“I just—” said Amber rapidly—“I liked your sister, well, you know I did really, even though—and I—could I have something of hers, not like valuable, to remember her by? How about her hairbrush?”
“You want her hairbrush?”
“If you don’t mind. I just want something—”
“I’ll get it. Wait here.” It would be quicker to give it to her than to propose some other keepsake, and Caroleen had no special attachment to the hair-brush—her own was a duplicate anyway. She and BeeVee had, of course, matching everything—toothbrushes, coffee cups, shoes, wristwatches.
When Caroleen had fetched the brush and returned to the front door, Amber took it and went pounding down the walkway, calling “Thanks!” over her shoulder.
Still disoriented from her nap, Caroleen closed the door and made her way back to the daybed, where she patted the scattered blankets until she found her glasses and fitted them on.
She sat down, switched on the lamp, and leaned over the phone book page. Turning the book around to follow the newest scrawl, she read,
bancaccounts
getmyhairbrushfromhernow
“Sorry, sorry!” exclaimed Caroleen; then in her own handwriting, she wrote, I’ll get it back.
She waited, wondering why she must get the hairbrush back from Amber. Was it somehow necessary that all of BeeVee’s possessions be kept together? Probably, at least the ones with voodoo-type identity signatures on them—DNA samples, like hair caught in a brush, dried saliva traces on dentures, Kleenex in a forgotten wastebasket. But—
Abruptly her chest felt cold and hollow.
But this message had been written down before she had given Amber the hairbrush. And Caroleen had been awake only for the last few seconds of the message transmission, which, if it had been like the others, had been repeating for at least a full minute before she woke up.
The message had been addressed to Amber next door, not to her. Amber had read it somehow and had obediently fetched the hairbrush.
Could all of these messages have been addressed to the girl?
Caroleen remembered wondering whether BeeVee might have needed to brace herself against something in order to communicate from the far side of the grave. Had BeeVee been bracing herself against Caroleen, her still-living twin, in order to talk to Amber? Insignificant Amber?
Caroleen was dizzy, but she got to her feet and padded into the bedroom for a pair of outdoor shoes. She had to carry them back to the living room—the bed in the bedroom had been BeeVee’s, too, and she didn’t want to sit on it in order to pull the shoes on—and on the way she leaned into the bathroom and grabbed her own hairbrush.
Dressed in one of her old church-attendance skirts, with fresh lipstick, and carrying a big embroidered purse, Caroleen pulled the door closed behind her and began shuffling down the walk. The sky was a very deep blue above the tree branches and the few clouds were extraordinarily far away overhead, and it occurred to her that she couldn’t recall stepping out of the house since BeeVee’s funeral. She never drove anymore—Amber was the only one who drove the old Pontiac these days—and it was Amber who went for groceries, reimbursed with checks from Caroleen . . . and the box of checks came in the mail, which Amber brought in from the mailbox by the sidewalk. If Caroleen alienated the girl, could she do these things herself? She would probably starve.
Caroleen’s hand had begun wriggling as she reached the sidewalk and turned right, toward Amber’s parents’ house, but she resisted the impulse to pull a pen out of her purse. She’s not talking to me, she thought, blinking back tears in the sunlight that glittered on the windshields and bumpers of passing cars; she’s talking to stupid Amber. I won’t eavesdrop.
Amber’s parents had a Spanish-style house at the top of a neatly mowed sloping lawn, and a green canvas awning overhung the big arched window out front. Even shading her eyes with her manageable left hand Caroleen couldn’t see anyone in the dimness inside, so she huffed up the widely spaced steps, and while she was catching her breath on the cement apron at the top, the front door swung inward, releasing a puff of cool floor-polish scent.
Amber’s young, dark-haired mother—Crystal? Christine?—was staring at her curiously. “It’s . . . Caroleen,” she said, “right?”
“Yes.” Caroleen smiled, feeling old and foolish. “I need to talk to Amber.” The mother was looking dubious. “I want to pay her more, and see if she’d be interested in balancing our, my, checkbook.
The woman nodded, as if conceding a point. “Well, I think that might be good for her.” She hesitated, then stepped aside. “Come in and ask her. She’s in her room.”
Caroleen got a quick impression of a dim living room with clear plastic covers over the furniture, and a bright kitchen with copper pans hanging everywhere. Amber’s mother then knocked on a bedroom door and said, “Amber honey? You’ve got a visitor,” then pushed the door open.
“I’ll let you two talk,” the woman said, and stepped away toward the living room.
Caroleen stepped into the room. Amber was sitting cross-legged on a pink bedspread, looking up from a cardboard sheet with a rock, a pencil, and BeeVee’s hairbrush on it. Lacy curtains glowed in the street-side window, and a stack of what appeared to be textbooks stood on an otherwise bare white desk in the opposite corner. The couple of pictures on the walls looked like pastel blobs. The room smelled like cake.
Caroleen considered what to say. “Can I help?” she asked finally.
Amber, who had been looking wary, brightened and sat up straight. “Shut the door.”
After Caroleen had shut the door, Amber went on, “You know she’s coming back?” She waved at the cardboard in front of her. “She’s been talking to me all day.”
“I know, child.”
Caroleen stepped forward and leaned down to peer at the cardboard, and saw that the girl had written the letters of the alphabet in an arc across it.
“It’s one of those things people use to talk to ghosts,” Amber explained with evident pride. “I’m using the rock crystal to point to the letters. Some people are scared of these things, but it’s one of the good kinds of crystals.”
“A Ouija board.”
“That’s it! She made me dream of one over and over again just before the sun came up, because this is her birthday. Well, yours, too, I guess. At first I thought it was a hopscotch pattern, but she made me look closer till I got it.” She pursed her lips. “I wrote it by reciting the rhyme, and I accidentally did H and I twice, and left out J and K.” She pulled a sheet of lined paper out from under the board. “But it was only a problem once, I think.”
“Can I see? I, uh, want this to work out.”
“Yeah. She won’t be gone. She’ll be in me, did she tell you?” She held out the paper. “I drew in lines to break the words up.”
“Yes. She told me.” Caroleen slowly reached out to take the paper from Amber, and then held it up close enough to read the penciled lines:
I/NEED/YOUR/HELP/PLEASE
Who R U?
I/AM/BEE VEE
How can I help U?
I/NEED/TO/USE/YOUR/BODY/INVITE/ME/IN/TO/YOUR/BODY
IM/SORRY/FOR/EVERY/THING/PLEASE
R U an angel now? Can U grant wishes?
YES
Can U make me beautiful?
YES/FOR/EVER
OK. What do I do?
EXHAUSTED/MORE/LATER
BV? It’s after lunch. Are U rested up yet?
YES
Make me beautiful.
GET/MY/HAIRBRUSH/FROM/MY/SISTER
Is that word “hairbrush”?
YES/THEN/YOU/CAN/INVITE/ME/IN/TO/YOU
How will that do it?
WE/WILL/BE/YOU/TOGETHER
+ what will we do?
GET/SLIM/TRAVEL/THE/WORLD
Will we be rich?
YES/I/HAVE/BANC/ACCOUNTS/GET/MY/HAIRBRUSH/FROM/HER/NOW
I got it.
NIGHT/TIME/STAND/OVER/GRAVE/BRUSH/YR/HAIR/INVITE/ME/IN
> “That should be B-A-N-K, in that one line,” explained Amber helpfully. “And I’ll want to borrow your car tonight.”
Not trusting herself to speak, Caroleen nodded and handed the paper back to her, wondering if her own face was red or pale. She felt invisible and repudiated. BeeVee could have approached her own twin for this, but her twin was too old; and if she did manage to occupy the body of this girl—a more intimate sort of twinhood!—she would certainly not go on living with Caroleen. And she had eaten all the Vicodins and Darvocets.
Caroleen picked up the rock. It was some sort of quartz crystal.
“When . . . ” she began in a croak. She cleared her throat and went on more steadily, “When did you get that second-to-last message? About the bank accounts and the hairbrush?”
“That one? Uh, just a minute before I knocked on your door.”
Caroleen nodded, wondering bleakly if BeeVee had even known that she was leaving her with carbon copies—multiple, echoing carbon copies—of the messages.
She put the crystal back down on the cardboard and picked up the hairbrush. Amber opened her mouth as if to object, then subsided.
There were indeed a number of white hairs tangled in the bristles.
Caroleen tucked the brush into her purse.
“I need that,” said Amber quickly, leaning forward across the board. “She says I need it.”
“Oh, of course, I’m sorry.” Caroleen forced what must have been ghastly smile, and then pulled her own hairbrush instead out of the purse and handed it to the girl. It was identical to BeeVee’s, right down to the white hairs.
Amber took it and glanced at it, then laid it on the pillow, out of Caroleen’s reach.
“I don’t want,” said Caroleen, “to interrupt . . . you two.” She sighed, emptying her lungs, and dug the car keys out of her purse. “Here,” she said, tossing them onto the bed. “I’ll be next door if you . . . need any help.”
“Fine, okay.” Amber seemed relieved at the prospect of her leaving.
Caroleen was awakened the next morning by the pain of her sore right hand flexing, but she rolled over and slept for ten more minutes before the telephone by her head conclusively jarred her out of the monotonous dream that had occupied her mind for the last hour or so.
She sat up, wrinkling her nose at the scorched smell from the fireplace and wishing she had a cup of coffee, and still half-saw the Ouija board she’d been dreaming about.
She picked up the phone, wincing. “Hello?”
“Caroleen,” said Amber’s voice, “nothing happened at the cemetery last night, and BeeVee isn’t answering my questions. She spelled stuff out, but it’s not for what I’m writing to her. All she’s written so far this morning is—just a sec—she wrote, uh, ‘You win—you’ll do—we’ve always been a team, right—’ Is she talking to you?”
Caroleen glanced toward the fireplace, where last night she had burned—or charred, at least—BeeVee’s toothbrush, razor, dentures, curlers, and several other things, including the hairbrush. And today she would call the headstone company and cancel the order. BeeVee ought not to have an easily locatable grave.
“Me?” Caroleen made a painful fist of her right hand. “Why would she talk to me?”
“You’re her twin sister, she might be—”
“BeeVee is dead, Amber, she died nine weeks ago.”
“But she’s coming back. She’s going to make me beautiful! She said—”
“She can’t do anything, child. We’re better off without her.”
Amber was talking then, protesting, but Caroleen’s thoughts were of the brothers she couldn’t even picture anymore, the nieces she’d never met and who probably had children of their own somewhere, and her mother who was almost certainly dead by now. And there was everybody else, too, and not a lot of time.
Caroleen was resolved to learn to write with her left hand, and, even though it would hurt, she hoped her right hand would go on and on writing uselessly in the air.
At last she stood up, still holding the phone, and she interrupted Amber: “Could you bring back my car keys? I have some errands to do.”
How many eyes does Lord Bloodraven have? A thousand eyes, and one. Some claimed he was a student of the dark arts who could change his face, put on the likeness of a one-eyed dog, even turn into a mist. Packs of gaunt gray wolves hunted down his foes, men said, and carrion crows spied for him and whispered secrets in his ear . . .
THE MYSTERY KNIGHT:
A TALE OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS
GEORGE R.R. MARTIN
A light summer rain was falling as Dunk and Egg took their leave of Stoney Sept.
Dunk rode his old warhorse Thunder, with Egg beside him on the spirited young palfrey he’d named Rain, leading their mule Maester. On Maester’s back were bundled Dunk’s armor and Egg’s books, their bedrolls, tent, and clothing, several slabs of hard salt beef, half a flagon of mead, and two skins of water. Egg’s old straw hat, wide-brimmed and floppy, kept the rain off the mule’s head. The boy had cut holes for Maester’s ears. Egg’s new straw hat was on his own head. Except for the ear holes, the two hats looked much the same to Dunk.
As they neared the town gates, Egg reined up sharply. Up above the gateway a traitor’s head had been impaled upon an iron spike. It was fresh from the look of it, the flesh more pink than green, but the carrion crows had already gone to work on it. The dead man’s lips and cheeks were torn and ragged; his eyes were two brown holes weeping slow red tears as raindrops mingled with the crusted blood. The dead man’s mouth sagged open, as if to harangue travelers passing through the gate below.
Dunk had seen such sights before. “Back in King’s Landing when I was a boy, I stole a head right off its spike once,” he told Egg. Actually it had been Ferret who scampered up the wall to snatch the head, after Rafe and Pudding said he’d never dare, but when the guards came running he’d tossed it down, and Dunk was the one who’d caught it. “Some rebel lord or robber knight, it was. Or maybe just a common murderer. A head’s a head. They all look the same after a few days on a spike.” Him and his three friends had used the head to terrorize the girls of Flea Bottom. They’d chase them through the alleys, and make them give the head a kiss before they’d let them go. That head got kissed a lot, as he recalled. There wasn’t a girl in King’s Landing who could run as fast as Rafe. Egg was better off not hearing that part, though. Ferret, Rafe, and Pudding. Little monsters, those three, and me the worst of all. His friends and he had kept the head until the flesh turned black and begin to slough away. That took the fun out of chasing girls, so one night they burst into a pot shop and tossed what was left into the kettle. “The crows always go for the eyes,” he told Egg. “Then the cheeks cave in, the flesh turns green . . . ” He squinted. “Wait. I know that face.”
“You do, ser,” said Egg. “Three days ago. The hunchbacked septon we heard preaching against Lord Bloodraven.”
He remembered then. He was a holy man sworn to the Seven, even if he did preach treason. “His hands are scarlet with a brother’s blood, and the blood of his young nephews too,” the hunchback had declared to the crowd that had gathered in the market square. “A shadow came at his command to strangle brave Prince Valarr’s sons in their mother’s womb. Where is our Young Prince now? Where is his brother, sweet Matarys? Where has Good King Daeron gone, and fearless Baelor Breakspear? The grave has claimed them, every one, yet he endures, this pale bird with bloody beak who perches on King Aerys’s shoulder and caws into his ear. The mark of hell is on his face and in his empty eye, and he has brought us drought and pestilence and murder. Rise up, I say, and remember our true king across the water. Seven gods there are, and seven kingdoms, and the Black Dragon sired seven sons! Rise up, my lords and ladies. Rise up, you brave knights and sturdy yeomen, and cast down Bloodraven, that foul sorcerer, lest your children and your children’s children be cursed forevermore.”
Every word was treason. Even so, it was a shock to see him here, with holes where hi
s eyes had been. “That’s him, aye,” Dunk said, “and another good reason to put this town behind us.” He gave Thunder a touch of the spur, and he and Egg rode through the gates of Stoney Sept, listening to the soft sound of the rain. How many eyes does Lord Bloodraven have? the riddle ran. A thousand eyes, and one. Some claimed the King’s Hand was a student of the dark arts who could change his face, put on the likeness of a one-eyed dog, even turn into a mist. Packs of gaunt gray wolves hunted down his foes, men said, and carrion crows spied for him and whispered secrets in his ear. Most of the tales were only tales, Dunk did not doubt, but no one could doubt that Bloodraven had informers everywhere.
He had seen the man once with his own two eyes, back in King’s Landing. White as bone were the skin and hair of Brynden Rivers, and his eye—he only had the one, the other having been lost to his half-brother Bittersteel on the Redgrass Field—was red as blood. On cheek and neck he bore the winestain birthmark that had given him his name.
When the town was well behind them Dunk cleared his throat and said, “Bad business, cutting off the heads of septons. All he did was talk. Words are wind.”
“Some words are wind, ser. Some are treason.” Egg was skinny as a stick, all ribs and elbows, but he did have a mouth.
“Now you sound a proper princeling.”
Egg took that for an insult, which it was. “He might have been a septon, but he was preaching lies, ser. The drought wasn’t Lord Bloodraven’s fault, nor the Great Spring Sickness either.”
“Might be that’s so, but if we start cutting off the heads of all the fools and liars, half the towns in the Seven Kingdoms will be empty.”
Six days later, the rain was just a memory.
Dunk had stripped off his tunic to enjoy the warmth of sunlight on his skin. When a little breeze came up, cool and fresh and fragrant as a maiden’s breath, he sighed. “Water,” he announced. “Smell it? The lake can’t be far now.”
“All I can smell is Maester, ser. He stinks.” Egg gave the mule’s lead a savage tug. Maester had stopped to crop at the grass beside the road, as he did from time to time.
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