Splintered

by A. G. Howard

  Over the years, the doctors have discovered that sedatives work best to control Alison’s outbursts. But they turn her into a drooling zombie, unaware of anything around her. I’d rather see her alert and conversing with a roach than like that.

  I scowl at my dad, but he doesn’t even notice because he’s so busy frowning himself.

  “No,” he says, and the deep, disciplinarian edge to his voice makes the nurse’s penciled-in eyebrows snap up. “I’ll send Alyssa for you if things get difficult. And we’ve got the gardeners over there for manpower if we need it.” He gestures to the two hulking men in the distance who are pruning some branches from a bush. They could be twins with their huge mustaches and walrus-shaped bodies stuffed in brown coveralls.

  “All rightio. I’ll be at the front desk when you need me.” With another glaringly fake smile, she bounces into the building, leaving the three of us in solitude. Or the eight of us, if you count the carnations. At least they’ve finally stopped talking.

  The minute Dad’s shadow glides across the vase, Alison looks up. One glance at my crutches, and she launches from her seat, rattling the tea set. “He was right!”

  “Who was right, hon?” Dad asks, smoothing back the loose hairs framing her temples. Even after all the years of disappointment, he still can’t resist touching her.

  “The grasshopper …” Alison’s blue eyes glitter with a mix of anxiety and excitement as she points to a thick web in the parasol’s ribs. A silver-dollar-size garden spider scuttles across it, securing a white cocoon against the gusting wind—dinner, no doubt. “Before the spider wrapped him up, the grasshopper shouted something.” Alison’s hands clench together in front of her waist. “The grasshopper said you’d been hurt, Allie. He saw you outside the skating place.”

  I stare at the mummified lump in the spider’s web. There was that insect that kept climbing my leg at Underland. What, did it hitch a ride on the car?

  My stomach turns over. No way. No possible way it’s the same bug. Alison must’ve overheard me and Dad talking to the nurse about my fall. Sometimes I think she pretends to be oblivious because it’s easier than facing what’s happened to her, or what she’s done to our family.

  She grips her hands so hard, the knuckles bulge white. Ever since the day she hurt me, she avoids any physical contact between us. She thinks I’ll break. That’s one of the reasons I wear gloves, so she won’t see the scars and be reminded.

  Dad pries her hands apart and laces his fingers through hers. Alison’s attention settles on him, and the chaotic intensity melts away.

  “Hi, Tommy-toes,” she says, her voice soft and steady.

  “Hi, Ali-bear.”

  “You brought ice cream. Is this a date?”

  “Yeah.” He kisses her knuckles, flashing his best Elvis smirk. “And Alyssa’s here to help us celebrate.”

  “Perfect.” She smiles back, her eyes dancing. No wonder Dad’s helplessly in love with her. She’s pretty enough to be a fairy.

  Dad helps her back to her chair. He lays a cloth napkin in her lap, then slops some drippy ice cream into a teacup. Placing the cup on a saucer, he eases it in front of her along with a plastic spoon.

  “Il tuo gelato, signora bella,” he says.

  “Grazie meatball!” she blurts, in a rare moment of levity.

  Dad laughs and she giggles, a tinkling sound that makes me think of the silver chimes we have over our back door at home. For the first time in a while, she feels like home. I start to think this is going to be one of our good visits. With everything going on in my life lately, it would sure be nice to have a moment of stability.

  I sit, and Dad takes my crutches, laying them on the ground, then helps me prop my ankle on an empty chair between Alison and me. He pats my shoulder and takes a seat on the opposite side.

  For several minutes, we laugh and sip sticky cheesecake soup from our teacups. We talk about normal things: the end of the school year, tonight’s prom, last night’s graduation, and Tom’s Sporting Goods. It’s like I’m in a regular family.

  Then Dad ruins it. He takes out his wallet to show Alison snapshots of my mosaics that won ribbons at the county fair. The three photos are stuck in the plastic sleeves along with an assortment of credit cards and receipts.

  First is Murderess Moonlight, all in blues: blue butterflies, blue flowers, and bits of blue glass. Then Autumn’s Last Breath—a whirlwind of fall colors made up of brown moths and orange, yellow, and red flower petals. Winter’s Heartbeat, my pride, is a chaotic tangle of baby’s breath and silvery glass beads arranged in the image of a tree. Dried winterberries dot the end of each branch, as if the tree is bleeding. Jet-black crickets form the backdrop. As morbid as it sounds, the mixing of bizarre and natural somehow creates beauty.

  Alison wriggles in her chair as if disturbed. “What about her music? Is she still practicing her cello?”

  Dad squints my way. Alison’s had very little to do with my education. But one thing she’s always insisted on is my participation in orchestra, maybe because she used to play the cello herself. I dropped out this year when I only had time for one elective. We haven’t mentioned it because it seems so important to her that I continue.

  “We can talk about that later,” Dad says, squeezing her hand. “I wanted you to see her eye for detail. Just like you with your photographs.”

  “Photographs tell a story,” Alison mutters. “But people forget to read between the lines.” Breaking her hand out of Dad’s, she becomes deathly quiet.

  Eyes filled with sadness, Dad’s about to close the wallet when Alison spots the air freshener with the moth’s picture … the one he hasn’t yet hung in his truck.

  With trembling hands, she grabs it. “Why are you carrying this with you?”

  “Mom …” My tongue strains with the effort to form the word, unnatural and stiff, like trying to twist a cherry’s stem into a knot. “I had it made for him. It’s a way to keep a part of you with us.”

  Jaw clenched, she turns to Dad. “I told you to keep that album hidden. Didn’t I? She was never supposed to see this. It’s only a matter of time now …”

  It’s only a matter of time till what? I end up here where she is? Does she think the photographs made her crazy?

  Frowning, she tosses the air freshener across the table. Her tongue clucks a steady rhythm. The sound snaps inside me, as if someone is plucking my intestines with a guitar pick. Her most violent outbursts always start with the tongue cluck.

  Dad stiffens his fingers around the air freshener, wary.

  A fly alights on my neck, tickling me. When I swat it away, it lands beside Alison’s fingers. It rubs its tiny legs together. “He’s here. He’s here.”

  Its whispers rise above the wind and the rest of the white noise, above Alison’s clucking tongue and Dad’s cautious breaths.

  Alison leans toward the bug. “No, he can’t be here.”

  “Who can’t be here, Ali-bear?” Dad asks.

  I stare, wondering if it’s possible. Do crazy people share delusions? Because that’s the only explanation for Alison and me hearing the exact same thing.

  Unless the fly really did talk.

  “He rides the wind,” it whispers once more, then flits off into the courtyard.

  Alison locks me in her frantic gaze.

  I tense, stunned.

  “Hon, what’s wrong?” Dad stands next to her now, his hand on her shoulder.

  “What does that mean, ‘He rides the wind’? Who?” I ask Alison, no longer caring about giving my secret away to her.

  She glares at me, intense and silent.

  Dad watches both of us, looking paler by the second.

  “Dad?” I lean across my propped up leg and tug at my sock. “Could you get some ice for my foot? It’s throbbing.”

  He scowls. “Can’t it wait a second, Alyssa?”

  “Please. It hurts.”

  “Yes, she’s hurt.” Alison reaches over and touches my ankle. The gesture is shocking—so n
ormal and nurturing, it chills my blood and bones. Alison is touching me, for the first time in eleven years.

  The monumental event rattles Dad so much, he leaves without another word. I can tell by the twitch in his left eyelid that he’ll be bringing Poppin’ Fresh back with him.

  Alison and I don’t have long.

  The minute he vanishes through the door, I jerk my leg off the chair, wincing against a jolt of pain in my ankle. “The fly. We both heard the same thing, right?”

  Alison’s cheeks pale. “How long have you heard the voices?”

  “What difference does it make?”

  “All the difference. I could’ve told you things … things to keep you from making the wrong choice.”

  “Tell me now.”

  She shakes her head.

  Maybe she’s not convinced I hear the same voices she does. “The carnations. We should honor their last request.” I pick up a plastic spoon and, carnations in hand, hop on one crutch to the edge of the cement courtyard where the landscaping begins. The earth smells damp and fresh. The sprinklers have been on recently. Alison follows close behind.

  I don’t see the walrus gardeners anymore. In the distance, the shed door is open. The men must be inside. Good. There’s no one to interrupt us.

  Alison takes the flowers and spoon and drops to her knees. She uses the spoon to burrow into the soft earth. When the plastic snaps, she digs with her fingers until there’s a shallow grave.

  She lays the blossoms within and rakes dirt back over the top. The expression on her face is like a sky filled with churning clouds, undecided whether to storm or dissipate.

  My legs waver. For so many years, the women in our family have been pegged as crazy, but we’re not. We can hear things other people can’t. That’s the only way we could both hear the fly and carnations say the same thing. The trick is not to talk back to the insects and flowers in front of normal people, because then we appear crazy.

  We’re not crazy. I should be relieved.

  But something else is going on, something unbelievable.

  If the voices are real, it still makes no sense that Alison insists on dressing like Alice. Why she clucks her tongue. Why she rages for no reason. Those things make her look crazier than anything else. There are so many questions I want to ask. I shove them aside, because one other question is most binding of all.

  “Why our family?” I ask. “Why does this keep happening to us?”

  Alison’s face sours. “It’s a curse.”

  A curse? Is it possible? I think of the strange website I found when I searched for the moth. Are we cursed with mystical powers like those netherling things I read about? Is that why my grandmother Alicia attempted flight—she tried to test the theory?

  “All right,” I say, making an effort to believe the impossible. Who am I to argue? I’ve been chatting it up with dandelions and doodlebugs for the past six years. Real magic must be better than being schizophrenic. “If it’s a curse, there’s a way to break it.”

  “Yes.” Alison’s answer is a croak of misery.

  The wind picks up, and her braid slaps around her like a whip.

  “What is it, then?” I ask. “Why haven’t we already done it?”

  Alison’s eyes glaze over. She’s withdrawn somewhere inside herself—a place she hides when she’s scared.

  “Alison!” I bend over to grip her shoulders.

  She refocuses. “Because we’d have to go down the rabbit hole.”

  I don’t even ask if the rabbit hole is real. “Then I’ll find it. Maybe someone in your family can help?”

  It’s a stretch. None of the British Liddells even know about us. One of Alice’s sons had a secret affair with some woman before he went off to World War I and died on the battlefield. The woman ended up pregnant and came to America to raise their love child. The boy grew up and had a daughter, my grandma, Alicia. We haven’t been in touch with any of them … ever.

  “No.” Alison’s voice pinches. “Keep them out of this, Allie. They don’t know any more than we do, or we wouldn’t still be in this mess.”

  The determination behind her expression shuts down any questions her cryptic statement might raise. “Fine. We know the rabbit hole is in England, right? Is there a map? Some kind of written directions? Where do I look?”

  “You don’t.”

  I jump as she pulls down my sock to expose the birthmark above my swollen left ankle. She has an identical one on her inner wrist. The mark is like a maze made of sharply angled lines that you might see in a puzzle book.

  “There’s so much more to the story than anyone knows,” she says. “The treasures will show you.”

  “Treasures?”

  She presses her birthmark to mine, and a warm sensation rushes between the points of contact. “Read between the lines,” she whispers. The same thing she said earlier about the photographs. “You can’t lose your head, Allie. Promise you’ll let this go.”

  My eyes burn. “But I want you home …”

  She jerks back from my ankle. “No! I didn’t do all of this for nothing—” Her voice cracks, and she looks so tiny and frail at my feet.

  I ache to ask what she means, but even more, I just want to hug her. I lower myself to my knees, ignoring the wound behind Jeb’s bandana as I lean in. It’s heaven, feeling her arms around me. Smelling her shampoo as I bury my nose at her temple.

  It doesn’t last. She stiffens and pushes me away. A familiar jab of rejection scrapes through my chest. Then I remember: Dad and the nurse will be back at any second.

  “The moth,” I say. “It plays a part in this, right? I found a website. The picture of the black and blue moth led me to it.”

  Overhead, clouds dim the sunlight to a grayish haze, and Alison’s skin reflects the change. Terror sharpens her gaze. “You’ve done it now.” She lifts trembling hands. “Now that you’ve gone looking for him, he won’t be breaking his word. Not technically. You’re fair game.”

  I lace my fingers through hers, trying to ground her. “You’re freaking me out. Who are you talking about?”

  “He’ll come for you. He’ll step through your dreams. Or the looking glass … stay away from the glass, Allie! Do you understand?”

  “Mirrors?” I ask, incredulous. “You want me to stay away from mirrors?”

  She scrambles to her feet, and I struggle to balance on my crutch. “Broken glass severs more than skin. It will sever your identity.”

  As if on cue, Jeb’s bandana slips from my knee, revealing the bloody bandage. A tiny yelp leaps from her mouth. There’s no tongue cluck to warn me before she lunges. My back slams against the ground. The air is pushed from my lungs and pain bursts between my shoulder blades.

  Alison straddles me, peeling off my gloves as tears stream down her cheeks. “He made me hurt you!” She sobs. “I won’t let it happen again!”

  I’ve heard her say those words before, and in an instant, I’m back in that place and time. A five-year-old child—innocent, oblivious—watching as a spring storm gathered outside the screen door. The scent of rain and wet dirt rolled over me, making my mouth water. Right against my nose, a moth landed on the screen, the size of a crow with a luminous body and wings like black satin. I squealed and it took flight, hovering, teasing me, asking me to play.

  Lightning flashed, a flood of light. Mommy always told me it wasn’t safe to go outside when it’s storming … but the moth fluttered, beautiful, taunting, promising it would be all right. I piled up some books to reach the lock on the latch and tumbled outside to dance with the bug in the flower beds, mud squishing between my toes. Mommy’s scream made me look up. She sprinted toward us with a set of pruning shears.

  “Off with your head!” she yelled, and snipped every flower where the moth perched, cutting the petals from their stems.

  I followed, hypnotized by her energy as rain pelted us and lightning torched the sky. I thought she was dancing and flung my arms in the air behind her. Then I tripped over my feet. Wh
ite petals were bleeding on the ground. Daddy came running out of the house. I told him we needed Band-Aids for the daffodils. He gasped at the sight of me. I was too young to understand that flowers don’t bleed.

  Somehow I’d gotten into the line of fire, and the pruning shears sliced my skin—from my palms to my wrists. The doctor said I didn’t feel the pain because of shock. That was the last time Alison lived at home, and the last time I called her Mommy.

  A clap of thunder snatches me back to the present. My heart hammers against my sternum. I’d forgotten about the moth. That bug was my secret pet as a child and the catalyst for my scars. No wonder its photograph seemed familiar to me. No wonder it made Alison so crazy to see it again.

  She wails, holding my bare palms up to the dim light. “I’m so, so sorry! He used me, and I failed you. You’re meant for so much more than this. We all are.”

  She rolls off me and digs up the carnations. Dirt crumbles from the stems as she stands. “He can’t have her! You tell him that …” Alison squeezes the petals into a clump between her fists, as if trying to strangle them. Then she tosses the tattered blossoms aside and stumbles over to the gazing globe, trying to shove it off its base. When it won’t budge, she pounds the ball with her fists.

  I grab her elbows, worried she’ll hurt herself. “Please stop,” I plead.

  “Do you hear me?” she shouts at the silver globe, jerking out of my hold. “You can’t have her!” Something moves in the reflection, a blur of a shadow. But on second glance, it’s only Alison’s image staring back, yelling so hard the veins in her neck bulge.

  What happens next is like a dream. The clouds swirl overhead. Rain starts pounding down. I watch through the downpour as—in slow motion—the wind whips her braid around her neck.

  A hacking cough shakes her throat and she doubles over, fingers clenched around the braid to loosen it.

  “Alison!” I leap toward her. It barely registers that my ankle no longer hurts.

  Alison falls to the muddying earth, gasping for breath. The rain falls harder, as if someone’s pelting pebbles at us. Her dirt-caked fingernails gouge at the platinum cord strangling her. In her desperation, she rips some skin from her neck. Blood rises along the welts. Her eyeballs bulge, snapping from side to side as she struggles to inhale. Her house shoes slap against the muddy ground.