Paper Tigers

by Damien Angelica Walters

  then another.

  Forever, forever, forever.

  But why couldn’t she remember his name?

  He moved into the light. Thomas of the sad eyes smiled. Extended his arms.

  “Stay with us, stay with me, here.”

  He lurched forward, his legs and arms hanging at odd angles, as though they’d been badly broken then put back together the wrong way.

  She didn’t move away as he reached for her hands. The floor shivered and warmth rushed in as his fingers curled around hers. One of her hands appeared real, not grey, all the way to the wrist.

  “Stay with me, please.”

  The real moved to her forearm, filling in the transparent haze with solid pale. His fingers held tight and they were warm, so warm.

  “Please stay.”

  Her skin turned warm and flesh, up, over, her elbow, up to her shoulder as his thumb made a lazy arc on the back of her hand.

  It’s another trick, a voice said.

  The skin of Thomas’ cheek changed, rough replacing smooth, and a fragment in the shape of a quarter moon peeled away.

  He caught her glance, and smiled. “Don’t worry about that, it’s just a piece of—”

  “No.”

  Alison wrenched her hand away. The warmth lingered briefly, then all turned grey and cold. Before he could say another word, she ran. The door shut and darkness rushed in, thick with voices begging her to stay, to help.

  “No more,” she said. “Go away, all of you.”

  She took a step. Then another. Choked back a sob. Then a hand touched hers.

  Before she could scream, another door spilled out pale light, allowing her to see that the hand belonged to a young girl with an elfin face. Translucent, like her own. The little girl smiled, and the scream in Alison’s throat vanished. A name flickered in her mind—Mary

  Alison took a step toward the open door, but Mary pointed to the end of the hallway. Another trick? Mary gave her hand a gentle squeeze. Her touch was feather-light. Cold. Yet Alison sensed neither malice nor cruelty. When they passed the doorway, Alison caught a glimpse of a dark shape and a flash of light. Heard a sharp pop.

  Then Mary tugged her away again. They came to a stop at the last door. Mary nodded.

  “Okay,” Alison said.

  Together, they went through the door. Alison’s vision blurred; her bones chilled.

  They walk in, their faces indiscernible behind masks, scalpels in their hands, drugs in the bag by the bed. Sleep now, they say. We’re here to help you. Straining against the pain. Hold on, just hold on, they say—

  On the other side, the voices in Alison’s head slipped away. She tried to pull the memory back, but it was slippery

  like blood and scar tissue

  and fell through her grasp. She groaned. Mary clutched her arm and placed one finger to her lips.

  Inside the room, curls of unmoving smoke hung from the ceiling in stalactites. Alison brushed her hand through the nearest one; the smoked swirled then reformed. Mary pointed to the wall, to a series of framed photographs.

  Some of the faces behind the glass were familiar: Rachel, Thomas, Josephine, Madeline, and several others she’d seen at the party. But the photos held secrets, too, dark secrets the party concealed: Rachel wearing a sweater with the cuffs pinned over a space where hands should be; Thomas slumped in a wheelchair; Josephine in a dress that couldn’t hide the jutting bones and skeletally thin limbs; Madeline hunched over, her spine distorted, her hands lumpy claws.

  Alison’s fingers slipped through the glass covering Rachel’s photo, but she didn’t need to worry about broken glass and broken skin, because her fingers went into the picture and it was—

  An accident. A terrible accident. It could have happened to anyone, but Rachel had studied at Peabody and everyone knew how well she played. She was a rising star, going up and up, and then the car, the tangled metal, the pain, the quick slip of metal into skin, parting flesh from bone and bone from bone, and there were no more pianos, no more music, no more smiles. Until he took her in and gave her back her hands, gave her back her music, then made her play until her fingers bled, but she played because the pain was worth it, so, so worth it and one day, she didn’t come back, but she had her music, she didn’t need to come back, there was nothing to come back to.

  Alison drew her hand back with a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. Mary tugged on her skirt, her mouth turned down into a frown, and pointed at the last photo in the bottom row. No, Alison didn’t want to look at that photo. Not at all. That photo was a nightmare, a woman, her face heavily scarred, scarred into a sideshow freak, a—

  “Monstergirl,” she said.

  She touched Thomas’s instead and—

  She was gone for good. His brother had told him she would leave. She loves me, Thomas had told him. It’s not enough, his brother had said. And his brother was right. He’d thought she loved him enough and not just his money, but it wasn’t enough. There wasn’t enough money in the world to make her stay. He tried to make her happy and pretended not to notice the way her eyes moved away.

  Then he came and the promise was too good to resist. He could walk again, and if he could walk, then he was whole. He wasn’t the enemy. The enemy’s name was Multiple Sclerosis, and it was taking Thomas apart a little more each day.

  But she left, even after he told her. She didn’t believe him and wouldn’t wait to see it for herself. A daydream, she called it. But it wasn’t a daydream, it was real, and after she left, he had nothing. So he stayed because inside he was whole—

  Too much pain. Too much suffering.

  He was weak, a voice said. They were all weak.

  Mary pointed to the nightmare photo, then to Alison and back again. With a sigh, Alison took a closer look. The sorrow and the hurt on the woman’s face was

  weak

  pitiful. And her eyes, something about her eyes, one peeking out from normal, whole skin; the other, sticking out from a nest of scars.

  Ugly girl, what an ugly girl.

  Alison didn’t want to touch the photo. Didn’t want to know. But she knew she had to.

  Her fingers slipped through the glass.

  She walked alone at night, alone so no one would see, because when they saw her, they pointed and murmured behind their hands. She was ugly, yes, an ugly little Monstergirl. Fire and smoke and ugly and broken. In hiding and in pain, with the windows shut and the curtains closed. No sunlight. No friends. No one but her and the faces of strangers to keep her company, and in the dark, she went outside, walking to nowhere. There was nowhere to go, but back in her house, her prison, with her scars and her sorrow and her pity.

  And then she went in, inside, he took her and made her whole again with all her finger piggies in a row and a face that anyone would love—

  Alison wrenched her hand from the picture, breathing hard, breathing hurt. “It was me,” she said, her voice the sound of broken glass ground in a fist. And everything rushed back in. Her house, her face, the fire, her mother, her isolation, her fear, the junk shop, the album, George’s album, in the front window. All of the real waited for her on the other side of the clock—the doorway. She put her face in her hands.

  Mary patted her arm. A whisper caught in the air. “Sorry.”

  From below, a round of applause broke out, cheers of “Hurrah”, then a woman’s voice. “Again, again.” Piano notes began to play.

  The floor shivered beneath her feet, footsteps thumped down the hallway, and Mary’s mouth dropped open. In a blur of grey, she grabbed Alison’s arm and guided her toward the wall, but Alison shook her head. Mary let go of her hand, slipped into the wall, and disappeared just as the door swung open with a loud creak. George laughed, low and husky.

  Alison took a deep breath, armed with her self, and turned to face the tiger.

  George wore a hungry grin on his face.

  “You’re looking a little…pale, my dear.”

  “I’m not your dear,” Alison said. “
I know what you did to them, to Elizabeth and William, Mary and Eleanor…and Edmund. You killed them. You killed them all and trapped them here in the house.”

  His smile grew wider.

  “I’m not staying here. With you, with them,” she nodded toward the wall.

  “Haven’t you realized that it’s too late for that? You were so willing to give up everything to be whole. Now you’re whole. Eventually you’ll forget about everything else, and you’ll be far happier here than you could ever be hiding in your house with your scars and your ugliness.”

  “You call this whole?”

  His eyes flashed with mirth. “Whole enough, yes. Your scars are gone. I gave you what you wanted, what you asked for. I gave them all what they asked for. None of them had a real life before. Do you think they’d want what that life would offer?” He waved a hand toward the photos. “Now they have parties and music and dancing. Now they’re whole, which was all they wanted. All you wanted. You said, “Let me in and make me whole,” did you not? And I’ve been waiting for someone like you for a very long time.”

  “Someone like me?”

  “Yes. Such exquisite pain, such perfect sorrow. It’s quite extraordinary. You truly are special. Every minute of your existence is a tortured one. The fire took so much from you. Your face, your fiancé, everything.”

  “How do you know about that? How do you know anything at all?”

  “I know everything, Monstergirl.”

  “But that’s—”

  “You gave it to me when you entered the house. Every bit of it.”

  “And if I’d been whole?”

  “Oh come now, you aren’t stupid. Naïve, perhaps, but not stupid. If you’d been whole, the doorway would not have opened. You wouldn’t be here.”

  Because it doesn’t let anyone in who isn’t hurt. It doesn’t want anyone whole and happy. It can’t use them. It can’t feed off them. It needs pain and hurt. No flesh for this tiger, but meat nonetheless.

  “But here isn’t even a house anymore. The house burned down.” She let out a hoarse laugh. “It’s gone. This is just a bunch of old pictures in an old album.”

  “But photographs have a special power, don’t you agree? They can capture so many things. Sorrow, pain, life. A handful of lives kept and held. A handful of time forever preserved. Unchanging. Perfect in its simplicity, yet absolute in its possibility. Anyone and anything can live forever in a photograph. Even a house. And this house will never die. Never. I gave it far too much. I gave it life.”

  “No, you gave it death. You killed everyone in your family. Everyone. And all those people.” She waved her hand toward the photos. “You tricked them and you killed them, too.”

  “No, I did not. They’re all still here. You saw them.”

  “But it’s not life. It’s all a lie. If they knew, they would’ve never come.”

  “Perhaps not.” He shrugged. “Choices made, deeds done, prices paid. It will make it so much easier for you if you let it all go. Forget about the Monstergirl. Forget about your pain. Drink and dance and forget. I’m certain Thomas would not be adverse to sharing your bed. Tell me, would anyone ever do so otherwise? You can be happy here, Alison. No one will ever point and laugh at you again.”

  Her chest tightened. A part of her, a shameful, hateful part wanted to stay, wanted to be whole. It would be so easy to let herself believe him, to believe it was all for her, for their, benefit, and he knew it, but she didn’t think that the case at all. No, there was something more hidden in the gleam of his eyes.

  “What is it that you really want?”

  He merely smiled in reply and nodded toward the door. “Go then. You’ll be here a long time, you might as well enjoy yourself.”

  “No. I won’t stay here. I will find the way out.”

  “There is no way out. You belong to me now. You belong to Pennington House.”

  “I don’t belong to anyone but myself,” she said, but her voice trembled.

  “No?”

  Music notes played, soft and sweet. Then laughter. Voices. She took a step toward the door, toward the party, where she wouldn’t have to hide.

  “No,” she said.

  The music faded. The voices vanished. Tricks and games, nothing more.

  “You will not keep me here.”

  She turned to the photographs.

  My exquisite pain.

  George laughed, but some of the surety was missing.

  “You can’t have me. You can’t have my pain. I take it back.”

  She willed herself still. Empty. A place where nothing could touch her. She dug deep, under the pity and the anger and the sorrow that lived inside her skin, poisoning her self with every cutting word and thought. And how it all wanted to overflow and spill out, because the house, the tiger, wanted it so.

  She searched even deeper and thought of—

  Her mother, who always found something she thought Alison would like, a sweater, a book, a piece of Key Lime pie. All the times she called just to say hello and I love you. And her house, her tiny safety net, a perfect place for one.

  Dimly, Alison heard a shout, but it came from far away.

  She went further down, where the girl who wished on pennies and the first evening star still lived, the girl who loved to read and write poetry, whose favorite color was orange, who wore monkey pajamas and socks with cats and frogs and ladybugs…

  Being whole was more than a photograph’s image. It was power, strength, will. Inside, the coils that held her prisoner loosened and flickered away—vanishing streamers in a ghost parade. The house gave a gentle shake. The wood solidified under her feet. Her skin warmed, and she opened her eyes. George was gone. Her hands, though still grey, shimmered, as though lit from within. This time, her fingertips tingled, touched glass and wood. It was more than a photograph. It was a key, a tether from paper to real. And all doors had keys.

  With all the force she could muster, she lifted the picture over her head and threw it on the floor. The glass shattered into a thousand fragments. The frame bent, cracking and splitting at the seams. Instinct sent her down on one knee. She pried the photo free and ripped it in half.

  The house lurched, knocking her off balance. The smoke overhead winked out of sight. Her hand came down hard on the wood, barely missing a jagged splinter of glass, but it didn’t matter because the wood beneath her hand was firm and hard. And her skin gleamed, but not grey.

  The last of the cold inside her drained away. Long cracks appeared in George’s desk, filling with grime. The cushion of his desk chair let out a foul stinking cloud—old sweat, smoke, and mildew. Wallpaper bubbled and peeled, water spots appeared in the corners of the ceiling, and the floorboards warped and lifted. The scent of tobacco was replaced by the heaviness of age and forgotten memories.

  From somewhere deep within the house, a voice rose in outrage and then dwindled. Alison smiled and got to her feet; the chime of the clock shook the rafters. Right before her hand met the doorknob, the door swung open.

  Dust, cobwebs, and ruin held court in Pennington House now. She ran out into the hallway, the torn photo clutched in one hand. The fabric of her dress swished around her ankles, heavier and heavier with each step. Halfway down, she stopped to lift the satin, but it wouldn’t budge. She tugged harder. The fabric slipped through her fingers.

  The clock chimed for the second time.

  Dropping the photograph, she grabbed two thick handfuls of satin. The fabric clung to her hands, slick yet sticky, not exactly satin anymore. It wrapped around her legs, fastening her in place.

  “No,” she shrieked, ripping her hands free.

  The house would not win. It would not keep her prisoner. It would not. The edge of the skirt slipped into the floor, melting into the carpet. With a slippery wet sound, the carpet sucked in more of the skirt and pulled her down to her knees. She twisted her body from side to side. A third chime sounded.

  “You can’t have me!”

  She wrenched her body b
ack and forth. The fabric near her hip ripped. She jerked harder, flinging her body in every direction, tearing skin from her knees and straining the muscles of her back. And the rip expanded.

  “Can’t have me, can’t have me, can’t have me,” she said, the words thin and breathless.

  She yanked at the rip until it became an open slit. Her hands worked again, digging in. Now, a gaping mouth. And again. A wide hole. Again.

  The clock chimed.

  The fabric caught at the seam. The thread held tight as the floor swallowed a torn length. Alison grabbed the seam, one hand on each side, and with a snick-snick-snick of popping thread, it came loose. She laughed in triumph.

  “I’m free, do you hear me? I don’t belong to you.”

  She stepped from the ruined fabric, a mermaid rising from a silken sea, kicked off the delicate slippers the house had given her, and ran. At the landing, she glanced back, over her shoulder. The tattered remnants of her skirt lay on, not in, the carpet, a heap of shimmering blue against the dusty grey, the discarded shoes on their sides next to the pile. And on the floor, two scraps of torn paper.

  She ran back, careful not to touch anything else but the photo. Heard the clock.

  The skin of her knees burned and stung. Blood trickled down her legs. But it didn’t matter. What were a few more scars? Scraps of torn fabric fluttered around her hips and her bare feet left streak-prints in the grime as she ran down the stairs. She raced across the landing. Down the stairs leading down to the first floor, but she misjudged the distance and her entire body jolted forward. Her foot slid over the edge of the first step; her hands grabbed empty air. The photo fell from her hand, seesawing all the way.

  She pinwheeled her arms, yanked herself back, pulling her foot away from the edge as the clock chimed again. Her fingers found the banister and she stopped with a lurch. How many chimes so far? Six or seven, she thought, but she still had plenty of time.

  She found the first half of the photo mid-way down the stairs, scooped it up, and tucked it inside the front of her dress. The second half lay in the corner of the landing.

  The table in the foyer lay on its side, the wood cracked and gouged, the vase broken, dead flower petals scattered on the floor. As she sidestepped the table, a hand curled around her upper arm. Her scream pierced the quiet, but when she turned, no one was there, and the sensation of fingers digging into her skin vanished.