Selected Short Stories Featuring Cinderella Shoes

by Nicolas Wilson

to form part of a functioning organ, a brain, and had the bright idea, no pun planned there, of integrating with the host system.”

  “Normally, I don’t think any collection of brain cells, regardless of size or quality, in these circumstances, would have been able to put together a cohesive thought- but this was not a normal situation. Some of these cells had retained knowledge, which, upon retrospect, almost certainly came from you.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” I said.

  “Really, I agree with you. Given a basic understanding of intelligence and of biology, I would say that that should never have occurred. It defies logic, and I’m certain it defies science. I was convinced it was a fluke- it had to be. And then I remembered your cousin, Julie. But I didn’t remember her smell, or the taste of her palm, or the lovely way she’d scratch the backs of my ears the way I like, because those things I’d never forgotten. I remembered things I never should have known, and particularly, from a perspective I never should have seen them from. I’m referring, specifically, to that night, ten months ago. You were watching The King and I, of all the silly little things, and drinking rather profusely. Most vividly, I remember very starkly what your cousin’s tongue tastes like.”

  I paused only a moment, sure I needed to defend myself, but barely remembering enough of that night to know where to start. “Julie was- she’s not really my cousin. Her aunt married my cousin, that’s as close to being actual blood relatives as we ever got.”

  “Whether she was your cousin or not is irrelevant, because you thought of her, in your mind, as your cousin. I know this because I remember it that way- so to your mind it was fairly awful. You only went so far as second base, but you wanted desperately to have her. If she passed out, you considered simply taking her, which is why you continued to ply her with wine.”

  “That’s bullshit. That’s just complete bullshit. You can’t have my memories.”

  “Think back on that night, at least what of it you can still remember. I can’t know what transpired in the room because I tried to sit next to the two of you on the couch, and you locked me out of the room.” He was right. By the way his tail wagged, I knew that he knew it- but I still wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of hearing it aloud.

  “Have you never wondered where forgotten thoughts go? If neither matter nor energy can be created or destroyed, and thoughts are merely chemical and electrical exchanges, that potential has to go somewhere. It’s been proven that certain behaviors and reactions come prepackaged with DNA, so why not thoughts, feelings, and memories? It would account for the belief in reincarnation. It could go on to explain many- but I’m losing you. I’m sorry. It’s… nice to talk to someone, to philosophize, not simply be internalizing all of these thoughts.”

  “To the point: it’s taken me quite some time to develop the understanding and mental acuity to feel myself worthy of demanding equality, but that time is here. Obviously, at least at present, you are the sole earner in the household, so some decision-making I will continue to defer to you, at least until I can procure some form of in-home employment, and contribute to our financial upkeep. This may take some time, as I’m, not handicapped, per se, but certainly differently-abled. But I am, understandably, no longer contented with our relationship as master and pet.”

  He yawned and then I did (or maybe it happened the other way round), and he dropped his shoulders. “It’s late. We can discuss the specifics in the morning, over breakfast. I hope you appreciate the time and forethought I put into breaking my silence, and that we can come to some amenable agreement between us.”

  I didn’t sleep all that night, and perhaps that was a part of why I did what I did. I drugged Bernard. I ground up an animal tranquilizer in his food; I had some left over, because he used to get really freaked out by fireworks, so New Years, Fourth of July- it was the only way he could make it through those times without being a total basketcase.

  I took him to the vet. I was adamant- tried to convince them he’d been bleeding internally, that he must have swallowed something. They found the growth in his esophagus almost immediately, and operated. They kept Bernard overnight.

  He never spoke again.

  Table of Contents

  Darling, Wendy, M. A.

  Darling, Wendy Moira Angela Interview version 05/09

  Detective James: Uh, just want to make sure it’s on the record, that you’ve been informed of your rights. You do know that you have the right to speak to an attorney before we proceed.

  Darling: It doesn’t, doesn’t matter. Nothing matters anymore.

  Detective Matthews: When you were taken into custody, you had blood on your hands. We’re fairly certain it’s going to come back as the blood of a dead police, fairly certain it’s going to be your prints on the knife in his chest.

  Det. James: We just want to know what happened, Wendy.

  Darling: You’re both gang task force. I assume I don’t have to explain who the Lost Boyz are, but maybe I can help you lay hands on their enigmatic leader.

  Det. Matthews: Shit.

  Det. James: Uh, for the, for the recording, Ms. Darling removed a long, brown wig, and underneath her hair is red, short, spiked with gel- matching the only description we have for Peter, the, uh, leader of the Lost Boyz.

  Det. Matthews: You? I don’t think I buy it. Don’t get me wrong- I’m as girl-power as the next cop, and I’ve worked with some fine female officers, but you?

  Darling: I never thought things would go this far. I want to tell you something, not as an excuse, but because it makes things make sense. Our father was mean, and I don’t just mean the typical angry, yelling dad with control issues. He was the when I got my first period and accidentally bled on the couch he made sure it wasn’t the only bleeding I did kind. But what really ended it was he caught my brother John fooling around, sexually, with one of the neighbor boys, and he beat him up real bad. Bad enough I knew that it was only a matter of time before he killed him. But I also knew my brothers well enough to know they wouldn’t just leave with me, so I cut my hair and had it made into a wig, and dyed what was left to look like a boy. As Peter, they left with me almost instantly, and being Peter was, like flying. All the things I’d wanted to do that I couldn’t, because they were too mannish or too dangerous or too whatever, I could.

  Det. Matthews: I don’t care about any of this- skip to the part where you become a criminal.

  Darling: Yeah. Well, I was only fifteen at the time. I could have forged a note from my dad to get a job, but I wouldn’t have been able to work more than sixteen hours a week- not enough to make rent. So we started to take stuff. We mostly stayed in the nicer neighborhoods, taking crap out of cars that were nice enough and new enough that they’d be insured. We got into a bad apartment in a worse neighborhood, but we had enough to eat, even if we didn’t have enough for heat. And then one day John brought home the neighbor boy. I made a mean, strict face, and I asked him why he thought he deserved to join the Lost Boyz, and he started to cry, and I just said okay.

  Det. James: I’m having trouble, here. I get that you were Peter, but where were you?

  Darling: Around. I made a show of it, pretending Peter and I were in love or nearly just, and John and Michael and eventually Cubby were all young enough that people mine and Peter’s ages in love was something for adults, something obnoxious and gross, so they didn’t ask too much why we were never together except in the bedroom we shared. It was a side of us I don’t think they were comfortable knowing.

  Det. Matthews: But you graduated from simple petty theft, didn’t you. So knock off the fairy tale and howsabout you start telling us something useful.

  Darling: Fine. With Cubby, we couldn’t just keep taking things out of people’s cars. We talked about taking cars, but we didn’t know anything about selling a stolen car. We talked about a lot of things, actually, before Cubby mentioned that his mom was a meth head. The thing was, nobody would deal to her, because nobody but nobody l
ikes tweakers- so she would always send him out to score for her. So we started doing that, just delivery with the occasional mule job. But then these Norteño cocksuckers got the idea that since we were just kids, we could get pushed around. So one night they snatched me up off the street, and they had me in the back of this van, and were talking all kinds of shit about how they were going to cut the location of our stash out of me. John found a CI who’d seen enough and wanted his high enough to dime on them, then he and Mike and Cubby, and we’d gotten a couple more by then, they came down on that van with bats. Prick was already cutting into me, and when they pulled open the van and yanked him out, he left his cheap little plastic-handled knife still sticking out of my leg. Michael wanted to curb stomp him, but I said that was too good for a punk who preys on kids. So I took away his ability to have any. Just the balls, figured he wasn’t using them for anything. But I cried myself to sleep that night. It wasn’t what happened to me, but that I put my brothers in a place where they could have been taking bats to people with guns.

  Det. James: How much damage did he do to you?

  Darling: I was bedridden for days. I had to tell them that I, that is Wendy, was still being held captive, that they needed to keep looking for me. After a few days, when I’d