When Rose Wakes

by Christopher Golden

  He shuddered as though something gave way in him and at last he kissed her back with the urgency that had been in him that day in the chem lab. His hands explored her as though unsure where to begin, at first beginning to unbutton her shirt and then running along her bare legs and gliding up under her skirt. Her aunts’ many warnings began to echo in her head like alarm bells, but she didn’t want to hear them. Whatever morality she was supposed to have, whatever sense of right or wrong, perhaps she had lost it with her memory, because all she knew in that moment was that this felt more right and real and good than anything since she had woken into the world as a blank slate.

  Her phone rang.

  At first the music didn’t register. It was her ring tone, yes, but her phone was off. She knew for certain she had turned it off. But then she forced herself to pull back from Jared and listen. Her phone was in the pouch of her sweatshirt, which hung over the back of his desk chair, and despite being off, it was ringing.

  He kissed her, hooked one hand behind her knee, and tried to roll her on top of him.

  Rose pulled away. “Wait.”

  Jared reached for her again, but she pushed herself out of reach.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “My phone,” she said, climbing off the bed and going to fetch it from her sweatshirt.

  “Don’t answer,” he said.

  “I have to,” she replied. “I didn’t even think… Kylie would have told someone. The school might have called them. I just wasn’t thinking.”

  She didn’t tell him that she had turned the phone off. Maybe she had done it wrong and left it on by accident. Of course, that had to be it. Or she was still imagining things. But she hadn’t imagined Jared; she knew that much. Not his kiss. Not his hands.

  “Hello?” she said.

  “Rose. Oh, thank goodness,” Aunt Suzette said. “Where are you?”

  She looked at Jared, saw the disappointment in his face. His eyes were narrowed with anger, tinged with petulance.

  “I stopped for coffee,” Rose lied, trying to apologize to Jared with only her eyes. She gave him a wistful smile. “I needed something warm.”

  He sighed and lay back on the bed.

  “Your chorus teacher called,” Aunt Suzette said, halfway between worry and panic. “She said you’d been hurt. That you’d… hurt yourself.”

  Rose closed her eyes, a sick feeling in her belly. So Kylie and Dom hadn’t found Courtney hiding in the bathroom after she left. Of course not. That idea had never seemed likely.

  “I’m okay,” she said.

  “Come home, Rose. We want to know what happened today. We want to talk with you. Where are you? We’ll come and meet you.”

  Rose let out a long breath and looked at Jared with regret. “No need. I’ll leave now.”

  “I think we really ought to—”

  “I’ll be fine, Auntie,” Rose interrupted. “Really. I’ll be there soon.”

  As she hung up the phone, she glanced at herself in Jared’s mirror. Her hair, normally so bright, was still dark and wet and stringy. Blood had dried at the roots above the wound on her forehead and on the wound itself. At least she wasn’t still as pale as she’d been earlier. Her cheeks had a healthy pink glow, flush from being entangled with Jared on his bed. But that would fade, now that she had to leave.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, spotting him behind her in the mirror. She turned to face him as he rose from the bed. “I shouldn’t have started that.”

  “Not if you were going to run away in the middle,” he said, unsmiling.

  The look on his face was like ice around her heart. “I said I’m sorry. I just… I got carried away.”

  He looked at her as if he were about to say something hurtful, but then he let out a long breath and a tired smile appeared.

  “It’s okay. I just wish you didn’t have to go.”

  “Me, too.”

  “You want to clean up a little first?”

  She nodded. “Can I use your bathroom?”

  An awkward tension breathed and flexed between them as he led her into the hall and showed her the bathroom. Rose wanted to say something more, but didn’t have the first clue what words would defuse the moment, so she said nothing.

  In the bathroom, she borrowed someone’s brush and did her best to fix her hair. She dampened a face cloth and cleaned the wound off. From the hall, Jared watched her and offered a Band-Aid, but if she took him up on it then she would have to explain to her aunts where she had gotten it, so she declined.

  When she had done what little she could manage in a few minutes to improve her appearance, she went back to his room and put on her sweatshirt, hating its clinging dampness. She wished she could go back to the school and get her backpack and jacket and umbrella, but there was no way she would return there alone.

  Jared walked her down to the front door and opened it for her. The sky remained dark but the rain had ended, at least for the moment.

  “Do you want me to walk you?” he asked.

  “Better not,” she said, silently hoping he would insist. Her aunts would freak if he escorted her home, but he could walk her part of the way.

  “You sure?” he asked, frowning, turning as though to look for his coat.

  “Yeah,” she said, surprising herself with the answer. As frightened as she was of something else happening—of Courtney suddenly appearing from nowhere—and as unsure about the reliability of the world around her, her fear made her angry. The desire for protection grated on her. Whatever had happened in the bathroom at St. Bridget’s, she had fought back. She might be wary and confused, but she knew she couldn’t cower inside or hide behind a guy.

  “I’ll be fine,” she said.

  Then she kissed him quickly on the cheek, muttered another apology, and left him there in the doorway. She hoped he was watching her go but she didn’t turn around because the temptation to change her mind, to ask him to come along, might be too much. Brave as she wanted to be, now that she was out on the street, she watched every errant, skittering leaf with suspicion and held her breath with every gust of wind.

  Still cold and wet despite the rain stopping, Rose hurried anxiously along the sidewalk on the south side of Beacon Street, just a few blocks from where she would need to cross to go up the hill to get home. A dog began barking off to her right in the Public Garden. Startled, she turned to look through the wrought-iron fence, and fear shot through her.

  On a path just inside the fence, the pale woman paced, wet leaves dancing around her feet.

  Rose’s breath caught. Not now, she thought. Whoever you are, I can’t do this now.

  Rose quickened her pace and the pale woman followed suit. She looked at Rose with her golden eyes and Rose felt like she might scream. Did anyone else see the woman? Was she even really there? A quick glance ahead and she saw an opening in the fence, an arched gate that led into the Public Garden, and she hurried a little faster, on the verge of breaking into a run, hysteria bubbling inside her.

  Kylie saw her in the T station that night, she remembered.

  Which meant the pale woman was real.

  Rose clenched both hands into fists and began to run. But she had changed her mind now. She didn’t even try to cross the street. Seeing her twice might have been a coincidence, but not three times. The woman had been watching her, stalking her, and Rose needed to know why. There were too many things she did not know, too many questions, and all that mattered to her now were answers.

  She reached the gate at the same moment as the pale woman. They came to a stop on either side of the archway, Rose on the sidewalk and the woman in the Public Garden, staring at each other. Even in the gray gloom after the storm, the woman’s golden eyes gleamed.

  “Why are you following me?” Rose snapped.

  The woman cocked her head, almost birdlike, and gazed at her as if she were a fantastic gift, wrapped in shiny Christmas paper.

  “You look so like your mother.”

  Rose flinc
hed, narrowing her eyes. “Who the hell are you?”

  The pale woman pouted like a clown feigning sadness. “Naughty Suzette and Nasty Fay. They should’ve told you.”

  “Told me—”

  “I have been watching you, Rose. Waiting for the right moment to introduce myself… waiting for a moment when you might be unwatched. You’ve been difficult to get to, so I had to resort to other means. Really, it would have been more poetic if you had succumbed to temptation but, frankly, it’s just taking too much time. And I think I’ve waited long enough, don’t you?”

  Rose’s skin prickled with fear, but she wouldn’t run. She’d had enough of being afraid.

  “Long enough for what?” she shouted. An older couple walking their dog muttered in disapproval but didn’t stop.

  The pale woman frowned. “What do you think, stupid girl? For you to die.”

  Too swiftly for Rose to escape, the pale woman reached out and grabbed her by the hair. As if from nowhere, a dagger appeared in her hand, silver gleaming in the gray daylight so that it looked almost as if the blade were forged of water.

  “No—” Rose gasped as her head was tilted back and she was dragged toward the woman. How can she be this strong?

  The tip of the dagger pressed into her throat, cold as ice, and punctured her flesh. She felt the heat of her own blood tracing a course down her neck and over her collarbone, and knew that if she moved at all, the blade would slice her open.

  “Please,” she whispered. “Why?”

  The pale woman bent forward and kissed her on the temple. “Why? You’re precious, girl. Truly. You still don’t know who I am?”

  “My memory…” Rose said, eyes darting around, spotting a trio of tourists across the street, probably headed to Cheers. Cars went by, but no one stopped. Why didn’t they help? Why couldn’t they see?

  “You really don’t remember your dear aunt Maurelle?” the pale woman said, the knife slipping a millimeter deeper, drawing a fresh rivulet of blood.

  Maurelle. Rose closed her eyes. Impossible. But that word sounded empty and powerless in her mind. How could a girl who remembered nothing of the world call anything impossible?

  “You’re her,” she whispered. “You’re the Black Heart.”

  Maurelle tightened her grip in Rose’s hair and shook her, pulling the dagger back. Rose’s eyes went wide as Maurelle pushed her face in so they were nearly nose to nose.

  “If my heart is black, it was your father who made it that way.”

  “I don’t understand!” Rose cried.

  “You don’t have to,” Maurelle sneered. “This isn’t for you. It’s for me.”

  With a yank and a twist, she forced Rose to her knees on the sidewalk, tore her head back to bear her throat anew, and swept the dagger toward her.

  A black shape darted down from the sky and struck Maurelle’s face. The pale woman screamed as a second one struck her, and only then did Rose see the wings fluttering, talons grabbing flesh.

  Crows.

  They had struck in silence but they began to caw as a third and fourth attacked, landing in Maurelle’s hair, clawing at her scalp and face. The woman screamed and beat at them, releasing her hold on Rose. Maurelle got one of the crows in her grip and snapped its neck, dropping the pile of black feathers onto the sidewalk.

  Rose staggered back and stumbled off the curb. A car horn blared but she could not tear her gaze from the sight, as more crows dove from the trees above and glided down from the storm-swollen sky, pecking and clawing at Maurelle’s arms and face and tearing at her clothes and hair. The pale woman screamed in fury, trying to tear them off.

  The birds drove her up against the wrought-iron gate, and the moment Maurelle struck it, she screamed and thrashed, pulling away from the metal even as she fell to her knees, momentarily weakened and disoriented.

  What the hell— Rose thought.

  “Run,” a voice rasped, and a breathless Rose stared, sure it had come from one of the birds.

  “She won’t!” Maurelle cried. “She’ll die!”

  Rose began to turn, watching for a break in traffic, but out of the corner of her eyes she saw Maurelle stand and raise her left hand and snap her wrist, flicking her fingers open as though releasing something she’d held captive. A wave of gloom darker than the storm seemed to blossom from her hand, enveloping Rose, who found herself suddenly bathed in night-black darkness, the ground beneath her strangely unsteady. Frantic, she tore at the air around her face, thinking that she could rip away whatever cloud Maurelle had draped her in. She touched her eyes, rubbed at them, tried to get her vision to clear, but all the while her balance kept shifting and she listed from side to side as though she were trying to cross the deck of a ship in high seas, not an ordinary city street.

  “I need to see!” she shouted, pressing her hands over her eyes.

  When she lowered them, the darkness had lifted from her sight just in time for her to see the taxi hurtling toward her. Rose locked eyes with the driver, saw his own fear as he jerked back against his seat, slamming on the brakes. His tires squealed on the rain-slicked pavement and the cab slewed sideways, the driver’s door slamming into Rose and knocking her off her feet. Her skull hit the road and a different darkness descended.

  It lasted only seconds.

  “Jesus, honey, are you okay? What are you doin’? You drunk or somethin’?” the taxi driver babbled. “Come on, sweetheart, open your eyes.”

  Rose did.

  “Oh, thank God,” the cabbie said. He knelt beside her, an old man who smelled of stale beer, cigarettes, and yesterday’s cologne. “You okay, kid?”

  Rose sat up fast and looked around, but saw no sign of Maurelle or of the crows. No sign at all that she had been attacked and driven into the street instead of just running out into traffic like a fool.

  “Careful, hon. Way you hit your head, maybe you got a concussion. Take it easy, okay? Damn, how’d you cut your neck like that?”

  The taxi driver shifted his head slightly. Behind him, a single large crow perched on the roof of the cab. The bird cawed once, startling the driver, who got up and tried to shoo it away, but the crow did not budge.

  “What the hell?” the cabbie muttered.

  Rose climbed shakily to her feet. “I’m grateful,” she said. “It’s not that I’m not grateful. But you’ve got to tell me what’s really happening. Who are you? Who the hell am I?”

  She cried this last with such anguish that the taxi driver stared at her for several seconds, at a total loss, before he ventured a reply.

  “I’m Eddie. Eddie Czajak. But I’m sorry, kid, I got no idea who—”

  Rose pushed past him, rushing at the cab, and at the crow who sat atop it. “Talk to me!” she screamed.

  Eddie Czajak muttered something under his breath that sounded quite a bit like a prayer. Then he took her arm.

  “Listen, why don’t you get in the cab and I’ll take you over to Mass General? Or maybe it’s better if I call an ambulance,” he said, almost to himself. Then he changed his mind. “Nah, you better get in.”

  A cry filled the air as the crow took flight and at first Rose thought it had come from the bird. Then she looked across the street and saw Aunt Suzette and Aunt Fay running toward her, ignoring a man who’d pulled his car over to see what was wrong. Aunt Suzette moved faster than any woman her size ought to be able to.

  “Rose!” Aunt Suzette called, tears rolling down her face. “Oh, Rose.”

  She grabbed Rose in her arms and crushed her in a panicked embrace. Rose couldn’t breathe.

  “Lady, I’m sorry,” Eddie Czajak started to say.

  “Suzette!” Aunt Fay snapped. “Leave the girl alone. You’re suffocating her.”

  Aunt Suzette released her, pulled back and studied her face, then clucked in concern over the wound on her throat.

  “Maurelle,” Rose said, as if that explained everything.

  Perhaps it did. Aunt Suzette only nodded, lips pressed together in a tight white
line. Aunt Fay scanned the area as if searching to make sure the Black Heart had truly been driven off.

  “Enough, Suzette,” Aunt Fay said, separating the two of them. She looked at Rose. “Let’s get you home.”

  Rose slapped her so hard that blood flew from Aunt Fay’s nose. Rose’s hand stung and began to throb immediately, but she ignored it.

  “You lied to me!” she screamed. “You said they were just dreams!”

  Pain and sadness brimmed in Aunt Fay’s eyes. She looked at Eddie Czajak and then at the man hovering nearby on his cell phone. Rose thought he was probably calling the police.

  “Not here,” Aunt Fay said. “Come home. You’ll be safe there, at least for now.”

  Rose clenched her fist, hating the sting of what she’d done but tempted to do it again.

  Then Aunt Suzette touched her arm. “Please?”

  Rose looked at Eddie Czajak. “You can’t just walk away from this,” she said.

  Aunt Suzette nodded. “Yet we are.” She touched the cabdriver’s wrist and the man’s eyes clouded over. He looked around in confusion. “Are you all right, sir?” Aunt Suzette asked. “You’re blocking traffic.”

  Eddie Czajak looked back to see the half-dozen cars trying to make their way around his sideways cab as though he had no idea how the situation had come about. He started to ask for an explanation, but Aunt Suzette led Rose hurriedly away across the street. Aunt Fay put on a false smile and approached the man with the cell phone, whose eyes glazed over the moment she touched him. He looked at his phone as though surprised to find it in his hand.

  Rose’s aunts flanked her, glancing around warily as they escorted her up the hill toward Acorn Street. She almost hung back, almost refused to go with them, but it seemed clear that they would not speak openly until the three of them had reached the apartment, and so Rose went along in grim silence. If that was the price she had to pay for answers, it would be more than worth it.

  Rose sat at the little table by the window in the kitchen, the lights somehow unable to brighten the room. The heavy gray skies beyond the glass leeched all color from the surroundings as though the bleakest of January days had snuck itself into the middle of October.