by Dia Reeves
“Ask him to reverse it. Doesn’t he owe you? For cooking my family? Why did you cook them? To eat them? Did you eat them?”
“I’m a cook, not a cannibal. I thought you were the cannibal. I cooked them for you.”
“I can’t eat cooked things!”
She recoiled from the lustful look on Drabbin’s face.
“I wanna go back. Let me go back.”
“Back where? Who’re you talking to?”
“Her. The other. My soul? That bitch. She won’t let me back in where it’s safe. I can’t heal out here.”
“Some hurts can be healed on the inside, but only after the outside pain’s been nixed. And it’s no good to run from problems. The bleeders’ll follow you straight to hell. May as well face ‘em and save the fare.”
“Nix the outside pain? How?”
“Ha! Sexual healing’s my specialty.”
“Who chopped off Nettle’s head? Was it you?”
“Nah. Grissel’s the head chopper in the family. I shot them all through the chest, though. To paralyze them. My aim’s better than Grissel’s by a damn sight.”
Had the twins shared the anatomical diagrams they’d made of Rue? But then Westwood could have made his own diagrams from Thyme. Maybe the healing Rue had to enact out here wouldn’t require a visit with the twins. Maybe.
“I remember this,” she said, pausing before a bottle full of yellow fluid. “From the rug creature that hurt me. I had such a hard time knitting my skin back together.”
“From here, looks like you did a pretty good job.” His mouth had frozen into an unrelenting smirk thanks to his tightly drawn skin.
She would have spoken, but his fingers against her tongue silenced her.
“You have a lot of canine teeth. Twice as many as humans.” He cut his thumb against one of them and she couldn’t tell if it was on purpose. Drabbin released her and put his thumb in his mouth, tasting his own blood, tasting her. “You ready to be healed?”
Rue walked deliberately to the shelf and removed the bottle of rug venom. “Are you?”
“On your knees, then.”
She knelt and waited while Drabbin unzipped his jeans.
Rue removed the plug and swished some of the venom in her mouth. Slowly, so he could see. His breath quickened, but he didn’t move. Not until she swallowed his erection.
He pulled away almost immediately and she sat back, ignoring the pain in her mouth as the acid tried and failed to destroy her flesh. But it was a small price to pay to watch the acid do to Drabbin what it couldn’t do to her.
The acid spread outward from his penis and engulfed his skin like fire over flash paper.
“Haven’t felt anything in so long.” Drabbin’s smile lasted until his lips dissolved.
The acid took very little time to eat Drabbin’s flesh; his bones hit the floor like a musical thank you. Rue lay next to the bones.
“You’re welcome.”
Blackout
Rue was sitting in the garden in what she assumed was her summer uniform: black cotton gauze with short sleeves trimmed in white to match the collar. She didn’t remember putting it on or who had given it to her. Or why she was in the garden. Or what day it was. The sun was setting, so if it was the same day, it had grown much later.
Grissel joined Rue at the metal table beneath the magnolia tree.
“What the hell did you call me out here for?” Grissel asked. “More of your tasty soul, I hope?”
“You’re as well as I can make you. Now you have to make me well.”
“How?”
“You have to play a game with me.”
“And if I win?”
“My soul. A small taste.”
“Every day for a month. And what do you get?”
“Oblivion. Deal?”
“Deal! But what do you mean, oblivion?”
Rue dropped out of sight behind the red tip photinias where she’d hidden Drabbin’s skull and showed it to Grissel at the table.
“You have to guess who this is.”
When Grissel stared at it blankly, Rue worked the jaw. “Even though I’m dead, all the guys and ghouls want to bone me. Hyuck, hyuck.”
“That’s not Drabbin.” Grissel was still blank. With shock, Rue decided. Not confusion.
“The accent is hard.”
“Not my Drabbin.”
“Are you sad? You shouldn’t be. He died smiling. So will you.”
Grissel touched the skull, fingers trembling.
“I thought about the countless ways I could kill the two of you,” Rue told her, “slicing bits off you and making you feed them to Drabbin and vice versa. Ripping out your hearts while you were still conscious. Really vindictive things. But we’re family. Isn’t that what you said? So I’ll make it pleasant for you too.”
Grissel backed away and tripped over something. Over the box Rue had set there. The box with Ethan’s head in it.
“I thought the mister threw them all away.” She freed the head from the case, blankness washed away in a flood of joy. “Where did you find him?”
“The servants saved Ethan. They…loved him. Love could be the reason, couldn’t it?”
“I don’t know why the mister threw everything away. I was so afraid I would never…. Oh, Ethan!”
“Why would Elnora have Ethan’s head? Or any heads? He still wants you to be Elnora, doesn’t he?”
“It has nothing to do with her or what she wanted. There’s nothing of Elnora’s in that room either. Nor anything of himself. Sometimes I think he died when she did, and something profane and unspeakable took over his body. That’s how I felt when my Ethan died—like the walking dead. If I’m dead, what does anything matter?” Grissel laughed, a sweet girlish sound.
“Ethan would laugh to hear me waxing philosophical. God, I’d give anything to hear him laugh again—”
Rue jabbed her claws into Grissel’s throat and sliced her head off her shoulders. Black wig one way, her head the other. Even headless it took a while for her body to stop twitching.
But when her head rolled to a stop, the smile remained, blissful.
Blackout
Chapter 36
At dinnertime, Westwood prowled about the house screaming for Drabbin and Grissel.
The twins were silent as their father’s frantic voice echoed down the corridors. They didn’t touch their eggplant parmesan, too busy staring at Rue who sat across from them, covered in blood. She hadn’t bothered to clean up; she couldn’t focus, not even on the twins.
Just one more to go before her soul would let her escape.
“What have you done?” the twins asked Rue.
“I’m writing a new ending, and hoping I won’t have to write the two of you out of the story too. Did you know what Westwood had planned for my family?”
Stanton said, “We would have told you. What kind of people do you think we are?”
“The kind willing to sacrifice anyone as long as they can bring their mother back from the dead.”
“You’re looking at this the wrong way. Sure Dad killed your family, but only so that you’d have to be a part of ours. It’s kind of flattering when you think about it.” Sterling flinched from the look on her face. “As long as you don’t think too deeply.”
“He’s right. Tactless, but right. Even if we had known, you almost starved to death to avoid your family. I understand that you want to balance things, but Nettle for Grissel and Drabbin is enough.”
“Is it? Your father said I was worth three people. If I am, Nettle definitely was. So for true balance, I need a third head.”
“And I’m number three?” Westwood came into the room. “Did you bury them at least?”
“Yes. What was left.”
“Jesus, Rue,” said Stanton.
“I can show you.”
“Please do.”
She led Westwood out to the garden, and the twins came following after, pleading: it had been a misunderstanding, mistakes had been made on both sides
, why not drop it and be friends.
Rue only wanted to make friends with darkness. The blackouts her soul allowed were the only bright points left in the world, the only way to escape the pain.
The sky stretched above, purple and starless, as they walked the gravel path. She’d buried Drabbin and Grissel slightly off the path, among the red cockscomb. She’d thought it fitting since the flowers looked like brains, and she’d only buried their heads. Shallowly. The top of Drabbin’s skull made a white dome in the ground, and Grissel’s blond hair flowed over the grass, nearly as bright as the gravel behind them.
Westwood grabbed the pale strands and Grissel’s head came free of the earth like a ghastly turnip. While he was busy weeping over Grissel’s head, Rue stood over him and unsheathed her claws.
“No!” The twins grabbed her and held her fast. “Don’t.”
“Why not? Grissel’s dead, Elnora has no body to possess; so what’s his purpose now? Other than a way to avenge my sister.”
“Vengeance? I stand on the precipice of greatness, the secrets of the universe mine for the taking, and you want to sabotage my life’s work for vengeance? Are you incapable of rising above trivialities?”
“Don’t talk about her like that, Dad. She gave up her fingers for us!”
“And they grew back,” said Westwood, unimpressed, dashing tears from his face. “It was nothing to her. A job.” Westwood turned on her. “I made a place for you here. I trusted you with my children—even the ones I didn’t like!—and the whole time you were plotting against us. Tell them what you were really after.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Then let me refresh your memory.” He pulled out a piece of paper and read. “‘Dear Rue. Thanks for the fun project. The only payment I ask is that you don’t allow Westwood to bring Elnora back. Perhaps if you use the heart, you’ll feel pity for her and me as well. Pity enough to prevent this abomination by any means necessary. You have a heart now—use it well. Warmest regards, “The Bastard”. P.S. My friends call me Walter.’” Westwood handed the paper to the twins. “Ring a bell?”
Stanton looked up from the letter after reading it twice. “You went to the Bastard for a heart?”
“I didn’t go to him,” Rue said. “Frida gave it to me.”
“Before or after she tried to kill me?”
“Were you in on that?” asked the twins.
“No. This was after.”
“After how if Frida was blown to pieces?”
“She’s a robot. Walter rebuilt her and sent her to me with that.”
“‘My friends call me Walter.’” Westwood spat, but Stanton said nothing about appearing nice. “Is he your friend?”
“No.” Stanton answered for her. “And she’ll prove it. Burn the heart. Burn it in the incinerator.”
“I need it.” She discharged the busboy’s heart, mealy and drained and already failing. “Rebuilding my fingers, rebuilding my mouth, not eating, emotional trauma! I’m not letting you ruin this one.”
She place Walter’s heart in her chest, and it attached right away, beating strongly. With none of the euphoria that came with a new heart.
The twins looked devastated. “We would have made you a heart.”
“When? You’re all too self-absorbed in your unholy mission to bring your mother back from the dead and hand her over to the man who murdered her! When would you ever have time for me?”
“We’re self-absorbed? The only reason you want us to fail is because you’re afraid we won’t love you when Mother comes back. Afraid of anyone who can take attention from you. That’s why you wanted to bring Nettle here. Because you couldn’t compete with her at home.”
Rue cried and it hurt. And her soul wouldn’t make it not hurt.
“I’d never stand in the way of anything you wanted. No matter how selfish. I love you.”
Sterling crumpled Walter’s letter and threw it at her. “Your understanding of love is bullshit.”
“Stop it! Stop being mean and saying mean things!”
Karissa stood near the entrance to the garden beside the hedges. The fairy lamps lighting the garden glinted off her tears. “You’re scaring her.”
“Kissy.” Stanton put on his big brother face. “You’re late. We were starting to worry. Why don’t you go inside—”
“That’s why she ran away, cuz you’re always yelling and being mean!”
“You’re right.” Stanton knelt and hugged her. “We’re sorry.”
“I thought we were gonna be nice from now on.” Her voice muffled against his shirt.
“We are. I promise we are.”
“Because I brought something back to make everybody happy.”
“What? Souvenirs from your camping trip?”
“No. I don’t know souvenir. I was using my new smell glands to look for herbs so I could find more than Adele, but that’s not what I found. I found this. Look.” Karissa went back around the hedge and returned with a rusted twist of pipes that had been shaped into something vaguely human. It even had a skirt and long black hair and a halfway decent smile. Karissa led it by the hand. Or rather by the stump. It had nothing so defined as a hand. “It was tangled up in a briar patch. I had to cut it free.”
The twins beamed at each other. Grabbed Karissa and swung her around.
“I asked Adele to take me to the shop first,” she said, laughing and dizzy when they set her on her feet, “so we could get her all cleaned up and she’d look nice when I showed you.”
“What is that?” Westwood asked.
The twins said, “Our mombot.”
“We asked the Lazarus snake to help us find it.” Stanton petted the robot and it trembled under his touch, still carrying the last echo of mechanical life he and Sterling had given it long ago. “There’s a piece of Mother inside it.”
“Where?” asked Westwood, trembling as though electricity ran through him again.
Stanton pulled apart the metal that formed the halfway decent smile. Several teeth gleamed inside, pearly and perfect.
“Elnora’s teeth,” breathed Westwood.
Sterling said, “We scooped them off the ground after you dragged her body away.”
“And you found it?” Westwood scooped a surprised Karissa into his arms. “You’ve saved this family. Do you even understand that?”
“The twins got their wish,” said Karissa, squeezing him almost as hard as he was squeezing her. “And now I got mine. You’ll get yours too, Daddy. I know it.”
He gathered the twins into the embrace and they were just one big tangle of arms and tears.
“Forget Grissel and Drabbin,” said Westwood. “Once Elnora’s home, this will all seem like a bad dream. We don’t need them. We don’t need anyone but each other.”
He was looking at Rue when he said that last part. Rue, who stood apart, wondering how everything had gone so horribly wrong. Frozen as he rewrote her fairytale ending and gobbled the children in his embrace.
Chapter 37
Rue sat in a car, traveling down El Camino Real.
“So where you headed?” asked the driver, a young man in a beanie that looked as tired as he did.
“Get me out of Portero. I’ll figure the rest out from there.”
“No prob. On my way to Longview, actually. Ever been up there?”
Blackout
Rue stood in front of a store. A closed store because it was the middle of the night.
Walter’s Repairs.
Rue walked to St. Teresa Avenue, which was busier, and flagged down a car. A lady in a fedora pulled over.
“Need a ride?”
“Yes. Preferably out of town.”
“Hop in. How far out of town? I’m on my way to Castelaine. My niece is about to have a baby. Just move the gift basket to the back seat. And help yourself to a cigar. They’re just chocolate, no worries. Had ’em special made at Gourmandise just for this occasion. They even have that sweet, smoky cigar flavor. What’s the m
atter? Don’t you like chocolate?”
Blackout
Rue stood before Walter’s Repairs in the daylight, a chocolate cigar in her mouth. She spat it into the gutter and screamed, “Goddamn it! You won’t let me into the shelter. You won’t let me out of this horrible town. What do you want me to do?”
Blackout
Rue stood in a shop full of toys and eviscerated junk on tables. A man sat at one of the tables.
“Help you?”
A grimy and rugged man with an aggressive jaw and nothing of the artist in his bearing, certainly nothing whimsical. Nothing at all to suggest he’d been the one to make the dapperly dressed owl cradled in his hands. But he had; this was Walter. He looked just like Karissa, minus the blue eyes.
“Where’s Frida?”
“On assignment. You’re Rue? What happened? Did you kill Westwood? I’ll hide you, don’t worry.”
“I didn’t kill anyone. Well, I did, but not Westwood. I don’t know why I’m here.”
The heart Walter had made for her, burst from Rue’s chest, ruining her bodice and nearly smacking Walter in the face. But his reflexes were excellent.
“Or maybe I’m here to return your heart. My body seems to be rejecting it.”
“I don’t want it back. Frida said you’d understand.”
“I do. I tried.”
“And?”
“They love him.”
Walter sat back, disappointed.
“They found your letter. They think the two of us are plotting against them.”
“We are. He’s a monster.”
“They don’t see him like that. They don’t have to. That’s your role. And mine.”
“If I’d been informed you were using the heart, I would have activated it.”
“Informed by who? How many spies do you have in that house?”
“Doesn’t matter. I’ll find a new way. I won’t let them have Elnora.”
“Are bombs your answer to everything? What about Karissa and the twins? The servants?”
“What about them? The only innocent person in all this is Elnora.”
“I don’t feel sorry for her. Can you imagine being loved like that? A love that hunts you down all through eternity and never leaves you in peace?”