Corona of Blue

by Berntson, Brandon

  He was sincere, but she wouldn’t give in. Inside, she felt miles away. It would never be the same, not this sixth grade love.

  “I don’t think it can be that way,” Rayleigh said. “I’m not sure I want it to.”

  Ricky closed his eyes, forcing back tears. “What do you want then?”

  Rayleigh sighed. She looked at the trees in the surrounding area and imagined wolves. “I want to be left alone.”

  “Rayleigh, it doesn’t have to be this way. You can talk to me about it, you know?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it. I’ve talked about it enough. I’ve thought about it enough. I just want to be left alone.”

  “I love you. Doesn’t that mean anything?”

  A sudden rush of anger boiled within her. Her cheeks flushed. “Why should that mean anything to me? Why can’t you see that? I don’t want to be a part of this. Not anymore. It’s too complicated. Why can’t you just leave me the fuck alone?”

  She’d hurt him, and she was glad. She could see it in his eyes. His complexion turned gray. She felt, in that moment, that she’d not only killed Janeen, but Ricky, too.

  Good girl, Carmilla said. You are par for the course. You are truly something else.

  “Just shut up!” she wailed. Ricky thought she was talking to him. “Just shut up and leave me alone!”

  Rayleigh stood up and started home. Too many tears. Too much anger. She was tired of it.

  She left Ricky by the oak, wanting to find someplace else to be alone. She would will Bandit into existence. He was the only one who gave her what she wanted, what she needed.

  She closed her eyes. Ricky was crying, his head on his arms, but she didn’t care.

  She stormed through the fields, cursing Janeen for putting her through this. Sadness, loneliness turned to anger. She clenched her fists, closed her eyes, and willed the image of Ricky out of her mind. She would get used to this, she told herself. She’d be alone from now one, and that was okay. It would be safer. She’d be more in control, barricade herself with thoughts of wonder if that’s what it took. She’d live more in her head than in the world outside. If she were to have any fun, she’d find it on her own without boyfriends, best friends, or anything of the kind. People only drove her away. But wasn’t it safer in the dark by herself?

  Rayleigh Thorn looked up into the thick gray sky and made a vow. Nothing like this would ever happen to her again. She would overcome every trial life delivered. Nightmares would be nothing to her.

  But the vow, despite her determination, seemed an empty one, and she knew it.

  Rayleigh balled her hands into fists and screamed into the leaden sky.

  11.

  Scents From the Grave

  Finally finding a place to park, Dorothy Willamina Thorn stepped out of the car and into the early, summer sunlight, walking to the entrance of Safeway with her purse bouncing by her side. It was busier than usual, the reason she chose Monday mornings to shop in the first place. Today was an exception, it seemed.

  Dorothy grabbed a shopping cart and headed, as usual, to the produce section. Three red onions, a bulb of garlic, bell peppers, and bananas went into the cart. A ten-pound bag of potatoes and a loaf of bread followed. She maneuvered around an overweight woman wearing curlers in her hair, a purple jumpsuit, and then moved toward the dairy department. Trying to decide between Swiss cheese and Monterey Jack, Dorothy put a block of each into the cart. Rayleigh loved Swiss cheese.

  She asked for two pounds of sliced turkey and ham from the deli. Rex insisted she no longer buy the processed, mechanically separated garbage he’d come to detest. Sure, it was cheaper, but it didn’t sit well with his digestive system. She was in over thirty dollars already before she made it to the baking aisle. Inspecting the date on a package of yeast, she added this to the cart along with a bottle of extra virgin olive oil. She would make homemade bread later, another of Rayleigh’s favorites.

  At times like this (not that she knew), her matronly instincts took over, and all Dorothy wanted to do was to take care of her family. They’d been through a lot lately. Rayleigh more so, of course, but a few robust, home-cooked meals—made with enough love and attention—might bring everyone out of the maelstrom they’d descended into.

  Spending most of her time picking out things Rayleigh and her husband would like, Dorothy ran into Kathleen Littledove, a portly, grandiose woman and mother of three. Kathleen had short, bright red hair. A tight white T-shirt revealed an enormous bosom and the roll of her stomach, which hung over her waistline like a pouting lip. Kathleen and Dorothy had met at a baking sale the summer before at Louisville Middle School. Kathleen had come in ninth place with her apple cobbler. Dorothy had come in second with her chocolate silk pie. Despite the disappointment, Kathleen had been harboring a shallow resentment for Dorothy ever since. Dorothy told Rex later, “I don’t know why she’s so upset. Not everyone likes apple cobbler. But show me one person who doesn’t like chocolate?”

  “Hi, Dorothy,” Kathleen said with an air of pretentiousness that made Dorothy cringe.

  “Hello, Kathleen. How are the kids?”

  “Fine. Just fine.”

  Kathleen eyed Dorothy’s shopping cart with disapproval. “Is Rayleigh doing okay?”

  “She’s much better, thank you.”

  “Such a terrible tragedy what happened to that girl,” Kathleen said, as if the prospect of it happening to her own children were completely unheard of.

  Dorothy nodded and pretended to inspect a box of Betty Crocker cake mix. Chocolate, of course. “Yes,” she said, not really hearing her. Other shoppers moved down the aisle, and Dorothy positioned her cart to let them pass. Kathleen ignored them.

  “I hear they were pretty good friends,” Kathleen said.

  Dorothy thought about the phone call from Janeen’s mother earlier and looked at Kathleen. “I suppose they were.”

  “Such a terrible tragedy,” Kathleen said again.

  Dorothy hadn’t realized she was holding her breath. She let it out now, grabbing a bag of chocolate chips.

  “Oh, those really aren’t good for you,” Kathleen said.

  “They’re for Rayleigh.”

  Kathleen frowned in disapproval. “You should watch what she eats. She’ll blow up like a balloon.”

  Dorothy thought of a few things she could say to this. “Are you telling me how to raise my daughter?”

  The woman’s blue eyes grew large. “Certainly not!”

  “Funny,” Dorothy said. “It sounded that way to me. If you’ll excuse me, I have some shopping to do.”

  “Of course. So sorry.”

  Kathleen huffed and pushed her laden cart down the aisle. Dorothy noticed cookies, doughnuts, ice cream, and sugar-coated cereals, none of which—she supposed—were for Kathleen’s kids.

  Pushing the cart out of the aisle and moving to the meat section, Dorothy noticed—out of the corner of her eye—a girl looking in her direction. Her vision clouded for a moment, and she went cold all over.

  She was looking at Rayleigh.

  She squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them again, the girl was gone. Sweat broke across her arms and forehead.

  Now you’re imagining things, she thought.

  She took a deep breath and resumed her shopping. All this tragedy was getting to her. And maybe Rex was right. Maybe they could use a vacation, some time away. That would be good for them. Mexico, maybe, or Hawaii, someplace far away and warm.

  Dorothy grabbed a package of Italian sausage. A mud-caked hand grabbed the cart, and she turned, staring into the eyes of Janeen Kensington.

  Dorothy’s skin seemed to slough off her bones. Her heart skipped a beat, and seemed—for a second—to stop altogether. Her mouth opened in an attempt to scream, but nothing came out.

  Janeen wore a black T-shirt and tight, ratty jeans. Bugs crawled in and out of her hair. Her skin had the look of chalk. She was covered in dirt and mud. But the eyes unnerved her most of all. Janeen had two large
black holes where the orbs should’ve been.

  “She wanted to love me, but I wouldn’t let her,” Janeen said. A clump of dirt fell out of her mouth. “You’re daughter’s a little whore, Willamina. She told me she loved me. And look what happened.”

  Janeen smiled, revealing mud-caked teeth. Her throat was a gaping, ravaged maw. A centipede traveled from the wound, up behind her ear.

  Dorothy was going to be sick. She closed her eyes and moved farther down the aisle, holding her hand to her mouth, which was suddenly bone dry. Beads of sweat broke across her neck and arms again. Feeling faint, she hurried down aisle 7—leaving her cart behind—and outside into the warm air.

  People stared at her, but she didn’t care. She got in the car and shut the door, shaking her head.

  Had she seen that? Had it been real?

  No, she told herself. Not real at all. Things are just crazy right now. It’s been a strain for everyone.

  Putting the key in the ignition, she noticed her hands were trembling.

  You only imagined it. Get yourself together.

  But her mouth was still dry, and she needed something to drink, something to quench her throat.

  She put her head in her hands and started to cry. Dorothy sat that way for a long time before she was able to drive home.

  ~

  “Do you think I’m going crazy, Rex?”

  Rex looked at his wife as if she was just that, but of course he didn’t say anything. It surprised him Dorothy would even tell him the story she had. But he knew his wife well, and she was either crazy (as she claimed), or she’d actually seen what she’d seen. The thought horrified him.

  At this rate, she’d build a reputation around town as the mad woman with the vampire daughter. The thought concerning Rex Michael Thorn was that perhaps his wife was going crazy, slipping outside her mind or so far into it, she’d never come out alive. Or could it be some mass hallucination the whole family shared? He didn’t think so. He’d thought something similar earlier because of what had happened to him at work.

  “No, I don’t think you’re going crazy,” he said. “I think there’s a lot of strain in this house lately. Imagine what Janeen’s parents must be going through. Maybe we should take that vacation I mentioned.”

  He was on the verge of telling Dorothy what had happened to him at Knopf and Holdburg earlier but decided against it.

  Isn’t that the denial you were just thinking about, Rex?

  Or maybe it would make Dorothy feel better, knowing she wasn’t alone in what she’d experienced.

  He’d been in the back room, going over the books when someone had walked up and put their dirt-stained hands on the edge of his desk. The first thing he noticed was the smell: fresh dug earth, redolent decay. Rayleigh’s fascination with the macabre was having an effect on him, because his first thought was: Something dead has just walked into my office.

  Looking up, the bloodless face of Janeen Kensington—the same soulless eyes, which had tormented Dorothy earlier—smiled at him.

  “Hey, Rex! How’s it goin?”

  Rex flung himself back in his chair and almost fell over.

  “Your daughter is a beauty queen,” Janeen said. “She haunts me even in death. I wanted to be everything she was. Beneath her skin. For all eternity. What do you think of that, fashion boy?”

  She looked exactly like Rayleigh in every way, only a more cryptic version.

  “You’re not real,” Rex said, clenching his eyes shut. He felt his bowels tighten. He wasn’t the kind of man who believed in ghosts, but he wasn’t so logical as to dismiss it as hallucination, either.

  “You stupid FUCK!” Janeen said, slamming her hands on his desk. The ruckus made his eyes pop open, and Janeen spat dirt and blood all over his face and suit. “Do you know what your daughter wanted from me? She wanted to fuck me, Rex. She wanted to make me squirm! And I wanted it! Oh, yes! Let me tell you! I wanted it bad! What do you think of that, fashion boy?”

  The thought put a knot in his gut. Rex closed his eyes and tried—with some metal prowess—to will the image away. He put his hands on the arms of his chair and tried to breathe.

  “LISTEN TO ME, YOU COCKSUCKER!” Janeen shrieked, slamming her hands on the desk again. Rex’s eyes flashed open, and the blood drained from his face. He was afraid. Yes, he was very afraid suddenly. “HER LIFE IS OVER! I’M TAKING HER BACK TO HELL WHERE SHE BELONGS! I’LL TAKE YOU AND YOUR PRETTY WIFE, TOO, IF YOU’RE NOT CAREFUL!”

  Rex closed his eyes for a third time and let out a small groan. He shook his head, mumbling under his breath, “You’re not real.”

  When he opened his eyes, Janeen—much to his relief—was gone. The incident had been so sudden and shocking, he reeled with dismay.

  Later, when Dorothy had told him what she had, he wondered if their visitations hadn’t happened at the same time.

  The dirt and blood, however—when he looked—was still on the desk. He spent the next half hour in the men’s room trying to get it out of his suit.

  “Rex?” Dorothy said. “Rex? Are you all right?”

  “Huh?” he said. “Uh. Yeah. Sorry. I’m fine. Just thinking.”

  Dorothy narrowed her eyes. She put her fingers to the lapel of his jacket. “What’s this? It looks like blood.”

  Rex put on the most convincing face he could muster. “Oh. I…I got a bloody nose at work,” he said.

  The look on his wife’s face told him otherwise.

  She didn’t believe him.

  ~

  You’re taking a risk. That infinitesimal thing you believe in is quite large.

  “Lady luck doesn’t believe in that either,” Rayleigh said.

  A dark cloud had been hovering over her for weeks now. She’d not heard from Ricky, and that was fine with her. The events of the summer had slowed, and her parents continued to watch her closely. What the hell was their problem, she wondered?

  She sat under the oak tree in the warmth of a June evening watching the light darken the sky. She hoped she’d be left alone this time. Nighttime was her time, and she wanted to savor it.

  “That’s because this is when I sprout fangs and learn to fly. Being a ghostly vampire has its quirks.”

  Janeen’s killer had not been found. Authorities assumed he’d come and gone, but they were not giving up. A statewide search had been issued. Rayleigh and her parents had been questioned mercilessly, and all the sordid details had surfaced. Rayleigh had no idea Janeen was on her way over, if that were the case. She’d simply chosen the wrong night to venture out.

  All she wanted was to be left alone, and after the week she’d had, nothing sounded better than time by the oak tree, imagining Bandit with his head on her lap.

  “I know you know! You’re not telling me everything, you snot-nosed brat! Admit it!”

  Theresa had made these accusations while standing in the Thorn living room two days after the funeral. Rex and Dorothy had stared at the woman, dumfounded with shock.

  “That’s enough!” Rayleigh’s mother had said.

  The woman had rung the doorbell only minutes before, a figure of exhaustion, tears, and desperation. Asking to speak to Rayleigh in the most polite tones she could, she’d lost her patience after Rayleigh had made several evasive answers to her questions.

  But what could she say?

  Yeah, I knew, Rayleigh thought. I knew plenty. You’re daughter was disturbed from the moment I met her. I was surprised the relationship lasted as long as it did. You should've seen the things she tried to do. Do you want me to explain them in detail? What she did first? You don’t know your daughter at all, Mrs. Kensington. Sure, I’ll tell you everything.

  She’d killed herself, Rayleigh thought. She’d sneaked out of the house for what must’ve been an apology. It was the only thing that made sense. She’d sneaked out of the house to apologize and run into a killer along the way.

  Part of her wondered…

  Maybe you had everything to do with it, and you just don’t wa
nt to accept it.

  The thought haunted and confused her.

  Under the oak, the sun was going down, wind blowing from the east.

  “Carmilla, does it make me selfish to be this way?”

  Not at all. Strength is devised through self-reflection and health. This proves you’re on the right track. It has shaped and created you to be here now. There’s a reason you’re where you are, Rayleigh, even if it’s only to ponder the inner you, the closer, more minute details of you existence.

  “Always the philosopher,” Rayleigh said, aloud, and for the first time in weeks, managed to smile.

  She was surprised how well she got along with Carmilla. Maybe she’d been the friend she’d been missing all along. Her alter-ego wasn’t trying to betray her, coerce her into madness as Rayleigh had thought. If anything, the voice was the most sensible and intelligent she’d heard. Often, it made her feel better about everything that had happened.

  A wolf howled nearby, and Rayleigh smiled. The stars came out one by one in a clear night sky.

  In the remaining light, she uncapped her pen and wrote in her Book of Poems—her last entry for the day—thoughts of the summer, her tainted love for Janeen, and the end of Ricky Bradford.

  Poetry, she knew not how, would be the thing she needed, the catalyst to save her. Book of Poems was a voice of its own.

  In it, she’d written a letter to Janeen, an apology of sorts, begging forgiveness. She held no grudge, she said. She just wanted to understand as much as she could.

  Rayleigh thought about herself, the girl she’d been before she’d met Janeen and how she felt about herself now.

  Neither seemed any different from the other.

  ~

  But how could it end like this? What did it mean? Why was there so much going on in her mind?

  This is the gift that keeps on giving. It is not a Hallmark card.

  It was full dark now, and she closed her eyes. Rayleigh was darkness, and darkness moved through her. Perhaps, in her own way, she’d created the dark. She wondered about the possibility, despite how egotistical it sounded. The dark was a loving pillow of ecstasy, and Rayleigh buried her face in it, breathing deep.