by Nour Zikra
As if I had shaken him from a deep slumber, he sat straight in his seat, his eyes wide.
“Addy, you have to drive. You have to drive right now.”
“What? Where?”
His hands reached for the steering wheel. “Turn the engine on. Go. Go.”
I did what he said and sped out of the motel’s parking lot. He tugged at his seat belt, mumbled something under his breath, and pulled his hair back behind one ear.
“Hurry.”
Once I hit the main road, I slowed down to the posted speed limit since the streets were still busy from the morning rush hour.
“Adriel, where am I going?”
“You need to drive to your mother’s house.”
My foot almost slammed on the brakes. If it weren’t for traffic and the possibility of causing a car crash, I would have stopped the car in its place.
“What do you mean, drive to my mother’s? Are you crazy?”
“No, I am not crazy. She is in danger.” Adriel tapped his foot against the floor of the car. “Michael wanted me to warn you. Her house is on fire.”
“But I don’t talk to Erica.”
“That’s not going to change the fact that she’s about to burn alive.”
He had a point. No matter how much I despised Erica, I had to save her. Maybe that was the difference between her and me. Despite her not wanting to keep me as a child, I would move mountains to make sure she was okay, even if she wasn’t in my life.
“Okay,” I said. “We’re driving to my mother’s.”
After a few minutes of studying me in silence, Adriel set his eyes back on the road. “Why do you not want to see your mother?”
It was a simple question with a complicated answer.
I chose to respond with a question. “Why would anyone want to see that woman?”
All those times she’d left Reed and me alone in the house without a babysitter and gone out with her men didn’t even come close to the full reason why I couldn’t stand the sight of her. It wasn’t that she’d told us she wished she gave us up for adoption. And it definitely wasn’t when I’d walked in on her having sex during my thirteenth birthday party.
“Let’s see,” I said, my hands gripping the steering wheel like my personal stress toy. “The woman has no moral fiber in her. She is a terrible parent—no, calling her a parent implies that she parented, which she did not.”
I gritted my teeth together. When I felt a twinge in my jaw, I switched to biting my lower lip.
“Hey.” Adriel placed his hand on my knee. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”
“I know, but if I don’t tell you, you’ll think I’m a bad daughter. You’ll assume the worst.”
“I won’t.”
He moved his hand back to his side, sat back in his seat, and waited. I took a deep breath and thought about telling him everything. After all, he had been a guardian angel. Wouldn’t he understand?
When I began talking about Erica and my childhood, I felt calmer. “Erica left me to parent Reed almost as soon as he was born. If that wasn’t bad enough, she basically kicked me out of the house the day I hit eighteen. I had been working at a photography studio since I was fifteen, so I took the money I’d saved up and got myself through college. It wasn’t easy, but I managed. I even helped Reed go to school.”
“To Saint Vincent College?”
“Yes.”
Adriel smiled. “Vincent is a very quiet man.”
“You know the saint?”
“I’ve met him in the holy kingdom.”
“You mean heaven?”
“That’s the one.”
I continued telling him about Erica and all the things wrong with her. For one, Erica had never gotten along with her mom, my grandmother, who’d raised me the first few years of my life. For two, she just sucked.
“You know, she refused to buy me decent clothes when I hit puberty because she was worried I would compete with her.” I sneered. “What kind of mother thinks like that?”
“That just means she suffered an internal loss,” Adriel said. “Something was hurting her, and she didn’t know how else to handle it.”
We were two minutes away from reaching Erica’s house. I did not feel ready to see her, but I drove on, knowing the full weight of her safety lay on my shoulders.
“But what could hurt her so much that she’d leave her own kids to fend for themselves? What would make her do that to us?”
“People have different ways of dealing with things.”
“That doesn’t justify what she did.”
A thin, cheerless smile appeared on his face. “I never said it did.”
For the last few minutes of the drive, I thought about having to face Erica. It had been years of silence on my part. Did she look older now? Maybe wrinkles had taken over her face since I’d last seen her. Or maybe she’d gotten plastic surgery to sustain her youth, even though she was just forty-three years old. The truth was, I hoped she’d shriveled up like the witch in Snow White. I wanted her to look as ugly as her rotten soul.
Adriel was looking out the window. I glanced at him and said, “Did you see Erica in the vision?”
“No. Just the burning house and you.”
We entered my childhood neighborhood, passing by houses decorated with fake spiderwebs and carved pumpkins. The Edisons’ house, just ten houses down from Erica’s, had been repainted in taupe stucco. When I lived here, their house had looked like a giant mustard container.
I took a deep breath and drove down the road. The Rivera and Patel kids were playing in their connected backyards, tossing a basketball back and forth between the four of them. For protection against the cold, some of them wore hoodies and beanies. They were teenagers now; the last time I saw them, they were still in elementary school.
Smoke wafted into the air as I neared Erica’s. From the outside, everything seemed the same. Quiet beige home with a brown roof, lonely in the corner of the neighborhood. It was undecorated. Years of neglect had made the lawn brown and dead. The house looked normal, really. Exactly how I remembered it.
“We’re here.” I indicated the disheveled house to our right.
I parked on the side of the road and stepped out, Adriel following me. Smoke drifted out of the chimney. That was not normal. My mother never used the fireplace. Besides, she was never around to bring wood and set up the fire.
I put my hand on my head and ran my fingers through my tied hair. “The house is on fire, isn’t it?”
Adriel glanced at me and then back at the house. “I think so.”
My feet moved by themselves, dragging me forward against my will. Condensation ran down the big front window. Behind it, everything was foggy. I wiped the glass and looked through.
Red. The house was blazing red on the inside, yet the outside looked normal, as if nothing was happening. What the hell? I thought. How is this even possible?
Who had done this? Was it an accident or a deliberate attack?
“Addy!” A warning tone vibrated in Adriel’s voice as he followed after me. “You need to call for help.”
The fire had already devoured the curtains and nearby furniture. It swarmed the room, wrapping around the hallway and disappearing farther inside.
“There’s no time to call 911. I have to get her out.” I called for Erica, hoping she wouldn’t be in the house. “Erica! Erica, where are you?”
I rushed to the front door and tried the handle. The door swung open, heat and smoke escaping. The heat burned, and I fell down on all fours before it could scald me.
“Addy!”
Adriel’s hands wrapped around my waist. He hauled me away from the door.
“No, no!” I yelled. “We have to get her out!”
My fingers burrowed in between his in a failed attempt to detach his flesh from me. He told me to stop, said it was too dangerous, but I just couldn’t help it. Erica was in there. No matt
er how much I hated her, she was still inside, and she needed help.
A few neighborhood kids ran into the yard. Adriel yelled for them to call for help.
Salty tears trickled to my lips. “I have to help her,” I said in a trembling voice. “What if she’s inside?”
Adriel breathed warm air into my ear as he pulled me into him, my back pressing against his chest. “You can’t help her if you’re dead.”
His words washed over me, and I surrendered. I stood limply in his arms, my head tipped against his shoulder.
In the distance, fire truck sirens wailed. Adriel exhaled and held me still.
Chapter Twenty
ADRIEL
“Ade will corrupt all. Ade will corrupt all.”
The fire shrieked, but no one seemed to notice except me. Addy’s head slumped against my shoulder. She breathed in and out and muttered that this was not how she wanted to end things with her mother. The neighborhood kids clustered around us. They stared at Addy in silence, like they recognized her.
“Ade will corrupt all,” the fire hissed. The sound was overpowering, and yet no one looked frightened or fazed.
“Addy,” I said. “Do you hear that?”
Turning her head less than a hair, Addy met my gaze. “The fire truck?”
Her cheeks and nose were red, reminding me of the night I’d met her on that lonely road.
“Ade will corrupt all.”
I gritted my teeth. That house was bad news. Of all people, I thought Addy would notice.
“Ade will corrupt all.”
Addy was still looking at me. “What? Why are you frowning at me?”
“I’m not frowning at you.” I stretched my lips into a fake smile.
Why was the fire screaming her name? I wanted to believe the woman in my arms was good, but I just couldn’t tell. Not when Michael himself wanted me to hear this message.
H
A firefighter carried Addy’s mother out of the house; he had a mask that extended past his mouth, most likely to help him breathe despite the heavy smoke. Addy’s mother was slumped in his arms. Red like the fire escaping through the now shattered windows, her hair swayed in the wind. She was a thin woman with soft features much like Addy’s. Although I knew she was in her midforties, I could have sworn she was no older than thirty.
Addy pushed out of my arms and ran toward her mother.
“Is she okay?” she asked the firefighter. She followed him across the pale lawn, her eyes on her unconscious mom.
The firefighter assured Addy that Erica would be fine and placed Erica on a stretcher. Medical technicians swarmed around them, forcing Addy out of the way.
With her hand on her forehead, Addy looked distressed. “What’s going on?”
No one answered her.
“I thought she was okay. What’s wrong?”
I stood next to her, placed my arm over her shoulder, and pulled her in. Her confused eyes met mine. I smiled, and just like that, she relaxed, resting her head against my chest again.
“What if she’s dead?” Tears poured down Addy’s cheeks. “What will I tell Reed?”
My eyes stayed on the house. “You tell him the truth.”
They started lifting the stretcher into the ambulance. Addy moved quickly. She stopped one of the medical technicians before the woman hopped into the ambulance.
“Where are you taking her?”
The technician told Addy they were heading to Latrobe Hospital. Then she disappeared inside the truck and shut the back door.
Addy and I both rushed to the car. Behind us, I heard the fire crackling as the firefighters hosed the house down.
“Ade will corrupt all,” it screamed. “You’ll see. You’ll see!”
I glanced one last time at the house. A second before Addy drove off, I thought I saw a red, veiny figure standing in the doorway. It stared past the oblivious firefighters, its eyes on me.
It opened its mouth. “Ade will corrupt all.”
After that, I couldn’t see it anymore.
Chapter Twenty-One
ADELAIDE
Erica looked different, but also the same. She’d dyed her hair red and gotten a tattoo of some Chinese letters on her slender wrist. Other than that, she hadn’t changed. Still thin and fit as ever, she looked more like my older sister than my mother.
I wanted to know what the tattoo on her wrist meant, but she was sleeping. She’d been like that since they brought her in. They put her in a hospital gown, inserted an IV needle into her arm, and left her to rest, leaving me alone in the room with her.
Adriel waited in the car outside because, as I’d reminded him, the hospital staff probably still remembered his face from when he’d come in five days ago with his burned back. It was crazy that he had healed so fast and with almost no scarring.
While waiting for Erica to wake up, I texted Reed to let him know about the fire and explain that Erica was all right. He responded with questions, wanting to know how it had happened. I told him the truth, that I didn’t know.
The heart monitor connected to Erica beeped at a steady pace. Outside, a nurse rolled a cart to the room across the hall; the grinding sound of wheels against tiles felt like a hypnosis trick. I leaned my head against the chair and closed my eyes. With each beep of the heart monitor, I found myself slipping away more and more.
“Ade?” Erica’s voice called out.
My eyes snapped open and I found my mother blinking out of her slumber. She wore mascara and the remnants of lipstick.
“Ade, what are you doing here?”
Rising from the chair, I moved to stand beside the bed, keeping a foot between us. “I came to see how you are.”
She flashed her sparkly teeth at me.
Growing up with her, she had always set aside a yearly budget to spend on teeth whitening. She’d clearly kept it up.
“You look good,” I said and bit my lip.
“I feel like shit, though.” She looked at the needle in her hand and winced. When she noticed me staring, she shoved her hand under her blanket and smiled. “You’re probably enjoying my pain a little bit, aren’t you, Ade?”
“No, not really.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’ve never been the type to gloat at someone’s pain. At least, I hope not.” I wanted to finish the sentence by saying, “Unlike you, Mom,” but I held my tongue.
She closed her eyes.
With a sigh, I looked outside for the nurse with the cart, but the hallway was empty. Maybe I should just leave. And yet, I had to ask about the fire. Adriel had seen it in a vision. It couldn’t have been an accident.
“Um,” I said.
She looked up. “Huh?”
“What do you remember about the fire?”
“Ugh.” She rolled her eyes. “I thought you were going to say something else. Like apologize for hanging up on me the other day.”
“No. I want to know about the fire.”
“How’s Reed doing?”
I shoved my hands in my pockets, afraid I’d scratch her face otherwise. “Reed is fine. Don’t change the subject.”
“I’m not changing the subject. I’m ending it.” Pushing herself by the elbows, she tried to sit up. “I feel fifty pounds heavier. What did these nurses do to me?”
“What are you trying to do? You should stay down.”
“What else? I want to use the bathroom.”
Crossing my arms, I said, “I’ll help you up if you tell me about the fire.”
She glared at me for a long time. Her upper back was awkwardly elevated by the two pillows that had been under her head a moment ago.
“If you don’t tell me, I’ll leave you here and walk out.” I took two steps in the direction of the door.
She dropped her head back, seeming annoyed. “Fine.” She kept her eyes on the ceiling as she spoke. “I was in the bathroom doing my hair, and I just remember hearing someone shouting outs
ide the house. I thought it was one of those stupid kids, but then the house was on fire and I was stuck inside.”
“Do you remember the voice? What they said?”
“I told you all I know.” She tried sitting up again. “Now help me to the bathroom.”
I placed my hand behind her back and supported her as she stood up. When she was on two feet, I let her put her weight against me while I pushed the IV pole along.
Taking a few steps forward, she glanced at me. “You know, your brother actually calls me.”
“I know.”
“You don’t call me.”
“No, I don’t.”
We were by the bathroom, so I let go of her arm. She pulled the curtain back, revealing the toilet, and started heading inside. Stabilizing herself, she placed her hand against the wall, her back to me.
“It would make me happy if you’d check up on me more often. Will you do that, Ade?”
With a sigh, I opened my mouth to say yes. But then I noticed something. In between the open gap of Erica’s hospital gown, on the upper right corner of her butt cheek, was another tattoo. And it wasn’t a normal one.
My mouth dropped. “Is that—”
I lowered my head to get a better look and realized too late that she was staring at me over her shoulder with narrowed eyes. Is that blackness where white should be around her irises?
“Never mind. I’m seeing things.” I pulled the curtain back in place so she was out of sight and took three steps toward the exit.
“Ade?”
From the edge of the curtain, her hand appeared. Before she could pull the curtain back again, I dashed for the door. Skidding down the hallway, I nearly toppled over the nurse with the cart.
“Sorry,” I yelled as I squeezed myself between the wall and the cart and ran.
What I’d just seen couldn’t be real. And yet, it made perfect sense. It explained Erica’s behavior all those years. All the nights she had come home drunk and angry. The times she had left Reed and me alone in a small apartment and, later, in an empty house. She was a terrible mother, both for neglecting us and for trying to persuade us to be like her. And it had all happened because of that tattoo.
