The Silver Kiss

by Annette Curtis Klause

  “Christopher,” she said softly, “it’s a little late to be playing. It’s nearly midnight. Settle down, dear. Get some sleep.”

  “Uh-huh,” the boy answered, and snuggled into his pillow. She blew him a kiss and left, closing the door.

  Simon saw the boy lying there with his eyes open, staring into the night, still defying sleep, still smiling. There was a growl in the back of Simon’s throat he could barely contain. It almost choked him. He climbed down the tree before it burst from his mouth. It was not the right time or place.

  Below, there was a clatter in the kitchen. Dishes were being put into the dishwasher, and two sleepy voices were talking. He listened close to the window.

  “… should have settled in by now,” came a man’s voice.

  “But it’s hard for a young child,” the woman answered, “adjusting to a new home.” “It’s been a month.”

  “Yes, but after a year in that home, and God knows what before?”

  “Yeah, guess you’re right.”

  “He’s a sweet boy.”

  “A bit quiet.”

  “Oh, he’ll be a brain. You’ll see.”

  The man laughed. “Got it all planned out, have you?”

  “Sure. Nobel prize.”

  He laughed again. “Come on. Let’s go to bed.” The light went out.

  “It’ll work out, you’ll see,” said the woman. “You can’t expect perfect when you adopt an older child.”

  “Yeah. It’s a pity about that delicate skin as well. Too damn sensitive. Maybe if we …” His voice faded into the center of the house.

  Simon sat in the bushes for a long while. He breathed the night, made plans, and abandoned them. No one in the house stirred. Dreams shimmered in the windows; all except one window, where dark hunger beckoned.

  Finally, Simon heard the first predawn bird cry, and he rose to his feet in a single supple motion. His body made no protest at the breaking of the vigil. It was as if it were only seconds ago he had crouched there to watch. Silently, he left the yard by the way he had come and, accompanied by awakening birds, made his way back to what was home this week—an abandoned elementary school on Jennifer Street.

  He pulled aside a board and slid through a smashed window into the principal’s office. The room, begrimed with dust and cobwebs, had once been a synonym for hell to sixth graders, but now all that was left was an old file cabinet with only one drawer working and a desk with rusted seams. There was no chair. Built-in shelves lined the room, and the wooden floor had once been handsome. A battered suitcase sat on one of the shelves.

  With the board back in place the room was dark. The dawn found its way through the planks here and there, needle-thin rays spotlighting dancing dust motes, but they barely penetrated the dark. This did not bother Simon. He did not need much light to see. He took down the suitcase, put it on the desk, and opened it. Inside was a small painting in a gilt frame. It was a family group: a man, a woman with a baby in her arms, and a small child. The varnish was cracked and old. Beneath the painting was soil, dark dry soil almost as flyaway as the dust of the room. Simon ran his fingers through it and sighed. This was his sleep; the soil of his homeland. The earth he would have rested in for eternity, if he had truly died, still had the power to bestow a little of that peace. It was a taste of that death, perhaps. It restored him. Without it he would waste away to nothing and become a shriveled thing, unable to move, unable to feed, but still unable to die. An undead hell.

  He raised the painting to his lips and kissed it softly, then replaced it in the suitcase, closed the case, and flicked the catches shut. He needed rest but not the comalike trance that sometimes took him. He could always tell when that was coming. It took a big feed; a human feed. Now he just needed a dormant period to recharge, so to speak. He lifted the suitcase off the large desk and slid it into the cubbyhole beneath. He crawled in after it. He curled, encircling the case, and wrapped his arms around it, clutching it as if it were treasure.

  He lay there, eyes open, staring beyond the room, beyond the school. Before he leapt into the dream, he thought of the girl again briefly. “Beautiful,” he whispered. “Pale as the milk of death, thin and sharp like pain.” And he drifted out to the stars.

  3

  Zoë

  Zoë left the library early. It was no use sitting there doing nothing. She had stared at the wall, out the window, and at the clock; anything but write. Her fresh notebook page had become a mass of scribbled-out false starts. At this rate she would have nothing to show Mrs. Muir tomorrow in their critique session.

  I want to write something beautiful about my mother, she thought. But it had all come out so trite, and she knew it. She wanted to write something important that spat in death’s teeth. The trouble was, she didn’t want Mrs. Muir to know about her mother. She didn’t want her to say, “Poor thing,” or something awful about God’s will like that idiot woman next door, so what she ended up with was something less than honest, and dishonest poetry didn’t work. But I can’t write about anything else if I can’t write about Mom, Zoë thought. She’s the most important thing. God! I’m really blowing school. It was as close to being a perfect class as she could imagine, this independent-study business, yet if she continued like this it would be a waste of the quarter. I can’t start screwing up in school, she thought. Mom has enough worries.

  “Damn!” she muttered as she fumbled with her locker. It always stuck. She felt like kicking the stupid thing. Yet she just stood there glaring at it.

  “It won’t melt, no matter how long you stare at it,” came a voice at her side.

  “Lorraine! You snuck up quietly.”

  “You’ve got to sneak about when you cut as many classes as I do.”

  “Again?”

  “Well, what’s the use? I’m moving, aren’t I? Right in the middle of the semester. And I’ll start somewhere else right in the middle of their semester. I might as well give it up until after Christmas. Anyhow, it was worth it to see you use your X-ray vision.”

  Zoë smiled, yet was sad as she watched Lorraine work magic on the locker door. Who would make her laugh when Lorraine left? Who else would blithely ignore her requests for peace and quiet and drag her to a party anyway?

  “Come to the bathroom with me,” Lorraine said as Zoë stashed her books and got out her lunch. “It’s between shifts, so we might even be able to breathe in there.” They headed for the bathroom nearest the cafeteria. “I’m sorry about last night,” Lorraine said as she barreled through the swinging doors of the bathroom.

  “There’s nothing to be sorry about,” said Zoë behind her, surprised. Could she dare hope that Lorraine was ready to talk? They stood in front of the mirrors, and Lorraine pulled out a comb and tried to arrange her impossible auburn curls. “You’d think they’d replace these damn mirrors,” she said angrily. “They’re all cracked.” Then she stopped the pretense of combing and turned to face Zoë, who saw her friend’s face change suddenly. Uh-oh, Zoë thought.

  “Zoë, I don’t want to move,” Lorraine barely got out before she started to cry fierce tears. “I won’t have any friends. I’ll have to start all over.” Zoë’s hopes plunged. She’d thought they were going to talk about her. It almost made her cry, too, but she held Lorraine, rubbed her back, and uttered an occasional “There, there.” Inside, she was lost. How can I help you, she thought, when I can’t even help myself? It was disturbing. Lorraine was the strong one. She didn’t do this. The world was topsy-turvy again.

  “I’m sorry,” gasped Lorraine after a while. “I’ve no right to feel this way. I’m only moving. But you …” She sobbed again.

  She can’t say it, Zoë thought. We both know what she means, and she can’t say it. It isn’t your pity I want, she thought, and almost pushed her friend away, but stopped herself. Lorraine really did care. It wasn’t her fault that people didn’t know how to talk about death. Not Dad, not the neighbors, not Mom’s friends. Death’s partner was silence. Tenderness for her friend ov
erwhelmed her dismay. “You nerd. You know you can always tell me how you feel. Usually nothing, including me, can stop you.”

  “But I feel so selfish.”

  You always are anyway, Zoë realized, but never on purpose. It was just the way Lorraine was. Zoë could almost take comfort in the familiarity of it. She gently shook her friend. “What will I do without you?”

  That brought on more tears. “I’ll miss you so much, Zoë.”

  They stood for a while, holding each other. It was rare that Lorraine let herself be fragile. After her mother left she was too afraid of breaking for good. At least that was what Zoë had guessed from watching her. We’ll have another thing in common now, Zoë thought, but at least you’ll be able to visit your mother. There was bitterness in this thought. She stroked Lorraine’s hair in an attempt to atone. This was a moment when she could slip gently past Lorraine’s guard. I’m afraid, too, she prepared to say. I’m afraid my mother will die, and my father will grieve forever, and I’ll always be alone, because you’re going too.

  But there was a bell ringing somewhere, and second-period lunch was signaled. Damn, damn, damn, Zoë thought.

  The door burst open, and a group of girls crowded in, already distributing cigarettes. Lorraine pushed Zoë away and hastily splashed water on her face. A blonde with garish makeup stood staring at them with her lit cigarette in a carefully poised hand.

  “You guys queer or somethin’?” she asked jeeringly.

  “Piss off, Morgan,” said Lorraine, putting her arm around Zoë protectively. “You know, you could break your wrist holding a cigarette like that,” and Zoë found herself being swept out of the bathroom. Things were back to normal.

  In the cafeteria they sat at their usual table near the back door. “I’m going to get a death-burger,” Lorraine said after checking her purse, and jumped up. “Hold the fort.”

  Zoë smiled with wry affection at Lorraine’s tactlessness.

  Just after Lorraine left, two girls Zoë recognized from physics class sat down at the other end of the table. They unwrapped sandwiches and chattered away between bites. Zoë felt a little guilty about listening, but it seemed imposssible not to, especially when they sat so near. She chased an idea for a poem around her head, something about a silver boy in the moonlight, but finally the word murder caught her attention and held it.

  “She was Sheila’s cousin,” the dark one said dramatically as she leaned across the table.

  “Really!”

  “Yes, they found her with her throat slashed.”

  The tall one shuddered. “God, it’s like Jack the Ripper or something.”

  “Ugh!” they agreed in unison.

  Lorraine returned with her lunch, and the other conversation faded into the background. “Have you been reading the paper lately?” Zoë asked Lorraine.

  “Not really. Who’s got time? Why?”

  Zoë glanced at the girls at the end of the table, still engrossed in the details of murder. “Oh, there was something in the news. I saw a headline, but I didn’t read about it. I thought you might know.”

  “Not me. They call me—Miss Oblivious,” Lorraine camped in her Saturday-morning-cartoon voice.

  Zoë laughed to cover her irritation. It was too true. “Never mind.”

  After school her father was outside to pick her up. “Hop in. We’re going to the hospital,” he said, but that was about all he said on the way. He concentrated on driving with the intensity of the newly licensed, as if one thing could block out all others. Zoë watched him carefully, waiting for news, but in vain. She wanted to say something, anything, to break the silence but couldn’t think of an opening remark. Then they were there.

  People always talked about hating the smell of hospitals. As they went up in the elevator, Zoë thought this one smelled rather pleasant, like evergreen or something. It was irritating that there should be anything to like. She worried a piece of paper in her coat pocket to shreds.

  At the door she hesitated, afraid to go in. What does Mom look like this time? she wondered. Her father opened the door for her and she had to step inside. Zoë’s throat seemed to close up when she saw her mother, a fragile stick-figure in the bed, with arms more bruised than ever from the needles and tubes.

  “Mom?” she said in a slightly cracked voice.

  Eyelashes fluttered, and her mother opened her eyes. She smiled weakly and her skin, dry as old parchment, crinkled with the effort. “Zoë,” she whispered back in a voice just as cracked. “Darling.” The bed whined as she moved it to a sitting position.

  Zoë’s gaze flicked around the room. She was repelled once more by the institutional-green walls, barely relieved by a drab forest scene, and a calendar that marked off the days for the record keepers. Her mother’s name was in a slot above the bed, so each impersonal shift would know who she was. The medicine cabinet, cupboards, drawers, and counter were all painted white, and as easy to clean of stains as the pale tile floor. An unused television was tilted toward the window.

  Her father nudged her forward. She started to sit, then wasn’t sure. She glanced at him and he nodded, so she lowered herself into the chair at the bedside. Her father fussed around his wife, fluffing her pillow, straightening her sheets—all smiles, all teases. Where was the silent man who had driven here? Zoë wondered. When he was satisfied the patient was comfortable, he flopped into a chair on the other side of the room, giving them space to talk. He seemed to deflate when out of her mother’s line of sight. He slouched, his hands dug deep into his tweed pockets, and glanced at Zoë with worried, unspoken questions. Zoë wished he’d ask them.

  “A great view of the parking lot you’ve got,” she said.

  “I’m glad you like it.” Zoë was shocked at how faint her mother’s voice was despite the ironic tone.

  Zoë reached for her hand and noticed a tightness around her eyes that she knew meant pain, as did the way her mother’s other hand twisted a grasping of sheet. Zoë wanted to reach out and stop it. It hurt her to watch.

  “Are you eating?” her mother asked.

  “Are you?” Zoë shot back, glancing at the barely touched meal still sitting on the bedside tray.

  “Touché.”

  “Come home soon, Mom. I miss you.”

  Zoë felt her hand squeezed gently. “I’ll try, darling. I’ll try.”

  Zoë’s eyes filled with tears. Please don’t cry, she begged herself. Don’t upset her. “Guess what,” she said, grabbing for anything. “The rose by the gate still has a bloom on it.”

  Her mother smiled. “Silly old thing. It doesn’t seem decent at this time of year, does it?”

  They were silent for a while. Zoë hated the way hospitals sucked everything you wanted to say right out of your head. It’s bad enough that they leave the door open so the nurses can come and go, she thought, but then Dad sits there like some kind of guardian.

  “I just needed to see you,” her mother finally said.

  “Okay.”

  “You need to eat more, sweetheart. Wear some makeup.”

  Zoë laughed gently, and sniffed. “I remember when you would have taken a washcloth to me for wearing makeup, and now you’re telling me to wear it. Do I look that bad?”

  “Heavens, no. But you’re old enough. You should get your hair cut in one of those new styles.”

  Zoë stroked a baby-fine tuft of her mother’s newly grown hair. “Like you, huh?”

  “Well, my punk look wasn’t exactly intentional.” She smiled. “And it looks a little pretentious on an old lady like me.”

  “But you’re not old,” Zoé said, her voice wavering.

  “I’m thirsty,” her mother said, still deft at diverting disaster. “Pour me a glass of water, please.”

  As Zoé reached for the pitcher, a nurse poked her head around the door. She nodded at Mr. Sutcliff, who then stepped forward. “That’s enough for now,” he said, holding Zoë’s shoulders firmly, kissing the top of her head.

  “Harry, no!” his wife
protested, struggling to sit up in bed.

  “You know what the doctor said,” he answered, unyielding.

  I’m being squeezed out again, Zoë thought bitterly, but she leaned and kissed the cheek offered to her.

  “They totally ignore what I want around here,” her mother said, as if apologizing.

  Outside the room her father tried to give Zoë cab fare, and some extra for dinner. She wanted to ignore it, but he closed her hand firmly around the bills with his large dry grip.

  “What did the doctor say?” she asked point-blank.

  His gaze shifted this way and that, as if he was afraid to look at her. “He says your visits tire your mother out. He doesn’t want you visiting so much or for so long.”

  “Dad!” It came out as a howl.

  “I’m sorry. The nurses have been alerted. Zay haf zer orders,” he joked feebly.

  “Don’t you have any say?” she asked.

  He finally looked her in the eyes. “Zoë, I think seeing you does your mother good, but he’s the doctor. Let’s try it his way for a while. I want what’s best for her.”

  “So you’re on his side—”

  He cut off her protest with a gentle finger to her lips. “Get some pizza. Invite Lorraine over to keep you company,” he said. “I’ll stay for a bit longer.” He stroked her cheek and left her in the hall.

  What if I screamed and cried and made a fuss? she thought. What if I had a tantrum and begged them not to send me away? But she couldn’t do that to them. She bit her lip and turned away.

  Outside, she found one of the cabs that always lingered there. She rode home, worrying about how much to tip, so she wouldn’t have to think about her mother, or another empty evening.

  She paid the cabdriver in front of her house, but when she got to the front door, she couldn’t bring herself to fumble the key into the lock. She shoved it back into her jacket pocket. I can’t face that silence right now, she thought. It’s suffocating.

  She went to the park and watched the children play until they were called away to dinner. It was company of sorts, yet undemanding. A few stragglers came back to defy the dusk curfew on the playground, but as the shadows became deeper, and the lights came on, even they were called back to warm beds in houses full of parents, brothers, sisters, and blaring TV sets.