Slice of Cherry

by Dia Reeves

  “We have to get the boys back,” she said after a long silence.

  “How?”

  “We go to the happy place and get them. I didn’t promise Mr. Turner he could keep ’em for all eternity. If he didn’t read the fine print, that’s not our problem. We have to find out the truth, because if Ilan’s been blaming Mr. Turner’s death not only on Daddy but on his own brother this whole time—”

  “What?” Kit said. “You’ll kill him?”

  “Yes,” Fancy said, and then burst into tears. “And then I’ll kill myself. I’d have to.”

  Kit listened to her sister cry for a long time before she nodded. “I guess you ain’t that heartless after all.”

  “I wish I was,” Fancy said, practically clawing the tears from her face. “Love sucks.”

  FROM FANCY’S DREAM DIARY:

  I WENT TO MADDA’S ROOM AND ASKED HER IF SHE WANTED TO GO ON VACATION WITH ME AND KIT. SHE SAID, WHERE ON VACATION? I SHOWED HER THE HAPPY PLACE IN THE MIRROR ON THE WALL. SHE TOOK THE MIRROR DOWN AND HID IT UNDER HER BED. SHE TOLD ME SHE DIDN’T LIKE VACATIONS.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Kit drove them home from Dog Run in Ilan’s Oldsmobile. Since Madda was usually awake that time of day, they parked back in the woods and then snuck into the cellar, and from there entered the happy place.

  “You been busy,” noted Kit once they’d made it past the hedges of the Headless Garden, taking in the changes since her last disastrous visit. “Didn’t there used to be a carnival over there?”

  Fancy looked where Kit was pointing, down near the beach. A massive forest had sprouted where the carnival ruins had been, dark and heavy and out of place in the breezy seascape.

  “I didn’t do that,” said Fancy. “But I bet I know who did.”

  As they marched toward the forest, Kit said, “Gabe told me something once about how his dad liked to go camping in the woods. Gabe always made his childhood sound so . . .”

  “Idyllic?”

  “Yeah! All this stuff about his dad taking him to the fair and out fishing—”

  “Like Daddy did for us?” Fancy snorted. “We had a great childhood. Now we’re going into the woods to rescue two murderers from their dead father. Great childhoods are overrated.”

  “One murderer.” Kit took Fancy’s hand in an instinctive, big-sister way, as they threaded past the first line of trees.

  “Gabriel knew about it. And helped cover it up. That makes him responsible too.”

  “You just refuse to give Gabe a chance.”

  “If he dropped dead tomorrow, I’d dance at his funeral.”

  “Fancy!”

  “But as long as he’s alive,” she shouted, forcing herself to say the words, “and as long as you wanna keep him, I promise not to hurt him or try to run him off. Okay? Is that better?”

  “I don’t love him more than I love you, stupid girl!”

  “You almost died for him at Dog Run.”

  “I knew you’d figure something out. You’re smart.”

  “Not that smart!”

  “You are.” Kit helped Fancy over a fallen log in their path as they entered the forest. “I’m still here, aren’t I? The thing about a boyfriend is, it’s easy to show him how you feel. When you feel love for him, you can just throw him down and nail him.”

  “You should write Hallmark cards.”

  “But when you feel love for your sister,” Kit asked, ignoring the sarcasm, “what can you do? You can be real obvious with a boyfriend, but with a sister you have to be more subtle.”

  “Like promising not to kill her boyfriend?”

  “Exactly! See, you are smart. I figured—” Kit dropped Fancy’s hand and ran forward into a clearing where a campsite had been set up. “Gabe!” She ran around the campfire and ducked into the large canvas tent, but she came out frowning. “It’s empty. Where the hell could they—”

  A warbling scream silenced her.

  The scream was coming their way fast, like an auditory freight train, rushing at them from the thick foliage.

  “Gabe?”

  “Ilan?”

  The sisters drew together. Neither sister wanted the scream to belong to either brother, but who else, if Mr. Turner was that determined to get his revenge?

  But it wasn’t the brothers who rushed forward from the trees. It was Mr. Turner.

  He no longer looked sure and in control as he had at Dog Run. His suit jacket was gone, his tie askew, his shirt soaked in sweat. He looked scared. Hunted. Prey. He tried to clamber up a tree, but his missing arm made it difficult.

  And then the sisters heard it. Barking. Loud and wild and vast. Five or six pale dogs, the same dogs that had once attacked Ilan, came leaping out of the brush at his father. The sight of them gave Mr. Turner the motivation he needed to scramble up the tree, just in time to escape the dogs’ slavering fangs.

  Ilan and Gabriel came out of the trees, a pack of pale dogs following closely behind them. They came to a stop beneath the spot where their packmates had treed Mr. Turner.

  “Come on,” Ilan yelled up at his father, over the barking. “It’ll only hurt a little and then it’ll feel good, right, Pop?” He had that same crazed bubbliness that Kit got just before she stabbed someone in the throat. On Ilan, though, the look wasn’t natural; it was hiding something so ugly that all the bubbliness in the world couldn’t mask it. “You know I love you, don’t you?” he screamed at his father. “Why’re you hiding from me up there? Get down here, damn it!”

  “How can you treat me like this?” Mr. Turner yelled from his rickety branch. “I’ve never been anything but good to you. I always gave you everything you wanted. Gabe, talk to him!”

  But Gabriel just stood there watching his brother, his face etched in misery.

  When Mr. Turner refused to come down, Ilan picked up a rock and hurled it at him. It smashed into his skull and knocked him neatly from the tree. He hit the ground in just the wrong way, and his leg snapped underneath him. His resounding scream rang in the woods.

  Ilan ordered the dogs away from his father, who he grabbed by the scruff of the neck. “You wanna go in the tent with me, Pop? Let’s go. All of us together like you always wanted.”

  “Please don’t. I can’t.”

  “You can. You will.”

  Ilan dragged him into the huge tent, unconcerned for his broken leg, so focused on his task that he walked past the sisters without acknowledging them. Gabriel followed close behind, stricken and dazed, and closed the tent flap behind him.

  Fancy and Kit sat back-to-back on a stump before the campfire and watched the tent. The dogs ringed it, and when Mr. Turner began screaming, they howled as if in mockery.

  After awhile Kit said, “Why does Ilan hate Mr. Turner so much?”

  “He’s hurting Mr. Turner, so Mr. Turner must have hurt him.”

  “There’s a difference between hurting and killing.”

  A light was on inside the tent, and the sisters watched the shadows streaking about. One of the shadows had an ax. Fancy smiled. “Bet Mr. Turner wishes he’d stayed dead.”

  “Too bad there’s no popcorn,” Kit said, as blood sprayed the thin tent walls. A few seconds later the minions entered the campsite, carrying not only a big bowl of buttery popcorn and a pitcher of lemonade, but a small table and two lawn chairs.

  “I told you this was just as much your place as mine,” said Fancy, shoveling popcorn into her mouth.

  “I made them do that?” Kit looked very pleased with herself. “You may leave us,” she told the minions grandly, after they’d finished setting up the chairs.

  The sisters sat, and Fancy said, “Now who’s the maharaja?”

  “Me, of course.” Kit leaned back and waved her hands theatrically at the tent, which, to Fancy’s marveling eyes, unfolded and grew, stretching into a rectangle like a movie screen. The Turners were still silhouetted on the other side, intent on their dark deeds.

  “Are you doing that?” Fancy asked, impressed.

&nbs
p; “I am the maharaja,” Kit said, “and the maharaja wants to know what happened that night.” She laughed at her own foolishness. “And so do I.”

  “I can’t see the past, Kit. I told you that.”

  “This is our place. Who’s gone tell us we can’t see the past here if we want to? Don’t you want to?”

  Fancy passed her the popcorn. “Definitely.”

  So they stared at the tent screen Kit had created, and an image suddenly projected onto it, playing out the way a movie would.

  Ilan, at around age twelve, entered a bedroom, a child’s room with bunk beds and glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling. He held the door open for Mr. Turner, who passed inside, a ten-year-old Gabriel limp in his arms. Mr. Turner placed him on the lower bunk bed, and Gabriel turned over on his side, fast asleep. Mr. Turner sat next to him on the bed and reached for his shirt.

  Ilan stepped forward. “I can take care of him now.”

  Mr. Turner paused, hands hovering over the hem of Gabriel’s Iron Man T-shirt. He gave Ilan an innocent look. “I’m just going to—”

  “I said I’ll take care of him,” Ilan repeated, sharply.

  Mr. Turner heaved a deep sigh. “Fine. Come get me when he wakes up.”

  Ilan waited until the door was shut behind Mr. Turner before he undressed Gabriel and put him in his pj’s. Then he removed a dark brown bottle from his pocket and knelt on the floor beside his brother and whispered, “Sorry I have to keep making you sick, but he won’t do anything if you’re sick.” He tried to feed his brother whatever was in the bottle, but it was empty. He looked at the bottle as though it had betrayed him. “Damn it.”

  Ilan stood and dropped the bottle into a nearby garbage pail. Then he went into the bathroom and rummaged desperately through the medicine cabinet, until a thump sent him running back into the bedroom. “Gabe?”

  But Gabriel was no longer in bed.

  He was halfway through the mirror on the wall opposite the bunk beds, his legs kicking violently.

  “Gabe!”

  Ilan raced forward and grabbed him around the hips, just in time to be yanked forward with his brother, his head vanishing into the mirror, which didn’t reflect the room. It was more like a window, which looked out onto a gray cellar and the slight man with a kind face who stood inside it, holding Gabriel by the arms. The man was dressed in blue Dickies, with the name GUTHRIE stitched over his heart. He seemed surprised to see Ilan, but not unhappy.

  “Two for the price of one,” he said. The sound of his voice coming through the mirror was muffled. And so was Ilan’s.

  “I don’t know who you are, mister, but you can’t have my brother. I been trying all my life to keep him safe, and I ain’t fixing to just hand him over to some stranger. If you need a boy, take me.”

  “If you take your brother’s place,” Guthrie said, “who’ll protect him from your dad?”

  Ilan went still and didn’t speak for a long time, while Guthrie gave him a knowing look.

  “I’ve seen you through the mirror. You and your dad.”

  “Then why don’t you take him!” Ilan yelled, his voice so loud and anguished that Guthrie winced.

  “Take your dad?” Guthrie tsked. “Why should I do your dirty work? If you hate him that much, you kill him.”

  “Daddy?” The voice was thin and girlish, crackling as though spoken through a walkie-talkie. “We’re ready to go. Where are you?”

  While Guthrie was distracted by the intercom on the wall behind him, Ilan braced his leg against the wall and hauled himself and Gabriel free of the mirror. The brothers hit the floor with a force that rattled the furniture.

  “What’s all the noise?” Mr. Turner called. Moments later he stood in the doorway.

  Gabriel was wide awake now and shaking as Ilan helped him to his feet. “There was a man in the mirror!” But when he looked, all he saw was his own frightened reflection.

  Mr. Turner pulled Gabriel into his arms and rubbed his back. “You were just dreaming.”

  “Let him go.”

  “Ilan, hush. I’m trying to make him feel better.”

  “Well, don’t. He’s sick.”

  “I’m not,” said Gabriel, plaintively. “Just thirsty. Wasn’t there a man, Ilan? A bad man?”

  “Yeah,” Ilan said, trying to pull Gabriel away from Mr. Turner. “A very bad man.”

  Mr. Turner shoved Ilan toward the door so hard Ilan smacked his shoulder against the door frame. “Go get your brother some water,” he said.

  “You get it.”

  “I want Pop to stay,” Gabriel said, holding on to Mr. Turner as though he were a giant teddy bear. The sight seemed to pain Ilan.

  “You heard him,” said Mr. Turner, something smug and dark in his tone.

  Ilan raced downstairs and poured a glass of water. While he stood at the sink, he spied a butcher knife on the draining board. He took it, and when he got back to the room, he was glad he had. Mr. Turner’s hand was in Gabriel’s pajama bottoms.

  The glass of water smashed against the floor, but the knife remained firmly in Ilan’s grip.

  “No wonder you want him dead,” said a muffled voice.

  Guthrie was back in the mirror, watching them, eyes bright with amusement. Mr. Turner snatched his hand free of his son’s pants.

  “The man!” Gabriel screamed, and scrambled behind Mr. Turner. “Pop, it’s him!”

  Guthrie was looking at Ilan. “But what did you think he’d do when you got to be too old? At least my way your brother would’ve been spared.”

  Ilan said nothing, merely stared at his father with such hatred that his eyes seemed to glow red.

  Mr. Turner, oblivious of his son’s wrath, gaped at the man in the mirror. “Who the hell are you?”

  “A student of human nature,” Guthrie told him. “I find it fascinating what goes on in the most average households. But what will you do when they grow up? Have more children? Or will any child do? Or are you only attracted to them because they’re yours, and fucking them is like fucking yourself? Narcissists have always intrigued me.”

  Mr. Turner charged up to the mirror and smashed his fist into it, but instead of his fist breaking the mirror into a million pieces, his fist—and consequently his arm all the way to the shoulder—passed into the mirror. And Guthrie caught it.

  He held on to Mr. Turner with his left hand, and in his other hand he held a bonesaw. He brought it down on Mr. Turner’s arm at the shoulder, and in a surprisingly short amount of time Mr. Turner fell away from the mirror and hit the floor, minus one arm.

  Ilan stepped toward him, the knife still in his hand. He watched blood spurt from his father’s shoulder and pool on the wooden floor.

  “I softened him up for you, kid.” Guthrie was watching Ilan, expectantly. “Why don’t you take it from here?”

  “Guthrie? Have you changed yet? The girls want—”

  Madda, with long hair, ruby red heels, and a shocked expression, stood at the top of the cellar stairs, staring at the severed arm in Guthrie’s hand.

  He tried to hide it behind his back; he looked more shocked than Madda did.

  “Sweetie, I . . .”

  Her screams drowned him out.

  “Lynne!” he shouted, and then the mirror went momentarily black before it regained its natural state and reflected the room: the bloody man on the floor and the boys who watched him, wide-eyed and silent.

  Ilan dropped to his knees beside Mr. Turner, and the silence ended, abruptly. Mr. Turner had not screamed when Guthrie cut off his arm. He had whimpered and pleaded and called to his sons for help, but he had not screamed.

  Now he screamed. Not at the sight of his bloody stump, but because Ilan had driven the butcher knife into his groin.

  “Don’t worry,” said Ilan, adopting his father’s gentle, loving tone. “It’ll start to feel good in a little while. I promise.” He continued hacking away long after Mr. Turner’s screams devolved into grunts of pain and then . . . eternal silence.

 
“Ilan?” The sound of Gabriel’s voice finally stopped his assault. “Why isn’t Pop moving?”

  Ilan stood and backed out of the pool of blood. So much blood. “Cuz he’s dead now. You don’t have to worry about him anymore.”

  “But I don’t want him to be dead.” Gabriel had wrapped himself in a cocoon of blankets.

  “You don’t have to be scared anymore,” Ilan said, and stripped the covers from the top bunk. He unwrapped Gabriel from his cocoon and took those as well. “I’ll make sure nobody ever hurts you again.”

  Ilan wrapped his father’s body in the bedclothes to keep it from leaking and then dragged the body through the house to the garage. He wrestled it into the trunk of the Oldsmobile and got into the driver’s seat.

  Gabriel climbed in beside him, uninvited. “Where’re we going?”

  “I gotta bury him.” Ilan clumsily adjusted the seat to fit his twelve-year-old frame.

  “Where?”

  “Dog Run. Where they have the battle of the bands.” Ilan squeezed the steering wheel and stared blankly out of the windshield. “Pop hates music; it’ll serve him right to have to choke on a big fucking concert every year.” He started the car, and when the lights came on, they shone on a pile of tools leaning in the corner of the garage.

  “Go get that shovel over there,” he told his brother. “We’ll need that.”

  Gabriel didn’t move.

  “What?” Ilan finally looked at him.

  “What Pop did?” Gabriel’s face was small and miserable. “While you were getting the water? It didn’t hurt.”

  Ilan burst into tears. He lowered his head to the steering wheel and hid his face in his arms. “Yes, it did, Gabe.” His voice was so distorted by tears and shame it was barely recognizable. “Yes, it did.”

  The image of Ilan and Gabriel sitting unhappily in the Oldsmobile disappeared in a wash of gray.

  Fancy blinked her eyes to clear them, only to realize the grayness was just the walls of the cellar closing around her. Around everyone. Kit, Ilan, and Gabriel huddled together with her on the floor, which was barely wide enough for all of them.