Little Red Gem

by D L Richardson

  “She must have copied me,” I blurted out.

  My mind was already full of things to do that to add ‘stop quoting myself’ and ‘act more like Audrey’ would have clogged it. But it was apparent that I’d need to make the effort. The trouble was acting like me came naturally.

  Leo stood up and I jumped up to block his path. “I’m sorry if I keep reminding you of Ruby. I…I won’t say anything.”

  He looked at me curiously. “I like that you remind me of her. Excuse me. I’ve got to go to the bathroom.”

  Finally, my chance to slip the potion into his drink arrived so I hurriedly tipped the contents into his glass. When I looked up, Leo’s youngest sister clung to the doorframe and stared at me.

  With a smile, I held up the vial and gave it a little shake. “Vegetable juice. Want some?”

  She screwed up her nose and ran from the room mere seconds before Leo returned. We spent the next ten minutes on the couch in uncomfortable silence. I kept staring at Leo’s milkshake, willing him to drink. I couldn’t imagine his little sister blabbing to Leo, but the glass remained untouched. Just when I’d reached the point where I was going to hold his head back and force the milkshake down his throat, he picked up the glass and downed the contents in a few noisy gulps. Then he slammed the glass down onto the table.

  “Wanna see my guitars?” he said, wiping his mouth with his sleeve.

  “Absolutely.”

  He guided me to his room, even though I knew it was up the stairs and to the right. I’d seen his guitars a hundred times and had on occasion come to jealously loathe the amount of affection these inanimate objects received. But they were a part of who Leo was. I’d often sit on his bed and watch him play. Sometimes I’d stare out the window and get so enthralled with humming a tune that he’d pause in playing. I’d look over in time to catch him looking at me. A shy smile would dance across his lips, and then he’d blow me a kiss and resume playing.

  Leo’s room looked nothing like when I was last there. He was usually meticulous about his guitars, always insisting they be locked away in their protective cases to retain their value. Cords which connected the guitars to the amplifier were always kept in tight rolls to avoid anyone tripping over them; not to prevent the person injury but to protect his beloved toys. His song books were always stored upright on shelves.

  Today, his favorite Les Paul Gibson guitar leaned fret-side down against the wall, and his less favorite guitars were lying haphazardly on his bed. Coils of cables snaked around the floor of the room resembling veins of black hardened ooze. The amp was still on; the red light glowed bright and angry. Sheets of notepaper covered with black scrawls littered the floor.

  I tried to find sense in this chaos. Renovations? Hurricane? Evacuation?

  When Leo looked at me there was a mixed expression on his face, a cross between sheepishness and shock. “I should have straightened up.”

  I played it casual. “Looks normal to me.”

  Guilt or habit forced Leo to do a quick rush around the room to tidy up while I hovered nervously in the doorway. I jumped when his shoe kicked something that made a resounding clink like glass, and relaxed when an empty Coke bottle flew across the room. I’d once caught Leo with a bottle of bourbon in his room, and he’d sworn he was hiding it on Simon’s behalf. My eyes did a quick scan, nonetheless.

  “Ruby used to do the same thing,” Leo said, stopping in the middle of his room with a length of cable wrapped around his hand and elbow.

  “Do what?”

  “Fidget with her hands whenever she was nervous.” He sat down on the bed and patted the mattress beside him. “Come on in. I don’t bite.”

  Hallelujah the love potion was working faster than I’d expected. And I wouldn’t have cared at all about the biting.

  “It’s just that, well, I don’t have anyone else to talk to.” His voice caught and he turned away. “I can’t talk to Thomas or Simon. My mom says I can talk to her or my sisters, but I either freeze up or cry like a baby. Dad does his best to get me to open up to him, but I just can’t.” His eyes landed on mine. “When I’m with you, I feel as if I can talk to you about anything.”

  If only he’d been this eager to talk a week ago.

  “What do you want to talk about?” I said.

  He got up and moved around the room, kicking things along the way – cables, empty guitar stands, more cables. “The night Ruby died we got into a fight. I can’t get it out of my head. She wanted to talk about our future. I told her it wasn’t a good time.’”

  I was mortified that his final memory of me was as an insecure girlfriend demanding assurances. Could I not have felt the love in his kiss that night on the wooden seat?

  “She pestered me for the answer and I wouldn’t tell her,” he continued. “She ran off, got into the car, and…” His voice stopped and I squeezed my eyes shut to block out the sight of his strained face. “I held her in my arms when she died. The coroner’s report said she died from massive head trauma. That wasn’t what she died from.”

  “What do you mean? Was there an autopsy?”

  Leo looked away. “It’s my fault she died.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  I reached out to him but he stayed on the other side of the room. “I’m responsible for her death. If I’d listened, paid more attention to the question, told her what she wanted to hear…she’d be alive.”

  I stiffened. “What do you mean, ‘told her what she wanted to hear’?”

  I’d wanted to hear the truth.

  Leo’s mom surprised us both by poking her head around the doorway. “Visitor for you, Audrey.”

  Worst timing in the world. I clenched my hands into fists as I considered who the intruder might be. If it was Hannah or another one of Audrey’s friends come to drag me to a hair braiding session, I was mad enough to kill them.

  Mrs. Culver announced my visitor from down the hall. “I ran into your dad when I was getting the mail and I told him you were here.”

  “Dad? What does he want?”

  Leo’s face flushed red and his eyes darkened. He moved over to stare out the window. “I can guess,” he muttered.

  “Am I missing something?”

  Like, whatever had taken place from the night I’d died to the morning I’d woken up as a ghost and visited a fortune teller.

  Leo pressed his forehead against the glass and I was locked out of his view. With his reflection hidden he might have been staring wistfully or mouthing a satanic prayer. His refusal to meet my gaze led me to believe he was holding out on me.

  “You obviously know something I don’t,” I said. “Are you gonna let me walk into a trap?”

  Leo still wouldn’t indulge me.

  “Fine. I’ll face the firing squad on my own.”

  I charged out of the room, however, at the door I turned to give him one last chance to clue me in on why my father would track me down to Leo’s house. My heart sank when I saw Leo lying on the bed with his body pressed up against the wall and his head under the pillow. Gentle whimpers came from under the pillow. As much as I longed to stay and comfort him, I detected heavy footsteps coming up the stairs.

  I ran out into the hall. “Dad? What are you doing here?”

  His smile said he was happy. His eyes glinted of something else – caution, concern, terror.

  “Checking to make sure my girl’s coming to dinner tonight. Mrs. Parker is busy making her famous lasagna.”

  My attention flicked down the hall to where Leo was making a different kind of pillow talk to the kind I’d hoped, and when I turned back to face my dad again, I noticed his attention was also on the room down the hall. This time I had no trouble understanding the message in his eyes – loathing.

  I grabbed Dad’s elbow and dragged him toward the stairs. “Sure, I wouldn’t miss it for anything.”

  “Let me drop you home. You’ll need time to get ready I imagine.”

  “Thanks, but my pushbike won’t fit in your car. I’ll be t
here at seven.”

  He kissed me on the cheek and placed an arm around my shoulder. More physical than the dad I’d grown up with, yet I realized his motives were ulterior when I tried to twist around to go back to Leo’s room and Dad gently pulled me down the stairs with him. It was like he didn’t want to me go back into Leo’s room, and I was like: You’ve picked a lousy time to start acting the protective father.

  At the front door, Dad kissed my cheek once more. Without warning tears pushed at my eyelids; it seemed I missed my dad more than I’d dared to ever admit.

  I took my time riding home because my brain was a mess from these unexpected changes in my second life.

  Change number one. My boyfriend was depressed. Understandable, but I wasn’t sure I was pleased with Audrey’s ability to win his confidence. Strike that. I was totally sure I hated the closeness my half-sister was experiencing with my boyfriend.

  Change number two. My new mom was a witch, yet I couldn’t help but like her. Audrey was lucky to have an interesting mom who would show her how to cast spells. A mom this cool would be willing to help me do anything, and I stored this nugget of insight into my already crammed head in case I needed help later on, like, say if this all backfired and I inadvertently released demons or something.

  Change number three. My real mom had hooked up again with my dad. While I was secretly glad for them, after all it was what I’d wanted for a long time, yet now that it had happened I was jealous from missing out on the moment.

  Change number four. My half-sister was trapped in a hollow with no guarantee she’d be safe from being eaten alive by the creatures I was worried about unleashing with all this magic business. I cared about her welfare. I hated myself for not caring enough to release her.

  Amidst this change was one constant, though. Whatever I was, it had temporary written all over it. And I got the impression my time was running out.

  ***

  As soon as I got home I stashed the bicycle in the garden and, never one to make a grand-less entrance, I stomped up the stairs to find Teri sitting at the dining table reading a book.

  She glanced up and smiled. “Your dad called. He says you’re going over to Mrs. Parkers for dinner. Lucky you.”

  “Yeah, lucky me.”

  “Honey, is something wrong with my phone? Your dad says he tried calling and he couldn’t get through.”

  I tossed Teri’s phone onto the table, having decided to give up trying to get it to work for me. I’d ask Anne about this when I next visited her. Maybe this extraordinary ability to make useful electrical instruments useless was a side effect of being a ghost. This probably explained why Anne didn’t fritter away eternity watching daytime soaps on the couch and why William didn’t de-stress with dips in the hot tub.

  “I must have dropped it in water,” I said. “Don’t worry, though, I’ve got other things on my mind at the moment.”

  “Don’t worry? It’s my phone.”

  I ignored her and raced up to my room to get changed into the only clean pair of leggings I could find that weren’t covered in crosses, skulls, or snake prints. I was over sneakers so I threw on a pair of Audrey’s lace up boots that were pretty cool but after a few days I was dying to wear something with a heel. My outfit was completed with a silver top that hung off the left shoulder. I gazed at Audrey’s body in the mirror. Audrey really was all bone. My clothes would have looked awesome on her. Guiltily, I nuzzled on my lower lip. I’d given away two garbage bags filled with old clothes to charity only a month ago. Audrey might have liked to have looked through the bags, and I hadn’t even thought to offer.

  Dad picked me up half an hour later. We didn’t talk much on the short drive even though I got the impression he was bursting to tell me something. Never in the history of mankind has a parent who was bursting to tell you something every told you anything good, like they were finally getting you a pony, or you didn’t have to do homework, or don’t eat those vegetables, or never again shall a child of mine do menial chores. Instead, the stuff they were bursting to tell you was stuff you didn’t want to hear, such as your hamster died, your teacher called, we’re getting a divorce.

  Dad pulled into my old driveway and he let out a huge breath. Possibly nerves; I knew I was stressing about my mom and dad holding me down while I was exorcized of a demon they suspected resided within Audrey.

  Crossing the threshold sent a barb of sadness through me. Only a few weeks ago this had been my home. Doing a quick inspection, I saw nothing untoward. Not a shred of evidence that my father had moved in. This was the first sign of normalcy in my awkward new life, which was a break because I was certain that change number five would have been my undoing.

  Change number five was Mom and Dad living together again. How could anyone expect me to cope with that change along with everything else?

  My peach-faced parrot, Elf, began screeching his head off and I almost wept tears of joy. At least he recognized me.

  “Shut up, Elf.” Mom shouted. Then she smiled weakly. “Elf is Ruby’s pet. I hate the thing, and I’d love to leave the cage open for it to fly away, but I can’t bring myself to do it. Every time he screeches, it’s like she’s here.”

  I am here.

  I would have to give Elf a scratch on his beak another time because Mom pulled me into an embrace and wouldn’t let go. I found myself hugging her back and fighting the impulse to confess everything. Tears welled up, so I focused on the aroma of lasagna and fresh rolls my nostrils had picked up.

  My mother released me with a kiss to the top of my head. “I hope you like lasagna.”

  “Yummo. My fave.”

  I wasn’t lying. Already my taste buds were clambering over one another to be the first to savor my mom’s cooking. Mom wasn’t shy about serving up a huge slab of lasagna and I wasn’t shy about wolfing it down. I was on my second helping when Mom and Dad glanced at one another.

  I paused with the fork halfway to my mouth. “What? Do I have sauce on my face?”

  Mom shook her head. “You remind me of Ruby.”

  “Can I use your bathroom, please?” I asked. I suddenly had to get out of the room, before I ruined everything by telling her the truth in an effort to ease her suffering.

  Mom pointed to a door to the right of where Elf’s cage stood. “Don’t mind Elf. He’s loud, but he won’t bite.”

  As I stood up, Elf rushed over to the edge of the cage and poked his beak through for a scratch. I sighed. Poor Elf. He wanted a scratch and I wanted to run up to my room and get myself together, so I said, “I’m terrified of birds. Can I use the bathroom upstairs?”

  “Of course.”

  I ran up the stairs but slowed my pace the nearer I got to my bedroom. Slowly, I opened the door. My chest contracted. My eyes stung with tears. Everything was the same. Posters of singers and bands covered the pale-lemon-colored walls. My bed with its azure-blue quilt cover and silver cushions looked hastily made. The carpet was still littered with text books and stray socks. A deep-green velvet chair sat in front of a dresser that dozens of bottles of perfumes sat upon.

  I slowly entered the room and sat on the bed. I didn’t know how long I’d sat there staring at the things in my room and struggling with the fact that I’d never again sleep in my bed or listen to my music or press the framed photograph of Leo and me to my chest, but I heard a click and looked up to see my mother in the doorway.

  “Every day I come in here and sit on her bed, just as you’re doing now,” she said. She seemed to want to say something else, but after a moment her shoulders slumped and she turned and walked away.

  When I came back downstairs, Mom had cleared the dishes away and I could hear her in the kitchen. Before I could offer to help, Dad waved me into the chair beside him. I sat down, suddenly feeling as if I was walking into a trap. He traced a finger on the wine glass and I suspected he was preparing himself to deliver bad news.

  “I’ve been offered a teaching position at the University of Texas,” he said.
r />   “Congrats.”

  “Only for a year, however it will mean moving.”

  “Yeah, I figured as much.” Texas was a few hundred miles to the south. My dad was rich, but not own-your-own-jet type of rich.

  Set up or not, there was a piece of garlic bread on the plate with my name on it. I reached for it and stuffed it into my mouth. Ever since I’d come back from the dead, my hunger had been insatiable.

  Dad waited until I’d eaten half the bread to speak. “Mrs. Parker and I have rekindled our romance.”

  “I’ve noticed.”

  “Please don’t talk with your mouth full. Anyway, Mrs. Parker has agreed to join me in Texas. I’d like you to consider coming with us.”

  The last of the bread got stuck halfway down my throat. Had Dad just asked me to move to Texas with him? Had Dad just said my mom was moving to Texas with him?

  My head started spinning at this unexpected turn of events.

  “I know you’re still in school,” Dad continued, “but this will be a good move for you. Besides, I’m worried you’re mixing with the wrong crowd.”

  Finally the piece of bread dislodged itself and I blurted out, “But moving to Texas means leaving Providence.”

  Dad eyeballed me, harsher than I’d ever seen so I doubted he was preparing himself to negotiate the terms, more like steeling himself to pull rank. “What’s keeping you in Providence, aside from your mom?”

  “School. My friends.” A spell that had his surviving daughter trapped down an embankment. And I couldn’t forget the very reason I’d put her there – a boy called Leo.

  “You can go to a new school and make new friends.”

  “Mom will never let me go.” Please, don’t let her be in on this because change number six will be the worst of the lot, I thought.

  “You’ll love Texas,” Mom said, entering the room carrying a tray of scrumptious desserts that would now taste like cotton wool because I’d lost my appetite. “It has horse ranches.”

  “I don’t like horses.” Not true. I adored them but I’d change my mind about them if it involved moving.