“Ah—the French maid!”
“Mais oui, Monsieur.” She stepped close and put her mouth to my ear so I could hear over the music. “Come and dance with me.” She clamped her hand firmly around mine and led me over to the dancers.
Becky was a good dancer but not comfortable to dance with—you know how that is? She stared at me too much, got too close, demanded too much, if that makes sense. Always wanting some reaction. So it was a relief when after a couple of tunes she fanned her cleavage and yelled, “It’s too hot. Let’s go for a drink.”
It was quieter at the fridge. “Oh, I just loved that last song,” Becky said. “So great for dancing. Who was it, do you know?” She had a beautiful smile—perfect teeth and a little dimple that puckered up in one corner.
“That was Lady Gaga, wasn’t it?”
She wrinkled up her nose. “Ew. That meat-dress thing. Why do people have to be so weird?”
I shrugged and opened the fridge. It really irritates me when people say things like that. Not that I was a fan of wearing meat or even much liked Gaga’s music. “Beer or…?”
“Beer, of course.” I took one for myself too, in self-defense.
“Speaking of weird, Jack.” Becky swigged her beer and smiled sweetly at me. “I’ve been seeing you with Lucy Sullivan a lot lately.” She waited, eyebrows raised, as if she expected me to deny it.
I just nodded, knowing already I wasn’t going to like where this was going—and that I didn’t like Becky what’s-her-name.
“Well, it’s nice of you to befriend her and everything, but Jack, you’re new, so you wouldn’t know she has a history. You don’t want to get too wrapped up with a girl like that.”
“A girl like what, Becky?” I was mad now, mad enough that I couldn’t quite keep the hostility out of my voice.
She took a little step back. “Hey, I’m just trying to help you get off on the right foot. Lucy’s messed up. And there are lots of nice girls here who’d like to get to know you.” She stepped in quickly and planted one on my mouth before I could recoil.
“Think about it, Jack.”
I watched her melt back into the crowd in her perfect rented costume, and then I tossed down half my beer to try to get rid of the bad taste she’d left behind.
ELEVEN
KLARA
Really, I think I must have been asleep before I met Jack—asleep for years and years. But I’m awake now. Some days I wish I wasn’t, because I didn’t realize before how lonely and tiresome it is to just stand here day in and day out. But to be able to think and wish and plan again—that part is wonderful.
I realized just a little while ago that nobody was ever, ever going to buy any matches. How would they? There is nobody here to buy them. So there is no need for me to go on selling them, is there? And nobody to punish me if I use them myself.
But it was only today that I had my best idea so far. I was looking at my matches, thinking that the match head looked a bit like a tiny person’s head. And then I remembered something.
Old Mad Gerda. That’s what they called her, though not to her face. She was a fearsome sight, with her broomstraw gray hair stuck out every which way and her wandering eye and the one leg shriveled and weak. She worked for a time just over there, beside that lamppost, selling love charms and fertility potions. I heard men muttering that she’d sell worse too, if asked, and once when a constable ran her off the square he called her an “old witch” and said in his papa’s day she’d have been burned at the stake. But even he, I noticed, didn’t whack her with his stick, not even once. People believed in her charms.
For her most expensive love charms, she made little dolls. Little scrappy things they were—just sticks lashed together and bits of cloth. I saw a customer laugh scornfully when she brought one out. But she laid her old claw hand on his arm, and I heard her explain how he should bring her something of the lady’s, some hair or even a scrap of clothing, and she would bind it to the doll, and then when he possessed the doll, he would have power over the lady.
So that’s what I’m going to do. I’ll make a little matchstick Jack doll of my very own. Jack will come back one day, I know he will. And when he does, all I need to do is get something of his to keep. Before I wouldn’t have known how, but now that I’m awake, I’m sure I can find a way. And then…well, I’m not sure how to do a binding, exactly. But I mean to try.
TWELVE
LUCY
I got up for a bit around dinnertime. I felt floaty, but not in a good way. Like my head wasn’t quite attached to my body. My mom had come home armed with soup and Popsicles, and she fixed me a “sick meal” that tasted pretty good. After that I huddled on the couch for a while to get a change of scene, but the TV made my head hurt, and by eight o’clock I was back in bed. I just lay there feeling shivery and sick, but gradually the Tylenol kicked in and I fell asleep.
Crazy dreams. I was chasing that junkie guy through the city, slashing at him with a broken bottle the size of a baseball bat…falling through the sky into a field of solar panels, wondering calmly if I’d get electrocuted if I broke through one…trying to ride on a bus, but my different body parts kept growing and shrinking—like Alice, only all disconnected.
And then, oh God, there she was. I was surrounded by gray, swaddled in it, floating in it, and it was the most peaceful and comfortable I’d felt since getting sick—until I saw that she was there too.
She wasn’t standing with her matches, the way Jack and I had both seen her before. She was crouched down, hunkered over something, her thin hair falling forward into her face. I thought, I don’t want to see what she’s doing there, but the words had no sooner crossed my mind than I was floating in closer, like someone had pressed the Zoom button.
She was fiddling with some matchsticks, her mouth working in concentration as she laid them in a pattern. I was surprised at how big they were—maybe four inches or so. Not like any match I’d ever used. She yanked at the edge of her shawl and pulled out an end of yarn, biting it off with her teeth. Then she set to tying the sticks together.
I peered closer, and suddenly the spiders were back in full force. My stomach knotted so tight I thought I might throw up, dream or no dream. It was a stick man she was making, a little matchstick man. And though the words she was murmuring as she worked didn’t surprise me at all, they still filled me with sick dismay.
“Jack, Jack, Jack. Here’s my little Jack. You’ll be with me always, and once I make the binding, so will my big Jack. He’ll come again, yes he will. He’ll come to us, little Jack.”
I lurched awake in a panic, thinking, I have to warn him. When I sat up, groping for my phone, I realized I was soaked—I mean, really soaked. My T-shirt was plastered against me, the roots of my hair wet. Just gross. Once I got out in the air, it was really cold too. With a groan I stripped off my shirt and rummaged in a drawer for a new top.
Of course, he didn’t answer when I called. His phone was probably in a backpack or coat pocket in a heap of other kids’ packs and coats. Even if it was in his jeans, he probably wouldn’t hear it over the party noise. By the time I started texting him instead, I realized the warning was kind of pointless. What was he going to do, watch out for voodoo dolls? Still, I couldn’t stop. My hands were shaking as I keyed in Just had wrst dream. I think MG is up to sth bad. Call me?
I sat back against my pillow and realized it was wet from my sweat. So were the sheets. Ugh. Shivering, disgusted and still disturbed by what I’d seen, I thumped to the linen cupboard, looking for dry sheets.
“Everything okay?” My mom was standing in her bedroom doorway, looking bleary.
I nodded mechanically, about to fall back on my default I-don’t-need-you attitude. Then I caught myself. I didn’t need to be like that anymore. “I woke up all sweaty and freaked out from a dream.”
She came over and felt my forehead. “Your fever’s broken. It’s actually a good thing.”
I grunted. “I’d hate to see bad.”
M
om pulled a blanket out of the cupboard and draped it around my shoulders. “Go cuddle up in this. I’ll change your bed.”
There was something soothing about watching her strip and remake the bed. By the time she was done, the dream was fading, and I did feel better. I was almost due for more Tylenol, so I took one and slid under the covers. I thought I should try to think about that dream, but my body had other ideas. The light was barely out when I was drifting away in the reassuring smell of clean laundry.
JACK
So the dope was a mistake. That’s obvious now, but at the time I wasn’t thinking about the relationships between various altered states. I just wanted to enjoy myself with my new friends and avoid overdoing the beer. I was sipping a Coke, sweaty from dancing, when Alex and Annie drifted by to ask if I wanted to go get some air. The moon was high by then; I remember looking up just as the clouds covering its face shredded and blew past, and silvery light spilled down and flooded over the fields. I’d seen moonbeams on lakes lots of times but somehow never realized the same thing happens on land.
The joint Alex produced didn’t seem that strong, and we didn’t even finish it because the same wind whipping the clouds past the moon was whipping us down below, and Annie was freezing in her evening gown and little wrap. But it was enough to make me a little spacey, and when we went back inside I decided I didn’t feel like more dancing. Instead I laid claim to one of the few articles of furniture in the place—a big overstuffed chair with a sprung-out seat that nearly swallowed me up when I sank into it. I hunkered down and watched the party. A couple of guys were wreaking minor havoc on the dance floor, having progressed from headbanging to uninhibited flailing. Becky what’s-her-name seemed to be arguing with that really tall guy from my chemistry class. She didn’t look like she needed any help either—he was practically cowering. I wondered how Lucy was doing, considered digging through the pile of stuff to find my phone and decided she would be sleeping, and I shouldn’t wake her. I suddenly really missed her.
The music changed to some kind of electronica, hypnotic and repetitive. The hard-core boys squinted at the speakers, shook their heads in disgust and left the floor. I let my eyes drift up, away from the press of bodies to the gray rafters high above. Looking up, you could imagine this place as a working barn, the thump of the bass and rise and fall of crowd noise replaced by the crunch of straw underfoot, the stamping hooves and munching jaws of heavy beasts. The smell of old carpet and young bodies replaced by the sharper smell of manure. It seemed nice, peaceful. I wished I could step into that earlier time, escape for a few minutes from all these people trying so hard to have fun…
Oh no. Fuck. This is not where I wanted to escape to.
The Match Girl catches sight of me, and her expression goes through such a rapid succession of changes she looks like a face in a flip-book: blankness, then delight that crumples into something I can’t read. By the time I’m close enough to talk to her, it has settled into a pretty good likeness of horror. Huh. And here I thought she’d be glad to see me.
“Jack! Oh, dear Jack, what’s happened to you?” She stares at me in dismay, and then her expression shifts again, her eyes thoughtful. She leans in closer and says softly, “Is it plague? You needn’t worry—it won’t be bad for long. I’ll look after you.”
“What?” She’s scaring the crap out of me—even more than usual, I mean—until I figure it out. My hand flies to my face—my green, zombified face. “No, no, I’m fine. This is just makeup.” No response. “Um, face paint?”
She eyes me dubiously. “Face paint. To make yourself look ill?”
“For a party.” Still the stare. “A Halloween party. Do you know Halloween?”
She considers. “All Hallow’s Eve?”
“I guess. We dress up in scary costumes on Halloween.”
More staring. She’s deciding whether I’m lying or off my nut.
“Then you’re well, truly?” Those big blue eyes search mine.
“Perfectly well—I promise.”
She holds my gaze a bit longer—uncomfortably longer—and I want to look away but can’t seem to, and then her face crumples. I’m shocked to see that she’s actually crying. The thought floats into my head, and it’s a thought I don’t much like, that the Match Girl was a lot less emotional when I first met her than she is now. Then, she was kind of blank and vague. Now she seems…more alive? But how can that be?
She has ramped up to outright sobbing now, words coming out brokenly between gasps of breath. “I thought… oh, I thought…I was so affrighted for you, Jack…I thought you were dying!”
I stand there shifting my weight from one foot to the other, wondering what I should do. Once again, social awkwardness collides with surreal fear in the weirdest way. I’m not about to put my arm around her, or even touch her—but she’s crying for me, and she looks smaller and lonelier than ever. Then she peeps out from between her fingers, her breath still ragged as she gradually quiets down.
“I’m sorry, Jack. I shouldn’t be so…” She sniffs vigorously and gives a little embarrassed laugh. “I’m a terrible mess now. Would you have a handkerchief I could use?”
A handkerchief. “Uh…” I rummage in my pockets, checking for Kleenex. Like before, my meter and phone are gone, but I do find a promising lump at the bottom of a back pocket. I pull it out gingerly, remembering how my sugar tabs’ plastic case had turned into a cloth bag—but it’s just a tissue, dabbed with dark red in the corner. Paper was invented before plastic, remembers the part of my mind that is groping for something, anything, logical. “Sorry. It’s a bit used. I pulled a hangnail in class and—”
She snatches at it eagerly. I’m kind of taken aback—it’s as if she was starving and I held out a sandwich. “That’s all right, Jack. I don’t mind if it’s a bit dirty.” She sounds like it’s more than all right—she sounds pleased as punch. She’s mopping at her cheeks and blowing her nose loudly, and I suddenly wonder how real her “affright” actually was.
“There, that’s better.” She beams at me. “Thank you, Jack. I shall treasure this always.” And she stuffs the “handkerchief” tenderly into her coat, patting it to make sure it’s safely stowed away.
I have a strong feeling that I should get it back, not leave it with this strange, ghostly girl who is becoming less ghostly every time I see her. But who asks for a snotty Kleenex to be returned? So instead I say, “Well, I should be getting back now. My friends will be worried about me.” She looks at me with this teasing little pout, and I realize I’ve already told her that I don’t actually know how to get back. But I need—really, really need—to put some distance between myself and this…whatever she is, so I say goodbye and turn and march down the street, back toward the place where I usually pop into this world, as if I’m walking home. The only plan I have is to lurk there in the mist, as far away from her as I can get, until someone gets worried enough to holler me back.
But it actually worked—apparently, I could just walk home. Relief washed over me as I opened my eyes and found myself sunk into the big chair, with music and chatter and bodies swirling around me. A girl’s overexcited shriek, followed by a cascade of laughter, rose above the general noise, and then Rafe was in front of me, his Joker grin a little smeared but still sinister.
“Hey, man, there you are! I wondered if you’d headed home or something.”
“No, just taking a break. A bit stoned, I guess.” Disoriented would have been the better word, but stoned worked for Rafe. He nodded knowingly.
“Ha! You’ll be hungry next, so you’ll like this plan. We’re kind of done here—thought we might catch a cab into town now and go for pizza before heading home.”
Perfect. I’d definitely had enough party, and a nice, normal pizza pit was exactly what I needed. “Yeah, I’m in.” I struggled out of the chair, and we went over to rummage through the mound of clothes for our stuff. Remembering the low I had after my last trip to the Wild Side, I tested while we waited for the cab. Actually,
a little on the high side this time. You just never know.
I keyed in a couple of units, giving the insulin a head start before I assaulted my body with carbs and grease, and sat back in the warm cab. The easy banter of my friends was the perfect antidote to the weirdness with the Match Girl, and I was soon laughing and feeling fine.
Annie’s phone rang, and that reminded me I’d promised to check in with my mom. I dug out my phone and saw I had a message waiting. I knew what it would say without reading it—Going to bed now. Everything okay? Mom.
But it wasn’t from Mom. It was from Lucy.
THIRTEEN
KLARA
My friends, he said. I never thought of Jack having friends. I thought he was alone, like me.
I don’t like him having friends. They pull him away from me. “They’ll be worried,” he said. What would they have to be worried about? He’s perfectly well here with me.
No matter. Soon I won’t need to bother about his friends, because we’ll be together forever.
His handkerchief has blood on it! Jack’s blood. That’s a powerful binder, I think. I’m sure I heard Mad Gerda say that anything from the person’s body—hair or nail parings but especially blood—was the best thing to use. I’m sure it will work now.
I’ll bring Jack back—and this time he’ll stay.
FOURTEEN
JACK
That night I lay in bed staring at the ceiling for what felt like hours. I was actually kind of afraid to turn out the light, if you want to know the truth. It was edging toward dawn when I finally fell asleep and past noon when I woke up. I called Lucy right away and arranged to head over to her place as soon as I’d showered and eaten.
A middle-aged woman with Lucy’s small frame answered the door. Funny—Lucy had spent so much time around my family that I’d kind of started thinking she lived alone.
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