Not Flesh Nor Feathers

by Cherie Priest

Page 13

 

  If we hadn’t, Eliza would still be up and around, going strong for another twenty years or more like Avery had. So if she hated me, and if she wanted me dead, and if she had no intention at all of speaking to me in anything kinder than a spit and a shout . . . I couldn’t blame her.

  Maybe it would be easier, with her mind half gone. Maybe I’d find what I needed more easily in the wreckage of her head.

  I stepped around the corner into Eliza’s bedroom.

  “I’ll be downstairs if you need anything. Just holler. I’ll hear you. ”

  “Thanks,” I told the nurse.

  She left me there in the doorway. I stared down at the tiny shell on the bed and tried to superimpose another image over it—the image of the fierce little woman I’d met before. But I couldn’t. It didn’t work.

  She’d been petite to start with and had lost twenty pounds since then, at least. Her thin white hair was all but gone; her scalp crawled with veins and was dotted with liver spots. The hollows of her eyes and cheeks were cavernous and tinged with blue. The nurses had dressed her in a mint green nightgown. It looked like it had been laid down over a scattered pile of forks.

  She didn’t hear me come in, so I said her name. “Eliza?” I said it softly, like I didn’t really want her to answer.

  Her neck craned up against a pillow.

  “Hey there, Eliza,” I said. It was easy to sound gentle. All the nurse had said aside, this was only a shadow of the woman I knew and loathed.

  “Who?”

  “Eliza, it’s me. Do you remember me?” I crossed the stale-smelling room and stepped past a pile of crumpled tissues. There was a seat beside her with a magazine on it, face down. I moved the magazine and took the seat.

  Eliza turned to see me, sort of. She twisted her neck with a series of pops that sounded like potato chips being squeezed in a bag. Her eyes were wet and big, with tiny pupils that made her look sharp even as she reclined, an invalid.

  I couldn’t tell if she recognized me or not. She didn’t say anything. Her expression of general sourness didn’t change.

  “Eliza, I want to talk to you. I came all the way down from Chattanooga to see you. How, uh, how are you doing these days, huh?” I found myself softening the edges of the words, like I was talking to a sick child.

  “Louise,” she barked.

  I jumped. Her voice was stronger than she looked. “No, I’m not—I’m not Louise,” I told her. If she heard me, she didn’t believe me.

  “That girl, I think she killed him,” she said. “Otherwise, he’d come home. ” There was sadness there, and betrayal, and something else I couldn’t put a finger on.

  I thought about arguing with her, and telling her the truth—that her nephew was alive and well and safe in north Florida. I thought about telling her that he hadn’t come back because she was the one who betrayed him. But it wouldn’t have meant anything, and she wouldn’t have believed me about that, either.

  It hurt her to think that he was dead, but I suspected it would hurt her more if she knew he wasn’t, that he stayed away because he chose to. But that one was Malachi’s to fix, if he felt like it. It wasn’t up to me.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” I told her, playing along. “My sympathies on that nephew of yours. ” I could have said more, but I had a feeling that Lu would’ve stopped there, so I stopped too.

  Eliza nodded as if she accepted the sympathies, even though she was aware they weren’t heartfelt. Sometimes, appearances really are everything.

  “Tatie, something’s wrong with Eden. I don’t know what, and I don’t know who to ask. You were the only one I could think of. ”

  She made a little “harrumph” noise to say she didn’t give two little shits what was wrong with me, but her sense of schadenfreude had been alerted and she wanted to know more. “What is it?”

  I leaned forward to put my elbows on my knees, then thought better of it. If she got a good look at me, she might figure out I wasn’t Louise and then I’d be a mile back from square one, if I was lucky.

  “She’s having trouble with . . . with visions. And when she sees the dead, it takes a lot out of her—even though she always recovers quickly. Too quickly, really,” I mumbled. “Every encounter costs her more. ”

  Eliza nodded, this time with a smile. “It’s the draught. Dumb girl drank it. ”

  “But what did it do?”

  “Nothing bad to me, because I never saw the dead. But if a crazy little thing like you were to take it . . . ”

  It came out of her in a rush. It came out quick, and clear, and she looked dead at me and I could tell that she knew me. She knew I wasn’t Louise. She looks down on Louise, but she doesn’t hate her like she hates me, so it was easy to see it in her eyes and hear it in her voice.

  Then it was gone as fast as it had happened. She settled back down onto her pillow and shut her eyes again.

  “A witch has to be more careful. ” It was another full sentence, but not as snappy as before. “Didn’t know what she was doing. Dumb girl. ”

  “So what did it do to her? Your medicine, I mean? Did it hurt her?”

  “Who knows?” She attempted a little shrug there on the bed, but it only barely showed. “Avery might’ve known. He’s dead now. ”

  “Is there anyone else who’d know? I know you don’t want to help her, but I thought maybe we could make some kind of deal. ”

  “A deal?” She laughed until she coughed, and it sounded like she was spitting up dust. “You can’t make a deal with me. I don’t even want more time. Not anymore. ”

  “Jesus, Eliza. What’s wrong with her? Just tell me, for God’s sake. It don’t cost you nothing, and heaven’s watching. ”

  “There’s no fixing her. Two-way street,” she said.

  “I don’t get it. ”

  “She goes closer to them, they come closer to her. ” Her eyes were still closed. She twisted her thin little hands in the nightgown, balling up the fabric in her fists. “That’s how it works. ”

  I shook my head, even though she couldn’t see me. “That doesn’t help much. ”

  Eliza snorted, a tiny bit. It breezed through her nose like a baby’s sneeze. “If she’s close enough to touch them, they’re close enough to touch her. ”

  She started coughing again, weakly and with some halfhearted thrashing. When she settled down, she picked up the thread of thought. “It’s no gift. No power. Touch and be touched, that’s all. ”

  Touch and be touched? I could see the logic there, but I didn’t like it. It didn’t mean power. It meant vulnerability.

  I rose and pushed the chair back with my leg.

  Eliza’s hand shot out and nabbed my wrist.

  Her grip was strong and angry, and when she rolled her head to look at me, that old recognition was back. “Girl, you give me back my boy. ”

  “Eliza,” I protested, and I picked at her fingers. I tried not to hurt her, which was more than she’d ever done for me. “Eliza, let me go. ”

  “Bring him back to me. Bring him back and bury him here with me. That’s the only deal I’ve got for you. That’s what I want, and that’s the only thing. ”

  I worked my thumb beneath her pinky and twisted myself free from the rest. “I can’t. ”

  She settled back onto the pillow; again she looked sallow and fragile. She looked beaten, but wary. “Get out. Out of my house. ”

  “I’m way ahead of you. ”

  “Out!” she shouted again, and again—and by the third time the nurse came running. “What did you do to her?” the nurse asked, but I had a feeling it was only professional curiosity.

  “Nothing. I showed up, and it was a bad idea. ” I turned sideways and we passed each other in the doorway. “I’m sorry. I’ll see myself out. ”

  I nearly ran downstairs, back to the corridor, and to the front door. It was ridiculous, and I knew it. Eliza wasn’t going to
leap up and come after me, and there was no one else in the house who would chase me.

  I tried to feel sorry for her—I worked on it for a few minutes while I wrestled with my keys and slammed myself safely into the cab of my car. She’s old, and she’s dying, and she’s alone.

  That’s sad, right?

  But she’d done it all to herself. And she’d done it to Malachi, too. It was one thing to be alone in life, I suppose, and another to lie alone after it’s finished. But that’s not an excuse, and it’s barely a reason.

  I was absurdly glad that Malachi was still alive, for it was the one thing I could still deny Eliza. The malice I felt was resounding, and pure, and I liked it. I didn’t even bother to kick it back down or force it aside.

  I just let it stew.

  Driving home, through the long, flat stretches of Georgia where nobody lives once Atlanta’s past, I wasn’t even bothered by the way the feeling stayed. I didn’t care if it lingered. She hated me to the bitter end, and I could hate her too, if it came to that.

  That mad little troll of a woman didn’t want to be forgiven, and who was I to go against her wishes? She could stay there and rot for all I cared. She could lie there alone, and when she died, I’d never talk to her—even if I still could. Even if she wanted me to.

  I dug my foot down into the gas pedal and wished myself home.

  8

  Vandals Are We All

  I slept in the next day and missed my aunt and uncle, but they were thinking of me—or at least Lu was. On the dining room table was our morning copy of the newspaper. A big red circle highlighted one of the front page stories.

  ARSON AT RIVERSIDE DEVELOPMENT.

  I snatched the paper and started reading. A fire had destroyed one of the newer, unfinished units. Windows had been broken in several other apartments. Opening date had been delayed. Police had no suspects.

  I dropped the newspaper and picked up the phone. “Nick,” I said when he picked up, “what the hell is going on?”