by Foxglove Lee
“Yvette,” I cried through the tears and the blood. “You were there for me when I needed you.”
That was true, and when I said the words I felt something on my ankle. Fingers. A hand. Somebody holding me close to earth.
It was working.
“Yvette,” I went on, picturing her peaches-and-cream complexion, her red ringlets as they once were. “I had no one else to talk to when I was younger. I had no friends, but you were there. You were my only friend for three years.”
The grip around my ankle tightened, and the pull from above weakened slightly.
“But, Yvette, I’m moving on now, okay? I met Tiffany and I really like her. If that’s more than you can handle, maybe it’s time for you to move on too. Okay, Yvette?”
The force of God-knows-what held me in limbo, both feet off the ground. My skin prickled. Blood ran down my chin, dripping onto my shirt. And a hand gripped tighter around my ankle.
The tornado howled. As the universe screeched, I felt the strangest sensation, like a huge flock of birds flying past me. I could practically feel the kiss of feathers against my skin.
All at once, the hold let up. I landed so hard on my back that lightning shot along my spine. At first I couldn’t move. I was sure I’d been paralyzed. And then I looked up into the sky.
The stars had come home.
My body started to warm, and something carried me until I was sitting up, looking down. Tiffany’s fingers were wrapped around my ankle, but her eyes were half-closed and fluttering.
“Tiffany!” My throat needled. Blood everywhere. “Tiff, look at me!”
My uncle scrambled to us, but he wavered and held his head. He must have gotten slammed against a tree or something. “Tiffany? Becca? Talk to me, girls. Tell me you’re okay.”
Her body was buried under the fallen tepee. Somehow, she’d wormed her way close enough to save my life. How she’d done that half-conscious and buried under branches, I’d never know. She mumbled something, but I couldn’t make out the words.
“What are you saying, Tiff? Are you okay?”
“Your bracelet.” Her eyes were closed but at least she was speaking. “Salt and sage weren’t enough. Throw the tiger’s eye on top.”
As far as protection went, the tiger’s eye hadn’t done me much good, but the bracelet meant something. “I can’t just throw it away. You made it for me.”
“I’ll make you another one,” she said. “Bec, do you trust me?”
“Of course I do.” I trusted her with my life.
“Then throw the tiger’s eye in the grave.”
When I looked beyond Tiffany, I saw Leonard sitting woozily against a tree. His head was bleeding, and my uncle tore strips off his own shirt to stem the flow.
“Are you sure you don’t mind?” I asked Tiffany.
Her fingers found my skin, tracing my calf underneath my pants. The sensation made me tingle. “I’ll make you a new one. Every year I’ll make you a new one. When we’re in our eighties I’ll still be making you bracelets. You can wear them up and down your arms and legs.”
My heart felt huge, and I hoped to God Tiffany would remember what she’d offered when morning came.
“Throw it in,” she said.
I kept wondering how badly her legs were being crushed under the tepee. Could she even feel them? I could have tried lifting the branches, but my muscles ached so badly I could hardly manage to slide across the dirt to look inside Yvette’s grave.
There she was.
Shards of broken porcelain mixed with salt and sage. Her decapitated head sat on top of the salt, one-eyed, split in two. The sight should have been scary, but for some reason it wasn’t. That porcelain was not Yvette. It wasn’t a dead body. It was just a broken doll.
I wasn’t dainty about taking off my bracelet. I ripped it from my wrist. Bits of tiger’s eye freefell into the grave, landing among the rocks of salt. And that was that.
“She’s gone,” I said to Tiffany. “You’re safe now. It’s just us.”
A sleepy smile spread across Tiffany’s lips. “I know.”
Her smile faded and her eyes fluttered. When she set her head down on my leg, I was sure in my heart that she’d died.
Chapter 26
Even with one arm in a sling, Tiffany didn’t act like your typical damsel in distress. She let me help her with some things, but not stringing tiger’s eye onto fishing line. That, she did on her own. I couldn’t very well make my own replacement bracelet.
“Wow, you’re almost done,” she said, with a nod to my needlework. “You should frame that and give it to your mom for Christmas.”
“That was the plan, originally.” I sat beside her, behind the counter of her grandparents’ shop, gazing at the peaceful winter scene I’d created. “But now I’m thinking maybe I’ll give it to my dad.”
Tiffany’s eyes went wide. “Wow, really?”
I shrugged, pretending it was no big deal. “Yeah, well he probably doesn’t have any decorations in his cell, right? So maybe he’ll like it.”
“He’ll love it, Rebecca.” Tiffany slid my new tiger’s eye bracelet around my wrist. It couldn’t have fit more perfectly. “He has to love it, because you made it with your own two hands. Every time he looks at it, he’ll think of you.”
Tears welled in my eyes, and I struggled not to let them fall. “Thanks, Tiff.”
“Do you think you’ll visit him in jail?” Her voice was very soft.
“No way. It’s too scary, the idea of walking into a prison. And… I’m really mad at him, Tiff. It’s hard to explain. Like, I want him to be okay, but I don’t want to have to deal with the whole thing. You must think I’m the world’s worst daughter.”
“I don’t think that.” She leaned in close. “And you know what? I bet he doesn’t think that either.”
The thought made my heart itchy, but Tiffany’s warm smile was the perfect salve. Just as I leaned in to kiss her, the bells jingled and the door flew open. My heart clenched, because I thought it must be my aunt and uncle telling us it was time to leave for town. My mom and Aunt Margo were driving all the way up to meet us, then spend the weekend at the cottage. It would be the first time I’d spoken to my mother since I found out Dad was in jail, and I don’t think I’d ever been so nervous about anything in my life.
But when I looked up, I realized it wasn’t my family that had entered the store. Nope. It was a bunch of the boys who were always hanging around the fire pit.
“Hi dykes,” one of them said.
My cheeks blazed. I was so mad I couldn’t speak.
But Tiffany could. “Hi jerks.”
“Oooh,” another guy said. “Ouch.”
“We’re going out in the boat, Blondie.” The tallest guy, who was also blond, dug through the Popsicle cooler and pulled out five Freezies. The rest of them stared at Tiffany like a pack of wolves. “You feel like waterskiing?”
“How the heck am I supposed to waterski with my arm in a sling?” Tiffany rolled her eyes. “You really are a bunch of idiots, you know that?”
“That’ll be a dollar for the Freezies,” I said, stepping behind the cash register. I just wanted to get rid of them.
“Aww, come on.” The tall blond ignored me, leaning against the counter close to Tiffany. “At least come out in the boat. I’ll let you touch my…”
Out of nowhere, Tiffany’s grandmother started whacking the boys with a broom, and shouting, “You quit giving my girls a hard time, or I’ll shove them Freezies where the sun don’t shine!”
I started laughing. I couldn’t help it.
“Okay, okay!” The tall guy slammed a dollar on the counter just as Mrs. Jones’s broom whacked him between the shoulder blades. “Ouch! Okay, we’re leaving! Don’t have a heart attack.”
Tiffany’s grandmother smiled smugly as the boys fled the store. “Good riddance to bad rubbish.”
But Tiffany didn’t seem so amused. “Grandma, you can’t go around hitting people with brooms. They co
uld have you arrested for assault.”
“Let’em lock me up,” Mrs. Jones said with a shrug. “Can’t stop me from protecting my family.”
Tiffany shook her head, but smiled, and the bells over the door rang out again.
“There’s my girl!” Aunt Libby cried, hugging me across the counter. Uncle Flip and my brother hung back around the Archie comics. “Long time no see.”
That was a joke, of course. Ever since we’d buried Yvette, I’d been back to the cottage every evening for dinner. I still spent my nights sharing Tiffany’s room, but time with my family was more important than ever.
“Tiffany, that’s a lovely dress,” Aunt Libby said as she looked between us. “Is that what you’re wearing to the teahouse, Rebecca?”
I rolled my eye before catching her smirk. “Very funny.”
“Mrs. Jones,” my aunt said. “Are you sure you can’t come with us? We’d love to have you along.”
“Someone’s got to mind the shop,” she said, though she didn’t seem happy about it.
“Close it up for the afternoon,” Tiffany suggested. “Come on, Grandma, the teahouse! You and Grandpa have to come!”
“Please come as our guests,” Aunt Libby said. “It’s the least we can do after you’ve taken such good care of Rebecca.”
I felt a little like a kid they were babysitting, but I was happy when Mrs. Jones said, “Oh, why not? I’ll get Arthur ready and we’ll be right out.”
When Mrs. Jones left the shop, broom in hand, Tiffany asked my aunt, “When you talked to Becca’s mom, did you ask her about me moving in for the school year?”
My brother dropped his Jughead Double Digest. “Tiffany’s gonna live with us?”
“No, I didn’t mention it,” my aunt replied. “I told you girls I’d leave it up to you. You ask your mother and sort out the details. Nothing to do with me.”
I tapped my toes on the floor. “I hope my mom says yes.”
Mikey jumped around the store, knocking over canned goods. “Me too!”
“It’s the perfect solution,” I told my aunt, because we really needed her on our side. “We have all that space in the basement where dad’s band buddies used to crash. Tiffany’s parents are willing to pay rent, which means mom can work less and be home with us at night.”
“Certainly sounds like a plan.” My uncle picked up all the items my brother knocked over. “Mike, cut it out. You’re making a mess.”
“Did Leonard ever get back to you?” Tiffany asked.
My aunt nodded. “He’s meeting us at the teahouse.”
An image flashed across my mind, of Leonard against a tree, his head bleeding, my uncle ripping apart his shirt to bandage the wounds. It seemed like a movie, not like real life at all. Except, if it had been a movie, my family would have talked about it endlessly. It must have been real life, because we didn’t talk about it at all.
August had only just begun, and already I’d lived the most momentous summer of my life. Thank goodness we didn’t have to write those corny “What I did this summer” essays in high school, because I definitely would have failed if I’d written about my vacation. The teacher would say, “You fell for a blonde and she liked you back? Yeah right! Your father went to jail and nobody told you? Double yeah right! Then a doll came to life, set fire to your room, tried to kill your girlfriend, and almost tore you apart like a strand of spaghetti? Triple yeah right!”
It wasn’t very believable.
But it happened.
Now that it was over, I could hardly believe it myself.
“How’s Leonard feeling?” I asked my aunt.
“He said he was woozy for a few days, but he’s very much on the mend and looking forward to seeing us all.”
Tiffany looked to me and I smiled. “I’m looking forward to seeing him too.”
“And seeing Mom,” my brother added.
My uncle helped him stack the big bags of marshmallows he’d toppled over. “You’re looking forward to seeing your mom, Mike?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I think maybe she needs us.”
My uncle clutched his shoulder, smiling proudly. “Sure she does, buddy.”
Tiffany’s grandparents emerged from the back room, and the quiet store burst with energy. I felt giddy, like we were going to a party—which we sort of were. When my nerves got the best of me, Tiffany seemed to know, because she grasped my hand. My new bracelet caught my eye, and I smiled at the glints of chestnut and bronze. The stones were beautiful, just like Tiffany, and when I looked at them I got the same warm feeling I got when I looked at her.
“Ready?” she asked.
I squeezed her hand harder. “For anything.”
The End
Also by Foxglove Lee
*
For Younger Readers:
The Secret of Dreamland
Ghost Turkey and the Pioneer Graveyard
*
For Young Adult Readers:
Sylvie and the Christmas Ghost
You Can Never Go Home Again
Rainbow Crush
*
For New Adult Readers:
Truth and Other Lies
*
Also:
Embarrassing Period Stories
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Want More Retro LGBT fiction?
Check out Sylvie and the Christmas Ghost:
Every family has its ghosts...
It's December 1994 and Sylvie's spending Christmas in a small town while her father renovates the creepy old house he grew up in. According to local lore, the house is haunted. The whole town is so obsessed with spotting a spirit they camp out on the front lawn eating hot dogs, snacking on popcorn, and waiting for something ghostly to happen.
Sylvie's father doesn't believe in ghosts, but maybe there really is an entity hiding in the walls. Is it someone familiar? A relative, perhaps?
When Sylvie meets Celeste, an unusual girl who's pretty as a Victorian Christmas card, they get off to a rocky start. Celeste claims she can communicate with spirits. Could that be true? If they pool their energies, maybe they'll unearth a family secret... before it's too late!
Sylvie and the Christmas Ghost is available as an ebook and in print!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Foxglove Lee is a former aspiring Broadway Baby who now writes fiction for young adults. She tries not to be too theatrical, but her characters often take over. Like Rebecca from her debut novel Tiffany and Tiger’s Eye, who’s convinced an evil doll is trying to ruin the summer of 1986. Or Sylvie from Sylvie and the Christmas Ghost, who’s spending the holidays of 1994 in a haunted house!
Foxglove’s fiction has been called
SPECTACULAR by Rainbow Reviews
&
UNFORGETTABLE by USA Today!
