by S. L. Naeole
“Stacy, I thought—I thought that you couldn’t do this anymore,” I interjected. “You looked so pale, so weak the last time I saw you. You said-”
“I know what I said, and I meant it…at the time. When I left your house that night, I promised myself that I’d never do it again. I left with the intention of going back to see Dr. Bro and telling him to help stop all of this, to just end my life or fix me somehow. But before I could, I felt I needed to do something; I needed to see where that boy lived, I needed to try to make amends to his family. Every second that that boy’s blood existed inside of me, it was like I could hear his voice in my head, screaming at me, making me feel even guiltier than I already was.
“I went to that boy’s house—I don’t know how I knew where he lived; I just did. I snuck into his room through his window and I looked around. You know what I found? That poor boy, that innocent boy that I murdered wasn’t so innocent after all.”
She lifted a hand to her face as a sneer marred her beautiful features, her fingers rubbing at her temple as she tried to massage away whatever image she had just conjured up.
“He was so young, I thought there was no way that anyone that young could be tainted—I was wrong. I was so wrong. I wanted to get a feel for who he was, so that I could mourn him the way he deserved, the way that I deserved. I needed to punish myself with his face and his life burned inside of me—I wanted him to be the last thing I thought about before I died.
“You know what I found? Pictures; hundreds of them; pictures of him doing things…horrible, gross things to little girls; so many little girls…and one of them was his sister, his own sister! I felt sick. I felt…dirty, betrayed by my own guilt, by my own conscience. I thought I was going there to make things right, and instead everything was wrong, everything was dirty and disgusting. I burned those pictures. I destroyed them and I prayed that as they burned that the little girl who slept in the next room could finally find some peace now that the person she should have trusted was gone.
“When I left, I felt different—not so guilty anymore. I felt like, by taking that boy’s life, I had done something good, something right. He was young—can you imagine what he would have been like if he’d gotten older? What he would have done? The damage he could have caused? I thought to myself, if I had to kill anyone, if I had to do it that one time, why shouldn’t it have been him? Why shouldn’t it have been that monster?
“But then I started to worry—what if it happened again? What if I came across someone else and without thinking, acted? It was a fluke that that kid wasn’t innocent—but what if he had been? What if he was the perfect kid, the Boy Scout?
“I left that house. My head was filled with so many questions, so many pictures that I couldn’t see straight, I couldn’t think. I started to walk around the streets of that boy’s neighborhood. I passed by people who didn’t know me, didn’t recognize me. Some of them said hello, some waved, and I didn’t feel anything—I didn’t feel anything that I felt with that boy. I thought I was cured.
“I went back to see Dr. Bro, and tried to drink that damned blood again but it was disgusting. It was like drinking spoiled milk—I couldn’t do it. Dr. Bro told me what I already knew—if I didn’t feed soon, I wouldn’t be able to control myself. He said if I killed another person, he’d have to kill me; I told him there was no need to wait; just stake me or whatever he needed to do so that I wouldn’t hurt anyone else. He said it wasn’t that simple, that it didn’t work that way.
“I thought…I thought that if he wouldn’t do it that I’d do it myself. I ran away again. I didn’t even realize it had happened until my feet stopped moving and I was standing outside of this door. I’d never seen it before; I didn’t even know where I was, or how long I had been running. I only knew that I needed—no, wanted—to go inside. I turned the handle and just walked in.
“It was like I was in a trance, and nothing I thought of doing could break me out of it—I didn’t know where I was going, only that there was this smell that was so incredible, my mouth watered. It’s kind of like that first time you walk into a bakery, and the smell of baking bread and cakes and cookies just slaps you in the face and you want to taste everything.
“Only this wasn’t a bakery—it was somebody’s home. I followed the smell until I found it: a man in his bed, sleeping like a baby. He smelled so good. I didn’t even think about what I was doing, or whether or not he’d wake up and see this strange person in his bedroom, smelling him like a starved animal. The next thing I knew, I was attacking him. He didn’t fight much, really, which surprised me considering how big he was. He just struggled a bit; then he was too weak to do anything else.
“After…when I was done, I walked around his house. There were family pictures on the walls, and books on the shelves. There was typical guy-stuff around the house like weights and skinmags, and his fridge had beer and steaks in it. I started to feel guilty again because I’d just killed this guy in his sleep and I didn’t know why.
“I went into the basement. I went down those stairs and into that dark room like a kid goes into a toy store—you just go, you know? I turned on the light and whatever guilt I felt just vanished like the dark.”
A cynical laugh came out of her while her head tossed from side-to-side at the images she recalled. “See, he had the same sickness as that boy, only he didn’t just take pictures…he kept souvenirs. His basement was filled with freezers, Grace. I won’t tell you what was in them—you can probably guess for yourself—but I knew. I knew what he had in them—I could smell it. He tried to hide it with a billion of those stupid pine tree things that Graham keeps in his bucket.”
“Buick,” Graham corrected.
“Whatever. They were hanging from the ceiling like a freaking floating forest, but they couldn’t mask the smell of death—not to me. Right then I realized that I no longer felt guilty; I don’t think I ever will again.” She turned to focus her hard, cold gaze onto Robert’s steely one. “And I don’t think anyone would blame me either.”
Graham’s face was pale, but his eyes registered an understanding that he shared with Lark as they both nodded their heads in agreement. “I don’t—we don’t. I think it’s cool, actually,” he beamed. “You’re like some kind of avenging erl…something. Ooh, you should get a costume!”
“Leave it you to find some way to make it into a comic book,” Robert said with as little humor as he could manage before returning his focus to Stacy. “Whatever those two men’s sins were, their lives were not yours to take. It’s a crime, Stacy.”
Stacy’s mocking laugh rang out like a bitter bell. “In whose world? Yours? Grace’s? Graham’s? Mine? We don’t live in the same world anymore, Robert—we never did—and even if that wasn’t true, you’re not angry at me for killing those people because their lives are gone; you’re angry at me because you didn’t do it yourself.”
I expected the denial, anticipated it. Instead Robert responded with a laugh of his own. “I always thought Lark was the epitome of biting honesty. I see that she’s been eclipsed.” He sighed, as if a weight that had been settled onto him and refused to let go had lifted.
“You’re right, Stacy. I am angry that it was you. Killing does not come naturally to me. It’s not something that I relish doing, even when the death might be deserved, and so when I see others do so without issue I admit to feeling…envious, jealous even, which I cannot say I’ve yet mastered control over but I am far better at it now than I was the first time I experienced it.”
“I’ll say,” I murmured when his sparkling eyes traveled to mine.
“So…are you going to kill me now or after dinner?” Stacy asked, the amusement in her voice clearer now.
STARRY EYED
“I think that given the occasion, it might be better to wait,” Robert answered, the good humor that had been so desperately needed finally making its appearance.
“Well good because I’m starving,” Graham announced, his stomach agreeing with him loudly.<
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Robert turned to face me, his arm held out in invitation. “Shall we return to our table?”
I nodded and looped my arm around his, following him as he led our little group back to the empty table. Four chairs sat undisturbed, while one rested neatly, its back butted against the table’s edge. Once more, I found myself seated, this time with Robert sitting on one side of me, with Stacy on the other. Graham sat beside her, leaving Lark to sit between him and her brother.
As if from out of nowhere, a man dressed in black with a white cloth draped over his arm appeared. Behind him, a cart stood, its contents shielded from view by large, silver dome covers. There were only four plates, and as he placed them in front of us, I realized that Stacy would not be receiving one.
“What did you expect? That they were going to be serving me rare torso of creep?” she quipped when she saw my perplexed expression. “I won’t be feeling left out, believe me. Just enjoy your meal.”
As the covers were lifted off their plates, I could hear Lark’s pleased sigh, and Graham’s ecstatic holler.
“Alright! Ribs!” he hooted before the napkin that had been rolled up beside him was shoved into the collar of his shirt, the clumsily draped cloth dangling between himself and the table.
I spied a white, rectangular looking object sitting on Lark’s plate, and stared at it perplexingly, wondering what it could be. Her head lifted as she answered, “Plain tofu steak, my favorite.”
Beside me, Robert’s cover was lifted to reveal an empty plate. “Where’s your food?” I asked, confused as the mountain of silver in front of me was raised away.
“I’m not hungry,” he replied, looking at me anxiously.
I turned away from him, confused, and reached for the napkin beside me as my eyes turned to my plate. “What…?”
My plate wasn’t empty. But, there wasn’t any food on it either. Instead, a folded sheet of paper sat in front of me, its contents hidden away by its creases and overlapping edges. “What’s this?” I asked as four sets of eyes focused their attention onto me.
“Open it,” Graham said, smiling.
I reached for the white sheet and unfolded it. My eyes quickly scanned over the text, stopping midway when my I felt my breath catch in my throat, and my heart stumble in my chest at my name printed in block letters stood beside another name, the owner of which sat beside me, his hand reaching over to steady mine, which had begun to shake.
“How?” was all I could say as my eyes drifted to the top of the document and read three times the title that scrawled across the top in old English lettering.
“Simple—I did an online search for where I could get one without you knowing. I personally don’t care about the legalities, but I know that you would.”
“Is this really real?” My voice was soft, meekly quiet as my fingers traced out the two words that I didn’t expect could mean so much to me. “This is an actual marriage license?”
“It’s real and it’s ours. I’m sorry that it’s not in some fantastical—or perhaps even more traditional—place of elopement like Vegas, but I thought that perhaps you’d prefer something a bit more low-key and personal.”
I raised tear-filled eyes to his, and nodded mutely. What could I say? He had been so vehemently against doing anything like this-
“I wasn’t against doing anything like this at all,” he interrupted my thoughts. “I merely wanted everything to be perfect. This isn’t how it’s normally done, you know.”
“How what’s normally done?” I asked as a hiccup of emotion took away the seriousness of my question.
“Getting married. It’s supposed to be ceremonious, with flowers, and cake, and loved ones, and a-”
“Big white dress?” I added.
“Well, yes, to be honest. I know that this is something that most human girls dream of; you plan this almost from conception it seems.”
“I’ve never even thought about it…not once,” I admitted. “And if I were to start, the last thing I’d ever imagine would be me in a big white dress.”
“That’s why,” Lark spoke up then, a broad smile taking possession of her face and lighting it up like a beacon. “I made you some white jeans instead.” She held up a box that had been tied with a dark blue strip of fabric. “This is for you.”
She passed it across the table and I placed it in front of me. I looked at everyone, their expectant expressions encouraging me on silently, and hurriedly undid the bow that had been carefully tied together. The box wasn’t that large, only a few inches deep and a foot square, but it didn’t need to be as I discovered when I lifted the lid and gently pulled away the tissue that covered the objects that lay beneath it.
Carefully, I lifted a satiny blouse out of the box. Its color graduated from white at the base of the low neckline to the same blue as the ribbon. Beneath the blouse was a pair of white jeans, just as Lark said. They were soft, and looked like just looking at them would make them dirty.
“Here, I want you to have this,” Stacy said, taking my hand and pressing something cold into my palm.
My eyes traveled from her dark ones to the object that sat in my hand. It was a thin, silver-link bracelet with a single charm dangling from its very center: a musical note. “Stacy…”
“It’s your something old—although I think Robert could probably qualify as that if you want to be more accurate.”
“It’s beautiful,” I observed. “Where’d you get it?”
A wistful look crossed her face before disappearing almost as quickly as it had arrived. “My parents gave that to me when I was seven; they said it was to give me good luck. I suppose it worked, since I did get better shortly afterward. Funny thing is it was always too big to wear, so I never did. Eleven years that thing’s been sitting at the bottom of my jewelry box, and when I finally started to wear it I didn’t think anything of it. I had almost forgotten what it was, but then one day I realized that I wore it for the first time the day I met you.
“You were my first real best friend—that wasn’t related to me, of course—and knowing you changed my life; knowing you saved my life. I think that on the day you make one of the biggest changes in yours that you should wear something that means something. I know it’s not really fancy or anything, but-”
I wrapped my arms around her and held her close; held her tightly; held her like I was afraid that if I let go, she’d disappear forever. She couldn’t finish her sentence, couldn’t continue speaking at all. I didn’t care that she felt like a Popsicle. I didn’t care that for the first time, it was she who felt awkward by the close contact. She was my friend.
“It’s perfect,” I whispered. “It’s more than perfect; thank you.”
It was she that pulled away, and her sheepish smile told me that she knew how I felt, even if she couldn’t read the words in my head. She turned in her seat, her head looking away and her hand lifting up to rub her eye, a motion that I wasn’t sure would brush away any actual tears.
Graham looked at her and then his eyes lifted to capture mine in its emerald gaze. “Well, I don’t know if you had planned this or not, but I drew the short straw when it came to who would be your maid of honor. I’m supposed to help you get dressed and all of that girly stuff, so come on.”
He stood up and came behind me, carefully pulling my seat away as I stood to meet him. “You’re going to help me dress?” I asked warily.
“Well, not literally, but there are other things I’m good at doing,” he said with a chuckle. I looked at Robert, and then at Lark, and finally at Stacy, and knew that this was how it was supposed to be. I followed Graham through a door that led into a rather plain looking room.
“What is this place?” I asked as I took a turn into another room that held a small bed and a table with a mirror hanging above it.
“Some cottage that belongs to an EP Robert knows.”
“Do you know where we are?”
He nodded but gave me a knowing smirk as he said, “But I’m not telling you.”
“Ingrate,” I mumbled. Graham handed me the white box that held the jeans and blouse and turned around.
“Graham,” I called out. There was a tremor of nervousness in my voice, and he detected it immediately.
“What’s the matter, Grace? You’re not getting cold feet, are you? Because that’s what the guy’s supposed to do, not the girl.”
I shook my head and an uneasy giggle slipped past my lips. “I…I wanted to ask you what it…what it felt like.”
“What what felt like?”
I clutched onto the small white box in my hands and stared at my fingers, watching their tips change color from pink to yellow and finally to white. “What it felt like to turn.”
His face went from amused to horrified in a quarter of a second, and I would have laughed if it didn’t cause me to feel equally as horrified. “Is it that bad?”
“No, no…no,” he stuttered. “It’s just—well, I don’t know if I’m the person who’s supposed to tell you.”
My eyebrows rose as doubt settled into the line my mouth made on my face. “I think everyone else thought you were perfect for it.”
Confusion crossed his features. “What do you mean? We drew straws. Stacy wouldn’t know what it felt like, which left Lark and I, and I’m the one who drew the…”
It was amusing, seeing the dawning of recognition light up his eyes and bring his drawn brows even closer together before they fell slack and separated into separate arches that framed an amused expression. “I got played.”
“Yes, yes you did,” I laughed.
“Wow.” He looked at me and sighed, his shoulders sinking and his posture bending forward, revealing to me how much he disliked this fact.
“Hey, if you don’t want to tell me, I understand. It’s probably something really personal.”
“That’s not it at all. It’s just…well, I don’t know if it’s going to be the same for you as it was for me. What if I tell you something and it turns out to be worse for you? You’re a girl-”
