Paper Tigers

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Paper Tigers Page 18

by Damien Angelica Walters


  Think, think, she tells herself, but there’s no time to think. She has to get out. She wraps herself in a blanket and opens the door.

  Smoke stings her eyes and the thunder rolls in.

  And then the blanket is on fire and she is on fire because she opened the door and why did she open the door, only a stupid fool would make such a mistake, but she drops the blanket and then she hears the baby crying. The neighbors have two children, one a newborn. Are they trapped?

  The baby cries again. Why would they leave the baby? The door to their apartment is open and she runs in, runs through the smoke, pushes through the smoke, toward the crying. Down the hallway and there’s so much smoke, but the baby, the baby, the baby.

  She follows the cries to the last bedroom and there on the floor, not a baby, but a doll, and there’s no one else in the apartment, the baby is safe, they’re all safe, and she’s close to the front door but the ceiling falls and then everything is on fire, she’s on fire, and she smacks away the flames, but there are more and more and she screams, filling with smoke, filling with pain and she can’t see because everything is orangeredorangeredorangered and hurt and screaming shouts that taste like smoke and the wood creaks and groans and the walls shake and she has to get to the door, the front door, the only way out, and then she’ll be safe, away from the orangered.

  And sparks dance like fireflies in the air…

  CHAPTER 21

  On a cold February afternoon, with snowmelt dripping from the eaves, Alison curled up with a cup of hot chocolate, a fleece throw, and her homework. She was only taking three classes this semester but planned to take five in the fall; everything she needed for her degree was offered online by a local university.

  She rolled away the stiffness in her shoulders. In the months since she’d returned to the real world, returned for good, she’d had several appointments with Meredith. The first, filled with apologies and reparations, but no mention of the camera; Alison couldn’t quite bring herself to mention that. The second, with small sighs of disappointment, when Meredith pointed out the improvements in her scars had gone away, and fears that maybe she’d been mistaken.

  Yet Alison knew the truth. Once she’d severed ties with the paper world, all glamour and false hope vanished.

  She bent forward to set down the mug, and the sharp-sweet scent of tobacco hit her full on. She exhaled with a loud whoosh and dropped the mug on its side, ignoring the tiny chocolate pool that spilled out.

  No, no, no.

  Closing her eyes, she wrapped herself in white, but the smell crept in, sneaking like dark little fingers into her mind. She refused to believe it anything other than her imagination or maybe from somewhere in the neighborhood.

  But all the windows were shut. And the album was gone. The tobacco was strong enough to taste; strong enough to say it was not imagination. The heat clicked off, leaving behind silence. The missing pinkie on her right hand started to itch, and she curled the remaining fingers toward her palm. Purple coils she’d nearly forgotten came to life, and with the fear holding her heart a heavy prisoner inside her chest, she turned her head slowly from left to right and back again, terrified to look, too afraid not to.

  No smoke hovered in the air.

  A neighbor slammed a door, the sound reverberating through the connecting wall. Alison jumped. Pressed her fingers to her temples.

  The sleeve of her shirt slid back, revealing her right arm up to the elbow. In the light, the scars were slashes of sickly color.

  Ugly, ugly, ugly.

  The words snuck in before she could stop them.

  “Knock it off,” she said and yanked the sleeve back into place.

  She stomped into the kitchen. Refilled her mug and grabbed a handful of paper towels. Then she saw the scrap of paper, a square shape with torn edges, on the floor near the base of a cabinet. She bent close; the ruined side of her own face peered back. Despite its small size, the paper reeked of tobacco.

  With a shuddering sigh, she dropped the photo into the trash can. It turned end over end before it landed with the white side down, and a tiny thought burrowed deep. She’d thrown all the pieces away.

  It was conceivable that one piece had fallen from her hand in the process, yes, it was rationally conceivable. She’d been wearing gloves; she might not have felt it fall, but how many times had she walked through her living room and kitchen since then? Too many to count. Unless the scrap of photo had stuck to her shoe or sock and traveled into the kitchen, but even then…

  No. It was over and done with. All of it. The album was gone.

  Alison watched through the peephole as a man in a brown uniform approached her house. She flipped her hair over the side of her face, and if he noticed her shaking hands or her missing fingers when he handed over the package, he gave no sign. She kept her chin tucked, though, and when she closed the door, she grimaced. She should’ve looked up, not down. Well, there was always a next time.

  She carried the box, as long as her forearm in length and half that in width, into the kitchen and split the packing tape carefully with a knife. Inside sat another box, this one wrapped in shiny gold paper and topped with a dark blue bow. Her mother said she’d sent a present, and despite Alison’s prodding, refused to give out any details other than that.

  A tiny notecard affixed by the bow read:

  Alison,

  I found these and couldn’t resist. I know your birthday is still a month away, but I’d like to take you to dinner that night, if you think you’re up to it.

  Love,

  Mom

  Inside the box, beneath a mound of tissue paper, she found a pair of pink flannel pajamas adorned with smiling cat faces. They were completely silly and utterly fantastic. Beneath the pajamas was a dress. She held it against her; the rich blue fabric hung in folds, and the cut would cover most of her scars. Then she spied a smaller box, half-hidden in the paper with another note attached.

  I read some good things about this and thought you might want to try it. If not, throw it out and we’ll never speak of it again.

  She immediately recognized the brand name of the makeup. Her mother had mentioned it once before. She’d snapped back that it wouldn’t help and refused to listen to anything else about it, but that was before she understood that being whole meant acceptance, not wallowing in a stinking vat of self-pity. The makeup came with a compact of setting powder. She held it in her hands, turning it over and over. Unhinged the clasp, caught a glimpse of the mirror within, and snapped it shut.

  She thought of the girl in the hospital and the nurse with the mirror. She remembered how it felt to see what she’d become; how her world crumbled, how she fell apart.

  But she wasn’t that girl anymore.

  The scars were every bit as terrible as she remembered. She dropped the compact in her lap and cried into her hands. When her tears were spent, she took a deep breath, and tried again. This time, the scars were not nearly as terrible as she feared. She was still human, still of worth, still Alison. Not a Monstergirl. Simply someone who’d been in a terrible accident.

  In the picture, the wig was close to her natural hair color, and Alison held her lower lip between her teeth. The wig was expensive, and although synthetic, it resembled real hair far more than the cheaper options. She tapped the edge of her laptop, exhaled through her nose, and placed the order. If it looked terrible, she could always send it back and try another one.

  Then she heard the rolling noise overhead. She cocked her head to the side, listening. Sometimes the heating vents rattled, but this sound was oddly rhythmic. It grew louder and as she got up from the sofa, a new noise took its place. An almost metallic tap. Then another. Coming from the stairs, coming down the stairs.

  She cupped her elbows in her palms and crossed the room. The tap came again. She didn’t want to look because it was the sound of something wrong, but she was neither coward nor child, and although she’d run from the ghosts and the tiger, she wouldn’t run from a sound in her own
house. She would not.

  The old-fashioned round glass eye traveled up and down in an improbable arc, the same height each time, as it bounced down the steps. With each bounce, it spun to reveal a flash of iris, a glimpse of pupil. Never mind that she threw it away; never mind that it should not be in her house; never mind that it should not be at all.

  From deep within the tapping sound, the tiger’s voice said, “Do you see me? I see you? Come back so we can all see you.”

  She backed away from the stairs as the eye bounced off the last step, rolled in a wide circle, and came to a stop at the edge of the landing, hovering without a wobble with the iris-side facing out. Facing her.

  If she picked it up and put it in, would it tease her by taking the scars away? She thought it would. If it held enough glamour to come back, it would hold enough glamour to make her feel whole. At least for a moment or two. A final bite from the tiger to say, “See what you gave up?”

  With a snarl twisting her mouth, she put on her snow boots, gloves, a warm coat, and a scarf and grabbed the eye.

  “We’re still here and we’re waiting,” it said.

  She shoved it deep in her pocket and the voice turned to muffled nonsense.

  “Go back wherever you came from and leave me the hell alone,” she said.

  She trudged out into the slushy snow as the last traces of the day bled into the night. Wind chimes pealed a jangle of music into the growing dark, and her skin broke out in goosebumps.

  Her cheeks burned but she kept on, neither counting her steps nor giving the street signs anything but cursory glances. A few people hurried by, but they paid no attention to the

  Monstergirl

  girl bundled against the cold because they had their own paths to make, their own ways to go.

  I have miles to go before I weep. Before I scream.

  A knot grew in the center of her chest and the air pushed a cold trail deep into her lungs. Dimly, she heard her mother saying, “Slow down. You’ll make yourself sick,” but it might have been her own voice playing charades. Either way, she didn’t slow down.

  Pausing to catch her breath, she wasn’t surprised to find herself standing in front of Elena’s Antiques. Every ending had a beginning; every beginning had to end.

  At the end of the block she turned into an alley awash in weak yellow light from the lamp on the corner. Not bothering to keep her steps quiet, she splashed dirty snow this way and that.

  Finally, she reached the back of Elena’s stupid store of useless junk. There were no windows, only a wide wall of brick. A row of trash bags sat next to the back door, and she caught a whiff of wet paper and old food. She fished the eye from her pocket.

  “Come back and—”

  She didn’t let it finish, but put all her weight into an overhand throw. The eye whistled through the air, carrying one word along its path.

  “…see…”

  It struck the brick, and she held her breath, waiting for it to bounce off and land in the snow near the trash bags. And maybe roll back to her feet. Would it be a surprise? No more than it rolling down her stairs had been.

  But the eye shattered with a sharp tinkle of glittering glass. The pieces fell down, pattered on the plastic bags, and tumbled into the snow. Alison shoved her hands in her pockets and watched until the muck swallowed every last one.

  Covered with makeup, a scarf worn Audrey Hepburn-style, and a turtleneck with sleeves long enough to cover half her fingers (at least she had fingers and hands and not bloody stumps), Alison sat with her mother at a small neighborhood café. They’d come well after the lunch rush, and their table in the back, away from the windows, was one of only three that were occupied.

  She held the menu in her hands, but ribbons of violet lashed at her insides and blurred the words. She told herself having lunch in a café, in public, was the reason, and yes, perhaps it held some of the blame, but not all. The bigger reason was the question in her mind, the question she’d avoided last night.

  How did the eye come back?

  It didn’t fall out of the trash bag and roll its way back into her house. It wasn’t even real. But the weight of it in her pocket had been real enough along with the way the glass shattered. If it could come back, could something else from the paper world do the same? What about the torn piece of photo? Perhaps it hadn’t fallen from her hand. Perhaps it, too, had returned. And if so—

  “Alison?”

  She put down the menu. “Yes?”

  “You didn’t even hear what I said, did you?”

  “No, sorry, Mom. I was trying to decide what I want.”

  “Is everything okay?” The skin between her mother’s brow creased. “You have circles under your eyes.”

  There was no need for her mother to ask that question. Of course everything was okay. She’d had a restless night. She was allowed to have a restless night. It was the eye’s fault, not hers. And now she’d taken care of that. Broken bits of glass couldn’t roll and bounce down her stairs.

  Perhaps she should tell her mom what happened and as an aside, add the rest of the story, tigers and all. Then she wouldn’t ask if everything was okay. She’d be on the phone calling Dr. Simon and perhaps discussing medication or a lengthy hospital stay because anyone who thought they could go inside a photo album must be delusional.

  Tell that to the tiger. Or the eye, for that matter.

  Something must have shown on her face, because her mother drew back and offered a tentative smile. “You seem distracted, that’s all.”

  “No, I’m fine.”

  Her mother gave a small nod. “Are you okay, being here? We can go if you like.”

  “No. I don’t want to go.”

  The lie left a bad taste in her mouth.

  Alison tipped her chin down as a busboy filled their water glasses. After he left, her mother leaned forward.

  “The makeup looks very nice. You can barely see it.”

  Alison smiled on the outside and cringed on the in.

  The next night, after a long bath, Alison wrapped herself in pajamas and robe and padded downstairs on slippered feet. When she stepped into the kitchen, the stink of rotting flowers overpowered her, flooding her mouth with the taste of dead petals and rancid water.

  And there on the counter sat the photo album with its cover open in an unspoken invitation. She backed into the doorway, both hands over her mouth. Bile rose in her throat.

  The album…

  no

  The album was…

  no

  The album was back. Tiny hitching moans crept from between her fingers and could she hear it calling her name? Yes, yes, of course.

  “Alison, come back,” it said. “We’re waiting.”

  Her heart pounding, she moved closer, not wanting to, but unable to resist because it called, oh how it called, and she stepped closer still. She closed her eyes tight. If the album had magicked its way back to her, drawn mothlike to her

  pain

  flame in the same way she’d been drawn into its false promises, maybe she could send it away again.

  “I don’t need you anymore,” she said. “I don’t want you.”

  She envisioned white calm. White peace. Nothing inside her but white. When she opened her eyes, the album remained.

  Tears gathered in the corner of her eye, but only the one, because only one was a good eye, the other was still an empty socket disguised with a painted piece of plastic—

  Stop, a voice commanded, all fury and scarlet.

  She took a deep breath, then another. She had to get rid of the album. For good, this time.

  And what if it comes back again? Purple said.

  She laughed, a harsh, brittle sound. “It won’t. Not this time.” She pulled out her rubber gloves and a pair of scissors, the blades shiny-sharp in the light.

  “Please come back,” the album said, in Thomas’ voice.

  “Say all you want. You’re a liar like the rest of them,” Alison muttered.

  The
inscription on the first page was a smear of indigo again. She aimed her first cut at the corner, her fingers awkward inside the glove. The paper resisted the scissor’s blades, creasing instead of splitting. She stripped off the glove, bit her bottom lip, and gripped the handle of the scissors tighter. The blades met with a small snick and a triangle shaped piece gave way.

  “Come back, come back,” the album wailed. This time, Mary’s voice sang out, innocent and sweet.

  Alison snipped off another piece, and the inscription on the album changed, the letters darkening into view.

  “Please, Alison, come back,” Mary said again, weeping. “I’m scared.”

  “I can’t help you. You’re dead.”

  With her lips pressed together tight, Alison wielded the scissors again. She attacked the paper, the blades flashing and snapping as they ate away the words, and in a few minutes, the page was a small pile of ink-stained scraps on the counter.

  Breathing hard, she looked down at George’s face. His eyes were no longer somber. Rage hid inside. A fury to match her own. She lifted the scissors high and stabbed his photo. One blade went through his eye, the other his cheek. A grey swirl of smoke stung her eye, and she brushed it away. She cut and cut and cut, absolute destruction her only goal. More smoke curled into the air. A distant roar of anger competed with her harsh breaths. Crimson burned bright within her chest.

  A filmy cloud hovered over the page, her fingers and hand aching, but she didn’t stop. She cut until George was gone, nudged the pieces out of the way, and started on the next photo—the house. The photo gave off a dead flower stink, the rose bushes in front drooped, the petals withered, and butterflies lay dead on the ground below.

  She cut through the tall windows of the top floor turret room first and the sound of breaking glass held a musical trill. Snip-crack, snip-crack. A few more cuts and the house appeared a victim of some strange decapitation.

  “Come, Josephine,” she sang, her voice all rusty nails and rapid breaths.

 

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