Matchbox Girls

by Chrysoula Tzavelas

  Books filled every shelf, edge to edge. Apparently Zachariah didn’t ever leave books out when he was reading them. Or he never read them, a cynical little voice suggested.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Marley saw something move. She stared hard at Zachariah’s desk and at last decided it must have been the screensaver on the computer, just barely visible from this angle. It hadn't been off after all. She looked away and spotted the single gap in the rows of books.

  Or perhaps he only uses one book at a time, she continued the argument with herself, walking over to the gap. It was at least as wide as the large book had been. Near the back, something pale glimmered.

  The shelf was just above eye-level, so she rose on her toes and reached in. Dust puffed out. A tube of paper was tucked into the back, tied with a silver ribbon. It seemed like pages torn from a book, with that heavy, solid paper found in commercial journals. It was covered in the same dust—or was it ash? She caught a whiff of wood smoke.

  Marley stared at the roll of paper for a long moment. The feeling stole over her that she was standing on the edge of a vast ocean, a strange surf washing her toes. What had just happened?

  Come and play.

  Something moved at the corner of her vision again, dark and low to the ground. She glanced up, her skin prickling, and saw only bookshelves.

  At the door to the study, the twins stood holding hands again. “Marley? What’s that roll?” asked Kari.

  Marley shivered. She wanted to get out of this house with its strange shadows and the strange thoughts they inspired. She crossed to the desk and put Zachariah’s cellphone into her purse. “I don’t know. Let’s go back to my place and I’ll call some people and we’ll find your uncle.”

  Lissa brightened. “A slumber party?”

  “Uh,” said Marley. “Sure.”

  “Okay! I’ll go pack!” Lissa ran out of sight.

  Kari lingered in the doorframe, though, watching Marley. Marley turned the rolled pages over in her hand. If she was imagining the moving shadows, then it was probably nothing more meaningful than a lost collection of laundry bills. It was certainly too dusty to be anything recently handled by Zachariah.

  Marley put the roll down. She wanted it to be laundry bills. And she wanted to get away from this windowless room with its moving darkness. She wanted to find somebody else, somebody who knew what was going on. Zachariah must have been insane to make her a point of contact for the kids. He knew the state her life was in. She liked the kids, but she wasn't in any position to look after them.

  “Where’s your mother, Kari?” Zachariah had never said anything direct about the twins’ mother. She’d picked up the impression that she was away rather than dead, though.

  Kari shrugged. “Dunno.”

  “If I can’t find your uncle, is there somebody else I should call? A neighbor? A teacher? Another uncle?”

  Kari gave her a confused look. “There’s just Uncle Zach. He said to push the lady button for you if we couldn’t find him.”

  Marley mulled that over. The thing was, Zachariah wasn't insane. He was one of the most practical and prepared people she'd ever met. So what was he thinking? “What sorts of things does he say about me?”

  “He says you're very pretty and very special and he wishes you weren't so sad all the time.”

  Marley said, “Oh,” then mumbled, “That started off well, but now I wonder if maybe he's been talking to my mother.”

  Kari frowned. “What?”

  “Never mind!” Marley said quickly. “Let’s go see what your sister is packing.” She followed the tiny girl upstairs to the bedroom the twins shared.

  Lissa had pulled out a backpack as large as she was and was stuffing it full of toys. Marley found herself attempting to convince both children that toys weren’t the only component of a slumber party. Eventually, she found it was easier to just explore the room and pack for the girls herself, judiciously choosing from among the girls’ many suggestions.

  Partway through stuffing a favorite blanket into a miniature duffel bag, something else occurred to Marley: Had Zachariah, always so prepared, expected to vanish? He'd warned them to call her. She wished she could get answers from the children on the matter. Yet it was clear they barely understood the situation as anything more than a new and semi-frightening game.

  It was that question, though, that made her stop by the study on the way out of the house and pick up the rolled sheaf of papers again. A very quick glance showed her that it wasn’t a laundry list; the pages were densely filled with handwriting that was incomprehensible at first glance. She rolled them up again. The bundle was weird, and so was Zachariah's disappearance. Even if it was creepy, she couldn't ignore it.

  She also took a sheet of stationery and wrote a note to Zachariah, explaining that the children had called her and where to find them. She left the note on the table in the entryway and went outside, leaving the door unlocked behind her.

  As she was loading the girl’s stuff into the back of her hatchback, the girls peeked in the windows of her car. Kari said, “You don’t have seats in your car!”

  At first, Marley was puzzled. Of course she had seats. Then she remembered that babies and small children were supposed to ride around in special booster seats.

  “Nope. You can ride in the grown-up seats, though.”

  The twins exchanged looks. Lissa shook her head. “No, Marley. Have to have carseats.” She sounded absolutely convinced of this. “Can’t ride in a car without carseats.”

  Kari said, “We have carseats. They buckle in.” She pointed at Zachariah’s SUV. Marley peered in the window and saw a matching pair of miniature bucket seats installed on the back bench. She tried the door.

  “It’s locked. Do you know where the keys are?”

  The twins exchanged another wide-eyed look. “In Uncle’s Zach's pocket,” Lissa said.

  Marley pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose. She hadn’t had a chance for breakfast and she was starting to miss it. Eyeing the house, she wondered if she could convince the kids to come along without the carseats. She really didn’t want to stay here; whatever had happened to Zachariah could happen again. She pushed that thought away reflexively. But she did want to go home, where it was safe, and where she had breakfast and her medication.

  She tried all the other doors of the SUV, just in case. They were all locked. So she leaned on the hood and looked at the tiny girls. They were whispering to each other, arguing.

  Lissa raised her voice. “If you don’t, Kari, she’ll leave us, too!” There was a touch of hysteria to Lissa’s childish syllables, and Kari looked frightened and guilty.

  I burned the kitchen down. Will you leave now, too? Marley flushed at the surge of memory and shook her head. “Never,” she said fiercely. “I’d never do that to you.” She'd spent too much of her own adolescence dreading the same thing.

  Lissa gave her a frustrated look. “But we need our carseats.”

  Kari gave a little shriek and turned to face the SUV door. “All right!” She gave Marley a sulky look and added, “It’s a secret. Uncle Zach doesn’t know.”

  Then she touched the door. The click of the internal latch unlocking was very loud. Kari hauled on the door handle and the door popped open. With a defiant look, she scrambled up into one of the carseats and sat in it, arms crossed.

  Marley opened her mouth. She closed her mouth. Finally, she unglued her tongue from the roof of her mouth. “Can you hotwire the engine, too?” At the girl’s blank look, she rephrased. “Can you start the car, too?”

  “No!” said Kari. She looked like she was about to cry.

  Marley peered at the door. It didn't seem to have any high-tech sensors. “Can you unlock other doors? Like the door to the house?”

  “She can,” whispered Lissa. Kari shot her an ugly look.

  Marley’s mouth went on using autopilot while she scrambled frantically for a real thought. “We have to put the seats in my car. Let’s figure out how to
unstrap them.”

  “There’s pictures,” Lissa said, pointing at the side of Kari’s seat.

  So there were, little pictorial instructions printed on the plastic. For a few moments, Marley concentrated on straps and buckles. When she had the kids buckled into their carseats in the back of her hatchback, she sat down in the driver’s seat and leaned her head against the steering wheel. Then she got out of the car, went to the house, and locked the front door. If she had to get back in, she didn't need a key—she had Kari! She paused at the SUV long enough to reach inside and snag Zachariah's car cellphone charger before relocking the vehicle. In her own car, she fussed at plugging it in and connecting her phone for a moment.

  Lissa said timidly, “Are you mad, Marley?”

  Marley sighed and started the car. “No. Just surprised.” Missing uncles and strange visions and secret powers in little kids—it was a lot to absorb. All she could do was concentrate on the details she could influence: where they would sleep, what they would eat, how she’d keep them from breaking her stuff. Charging her phone.

  She was keenly aware of her anti-anxiety medication finally kicking in; it let her relax and let go of concern over the strangeness of the morning. Without the medication, she’d be a quivering ball of panicked indecision, convinced the worst imaginable horrors were going to happen and overwhelmed by her inability to stop them. Crazy. With the medication, the constant nagging fears all drifted away, banished into a distant blur somewhere over the mental horizon. It was just as hard to get work done and bills paid while medicated as it was while crazy, but at least she wasn't panicking about it. That was something. Some mornings, like this morning, it was everything.

  -three-

  Some things, though, had to be taken care of as soon as possible, even if it was difficult. Marley flipped open her phone and dialed the number of Branwyn, her roommate. She had no idea what to say, but thought the more warning she gave of the impending preschooler infestation, the better.

  When Branwyn answered, Marley said, “Action Girl, I think I’ve ended up in your plot by mistake.” They’d known each other since before junior high, and by now the old games were reflex.

  “Research Girl, is evil afoot?” Branwyn responded around a yawn.

  Marley’s gaze flicked to the image of the twins in the rearview mirror, each looking out a window. “I don’t know. I hope not.”

  “Use your magic visor, Research Girl!” Branwyn cried. Her voice dropped to a quieter register and she added, “So what’s up?”

  “I have some guests that will be staying with us for a bit. Combined ages: around eight.”

  “So what you’re saying is: I should cancel the naked kegger I was just now dreaming up. That’s fine, I can do that. Is it the kids of your park boyfriend?”

  Marley made a face. “He’s not…yes, them.”

  “Where’s he, then?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  Thoughtfully, Branwyn asked, “Is he at a kegger?”

  “Branwyn! What is it with you and keggers today?”

  “Guys at work. It’s fun to say. Kegger. Kegger.” Branwyn rolled the word across her tongue.

  “He’s more of a James Bond martini gala guy, anyhow, I think.”

  “Oh, we could do that. The gazebo. With action figures.” Branwyn paused, and then said with the faintest hint of accusation, “Except we can’t. Because now we’ve got the preschoolers. While he's off drinking all the martinis.”

  “Actually, I almost hope that’s true.” Once again, Marley pushed away visions of other situations Zachariah could be involved in. She injected a cheery note into her voice as she added, “On the bright side, there’s no deposit for kids!”

  “Strange but true. Maybe we can sell one to pay the pet deposit for your cat.”

  Marley had rescued the kitten that now lived in their apartment from the shrubberies under the apartment window almost a month ago and named it Neath. She’d promised Branwyn, who already paid most of their shared bills, that she’d come up with the pet deposit the apartment required herself. Her income from book reviews and the occasional magazine article was so unsteady, though. And it was so hard to get out of bed most days...

  Marley hissed into the phone, and then said, “Don’t joke like that when they can hear you. It’s a sensitive situation. I’ll give you the details later.”

  “When they aren’t listening to every word you say? Fair enough. You remember Smile Girl’s coming over tonight, right? She has gifts from Europe for us.” Smile Girl, or Penny to the rest of the world, was the third member of their little trio. They’d drifted through high school together, and stayed close through college and beyond.

  Marley frowned. “I thought she wasn’t back until Thursday. I mean, that’s great, but—”

  “It is Thursday, Marley.” Branwyn sighed.

  Marley winced. “Oh. Right.”

  There was a banging on the other end of the line. “We’ll talk later, all right? I have to run.” The phone clicked off.

  Marley drove the rest of the way home in silence, with the kids lost in their own thoughts. Once she parked and turned off the engine, though, that changed.

  The girls unstrapped themselves from their carseats before Marley had gotten her own seatbelt off, and a back door flew open. Kari shaded her eyes, looking around the parking lot. “Where’s your house?” The lot was small, with both covered and uncovered parking. There was a Dumpster in the corner nearest the road. Her nearby apartment building rose up six floors, with fire escapes leading from the higher apartments. Neatly groomed flowering shrubberies lined the walk to the mailboxes and brightened up the woodchip beds.

  Lissa banged on the back of the car. “Open up! I need my stuff!”

  Marley pointed out her apartment’s window to Kari as she opened the trunk. She filled her arms with the twins’ belongings, and then juggled them until she had a free hand to grab her own things. Lissa carried a stuffed penguin.

  Marley looked around for Kari, who had vanished. She blew out her breath, tried to look around with the eyes of a preschooler, and then marched over to the dumpster. Kari was around one corner, inspecting a stinking, stained armchair.

  “Hey, you.” Marley said. “Stay near me.” She looked around. Now Lissa was gone.

  But not gone far; she was kneeling down in the woodchips outside the door Marley had pointed out, showing them to her penguin. “Go to your sister, Kari,” she ordered, and walked after her, feeling like a sheepdog.

  Once she got her own door open, the twins brushed past her into the interior of the apartment. Then Lissa stopped dead, blocking the door. “It’s hot in here,” she announced, like one faced with an insurmountable problem.

  Marley maneuvered around her and dropped all their stuff in a heap on the couch. She debated trying to explain to the child that she didn’t have the air conditioning resources of their uncle, and decided to go with a simple, “Yes,” instead.

  Lissa looked up at her and then spotted the calico kitten Neath on the back of the couch. “Kitty!”

  “Marley, where’s the bathroom?” called Kari from the hallway.

  Marley ran both hands through her hair and hurried to Kari, showing her the open door two steps away. “Do you, uh, need help?”

  Kari said cheerfully, “Nope!” and shut the door in her face.

  She turned around, and found Lissa hugging Neath to her like the kitten was a plush doll. “Lissa, no, don’t hold her like that!”

  Still squeezing the cat, Lissa gave her a puzzled look. Marley took a deep breath. Then she rescued Neath from Lissa’s embrace. Quietly, she sat the girl down and showed her how to pet the kitten gently. Neath sat in Lissa’s lap, staring at her with amazed kitten eyes.

  After a few minutes, she moved on to showing Lissa how to entice Neath to play by waving a cat fishing pole.

  It was the splashing of water that made her realize that Kari had been in the bathroom for a while. She went to the bathroom door while watching Lis
sa and Neath play, and called, “Is everything all right?”

  “Yes! Um, where are the towels?”

  Marley pushed the door open. Kari stood on top of the toilet lid, leaning over the sink. The faucet ran steadily. She’d pushed down the stopper and the sink was overflowing.

  The little girl gave her a guilty look. “It’s so hot. I just wanted to splash.”

  “Did you consider turning off the water?” Marley leaned over and did just that.

  Kari’s wide eyes looked startled. “What?”

  Marley shook her head and sighed. She dragged a towel off a rack and dropped it on the floor. Then she picked the damp girl up. She turned around, holding Kari under one arm like a sack of cat food, and almost had a heart attack.

  Neath was on top of one of the tall bookshelves that lined the walls of the living room, an impressive but not unusual feat. Lissa had apparently been inspired, though. She was almost to the top of the same bookcase, cat fishing pole clenched between her teeth. Near the top, she’d paused to look at the books on the high shelf, and with a frightening clarity, Marley could see her grip slipping.

  Still holding Kari under her other arm, she dove forward. She wasn’t anywhere near close enough when Lissa’s grip slipped entirely and she fell backward, clutching a book in one hand.

  Pain spiked in Marley’s head as she stumbled. Lissa seemed to rotate mid-fall, so that she was oriented feet down, rather than head down. Marley had seen Neath do the same thing, but this didn’t seem nearly as coordinated.

  Lissa thumped to the floor on both feet and then fell onto her butt. “Ow,” she said, spitting out the cat fishing pole. Then she inspected the book she’d grabbed. “Uncle read this to us!” she said, and looked up. Her grin faded as she saw Marley on her knees.

  Marley released Kari and fell to one side. She rolled over and stared up at the ceiling, waiting for her racing heart to slow down. “This is crazy. How do kids survive childhood?” She thought about that. “How do parents survive childhood?”