She Lies Twisted

by C. M. Stunich

  “Thanks, Neil,” he said as I used my sweatshirt to wipe the tears from his cheeks. “And thanks for being my friend. It takes a pretty brave girl to do that.”

  "The day that Sydney died, I had the most horrible thoughts about her. I wished she would move away and never come back so that I wouldn't have to watch the hurt in her eyes each and every time she tried to hug me and I pulled away. I told myself that I had only done what she'd wanted because I loved her but in reality, I was being selfish. I wanted us to belong together like that because it made things easier. It made more sense to my mother, to my friends, to the world. But we were never meant to be like that. When I held her that night, I cried because I knew I had made the wrong decision. It meant the world to her and it was only a mistake to me. It was the worst feeling I had ever had. And then she died. Nothing can make that right.”

  I paused in my reading, realizing that along the way, I had stopped speaking aloud. My lips had failed to keep up with the beat of my heart. I let my lashes rest against my cheek and listened to Boyd play another horrible country song on his grandfather's guitar.

  I'd looked everywhere for his ghost. I'd had to, after my talk with James. I folded the letter and tucked it into the front of my jeans. James had showed it to me later, after I'd made him tea and we'd sat in the living room in silence pretending to enjoy a movie that neither of us were watching. I don't know why he'd written it. Maybe he'd thought the words wouldn't be able to escape his throat. Maybe he'd thought they'd clog up in his chest and I'd never know why he was the way he was. Whatever the reason, he'd written it in tiny, careful letters on a piece of Jessica's stationery. I'd swiped it after he'd fallen asleep on the couch and brought it, along with the harp and the pocketknife, here, to the park where Boyd had taught me to play chess.

  “I can't stay long,” I said as I gazed at the daisies and remembered when James and I had sat under this same tree. It seemed like ages ago but it was only days. I shook my head and relaxed into the grass. The sun cut across my skin in stripes, blocked by thick branches with gold and red and yellow leaves. “I have to go and find Jessica.” Boyd didn't answer, of course, but it was nice to lie there and pretend he could, pretend that the song he was playing was just for me and that nothing had gone wrong in the world.

  I rolled onto my side and watched the sun reflect off of his balding head. He'd had hair before I'd ruined our relationship. I should've said no. James should've said no. We were one in the same. It was incredible to believe that there was actually someone else in the world that was as fucked up as I was. I closed my eyes and saw the stitches across his brow, across his lower lip, across his throat. His image was burned in my brain and I found that no matter how hard I tried to care about Jessica, all I could think about was James. We had to find her soon, sure, that was obvious, but I had to help James find Sydney. It felt like if I did that, I was one step closer to letting Boyd go. The question was, was I ready to do that?

  I picked a daisy, then another, then another until I had a small pile of them clutched against my chest. I'd never made a daisy chain before but I tried, slitting the stems with my thumbnail and weaving them together like James had done. When I was finished, I had a small crown that I presented to Boyd's ghost. I was careful not to touch him. I didn't think I could handle another one of my family members trying to kill me. I stood behind my ghost, ducked down so that I was standing inside of her, mimicking her, and watched Boyd smile at me.

  “Did you like it?” He asked, strumming the guitar one last time and placing it in the grass by his side. Ghost Me nodded and I placed the daisy chain between us.

  “I liked it so much, I made you this,” I said quietly while I heard the other me say something inconsequential, something unimportant. “I should've told you that I loved it, that I knew the songs were always about me and that I cared. I should've told you that I listened to the tapes when I fell asleep and no matter how much I joked about it, I never thought they were creepy.” Boyd smiled and laughed. I closed my eyes and followed the Ghost Me to the ground where I lay silently, my knees tucked under my sweatshirt, and listened to him pick up his guitar and start a new song with my eyes closed and the autumn breeze brushing my bangs back from my forehead. For a moment there, things were almost good.

  My tranquility was short lived.

  A kick to my lower back knocked the air out of me and sent hot waves of pain coursing through the stitches in my belly. I rolled to my feet and came face to face with Margaret Cedar.

  “You fucking bitch,” she snarled, her usual tight jeans and skimpy tank top replaced with baggy cargo pants and a gray sweatshirt. I stumbled a step back to catch my breath. “You're as much of a freak as that dead sister of yours. They should put your crazy ass in a mental institution or in the ground where you belong.” She came at me again, fists swinging wildly. I ducked out of the way of those acrylic pink nails and tried not to think about why she was angry. She thinks you fucked Jarrod. I bit my lip and swung back at her, using my anger at Jessica to fuel my punch. When my knuckles connected with her delicate, little jaw, pain bloomed up my arm and made me pause long enough for her to leap at me.

  Margaret was a frenzy in glimmer gloss, slapping and pulling and tearing at me like one of the demons I was supposed to banish. I knocked her to her back and tried to get the upper hand by straddling her. By this time, people had begun to stare but nobody was helping. Everyone loves a good fight.

  “He's mine, he's mine, he's fucking mine, do you hear me?” I rolled off of her and rose to my feet. She was too wild to hold down, too angry, too fueled by unworthy passion. I pushed her away again and she slammed against the base of the tree with a grunt.

  “I don't want to fight you,” I said and I meant it. With Jessica, with James, with everything that was going on, my struggle was more internal than external and I didn't think I could handle both. She launched herself forward with a scream of rage. Love works both ways, Neil, for good and bad. Boyd had used to say that.

  “I always knew you were a whore,” she panted, her voice cracking with hysteria and exhaustion. She was wearing herself out and not getting anywhere. She was too hot headed, I was too clear headed, she wasn't getting any shots in and that pissed her off. Verbal abuses poured over my head like rain as I turned to walk away. I could still hear Boyd's country twang but I couldn't enjoy it anymore, not with this. “Is that why he killed himself?” She snarled finally, breaking her vituperative string of curses with one that she knew would hurt the most. “Because you were a shitty lay?” My heart froze in my chest, suspended by her words. Let it go, my rational brain begged. Go home, get James, free Sydney, find Jessica. Those are the things that matter.

  I took a deep breath and continued walking.

  “You don't walk away from me,” she continued to screech. “You do not fuck my fucking boyfriend and then walk away from me.” She barreled into my back, surprising me with the force behind her lanky and as I'd always believed, anorexic, form. I hit the dirt with a thud as she wrapped her hands around my hair and pulled. I tried to throw her off but her frenzy had reached a fervor and her skinny hands were wrapping around my throat, plastic nails raking my skin and drawing blood. I pushed myself up to my elbows and her weight lifted from my back suddenly. I rolled over and found Margaret suspended above me by the beak-less bird.

  She screamed, I screamed, and then her head was twisting back at an angle that I knew wasn't right.

  This isn't happening, this isn't happening, this isn't happening.

  “Jessica, stop!” It was too late. Margaret's limbs were too relaxed, her face too slack, her neck too twisted. Margaret Cedar was dead.

  The demon dropped her to the grass in front of me in a heap of adolescent limbs and broken dreams. We used to play Barbies together, we used to eat cut up hot dogs with ketchup and watch cartoons, Jessica used to sleep in the same with bed her on sleepovers. Now, she was dead in front of my feet for a boy that wasn't worth it. Love works both ways, Neil, for good a
nd bad. In that moment, I knew his statement couldn't have rung more true.

  Screams came to me then from the people in the park. People who had seen the girl who had attacked me die but hadn't seen the bird that killed her. What was I going to do now?

  “I'm sorry, Neil,” Jessica said from behind me. I stumbled to my feet and whirled around to face her. The flute was hanging limply in her right hand. “I meant to kill her before but I wanted her to know first. I'm sorry you had to see it like this.” I stared at the girl I had shared a womb with, shared a life, shared deaths.

  “Jessica,” my tone was firm. I didn't sound scared which was good. I didn't know how to sound scared anymore. Fear implies anxiety at the unknown, trepidation at perceived pain. I was already in the unknown, full of pain. There was nothing left to fear. “Are you trying to ruin what life I have left?” I was going to have to leave Grandma Willa alone in her mansion and travel the country with James with no food and clothes that stank like the sea. But is that really so bad? My heart pumped with possibility.

  “You belong with me, Neil,” she whispered as she lifted the flute to her lips. I reached for the handle of my purse. It wasn't there. Once again, it had been knocked off in a fight. I was going to have to find another way to carry it. I checked the grass. There, under the tree. I raced forward and snatched the purse from the ground but before I could even open it, Jessica lips moved across the metal and began to play.

  A twang, like Boyd's country music, broke the sweet melody of the flute. I couldn't place the sound at first but it was familiar. I glanced around for the source. Nethel moved into sight from behind a tree, lifted her fingers to her lips and blew. Petals danced in the wind for a moment before swirling, catching the trail of Jessica's music and attaching to her skin like scales. She shrieked in pain and I watched in horror as she changed, from girl to demon. Her hair grew long and full, wrapped her body like a blanket and pulled her to all fours, changed her from my sister into a lion with blue eyes and tails like whips. She roared and the bird demon responded as if summoned. It grasped the flute between its talons and lifted it into the sky, followed by Ehferea who had an arrow, cocked and ready. She released it, skimming the bird's wing and sending it crashing to the ground in a flurry of feathers and tufts of grass.

  I caught a movement of blue to my right and turned. There were police officers everywhere, drawn to the park by frantic 911 calls. I was going to go to jail. I paused for a long moment, drawn between the supernatural problems behind me and the civic ones in front. I can't do this. My knees shook and I thought I was going to collapse. A strong hand clamped around my arm and spun me to face its owner.

  “James,” I whispered his name like a dream and fell, forward and down, trying to hold onto some hope but not finding it.

  “Let's get out of here,” he whispered gently, hoisting me up with Nethel's help and taking me away from the park and the lion that was my sister and the flute she shouldn't have played. I didn't see her take Ehferea, twist her to the ground and snap her neck. I didn't see her take the flute and leave. I'm glad I didn't because even though the harpy got up and walked away as if nothing had happened, I had seen enough death to last me a thousand lifetimes.

  James took me home and locked the two of us in the pretty bedroom together while Nethel waited outside for Ehferea. As he drew the curtains and I wondered why I still had dry eyes, I realized that this was starting to become his room. Old memories were being replaced with newer, better ones. I tried to smile but Margaret's death caught at the corners of my lips and drew them down.

  “Are you okay?” He asked me as he peeked outside for something, maybe Jessica, maybe a demon, maybe cops. I nodded but didn't speak. He sat down on the unmade bed next to me and wrapped an arm around my shoulder.

  “Were you close to her?” He asked, pretending as if he hadn't followed me out there and seen the whole thing though I suspected he might have. When I spoke, my voice was barely above a whisper. Death. Death. Death. I just couldn't escape the inevitable.

  “Not anymore.” James nodded again and stood up, pacing the length of the room several times before I stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Am I going to jail?” He looked down at me and worried at his stitches.

  “I don't know.” At least he's honest. “But you didn't kill her. They might not have been able to see the demon but it was obvious that she didn't die by your hands.” I stared down at the white and pink floral rug and wondered how long it would take Jessica to find me again. It wasn't like I was in hiding. She had lived here, too. She would come, eventually. A knock at the door interrupted our silence. James and I exchanged worried glances.

  He tiptoed to the door and leaned his ear against it. I followed suit.

  The old doors creaked open and Grandma Willa answered.

  “How can I help you boys?” She asked in her afternoon-medication voice, the one where she got all foggy and far away. I frowned. Had she seen us come in? I tried to think. She had. She absolutely had. I grit my teeth and prepared to make a run for it. I could get out the window and down the street before the cops even knew what was happening and if they shot me, what the hell would happen? More stitches? James placed a hand on my arm.

  “She isn't here,” I heard Grandma Willa saying. “She went to school this morning and hasn't been back? Is there a problem?” She was covering for me. Grandma Willa could barely remember that I existed and she was covering for me. Thank you, I whispered in my heart. I would tell her later, I promised myself that. I would tell her I loved her, too. I hadn't said it in a long time but deep down, I knew it was true.

  James straightened back up and went to the curtains. He pulled the lace aside and waited until the cops had gotten back in their car and left before speaking.

  “We have to find Jessica,” he said, turning to face me again with a grim face. “We have to find her and send her on before she kills anybody else. I'm starting to wonder if we should be worried about that guy, what's his name, the red head?” I sighed. He was right. Jarrod. We had to find Jarrod and protect him from Jessica though I almost felt like it was a waste of life. He should've died and not Margaret. How could Jessica be so selfish?

  “I can show you where he lives?” I suggested, absolutely determined not to go back to the school or the park. If he wasn't there, too bad, his loss. “It's getting late, he should be home by now.”

  That is, if my sister hasn't already killed him.

  I walked to Jarrod's house in a daze. Margaret was dead, she wasn't my favorite person, that was fine, but I'd had enough. I stopped James with a hand on his elbow. He paused but didn't look at me. We still hadn't exactly addressed the Sydney issue and I think, but I wasn't positive, that he was embarrassed.

  “Thanks for telling me,” I said. I didn't need to specify. James knew what I was talking about. He kept his gaze on the sidewalk as I glanced over my shoulder at Nethel. She had agreed to follow us at a distance though I wouldn't say discreetly. She wasn't more than ten steps away. “And after this, I think we should go and find her.” James swallowed and nodded. He knew it was the right thing but it was going to be difficult. I wished I could give him courage but I was having trouble finding my own. I glanced back down at him and watched the waning sunlight play off of his hair. I needed to show him something that let him know that I was here. We're the same, you and me. We lived identical lives with different people in different places and we understand each other. I get it, James, I get it.

  I said nothing and kept walking.

  Before we even got to Jarrod's house, I knew there was a problem.

  The front door was missing.

  James and I paused, glancing at one another and then back at Nethel for confirmation. Ehferea still hadn't come back yet and if I really was starting to get a hang of how the stoic harpies thought, I would say that Nethel was worried. She stepped between us and went into the house without stopping. James and I waited for her in silence. When she reappeared, I expected her white feathers to be coate
d in blood. I just expected death all the time now. Sad. When she came out, though, she was still as white as a pearl, glimmering and changing tones in the light.

  “Jarrod is not present though it appears it has not been long since he was here. Shall I search the area for him?” Nethel looked up at the sky, her dark eyes searching for her partner. I followed her gaze but found nothing but white clouds and the telltale oranges and red of evening peeking over the edges of the mountaintops. I adjusted my sweatshirt to ward off the coming chill. It might've just been the weather or maybe I was starting to get paranoid. I swore I could feel Jessica's eyes boring into my back. I turned around and found nothing.

  “Well,” James began. “I guess that would be best. If he's still around here, we need to find him before Jessica...” He trailed off. He didn't need to state the obvious and he knew it.

  “Very well,” Nethel confirmed, raising her wings. “I will report back to you in this vicinity. Do not wander too far.”

  When she was gone, James and I were left standing awkwardly on a sidewalk with no discernible direction. I wished suddenly that there was a compass pointing us in the right direction. Do we find Sydney? Do we wait here? Do we look for Jessica? I turned around and went up the stairs. I had to do something. James followed me soundlessly into the apartment.

  As far as I knew, Jarrod lived here with his bitch of a mother who cared more about poker tournaments and fucking their players than she did about her own son. No wonder Jarrod was such an asshole.

  The house was ransacked. Pictures were smashed on the floor, tables were overturned, the TV was a smoking mass of melted plastic on the carpet. I let my mind put together a picture of what it would've looked like beforehand and it wasn't much better. Those holes in the walls looked like they'd been there for quite some time and the dirty carpet and crooked kitchen cabinets didn't look new either. Jessica's demons had done a lot of physical damage but signs of emotional stress were everywhere.