The man in the suit bumped into Meg, hard enough to knock her sideways several inches. Her hands came up instinctively, hands caked with grey, like overlapping scales, each one glistening as if dipped in a slick of oil. All across her arms, more of the same.
This is not who you are, the voice said.
The ribbon of green wound its way up around her leg.
No, you will not do this.
Meg extended her arms, fingers splayed. Streamers of pink, yellow, and lilac rushed along the pavement, darting between feet and legs, all on a path to Meg. They spiraled around her calves, coiled about her waist, and danced along her arms, nudging their way beneath the grey.
Cracks appeared in her arms with zigzags of healthy flesh peeking out. The air filled with the smell of hibiscus and rose. The corners of her mouth slid up into a smile as she tasted strength and purpose—
No, it was weakness. Useless, stupid weakness. They would not win. She would not let them win.
In the street, the elderly woman rose to her feet. Tires screeched again. Another car swerved, but the tires didn’t catch on the asphalt. The car slid in an arc, the side heading straight for the woman, close enough for Meg to see the driver’s mouth open in a giant O. The laughter of the crowd grew louder.
The grey pressed back, tightening around Meg’s limbs. One green tendril dropped to the pavement, the severed edge bleeding pale vapor onto the pavement. Her laughter
No, not mine, not mine.
joined the rest.
The ribbons wrapped even tighter around her limbs, propelling her forward, as if she were a marionette and they the puppeteer. She struggled and pushed, but couldn’t stop, couldn’t break free.
This is who you really are.
They shoved her through the crowd, out into the street, and let go. She fell against the old woman, pushing her out of the way to safety. Someone laughed; in the distance, someone else screamed.
Metal met flesh as the car struck.
Pain exploded inside Meg’s chest, her back, her legs. She felt the sensation of flying, then a thud as she landed on her back. Hurt came anew. Everywhere. Inside and out. She stared at the sky, a seeping warmth crept from beneath her body, and the taste of wet pennies filled her mouth.
She tried to move her legs, but the signal would not pass between brain and limb. Tried to speak, but the words would not come. Like a broken, discarded doll, she remained motionless and still.
With a soft tug, the grey left her skin. A legion of rats deserting their sinking ship. A dark shadow moved across the asphalt, and the smell of char rose into the air. Sirens wailed far in the distance. Too late. They were too late. Tears filled Meg’s eyes.
Green and yellow and pink took the grey’s place, wrapping around her like streamers on a Maypole. She tasted the sweetness of honeysuckle; the pain ebbed; the sirens faded to a mere suggestion of sound.
This is who you are, the voice whispered, soft and sweet. This is who you are.
Girl,
With Coin
The girl who can’t feel pain is on display in the art gallery again.
Stitches bind her lips together, a cage to keep her voice prisoner. The seams of her costume feel as if they’ll split under the strain of holding herself in.
She stares into the crowd with her back straight. In her hand, she clutches a straight razor, the blade glittering under the lights like a dark promise of blood, a pulse slowing to nothing at all.
She doesn’t have a death wish. She isn’t suicidal. Suicide isn’t art. It’s cheap theater, not even off-Broadway quality. Anyone can do it.
And she isn’t into kink. Her show isn’t designed to get anyone off. It’s about how much you can stand before you say enough, before you break.
Before you turn away.
Title: A Study in Crucifixion
Medium: Specially cast nails patterned after those used in ancient Rome
Canvas: Wrists, feet
Olivia steps on the envelope as she’s heading out of her apartment. If not for the crinkle of paper, she might not have even noticed. It’s plain white with the sealed side facing up. When she sees her name scrawled across the front in familiar handwriting with a distinctive O, the breath rushes out of her and her fingers tremble.
She scans the hallway but she’s alone except for the smell of burnt toast from the neighbors. Holding the letter as if it contains something toxic, she carries it back inside, kicks the door shut behind her.
The last time she saw that O, it was scrawled across a paper lunch bag. She was thirteen, her left leg encased in a cast up to her thigh, her left arm a series of scrapes and bruises, her ribs taped. Damage on display for everyone for see.
She contemplates throwing the envelope away unopened (she’s meeting Trevor for coffee and doesn’t want to be late) but leans against the door and slides her finger beneath the flap. No paper cut, no hint of red, but the letter hurts anyway with its very presence. It hurts deep inside where the bruises and scars don’t show. That’s the worst part. She should’ve put it behind her, moved on.
The envelope holds a single piece of paper, folded in uneven creases. She frowns. Was she not even worth the effort of making it neat? She taps the letter against her palm. Unfolding it will mean ending twelve years of silence. She exhales. Unfolds the paper.
I’m sure you don’t want to hear from me after all this time.
Olivia closes her eyes, thumps her head on the door. Her fingers seek the scar just above her heart. Once upon a time, it was faint, but she’s reopened it so many times (the way you open a favorite book—not for the purpose of art), now the scar is thick and ridged, easy to find even beneath the fabric of her shirt.
The rest of the letter is short: I know it’s been a long time but I’d love to talk to you. Maybe we could meet for coffee or you could just call me. I hope you don’t hate me too much. There’s so much I want and need to explain.
Thankfully, she didn’t sign it Mom, but with her first name—Marie. There’s a phone number, a local number. What’s missing is an apology. Surely Marie could’ve summoned up enough humility, even bullshit humility, for that. Olivia traces the scar on her chest again, then crumples the letter in a tight ball.
She remembers her mother sitting in the kitchen with the overhead light turned off and the small room awash in shadows. Olivia watched, hidden behind a half-open door, as her mother tossed a coin in the air. She let it sit on her palm for a long time before she closed her fingers. When Olivia woke the next morning, her mother was gone, but she left the coin, a quarter minted in the year of Olivia’s birth, on the kitchen table. A final act of cruelty, a strange coincidence, or the perceived worth of her daughter’s life?
Olivia’s chest tightens. Maybe, she thinks, parts of you never move on, away, no matter how much you want them to. Then again, her inability to feel pain affects her body’s ability to heal. Maybe it has the same effect on her heart.
“Fuck you,” she whispers.
She carries the letter outside and tosses it in the first trash can she passes. She chain smokes her way to the café and pretends the catch in her throat is from the harsh tobacco.
Title: Roses in Bloom
Medium: Wild roses, with thorns, on the vine, wire wrapping
Canvas: Entire body
Olivia watches Trevor’s face as he looks over her sketch. He’s chewing the inside of his cheek, as always, a habit she’s glad she doesn’t have. She wouldn’t know when to stop and walking around with a hole in her face would be unpleasant; it would turn her from artist into freakshow. While she waits, she rubs a scar on the back of her hand, the last remaining trace of her last exhibit. The scar is bright pink against the pale of her skin, but soon enough it will fade to match the rest of them. Her hands heal slower than anything else.
She reaches for her coffee cup but hesitates and rests her hand on the edge of the table instead. She can’t tell from Trevor’s expression what he’s thinking, but she’s afraid she knows the answer.
It’s too much. It’s too in your face.
Why did she contact me?
Finally, he slides the sketch back across the table and nods his head. “I like it. I like it a lot. It really pushes the envelope.”
She lets out a breath. “You don’t think it’s too…extreme?”
“No, I think people will love it. Some might freak out, but whatever. Anyone who’s been to one of your shows will know what to expect.”
She slides her coffee over. “Is this safe for me to drink yet?”
He takes a sip and nods. “Yeah, it’s good.”
(The tasting is a minor inconvenience. Far better than the helmet her father insisted she wear as a young child to keep from giving herself a concussion or worse, even when playing alone in her room. At least once she started school, he allowed her to leave the helmet at home.)
Why in the hell did she contact me?
Many people mistakenly think she can’t feel anything, but she feels textures, hunger, the pressure of an embrace, the pleasure of an orgasm. Only her pain receptors are screwed up. The condition itself is rare and has a pretty medical term, but she prefers to call it genetic fuckery.
She cups the mug in her hands. The ceramic is warm to the touch, but it could be scorching hot and she wouldn’t know. Since she can’t sense extremes in temperatures, she has to check the weather each day so she knows how to dress. “Anything you want changed?” She peeks at her hands; her skin isn’t bright red.
“No, not at all. I’ll get everything squared away on my end. And you’re okay with the fifteenth? I’d give you the Saturday before but I’ve got the contortionists coming in again.”
“The fifteenth is fine.”
“Excellent. I’ll print up flyers.”
It’s her turn to nod, and as she does, she traces her finger over the title of the sketch: Yesterday’s Girl.
“Are you okay?”
“Of course. Why?”
“You seem, I don’t know, on edge.”
“No,” she says, putting on a smile that feels too small, too tight. “I’m fine.”
On her way home, Olivia hits a vintage shop filled with odds and ends in various condition. She doesn’t find any useful clothing. Sure, she could go online and order something in pinup girl style, but she doesn’t want anything made in the now. The prices are crazy high for what she requires, and she wants the wear, the frayed edges, the split seams.
In a display case in the back, she finds a straight razor with a mother of pearl handle. Perfect. There’s a bit of rust on the razor’s blade, but no nicks or dings, and she knows it will sharpen nicely.
She presses the tip against her finger and keeps pressing until her skin opens. The small cut won’t take long to heal at all. She turns and there’s a salesgirl standing with wide eyes, one hand over her mouth.
“Don’t worry,” Olivia says. “I had a tetanus shot last year.”
But she recognizes the look all too well. If she were within the walls of the gallery, she’d revel in it, and even though she shoves her hand in her pocket, hiding the cut, she has to fight not to press the blade against her skin again.
Title: Stigmata in Repose
Medium: Whip, knife, skewer
Canvas: Palms, feet, back, forehead, side
When the moon is full in the sky, Olivia takes a paring knife from her nightstand. This blade will never be part of her exhibits; it’s hers and hers alone, a token from her childhood. She opens the scar on her chest and watches as the blood trickles down. Would her mother remember this? She had to, didn’t she? Or would it be another afterthought, a horror, like her daughter?
As a child, blood was a sign of danger: scratches on a cheek from a too long fingernail; glass in the ball of a bare foot; teeth accidentally biting through lips and tongue. Every family photo album was a symphony of wounds—major breaks and minor stitches. Now, blood is only a sign of possibility, of how far she can push herself.
She threw out the albums after her father died. They were reminders she neither needed nor wanted. It was obvious, once you looked past the casts and the bandages, that her mother never stood close to Olivia in any of the photos. Her smile was always strained, her eyes distant. She couldn’t even fake it well.
Olivia wipes the blood from her chest, and the realization that her mother knows where she lives sinks in. She can’t imagine her mother would knock on the door and invite herself in, but it leaves Olivia with an uneasy feeling in her gut.
Title: The Human Pincushion (Inspired by the movie Hellraiser)
Medium: Small sewing pins
Canvas: Entire body, including shaved head
She finds the right outfit in another vintage shop on the other side of town. It costs more than she wanted to spend, but it’s perfect. It’s a swimming costume, not a bathing suit, all sequins and ribbons with a short, ruffled skirt, and she bets the woman who owned it never set foot in ocean or pool. The fabric holds a ghost of perfume beneath the scent of old fabric. It isn’t an exact fit, but with a few nips and tucks, it will be. In the dressing room mirror, she stares at herself for a long time, the scars on her body a patchwork of intersecting lines, tiny road maps leading nowhere.
The delicate designs of a puzzle box hiding a monster, but unlike a Cenobite, the sensory overload of her ritual mutilation will never come.
Halfway home, she feels the weight of unseen eyes on her. She stops on the sidewalk. All around her are shops and people walking. No one looks familiar; no one is paying her any attention. Still, she cannot shake the feeling that someone is watching.
Title: Why Don’t You Love Me?
Medium: Paring Knife
Canvas: Chest, directly above the heart
A second letter arrives via the regular mail with a local postmark. She throws it out unread.
Title: The Ghost at the Table
Medium: Salad fork
Canvas: Arms
Olivia wakes in the middle of the night with traces of a dream still playing through her mind—her mother’s face, the shiny blade of the knife, the blood on skin and silver. She sits up in bed and lights a cigarette. Blows smoke into the air. Finally, she gets up and starts sketching ideas for the next exhibit, but every idea becomes a crumple of paper littering the floor.
Then, she sketches a woman with the skin of her chest peeled to expose her ribcage and the heart beneath. She writes Changeling across the top of the paper. It’s something she overheard her mother say once, along with freak and monster. Did she know Olivia was listening?
Olivia smiles, small and hard. She supposes she was hard to endure. It’s not as if there were manuals on what to do when your teething child chewed off the tip of her pinkie, and the disorder was too rare for any sort of support group.
She slides her finger over the sketch. It’s an impossible design. She might as well call herself Kafka’s darling and wither away in a cage, forgotten by all. Fuck that.
Title: Attention Lure
Medium: Fish hooks
Canvas: Arms
The week before the exhibit, she sharpens the razor and replenishes her first aid kit. She has surgical glue, bandages, thread, a curved needle. A prescription for antibiotics is filled and ready to go, and she’s been taking extra iron. The alterations to the bathing costume are complete, the poses practiced and practiced again. There isn’t anything else she needs to do but the performance itself.
Another letter arrives two days before the exhibit. She burns it in her ashtray.
Title: Shake, Rattle, and Buzz
Medium: Beehive
Canvas: Arms, legs, face
At what point did she decide her mother’s horror and revulsion were emotions to be desired? Invoked? Was it the derogatory names she heard whispered? The refusal to touch her? Perhaps the young Olivia thought it a game: Look what I can do, Mommy.
But what good is a slap if a small face turns red but the mouth doesn’t twist and the eyes don’t fill with tears? What help is a boundary if crossing it carr
ies no fear? What price do you pay when a coin means nothing more than goodbye?
At the age of thirteen, when Olivia stepped into the street, she knew the car was moving too slowly to kill her. After the impact, when she was on the ground with a bone protruding from her calf like an exclamation point, she watched her mother’s face, certain this time would be different. This time her mother would pretend to care.
Her mother remained expressionless, her eyes blank.
Two nights later, Olivia went into the living room and slid the paring knife across her chest. Her skin split like delicate silk, spilling out a crimson worm.
Look what I can do, Mommy.
Her mother didn’t even blink.
Maybe Olivia should have cut deeper and pulled out her heart. Held it in her palm while the beats counted down to nothing. Maybe that would’ve made her mother happy. See? I was real after all.
A week later, Olivia watched her flip the coin and make her choice.
Title: Toddler Interrupted
Medium: Shards of glass
Canvas: Soles of feet, fingers
The gallery is packed, everyone standing shoulder to shoulder. Olivia stands before them on a small raised platform, the base covered with white butcher paper, her mouth sewn shut with heavy black thread. She makes a few poses of the cheesy, pinup girl variety and is rewarded with a titter of laughter. Faces show confusion, but that’s to be expected. There’s no blood yet, and her other exhibits have been static.
She lifts the straight razor, cuts through the stitches, careful not to draw blood. Brows crease, mouths twist, whispers emerge.
Her lipstick becomes a smear across one side of her face with the back of a hand. She twists her fingers in the careful rolls of her hair, pulls them out of shape and keeps pulling until they’re a tangle. She tears one of the straps of her costume, and sequins fall like iridescent fish scales.
She gives the crowd a wide smile as she draws the blade across her forearm. Several people gasp. The wound curves, another smile, and the red it reveals matches her lipstick. Drops of blood patter on the butcher paper. She knows how to wield the blade for maximum effect with minimal damage.
Sing Me Your Scars (Apex Voices Book 3) Page 4
