Perfections

by Kirstyn McDermott

  Lina swallows. ‘How do I do that? How do I make him go away?’

  The girl’s eyes are dark and lethal. ‘You know how.’

  ‘Can’t she just . . . let go of him somehow?’

  ‘She isn’t allowed. Someone else needs to stop him playing.’

  ‘What if—what if I can’t do that?’

  The girl shakes her head, those brown curls bouncing prettily. Lina feels a sharp, yearning throb deep inside. ‘You have to do it soon,’ the girl says. ‘She doesn’t know how long she can stay here. And once she goes away, she doesn’t think she’ll ever be allowed to come back.’

  ‘How—how soon?’

  ‘Very.’

  ‘What if it’s already too late?’

  The girl shakes her head again. She scrambles to her feet and takes a shy, hesitant step forward. ‘I have to go soon, too. Do you think it will be dark?’

  ‘I really don’t know,’ Lina says.

  ‘There are monsters in the dark.’

  ‘Come here, sweetheart.’ She opens her arms, a cry catching in her throat as the girl falls into her embrace. Small hands steal around her back, pluck at the ends of her hair. She hugs that small, miraculous body as tight as she dares.

  ‘She knows what she’s asking you to do,’ the girl whispers into her ear. ‘She knows and it makes her really sad. But she says there isn’t any other way to fix it. And she’s really, really sorry. She wishes she could do it herself. She wishes she had done it herself. She wants you to know that.’

  Lina swallows a sob.

  ‘Don’t trust him,’ the girl says. ‘There’s nothing he wouldn’t do.’

  And then she jumps, startled, as the back door screeches open. Booted feet stomp through the adjacent laundry and the girl twists around in Lina’s arms, slippery as fishtails. Her eyes narrow – distinctly, disturbingly unchildlike now – as Loki strides into the kitchen and stops dead, surprise wrestling fury for possession of his face.

  ‘Who is she?’ he demands.

  Before Lina can answer, the little girl leans in and kisses her on the cheek. ‘Be careful, Jacqueline,’ she whispers and then she–

  –isn’t there.

  Loki looks stunned. ‘She was . . .’

  ‘Another fendly. A whimsy, whatever you want to call them.’ Lina’s arms drop empty to her sides. The smell of the little girl’s scalp lingers with her. A clean smell, warm and sweet.

  ‘Antoinette’s here?’ The jeans Loki is wearing are splattered with mud. His hands as well. ‘You brought her with you?’

  ‘Of course I brought her with me,’ Lina says, getting to her feet. Behind her, Sharon makes a quiet mewling sound. She has almost forgotten about Sharon. ‘It’s all right,’ she tells the woman.

  ‘That’s not Paul,’ Sharon says. ‘I don’t know what he is, or what that girl was, but he’s not . . .’ She steps back, bumps into the sink. ‘All that stuff Ant was raving about on Monday is true, isn’t it?’

  Loki glowers. Specks of dirt fall to the floor as he flexes his hands.

  ‘Sharon . . .’ Lina puts herself between them.

  ‘I thought she was delirious. Strung out or something after her Mum died – but fuck. Fuck. She can actually make people? She made another Paul? Jacqueline, she made you?’

  ‘I’m not Paul,’ Loki says through gritted teeth.

  ‘No.’ Sharon stares at him with a kind of horrified fascination. ‘But you’re a damn impressive copy.’

  Loki is upon her in less than a heartbeat. Hands around her neck, thumbs digging deep, he presses her body against the edge of the sink. Bends her backwards as she flails her arms. His lips curl. He looks like he wants to tear out her throat with his teeth.

  ‘Stop!’ Lina grabs his right arm with both hands. It’s like trying to break a branch from an oak tree. Sharon’s eyes roll towards her own. Pleading. Petrified. Wet sounds choke from the woman’s gasping mouth. Lina changes tack. Launches herself at Loki instead, throws her whole weight against him, low down beneath his ribs. Not a crippling blow by any means, but enough to distract him, to jolt him off balance.

  Enough to give Sharon a chance to wrench herself loose.

  Which she does, her elbow glancing a blow to his jaw as she pinwheels free, though it might have been a kiss for all it seems to bother Loki. He pushes Lina aside, the quasi-gentle swat of a mother cat, then claws after Sharon. Catches her shirt. Pulls her shrieking towards him. Before slamming the heel of his hand into her back, doubling the power of her own forward momentum.

  Sharon stumbles. Her feet slide on the tiled floor.

  And she falls.

  But as Loki begins to move, Lina snatches a knife from the dishrack and pushes past him. Plants herself once again in his path.

  ‘Lina,’ he says. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I’m not going to let you hurt her.’ The knife feels too small. It could barely cut steak. ‘Ant wouldn’t want you to hurt her.’

  ‘This is my home and I won’t have her here. She stinks of him.’

  ‘Then she’ll go.’ Behind her, Sharon is coughing. Loki takes a step forward and Lina raises the knife. ‘I’ll use it, if I have to.’

  An ugly leer slices his face. ‘No you won’t.’

  He moves so quickly, she has no time to react. One hand closing around her wrist, squeezing until she cries out, until her fingers loosen enough for the other to slip the knife from her grasp. His face is blank, all the more menacing for it.

  There’s nothing he wouldn’t do.

  Lina’s stomach clenches. ‘Please . . .’

  But he merely dips his head and steps away. ‘Tell her to go then, Lina. Make sure she never comes back.’

  ‘He’s psychotic,’ Sharon says once they’re safely out of the house. Her voice is hoarse. The livid marks around her throat are going to bruise. ‘You can’t possibly stay up here with him, either of you.’

  ‘Yes, he is,’ Lina agrees. ‘But yes, we can. We have to.’

  ‘He’ll slit your damn throats while you sleep.’

  ‘No, not us. Never us.’ Or at least, never her sister.

  ‘You heard the girl, or whatever she was. Ant doesn’t want him around anymore. He’s hurting her, the girl said.’

  ‘Not in the way you think.’

  ‘Jacqueline, let me call the police. I’ll drive around the corner and–’

  ‘You don’t understand. We need to stay close, Loki and me. The further apart we are from my sister, the harder it is for her. The more it drains her. If the police come, if they take Loki away . . . I don’t know what effect that might have. But you’ve seen her. Do you want her to get even worse?’

  Sharon looks down at the ground. Scuffs through the gravel with the toe of her shoe. ‘I’m not sure how much I believe about . . . all that.’

  ‘You believe enough. You know you do.’

  ‘Then don’t ask me to walk out on her.’

  Lina rubs hard at her forehead. ‘How about just for the weekend? Give me two more days to try to fix this. Please.’

  ‘What are you going to do in two days?’

  ‘I don’t know yet, but I can’t do anything if you hang around.’ She jerks her chin towards the woman’s neck. ‘I won’t be able to protect you, either.’

  Sharon still seems doubtful. ‘Just for the weekend?’

  ‘Just for the weekend. If you don’t hear from us by Monday morning, then by all means, send in the cavalry.’

  Privately, Lina doubts she’ll get that much time. All it will take is a whisper in Sharon’s ear. A tweet or Facebook update from someone who’s had a chat with two friendly detectives. Or simply a more detailed press release. Arson suspect on the run. One of those grainy CCTV photos flashed helpfully on the screen. Because Sharon isn’t stupid
. And although she’s scared right now – scared enough to be coaxed to a strategic retreat – Lina doesn’t see that lasting for long.

  ‘Okay,’ Sharon says finally. ‘But if anything happens, if he touches her–’

  ‘He won’t, I can promise you that.’

  ‘I love her, Jacqueline. Just so you know.’

  Lina nods. ‘So do I.’

  Sharon climbs into her boxy red car and starts the engine. Sits there for a moment, slumped against the seat, before rolling down the window. ‘Why do I get the feeling, I’m about to make a really, really bad decision here?

  Lina smiles grimly. ‘Sometimes, that’s all we can do.’

  Loki has washed his hands. They smell of grapefruit detergent and are still damp when he holds her face between them. Lina allows this. Closes her eyes as he kisses her. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispers. ‘Seeing Greta up here, I got so mad . . .’

  ‘She’s not Greta anymore. She never was, really.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. She’s still a part of his world; I can’t have her in mine.’

  ‘And you thought throttling her would solve that?’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking, I told you.’ He sighs. Draws away. ‘Lina, you know I would never hurt you.’

  ‘What I know is, you started that fire at Seventh Circle.’

  Loki studies her face as though he is trying to read between its lines. ‘That place was stealing too much of your time and your energy, and you hated it.’

  ‘I didn’t – I don’t hate it.’

  ‘It’s not as if you need to work there anymore.’

  ‘Because I can waltz into another job, just like that.’ She snaps her fingers. ‘What with gallery management being such a wide open field and all.’

  ‘Why do you have to work anywhere? We have this house now, rent-free, and you said that Sally left you and Antoinette a little bit of money.’ He grins. ‘I can charm almost anything else we might need, Lina. You don’t have to work.’

  She stares at him, dumbfounded. ‘And if I want to work?’

  ‘Really?’ he snorts. ‘In a shitty gallery with a shitty boss, pretentious painters pawing at you all day?’

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

  ‘Guy with the dreadlocks. I saw him. Putting his arms around you, flirting with you. Couldn’t takes his eyes off your arse.’

  ‘Ryan?’ Lina shakes her head. ‘When did you–’

  ‘Does it matter?’ His voice is flat as coffin lids. ‘I saw.’

  ‘So you set fire to his paintings because you were jealous?’

  He smiles. ‘Call it my second bird.’

  ‘I don’t under–’

  And then she does. Paul didn’t disappear because Loki was worried about him getting arrested for the gallery fire, worried he would inform the police that a certain doppelganger might have had something to do with it instead.

  No, flip that over. See how it tastes.

  Loki burned down the gallery to provide a reason for Paul’s disappearance.

  ‘Where were you before?’ Lina asks. ‘When we arrived?’

  ‘I went for a walk out back.’

  ‘You weren’t doing some gardening?’

  ‘Gardening?’

  ‘Your hands were dirty.’

  He looks at them, clean now, white and shining. ‘I buried a bit of rubbish out in the bush, couple of days back. After all the rain we had here last night, I was worried the top layer of soil might have washed away.’

  ‘Rubbish?’

  ‘Just some useless old trash I didn’t want to keep around.’

  ‘You know . . .’ A lump forms hard in her throat. She coughs, tries unsuccessfully to clear it. ‘I’m fairly sure it’s illegal to dump rubbish in a national park. You can get into a lot of trouble.’

  ‘Only if I’m caught.’ Loki smiles, thin and smug. ‘Big place, that park. Massive. Bury something well enough out there, it might never have existed in the first place.’

  Lina perches her sister on the side of the tub. Runs water in the adjoining shower cubicle. Hot enough to steam, hard enough to flense unwary skin. Makes doubly sure the bathroom door is locked. Then she crouches at her sister’s feet. Looks into those dark, unstaring eyes. Takes one of Ant’s hands in her own.

  ‘I need to be sure,’ she whispers. ‘This isn’t something I can take back.’

  Steam swirls lazily. Her sister doesn’t move.

  ‘I thought perhaps, you could make her appear again. Please? I still have some questions . . .’ She squeezes her eyes against the threat of tears. ‘Ant, I love you, you know that I love you, but this . . . I just need to know that it will work. That it won’t be for nothing. Loki, he . . .’ The tears come anyway. ‘He’s not right, is he? He was never right, but he could get better. Couldn’t he?’

  She isn’t defending what he did. What happened with Paul. No, she’s not defending that. But it’s done now, it’s done and there’s no changing it, and perhaps it’s a turning point. Perhaps now that Paul is . . . gone, perhaps now Loki will get better. If Lina helps him, stands by him. Except, except. There’s Sharon, who’ll be wearing a scarf for the next week or two. And the thing with Ryan, the thing that meant Loki has been spying on her, keeping tabs. Stalking.

  Lina places a hand over her navel. All that flat, empty flesh. She remembers the solid, squirmy warmth of the little girl in her arms. The sweet smell of those curls. Her heart aches with absence. ‘Does it have to be so soon?’ she whispers. ‘Couldn’t it wait a week or two, a month? Until there’s a chance for me to . . .’

  She’s doesn’t know how long she can stay here.

  She doesn’t think she’ll be allowed to come back.

  ‘How do I know you’re not already gone?’ Her mouth trembles, and caves. She presses her face into the hem of her sister’s skirt, that black velvet so lush against her skin. Her sobs soak into it, muffled and lost. But when she looks up again, Ant is seated in precisely the same position. Still staring, not staring, at the towel rack in front of her. Lips motionless. Eyes dry and unblinking. ‘Ant, please. I just need you to show me that it’s going to be all right.’

  Lina isn’t certain exactly what she’s searching for in her sister’s face, but she knows when she fails to find it.

  Loki wanders into the kitchen just as she’s opening a new tin of tea. The strong scent of peppermint wafts through the air. Beneath it, a subtler note of anise. ‘Nice,’ he says. ‘Make me one?’ He seems happier now, more relaxed.

  Lina smiles. ‘Of course. I’m putting on a pot.’

  ‘How’s Antoinette?’

  ‘She’s sleeping, I think. Needed my help to shower and put on her pyjamas. I had to tuck her into bed like she was two years old.’

  ‘She’ll get better,’ Loki says. ‘She made a whimsy today – that has to mean she’s getting stronger, right?’

  ‘I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t think that she is.’ Lina shakes her head. ‘What if it never changes, Loki? She might be stuck like that forever and–’

  ‘Shhh.’ He places a finger across her lips. ‘It doesn’t matter. We’ll take care of her, whatever happens, or doesn’t happen. We’re a family, the three of us; that’s what we do.’ Moving behind her, he slips his arms around her waist. Kisses the side of her neck. ‘And maybe there could be more than just the three of us. Can you imagine that? A couple of young kidlets running around the place?’

  Lina tries to keep her hand steady as she loads the teapot with leaves. ‘I was thinking we could take her to a hospital.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘They could run some tests, perhaps find out what’s causing–’

  ‘We know what’s causing it.’ His lips move to the other side of her throat. ‘I don’t know how you can think it would help. Even
if some nosy labcoats did manage to work out the full story, what do you reckon they’d do then? Who do you think would take priority in their eyes?’

  ‘But if someone could help her . . .’

  ‘Lina.’ He turns her to face him. ‘Antoinette chose this. She could have passed me on to her mother when she had the chance, but she didn’t – because she wanted to keep us both. And now we’ll keep her, for as long as she needs us.’

  ‘But–’

  That finger again on her lips. ‘No buts. She takes care of us and we take care of her. It couldn’t be simpler.’ The kettle shrieks to a boil. He kisses her on both cheeks. ‘Hey, how about we flake out with a movie tonight? There’s a whole bunch of burnt discs in there, including a copy of Casablanca.’

  ‘You must have seen that a thousand times already,’ Lina says, filling the teapot to the brim. The lid settles in place with a loud ceramic chink.

  Loki is shaking his head. ‘Not once.’

  ‘Oh? Ant loves that film, I just thought . . .’

  His eyes have a cracked, broken-glass glitter. ‘She might have watched Casablanca with someone else, but not with me. I’ve never seen a minute of it.’

  She forces a smile onto her face. ‘Then we should definitely remedy that. You go in and set it up, I’ll finish making the tea.’

  Lina waits for him to leave. For the sound of the television to drift in from the living room. Once she is sure, once she is certain, she pours peppermint tea into her favourite mug. Plain white, a delicate garland of roses running down the handle. The second one – the mug with the tartan, the mug Loki seems to like – she fills less than halfway. The oleander has been steeping in water all evening. Those dark green leaves cut fine with a knife she never cares to see again. Mixed with an old box of peppermint tea, another of rosehip. Sealed tight in Tupperware and tucked beneath the sink. Right at the back of the bottom shelf. Waiting.

  For now.

  Lina pauses, listens for any noise of warning. The creak of couch springs. The pad of bare feet down the hall. Nothing.