by Amy Saia
If Paul was this affected by Marcus, then what would happen to me? I said a few protection prayers. Marcus scanned through the trees to where we sat, his eyes calculating time and distance and any kind of mental ability the two of us might have. This was what he was searching for, and it appeared as if he’d found it.
I cussed when I saw him heading our way.
But then a group of people crossed on the sidewalk below, and he stepped down to meet them. A pale hand extended in greeting. I could sense what he was really doing: sizing them up, the same as he’d done to us. He was checking for intuition—the very kind he’d need to bring himself eternal life.
The crowd was oblivious, blind to the undercurrent of evil. Perched on our seats, Paul and I said nothing as we watched Marcus in action. He was so cunning, so alluring. His suit of black and his shining hair made him appear very powerful. Power meant promise and change.
“I hate him,” I seethed under my breath, and Paul held me down.
“Hush,” he said, in a voice meant to calm. “You give him power that way.”
“I don’t care.”
Paul was right. But I couldn’t help it. My prejudice had been set at a different time and would never change. I hated Marcus with every atom of my being, and always would. Look what he’d done to us, to William and I—to Jesse? All we’d ever wanted was to live, to be happy. He’d taken all of it away.
My hands clenched and unclenched. God, how I wanted to storm across the park and hit Marcus’s long, pale face, a face like cold granite.
Paul tried gently shaking me out of it. “Stop. He hear your thoughts.”
Once again, Marcus turned to regard us with a searing look from his slate eyes. But mostly he stared at me. His broad shoulders set into a firm T, and he began to head our way.
I saw William come out of the drugstore. He would cross straight into Marcus’s path. I sprang from the bench, which sent my half-drunk soda into the grass below. Paul sprang up, too. He locked me inside the grip of his huge hands.
“But he’ll read William.”
“It’s okay. Your William is tough.”
“But he’s not. I have to stop him before Marcus figures out he’s—”
It was too late. In agony, I watched Marcus stop and extend a hand to William. William first ran a palm through his hair and, caught off-guard, reluctantly offered the greasy appendage in return. Their skin touched. From what felt like a hundred miles away, I saw the person I loved and the person I hated meet for the very first time. When their skin touched, an electric shock could be seen—despite it being the middle of the afternoon. William stumbled backward and fell to the sidewalk, stunned. After a few seconds, he gathered the courage to stare up at Marcus with eyes of foreboding.
Marcus couldn’t hide his joy. Smiling, he peered down at William like a man who’d won the lottery.
I thrashed against Paul’s hold. “Let go!”
“No, little one. You have baby inside. Baby more important. Marcus will hear it.”
My arms stopped their movement. My body froze.
This baby.
Then I felt guilty and started to cry. Paul rocked me with a gentle rhythm. “Hush, hush, Yellow Bird. Do not cry.” He kept shushing me until all the tears ceased.
I closed my eyes and relaxed into his shoulder, allowing myself to pretend William was the one holding me. Finally, pulling away in shame, I sniffled and wiped my nose on a paper napkin Paul had clumsily begun to dab my face with. When I apologized, he smiled.
“I’m not myself right now,” I said.
Damn right. I was no longer the Emma everyone knew. I couldn’t be.
To kill Marcus—to keep everyone safe—I had to be another kind of Emma.
My long blonde hair hung down like a blanket, covering me, annoying me. I tossed it over my shoulder in disgust. No one had long hair like mine anymore. William was the only person who said they liked it this way. What was I holding onto it for?
“I never cut my hair,” Paul said, eyes twinkling because he’d heard my thoughts. “Hair makes Paul strong.” His lay past his shoulders in thick black waves and was almost to his waist—much longer than mine.
“Well, I ain’t Samson,” I said. With a sigh, I grabbed my hair again and fingered its golden ends in the burgeoning sunlight, newly released from a dark sheath of clouds. “But I do need all the strength I can get.”
I watched William get to his feet and stumble away, hands still rubbing against the electric shock. Marcus watched him run down the sidewalk, an unreadable expression on his face.
Yes, it would take a lot of strength to do what I had to do. Marcus was pure darkness, an eclipse, ready to blot out anything with light.
¤ ¤ ¤
I sprinkled Epsom salts into the bottom of a claw-footed tub and watched the spigot shoot tepid water into an empty cavity of porcelain white. The window was open, and a nice breeze meandered in past a pair of lacy curtains. This was exactly what I needed after another long day of heat and walking around.
I brushed my hair and then dug in the little bag I’d brought. Some of the items gave me comfort because they still smelled like home. But most of them were foreign, bought in a thrift shop. They held no sentimental meaning and could belong to anyone, anywhere. The only items I truly cared about were the rings. I reached in and pulled out the black silk scarf I’d wrapped them up in. Mine barely fit on my finger anymore. My knuckles had swollen enough to make getting the ring on difficult. William’s slid over with no problem, but was too big to wear.
Forever, Emma.
I stared at myself in the mirror and shook my head. I didn’t even recognize myself. Who was this girl, with the expanding hips and belly, and the rounder face like someone else—someone older? I didn’t know her. She was as foreign to me as anyone. A stranger.
Tears welled up inside, but I wouldn’t let them come to the surface. Remembering my vow to never cry again, I dropped the terry cloth robe Mother had leant me and stepped into the tub. It was heaven. For a few moments, I could forget everything and not think. I didn’t have to be pregnant or stuck in a strange decade. I could be nothing. Nothing but the water, and the feeling of my body floating.
A knock sounded on the door.
I sat up. “Yes?”
Pauline poked her head inside. “Are you decent?” She saw I wasn’t, but came in anyway. “I just wanted to thank you for the money,” she said, checking the door. “Gosh, it’s a lot more than I thought you’d give me.”
“Now you can travel wherever you want.” In her top bureau drawer I’d left an envelope with two hundred dollars in it. She could go wherever she wanted, whenever she wanted.
She did a silent little dance, kicking a heel up behind her back. “I’m so excited I could die.”
She glanced around at all the things I’d strewn through the room. “Are these your rings?” She saw the delicate gold band I’d left on the sink’s edge and picked it up, tried it on. “It’s very pretty. Does he write you?”
I shook my head.
“I’m sorry.” She put it down to try on William’s. “I’d never take mine off.”
I let out a sarcastic laugh. “I didn’t want to. I wish I hadn’t.”
“Do you still love him?”
I nodded.
“Then why did you two break up?”
“Listen, Pauline, I don’t understand why. And I’m too tired to think about it tonight.” The tiny bar of Lux soap I had in my hands slipped out and shot to the bottom of the tub. I reached down to fish it out from under a thigh.
“Excuse me,” she said. She plucked William’s ring off her finger and set the band down next to mine. Her eyes settled on the bottle of prenatal vitamins sticking out of my bag. “What are these for?” she asked, bending over to pick them u
p with a quick rattle of its contents.
“Pauline, can you please put those down? Stop getting in my things.”
“It says these are for pregnant women.” Her mouth fell open and her eyes grew wide. “You’re with child!” She came to sit on the bathtub’s edge. “I should have figured it out. That’s why you’re—ohh. I understand it all now.”
“Understand what?”
She read the label, her lips moving but not making any sound. “Mrs. William Bennett?” She stared out the window. “I know a Bennett. Right here in town, only the one I’ve met is Billy Joe—”
I pulled the drain plug, grabbed the pill bottle, and stepped out onto a fluffy pink bath rug. “You think too much. Will you hand me my robe?”
She did, and I closed it around my wet body.
“Is it the same?” she asked.
I shoved the pills into the bottom of the bag and zipped the whole thing shut. “The same what?”
“The same Billy—Billy Bennett?”
“Not exactly.”
“The one I’m talking about is a real Don Juan. Not the kind of fella you’d ever get married to, unless you like a Marlon Brando in bed.”
Things turned quiet. I couldn’t talk about this with my mother. Not answering, I tightened the robe around my waist and brushed my hair for a very long time. She watched. When I thought I’d have some peace, she started up again. “You’re having Billy Joe Bennett’s child.”
She took stock of my hair, my face, my body, and I pulled the robe even tighter. But not too tight. “Listen,” I said, staring at her with slight desperation, “all I want is to finish up in here without anyone hanging around. Please?”
“All right.”
“Thank you.”
She left and closed the door behind. I dropped the robe and turned back and forth in front of the steamed mirror. It wasn’t horrible. It was . . . different. Rounder and different. I grabbed the rings and wrapped them up in their scarf, then tied the whole thing into a knot.
“Billy Joe Bennett,” I said to myself. It didn’t sound right. A rose by any other name. A laugh escaped my throat. “Well, no matter what your name is, you’re going to be a daddy.”
And then it occurred to me that William and I were the same age. It was such a strange thought, and I kept running it through my head. William, young? Not only physically young, but mentally as well.
The way he kissed, the way he spoke, was so different. So without control. So frightening. Exciting.
“He’s an ass,” I said to myself in the mirror, reaching for my toothbrush. “A total ass.”
I brushed vigorously, and soon tasted a small bit of blood seeping from my gums.
When we returned home, I’d tell him what I thought of his constant acts of control. The way he spoke to people with a wisdom far beyond any of them, when he had faults the same as anyone else. Well, now I knew. I knew all about him and could dangle it over his head any time I liked. I spit pink-tinged toothpaste into the sink and washed it down.
“You’re not so perfect anymore, are you, Billy Joe Bennett?”
I put the rings back into their safe place and slipped on a nightgown. My breasts spilled out over the V-neckline. I could still feel his lips, so warm. And those hands, those strong yet lithe hands which held me as if I belonged to him—only him. But they were the same hands to push me away whenever I came too close.
Chapter 13
The air inside the Springvale Public Library was a splendid concoction of bound paper and slight mildew. It was delicious, and I closed my eyes. Books had to be one of the most wonderful scents in the world. I could also smell the fresh hint of pine from the floors and shelves running along the walls. When I opened my eyes, I saw a young woman staring back at me from the front desk. I held in a laugh. With frothy, curling hair and huge glasses perched over mouse-like darting eyes, I knew exactly who it was.
Ethyl hired me to work for her in the summer of 1979, after Mother and I moved to Springvale. My father had died, and we’d packed up and left Colorado Springs to start over again. At the time I thought I’d go crazy and longed for something to keep me from dwelling on the recent events of my life. Working at the library had given this to me. Although having a devilishly handsome boy mess with your mind every day might be what some people would call going crazy. Especially one who was half-dead. But for me, it had been thrilling. And Ethyl, with her kind ways and wise words, had been my rock through it all.
“Hello,” she greeted, laying down a paperback romance. Her face was the same funny round shape, though no wrinkles.
“I need some information on guns.” There you go, Emma. No need to be shy. Say things straight out from now on. You need a gun. You’re going to kill Marcus.
“Oh, I see.” I could tell she didn’t see, because most young people didn’t come in asking about guns, much less girls with blonde hair wearing pale yellow shorts with hibiscus flowers and pretty sandals with delicate satin straps. “What kind of gun?”
I had to think. It wasn’t as if I knew anything about this particular subject. William’s had been shiny, big, metal. I glanced to my left and saw a display with a picture of Annie Oakley on it. A poster showed her wearing a fringed outfit with colorful beads and embroidery, little white boots, and a white cowboy hat. And in one small hand perched a revolver.
“What model of gun is that, exactly?” I asked, moving closer to the display. Annie had a toughness about her, but was pretty enough to be a movie star. The “little sure shot of the West,” it said. What were the odds of us crossing paths at this particular moment? I grabbed one of the clothbound biographies from the display and flipped through a cluster of snapshots.
Ethyl grabbed another book and flipped alongside me.
“Well, let’s see. It says right here that Annie Oakley had a Smith & Wesson Model Three. Lever action. A third-issue, seven-shot revolver.” Then she read off a long list which would have put me to sleep a few days prior. “Twenty-two short-rim fire caliber with a seven-shot fluted cylinder. The grips were made with rosewood and had a bird-head shape. The barrel is round-ribbed, and the extraction of the cartridges is achieved by removing the cylinder and using the rammer-pin to clear out the empty ones. Annie bought hers in 1888, made by the Springfield firm. Fast loading.”
She peered up at me with eyes shielded behind thick layers of prescriptive glass. “Is that enough information?”
“Yes. Yes, thank you. May I borrow the book?”
“No, I’m sorry. This is reference material and can’t be checked out, but you’re more than welcome to read it while you’re here at the library.”
“Thank you.”
I spent the entire afternoon sitting at a front table, not a back one, pouring over anything I could. When the sun began to drop beneath the trees and drift across the shelves and floor in diluted rays of gold, Ethyl gave a few not-so-subtle hints that the library was closing. She turned the lights off, as well as the giant metal floor fan that had only blown tepid and dusty air through the library. I picked up the stack of books and put them back where they belonged. I even pushed in chairs and put away any other books I found sitting on carts unshelved.
“You act like you’ve worked in one of these places before,” Ethyl said, wrapping a tangerine-and-white printed scarf around her dark mass of hair. She put on a thick layer of red lipstick and took off the huge glasses. Date? It was like her to have one lined up after a long day of work.
“Yeah, you could say that.”
Ethyl turned off the last remaining light, and together we surveyed the dark cavern of the library before leaving. For one second, for one tiny brief beautiful second, I thought I saw William there in the back corner.
But it could never be.
This is how I would always think of him. And maybe why I felt so haunted,
even while lying in his arms. My beautiful ghost of the library. Never mine to keep. Nothing more than fading sunlight. I loved him, but there would always be fear. I’d married him so fast because I was afraid he’d be gone. Every day. Gone.
¤ ¤ ¤
“You are creating violence with this gun,” Paul said, in between bites of an onion-and-ketchup covered chili dog. The smell was enough to turn me off of the things forever. It was his second one of the day.
I fanned myself with quick strokes, using one of the paper flyers I’d found strewn about the park. Once more, I explained the gun wasn’t for violence, only for killing Marcus, which wasn’t really violence, more like justice.
“Anyway, I need protection,” I said, handing him my wax packet of fries because they were too greasy for me to eat. I had a bad case of heartburn and another migraine, which I couldn’t take anything for, doctor’s orders. All this malt shop food wasn’t doing me any favors. “I’ll buy the gun as insurance. To keep myself safe, and William safe. I just don’t trust Marcus. He’s capable of anything; you know that.”
Paul shifted his long legs so they stretched out over the grass, toes reaching far past the edge of the leather sandals he wore. His big toe wiggled near a crooked dandelion. “If you say, Yellow Bird.”
I felt the hard lines of stress ease from my face. I gazed up at him with a smile. “I like it when you call me that. You call me that in the future, and then William starts doing it, too.” I’d never hear William call me Yellow Bird again, maybe. I was all doom and gloom. “Let me ask you something, Paul, do you think I’m selfish? I always thought I knew everything about love and how to love. I thought when you fell for someone the way I did with William, that you were meant to be with that person regardless of whatever differences you had—how young you were, or how old they were. But maybe I was wrong. I believe now that if you truly love someone, you have to look at the entire picture, and if one has needs, and the other denies those needs, then it’s selfish. Right?”