Envy
Page 32
By nine o’clock, the absence of his brother stood out like my random red lips. Poor Tommy. Disappointment poured off him in waves. He obviously looked up to his brother, and the no-show affected him deeply. He slunk to the rear of the room where he nursed his beer in a private booth.
As it was a weeknight, business slowed when the kitchen closed at half past nine. The remaining patrons took to the dance floor. I ducked out the back to scoff some food and made a mad dash to the restroom. My phone clattered to the floor when I pulled my pants back up. I couldn’t believe I’d been so distracted that I forgot about the byte. The notion sat me down squarely on the lid of the toilet while I stared at my phone.
I had two minutes left of my break and the little chip burned a hole in my pocket. Not sure if I’d get another chance, I pulled out the green square and twirled it in my fingers. What did I know about my mother’s death? Not much. My father, a decorated soldier in the Australian Army, didn’t know what had happened either. Well, that’s what he said. Apparently, he’d walked in to find my dead mother in a bloody bath and my sister holding me, still attached to the umbilical cord. Leila had saved my life—even if she hated me now, she saved me once.
“What would Prince do?” My favorite musician had an answer to all of my deepest, darkest questions. On my phone I had over two hundred of his songs to choose from and so far he hadn’t let me down. I set the music playlist to shuffle and pressed play.
You got the Look, came on.
I nodded. “That’s what I thought too. Prince, you’re a friggin’ genius. I’ve got to stop being a baby and have a look.” With a renewed sense of urgency and purpose, I inserted the chip into the slot at the bottom of my phone. The screen lit up—a vibrant blue—and the song faded. On the screen, visions in shades of gray projected, flickering and jumping before they settled into a recognizable, Technicolor pattern. Memory bytes had no sound and couldn’t portray emotions, so I had to make sense of the images as they were. They were also warped, like random dreams.
We were in a bathroom. Mama reached out through a red veil, but she wasn’t asking for Leila to come to her, she wanted her to leave. Wait—it wasn’t a veil, it was her hair. It had changed in color from black to red.
Her face changed too. A black-eyed monster looked out laughing through red lips, laughing, so close to the screen. Then its eyes widened, its laughter turned to fear, and it clawed its own face, causing wells of blood to spring from the beautiful porcelain skin. Suddenly, it collapsed on the tiled floor.
It was my mother again, her hair bled to black, her lips faded to pink. She looked up and moved her mouth, eyes glassy and leaking tears. She assured Leila of something, but I couldn’t work it out. She pulled herself up to stand and lowered her heavily pregnant and naked body into the bath. Water surged over the edge, a torrential flood spilled to the floor, lapping at Leila’s little feet.
I could see the black-eyed monster again. Its mouth opened wide, it must be screaming, scared. It tried to scramble out of the bath but couldn’t get a footing. Why is the witch scared? It’s only water. Spit flew from its mouth as it screamed, its mouth moved as though it spoke. It scratched its face, ripping welts in soft tissue and thrashed its legs. Water splashed on the walls and over the bathroom, but the puddles looked red, not clear.
Then it stopped.
The face calmed, the hands slid over the bath’s edge and it sank lower.
The water stilled.
The monster stared at me from over the bath’s edge, black eyes wide and terrible.
The monster was afraid. It was desperate. It turned its gaze to the big belly and lashed at it with cracked and bleeding fingernails. Welts sliced open in the skin and pulled apart to reveal something I shouldn’t be seeing. Fresh streams of blood ran in rivers over the bath to paint the tiles crimson.
The water was red, everything was red. The screen blacked out. When it cleared, my mother held a baby out, smiling and moving her mouth. She was saying the same thing over and over again. I could read her lips because I recognized the movement, she was saying a name.
La Roux.
It was over in seconds. I hugged the phone to my chest and squeezed my eyes shut to stop the sting of tears. Even without feeling Leila’s emotions, I’d seen everything through her eyes as though I were there too. It was so vivid, so frightening. My feet tapped erratically, and I scratched at the warm skin under my collar.
I must not cry at work, I must not cry at work.
I blinked wildly, chewing on my lip. My thoughts scrambled as I tried to make sense of what I’d seen. It was clear my mother had been attacked by the witch, but what did that have to do with me? Why did that make Leila hate me so much?
I shivered like a shaggy dog, pulled the chip out of the phone, and shoved them both in my pocket. I needed to find someone who could read lips. I needed to know what was said.
“You done there, Roo? I need to go.” Alvin banged on the door.
“Sorry, I’m coming.” I swallowed a few times and pinched my cheeks, then took a deep breath and opened the door with a fake smile.
Alvin hopped from foot to foot, frowning. He shoved past me.
If Leila saw that every night, no wonder she was damaged. A witch had killed my mother, and I’d barely escaped with my life. The only thing I liked about the memory byte was that my mother had fought for me. Why else would the witch have look so frightened? Icy cold fingers tickled my skin when I realized the real reason my sister hated me. The witch hadn’t been afraid of my mother, or Leila. It was the baby she tried to claw out.
The witch had been afraid of me.
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