Hell's Belles

by Alison Claire

  “Yeah, it looked pretty bad.” I sat back and looked at the desert blurring by our window. Merritt sat next to me. She had been quiet since we left. Besides a couple of dirty spots on her elbows and knees, she looked perfectly fine, but her silence made me uneasy.

  My dad shook his head. “You guys must have imagined it. Your adrenaline was pumping, you were scared. She’s clearly fine. I think it’s time to just be grateful for that.” He leaned towards the radio and turned up the volume. That was his way of saying he was done talking. My dad had always loved the tranquility of a drive through the desert. My mom was someone who thought long drives were for discussing big topics. The two desires did not exactly go hand in hand.

  “How does one imagine their daughter’s leg split open on a boulder?” Mom wasn’t giving up.

  My dad didn’t answer. What was there to even say?

  By the time we got home it seemed my dad had finally convinced my mom to drop the topic. Merritt had yet to speak.

  When we were finally alone in the room we had shared since we were toddlers, I broke the silence.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked. She was looking into her open closet. It was clear she was contemplating something.

  “I don’t know, Em.” Merritt ran her hand down a maxi skirt with stripes across it. “I’m really confused, I guess.”

  “Did you hit your head? Maybe we should go to the ER.” I put my hand on her shoulder.

  “No, it’s not that. It’s just, Mom is right.” She turned around and took my hand in hers. She turned it over to look at the back of it.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Emma, my leg was annihilated. I saw it. I felt it. I remember falling and the sudden pain when I hit that sharp rock.” She turned my hand, palm side up. Ran her fingers over the lines in it. “The pain was terrible. I immediately knew I was in trouble.”

  Merritt dropped my hand. “The next thing I knew, you were there. You touched my arm and there was a spark and then a warmth. It went through my entire body. It reminded me of the time I had to get a contrast CT scan. It gives you this warm sensation like you’ve peed yourself. That’s what I felt when you touched me. I also felt the pain lifting up and out of me. It went from my leg, up my torso, through my chest, and out of my head. It was the most unbelievable sensation. After that, I looked down and everything was fine. The EMTs were there. It took a while for them to get there, but once they were there I was embarrassed. Because clearly I was okay. But I know I didn’t dream that in some state of shock. It happened. Right? Whatever you did? It made me okay.”

  I sat down on the corner of her bed. I felt dizzy.

  “Merritt, what are you saying? That I like, pulled some weird magic on you and healed you? That’s not plausible.” I rubbed my hands together, a nervous habit I had always had.

  “Emma, it’s always been the weird thing we don’t talk about. I used to think it was totally normal to have you touch a scrape or a small cut and have it disappear in seconds. I never thought anything of it. We used to say it was our sister powers.”

  “Yes. So?”

  “So, Emma, I think it’s finally time to admit it’s not our sister powers.” She sat next to me and we were eye to eye. “It’s your powers, Emma. Just yours.”

  I had wrapped the towel around my waist and was headed toward the back porch.

  “Emma!” I heard Josephine calling.

  “She’s going to see Virginia.” Aleta, of course.

  Because apparently she had her own gift.

  And she was right. I was ready to have some answers.

  Chapter 12

  Virginia was in her room. Of course it was locked, as always, but today I was not in a diplomatic mood. I pounded it on it with the side of my fist.

  “Virginia!” I called. Fiona ran down the hall toward me.

  “Emma, what’s wrong?” Apprehension was all over her face.

  “Nothing. Everything. I need to talk to Virginia. Virginia!”

  Fiona looked like she was going to shit herself. “Emma! You can’t barge in on Ms. Embers! “

  “It’s okay, Fiona.” Virginia had opened the door. She stood before me in a silk kaftan, her hair down in soft waves. Virginia was clearly queen of her castle. For a moment I forgot why I was there. Was this her gift? Deflection? Seduction? Who were these women? Who was I?

  I shoved these questions away and pushed my way past her into her bedroom. I could hear her closing the door behind me.

  We didn’t say anything for a moment. It was obvious she wasn’t surprised I had finally shown up like this, demanding an explanation.

  “Why did you come find me?” I asked. “Is it true? You think I have some kind of healing abilities?”

  Virginia walked over to the most enormous bed I had ever seen. It had columns instead of posts. The mattress was easily the size of two king sized beds. Two cats napped in the middle of it. One white and one calico.

  “Those questions are very big. Bigger than you could ever know- “

  “Quit it with the bullshit.” I had never spoken to an adult like this in my life. “You say a bunch of nothing. It’s all a mystery that I’m supposed to just sit on. It’s like I’m not good enough to know what’s going on with my own life. My grandma never mentioned anyone like you to me. The woman talked and gossiped like it was her job. You didn’t know her. There’s no way you knew my father. I don’t know what’s going on but I deserve some damn answers. I’d rather be homeless than stay here another night. If you don’t tell me everything, I’m gone.”

  For the first time since I had met her, Virginia looked legitimately surprised. I had startled her. Had she expected me to be submissive? Did she think I was just a shallow teenage girl who would be bowled over by the glamour of this mansion, with the closet full of couture, the gourmet cuisine, and the supermodel housemates?

  Admittedly, I had been at times. In the couple of days I had been in her home, a million things had gone through my head. But none of it mattered. I had lost everything. What I would not lose was my identity. I would not just be. The reason she had found me and how were the only things I cared about.

  I had lived my entire life without the luxuries this new life afforded me. I could go back to that in a millisecond. I knew she knew that I was serious.

  “You can’t leave me, Emma.” Her voice came out as an almost anguished cry. “I have been looking for you for such a long time. I promise I will tell you everything. Just give me a chance. You deserve to know it all. Just say you aren’t leaving. That would break my heart like nothing has in a very long time.”

  “Keep talking and I’ll keep staying.”

  She gestured to a chaise lounge in the sitting area of her room. I suddenly felt silly that I was standing there in just a swimsuit.

  “Emma, you’re incredibly special.” She pulled up an ottoman and sat across from me. “You have the power to heal people’s injuries and illnesses. You’ve always had that power, since you were born. Your grandma knew about it. Well, at one time she did. She asked for me to have Aleta erase her memories of you at one point. Or at least, the memories of you before you were four years old. She certainly didn’t want to forget who you were. She just wanted to protect herself, and you, from knowing too much. As you can imagine, your abilities would be something certain people in this world might want to explore and exploit.”

  I sat there slack-jawed.

  She continued. “All of us here are much like you. Although you are the only one with your unique ability, all of us have something powerful that we have learned to own. You might have guessed that. I find it hard to believe this comes as a complete surprise?”

  Now, I know it sounds ridiculous. But until that moment, I had never assumed I held any power at all. The healing of Merritt’s injuries throughout our lives had been so rare. Besides our moment at Red Rock there had been very few times in my life where this supposed “talent” was ever needed. Otherwise, I was as powerless as they came. I was someone w
ho slept in the shadow of the miraculous Merritt Ayers; and was completely happy to do so. Until recently, the most special thing about me was that I had the capability to binge watch 12 hours of Netflix at a time while subsisting on Red Bull and caramels. I could tell you every cast member from every season of The Real World. I could recite all the lyrics to Ice Cube’s “Today Was a Good Day.”

  Other than that, there was nothing to me. I was Emma Ayers, sister of Merritt. Now orphan.

  It was a lot to take in.

  “Aleta has the ability to read thoughts and change them. Her psychic abilities are profound. We are constantly learning of new things she can do, all with her most beautiful mind. Josephine manipulates emotions and can cause a surge in creativity and inspiration. This is commonly referred to as a Muse. It’s why you have warmed up to her so quickly. She can light a person’s heart on fire. Calista calls her human heroin. Calista is something else altogether, of course…” She trailed off, waiting for my response.

  My stomach wobbled. Was this real life?

  “I myself have my own gifts. For one thing, I’m much older than I appear, though I’m not the oldest of us here. It’s funny that I’m considered the matriarch, when Calista is easily old enough to be my great-great-great-great-great grandma and beyond.” She laughed to herself. Like she’d just told a silly little joke over a lunch date with a girlfriend.

  “Anyway,” she continued. “My main ability is that I can block others from using their own powers. Which gives me a distinct advantage in this house. I also can ‘borrow’ their powers as well.” She said this last part as if she told me she was more a coffee drinker rather than a tea one.

  We both sit on the chaise now. This was all too much. Just minutes ago, I wanted answers. Now, I just wanted the confessions to stop.

  I remembered recently wishing I had the ability to be invisible. Just so I could sneak out at night while my parents watched reruns of Everybody Loves Raymond. In middle school I wished for style and beauty when the mean girls would mock my off-brand clothes. When I was a little kid I hoped I could fly. I wanted to soar over my world, see it from a different view. There was nothing that I wished that I ever took seriously. It was all a fantasy.

  Less than a month ago, my entire family had been killed in a freak car accident. This was followed by the sudden death of my grandma. I had been brought across the country to a place where I ostensibly had miraculous healing abilities that rivaled those of Jesus Christ Himself.

  “Virginia.” A vile, ugly thought hit me as I contemplated the meaning of this new reality.

  “Yes?” She looked at me as if she didn’t have a single iota of power at the moment. Virginia was the one with the pleading eyes.

  “If I had been with my parents that day,” I slowly uttered. “And my sister, could I have saved them? With this power? Could I have prevented them from dying?”

  Virginia stood, her expression back to cool. She walked over to the large stained glass window at the edge of her enormous master suite. Her lack of an answer told me what I was horrified to know.

  “So they would be alive? If I had gone with them?”

  “Yes.” She said it softly, and nothing else.

  ALETA INDIGO

  Walking barefoot in a clingy blue sundress down a nameless dirt road parallel to Rabbit Creek, Aleta Indigo looked nothing like the unlikely Belle that she was. She snickered to herself at the thought of someone like Calista Embers paying a visit to a root doctor deep in the woods, but her reverie was broken by the obnoxious gunning of an engine behind her. She turned to see a lifted pickup truck barreling toward her, mile-long antenna swaying atop the cab, and a decal that read "Ballz Deep in MUD" emblazoned across the top of the windshield. Rather than melting away into the trees, Aleta stood defiant alongside the road, bemused by the presence of the truck, and its occupants, in a part of the state where white folks were as common as polar bears. Slowing to a crawl as the truck approached the girl, who was all curves and wild hair, the driver, Jake Ellsworth, addressed his friends.

  "Shit, boys,” he said. “Forget fishing, look at this. I know y'all ain't had no dark meat before, but the best piece I ever had was a backward-ass Geechee girl. They're so dumb I can probably talk her right out of that dress and we can all get a taste. Hell, Brett, you might even pop your cherry today."

  The skinny backseat passenger smacked the ball cap on Jake's head askew at the insult as Tommy Mason, the passenger, licked his lips at his first good view of the girl. Aleta cocked her head to the side to size up the strangers as Jake spoke to her with his country drawl. "Dang, girl, what're you doin' way out here in the middle of nowhere lookin' so fine?" In a confident, syrupy slow voice, Aleta replied, "Walking to the doctor. And living in the hope of meeting a man. Thankfully, hope, as they say, springs eternal." Not comprehending her insult, Jake slipped the truck into park and descended from the cab, turning on his typically irresistible charm.

  "Darlin', I'm Jake, and these are my boys, Tommy and Brett. We're fixin' to do some muddin', maybe catch a few fish, drink some beers, and smoke some sweet green. How's about you join us for some fun? Would be an awful shame for a girl as pretty as you to spend an afternoon alone, especially out in the woods like this. Who knows what kinds of dangerous critters might be out here?" Aware that the passenger had silently slipped out of the truck and was circling around to her blind side, Aleta fixed her amber eyes on Jake's baby blues, squinting almost imperceptibly, tendrils from her mind invading, unopposed, the innermost places in the psyches of the three boys.

  "Brett, your only crime is a poor choice of friends,” Aleta commented. “You sleep now. When you get home and wake up, find some new ones. These two will only get you in trouble."

  With that, Brett slumped down into a slumber as deep as if he'd been at home, cocooned in his comforter, on a cold night after a hot meal.

  Aleta continued. "Tommy, come stand next to Jake."

  The movement of their bodies no longer subject to their whims, the erstwhile fishermen stood mutely before Aleta Indigo, able to do scarcely more than blink and listen.

  "You two hold no secrets from me, although part of me wishes you did. You’re both going to be showing up in medical journals soon. Redneck trailer trash isn't usually thought to be at risk for koro. Especially the extreme, and permanent version with which I've afflicted you both.”

  Aleta circled around them now, emboldened by her power. “Oh, I'm sorry, koro hasn't come up in your reviews of the latest psychiatric literature? Genital Retraction Syndrome is probably half a dozen too many syllables for either of you to process, so let me put it simply. Not that either of you had much to lose, but you've both lost a few inches. Most of them, in fact. Where it might count, if either of you were ever thinking of being able to please, rather than rape, a woman. You'll figure it out next time you go to the bathroom. Oh, and you'll want to turn around and go back out the way you came. Dr. Ibis isn't nice like I am, and if he found out you were bothering his niece I can't begin to imagine what he might be moved to do."

  With that, the two boys found themselves free to move again, brains foggy as if just being awakened unexpectedly from a light sleep.

  Aleta had disappeared into the trees as if riding a gust of wind.

  Tommy looked at his confused friend. "What the hell was that, Jake? What just happened?" "I got no idea, T. Let's get outta here, this place is too Geechee, man."

  With that, the truck was thrown into reverse and went back down the road in search of the bridge off Frogmore Island.

  Chapter 13

  “They’re dead because of me.”

  Apparently I had been saying that over and over as both Virginia and now Fiona tried to comfort me. I sat against the wall of Virginia’s grand bedroom, my knees pulled to my chest, rocking back and forth.

  “That’s not what I said and it’s not what is true. Not at all. Nothing that has happened to you is your fault.” Virginia knelt next to me, her hand in my hair. “Listen to me, Emm
a. This is not your fault.”

  “You don’t understand,” I cried out. “My mother and I had a terrible fight before they left. Over something I can’t even remember. If I hadn’t been so willfully shitty to her, I would have been in that car. I could have saved them. Or even made it so the accident never happened. We would have left sooner if we hadn’t fought. We could have avoided that truck altogether.” I kept rocking and sobbing.

  “Fiona, go get Josephine,” Virginia’s voice took on a commanding tone and Fiona immediately ran out of the room, her steps echoing down the hall.

  “I don’t want to see anyone,” I shook her hand off me. “Not even you. Please, I want to be alone.”

  Virginia sat back. “I want you to be okay. This isn’t how I wanted to tell you any of this.”

  “How do you even begin to tell someone something like this?” I looked up at her. Her coldness had thawed. I could see in her eyes that she truly hated this for me.

  “I have no idea. I haven’t had to have a conversation like this in a very long time,” Virginia cautiously scooted closer to me. “I haven’t had a new girl in my life since Josephine, and that was back before the war.” I cocked an eyebrow at Virginia, my way of asking her to clarify which war she meant. “Oh. The Great War,” she explained.

  To most people, “The Great War” meant World War I. Which was obviously an absurd notion.

  Before I could ask her how the hell that was possible, Josephine was in the room. She immediately rushed over and threw her arms around me.

  “Emma.”

  As soon as she said it, part of my spirit began to change. My despondency slowly turned to calm. I was able to control the quiver in my lip.