“It’ll be fine.” Akako held out her hand; from the way her knees wobbled, Aggie knew it was more to keep her on her feet than a childish gesture.
As they walked along the sidewalk, Aggie kept an eye out for Glenda, should she and her friends try an ambush. No one bothered them until they reached the front gates of Woodbridge Heights. This time the window of the booth was open so Aggie could see an elderly man inside; he stared at a television monitor. He looked up at their approach and his face darkened with concern. “What happened to you, Miss Kim?”
“A fight at school,” Akako said in a girlish voice—her Renee voice.
“I should call your father—”
“It’s really not that bad. I just need some rest.”
“I don’t know about that. It looks pretty serious to me.”
“I’ll be fine. Aggie will help me clean up.”
“Now, Miss Kim, you know your father’s rules. You’re not supposed to have friends over unless he’s around.”
Akako’s voice went even higher as she whined, “We’re not having a slumber party. She’s just going to help me clean up and then she’ll leave.” Akako turned her good eye to Aggie. “Isn’t that right?”
“Yes. It won’t be long.”
Floyd the security guard considered this for a moment and then sighed. “All right. But you girls behave. Don’t get up to any monkey business.”
“We won’t,” Akako said. The gates opened for her to walk inside; she pressed herself against Aggie for support. Her voice sounded more normal as she said, “We probably won’t have much time before he calls Daddy at work.”
“Maybe we should go somewhere else.”
“We’ll just hit the medicine cabinet and then get some clothes and leave. Shouldn’t be too long.”
“You’re the boss,” Aggie said. Indeed in this universe Akako seemed to be in charge far more often than not, despite her youth and small size. Now I know how Rebecca feels, Aggie thought as they walked down the sidewalk, past rows of opulent houses.
Akako’s house was at the end of a cul-de-sac and was the largest one of all. It was nearly as big as the Joubert estate back in France, with the columns and façade of a government building or a royal palace. “This is where you live?” Aggie said.
“Daddy likes to show off,” Akako said. “Come on!” Her injuries seemed forgotten for a moment as she tugged Aggie up the sidewalk to the front steps. She reached into her pocket for a key and then unlocked the door. She motioned for Aggie to hurry inside.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” Akako asked.
“It is,” Aggie said. Indeed the house looked ready for a shoot in Better Homes & Gardens. Not only because of the opulent, tasteful furniture or the artwork on the walls, but because the place was spotless. Not a single stray paper in sight.
Akako seemed possessed by Renee Kim again as she practically skipped through the main hallway, to the stairs that wound up to the second floor. “Come on, Agnes. I want to show you my room.”
“Akako, your father—”
“Don’t worry about Daddy. Come on!”
Aggie followed her friend upstairs; she stopped for a moment at the top of the stairs to catch her breath. Akako motioned to Aggie again. When Aggie didn’t immediately follow, Akako stamped her foot on the floor. “Hurry up, Agnes. My room is right here.”
Renee Kim’s bedroom was the first one Aggie had ever seen with a case of schizophrenia. One half looked like a little girl’s room with a canopy bed, a cat ballerina lamp on the nightstand next to it, and a toy box at the foot of the bed. A desk took up the opposite wall, stacks of books on calculus, trigonometry, and geometry piled up on it. The periodic table was tacked above the desk, as well as a star chart and an Einstein poster. The third wall was taken up by a box window that featured a daybed that seemed to be a focal point for the two halves of the room—one half featured stuffed toys and the other a laptop computer.
Aggie shivered as she remembered her earlier thought about Rebecca. It occurred to her that Emma Earl’s bedroom in Parkdale had probably looked much the same, albeit without the box window because her parents didn’t have the money for a mansion. Renee Kim was similarly young and gifted; she had skipped grades at an even faster clip so she would have her diploma before she got her period. Aggie finally understood that in this universe she was Rebecca and Akako was Emma, while the actual Emma Earl had become Agnes Chiostro. Aggie leaned against a post of the canopy bed, suddenly feeling weak.
“Agnes, what’s wrong?” Akako asked. Her girlish glee had evaporated.
“I just figured this place out.” She explained her theory to Akako that Sylvia had sent them to a universe where their roles were all reversed.
“So does that mean if we stay here I’ll become the Scarlet Knight?” Akako asked. She displayed her bloody mouth as she smiled. That smile quickly faded and her eyes widened. “Oh God, do you think Daddy is going to die? I’ve already lost Mommy—”
“I don’t think we have to worry about that.”
“But you don’t know that, do you?” Tears leaked out from Akako’s swollen eye. The rest of her face turned red, albeit not the same color as the dried blood. “I mean, if you’re Becky and I’m Emma and Emma is you—”
“But not exactly,” Aggie said. “My mother isn’t mean like Rebecca’s and we don’t live in a trailer. Your mother is dead but your father is still alive. And Emma is a teacher, not a seamstress like me.”
Akako wiped the tears from her cheeks. “I guess you’re right. There probably isn’t even a Scarlet Knight here.”
“Just as well. We won’t have to worry about seeing what Marlin’s like here.”
Akako laughed at this, some of her good humor restored. She held out her hand for Aggie to take. “Come on, Daddy keeps the medicines in his bathroom.”
The master bedroom looked as unlived-in as the rest of the house. The only personal item was a photo beside the bed that showed Akako’s father with his arm around the shoulders of a young Asian woman who looked very much like Akako as an adult. The woman cradled a baby swaddled in a pink blanket in her arms.
“That’s Mommy,” Akako said, her voice hollow. “She died when I was a baby.”
“When Renee was a baby.”
“Oh, right.” Akako smiled grotesquely again. “I’m sorry.”
“Are you feeling all right? I mean other than your face.”
“I can feel her inside me. Renee. Don’t you feel that other Agnes inside you?”
“No.”
“It’s probably because I’m better attuned to it. Or maybe because I’m not really supposed to be Renee.” She began to cry again as she looked up at Aggie. “Do you think I’ll just fade away? That one day there won’t be any me left, just Renee?”
“We aren’t going to let that happen. We’re going to get home soon, as soon as my power is back.”
“What if it doesn’t come back? Or what if by the time it does, I’m gone? What if there’s no me to send back?”
Aggie squatted down and took Akako into her arms. She stroked Akako’s hair while the little girl sobbed. “I won’t let that happen,” she whispered. “I love you too much to let you go.” She closed her eyes and repeated those words over and over again like a mantra. As she did, she felt something happen; a tingle ran throughout her body. The tingle became a burning sensation, as if her entire body were on fire. She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out.
Though her eyes were closed, she saw a tunnel of white light and felt herself being drawn along it. This is it, she thought. We’re going home! She tried to grab Akako, but she couldn’t feel anything around her. Ahead, she saw the end of the tunnel—too late she realized it was a dark abyss, not her way home. As she plunged into the abyss, she could feel her body fall backwards, to collapse onto the floor of Akako’s father’s bedroom. Distantly she could hear Akako scream her name, but she couldn’t answer as the darkness swallowed her up.
***
She aw
oke to the sound of Akako’s voice. Not the high-pitched voice of a nine-year-old, but the deeper, more confident voice Aggie had heard whisper into her ear so many mornings in bed. “Agnes, can you hear me?”
Aggie’s eyes blinked open and she smiled. Akako hovered over her, the adult she’d last seen in the archives, before Sylvia brought them here. She’d done it. She’d really done it! She’d brought them home.
She tried to turn her head, but her entire body felt leaden, so that she could only see a swath of floral-print wallpaper over Akako’s shoulder. Aggie’s eyes narrowed at this. The wallpaper wasn’t the same as in her house in Rampart City, nor the estate in France. “Where am I?” she asked. Her words slurred as if she were drunk.
“You’re safe.” Akako sat at the edge of the bed to run a hand through Aggie’s hair. Akako smiled down at her, that smile no longer marred by blood and swollen lips.
“What happened?”
“You saved me. I don’t know how, but you did it.”
“I did it.” Aggie breathed a sigh of relief. “I’m so tired.”
“It’s all right. Get some rest. That spell took a lot out of you.”
Aggie heard a door creep open. A little girl’s voice said, “Is she awake?”
“Yes, but she’s very tired.”
Aggie forced her head to move to the left. She groaned again when she saw Renee Kim there, clad in a plaid skirt and a black T-shirt so short she must have worn it as a toddler. Her hair was back in its pigtails and looked freshly dyed. She bore none of the cuts or bruises from the fight with Glenda. It was Renee Kim the wanna-be Goth girl, the girl Akako was supposed to have been. Only now a fully grown Akako put an arm around Renee’s shoulder; she looked so much like Renee’s mother in the photo in the master bedroom.
Despite her pale makeup, Renee’s face beamed as she grinned at Aggie. “Wow, I can’t believe it. You really are a witch! I thought all that magic and stuff was a bunch of bullshit—” Akako cleared her throat; Renee looked down at the floor, chastised. “I thought it was a lie, but you really do have magic powers.”
“We’re still here, aren’t we? I’m still a kid?” Aggie asked.
“I’m afraid so.”
“But then how—”
“I don’t know. One minute we were hugging and I was crying and sure I was going to lose my mind and the next I was lying on the floor next to Renee.”
“Can you hear them?”
“The others? No.” It was Akako’s turn to look down at the floor sadly. “I’m still cut off.”
Aggie managed to push herself into a seated position. She could see her stomach press against the sheets to confirm what she had thought. While she had somehow changed Akako back to herself, Aggie hadn’t done the same for herself. “So where are we?”
“In one of the guest rooms,” Renee said. “Daddy doesn’t ever come in here unless Grammy is staying over.”
Akako put her hand on Aggie’s still-flat chest. “Just take it easy, Agnes. You need some time to recuperate.”
Aggie wanted to argue, but she didn’t have the strength for it. She wouldn’t be able to get far right now, not unless Akako had a wheelbarrow handy. Even then, she didn’t know where she would go. Sophie would surely tell Mother that Aggie had gotten into a fight and ditched school and then Aggie would be grounded. She smiled slightly at this thought; she hadn’t ever worried about being grounded before. In the 16th Century the preferred punishment had been a thrashing with the blacksmith’s belt, which she’d endured when she’d kissed a mortal boy brought in to help with the harvest. Sophie had never gotten the belt; she was always the good one. As for Sylvia, she’d gotten to be quite familiar with the blacksmith, always the one to rebel against authority. Some things never changed.
Her eyes closed on their own to plunge her into sleep once more. The next time she woke up, she let out a gasp to see Renee’s face in the moonlight, her eye sockets darkened and skin lightened so she looked like the Grim Reaper. “Aggie? It’s me, Renee.”
“Hi,” Aggie said.
Renee sat on the edge of the bed as Akako had earlier. “Your friend is across the hall, taking a nap.”
“What about your father?”
“Daddy’s working in his office. As usual.”
The sadness in Renee’s voice prompted Aggie to lift up her arm, which no longer felt quite so heavy, to pat the little girl’s thigh. “I’m sure your father loves you.”
“I know.” Renee smeared her thick mascara as she wiped at her eyes. “He blames me for it.”
“For what?”
“For Mommy. After she had me, she wasn’t the same. She was sad all the time. I can’t really remember, but that’s what Consuela, our maid, says. The doctors said she had postpartum depression. They gave her some pills for it, but they didn’t help. Then one day she left me in my crib and she drove out to the harbor and she just kept going.”
“That’s terrible.”
“If I hadn’t been born, she would still be happy. She’d still be here.”
“I’m sure that’s not what she wanted. I’m sure wherever she is, she’s very proud for how you’ve turned out—how you’re going to turn out.”
“Maybe. I wish Daddy and I could be happy, you know? Like normal people.”
“You have to give him time, dear,” Aggie said. She thought of how long she’d grieved over Alejandro’s death—a century and a half, until Red and then Akako came into her life. “It can take a long time to recover from losing someone you love.”
“I never told Aggie any of that. I mean, not the real Aggie. I don’t think she’d understand like you do.”
“Yes, I think the real Aggie is too young to understand that, but she will in time. Just like you will, when you’re a grown-up.”
“Sometimes I wish I could wake up and be a grown-up. Do you think you could do that?”
“No, dear, I couldn’t.” Though she was still in this teenage body, something about Renee’s youth and innocence brought out the grandmother in her. If she could get out of bed, she’d go downstairs to bake some cookies and brew a pot of tea, as she’d done for her grandchildren and then later for Emma and Rebecca. There were some advantages to being an old woman, she supposed.
“You can’t or you won’t?”
“I can’t right now, but I wouldn’t even if I could.” Aggie strained to move her hand up to touch Renee’s magenta hair. “You would only be a grown-up on the outside. Inside you’d still be a child. Does that make sense?”
“I guess so.”
“You should savor this time. It won’t come again—for most people.” Aggie smiled. “And trust me, it’s not any more fun even if you’ve done it a few times.”
“Really?”
“I’m living proof.”
Renee returned Aggie’s smile and then nodded in the direction of the doorway. “So what’s the story with you and Akako? You came from a parallel universe?”
“Yes. Another witch—my sister—accidentally used a spell to bring us here.”
“And in that other universe, you two are a couple?”
“Yes. Akako and I love each other very much.”
“So you two are gay?”
“Where I came from I was married to a man—a wonderful man—for fifty years. Then later, long after he died, I met another man—a boy, really. But he died saving my life. When he did, Akako found me. Where she came from, she and I were married, except there I was a man.”
“That’s so weird.”
“Very.”
“So it’s like you two were destined to be together. Star-crossed lovers and everything.” Renee sighed. “That’s so romantic.”
“Yes, I guess it is.”
“What are you going to do if you can’t get home? I mean, what if you’re stuck here?”
Aggie thought about this for a moment. She thought back to what she’d told Akako before at school, about how nothing would change, no matter how old or young they were. That had been when she was six
years older than Akako. Now she was about ten years younger. Akako would be the one who would have to wait for her to grow up. Only three years, but even then Akako would be almost twice Aggie’s age, at least in most everyone’s minds. She shook away these doubts. Akako had given up her entire life in her own world to be with Aggie; she wouldn’t abandon Aggie just because of what other people thought.
“We’ll make it work,” Aggie said. “That’s what you do when you’re in love.”
Renee nodded at this. “You must really love her. I mean, you were like practically dead when Akako and I woke up. You were all pasty and cold—”
Aggie thought back to those last moments, when she had hugged Akako and said how much she loved her. Before that, during the fight, Akako had looked to her—
“Oh my God, I understand now!” Aggie blurted out.
“Understand what?” Renee asked.
“How we get home,” Aggie said. “But we’re going to need help.”
***
The Kim household didn’t have a wheelbarrow Akako could use to roll Aggie along, but by eleven-thirty Aggie felt strong enough that she only needed to lean against Akako for support, the same way Akako had leaned against her after the fight. Just in case, they had borrowed a cane that belonged to Renee’s grandmother. Aggie held on to the cane but she didn’t use it; in all her years as an old woman she’d never once used a cane and she wouldn’t start now if she could help it.
To get out of the Kim house didn’t prove to be much of a challenge. Renee had provided the distraction they needed when her father came upstairs to demand she go to bed. “Dad-dy,” Renee shrieked, their signal to set out for the stairs. “I’m not a baby anymore.”
“You only nine years old and you live in my house. You go to bed when I say you go to bed,” her father said. “And why you wear so much makeup? I told you no makeup.”
“This isn’t just makeup. I’m expressing myself.” Aggie and Akako waited against the wall outside Renee’s bedroom. Renee had enough experience in arguments with her father that they’d been able to script things almost verbatim. “You’re always trying to censor me!”
Tales of the Scarlet Knight Collection: The Wrath of Isis Page 55
