Slice of Cherry

by Dia Reeves

  Fancy stood on her own two feet and ran into Madda’s room; she locked the door and shivered for a long time. But once the trembles worked their way out of her system, she picked up the phone.

  “Your brother just tried to kill me.”

  Ilan said, “I’m on my way.”

  Fancy was sitting on the back porch steps when Ilan arrived. A guy in a pickup truck dropped him off. She heard Ilan say, “Thanks, man,” before the driver disappeared down the road. Fancy hurried to Ilan as he approached the front of the house.

  “Is my brother still alive?”

  “So far.” Kit and Gabriel were back in the living room, murmuring in the dark, so Fancy led Ilan to the back porch so she wouldn’t have to hear them.

  “What’d he do?” Ilan asked when they were seated on the steps.

  “My sister.”

  “Well, you knew about that.”

  “They were on the couch! I have to sit on that couch. After I saw them, I went to the toolshed to . . .”

  “To get a weapon. And?”

  Fancy was silent a moment, surprised that Ilan could read her so well. Surprised and irritated. “He’s the one who jumped all over me, so don’t make me out to be the bad guy.” She told him what happened.

  “He gets like that sometimes,” Ilan said, as though they were discussing a case of the sniffles. “If it was anybody but you, I’d be worried.”

  “I was lucky Kit came out. Or he’d’ve cut me open. You don’t even care, do you?”

  “I care. But karma’s a bitch, Fancy.”

  “That’s all? You came all the way out here to tell me that what goes around comes around?”

  “No.” Ilan hopped off the porch and held his hand out to her. “Come walk with me.”

  Fancy looked at his hand a long moment before she took it. The pads of his fingers were very rough, but the rest of his hand was baby soft.

  “Look at that.” He pointed across the backyard, at the moontree in bloom. Fancy looked up and saw a full moon, its bright white light mirrored in the moonflowers. Ilan squeezed her hand. “You know it’s bad luck to tell lies under a moontree?”

  “Der. But you can ask me anything. I got nothing to hide. Not from you.” Fancy was surprised that she meant every word. But Ilan was nothing if not discreet.

  “Must be nice to be such an open book,” he said as they neared the moontree. “I think God made me out of secrets.”

  “God made me out of steel.”

  “You don’t seem that tough to me.”

  “Well, I am.” Fancy let go of his hand and marched through the mahonia bushes ringing the tree. “Tough as—”

  Ilan followed behind her. “Tough as what?”

  “Cacklers.” But even as she said the word, Ilan saw them himself beneath the moontree, outlined in the moonlight.

  They were short, only four feet tall when they stood upright. These were on all fours and had looked up at Fancy’s intrusion. They were thin and had fat round heads that were almost cute, but their many rows of teeth were less cute, as were their screaming laughs, the sound they made whenever they spotted prey. They weren’t laughing, though; they seemed more startled than hungry, their normally pink eyes red in the moonlight. But when Ilan and Fancy didn’t leave, they reared onto their spindly hind legs and rushed Ilan and Fancy in a mad, cackling run.

  Fancy remembered the advice the Mortmaine had given her, about how she should never run because only prey ran . . . but she ran anyway. And was tackled from behind. She fell into the bushes, and something poked her in the back—fangs?— but almost as quickly as the weight had landed on her back, it vanished.

  Trying to outrun a cackler was pointless; they were speedy and tireless. But they were much lighter than humans, and their big pumpkin heads were their weak spot. Ilan had pulled the cackler off Fancy, and once he had the writhing creature on the ground next to its dead companion, Ilan beat against its head with his boot.

  It fought back, clawing Ilan’s arms with its horny nails and its teeth. Fancy tried to help with the stomping, but it snapped at her bare foot and nearly bit it off. Fancy decided to stay out of it, but Ilan kept up the attack until the thing’s head was a pulpy mess and it lay still.

  Ilan dragged the carcasses away, deeper into the woods, and then came back and sat next to Fancy beneath the moontree, breathing hard and cleaning goo off his boots. “You can sit up now, scaredy-cat.”

  “I’m not scared of anything. Except monsters.”

  “But you’re made of steel, Fancy. Remember? So why would you be scared of one measly cackler?”

  “There were two, and I am made of steel. And shut up.” Fancy continued lying on the grass, fighting a weird urge to fall asleep. “They were so busy fighting each other, I’m surprised they even bothered attacking us. They probably wouldn’t’ve if you hadn’t come barging in and spooked ’em.”

  Ilan hauled her upright, and Fancy let him, marveling at his sturdiness as she snuggled next to him. “Fancy, it’s mating season.” It sounded like he was trying not to laugh. “They weren’t fighting. Why’d you think yours had a boner?”

  Fancy remembered the hard spike that had been jabbing her in the back. “Puke. And stop laughing at me. Excuse me for not being fascinated by monster genitalia, unlike some people.”

  “I never said I wasn’t a pervert.”

  “I guess it runs in your family.”

  Ilan froze beside her.

  “Well, he is a pervert. How would you feel if a perverted maniac was dating your sister? Wouldn’t you do whatever it took to protect her?”

  Ilan kept quiet.

  “You’re sitting under the moontree,” she reminded him. “You have to tell the truth.” She reached up and plucked a sweet moonflower, holding it before Ilan’s mouth like a microphone.

  “Gabe would never hurt your sister.”

  “Of course he would. And it wouldn’t be the first time he hurt someone he loved. Would it, Ilan?”

  Ilan scooted away from her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means I know one of your secrets.”

  “Gabe loved Pop. So whatever crazy thing you’re thinking—”

  “That Gabriel’s the one who went crazy and killed Mr. Turner, not—”

  “—stop thinking it!”

  Fancy knew she should have been put out by him raising his voice, but there was something . . . exciting about the way he yelled.

  “Even if Gabe killed him,” he continued, oblivious to Fancy’s thoughts, “even if Gabe killed a truckload of people, who are you to judge him?”

  Fancy decided to back off, not because she was afraid of Ilan’s anger, but because she could hear beyond the anger, hear the hurt underneath it all. “Pain is relatives,” she said, almost to herself.

  He sighed away his anger in one long breath. “You have no frigging idea.”

  Fancy didn’t want to hurt him. But she didn’t mind teasing him. “I know some things.”

  “Like what?”

  “I know what you want to do to me. I had a dream. . . .” Fancy remembered something—Ilan framed in the window— but then lost it. She reached out and touched his face, saw the moonlight flash in his eyes. There wasn’t nearly enough light for what she wanted to see, which was everything. “Or maybe you’re so upset about the whole I hate Gabriel situation that you don’t want me anymore?”

  “I still want you.” Ilan touched her face the same way she was touching his. “I don’t love Gabe that much.”

  Fancy laughed, relieved and slightly in awe that such an understanding boy could want someone like her. “You still have my cherry?”

  “Nope.” She felt his cheeks stretch into a smile. “Ate it. Couldn’t resist.”

  “How was it?”

  “Sweet.” He leaned forward and kissed her.

  “Wait.” Fancy pushed him back, cursing the dark that hid his face.

  “Still not ripe?” he said, giving her space, disappointed but not surprised.
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br />   “I do want you to kiss me,” she explained. “Just warn me first. So I can pay attention.”

  “Okay,” Ilan said, laughing but taking her seriously. “Ready. Steady. Go.” When he kissed her that time, she didn’t push him away.

  He tasted sleepy. Like a dream. She kept her hands on his face, thinking that if she stopped touching him, he would vanish and she would wake up kissing her pillow. She caressed his lips as they moved against hers, was just getting used to the press of them when his tongue got involved and made it harder to pay attention. “I like that,” Ilan said, and touched the tip of his tongue to her upper lip, delicate as a hummingbird. “The way you taste.”

  “What do I taste like?”

  “Pancakes.”

  Fancy laughed, and the fact that she was laughing during her first kiss made her laugh even harder. She’d always thought it would be . . . different. That there would be roses and violins somehow. But here she was in the bushes with the smell of cackler blood in her nose and a boy she couldn’t even see who thought she tasted like breakfast.

  Ilan laughed with her. “You know those pancakes on a stick? Swear to God, that’s what you taste like.” He kissed her again, and the urge to laugh dissolved. She tried to decide what he tasted like, but could only think of rain. Something fresh and wet like that. Summer rain.

  When he stopped again, she was on her back and he was on top of her, though she had no memory of lying down. He was panting, a sound so unromantic she had to laugh again. “You must really like pancakes on a stick.”

  “I love those things.”

  Fancy felt pressure on her hip and gasped. “Just like that cackler!” She reached down and grabbed his crotch.

  Ilan did some gasping of his own and scurried off her.

  “Not quite mating season for us yet. It won’t be if you get the hell on indoors.”

  “Don’t talk to me like that.”

  “Would you please get the hell on indoors?”

  “No.” Fancy sat up and wrapped her arms around him.

  “Damn it, Fancy.”

  She kissed his ear. “Don’t be mad.”

  “I ain’t mad. I can’t even blame you. You told me you like to torture guys.”

  They kissed again, and she wondered if she would ever stop being startled by his tongue.

  A door slammed.

  Fancy let him go, reluctantly, and he peered through the mahonia bushes. “That’s Gabe,” he said. “I better go catch up.” But when she tried to follow, he stopped her. “You wait till we’re gone.”

  “Why’re you trying to protect him?” she said, feeling an intriguing mix of arousal and irritation. “He tried to kill me.”

  “He’s only like that when he sleepwalks. You’re like that all the time. So stay here.” He pulled her in for one last kiss. “I’ll call you, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Bye.” He ran through the mahonia bushes. “And be sweet, for Christ’s sake!” he called over his shoulder.

  “I’ll try!”

  Fancy watched a surprised Gabriel relinquish the driver’s seat to Ilan and decided it had been a sort of romantic first kiss. Didn’t the full moon make everything romantic?

  She reached up and picked another moonflower. She would be sweet tonight like Ilan thought she was. Pancake sweet. And tomorrow? Pure poison.

  FROM FANCY’S DREAM DIARY:

  I LOOKED AT MY GARDEN OF TREES IN THE HAPPY PLACE. THE DANCER, THE OLD MAN, MADDA, ILAN. THEY WERE ALL THERE AND GROWING. THE ONLY PROBLEM WAS KIT. SHE WAS STUNTED AND GRAY AND A WEIRD FUNGUS WAS GROWING UP HER TRUNK. SHE BEGGED ME TO CHOP HER DOWN. I JUST LAUGHED.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Fancy was lying in bed, snuggling with Bearzilla, sulking about Gabriel, and staring at the ceiling. It was painted sky blue to discourage insects, but a pale green luna moth fluttered against it. Fancy wanted to smack it and put it out of its misery, but it was too hot. Besides, it was bad luck to kill anything green. She had to settle for intense glaring.

  She started at the tap on the screen door and cheered a bit when she saw it was Ilan.

  He came inside and sat on her bed, just made himself right at home. “What’s the matter with you?”

  “Nothing. I’m bored.”

  “Aw, do you want a glass of juice? Or maybe a coloring book?”

  Fancy stopped feeling cheerful that he had come. “I told you to stop babying me.”

  “Then stop acting like a baby.” Ilan snatched Bearzilla from her arms and then did a double take. “What the hell is this?”

  “Bearzilla.”

  “But . . . what is it?”

  Fancy snatched it back, not liking the way Ilan was staring at her toy like it was a freak. “It’s the head of a dragon sewn onto the body of a bear.”

  “Why would anybody . . .” Ilan remembered who he was talking to and didn’t bother to finish the sentence. “Why don’t you go find some people to help if you’re so bored?”

  “What’s the point? It doesn’t make me happy.”

  “So you think happiness is gone fly in here and give you a hundred bucks?” Ilan batted the bear/dragon out of her hands and hauled her to her feet.

  “Bearzilla, no!” Fancy exclaimed as her toy hit the floor.

  “You and Bearzilla can terrorize major cities later. Now stop whining and come with me. I wanna show you something.”

  Fancy let him drag her outside to his sand-colored Oldsmobile. In the front seat sat a little boy with a bloody bandage wrapped around his forehead. “You do that to him?”

  “Ha-ha, funny girl. That’s not what I wanna show you.” She followed him to the back of his car, where he unlocked the trunk. A different boy was bound and gagged inside, glaring at them and blinking sweat from his eyes. “That’s what I wanna show you,” Ilan told her, as proud as if he’d brought home a deer for dinner. “I brought him for you.”

  “Like a present?” Fancy asked, touched.

  Ilan scuffed his foot against the driveway. “You don’t seem like the flowers and candy type.”

  Fancy gave him a hug, which seemed an inadequate expression of what she was feeling. Kit would have known the right way to respond to such a great gift. “It’s really sweet,” she said. “But I don’t think killing will make me feel better.”

  Ilan laughed at her. “Then don’t kill him. You don’t have to kill everyone. Sometimes the worst thing you can do to someone is to let him live. With the pain and guilt.”

  Fancy thought about this and then went back to the passenger window and studied the blood encrusted all over the little boy’s face. “Did the boy in the trunk do that to you?” she asked, pointing at the bandage.

  The boy nodded and frowned into his lap.

  “What’s your name?” Fancy asked.

  “Egbert.”

  “Egbert?” Fancy gave the boy a pitying look, taking in his dork haircut, potbelly, and short pants. “That’s too bad. So what? Did he get bored of pantsing you on the playground and putting Kick Me signs on your back?”

  “Nobody puts Kick Me signs on me,” said Egbert, offended. “Everybody likes me. I don’t know why George doesn’t.”

  “George is the boy in the trunk?”

  Egbert nodded. “Can you make him take back what he did? Ilan said you could.”

  “What did he do?”

  Egbert unwrapped the bloody bandage. Carved deeply into the boy’s forehead was the word “faggot.”

  She helped Egbert rewrap his injury and walked back to the trunk where Ilan was waiting expectantly. “Still bored?” he asked.

  Fancy frowned at George. “All of a sudden, I’m feeling real lively.”

  Fancy and Ilan were sitting beneath the Tony tree holding hands and listening to the mini Tonys sing “Why Do Fools Fall in Love” when Egbert ran up to them grinning ear to ear.

  “How was it?” Fancy asked after she’d dismissed the minions who had escorted Egbert to his appointment.

  “Great! It didn’t even hurt.�
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  “Now that George is taken care of, let’s take care of your forehead.” Fancy stood and went to the godfather tree.

  “How did you take care of George?” Ilan asked.

  “Can I show him?” Egbert was practically imploding with the need to show someone.

  “Hold on.” Fancy studied the skinlike leaves until she found the right one for Egbert. She plucked the leaf and placed it over the word on Egbert’s head. The leaf matched his skin tone and adhered so well it could have been the boy’s own perfectly unmarked skin.

  “Now can I show him?”

  Fancy shrugged and smiled, and Egbert ran to Ilan, turned, and pulled down his shorts.

  Ilan laughed. He laughed for a long time. “They tattooed a picture of George on his ass?” But Ilan’s laughter stopped abruptly when the tattoo began to move.

  “That’s not a picture,” Fancy told him. “That’s George.”

  George rippled colorfully across Egbert’s pale butt cheek. Only the left one—he couldn’t seem to cross the great divide to the other side. Within the space he had to maneuver, he flitted this way and that, like a trapped fly butting its head against a window.

  “Pull your pants up, pervert,” Ilan said after the cellar walls suddenly closed around them. “We’re in the real world now.”

  Egbert pulled up his shorts with a satisfied sigh and touched the smooth skin of his forehead. “Is it still on?”

  “That’s your skin now,” Fancy said. “Of course it’s on. Just remember, Egbert. If you decide you don’t want George on your butt anymore, let me know, and I’ll remove him and set him free in the happy place.”

  Egbert smiled at Ilan. “Thank you for coming to my rescue.” Then he turned to Fancy. “And thank you.” He reached in his pocket and brought out three quarters and a dime.

  Fancy took the money automatically, but then wavered. “That’s okay,” she said, giving him back his change.

  After Ilan got Egbert settled into his car, he went around to the driver’s side, where Fancy was waiting for him. He put his arms around her. “I can go hunting for you again, if you want. Or we could even go together.”

  “Okay,” Fancy said, feeling inadequate. Ilan always knew just what to say to make her feel . . . perfect. But she never knew what to say back.