Anna Dressed in Blood

by Kendare Blake

  Anna insisted that she come along, because for all her talk of me being King Arthur, I think she knows I’m pretty much defenseless. And I don’t know how well she knows her legends, but Arthur was killed by a ghost from his past that he didn’t see coming. Not exactly the best comparison. Before we left the house, there was a brief discussion about trying to fudge ourselves some alibis for when the police discover Will and Chase. But that was quickly abandoned. Because really, when you may or may not be eaten in the next few days, who the hell cares about alibis?

  I’ve got this weird, springy feeling in my muscles. Despite everything that’s happened—Mike’s death, seeing Anna’s murder, Will and Chase’s murder, and the knowledge that whatever killed my father is now here, possibly trying to kill me—I feel, okay. It doesn’t make sense, I know. Everything is messed up. And I still feel okay. I feel almost safe, with Thomas and Carmel and Anna.

  When we get to the shop, it occurs to me that I should tell my mother. If it really is the thing that killed my dad, she should know.

  “Wait,” I say after we all get out. “I should call my mom.”

  “Why don’t you just go get her,” Thomas says, handing me the keys. “She might be able to help. We can get started without you.”

  “Thanks,” I say, and get into the driver’s seat. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.” Anna snakes her pale leg over the front seat and drops herself down shotgun.

  “I’m going with you.”

  I’m not going to argue. I could use the company. I start the car back up and drive. Anna does nothing but watch the trees and buildings go by. I suppose the change of scenery must be interesting to her, but I wish she would say something.

  “Did Carmel hurt you, back there?” I ask just for noise.

  She smiles. “Don’t be silly.”

  “Have you been okay, at the house?”

  There’s a stillness on her face that has to be deliberate. She’s always so still, but I get the feeling that her mind is sort of like a shark, twisting and swimming, and all I’ve ever seen is a glimpse of dorsal fin.

  “They keep on showing me,” she says carefully. “But they’re still weak. Other than that, I’ve just been waiting.”

  “Waiting for what?” I ask. Don’t judge me. Sometimes playing dumb is the only move you’ve got. Unfortunately, Anna doesn’t chase the ball. So we sit, and I drive, and on the tip of my tongue are the words to tell her that I don’t have to do it. I have a very strange life and she’d fit into it. Instead I say, “You didn’t have a choice.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “How can it not?”

  “I don’t know, but it doesn’t,” she replies. I catch her smile in the corner of my eye. “I wish it didn’t have to hurt you,” she says.

  “Do you?”

  “Of course. Believe me, Cassio. I never wanted to be this tragic.”

  My house is cresting over the hill. To my relief, my mom’s car is parked out front. I could continue this conversation. I could get in a jab, and we could argue. But I don’t want to. I want to put this down and focus on the problem at hand. Maybe I’ll never have to deal with this. Maybe something will change.

  I pull into my driveway and we get out, but as we walk up the porch steps, Anna starts to sniff. She’s squinting like her head hurts.

  “Oh,” I say. “Right. I’m sorry. I forgot about the spell.” I shrug weakly. “You know, a few herbs and chants and then nothing dead comes through the door. It’s safer.”

  Anna crosses her arms and leans against the railing. “I understand,” she says. “Go and get your mother.”

  Inside, I hear my mom humming some little tune I don’t know, probably something she made up. I see her pass by the archway in the kitchen, her socks sliding across the hardwood and the tie from her sweater dragging behind on the ground. I walk up and grab it.

  “Hey!” she says with an irritated look. “Shouldn’t you be in school?”

  “You’re lucky it was me and not Tybalt,” I say. “Or this sweater thing would be in shreds.”

  She sort of huffs at me and ties it around her waist where it belongs. The kitchen smells like flowers and persimmon. It’s a warm, wintry smell. She’s making a new batch of her Blessed Be Potpourri, just like she does every year. It’s a big seller on the website. But I’m procrastinating.

  “So?” she asks. “Aren’t you going to tell me why you’re not in school?”

  I take a deep breath. “Something’s happened.”

  “What?” Her tone is almost tired, like she half-expects just this sort of bad news. She’s probably always expecting bad news of one kind or another, knowing what I do. “Well?”

  I don’t know how to tell her this. She might overreact. But is there such a thing in this situation? Now I’m staring into a very worried and agitated mom-face.

  “Theseus Cassio Lowood, you’d better spit it out.”

  “Mom,” I say. “Just don’t freak out.”

  “Don’t freak out?” Her hands are on her hips now. “What’s going on? I’m getting a very strange vibe here.” Keeping her eyes on me, she stalks into the kitchen and turns on the TV.

  “Mom,” I groan, but it’s too late. When I get to the TV to stand beside her, I see flashing police lights, and in the corner, Will and Chase’s class photos. So the story broke. Cops and reporters are flooding across the lawn like ants to a sandwich crust, ready to break it down and carry it away for consumption.

  “What is this?” She puts her hand to her mouth. “Oh, Cas, did you know those boys? Oh, how awful. Is that why you’re out of school? Did they shut it down for the day?”

  She is trying very hard not to look me in the face. She spit out those civilian questions, but she knows the real score. And she can’t even con herself. After a few more seconds, she shuts the TV back off and nods her head slowly, trying to process.

  “Tell me what’s happened.”

  “I don’t know quite how.”

  “Try.”

  So I do. I leave out as many details as I can. Except for the bite wounds. When I tell her about those, she holds her breath.

  “You think it was the same?” she asks. “The one that—”

  “I know it was. I can feel it.”

  “But you don’t know.”

  “Mom. I know.” I’m trying to say this stuff gently. Her lips are pressed together so tightly that they’re not even lips anymore. I think she might cry or something.

  “You were in that house? Where’s the athame?”

  “I don’t know. Just, stay calm. We’re going to need your help.”

  She doesn’t say anything. She’s got one hand on her forehead and the other on her hip. She’s looking off into nothing. That deep little wrinkle of distress has appeared on her forehead.

  “Help,” she says softly, and then one more time, only harder. “Help.”

  I might have put her into some kind of overload coma.

  “Okay,” I say gently. “Just stay here. I’ll get this handled, Mom. I promise.”

  Anna’s waiting outside, and who knows what’s happening back at the shop. It seems like I’ve taken hours on this errand, but I can’t have been gone more than twenty minutes.

  “Pack your things.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. Pack your things. This instant. We’re leaving.” She pushes past me and flies up the stairs, presumably to get started. I follow with a groan. There’s no time for this. She’s going to have to calm down and stay put. She can pack me up and toss my stuff into boxes. She can load it into a U-Haul. But my body is not leaving until this ghost is gone.

  “Mom,” I say, going after the last of her trailing sweater into my bedroom. “Will you stop flipping out? I’m not leaving.” I pause. Her efficiency is unmatched. All of my socks are already out of my drawer and set in an ordered stack on my dresser. Even the striped ones are to one side of the plain.

  “We are leaving,” she says without missing a beat in her ransa
cking of my room. “If I have to knock you unconscious and drag you from this house, we are leaving.”

  “Mom, settle down.”

  “Do not tell me to settle down.” The words are delivered in a controlled yell, a yell straight from the pit of her tensed stomach. She stops and stands still with her hands in my half-emptied drawers. “That thing killed my husband.”

  “Mom.”

  “It’s not going to get you, too.” Hands and socks and boxer shorts start flying again. I wish she hadn’t started with my underwear drawer.

  “I have to stop it.”

  “Let someone else do it,” she snaps. “I should have told you this before; I should have told you that this wasn’t your duty or your birthright or anything like that after your father died. Other people can do this.”

  “Not that many other people,” I say. This is making me mad. I know she isn’t trying to, but I feel like she’s dishonoring my dad. “And not this time.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “I choose to,” I say. I’ve lost the battle to keep my voice down. “If we go, it follows. And if I don’t kill it, it eats people. Don’t you get it?” Finally, I tell her what I’ve always kept secret. “This is what I’ve waited for. What I’ve trained for. I’ve been researching this ghost since I found the voodoo cross in Baton Rouge.”

  My mom slams my drawers shut. Her cheeks are red and she’s got wet, shiny eyes. She looks about ready to throttle me.

  “That thing killed him,” she says. “It can kill you too.”

  “Thanks.” I throw up my hands. “Thanks for your vote of confidence.”

  “Cas—”

  “Wait. Shut up.” I don’t often tell my mother to shut up. In fact, I don’t know if I ever have. But she needs to. Because something in my room doesn’t make sense. There’s something here that shouldn’t be here. She follows my gaze and I want to see her react, because I don’t want to be the only one seeing this.

  My bed is just how I left it. The blankets are rumpled and half pulled down. The pillow has an imprint from my head.

  And poking out from underneath is the carved handle of my father’s athame.

  It shouldn’t be. It can’t be. That thing is supposed to be miles away, hidden in Will Rosenberg’s closet or in the hands of the ghost that murdered him. But I walk over to the bed and reach down, and the familiar wood is smooth against my palm. Connect the dots.

  “Mom,” I whisper, staring down at the knife. “We have to get out of here.”

  She just blinks at me, standing stock still, and in the quiet of the house there is an uneven creaking I don’t recognize.

  “Cas,” my mom breathes. “The attic door.”

  The attic door. The sound and the phrase make something in the back of my head start to itch. It’s something my mother said about raccoons, something about the way Tybalt climbed on me the day we moved in.

  The quiet is sick: it magnifies every noise, so when I hear a distinct scraping, I know that what I’m hearing is the pull-down ladder being slid toward the floor in the hallway.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  I’d like to leave now. I’d very much like to leave now. The hairs are up on the back of my neck and my teeth would chatter if I wasn’t clenching so hard. Given the choice between fight or flight, I would choose to dive out the window, knife in my hand or not. Instead I turn and pivot closer to my mom, putting me in between her and the open door.

  Footfalls hit the ladder, and my heart has never pounded so hard. My nostrils catch the scent of sweet smoke. Stand my ground, is what I think. After this is over, I might puke. Assuming, of course, that I’m still living.

  The rhythm of the footsteps, the sound of whatever is coming down the ladder is driving both me and my mom steadily toward peeing our pants. We can’t be caught in this bedroom. How I wish that weren’t true, but it is. I have to make it out into the hallway and try to get us to the stairs before whatever it is blocks our escape. I grab her hand. She shakes her head violently, but I pull her along, inching toward the door, the athame held out in front of us like a torch.

  Anna. Anna, come charging in, Anna, come save the day … but that’s stupid. Anna is marooned on the damn front porch, and how would that be, if I died in here, ripped to bits and chewed on like a rubber pork chop, with her standing powerless outside.

  Okay. Two more deep breaths and we go into the hall. Maybe three.

  When I move I’ve got a clear view of the attic ladder, and also of the thing descending it. I don’t want to be seeing this. All that training and all those ghosts; all that gut instinct and ability goes right out the window. I’m looking at my father’s killer. I should be enraged. I should be stalking him. Instead I’m terrified.

  His back is to me, and the ladder is far enough east of the stairs that we should be able to get there before he does, as long as we keep moving. And as long as he doesn’t turn around and charge. Why do I think these thoughts? Besides, he doesn’t seem inclined to. As we slide silently toward the staircase, he has reached the floor, and he actually pauses to put the ladder back up with a rickety shove.

  At the top of the stairs, I stop, angling my mom to go down first. The figure in the hallway doesn’t seem to have noticed us. He just keeps swaying back and forth with his back to me, like he’s listening to some dead music.

  He’s wearing a dark, fitted jacket, sort of like a long suit jacket. It could be dusty black or even dark green, I can’t tell. On the top of his head is a nest of dreadlocks, twisted and matted, some half-rotted and falling off. I can’t see his face, but the skin of his hands is gray and cracked. Between his fingers he’s twisting what looks like a long black snake.

  I give my mom a gentle push to get her farther down the stairs. If she can get outside to Anna, she’ll be safe. I’m getting a little tinge of bravery, just a wafting of the old Cas coming back.

  Then I realize I’m full of shit when he turns and looks right at me.

  I should rephrase that. I can’t honestly say that he’s looking right at me. Because one can never be sure that something is looking right at them if that something’s eyes have been sewn shut.

  And they are sewn shut. No mistaking. There are big, crisscrossed stitches of black string over his eyelids. Just the same, there is also no mistaking that he can see me. My mom speaks for both of us when she lets out a yelpy little “Oh.”

  “You’re welcome,” he says in that voice of his, the voice of my nightmares, like chewing on rusted nails.

  “I have nothing to thank you for,” I spit, and he cocks his head. Don’t ask me how I know, but I know he’s staring at my knife. He walks toward us, unafraid.

  “Perhaps I should thank you, then,” he says, and the accent shows. The “thank” is “tank.” The “then” is “den.”

  “What are you doing here?” I ask. “How did you get here? How did you get past the door?”

  “I’ve been here the whole time,” he says. He’s got bright white teeth. His mouth is no bigger than any man’s. How does he leave such gigantic marks?

  He’s smiling now, his chin tilted upward. He’s got an ungainly way of moving, like lots of ghosts do. Like their limbs are stiffening, or like their ligaments are rotting away. It isn’t until they move to strike that you see them for real. I won’t be fooled.

  “That’s impossible,” I say. “The spell would’ve kept you out.” And there’s no way that I’ve been sleeping in the same house with my father’s killer this whole time. That he’s been one floor above me, watching and listening.

  “Spells to keep the dead out are worthless if the dead are already in,” he says. “I come and go as I please. I fetch things back that foolish boys lose. And since then I’ve been in the attic, eating cats.”

  I’ve been in the attic, eating cats. I look closer at the black snake he’s been weaving through his fingers. It’s Tybalt’s tail.

  “You fuck—you ate my cat!” I yell, and thank you, Tybalt, for one last favor, this pissed-off
rush of adrenaline. The quiet is suddenly filled with the sound of knocking. Anna heard me yell and is banging on the door, asking if I’m all right. The ghost’s head snaps around like a snake, an unnatural, disturbing movement.

  My mom doesn’t know what’s going on. She didn’t know Anna was outside, so she starts clinging to me, unsure of what to be more afraid of.

  “Cas, what is that?” she asks. “How are we going to get out?”

  “Don’t worry, Mom,” I say. “Don’t be scared.”

  “The girl we wait for is right outside,” he says, and shuffles forward. My mom and I drop down a step.

  I put my hand out across the railing. The athame flashes and I bring it back to eye level. “You stay away from her.”

  “She’s what we came for.” He makes a soft, hollow rustling when he moves, like his body is an illusion and he’s nothing more than empty clothes.

  “We didn’t come for anything,” I spit. “I came to kill a ghost. And I’m going to get my chance.” I lunge forward, feeling my blade part the air, the silver tip just grazing his front buttons.

  “Cas, don’t!” my mom shouts, trying to drag me back by one arm. She needs to knock it off. What does she think I’ve been doing all this time? Setting elaborate traps using springs, plywood, and a mouse on a wheel? This is hand-to-hand. This is what I know.

  Meanwhile, Anna is pounding harder on the door. It must be giving her a migraine to be so close.

  “It’s what you’re here for, boy,” he hisses, and takes a swing at me. It seems halfhearted; it misses by a mile. I don’t think he missed because of the whole stitched-over-eye thing. He’s just playing with me. Another clue is the fact that he’s laughing.

  “I wonder how you’ll go,” I say. “I wonder if you’ll shrivel up, or if you’ll melt.”

  “I won’t do either of those things,” he says, still smiling.

  “And what if I cut off your arm?” I ask as I leap up the stairs, my knife retracted and then slicing out in a sharp arc.

  “It will kill you on its own!”

  He strikes me in the chest, and my mom and I fall head over ass down the steps. It hurts. A lot. But at least he’s not laughing anymore. Actually, I think I finally succeeded in pissing him off. I gather my mom up.