Kill Me Softly

by Sarah Cross

  Her shoes clicked on pavement. It wasn’t the squish of grass she’d expected, or the crumbly feel of gravel. It wasn’t like any of the graveyards they’d been to before. “Why can’t I look?”

  “I told you. I want it to be a surprise.”

  At last he came to a stop, and released her, but he didn’t say she could open her eyes—so Mira kept them closed, fidgeting and scuffing her shoes on the pavement. But when she heard the clink of a key and the labored creak of hinges, her eyelids sprang apart. Where had he brought her—to a mausoleum?

  They stood before a heavy wooden door carved all over with figures. The dominant carving—the only one she could make out—was of a withered old hag proffering an apple in hands that had been chipped away by time. There was a terrible look in the hag’s single intact eye.

  Mira stalled. “Felix, I don’t know if I want to—”

  “Wait.”

  Felix heaved the door open and pushed her ahead of him, into the dark room beyond. It smelled like rainwater and mold, and when she plunged in farther, she could see a scrap of black sky, littered with stars, through a jagged hole in the ceiling. The skitter of something darting through the debris startled her, nearly made her lose her footing. Her breaths came faster, and the ripe scent of decay filled her lungs. Her heartbeat thumped violently in her ears.

  “You wanted to bring me … here?” Mira took a few steps away from Felix, careful not to trip over any of the wreckage. Falling was the surest way to disaster in a horror movie—was that what this was becoming? Had Felix brought her here so he could drain the life from her, then abandon her where no one would find her?

  This wasn’t a place she wanted to be. It wasn’t romantic; it wasn’t a place you took someone for a surprise. Maybe Blue had been right.

  Mira, don’t let love make you stupid.

  There had to be another way out of here. Somewhere …

  She searched, trying not to seem frantic. Just calm, and … inching away …

  “Look up,” Felix said. He pointed his flashlight at the ceiling, and she instinctively followed the beam, blinking as she waited for her eyes to adjust. Sweat dripped down her sides and she was suddenly freezing, afraid something was coming for her, about to drop on her, she’d made the exact wrong decision, just following blindly, but then—

  Above her, she could make out a faded mural. Like the Sistine Chapel’s, but woven of fairy-tale scenes. A red-cloaked girl strolled with a wolf down a tangled forest path. Twelve princesses, dripping with jewels, danced holes into their shoes. An old man stole a rose while a beast raged behind him. On and on it went, tale after tale, all coming together and blurring at the edges. A world of fairy tales. A city full of curses.

  It was the ceiling from her godmothers’ stories.

  This was the ballroom where they’d held her christening party all those years ago.

  Mira stared with her mouth open, turning in a slow circle to see it all.

  “Oh my god,” she said. “How did you find this?”

  Felix shrugged, his lips fighting a proud smile. “You described it to me, and I wondered if it might still be here. So I made some calls, and …”

  Mira was overcome. She’d dreamed about this place—the last place she and her parents had been together. So to see it, to be here … Her eyes welled up, both happy and sad.

  “… and I found out,” he went on, “that there was never a fire here.”

  “Never a—?” She blinked at him, uncomprehending. “But it’s—” She gestured to the rubble, the broken ceiling.

  “That happened during the storm. A lot of buildings were damaged then.”

  “There was never a fire,” she repeated. She felt numb. “I don’t understand. What happened? Were they murdered? Is that why my godmothers didn’t tell me?”

  “Mira.” Felix came to her and put his arms around her. “That’s not what I’m trying to say.” The flashlight beam tilted toward a weather-ravaged wall. Chipped plaster lion heads clung stubbornly to the molding, and she counted them, afraid to breathe, afraid to even think about what might have happened that day.

  Felix rubbed her back. And said the last thing she expected.

  “Your parents are alive.”

  She felt number than numb. She couldn’t even tremble with the shock of it.

  Alive meant real. Meant she could see them.

  It also meant they’d abandoned her. By choice.

  “That’s impossible,” she said. She felt like her voice was coming from someone else. Her lips and tongue were too dead to move.

  “It makes sense, if you think about it. They wanted to protect you from your curse, so they sent you away from Beau Rivage. They let you believe they were dead so you wouldn’t be tempted to come back. Everyone wants to fight fate,” he said softly.

  “And I’d bet,” he continued, “that they intended to find you once they felt it was safe. On your birthday, maybe.”

  She blinked hard and sent tears racing down her cheeks. Felix caught them on his thumb.

  “I didn’t mean to make you cry. Isn’t this what you wanted?”

  “I wanted to see them. But—I never knew they chose to leave me. This—changes things.”

  She breathed sharply, tears caught in her throat. It was humid in the crumbling ballroom. Fetid with rot and mold.

  She’d always thought of her parents as perfect—everything she needed, but couldn’t have—and no one had ever been able to replace them. Bliss and Elsa were wonderful, but they were real; they restricted her, tried to protect her from the world. Whereas her parents … her parents were her own heart, better versions of herself: stronger, more understanding, and noble—they’d died because they were too good. She’d never imagined them arguing with her, or being disappointed by her, or … abandoning her.

  But now they were real. And they had abandoned her.

  Maybe they’d been forced to leave her—by a curse. Maybe they’d suffered every day. Or maybe they were glad she was gone.

  It was impossible to know.

  So as much as she longed for them … she was afraid.

  What if they didn’t want to see her again? What if they’d meant for Bliss and Elsa to keep her forever? Fairy tales were rife with child abandonment stories. Hansel and Gretel’s parents stranded their children in the woods. Rapunzel’s parents forfeited her to a witch after stealing herbs from the witch’s garden. Sometimes your parents didn’t want you. Sometimes they could never get you back.

  “Where are they?” Mira asked, gasping a breath. “In Beau Rivage?”

  “I don’t know,” Felix admitted. “I just found out this place was still standing today. But I’m looking for them. I’ve been asking around. I’m trying.”

  Felix was busy soothing her, unaware that she knew his dark secret and that she was upset about that, too. He thought he could make everything better; that was what Romantics did, what they wanted—wasn’t it?

  She stared at the sculpted lion heads on the wall, at their open jaws and teeth.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “Everything will be fine. I promised I would help you find them. And I will.”

  “I lost her. I destroyed her. But I never forgot her.

  I never let her go.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  TWO DAYS BEFORE HER BIRTHDAY, her self-imposed deadline, Mira’s search for her parents’ graves had come to an end. She’d come to Beau Rivage looking for closure, hoping to find some sort of peace—but now that she knew her parents were alive, she felt anything but calm.

  She was terrified she’d disappoint them, or that they wouldn’t want her—but worst of all, she was afraid her curse would strike before she had the chance to find out. Dread and anticipation twisted inside her like a tightly wound spring. There was a ticking, a kind of countdown in her heart, akin to waiting for a monster to leap out from the dark.

  She woke around noon, after spending the night alone. Felix had told her it would be better if she had her own room again,
and she hadn’t argued. Given what his touch could do to her, his bed was probably not the safest place for her to be.

  She got dressed and went downstairs to kill a few hours in Forest Passage, not wanting to leave the hotel in case Felix had news. She found herself studying the crowds of shoppers, wondering if her parents had ever passed through these halls, if they might be here now—and then looking for them, looking for anyone too beautiful or too damaged to be normal. And as she looked, she thought about Blue.

  Last night, he’d reached out to her and she’d hugged him for a long time, like he was broken and she was holding the pieces together. She’d felt his heartbeat, the heat of his skin against hers. She’d felt like he needed her, like he was finally admitting it.

  And then Viv and the Knight brothers had bounded down the stairs, and they’d quickly pulled apart. It was better if no one asked questions. Mira herself didn’t know what was going on. Were they friends? You didn’t confess your darkest secrets to someone you didn’t trust. Did he care about her? And if he did, after all he’d told her about Romantics—what did that mean?

  She kept seeing Blue the way he’d looked last night when he’d dropped her off at Felix’s door, his eyes dark and sad. That resigned shake of his head, like: Never mind. Do what you want … That’s what you’ll do anyway.

  Maybe she should stop by his room. Just to let him know she was okay.

  Things had been so much easier when she’d wanted to avoid him. …

  Mira rode the elevator to Blue’s floor. She had no idea what to say to him. Hey, I came looking for you because … I keep thinking about what happened last night—whatever that was—and I was wondering: where do we go from here? Now that I know you like me and you know I like your brother and I don’t know if I like you but we both know it’s better if I don’t. …

  She knocked on his door and waited. Knocked harder—and kept it up for about thirty seconds, in case he had headphones on, or was feeling lazy and didn’t want to answer. When she was on the verge of leaving, sure that he was out—Blue finally opened the door. He had a bent-up spiral notebook in one hand, open to a page that was covered with messy handwriting.

  He looked surprised to see her, and made a big production of peering out into the hall. “Did you … come here of your own free will?”

  “Are you going to let me in or not?”

  He propped the door open and stepped out of her way. “Enter.”

  Blue’s suite was still a mess. His clothes were strewn everywhere, like he never got undressed in the same place. A mountain of notebooks was piled on the table. And the oak doors of the TV cabinet, which were closed now, had been defaced with a Sharpie—as if a vandal had gotten tired of scrawling obscene messages in the boys’ bathroom and decided to use Blue’s room instead.

  She was pretty sure Blue was the vandal.

  Mira sat down on the couch, which seemed to be where he’d set up for the day, judging by the half-empty Chinese takeout containers scattered around it, and the guitar he’d left behind. The tang of sweet-and-sour something hovered in the air—along with a scent that was distinctly Blue. Metal and industrial-strength styling wax.

  “So what are you up to today?” Her long skirt had twisted beneath her when she sat down; now she focused on straightening it, feeling awkward, already regretting coming here. She never purposely sought him out. Obviously, he would think this was weird. …

  Blue waved the notebook. “Writing. Pouring out my pain.”

  “Are you writing songs?”

  He flopped down next to her. “Trying to. It’s all crap right now.”

  “Can I see?”

  “No.”

  Mira paused, trying to think of the right thing to say. She was afraid that if she misstepped, he would bring up Felix, that his tone would turn sharp, and it would pop whatever was in the air between them. This fledgling friendship, trust. She didn’t want to lose that.

  “So what do you write about?” she asked.

  “Whatever I need to get out of my head. Usually something dark. If I’m lucky, Jewel will like it and we’ll be able to use it. Work it into something she can sing.”

  Blue flicked his pen against his notebook, leaned back to get comfortable. “So … you’re here. You’re okay. Can I assume you took my advice and ditched Felix, and I don’t have to worry about you anymore?” His mouth turned up, like he was teasing, but his eyes glimmered with nervousness. He wanted her to say yes.

  “Felix isn’t what you think.” She stared at her hands. Why did they have to talk about this? “Last night he brought me to … the place where I was orphaned. The ballroom where my christening party took place. I thought it had burned down, but Felix found out there was never a fire there. He thinks my parents are still alive. That they sent me away to protect me from my curse … and we can find them.”

  “Felix is a regular Nancy Drew,” Blue said flatly.

  Mira frowned. “Don’t be like that. I thought my parents were dead and they’re not. This isn’t about Felix.”

  Blue leaned his head on his hand, his arm propped on the back of the couch. “I know, I’m sorry. Why didn’t you tell me about this right away? I mean, that’s a big deal. Did you think I wouldn’t care?”

  “I don’t know. I guess—I’m afraid of them. Of meeting the real them. That sounds bad, I know.”

  “Of course you’re afraid. You don’t know them. You just have this vision in your mind of what they’re supposed to be like.” He brought his leg up onto the couch and started picking at the frayed parts of his jeans. “I have this image of my mom that probably isn’t even true—and I sort of remember her. You’re working from scratch, from other people’s memories, right? So you created something safe, something perfect, and now that’s going to be tested.”

  She nodded. That was how she felt.

  “But even if you don’t like the real them,” Blue went on, “you’ll be okay. If you meet them, and you hate them, or they’re mean to you—or they’re just not perfect, and you feel guilty about being disappointed—you can come talk to me. Cry on my shoulder. Or knee me in the lungs. Whatever makes you feel better.”

  “I’ll knee you in the lungs,” she said, a small smile crossing her face.

  “Yeah, I kind of figured I’d regret offering that.”

  She smiled bigger, biting it back so he wouldn’t see it, and let her eyes stray to the legs of his jeans. There were words scrawled all over them in black ink, the handwriting even messier than what she’d glimpsed in his notebook. Bitten-off phrases and lyrical experiments. Like he needed a place to put his thoughts when he didn’t have a notebook handy. So nothing was lost.

  “How old were you when your mom left?” she asked.

  “Um. Four, four and a half. I remember she smelled like … I don’t know the name of it, but there was this perfume she always wore, and I forgot about it until my dad bought a bottle for one of his girlfriends, and she wore it out to dinner with us, and this memory of my mom came rushing back. Just a flash of her hugging me, but for a split second, I was right there. It was weird.” He shook his head, a pensive look on his face, like he was still trying to make sense of it.

  “But I don’t have a lot of real memories of her. Just flashes like that. And I remember her as always being nice to me, but she must have gotten pissed sometimes. I don’t know. I know she didn’t love my dad; they had more of, like, a business arrangement. And I hope she’s happy, wherever she is. But I think I’d be nervous to see her again. So it’s not just you. Scared doesn’t mean you’re not happy they’re alive.”

  Mira nodded. “I guess I was worried I was being ungrateful or something.”

  “Nah, you can’t force yourself to feel a certain way. You have to just feel what you feel.”

  “Do you?” Her heart beat faster and she held her breath, wondering if he realized what he’d said.

  Come on. Just believe it for once … that you can’t force yourself to never fall in love.

 
“Okay, correction.” He cleared his throat. “I can force myself not to feel things I shouldn’t feel—because I have to. It’s different for me; you know that.”

  “You can’t,” she insisted. “You can’t do that to yourself. You can adapt, maybe be a little more careful—”

  “A little?” He laughed.

  “Fine, a lot,” she corrected. “But that’s different from cutting yourself off entirely, denying that part of yourself forever.”

  “Okay,” he said. “If you’re so sure you’re right about this, Mira: hypothetically, if I started to feel that way about you—what should I do? Advise me.”

  “Hypothetically?”

  “Purely hypothetically.”

  She sighed. How had she gotten herself into this?

  “Hypothetically, you should do nothing. Because … I’m involved with someone. So there you go.”

  “So I should do exactly what I’m doing now. And ignore your advice about feeling what I feel. Perfect, thank you.” He sank back and propped the notebook on his knees. “What rhymes with ‘gives bad advice and is a hypocrite’?”

  She rapped his kneecap with a chopstick he’d left on the table. “Don’t write a song about me! Especially not a stupid song.”

  “Now my songs are stupid? You are so mean. Do your parents know you’re so mean? No wonder you’re scared to meet them.”

  “I’m going to hurt you,” she warned, untangling her long, twisty skirt from her legs, and kneeling up on the couch—so he’d know she had every intention of throttling him.

  “Please do.”

  She went to whack his head with the chopstick; then reconsidered and stuck it into his hair instead. It stayed there, balanced between two spikes, and he glared at her with exaggerated loathing.

  “You did not just stick a chopstick in my hair.”

  “I think … hmm.” Mira rested her chin on her fist, pretending to think it over. “No, I’m pretty sure I did.”

  “Sticking chopsticks in my hair is forbidden. Verboten. It is an act of war.”