Slice Of Cherry (38 page)

Ilan, unlike his brother, was truly calm, even serene. But then he was covered in his father’s blood. And Fancy knew firsthand how therapeutic killing could be.

“I wanted at least one of us to grow up . . . without . . .” Ilan sighed. “I’m just sorry I had to hurt you to do it, breaking your legs, giving you poison to make you sick all the time. But he would have hurt you worse. And bones heal; other stuff not so much. Maybe not ever.”

Gabriel lowered his head and spoke to the floor. “I feel like I should have done something.
I
should have been the one who—”

“Don’t talk like that.” Ilan slid closer to his brother and
kneaded the nape of his neck in an easy, unstudied way that held an air of ritualism. “I wanted to keep you safe more than anything.”

“But . . . it’s like you blame me. You get pissed at me for being useless and weak.”

“Not useless—damaged. And I don’t blame you. I know it’s my fault you started sleepwalking and seeing things and acting crazy. It’s because I did all that in front of you. I tried so hard to keep him off you, so you wouldn’t go through what I did, but I ended up putting you through something worse. I didn’t know how to keep you safe from that. From your own head. Sometimes you end up fucked, no matter what you do.”

Fancy reached over and slapped the back of Ilan’s head. “Don’t say ‘fucked.’”

After a moment of dumbstruck silence Ilan laughed, and then everyone did. Not heartily, but it was something.

“I’m sorry I blamed it all on your dad, ” Ilan told the sisters.

“Well, Daddy started it,” said Kit, magnanimously. “What’s one more body to him? Since we’re apologizing”—she nudged Fancy—“you have something you wanna say to Gabe?”

Fancy looked Gabriel in the eye. “I don’t like you.”

“Fancy!”

She flapped a hand at her sister. “But since Kit and Ilan seem to think you’re so great, I promise to stop trying to ruin your life.”

Gabriel leaned over and kissed Fancy on the cheek. “Apology accepted.”

“Puke,” she said, but her heart wasn’t really in it. She thought about everything she had learned about Gabriel. “Why’d you tell me
you
killed Mr. Turner?”

“Cuz I didn’t want you to hate Ilan, especially since he likes you so much. I figured once I admitted it, you’d let it go. And since you hate me anyway, well, you couldn’t hate me
more
. And Dog Run is huge. I never even thought about how those gory Annas might give away where the body was, or that you’d let your own sister summon a corpse to get rid of me.”

“People underestimate me all the time,” Fancy said. “That’s why I’m such a successful predator.”

“Did it feel good,” Kit asked Ilan, “killing Mr. Turner a second time?”

“He didn’t die,” Ilan said. “He was still wriggling when we got kicked outta paradise.”

Fancy stood and looked into the kinetoscope. “There he is. Still in pieces.”

Ilan came to look over her shoulder. Her minions were at the campsite, piecing Mr. Turner back together like a jigsaw puzzle.

Fancy leaned in to Ilan’s side, impressed. “What did you do to him?”

“There was an ax in the tent, just lying there waiting for me.”

“The happy place is like that,” said Fancy. “It knows.” She kissed him, and when she tasted blood, she sighed, realizing she would have to once again clean blood out of the cellar. But she was so happy to see Ilan safe and away from his horrible father that she couldn’t really mind.

“How long will he stay there?” he asked.

“How long do you want him to stay?”

“Just a little while longer.” Ilan wasn’t as serene as he seemed, not if the quaver in his voice, in his body, was anything to go by. “Just until I get it outta my system.”

“Let me go!”

Fancy and Ilan jumped at the sound of Mr. Turner’s voice. Fancy was especially shocked. She had never before heard any sound from the kinetoscope. But Mr. Turner was dead. Maybe the rules were different for dead people.

“This is not the deal we made!” Very different. Mr. Turner was staring directly at Fancy, somehow able to see her. His bloody head was half split from the ax, and his eyes were very far apart as he looked at her. “This is
not
the way this day was supposed to end!”

She decided that Daddy had been right about Mr. Turner; he was completely self-centered. “You made a deal with the Bonesaw Killer’s daughter,” Fancy told him. “How did you
think
this would end?”

Fancy took Ilan’s hand and led him out of the cellar, Gabriel and Kit close behind. The sun was low in the sky. Gold light shone through the treetops and threw leafy shadows across the lawn.

“Anytime you wanna visit him,” Fancy said to Ilan, “just let me know. I’ll even help, if you want.”

“You don’t have to help. Guthrie was right. I can’t let other people do my dirty work.”

“People do my dirty work for me,” said Fancy, loftily. “Daddy doesn’t know everything.”

“Neither does Madda.” Kit said. She stopped beneath the persimmon tree, and they all stopped with her. She was looking
at Madda, who was weeding in the little kitchen garden. They could hear her singing tunelessly as she worked, something about mighty people of the sun.

“We should talk to her,” said Kit. “If Daddy had been honest with her, she wouldn’t have freaked and run to the sheriff.”

Fancy thought of Madda screaming on the cellar stairs, the fear and disgust on her face as she realized exactly who she’d married. “Madda says she wants to know the truth, but people always say that. What if she can’t handle it?”

“She loves us,” Kit insisted. “When you love someone, you can put up with anything, even murder. I mean, look at us.”

The four of them studied one another and tried to get pumped about the idea of the truth setting Madda free. No one seemed convinced it was a good idea, Fancy least of all. But Kit was already stalking toward Madda.

She turned as the four of them drew near and their shadows fell on her.

“Hey, kids!” She looked so happy to see them together. “How was Dog—” She gasped as she got a good look at the blood decorating Ilan and shot to her feet.

“What happened? What’s all this blood? Was it hogs?
Cacklers?
”

“No, ma’am,” said Ilan. He looked to Fancy for a clue on how to respond, but she only shrugged at him and took hold of her sister’s hand, nervously. “We were just down in the cellar. There was an ax, and lots of blood and . . . unpleasantness.”

“An ax?” Madda froze and turned to her daughters. “Y’all did this to him?” she said. “Cut on him? With an ax?”

Kit looked shocked. “If we had used an ax on him, he wouldn’t be walking and talking, that’s for sure. Give us some credit.”

“What was it then? A bonesaw?” Madda was almost screaming. Fancy remembered how Madda had been smiling at them not moments before, and wondered if she would ever see that smile again. “All the gossip I been hearing about what you’ve done to all those people. It’s true isn’t it? You’re just like your father.”

Tears were pouring down her face. Fancy had never seen Madda cry before. She hadn’t reacted this badly when she’d caught Guthrie in the cellar. Fancy would have rather seen disgust in her face instead of this . . . wretchedness.

“Madda, listen—”

She flinched from Kit’s hand and nearly knocked over the snow-pea trellis. She ran into the house, the sisters on her heels.

“Where’re you going?” Fancy cried.

“I can’t do this again,” Madda said, barely able to speak past her sobs. She snatched up her car keys from the kitchen counter.

“You’re not leaving us.” Kit snatched the keys from her hand.

Madda tried to grab them back, but while she and Kit tussled for the car keys, Fancy noticed that each tear that dripped from Madda’s face turned into a cherry as it hit the floor.

The cherries rolled across the tile, such a flood of them that Madda and Kit forgot about the keys as the sour-red fruit, before everyone’s stunned eyes, aligned themselves into letters on the snow-white floor:
you wished for this.

Madda slumped against the counter. Her daughters joined her, bookending her, wishing they knew how to erase the devastated look from their mother’s face.

“I did wish for this,” said Madda, defeated. “At Cherry Glade. I wished to know what y’all got up to when I wasn’t around. And now I know, but how can I—”

“You can’t run away,” Fancy told her. “If you go, who’ll give me advice on how to manipulate men? Who’ll make red velvet cake on my birthday? Who’ll give me strawberry wine to drink when I feel bad?”

“I never gave you strawberry wine,” Madda said.

“We need you here to be nice to us,” Kit said, jumping in before Fancy could further incriminate herself. “Chapter one in the mommy handbook specifically says you have to be nice to your children and never abandon them.”

“Ma abandoned me,” Ilan said as he and Gabriel came into the kitchen. “And I turned out all right.”

Fancy kicked him in the ankle. “That’s not helping.”

“If she kicks you out,” Ilan said, rubbing his ankle, “you can come live with us. There’s plenty of room.”

“My daughters are not moving in with you and that kook grandfather of yours.” Madda’s spirited reply gave the sisters hope. “They’re too young.” She really looked at her daughters, her eyes crawling over their skin like lasers, like she was seeing them from the inside out.

Gabriel looked from the cherries to the Cordelles and said, “Maybe we should go.”

“No,” said Madda. “Y’all seem to know more about my daughters than I do. I want y’all to tell me the truth. Everything.”

So they told her. Kit and Fancy told her about how they’d started dissecting animals after Daddy had gone away, about taking Franken hostage, about the old man. They told her about how the town had gotten into it and asked for the sisters’ help.
And then Ilan and Gabriel told the part about Daddy and Mr. Turner and how Ilan had been the one to kill him.

“That’s why you told me you didn’t blame Guthrie,” Madda said to Ilan.

“I’m sorry I let him take the blame,” he said. “Especially when he was cool enough not to bring up what really happened that night.”

Kit said, “Daddy has a warped set of values, but a warped set of values is still, you know,
valuable
. Isn’t it?”

She directed the question toward Madda, who didn’t look interested in having a philosophical discussion. Madda only shrugged and said, “Guthrie wouldn’t’ve been caught if it hadn’t been for what happened to your father. She smiled tiredly at Ilan. “If you ask me, they both deserved exactly what they got.”

Fancy pressed against Madda’s side. “What do you think we deserve?”

Madda took hold of her daughters’ hands. “I can’t be the judge of that.”

“I don’t care about going to hell,” said Ilan. “Been there, done that. Been to paradise, too.” He winked at Fancy. “Think he’s healed yet? Is it too soon to go back?”

“Y’all are not going back to that cellar,” Madda said sharply. “Not till after dinner. You boys staying? We’re having pork chops.”

But while the boys washed up at the sink, Madda stayed on the floor. She didn’t seem inclined, or even able, to get up. She kept looking at her daughters’ hands, as if she couldn’t believe the things they’d done with them.

“Are you okay?” Kit asked her. “Or are you not looking us in the eyes because you hate us now?”

“I could never hate you,” Madda said quickly. “I just want you to be happy and healthy. That’s the most any mother can reasonably hope for. I just wish—”

“Be careful what you wish for, Madda,” Fancy reminded her.

“You’re the ones who need to be careful.” Madda looked at them, and there was only sadness in her eyes. And a steely determination. Suddenly she was squeezing their hands so tightly that Fancy heard Kit gasp in pain. Madda was staring at them, looking back and forth, tears shivering in her eyes.

“You girls
be careful
. Promise me.”

“We will,” said the sisters as one.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First and foremost, here’s a special hello to Jeremy West, just like I promised. How does it feel to have your name immortalized on the printed page? Pretty groovy, huh?

Speaking of groovy, here’s a big hug and thanks to my groovilicious work peeps Sylvia Nordeman and Allison Jenkins for keeping my secret so well (until we got busted; oh sad day!) and never making me feel awkward about being weird for a living.

I’m so happy to be able to thank the Tenners this time around. Yay! Jackie Dolamore, Chelsea Campbell, the Berkinator, Steve the Breeze, to name a few—where would I be without my writer peeps to keep me sane? I shudder to think.

I also want to say howdy to my number one fan—whether she wants to be or not—Kay Fraser! And also her grandma Luisa Zorilla. People who love their grandmas are okay with me.

Big, big thanks to my agent, Jamie, who has no idea how cool I think she is, and a big hug to my editor, Emilia, for being so patient while I sweat blood all over this manuscript. Also thanks to Karen S. for her awesome copyediting skills and to the crackerjack team at Simon Pulse, whom I’ve met and know for a fact are too cool for school. Especially Mara Anastas, whose children really do love her (ha ha, you thought I forgot).

Last but not least, thanks to my family—all nine billion of you. I love and fear you all in equal amounts. Peace.