I frantically pulled everything off the table: the calendars from many years past, the stacks of boxes I could now see were all very carefully placed to hide the door. I found a crowbar and forced the heavy bench away, the floor beneath covered in mildewed dust. At eye level, the door had a deadbolt. And the doorknob had a lock on the outside. With shaking fingers, I unlocked the deadbolt and turned the knob.
The smell, although ancient, was there. Urine, human urine. The room had a dingy, disgusting couch. And true to my mother’s word, the walls were covered in a rushed, clumsy whitewash. The space felt haunted, terrible. I didn’t need to see the chain wrapped around the post, or the stains, to sense that something awful had happened here. Even someone who was a complete skeptic, a psychic null, would walk into this space and feel it. This room was clearly a place where wretched, evil things had gone down. Where my mother had killed people on my behalf. I could barely breathe.
How was I supposed to deal with this? How had I convinced myself for seventeen years that I was the victim of the story? That I was in need of rescuing? My fairy tale was wrong. Sleeping Beauty should never be woken up, but locked away. Rapunzel was put in that tower for a reason. I staggered up the stairs, weaving my way to the parlor and to my mother’s seated form.
She watched me as I barreled in and sat heavily on the chair beside her. I slumped forward, head in my hands. I couldn’t stop shaking. I wanted to strangle her for lying to me, for hating me, for allowing me to exist. My shoulders trembled as I fought the hysterical tears that wanted to explode out of me. I repressed the scream that had been building since I saw that room. I remembered my face in the mirror, crusted with Sabrina’s blood.
The spell was broken. I knew the secret in the attic, and it was me.
“Why didn’t you just kill me?”
It took a while before I got control over my voice. I wasn’t expecting an answer as I stared at the dingy floor, at my dirty socks, at nothing.
“Because you’re my child.”
I was surprised when she rasped out the reply, but my surprise was quickly replaced by anger.
“So? You hated me! I read the journal, I know how you feel about me. How everyone feels about me. You fantasized about killing me and being free. Maybe it would’ve been better. Maybe I should just do it. I mean why not, right? Why go on as this thing?” I turned away, arms crossing tight around my torso to keep from exploding. “You became a murderer for me! How can I live with that?”
My mother didn’t answer, nor did I think she would. What was there to say? She did what she had to do. She gave me seventeen blissful years of not knowing I was a fucking monster. That was her gift to me.
I got up and walked out of the room, heading to the kitchen. Everything felt unreal, the small pitiful life we shared here, my lonely place as the weirdo in school, the brief moment of joy with Sabrina (which also was a lie). I stared out the window at the back garden, it was all dead grasses and brown leaves now, but there were bodies out there. Fuck. I entertained a fantasy of opening the door and running out into the woods, just being swallowed by it, and never coming out again. But I abandoned it as soon as I thought it.
Who knows how long I stood in that kitchen. Eventually the sky darkened and I put the pan on the stove and dragged out the liver. It was as if my free-falling mind put me on autopilot, relying on the muscle memory of a regular day. While frying it up, I got my mother’s vitamins. I brought all of this on a tray and set it out for her. As I turned to go, she reached out and touched my hand tenderly. Staring down at her old claw on mine, I felt fresh tears trailing down my face.
“It’s too late, Mom. You know, most of my life, I would have given my right arm for that touch.”
I clicked on the television and left the parlor, almost as an afterthought I turned to her.
“I won’t come into your room tonight, even if I have to tie myself down.”
She nodded, and I walked away. I went into my bedroom and found my school bag. I put the journal in it. I changed into clothes not covered with basement grime and washed my face. I looked less like a hysterical monster and more like a person. But barely, since apparently I wasn’t a person. My skin seemed too tight for my skull, a vein throbbing on my forehead. Taking a few deep breaths, I put on my winter coat and some shoes. I wrapped the scarf around my neck, slung my bag on my shoulder, and set out.
XV.
Though it was only dusk, it was already dark and frigid, so cold my eyes burned and my nostrils ached. My gloved hands in my pockets, face burrowed into my scarf, I set out down the driveway. The street was ill-lit and barren; even the animals were curled up in their dens, no doubt. The air tasted like snow. The rawness chilled me to the bone, so I picked up my pace to get the blood flowing. The stolen blood.
I swam through an ocean of guilt. So I just kept walking, pushing a jog. I focused on the air rushing into and out of my lungs, on my legs moving fast and strong along the ditch. I ran. I followed the tar road until it forked. One side stayed Main St., the other turning to dirt with a hand-painted sign saying Elmgrove.
I wracked my brain to remember Sabrina’s address. It felt like a hundred years had passed instead of a weekend.
I slowed back to a walk, not wanting to rush to her. Since I wasn’t entirely certain I could muster the courage to talk to her. How was I the bad guy in the story? But I was, and I had preyed on her. I might not have meant to, but I had. Heart heavy, I slowed and trudged along the empty road, crunching over the frosted dirt and leaves on the shoulder.
Finally, a house cropped up, then a few others. Sabrina was definitely farther than two miles away. By the time I found number 55, my teeth were chattering and the sweat had cooled. It was a McMansion house, which looked nearly identical to all the others I’d passed. It glowed like a beacon in the woods, the winding driveway’s smooth new blacktop under my feet. The house was a combination of stone and siding. The front jutted out, rounded like a castle turret.
I stepped up to a giant set of ornate French doors, above which tall windows let me see a twinkling chandelier and the grand staircase in the foyer. I suddenly felt more afraid than ever before in my life. The urge to turn away and run home was overwhelming. Yes, little monster, flee back into the shadows. I pivoted on my heels, ready to leave, and stopped. Sabrina was the first real friend I’d ever made. I owed her this. I might be . . . a parasite, but I could still do the right thing.
Steeling myself, I pressed the decorative doorbell and listened to its chime echo through the house. I heard clomping on the stairs before the door was yanked open and a flushed young boy stared up at me. He looked like Sabrina, a little chubby, same round face. He had the same twinkling, rascally eyes as his sister. They were hooded when he looked at me.
“Yeah?” he asked in the indifferently rude way of preteens.
“Is Sabrina here? I’m a friend from school.”
He looked me up and down and shrugged, walking away from the door, leaving it ajar. I took that as my invitation and stepped inside. Looking around the house, it was remarkable how different it was from my own. It smelled of dinner and it was noontime bright, lights on everywhere I looked. Photos of the family were on the side table. There was Sabrina, not smiling per se, but it was obvious she was having a good time with them. I stood in the foyer, confused as to where the boy went.
“Hello?”
A feminine voice made me turn, startled. This was obviously Sabrina’s mother. She grinned warmly, which surprised me. She came closer, wiping her hands on a dishrag.
“Hi. Um, I’m Sabrina’s friend from school. Is she home?”
“Oh! Are you Jane?”
I nodded stiffly, feeling the urge to run.
“I’m so glad she made a friend so fast. You know, it was a hard move for her. I’m sure she’ll be happy to see you. She’s been in a nasty mood all weekend. Just head right up the stairs. Her room is the second door on the right, past the bathroom.”
I nodded again and went up the stairs. From this he
ight, I could see into the recessed living room where Sabrina’s brother was playing video games intensely. To the left, there was a formal dining room, and what I assumed was the kitchen beyond that.
Once at the top, I fought the urge to flee back into the cold. I didn’t belong in this nice warm house, with bright lights and new appliances. I shouldn’t be allowed to pass the threshold. But I fought it, I owed it to Sabrina. I’d wronged her, and I knew that now. So I marched past the bathroom to the closed door with a Barbie head on a ribbon dangling from the knob. For some reason, this made me smile, but even smiling skewered me with guilt. I had no right to be find anything amusing, I needed to be suffering, forever if need be. Finally I got the nerve and I knocked on the door.
“It’s open.”
The voice was distracted. I slowly opened the door. Music blared loudly. The room was covered in band posters. There were velvet curtains and the smell of incense and cigarettes was thick in the room. I noted the towel on the floor that she must jam under the door to keep it in. There was a full-sized bed, a desk, and a worn-out plaid chair and ottoman. The closet door was open and the light was on, and as I stepped fully into the room and closed the door, Sabrina emerged from it, stopping short. Her face suddenly fearful and wary, the urge to call out obvious. For the first time in my life, I tried to talk as fast as I could, hands up palms out.
“I know I’m the last person you want to see. And I know things got out of control and I really want to apologize. After you left, I . . . found out some things. Some pretty horrible things, honestly. I’m not trying to be vague, I just have no idea how to begin to explain things to you. I understand that you’re pissed at me, and afraid of me, and you should be. I brought you my mom’s journal. It really . . . illuminated some things for me. And I really need to talk to someone about it, and you’re the only person who has ever, ever been a friend to me.”
I realized my voice was shaking, Sabrina still glared at me, arms crossed, and I couldn’t help but notice the bandage peeking out from her cowl-neck sweater. I wiped at my eyes and continued before my nerve dried up.
“I’m going to leave it with you to read. Honestly, I’m terrified to give this to you. I’m terrified of what you’ll say, or not say to me. If you don’t want to read it, then bring it to me at school tomorrow and I’ll never talk to you again. I’m good at that, I promise. And if you do read it and don’t want to share the same state with me, I also understand. Hell you may read it and call the cops. And maybe that would be for the best. I just . . . everything in my life is a lie. Everyone in my life is lie. I don’t want to be like that. You were kind to me. I’m so sorry I hurt you.”
With that, I took the book out of my bag and set it on the chair closest to me. I couldn’t bear to look at her. So I opened the door and stepped out, praying I did the right thing. At the bottom of the stairs I looked back up, and noticed Sabrina was standing at the banister, watching me go.
Outside, I welcomed the punishing cold. It cleared the cobwebs and froze the tears.
I was unsure where to go; the urge to just walk forever, just wander into the woods, never to return came back again. You can relax, villagers, the monster has gone away.
Instead, I went home. I ate a small dinner of the liver leftovers, since I’d barely had any food that day and I needed to keep my strength up. I didn’t know what my relationship with food and blood was, if I needed more of one if I didn’t get enough of the other. To be safe, I decided to make sure I was eating, especially iron-rich, blood-healthy foods.
Eventually, after putting my mother to bed, I took my schoolbooks into the bedroom with me. It seemed absurd to worry about homework knowing what I now knew. But I drowned out my sorrows in algebra anyway.
I couldn’t stop looking at the closed and locked door to my bedroom. I couldn’t stop picturing myself getting up in the night and wandering in there, into my mother’s room, crawling up under the blankets and biting down on her someplace. I shuddered.
Once I had my fill, did I just wander back in here and go to sleep? It was terrifying to think my body had that type of uncontrolled locomotion, or desire, completely closed to my conscious brain. Even if I jammed a chair under the door, would I just move everything out of my way to get to her? If Sabrina had just slept over, and nothing alcohol-related or sexual had happened, would I still have fed off of her while she slept? Was it better now that I knew?
I finally gave up and tossed my textbook to the floor, enjoying the satisfying clunk. Kicking my blankets off, I prepared my room. First, I tied a scarf to the doorknob and knotted it with tights, attaching the makeshift rope to my bedpost. It was so taut that I’d probably need to cut it off the next day. Next, I jammed a chair under the doorknob and littered the floor with debris that would hurt on bare feet or make a ruckus. My hope would be if I did get up and start moving, that the noise or pain would wake me.
Then I crawled into bed, exhausted. Even as I dozed, the fear prickled, the fear of what my sleeping self would be up to. I begged her to behave, and eventually slept.
XVI.
When my alarm went off at seven, I rose like a shot and looked around. My door barricades looked to have held, which filled me with immense relief. Slowly, I cleaned up the obstacles I’d set out, finally cutting the tights to free myself from the room. I went to my mother in her bed.
After two consecutive days of not being a human feed bag, and eating all that liver, she definitely seemed a little more vibrant. Some color in her face, a bit more focus in her eyes. I couldn’t help but smile when I came in, proud of myself. The pride didn’t distract from my physical exhaustion, though. But I wasn’t as tired and weak as before. Apparently, Sabrina’s young, healthy blood was keeping me running much more efficiently than my mother’s, but for how long? I could sense the familiar fatigue at the margins, and a hunger waited there as well.
Now that it had a name, I couldn’t deny the hunger inside me. I noticed how it flared to life as I neared my mother. My body urged me toward her, toward what it needed. No wonder people felt uncomfortable around me. I was probably eyeing them all like potential meals. If I was going to live with this, I would need to learn to control myself. I took a deep breath and shook it off.
I walked my mother downstairs and settled her in the parlor in front of a roaring fire and the news, her breakfast on the TV tray beside her. I pulled back the shades, letting the pale light in. Winter was near, the trees black outlines, the sky a swirling pea soup.
“I think it’s going to snow today,” I said to her. I needed to hear my voice.
It was a regular morning, so she said nothing, and I didn’t prod. Instead, I got ready for school and tried to ignore the ball of stress surrounding school and seeing Sabrina. Outside, the air was cold and clean. I sucked it in greedily, liberally, enjoying the burn in my lungs. I headed to school, trying not to think of Sabrina, or the journal. Or what I was. And failing at all three. The combination of desire and shame was almost overwhelming. But I couldn’t hide from myself anymore. I lifted my chin, picking up the pace and crossing through the doors a second before homeroom rang.
When I got to the classroom, it was as if I was seeing the world with new eyes. I was a wolf among sheep, a fox in the hen house. A predator slinking along in my classmates’ unsuspecting midst. They couldn’t pinpoint why I made them uncomfortable, just that I did. I thought back to my mother’s journal, how she would lament my desire for affection, to be touched. It was no wonder now that I had pounced on Sabrina, I was starving for touch, for love, for food. When the bell rang, I walked to my first period as if my feet were encased in cement. If Sabrina was there, if she turned away from me . . . better not to dwell.
I entered the class, getting the familiar eye aversion and icy reception. My empty desk and the surrounding buffer of vacant desks was unchanged, an element of normalcy in the chaos. Sliding in, I noticed Sabrina wasn’t there. My heart fell. Maybe she was skipping school, maybe she was transferring classes, maybe she
confessed to her parents what happened and they were taking police action right now. For all I know, the cops were exhuming bloodless hitchhikers from my backyard as I was sitting in class. Medical experts were preparing a special prison to study my unique physiology. All those thoughts swirled through my head as the teacher wrote on the board and the rest of my classmates scribbled notes. What I wouldn’t give to think this vocab test meant something. Even as I was thinking all this, the door opened, my heart did a flip, and Sabrina came in.
She looked exhausted, dark circles under dark makeup. Her hair was dirty, her bangs hanging lank in her face. She entered without looking at anyone, including me, but she did sit directly next to me. I felt anxious. I wanted to talk to her. She didn’t look at me, and instead just pulled out her notebook and opened the text up to the correct page, and began taking notes.
I was thrumming, but I kept composed. Sabrina ignored me through the entire class. I stared at the side of her face, willing her to look my way. At the bell, she jumped up and quickly headed toward gym class, not waiting for me. I stood too, crestfallen, and trailed behind her.
In gym class, she changed quickly and avoided me. I resolved to respect her wishes. I couldn’t help looking at the bandage at her throat, visible above her T-shirt, even with her shoulder-length black hair down. Seeing it filled with me with shame, and hunger. The memory of her skin against my lips, her blood in my mouth, unavoidable as I watched her. I pushed it all away, trying to see her as just another face in the crowd. Another person who wanted nothing to do with me.
After a gym class spent standing at a volleyball net and never raising my arms, I cleaned up and returned to my gym locker. Inside, my mother’s journal was placed on top of my clothes. Sabrina was nowhere in sight. So that was that. She had made her decision to return the book to me, and not continue our friendship. It was the ultimatum that I’d offered, so I had to respect it. But I still felt like a horse had kicked in my chest. I wanted to cry, or punch the locker, all too aware of the girls around me, both watching and ignoring me at all times.
Parasite Life Page 13