Slice Of Cherry (35 page)

“How marvelous!” cried Sister Judith, delighted. “I’ve always wanted to see one up close and personal!”

The creature’s head exploded all over her.

Sister Maggie laughed at the horrified expression on her fellow sister’s face. “Doesn’t get more personal than that.”

Kit broke free of Fancy’s grip and ran to Gabriel; she put her arms around him. “Are you okay?”

“I guess.” He held his hand over his bloody ear, as if to
keep anything else from shooting out of it. “What
was
that thing?”

“An imp,” said Sister Maggie brightly. “A young one.” She dabbed at Gabriel’s ear with a tissue she’d pulled from her pocket. “You’re lucky it was only about three months old. If it had grown any bigger, that would be your head sprayed across Sister Judith’s bosom. Imps transfer spawn into other hosts, usually by way of kisses.” She looked at Kit and shook the vial of holy water. “You’ll need this too.”

“Me?”

“You’re the girlfriend? Been sharing kisses?”

“And other stuff.”

“Shut up, Fancy.” Kit exchanged an embarrassed look with Gabriel until Sister Maggie bent her forward and tilted her head to the left. “We use birth control.” As if Sister Maggie would be impressed by that.

Sister Maggie poured the holy water into Kit’s right ear, but the brown ooze didn’t shoot from her left ear. It shot out of her nose and hit the floor with a splat. It wasn’t fully formed the way Gabriel’s imp had been; it was just a blob that sizzled and burned against the white cathedral tile.

While Kit squealed and rubbed so vigorously at her nose
it nearly detached from her face, Sister Maggie looked around the cathedral and sighed contentedly. “The power of Christ himself. Best birth control in the world.”

When Sister Judith tittered, Sister Maggie rolled her eyes.

“I mean against imps.”

Fancy sat in the backseat of Gabriel’s, or rather Ilan’s, Olds-mobile in the parking space down the street from the cathedral, glowering at Kit and Gabriel, who sat in the front shamelessly making out.

“So all this bad stuff,” Kit was saying, between kisses, “the sleepwalking and trying to kill people, was because of the imp trying to spawn?”

“I guess so,” said Gabriel. “I . . . oh no!” He slapped his head. I’m gone have to send Jessa to the Blue Sisters.”

“The CPR girl?” said Kit. “Fancy
said
she saw you kissing her.”

“Yeah.” Gabriel looked deeply embarrassed. “And Cici. And Madeline. And Alysha.”

“Did you just go around kissing every girl in Portero?”

“No, just those four,” said Gabriel quickly. “I hate that it was even one. And I oughta chop my hand off for hurting you
the way I did.” Kit let him pull her back into his arms.

“I’ll do it for you,” said Fancy, watching his offensive hand moving along her sister’s chest.

They froze, as if they’d forgotten she was there.

“I’ll do it,” she repeated, “and not just for hitting my sister, but for being a liar. Sister Maggie said that imp was only three months old.
You
been sleepwalking for years.”

“But not hurting anybody,” Kit said, her hand resting protectively over Gabriel’s hand, as if she thought Fancy had an ax in her pocket. “The way he hurt me, the way he tried to hurt you,
that
was the imp.”

“You can’t blame every horribly horrific thing you’ve ever done on that imp, now can you?”

Fancy noted the guilt in Gabriel’s eyes.

“What’re you talking about?” Kit said, looking from one to the other. “What horribly horrific thing?”

“Get out, Kit,” Fancy said, not looking at her sister. “Me and him need to talk.”

“About what?”

“Personal stuff between me and him,” snapped Fancy, irritated by Kit’s hesitation.

Kit squeezed Gabriel’s hand and left the car, reluctantly.

He turned to face Fancy. “I’m real sorry about the toolshed thing and—”

“Don’t get nervous,” Fancy said. “The only thing I want from you is the truth. Assuming you even know what that is anymore.”

“Is this the part where you give me the moonfruit?”

“Ilan told you about that.” Fancy would never have guessed they were the sort of brothers who talked and shared secrets.

“He trusts me.” Gabriel sighed and looked away. “With certain things. Anyway, you don’t have to bother. I did it.”

Fancy leaned forward. “You did what?”

“I killed my pop.” The admission seemed to cost him, and it was a long time before he could speak again, his voice low and full of tears. “I killed him and then blamed it on Guthrie.”

“Why?”

“My pop . . . He touched me.” Gabriel shook his head, distancing himself from the words, even as he spoke them. “And I snapped.”

“How did Mr. Turner’s arm get in our cellar? Did you plant it there?”

“No. I don’t know how Guthrie got Pop’s arm. Unless he was following us when we hid the body.”

“Ilan helped you cover it up.”

“He’s been helping me outta jams for years.”

“Where’s the body?”

He told her, and Fancy smiled.

“You’re not gone tell Kit, are you?”

“You should be the one to tell her.”

Gabriel looked relieved. “Thanks, Fancy. I will. Soon. I’m just waiting for the right moment. I hope she’ll take it the way you have.”

“I hope she does too,” said Fancy, inwardly cavorting, but trying not to show it. “I’ll go get her.”

Kit was a ways down the street, standing in a narrow clump of gory Annas growing outside a beauty parlor.

“Sometimes a flower is just a flower,” Fancy said, after she’d caught up with her.

“And sometimes a flower is a signpost of the living dead.” Kit stepped out of the flower bed and eyed her sister suspiciously. “What did y’all talk about?”

“This and that. Life, love, all that stuff. And Dog Run.”

“What about Dog Run?”

“Well. They’re having the battle of the bands up there real soon. And since Ilan and Gabriel’s band is playing this year,
and since you have this fantasy about us double-dating . . . Well . . . do you want to?”

Kit crushed Fancy in a back-breaking hug and tried to dance her around in a circle. Instead they crashed into the bike rack and knocked all the bikes off true.

“I been
dying
for the four of us to do something together!” Kit exclaimed. “It’ll be so much fun. I can’t wait!”

“Me either.” Gabriel was staring at her from the car window, and when she smiled at him, he flinched. “I have a feeling it’ll be interesting.”

D
ADDY PULLED ME TO THE SIDE AND SHOWED ME HIS MONSTER.
I
T WAS RED AND HAD WEIRD ELBOWS, AND HE KEPT IT IN HIS POCKET.
H
E SAID
I
HAD TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO SHRINK MY OWN MONSTER DOWN ENOUGH SO THAT
I
COULD HIDE IT BETTER.
W
HEN
I
TOLD HIM
I
DIDN’T HAVE A MONSTER, HE POINTED BEHIND ME SO
I
TURNED AND SAW THIS THING THAT WAS AS BIG AS
S
T.
T
ERESA
C
ATHEDRAL BUT WAY LESS HOLY.
A
ND SLIMY.
A
ND ALL MINE.

The sisters had never been way downsquare before, in the low, swampy area of Portero. Luckily, Dog Run was relatively swamp-free, encompassing flat, treeless acreage covered in gramma needles and buffalo grass. And the dog-run cabin, of course, from which the land got its name, a sagging bit of wood that looked as though a tornado had dropped it from the sky.

But today the house was barely visible because of the hundreds of people crowded around a makeshift stage. Groups from all over Navarro County—from Castelaine and Charter, as well as Portero—had come to compete for a cash prize and bragging rights. The sisters stood in the midst of the crowd,
gaping as Ilan and Gabriel performed their brand-new song, “My Girlfriend Put My Head in a Jar (and I Liked It).”

“You would too!” Ilan screamed, grinning maniacally as he thrummed his guitar. “You better! Cuz now she’s coming after YOU!”

The sisters exchanged baffled looks as the crowd went wild all around them.

“Is that supposed to be about us?” Fancy screamed into Kit’s ear.

“Gabe claims we inspired them!”

“They’re inspiring me!” said Fancy as Gabriel beat the drums as if they owed him money. “They’re making me want to
kill
somebody!”

“I know, right?” yelled a boy Fancy didn’t know, who slammed into her and knocked her to the ground.

Kit helped Fancy to her feet, but before she could rip the body slammer a new one, a crowd of unamused Porterenes wedged themselves between the sisters and the boy and did all the ripping themselves. The Porterenes were easy to spot because they were the only ones not wearing bright
notice me please and then eat me
clothes, unlike the transies.

Fancy felt warm and protected as Kit led her out of the
fray; for the first time she understood what Sheriff Baker had meant, what Madda was always saying. Whether it was against bullies or transies or monsters, Porterenes stuck up for one another.

When the concert was over, and each band lined up on the stage so they could determine the winner based on audience applause, Fancy clapped the hardest and screamed the loudest for all the Portero bands.

Unfortunately, the girl doo-wop group from Castelaine kicked everyone’s ass. However, Ilan and Gabriel’s band, Pig Liquor, got an honorable mention.

“That and two bucks’ll get me a guitar pick,” Ilan said later as they hung out in the cabin. But he was smiling. Ilan, Fancy, Kit, and Gabriel sat on the floor of the dog run—the long outdoor passageway linking the two sides of the cabin—with their other bandmates and assorted groupies, the breeze playing over them as they shared a bottle of Southern Comfort. The sweet peach taste reminded Fancy of Big Mama. The bodies pressed to hers made her feel plugged in, like Kit had once explained, as though electricity were zipping their bodies to hers. It was nourishing, in a way, being able to feed off other people’s energy, like social cannibalism.

Ilan tried kissing Fancy, but she was too fired up to relax into it. “Why all this tension?” he said into her ear, hand on her backside. “Music is supposed to soothe you.”

“Not your music,” said Fancy.

“You didn’t like ‘My Girlfriend Put My Head in a Jar’?” He looked genuinely upset. “I wrote it for you.”

Fancy considered what she could say that wouldn’t hurt his feelings. “Your band name is interesting. I like the way you scream—you have a good yelling voice. And, um, I liked when you took your shirt off—that was fun to watch.”

“The girl’s got no appreciation for the arts, man,” slurred one of Ilan’s bandmates.

“What would be really fun,” Ilan told her, “is if you took your shirt off and screamed for me. No?” he said when Fancy just laughed and slapped his hands away from her shirt. “Well, then kiss me, and we’ll call it even.”

As Fancy kissed him a flash went off in the darkness. Kit had taken Fancy’s picture with Gabriel’s phone.

“I’m gone have it framed,” she said, giggling so much that Fancy wondered how much Southern Comfort she’d had. “Maybe give it to Madda for her birthday. Then she’ll stop being so grumpy and suspicious.”

“Grumpy and suspicious about what?” Ilan asked.

“Us. She doesn’t know what we do. Everybody else in town knows, but not her. She doesn’t want to know.” Kit looked like she was about to break into a million pieces, but she kept smiling. “Listen to me going on and on. Or better yet don’t listen. Let’s not talk about sad stuff.”

“But it
is
sad,” Fancy said, “when people are that afraid of the truth. Right,
Gabriel
?”

“I guess.” He took his phone from Kit and started playing with it so that he wouldn’t have to look at Fancy.

“Will you take a picture of me and Kit?” Fancy asked him.

“Sure!” Gabriel said, relieved and grateful, as though she had changed the subject for his sake.

“Not here,” she said, when Kit tried to squeeze next to her and Ilan. “Outside, while there’s still some light.”

The four of them climbed over all the bodies and left the dog run. It was still incredibly crowded at the back of the house, not only with people, but with parked cars, so they circled around to the front of the house, where it was relatively calmer.

“What looks like a good spot?” Kit asked. “Ain’t nothing but grass for miles.”

Fancy scouted about, and far from the cabin, about a football field’s length away, she found what she was looking for. “How about over there? In that patch of gory Annas?”

“No,” said the Turner brothers in unison, wearing identical expressions of horror.

“Why not?” Fancy asked with her most innocent expression.

“Yeah,” said Kit. “We might as well take at least one picture over there. I’m going anyway.” Kit wore her skinny pink heels and was managing to walk in the grassy field admirably well. “Everybody knows gory Annas grow near corpses. Maybe whatever’s buried there wants to talk.”

Gabriel caught up with her. “Can’t you just skip it for once?”

“That’s not very Christian,
Gabriel
,” said Fancy, serenely following her sister.

Ilan grabbed her arm and held her back. She’d never seen him look so panicked, not even when she’d sicced the dogs on him. “Fancy. Stop her. Please?”

She watched Kit moving ahead with Gabriel at her side talking very fast and trying ineffectually to steer her away from the gory Annas. “She has the right to know. She’s the only one who doesn’t.”

“When Gabe told me you helped save him from that imp, I thought you were past this . . . pettiness.”

“The Blue Sisters saved him from that imp, not me. See? He can’t be truthful about
anything
. Don’t look at me like that, Ilan. It’s nothing personal. Just family stuff. You know how that is.” She broke free of his hold and caught up to Kit just as she stepped into the gory Annas. Almost immediately an arm shot up through the white flowers, and bony fingers encircled her sister’s shin.