Paper Tigers

by Damien Angelica Walters

  “Zack? Where are you?” A young voice called out from somewhere far away, her words wavering.

  Alison raced down the hallway to the stairs.

  “Here, I’m here.” Another voice, even farther away. “Stay where you are.”

  Alison descended the stairs. On the second floor landing, there were several footprints, too many for her passage alone. In the hallway, there were more, pointing away and toward the staircase, disappearing under locked doors, patterned in circles and wide looping arcs.

  “Mitch! I can’t see—” The boy’s voice turned into a choking cough, nearby, yet muffled.

  Then Alison smelled the smoke. Not from a pipe, but the reek of burning wood. She moaned low in her throat.

  “Please, no. Not this,” she said.

  “Zack! Zack?” The girl started to cry.

  Despite the stink, despite Purple holding court in her chest, Alison shouted, “Where are you?”

  There was no roiling smoke, no red-yellow flames licking at the walls, but the smell was everywhere, a dark promise of destruction. In her nose, her mouth, her throat, burning and hot. Footsteps ran beside her, then a heavy pounding of fists against plaster, a groan of frustration.

  “I’m coming, Mitch,” a voice yelled. “I’m coming.”

  The voice was too close, too far away. Alison covered her mouth and nose with a hand and crept down the stairs. The girl’s cries grew closer and closer still, but when Alison reached the bottom step, they cut off.

  The house remained still and silent, an abandoned statue frozen in time. No fire. No smoke. No little girl, real or ghost. The visible prints belonged solely to her.

  She took her hand away from her mouth. All a parlor trick. An illusion. There were no children trapped inside the house. The door to the turret room creaked open, swinging in a wide arc until it slid to a stop. The grandfather clock stood, a sentry or a silent witness, its hands unmoving.

  Then it chimed.

  Time to go home.

  Smiling, she entered the turret room where the clock hands ticked their steady backward pace. She lifted one hand, raised it to the clock, and glanced over her shoulder.

  The house shifted and her vision blurred behind a cloud of dark smoke and the creeping orange light of fire. Heat roared into the room, the sound of rumbling thunder or the roar of a hungry beast.

  Smoke twisted and coiled on the floor. Alison screamed, tasting char on her tongue, and the clock ticked. A little girl ran into the foyer, her bright blue eyes round with fear, her blonde hair streaked with soot. Blood trickled from a comma-shaped gash above one eyebrow. She stopped, turned toward the turret, and her eyes met Alison’s with a mirror of shock and fear. She opened her mouth as Alison did the same, drawing in breath for a shout. The girl’s voice rose over the flames.

  “Please help me.”

  “Run away,” Alison shrieked.

  The girl’s eyes widened in abject horror.

  “Wait,” Alison cried out. “I’ll help you. I can help you.”

  The girl screamed and raised her hands in front of her while her head shook from side to side.

  “Run,” Alison screamed, tasting the heat, the stink, the smoke. “Run away, get out, you have to get out!”

  Alison tried to pull away from the clock.

  You can’t help her. You have to get away.

  The smoke and the fire were so close, she needed to help the girl, but the clock ticked on and on, running backward, and darkness struck the smoke from her eyes as the real world pulled her out and away.

  Alison banged into the edge of the refrigerator with one shoulder, cried out, spun around, and raced back over to the counter, to the album.

  She slammed her hands down, the skin of her palms tingling with the impact, and choked back a shriek. It wouldn’t let her back in. Not yet. Her ticket to see the tiger was for one use only, and she had to wait for another photo. She crumpled to the floor, buried her face (and the skin was so soft, so soft and unscarred because it made her whole, like the last time, made her whole and human) in her hands, and broke into tears. The tiger wouldn’t let her help the little girl.

  “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she said.

  Was the little girl, Mitch, still trapped inside? Inside a paper fire? Would she die inside, unable to get out, get away? It couldn’t. It wouldn’t.

  The names…

  Her sob caught in her throat. Paper and fire and the names. Mitch was sometimes short for Michelle and Zack…she knew those names.

  She took the stairs two at a time, her now-perfect legs moving with ease, flipped open her jewelry box, and unfolded the yellowed newspaper clipping. There, halfway down: Two children, identified as Michelle and Zachary Phillips, were rescued from the fire.

  It had to be the same children and if so, they were safe, both of them. Rescued years ago. She held the clipping to her chest until the last bit of panic subsided, then returned it to the box and held out her hands. Her fingernails shimmered nearly opalescent. Her cheeks were smooth and when she smiled, the skin didn’t stretch, didn’t pull. No more Monstergirl. She changed her clothes and Yellow came creeping in on tiny, destructive feet.

  What are you doing? You can’t go out. The people will look, the people will point.

  But she could go out. She didn’t have to be afraid. Nonetheless, her steps were slow as she made her way downstairs. What if it was all an illusion? What if she saw unscarred skin but others didn’t?

  She pushed up her sleeve, lifted her shirt, her pant leg. Ran her fingers through her hair. Touched her face again, reveling in the sensation of skin against skin. It was no illusion. Still, she stood by the front door wringing her hands.

  They’ll stare and they’ll—

  “Leave me alone,” she muttered.

  Still, she put on a scarf, sliding the edge down over her forehead. She paused on her front steps, staring up at the sky. It should’ve been full dark by now, not twilight. She slipped back inside the house—leaving the door open because she was going back out—to check the time. Gauging by when her mother called, fifteen minutes had passed in the real world since she’d

  fallen

  stepped inside the

  tiger

  album, but she’d spent at least five minutes getting dressed, maybe ten, and she’d been inside the album longer than five minutes. She scoffed. House rules, house magic. Why should the time be any different? And did it matter?

  She checked her face and arms again and locked the door, but her gaze returned to the sky and her stomach twisted with unease.

  Red swept in. Don’t stand here staring at the sky, you can hide in your backyard and do the same thing.

  “Fine,” Alison said.

  She took long, easy strides, not bothering to check whether or not her toes went past the edge of the street sign, her head full of thoughts of clocks and time running too fast to catch. She wasn’t tired at all. Not yet anyway.

  She crossed the next street. A dark car drove by, its engine giving off an asthmatic wheeze and the heavy smell of burning oil. Wind scraped the scarf back from her forehead. Her hands fluttered like dying butterflies—she hadn’t tied the knot tight enough—but when her fingers met the edge of the fabric, she could feel the silk soft against her skin, the thickness of the stitched hem, the heavy lock of hair that had slipped free. In one even movement, she removed the scarf, and the rest of her hair spilled over her shoulders, its weight unfamiliar.

  A dark-haired man exited a shop and Alison cringed, but before she could turn away, he smiled. Her cheeks warmed.

  At her. He’d smiled at her.

  She walked faster, enjoying the way her muscles worked beneath her skin, the way her clothes brushed against her body, the feel of her sleeves sliding against her arms. Her cheeks tingled as the sky darkened and the temperature dropped. Everything was brighter, more alive—the colors of the window displays in the shops, the voices of the a couple walking into a restaurant, the steady hum of the streetlamps, the
rush of the cars.

  She caught a glimpse of her reflection in a window—a pretty woman with dark hair, a wide smile, and ten fingers—and stopped, her breath caught in her throat. She touched her chin; the reflection did the same. Her eyes glimmered beneath matching dark eyebrows. A breeze lifted her hair, and she turned her face into the wind, arms swinging freely at her sides.

  Not far ahead, a door opened, spilling out a torrent of music and a crowd of people. Four men, standing side by side and taking up the entire width of the sidewalk, coming in her direction.

  “Did you see her face?” one said.

  “That was messed up. I can’t believe you said that.”

  Another one laughed.

  Alison jolted to a stop with her hands clenched tight between her breasts. She knew the flavor, the shape, of that laughter. It was bitter and sharp and cruel.

  Go now. Go.

  But there was nowhere for her to go. With a taste in her mouth like sawdust, she stumbled to the side, but there wasn’t enough room on the sidewalk for all of them. She needed somewhere to hide, somewhere where they couldn’t see her, couldn’t make fun of her. She backed away. One step. Two. Three. A door. Somewhere to hide.

  Without thinking, she darted inside. A moment later, the men passed by, still laughing, still talking. Through the glass panel, she watched until they were out of eyesight and sagged in relief. They hadn’t been talking about her. They hadn’t even noticed her.

  A trickle of sweat ran down the center of her spine, and she dried damp palms on her pants. From behind came the steady rhythm of voices, and the slow realization that she was standing in the vestibule of a drugstore, the lights inside far too bright, washed over her. Adrenalin sour on her tongue, she shoved open the door and bolted back into the night.

  She slammed her front door shut, stood with her back against the wood, and burst into tears. It wasn’t supposed to be like that. She didn’t have to cringe and hide. She didn’t have to run home.

  Inside, you’re still the Monstergirl, Yellow said.

  “Shut up,” she said into her palms. “Shut up, shut up, shut up.”

  She wiped her tears with angry swipes of her hand. It would be easier the next time. She wasn’t used to all those people. The voices. The noise. Next time, she wouldn’t hide.

  And she wasn’t a Monstergirl on the inside, no matter what pity said.

  Four hours later, her skin was still smooth. She wanted to go upstairs, but instead she had the television on, ignoring it while she paced back and forth. From time to time, her hand slipped up to touch her cheek, holding onto hopeful while waiting for the axe to fall, wondering if Anne Boleyn felt the same on the morning of her execution.

  After another hour, she trudged up the stairs, leaning heavily on the railing. She climbed into bed and gathered the sheets to her shoulders, running her hands back and forth across the fabric.

  “Please don’t bring them back,” she said. “Please keep them away for good this time.”

  Five minutes after she drifted off to sleep, the scars crept back in, slipping back into place. Stealthy soldiers sneaking in behind enemy lines. Alison sighed once, twice, and slumbered on, blissfully unaware when the air thickened with the smell of pipe smoke.

  PART IV

  NEW HURTS

  He walks into the hospital room and stops in mid-smile. She looks up, tries to smile back, but she can’t, it hurts too much, and the medicine makes her head foggy, but she sees him and thinks everything is okay, everything is all right because he is here. I’ll love you forever, he said. Forever and ever.

  Her mother leaves the room, leaves them alone, and she wonders why he won’t come closer, she tries to hold out her hand, and he has tears in his eyes, and she wants to speak, wants to tell him how much she loves him, but she can’t make her words work. He stands by the door, he whispers her name, and he sounds so sad, but she’ll be okay, they tell her she’ll be okay, then the medicine takes her down into a trembling darkness that makes the pain disappear, and when she opens her eyes again, he’s gone.

  CHAPTER 12

  She knew the scars were back the moment she woke. She told herself she wouldn’t cry, wouldn’t get angry and, for a few minutes, she almost believed it.

  The inscription had changed once again. More spidery lettering filled in some of the gaps.

  Alison traced the spaces between the words with her fingers, her brow furrowed. Still not enough to make sense of things, but the words chime, stay, locked, and house were clear enough. Maybe once she unlocked the inscription, she’d unlock the secrets of the album’s magic. Maybe once all was revealed, her scars would stay away for good. Somewhere between the words and the spaces, there had to be a key.

  She flipped past George’s photo and the house to the room. The shadow remained motionless, and when she gave the page a tug, it didn’t budge. With the edge of her thumb, she brushed the paper edges and the scent of flowers spilled out. The smell grew in intensity—a cloud of rotting flowers. Coughing, she slammed the cover shut.

  Throw it out.

  The voice twisted around her ribcage, but reason hid within the corset of fear. Photo albums could not heal, could not be real. Maybe it was a thing best left untouched. A place best left alone.

  She rubbed her lower back near the hipbone, where Meredith said the scarring felt thinner. Although Alison couldn’t see it, when she rubbed the back of her left arm against the skin, she thought she detected a slight difference there, and the thought was enough. She wasn’t afraid of a smell or of a ghost fire, no matter how real it had seemed. And the girl had been saved.

  There were nineteen Michelle Phillips listed online as living in Baltimore, and less than half had phone numbers included. The likelihood that one was the girl she’d seen in the house was slim, but Alison couldn’t help but wonder. She turned her phone over and over in her hand. What was she going to say? Did you see a scarred woman in the house that burned down when you were a kid?

  She had to come up with something that made sense. She made a huffing noise deep in her throat. Maybe not sense, but something that seemed plausible. She brought up the website that listed Pennington House as haunted and tapped the edge of the laptop.

  She yawned for at least the tenth time in spite of sleeping for fourteen hours straight, and rotated her shoulders back and around. A spark of pain flared beneath her right shoulder blade, warning her against doing it a second time.

  She typed for a few minutes, reread what she’d written, deleted it, and wrote again. Finally, she had something that, at least on paper, appeared legitimate.

  Her voice trembled when the first call was picked up. She read her words, and halfway through, the woman on the line said, “Not interested,” and hung up. The second Michelle Phillips at least listened to Alison’s halting speech. “Nice,” she said. “Did Scott put you up to this?” Then she hung up, too. The third woman didn’t let her finish, and the fourth was an elderly woman who couldn’t hear what Alison was saying. Alison disconnected the call after shouting, “I’m sorry.”

  By the sixth call, the speech came easy; the protection of the phone against eyes gave her confidence enough. The seventh went to voice mail, but the woman was older, far older than the Michelle she’d seen would be.

  She dialed the eighth number. “Hello, I’m researching strange occurrences in Baltimore for a possible book and wonder if you’d be willing to talk to me about Pennington House?”

  There was a sharp intake of breath. A long pause.

  “How did you find out about that?”

  “I, I found an article about the fire, and since the house was supposedly haunted…”

  “This is crazy.” The woman laughed. “I was just talking to my husband about the house a few nights ago.”

  Alison smiled, not caring that the skin twisted. “Did you happen to see anything strange when you were in the house?”

  “The whole house was strange. Dusty and creepy as hell. I fell down and cut my forehead
while we were exploring, and I still have the scar to show for it. My brother found a secret passageway, but I refused to follow him in.”

  “A secret passageway?”

  “Yep, sounds like a cliché, doesn’t it? Scary old house with a hallway behind the walls. Anyway, he went in and while I was waiting for him to come out, I started smelling smoke.”

  Alison pressed one hand to her chest.

  “Whoever started the fire probably didn’t know we were inside, or maybe they did and didn’t care. But things got really weird. I heard a voice and a clock chimed and it was just weird. Then I saw a man in old-fashioned clothes.”

  Alison struggled to keep her grip her grip on the phone. “A man?”

  “Yep. He was just standing there, looking pissed off, but I could see through him.” She laughed again.

  “So you think he was a…ghost?”

  “I know it sounds crazy, but yeah, I do. My brother yelled my name and when I looked back, the guy was gone, and that was it. After that, all I heard were sirens. Later, my brother said I probably imagined everything, but I don’t think so. It was the same guy from the photo album.”

  Alison’s chest tightened and she struggled to find her voice. “The photo album?”

  “Yeah, my brother said there was a room under the stairs and it had a bunch of junk in it. Old toys and stuff, and he found a photo album that he brought out with him.”

  “He…” Alison swallowed hard. “Brought it out?”

  “Yeah, he did. My brother was crazy like that. He wouldn’t let the firemen take it from him either.”

  Alison touched the album. “What happened to it?”

  “My mother threw it out.”

  “Did you see it?”

  “Yeah, I did, and the first picture in it was the guy I saw. I’m sure of it. The rest of the pictures were of the house and the rooms and some other people. It was weird.”

  “Do you, do you think your brother would be willing to talk to me, too?”