by Lee Child
“What? You’ve never been blood sisters with anyone before, Lily? My goodness, where have you been hiding all these years?”
“There’s no one to be sisters with, Carol Ann. You know that.” I felt vaguely superior for a moment, but she ended that.
“We need a knife.”
“Why?”
“My Lord in heaven, Lily, how do you think we’re going to get at the blood?”
So I snuck out of my room, slunk down the stairs, gripping each with my toes so the wind didn’t whisk me away when it tore the roof off the house. The storm was loud enough that Mama didn’t hear me go into the kitchen, get a knife from the rack next to the stove, and make my way back up the stairs into my room. Carol Ann’s eyes lit up when she saw the knife, the five- inch blade sharpened to a razor’s edge.
“Give that to me.”
I did, a sense of wrongness making my hand tremble. I think I knew deep in my heart that Mama wouldn’t want me becoming blood sisters with anyone, no matter what the course of action that led me there. But that was Carol Ann for you. She could always convince me to see things her way.
Carol Ann took one of my sheer cotton sweaters, a red one, and laid it over the lamp, so the light fragmented like a lung’s pink froth and the room became like thin blood. We sat in the middle of the floor, Indian-style, facing each other. She made sure our legs were touching. I was scared.
“Okay. Stop fretting. This will only hurt for a second, then it will be all over. You still want to be my blood sister, right?”
I swallowed hard. Would this make us one? I didn’t want that. No, I didn’t want that at all. A tiny corner of my mind said, “Go find your Mama, let Carol Ann do this by herself.”
“I think so,” I answered instead.
“You think? Now Lily, what did I say about you thinking? That’s what I’m here for. I do the thinking for both of us, and everything always turns out just fine. Now quit being such a baby and give me your arm. Your right arm.”
I didn’t want Carol Ann to think I was a baby. I held out my arm, which only shook for a second.
Carol Ann was mumbling something, an incantation of sorts. Then she held up the knife and smiled. “With this blade, I christen thee.” She ran the blade along the inside of her right arm, bright red blood blooming in the furrows created in her tender flesh. She smirked, a joyous glow lighting her translucent skin, and took my arm. The point of the knifed dug into the crook of my elbow. “Say it,” she hissed.
“With this blade, I christen thee.” My voice trembled. She drew the knife along my arm and I almost fainted when I saw the blood, dark red, much darker than Carol Ann’s. Then she took my arm and her arm and held them together. We stood, attached, and walked in a circle, eyes locked, blood spilling into each other.
“Our blood mingles, and we become one. You are now as much Carol Ann as I am, and I am as much Lily as you are. We are one, sisters in blood.”
Redness slipped down my elbow. Spots danced merrily in my vision.
Carol Ann’s eye sparkled. “Quick, we need to tie this together, let our blood flow through each other’s veins while our hearts still beat.”
She grabbed a sock off the floor and wound it around our arms, dabbing at the rivulets before they splashed on the floor of my bedroom, then beckoned me to lay down next to her. I put my head in her lap, my arm stretched and tied to hers, and she held me as our blood became one. I felt at peace. The ferocity of the storm seemed to lessen, and I felt calm, sleepy even.
“LILY!” The scream made me jump. It was Mama. She saw what Carol Ann and I had done. I didn’t care. I was tired. It was too much trouble to worry about the beating I was going to get.
I didn’t get to see Carol Ann the rest of that muggy summer. Mama sent me away to a white place that smelled of antiseptic and urine. I hated it.
I came back from the white place in the fall, quieter, more watchful than before. The leaves were red and orange and brown, the skies were crisp and blue. I was worried that Carol Ann might have moved away; the drive was empty across the street, the window dark. When I asked Mama, she told me to quit it already. No more talk of Carol Ann. I wasn’t allowed to see her, to play with her, anymore.
I went back to school that year. Mama had been keeping me home before, teaching me herself, but she figured it was time for me to leave the nest. I needed to be around more girls and boys my age. I was so happy that she sent me to school at last, because Carol Ann was there. She had moved, but only a couple of streets over. She was zoned to the junior high, just like I was.
We didn’t exactly pick up where we left off. Carol Ann had many other friends now. But I’d catch her watching me as I stood on the periphery of her group of devotees, and she’d wink at me in welcome. Those moments warmed my heart and soul. She was still my Carol Ann, even though I shared her with my classmates.
The school year progressed without incident until Carol Ann came up with a new game. The pass-out game. Every girl in school wanted to be a part of it. We’d line up in the bathrooms, stand with our backs against the wall, and hold our breath until the world got spinny. Carol Ann would cover our hearts with her hands and push. Hard. We’d pass out cold, some sliding down the walls, some keeling over. Carol Ann reasoned that it stopped our hearts for a moment, that in that brief time we could see God. That’s why the teachers got so upset when they found out.
Of course, they found out when I was doing the heart-pushing on a seventh-grader named Jo. I got suspended, and the fun stopped. No more pass- out game. No more Carol Ann, at least until I wasn’t grounded anymore.
They rezoned us for the ninth grade; decided we were big enough to go to high school. I had to take the bus, which I normally hated, because it drove past the Johnsons’ farm, and their copse of pine trees with the hanging man in them. I knew it wasn’t a real dead man, but the branches in one of the trees had died, and they drooped brown against the evergreen—arms, legs, torso, and broken neck. Mama used to drive me to Doctor Halloway this route, ignoring my requests to go the long way past Tappy’s place. I hated this road as a young girl; just knew the hanging man would get out of that tree and follow me home.
When the bus would pass it by, I’d try not to look. Since I was a little older now, it wasn’t so bad in the daylight. But as winter came along and the days shortened, the hanging man waited for me in the dusky gloom. He spoke to me, the deadness of the pine needles brown and dusty like a grave.
The next year, Carol Ann started taking the bus. Life got better. She was only on it some days, because she had a lot of dates now. Some days, after school, I’d watch Carol Ann riding off in cars with shiny, clean boys, throwing a grin over her shoulder as they faded into the gloaming. But there were times when she’d come out of the school, clothes rumpled, mouth red and raw, scabs forming on her knees. She’d jump on the bus just before it pulled away from the curb and wouldn’t want to talk.
But mostly, we sat together in the back, in those idyllic days, talking about boys and teachers, the upcoming dances and who was doing it. I knew Carol Ann was. You could tell that about her. I was fascinated by sex, though I’d never experienced it. Carol Ann promised to tell me all about it.
She snuck vodka from her parents’ house and slipped it into her milk some mornings. She’d share the treat with me, and we’d get boneless in the back of the bus, giggling our fool heads off. She taught me how to make a homemade scar tattoo, using the initials of a boy I liked. She took the eraser end of a pencil and ran it up and down her arm a million times until a shiny raw burn in the shape of a J appeared. She handed the pencil to me, and I tore at my skin until a misaligned M welled blood. I have that M to this day. I don’t remember which boy it was for.
The bus driver, Mrs. Bean, caught us with the vodka-laced milk. Carol Ann wasn’t allowed to ride the bus anymore. I didn’t see her as much after that. I think the school and Mama really did their best to keep us apart. It was probably a wise decision. But I felt incomplete without her at my
side.
Now that I’m grown, away from Mama’s house, away from Carol Ann, I remember the little things. Spilling on Carol Ann’s bike, scraping the length of my thigh on the gravel. The year she pushed me into the cactus while we were trick-or-treating. The day I nearly drowned when I fell through the ice on Gideon’s Lake, and she laughed watching me panic before she went for help. Carol Ann did nothing but get me in trouble, and I was happy to leave her behind as an adult.
So you can imagine my shock and surprise when the doorbell rang, late one evening, and Carol Ann was on my front step. Somewhere, deep inside me, I knew something was dreadfully wrong.
I live in the A-frame house I grew up in. Mama’s been in a home over in Spring Hill for a couple of years now. They have nice flowerbeds, and I visit her often. We walk amongst the flowers and she reminds me of all the terrible things I did when I was a kid. No one thought I’d ever grow out of my awkward stage, but I did. I went off to college and everything. Carol Ann went to a neighboring school. I’d see her every once in a while, working as a waitress in one of the coffee shops on campus, or shopping in the bookstore. I learned that it was best to ignore her. If I ignored her enough, she’d get the hint and leave.
But here she was, in the flesh, rain streaming down her face. Her blond hair was shorter, wet through, darker than I remembered. She was a skinny thing, not the radiant beauty I remember from my childhood.
I was frozen at the door, unsure of what to do. She knew better than to come calling; that was strictly forbidden. We’d laid down those ground rules years before, and she’d always listened. I was saved by the phone ringing. I glared at her and motioned for her to stay right where she was. Carol Ann was not invited into my house. Not after what she did all those years ago. It had taken me forever to get over that.
The phone kept trilling, so I turned and went to the marble side table in the foyer, the one that held the old fashioned rotary dial. I picked it up, almost carelessly. It was Mama’s nurse at the Home. I listened. Felt the floor rushing up to meet me. Everything went dark after that.
When I woke, the sun was streaming in the kitchen window. Somehow I’d gotten myself to a chair. There was coffee brewing, the rich scent wafting to my nose. Carol Ann stood at the counter, a yellow cup in her hands. She took a deep drink, then smiled at me.
“Hey, stranger.” Her voice was soft, that semi-foreign lilt more pronounced, like she’d been living overseas lately.
“Hey, yourself,” I replied. “You’re not supposed to be here.”
“You needed me.” She’d shrugged, a lock of lank blond falling across her forehead. “I’m sorry about your Mama. She was a good woman.”
I had a vision of Mama then, standing in the same spot, her hair in curlers, rushing to finish the preparations for a garden-club meeting, stopping to lean back and take a sip of hot, sweet tea and smiling to herself because it was perfect. She was perfect. Mama was always perfection personified. Not flawed and messy like me. My heart hurt.
I forced myself to do the right thing. To do what needed to be done. My heart broke a little, and my head swam when I said, “Carol Ann, you need to leave. I don’t need you. I never did.”
She looked down at the floor, then met my eyes. Tear glistened in the corners, making the cornflower blue look like a wax crayon. “C’mon, Lily. We’re blood sisters, you and I. We’re a physical part of each other. How can you say you don’t need a part of yourself? The best part of yourself? I make you strong.”
“No!” I screamed at her, all patience gone. “You are not a part of me. You aren’t . . .”
A fury I hadn’t felt in years bubbled through my chest. There was only one way to get through to her. I grabbed the porcelain mug from her hand, smashed it on the counter, and swiped a gleaming shard across her perfect white throat. She fell in a heap, blood everywhere.
As I stood over her, watching her hair turn strawberry, I felt a tug and looked down at my leg. Carol Ann was trying to grab a hold of my foot. I kicked her instead, hard, in the ribs. She stopped moving then.
The thought is fleeting. What have I done?
I’ve just killed Carol Ann. She was never sweet, never innocent. She was a leech, an albatross around my neck. I didn’t need her. Carol Ann needed me. That’s what Doctor Halloway always told me. That’s what they said in the hospital, too. The white place, so pristine, so calm. They told me I’d know when the time was right to get rid of Carol Ann once and for all. Mama would be so proud. She knew I didn’t need Carol Ann, knew I was strong enough to live on my own. She always believed in me. I miss her.
The blood drips . . . drips . . . drips . . . from my arm. I feel lighter already.
*
J.T. ELLISON (The Cold Room) is the bestselling author of the critically acclaimed Taylor Jackson series. She was recently named Best Mystery/Thriller Writer of 2008 by the Nashville Scene. She lives in Nashville with her husband and a poorly trained cat. Visit JTEllison .com for more information.
MARC PAOLETTI
Pull over,” Dad says, voice barely audible over the hum of the air conditioner. “I have to go.”
I shake my head. “It’s too dangerous.”
“Pull over. Now.”
Dad knows I can’t refuse a direct order. I pull off the deserted highway into an all-night gas station, and continue past the pumps to a pair of filthy white doors around the backside of the food mart. The left door reads Men. It’s 1:00 A.M.
Dad doesn’t get out of the car. Instead, he stays pressed into his seat, skeletal fingers clutching the dash. He twists painfully, and the LSU T shirt that once stretched tight across his torso shifts in a loose flurry of shadows. His head has only a few white strands left, and his sunken face looks tight, like it’s been slammed shut.
“We’re sitting ducks out here,” I say.
Dad doesn’t seem to care. “I need your help,” he says, and then unlatches the glove compartment with a shaky hand; the tiny door falls open with a thunk. He burrows underneath a pile of maps until he finds something. A ballpoint pen.
“What’s that for?” I ask.
Instead of answering, he pushes the pen at me with little stabs. “Cramps. Hurts.” His voice is dreamy with morphine.
The pen is clear plastic, the kind you can see the ink through, and I take it to humor him. Due to medication and chemo, Dad hasn’t been himself for months. A major liability if our rivals found out, which was why the family sent him to the middle of bumfuck nowhere to get better. Instead, he got so bad we had to take him back.
“Hurts,” he says again.
“I heard you the first time.” I pull the Colt .45 from underneath my seat and tuck it under my belt, then kick open the door and step into swampy night air that smells like motor oil and rotting green. Dad must be really out of it to take this kind of risk. Word could have already spread that he’s weak. We could both be dead before reaching the men’s room, but an order’s an order.
I’ve been taking orders from Dad my entire adult life. He ordered me to switch my course of study from architecture to law, which I hate like poison now. He ordered me to stay loyal to the family, no matter what, and ordered me to steer clear of Chloe—a woman I fell deeply in love with in law school—because she was an “unacceptable risk.” In other words, she wanted no part in the family business. Dad orders me like he fucking always does, and always has.
I scan the gas station. It’s clear—for now.
I circle fast to the passenger door and open it, forgetting that Dad isn’t belted in because the tight strap hurts his skin. He falls toward me, and I catch him against my chest before he tumbles out. His nose presses against my right temple; his breath feels warm against my ear.
“We have to be quick,” I tell him. “Think you can handle that?”
There’s no way to pull his arm across my shoulders. Instead, I slide my arms forward to the elbows under his armpits. When I stand, it’s like lifting a man made of cardboard tubes.
With him pressed no
se-to-nose against me, I shuffle back blindly toward the restroom as smooth and quick as I can. I don’t want to jar his bowels loose before we get there, but I also don’t want to stay in the open longer than we have to. If the gas station attendant were watching, he might think we were two queers dancing.
I scan for threats to avoid looking into Dad’s eyes. Moths swoop and click against a streetlight bulb, and I’m tempted to let the light draw me in, too. Away from Dad, this place, myself.
“Veer left,” Dad says, slurring. He’s the only one who can see the way. “Now right.”
More orders. Or, as Dad might say, “proper direction.” The only direction I ever wanted to travel was away from the family with Chloe by my side. I’d never met a woman like Chloe, then or since. Gentle and almost pretty, she did things as they came, which turned the grinding shuffle of life into a spontaneous, free-form expression. I remember wishing I had the confidence to be like that. At the time, it was enough to simply be around her. I try not to think about what I could have learned from Chloe, and the terrible things I’ve learned instead.
My back thumps against the restroom door. I let my left arm go lax so Dad can reach down and turn the knob. To my surprise, the door opens. After pulling Dad inside, I notice the door can’t be locked without a key.
The room is twice the size of a broom closet and lit by buzzing fluorescents. I’d imagined graffiti-covered walls and an odor toxic enough to choke a horse, but the walls and floor gleam fish-belly white, and there’s a pine-tree chemical smell that’s almost pleasant. Water drip-drips into a clean sink below an unblemished mirror.
I shuffle Dad past a pair of sparkling urinals to the stall, bump open the door with my shoulder, and squeeze us inside. The toilet is to my right, his left, and has a thick black seat. The water is clear, but there’s a brown streak along the inside of the bowl.
“Line me up,” Dad says. Voice tight.
“Can’t you take it from here?”
