink, elephant-shaped finger puppet from her pocket and put it over her index finger. “Daddy made it for me before he went away.” She made the puppet kiss Ilan on the ear, but Ilan didn’t seem to like ear kisses from Baron von Big Ears any more than
from her. “Would you like a grand tour, kind sir?” said Fancy in Baron von Big Ears’s slow, deep voice.

Ilan looked askance at Baron von Big Ears. “O-kay.”

Fancy let Baron von Big Ears give a tour of all the happy-place hot spots: the big hill overlooking the beach, the sailing ships, the Pavilion. But when Baron von Big Ears pointed out the carnival rides near the beach, Ilan began to laugh.

“What’s funny?” said Fancy in her own voice.

Ilan leaned back against the base of a carousel to catch his breath. “It’s so childish. This place. You.”

“I’m not childish.”

“I thought you were kidding about the fairy wands. I bet you still play with jacks and jump ropes and shit too, don’t you?”