She shakes her head. “No. He would destroy you, everything you’ve built here.” She gestures around the tunnel. “Please, Kettle.” Her eyes are rimmed with moisture, and I back off. Her heart is like a ribbon. I have to be so careful not to step on it, snag it, and disrupt the delicate rhythm of it rolling in. In and away from me.
“My life.” She sighs the word like it’s too much and not enough. “You want to know about my life. Well, the truth is, it wasn’t all bad,” she says, changing the subject, and I let her. There’ll be time to discuss her sister later. “Some parts of my life were wonderful.” She looks to the roof, dust instead of stars in her eyes. “There were friends, school, Frankie…” Her voice trails in sadness and she jerks away from the feeling. “And dances.” She clasps her hands together and smiles. “Oh, I miss dances.”
I snort, push my sleeves up, and lean back on my forearms. She watches me, her eyes on my bare skin, and I wonder what she’s thinking. “Dances. Really? What’s to miss?” My experience with dances was one forced event in the camps where we watched the grownups awkwardly shift in lines to scratchy music. It didn’t look very enjoyable.
She releases the button she’s been playing with and smirks. “Says someone who’s clearly never been to one.”
“How do you know that?” I say, raising an eyebrow and touching my chest, mock offended.
She laughs. It’s starlight in a jar. I blink slowly. “Oh, I can tell just by looking at you, the way you move. You,” she says, pointing at me accusingly. “Can’t dance.”
The candlelight twinkles like it’s chuckling at me. “I can dance,” I say, not sure why I’m lying to defend myself. I’ve never danced in my life.
She stands up and beckons me with her finger, and I think there’s something wrong with my heart. It’s hurting… but the pain feels good.
She looks like a pirate’s cabin boy, shirt billowing around her small waist, ill-fitting pants rolled over at her hips to stop them from falling down. She points her bare foot at me. “Prove it!”
Shit!
I cough and stand nervously. I don’t know what to do with my hands, so I put them behind my back. She giggles. Touches me. Runs her fingers lightly down my arms until she finds my hands. She grasps my wrists and I gulp as she places one on the small dip between her hips and her ribs, extending the other out like the bow of a boat. Her hand in mine.
I follow her small steps and we wind in circles, avoiding the clumps of debris, painting patterns in the dust.
I stare at my socks and her narrow bare feet, listening to the swish of them across the dirt. “You know, this is pretty weird without music,” I mutter, looking up for a moment and suddenly losing my balance.
She exhales and brings us back to equilibrium. She starts humming softly. It’s a song I’ve heard before, but I pretend it’s the first time. Her voice is sweet, cracked and croaky, but in tune as she gazes at the ground and leads us up and down the back of the tunnel.
This moment is killing me. I don’t want it, but I do. Because I know it won’t be enough and it’s all I’ll get.
The end of the song is coming. It rises and rises and then softly peters out. We look at each other, understanding that something is changing between us, and we have to decide whether to let it. Please, let it.
She sings the last few bars. “And if you sing this melody, you’ll be pretending just like me. The world is mine. It can be yours, my friend. So why don’t you pretend?”
Her voice is like the dust of a comet’s tail. Full of a thousand things I don’t understand but want to.
She stops and starts to step away. She’s so fragile. Not on the outside. On the outside, her body is strong, tougher than it should have to be. It’s inside that’s very breakable. I’m scared to touch her, but I don’t want to avoid touching her because of what she’s been through. That seems worse.
So I do it, because I want to and I don’t think she doesn’t want me to. Her breath catches as I pull her closer. I just want to press my cheek to hers, feel her skin against mine. There is no music, just the rhythm of two barely functioning hearts trying to reach each other through miles of scar tissue.
She presses her ear to my chest and listens, then she pulls back to meet my eyes, her expression a mixture of confusion and comfort. She breathes out, her lips not wanting to close but not wanting to speak. She settles on a nervous smile and puts her arms around my neck. I inhale and look up at the ceiling, counting the stars I know are up there somewhere, and then rest my cheek in her hair.
I don’t know how she is here. I don’t know when she’ll disappear.
We sway back and forth, and it feels like we might break. That we will break if we step apart from each other.
I can’t let her go.
I think I love dancing.
47
A Girl
NORA
There was this girl. She was battered, broken. Holding on but slipping. Because she was holding onto the wrong things. The things that can’t support and can only cut her.
I’m not that girl anymore, and I know what I need to do.
48
Gone
KETTLE
I wake with a big, stupid smile on my face.
I stand up, stretch, and freeze.
She’s gone.
49
What I Need to Do
NORA
I press the doorbell, the buzz shooting shockwaves through my body. I straighten.
My body that is strong and ready to fight.
If I can fly, I can do this.
I put a palm to my chest and wish I could cup a hand around my heart to calm it. It’s beating loudly against my pleura like a warning.
Heavy steps approach, the boards cracking like a tongue wanting water, and I hold my breath until it opens.
Marie’s face is worn and disappointed when she sees me. “Miss Nora, what are you doing here?” she whispers, her eyes darting back and forth along the empty street. She can’t look at me.
“I’m here to see my father,” I say, taking a step forward, one foot on the welcome mat, the other pulling me back so I’m straddling that divide between in and out.
Marie sighs and shakes her head. “Miss.” She bows softly, but she doesn’t move from the entrance. My hand goes to the doorframe, a wave of nausea slamming through me like a drunken ghost.
“Marie, let me pass,” I firmly demand.
She steps aside, muttering under her breath, “Miss. Please. Don’t.” Three words punctuated with concern. Signs written in the dust.
I step into the reception, the door closing behind me. Marie shuffles into the kitchen and puts up a barrier between herself and what’s about to happen by closing the heavy kitchen door.
I stand on the tiles, staring at my feet. Am I a pawn on this chessboard? Am I small, insignificant, easily sacrificed? I move toward the base of the stairs with quiet, determined movements. No, I am a King.
The study door is ajar, a small triangle of light spreading over the landing. “Who’s at the door, Marie?” my father’s voice shouts impatiently from inside. I jump at the sound of his voice. So angry, so biting and dark. When no one answers, he stomps toward the landing. The door opens, the light pouring over the banister like a golden waterfall. The shadow of my father stops, painted on the stairs like it’s glued down, and I realize he is the shadow. He is darkness swallowing the light, and he is everything I don’t want. He grips the banister with both hands and leans over, smiling down on me. I catch a slight rise of his eyebrows like maybe he’s surprised or impressed that I came back, but before I can hold onto it, it’s gone.
“Nora,” he says like a curse word. “You’ve returned.”
He doesn’t move. He won’t come to me. He waits as I climb the stairs to meet him, always under his cold silhouette. It bends over every step, grabs at my ankles, as crooked as his own heart. He keeps his face neutral. He needn’t bother. I know what’s beneath the mask is thrashing and scratching to get ou
t.
When I reach the top, I tip my chin at him. “Father.”
He smiles sickeningly at me. “I knew you would come crawling back. You’re not strong enough to survive without me.” He looks at his watch, and then back up at me. “You didn’t last much longer than a week.” He sneers.
I close my mind to his words as they snap at my sides and try to take bites out of me. I am, I am, I am strong enough my heart stutters. I force myself to smile back and not respond to his comment. “I would like to speak with you.”
He gestures for me to go into his study, lifting his hand to my back as we reach the doorway and pushing me inside, un-gently.
I resist a little, try to stand on my own feet, but stumble.
The door closes tightly like the lid of a chest, trapping me inside. No air, except his air. The room is filled with the smell of dusty books, leather and all of me, all the parts of me he took over the years. I pull them in, gather them in my arms, and reclaim them.
He stalks around me in a circle like a lion, knocking my shoulders as he passes. I don’t move. I won’t move. “I’ve missed you,” he says in a stinging, point-of-a-dagger voice.
“I find that hard to believe,” I say as he walks to the edge of his desk, folds his arms across his chest, and casually crosses his legs at the ankles. His vest is unbuttoned, his sleeves shoved up to the elbows.
He ignores my comment and goes for the kill, stabbing me with his words. “Your sister misses you too. Very much.”
I plant my feet more firmly on the ground. I’m a tree in a storm. He won’t uproot me. “Where is she?”
He tsks and shakes his head. “I can’t tell you that.”
“Is she safe?” I whisper, wanting to scream, Why? Why won’t you tell me? What have you done with her? But I’m trying to play his game.
His mouth twitches, a blanket of frustration whipping across his expression, fast like a bullfighter’s cape. “She is… unharmed,” he mutters, whatever that means. “And now that you are back home, I will consider sending for her.”
I shake my head slowly. “I’m not back home.”
The elastic of his skin tightens. His arms bulge as he wraps himself tauter. How many punches are in there? I wonder. How many can I take? My eyes flit to the corners for potential weapons. Golf clubs, umbrella, large, heavy law books that are already stained with my blood.
A bridge of a few seconds stretches between us, and then he laughs. “Don’t be foolish, Nora, you have nowhere else to go, no money…”
I’m stuck on this rug, glued down. I pick up my feet, and then plant them again. “I will have money very soon.”
He lifts from the desk and takes a step toward me. I take a step back. We’re dancing. A horrible dance, a forced partnership I need to break. In his expression, I see fractured bones and purple flesh and then, abruptly, he turns toward his bookshelves and runs his finger along the spines like I’m boring him. He speaks to the letters, gold and black. “You plan to marry then? I can’t imagine anyone would be willing to marry you.”
I don’t even know what I’m saying. “I do. I will be married by the end of the week. Excuse me for not inviting you, but we wanted to keep the guest list small. Just close family and friends.”
The corner of his eye twitches, but he doesn’t turn. He pulls out a random book and flicks it open, holding it in one hand as he ruffles the pages. “I’ll never let her go,” he says, snapping the book shut.
My limbs wobble and try to uncouple. I swallow. “I’ll give you half my inheritance if you tell me where she is. I just want your word that after that, you will leave us alone.”
This is when he turns. Slow and fast. Made of molten metal and ire. So much anger that he might be on fire. “You are my daughters. My family. You belong to me, and I will never let you go. Never. I don’t want your money. How do you think it would look if my only family ran away from me? Chose to live separate to me? No. I will not allow it. And I will not allow you to marry. I’ll find a way to stop it from happening.” He takes a sharp breath, his fists rolled up and waiting. “You Will. Not. Leave. This. House,” he spits, slamming the book on the floor.
He shakes his fist as he screams. And I have crumbled. His shadow pins me to my place and I can’t see, can’t find a way out.
I will not, cannot stay here.
I step backward, mumbling, “My whole life…”
He pauses, smoothes his hair down, and stoops to meet my eyes. “Did you speak?” he asks with disgust.
“My whole life, I’ve been afraid of you. But not anymore.” He’s bent in at strange angles. Frozen by the fact that I’m finally standing up for myself. “Only a cowardly, cruel man hits a child, a mother… an unborn baby.” He cracks, straightens like a puppet being put away for the night. He’s not a real person. He is soulless, empty, and I hate him. I keep walking backward as I talk, “Do you know when the happiest time in my childhood was?” He is quiet and knuckle white, and my words slip from my mouth—venomous but true. “It was when you were MIA, and we thought you might be dead. I remember when we got the yellow letter. As she read it, I didn’t see sadness in her eyes, I saw relief.” There they are. My words. The truth. A tumble of letters on the carpet. We both stare down and back up. Our eyes are the same. Both filled with fury. The difference is what we do with it.
White turns to red turns to black, black, black.
I continue. “I will not stay here. And if you won’t accept my offer, then so be it. I’ll find her anyway. I’ll find her, and then you will have nothing,” I shout with my back pressed against the study door. “Nothing but the ghost of a wife who was terrified of you and an empty house!”
I turn my back to him to open the door. I don’t even care how my words have affected him. I don’t want to look in his furious, hurt, or suffering eyes. I want to go home. Back to the Kings, to Kettle.
My hand grasps the handle strongly. I think of Kettle and the boys and smile. I’ll find Frankie and I’ll make a life for myself. Then my hand slips from the door, my back inverts, my legs disintegrate, and my face hits the floor.
50
I Do Believe in Fairies
KETTLE
Muffled shouting pounds on the inside of the door.
“I will not let you go!” a man shouts. A mangled scream follows.
I’m too late.
I push on the door, and it opens. Black-and-white tiles shine under a chandelier. A creak to my left pulls my focus and a large woman lingering in a doorway sniffs, her eyes held upwards. “He’s going to kill her,” she says with little emotion. It’s just fact—he will kill her.
I hear another thump, harder than my heartbeat but not stronger, and I race up the stairs that seem endless and towering. Stretching to the sky.
There’s some part of me that doesn’t want to go. Doesn’t want to see what’s in that room. I’ve never been so afraid… I think of the beatings, the blood, the shackles and suffering I’ve seen, and still… no. I have never been so afraid in my whole life.
“Stop! Please,” Nora’s small, wet-sounding voice comes from behind a dark, oily-looking door. Another noise like someone batting dirt from a rug and she screams, though it sounds like a scream beneath a mountain of cloth, like she’s buried.
I grab the handle, turn and push, finding it hard to get inside because something is blocking the door. “Nora,” I yell through the small gap.
I glance down and my throat tightens. Tears form, burning rings around my eyes, because the ‘thing’ blocking the door is Nora… and standing over her is a wild, furious man, holding what appears to be a hat rack snapped in half.
Oh Jesus.
I don’t have time to be gentle. I shove the door and Nora inward, put my head down and charge at the man. Christopher Deere—defender of civil rights and monster.
I drive him toward the desk, holding the wrist that’s still clutching the coat rack and smack it down on the tabletop. He won’t let it go, and I have to smack it several times befor
e it clatters to the ground.
“Kettle,” Nora wheezes, pulling herself up to an almost sitting position. She holds her stomach, her face a frighteningly pale, gray color that terrifies me. She coughs, and I’m watching her instead of him. I am rewarded with a book to the side of the head.
I fall to the side and roll onto the floor, clambering up to my knees, but he’s already got a boot to my stomach. My insides compress, flooding with pain.
Nora screams, “Leave him alone!” and starts dragging herself toward us.
I put a hand up to stop her, but he slams his foot down on it. “Is this him?” He laughs. “Oh Nora, you really can pick them,” this cold, dark man with Nora’s eyes shouts as he laughs sardonically.
There is silence. Air moving in and out of the room like a lung. Something shiny and silver catches the corner of my eye. Another blow hits my ribs and pain flares. I grab at his legs but I can’t gain an advantage from the floor. He grabs my collar and jerks me up so I’m hanging from my clothes, choking.
A metallic click like a lock sliding into place stops him dead. We hear a sliding sound and turn toward Nora at the same time.
A flash of white light.
I wait for the loud bang, for him to fall…
And then I am released.
He grunts. All his anger is pooled at the tip of a sharp, silver letter opener in his hand, poised ready to run me through. It drops to the floor, and I scramble away. I look up at Nora, who’s holding a large Polaroid camera to her chest. It seems to terrify her father.
“Kettle,” she manages in a crushed-to-pieces voice. “Run.” He takes a threatening step toward her and she bolts, with me following behind but slower as I try to block his path.
[Paper Stars 01.0] Nora & Kettle Page 26