Nocturnal Read online

  “Sure.” I wasn't going to eat them, but I could push them around my plate and hope she wouldn't notice. “Where's Dad?” It takes more effort than normal to haul myself onto one of the stools at the bar. She keeps humming the Tom Jones tune as she flips enough pancakes to feed several small African countries. Ever since Dad bought her that griddle pan that makes eight at once, she'd been pancake crazy.

  “He's been very mysterious. He got up really early and was banging around doing something. I have no idea.” She smiles to herself, sliding another pancake onto a plate already towering with them. The kitchen reeks of cinnamon. It makes my already unsettled stomach curl up. I wonder if she's going to bring up the dinner. I hope she doesn't. I seriously want to pretend it never happened.

  As she cooks, I notice how the apron hangs on her, like a coat on a rack. It made me want to hug her and hold her.

  “Here you go,” she says, plunking a plate with five giant apple and cinnamon pancakes, made in the shape of Mickey Mouse, with the large round head and the two round ears on each side in front of me.

  “Thanks.” I knew she wasn't going to eat. She never ate much anymore; too sick from the drugs. They also had her on this diet that meant she couldn't have much of anything that she used to love. No cake or pie or butter. All the good things, she said.

  “You look tired, baby.” She's got her chin in her hands, elbows on the table so her face is level with mine. Her forehead does that wrinkle-worried thing. I hate it when she looks like that.

  “It was kind of a big night.” The ball's in her court. She can deflect if she wants.

  “I know.” I think she's going to hug me, but she just wraps her hands around her coffee cup. Not quite a deflection. I take the plunge.

  “How long have you known?”

  “A few weeks.” She takes a calm sip of coffee.

  “A few weeks!” I stab a mouse ear with my fork.

  “We weren't absolutely sure, so we waited until all the test results were in. You were so busy with school and work and everything, we wanted to wait to tell you.” The excuses fall from her lips like rain.

  “So you've known for weeks that this was going to happen and you didn't tell me?” I keep repeating it, hoping she'll deny it.

  “I didn't want to disrupt your life. I wanted things to be as normal as they could be.” Something hits me in the gut. I want to roll up in a ball and hold onto myself so I don't fly apart in a million pieces. She won't look at me and I know why.

  “You weren't going to tell me, were you?”

  “It was your father's idea to tell you.” She glances down at her wedding band.

  “You weren't going to tell me.” I push my plate away. I'm not going to pretend anymore.

  “What difference would it make, knowing?” Her gaze rises to meet mine.

  “It makes all the difference.” How could she not know that?

  She shrugs. “I'm still going to die. I don't want to go with the memory of you being worried all the time, and thinking of it. I want to remember you happy and free.” Her hands flutter around her coffee cup.

  “So lying to me seemed the way to go.” I feel like a horrible bitch for talking to her this way, but I can't help it.

  “I didn't think–” She's interrupted by Dad's car in the driveway. She looks up, a smile stretching her face. One hand goes to make sure her wig is secure.

  “Surprise!” He comes in, brandishing a bouquet of tulips in yellow and red. Her favorite. They're still damp with water the supermarket sprayed on them to keep them fresh. He also pulls out a box of chocolate caramels. I wanted to slap him in the face, because she'll never be able to eat them. They'll make her sick. He should know that.

  “Oh, Sam, they're beautiful.” She melts and hugs him, the flowers getting water in her hair.

  “You're welcome, Taylor.” She smiles and ducks her head into his chest at the nickname, her maiden name. I feel like the oldest person in the room. She leans into him, her body folding like a piece of paper. She looks so much smaller.

  He looks exactly like you would think a loan officer would look. Tall and pressed and straight and dry. I inherited his bony limbs, and looking at his face is like looking at my own. Except his features were softened by my mother's. Thank god.

  I try to slip away, but Dad catches me. I find him looking at me over her shoulder. There's something hard in his face, something I'd seen only a few times when he let his guard down. He puts it away as quickly as he can, and I look away as if I haven't seen it.

  “Where are you going?” She turns in his arms, her eyes searching for me.

  “Just out for a drive.” It's not that uncommon a thing for me to do. She puts the tulips on the counter and smooths her apron with both hands.

  “You didn't eat your pancakes.” We all look at the full plate. The feeling that all the air is being sucked out of the room intensifies. I gotta get out of here.

  “I'm not hungry,” I say, even though her face falls. “I'll have them when I get back, okay?” I flash a quick smile and go to grab my shoes and keys.

  “I'll put them in the fridge for you.” Dad rests his chin on the top of her head and puts both hands around her tiny waist. She gazes down at the tulips, fingering one of the delicate petals. So perfect.

  At one time, they'd been so valuable they'd caused a mania in Holland so intense people were trading houses for one bulb. She'd told me all about it, and I'd even done a history project on it once. Actually, she did most of the research. I got the best grade I've ever gotten in my life on that paper. My teacher had read bits of it out loud to my class, much to my humiliated chagrin.

  Her own tulips hadn't bloomed yet, but would soon. She had so many that our yard would be covered in their bulbous flowers, rising with the sun and drooping at the end of the day, their blooms lasting for such a fleeting time. That was what made them so special, she said. That they were only around for a short time, so you had to cherish them. To value them.

  I crank my car into action, trying to decide where to go. A few minutes of my car idling and lip chewing decide it for me.

  I try to prepare myself mentally for what I might find. I'd swiped my mother's cell phone as I went out the door. I also had a Swiss Army knife in my glovebox as part of an emergency kit. I pulled it out. Just in case. The fact that I thought that I was going into a situation where I might need a knife should give me an indication that this was not a good idea.

  My feeble wipers have to work overtime to try and cut through the fog that clings to everything, blocking out the sun. My jeans stick to my skin, bogged down with moisture, and my hair's curling more than usual. I have to keep brushing wispies out of my face. The fog is appropriate for what I'm about to do. I pause for a second when I get out of the car, considering. I grab the knife, weighing it in my hand. That and the cell phone are my only protection.

  It seems like it takes hours to find the mausoleum. I have to look a little to find the right one. Things look so different in the daylight, such as it is. I keep tripping over dips and rises in the ground. A squirrel scares the daylights out of me when it leaps out of a tree onto the ground right in front of me. Takes a few seconds to get my heart to stop freaking out. All signs point to home. Do not go to the cemetery, do not collect $200. But I keep walking toward the mausoleums.

  Finally I find the right one with the broken angels outside. One of them is missing an arm, the other a wing They look sinister in the fog.

  Chapter Five

  You're Still Here

  I have a moment of rational thought, but I quickly shove it away and stalk forward, knife at the ready. So it's really just for show, because I don't posses any knife-wielding skills.

  My chest gets all tight again and my throat threatens to close up. Like it's preparing to be assaulted again.

  Calm down, Ava.

  Of course there's no one there. Making sure, I glance all around, even peering into the darkness of the mausoleum, stale air reaching for me. The fact that i
t's still open tells me that I didn't hallucinate what happened. I mean, my imagination is active, but not that active.

  I'm totally alone. Nothing, no evidence anyone has been here. No backpack, soda cans, sleeping bags, spray paint. Nada. No cell phone either, which sucks. All I see are urns on shelves with plaques beneath them, all covered in dust and I-don't-know-want-to-know what. Just to be absolutely sure, I search the tangled grass. It shows no signs I'd been lying on it last night.

  Suddenly exhausted, I collapse next to a stone with the name George Barber, 1873-1927, Beloved Husband and Father. I hope he doesn't mind. My skull bangs against the stone as I lean back.

  “You came back.” The voice makes me freeze. I guess I'm not alone. I recognize the voice as the one who didn't strangle me. So I might not be completely screwed. I still have the knife, held tightly in my fist. The problem is that I'm sitting he's standing. Thus the advantage is in his favor. My back is also to him, with George's headstone between us.

  “I can come here if I want. It's a public place.” The words jump out of my mouth. Of course the first thing I ask isn't what he's doing here, or what the hell that was about last night, or if he was the one who put me in my car. I suck at asking the right things. I need to write them down.“If you had wanted me dead, it would have happened already.” I read this in a book once. Or saw it in a movie. It pops into my head and I say it. It sounds good. Fear slides down my back, covering me like a suffocating blanket.

  “True enough.” He's still behind me. I don't like it so I turn so I can at least see him. I don't want him to know that I'm shocked. Stay cool. Like that song from West Side Story. Only I won't be singing and dancing and snapping. My skin crawls with the need to go home, get away. But I'm not going to let him see it.

  “You're still here.” I go for casual. I turn my head just enough so I can see him. Always watch your back.

  “Yes.” He's just as dirty as he'd been the night before, but the clothes are different. He's bonier than I remember, like he's starving. Maybe he's got Manorexia. His clothes are full of holes and there are leaves in his hair. Like he spent the night in the woods. He stands with his hands at his sides.

  “What do you want?” Something about him crawls under my skin and makes me say snappy things I never would to a stranger. A breeze blows that strange scent my way. It weirds me out, because he should seriously stink, given how dirty he is. Instead, I smell something crisp and fresh.

  More silence. I don't know what to do. How to extricate myself from this situation. My feet beg me to run, but I stay where I am.

  He still hasn't moved. Not a twitch, no knuckle cracking or shuffling feet. He's barely breathed, as far as I can tell. I finally look up at him, squinting. I have the insane urge to stand up and brush his hair out of his eyes. Instead I fiddle with my own stray strands.

  “You were nearly killed last night, and yet you came back,” he says, not answering my question. He speaks with the same casual almost-monotone. His voice sounds like an echo through something hollow. “Reckless.”

  “I guess.” I really want to leave, but I don't want to give him the satisfaction of seeing me run. Maybe I am reckless. He wasn't the one who'd tried to kill me. In fact, he might have been the one who saved me. From whatever it was the other guy wanted to do with me.

  “What were you doing here? Last night?” I turn my whole body to face him. Fear slides over me like the fog. I have to put one of my hands on the ground for something to hold onto.

  “Trying to kill myself,” he says in that same tone. I bite back a shocked sound I was going to make.

  “What? Why?”

  “I did not want to exist anymore. But I failed.” I remembered the other guy saying something about him failing. I didn't know what he meant. How messed up is that? Mocking someone for not being able to commit suicide? Not very nice.

  “You didn't want to exist?” He pauses before he answers. As if he's choosing his words carefully. Like we're playing Scrabble and he's trying to get the most points.

  “No.” The wind moves his hair out of his eyes for a second and I remember that moment we had, last night. It freaked me the hell out, even with everything else going on. I do not want a repeat. So I keep my eyes to myself.

  “What happened? Who was that other guy?”

  “My brother.” He only answers the second question. I swallow before I ask the next question.

  “Did you save me?” I don't ask from what. I really don't want to know. The whole thing was bad enough.

  “More or less.” He turns his head to the woods, as if he hears someone calling his name.

  “I shall leave you now.” Seriously? I look where he's trying to see something through the murk. I'm fine with that.

  “Okay.” I don't know what else to say, but when I look up he's gone. I don't even hear his footsteps rustling in the leaves.

  ***

  I stayed in the cemetery. I had no other place to go, so I let a day pass as I sat in the mausoleum with what was left of my family. My human family. Watched the clouds gather and the fog roll over the ground like a blanket, covering everything. Making it look unfamiliar. There were a few new graves, but most were the same as last year. Monuments to lives that had come and gone, like dust blowing in the wind, with only a piece of granite to mark their passing.

  I thought about the girl. Her face flickered in my mind like the flames of a fire. After Ivan left me with her, I bent down to feed, but she made a sound. No words, just a sound. A little cry of pain. I pulled back, studied her for a moment. She couldn't have been more than seventeen. I looked back at the mausoleum, searching for answers. I had come here many times, over the years. Begging for their ghosts to haunt me. To save me from the endless road of my existence.

  I heard my mother's voice, telling me that the right thing to do was often the most difficult. I couldn't remember when or why she had told me that, but the words whispered through my thoughts. So I picked her up and carried her to her car. Brushed her hair back, once as I set her inside. If I remembered how to sigh, I would have. I hoped never to see her again. This record of my flickle humanity. If it would have been any other night... she would be pale with the glow of death. Instead, she got lucky. But I didn't believe in luck.

  ***

  “I can't believe you lost your phone.” Tex shakes her head at me, eyes narrowed behind her purple-framed glasses. Her full name is Texas Sarsaparilla Anne Hamilton. But no one is really allowed to know that under penalty of death or dismemberment. She can't wait until she's 18 to change it. Still hasn't decided on what she's going to change it to.

  “I don't know what I did with it. Must have fallen out of my pocket.”

  “No wonder you didn't text me back, you whore.” I bump her with my shoulder, hoping I'm forgiven. Tex and I have been friends since first grade.

  We'd had a teacher that believed little girls wanted bathroom breaks so they could get into shenanigans. I'd raised my hand and begged her to let me go, but it was too late. While all the other kids laughed and said how gross it was and I died a little inside, Tex volunteered to take me to the bathroom. I was in tears, but she told me a funny story about a puppy and had me laughing when my mom came to bring me a change of clothes. We'd been bonded since then.

  “Listen, if you want me to come with you to help pick out your phone, I can call and get off work.” She puts her hands together in a pleading motion. Tex hates her job. She gives me her best doe eyes. Nice try.

  “No, it's fine. I think I can do it without you.” She rolls her brown eyes.

  “That's such a load of crap. If you didn't have me, you'd be lost.” I raise my eyebrows.

  “I think it's the other way around, Tex.”

  “Fine, fine.” She cracks her knuckles, making me wince. Her skirt is longer than usual today which means it almost reaches her kneecaps. Tex's goal in life is to be hot librarian so she wears a lot of skirts with button-down shirts tucked into them. It's a style I couldn't pull off if I tried
.

  “Hey, can you do me a favor?”

  “Depends on what it is. As long as I don't have to put a body in my trunk or hide a bunch of cocaine, you know I'm in.” God, I love her.

  “I need you to go over my history paper.” I make a similar-looking plea-face.

  “I don't know, that seems like a lot.” She pretends to look worried, chewing on her fingernails.

  “You're such a liar, you know you love it.” She sighs.

  “What's it about?”

  “Spanish Influenza.”

  “June 1918 to December 1920,” she rattles off as she watches Justin Strang strut down the hall.

  “Yeah, right. So will you do it?” I snap my fingers to get her attention. She's still making sexy eyes at Justin and twisting her blonde hair around one finger. She always does that when she's seriously flirting.

  “You know I will.” She finally looks at me. History is like crack to Tex. For some reason she has this freakish ability to remember dates. For someone who doesn't like fiction books much, she collects historical fiction, biographies and non-fiction like she's stockpiling them in case of a nuclear disaster. Sometimes we played a game where I'd ask her about an event and timed how long it takes her to come up with what year it happened in. She beat Google eight out of ten times.

  “I'll drop it off in your locker later.”

  “And I'll drop off my Jane Austen essay for you to look over.” She holds out her hand.

  “Done,” I say as we shake.

  “One of these days we're going to have to swap brain cells,” I say as the bell rings. Despite our best efforts, Tex and I didn't have any classes together, so I didn't get as much time with her as I wanted. We spent a lot of time texting when teachers weren't looking.