Twice Cursed, page 25
“It’s too tight!” the dummy shouted.
“Sorry, dear. Didn’t catch a word. You’ll have to enunciate.”
The audience were rocking in their seats, holding their sides and each other.
“Now, you’ll have one minute to get out of the ropes, which will be no problem at all for an escapologist of your calibre.” Itsabelle turned over the sand timer. “Your time starts now.”
Angela could hear the dummy’s heart beating, its wooden arms straining to move. The dummy’s eyes swivelled to look at Angela at the side of the stage, pleading with her to help. Angela just smiled.
The sand timer ran out of sand and time. “No escaping for you,” Itsabelle said. She plucked the key from its mouth then dumped the ventriloquist’s dummy into the suitcase and did up all the straps. “Now say you’re sorry for what you did to me.”
“What do you mean?” The vent’s voice, dressed up as hers, came from inside the suitcase.
Several people in the audience gasped. “How did she do that?” one asked.
“We can do better than that, can’t we dummy?” Itsabelle said, and handed the suitcase to a woman in the front row. “Please pass it to the row behind you, and if that row could pass it back again and so on until it’s at right at the far end of the auditorium.”
“Ow, you’re hurting me,” the dummy said from inside the suitcase as it was passed over heads.
The crowd got to their feet, amazed.
“How are you feeling in there?” Itsabelle asked the dummy.
“You are going to pay for this, Itsabelle,” it replied.
“I heard it come from right inside,” the person holding the suitcase said, their ear against the leather. “How do you do it?”
“Like all talent, it’s a blessing and a curse,” Itsabelle said. “And I can’t reveal my secrets.”
When the case had got to the back of the room, Itsabelle said, “To complete my act, I’d like one of you to ask my dummy a question, and he’ll answer, while I’m eating my supper.”
Maliana then brought out a round silver tray with a plate of cheese and bread. She placed her hand on Itsabelle’s shoulder and whispered in her ear.
Itsabelle smiled. “So, who is going to ask my vent a question?”
Almost everyone put up their hands.
“You, madame.” Itsabelle pointed with a hunk of bread to a woman in the middle of the second row. She then started chewing, taking big bites of bread, slathered with butter and topped with chunks of cheese.
The woman, who was wearing a hat full of purple feathers that almost tickled the nose of the man behind, said, “What is your greatest secret?”
“Good question!” Itsabelle said, cheese and cracker fragments falling from her mouth.
The audience laughed and leaned forward to hear what the dummy would reveal.
The dummy was silent, and Angela wondered whether the dummy would be clever enough to thwart them by not speaking. Then it said, “That I’m worth nothing. I’m an empty husk of a man who doesn’t know how to love. Or be loved.”
The audience was quiet for a moment, then erupted into laughter so loud the dummy tried to cover its ears with its wooden hands. Which only made them laugh more.
“Why are you laughing?” the dummy asked. “This is me, broken. Asking for help, and all you can do is laugh.”
As the dummy spoke, the guffawing audience looked from Itsabelle, mouth closed and chewing, to the case containing her voice, a hundred yards away or more.
“Don’t look at her, look at me!” the dummy screamed to the roaring crowd.
Itsabelle raised her hands, lips still pressed together. As one, the audience then stood and banged their feet on the floor, cheering and clapping.
Itsabelle stood and bowed, then ran into Madame Angela’s outstretched arms. “Thank you,” she said, her voice loud and strong.
One of the stagehands had gone to retrieve the suitcase, and presented it to Itsabelle. She shook her head. “I don’t want it. Would you take this to props, please? Maliana has asked me to go to dinner with her.”
“No!” the dummy tried to shout from inside its suitcase.
“Did you say something, Itsabelle?” Angela asked.
“Nothing at all,” Itsabelle replied.
Maliana, snake wrapped round her neck in a scaley scarf, held out her hand. Itsabelle took it, her face flushed. Angela waved as they headed out through the stage door, a kiss waiting between them.
Madame Angela St Diabolo went to the props cupboard and placed the suitcase in a corner. Next to it were a penny-farthing built from one man’s bones and an accordion made from another’s lungs. The wheels turned and the bellows wheezed. Inside the suitcase, the dummy screamed. Its shrunken heart beat loud and fast in its smooth wooden chest. Every one of the props in the cupboard joined in, a symphony of made-use-of abusers.
“Keep your voices down,” Angela said to them. “Nobody wants to hear from you.” She closed the door on the props and, with a wave of her forefinger, strengthened the spell that ensured no one else heard them. Let them scream.
Madame Angela St Diabolo then entered her dressing room and poured herself a drink. Sitting down in her velvet chair, she felt every one of her centuries. Her flesh ached and she longed for someone to share this with. She had once been like Itsabelle, and the other women she watched over. Men had tried to skin her, too. Some succeeded. She had tried for years to swallow those memories, but bad ones digested slowly, like a snake with an egg in its middle.
That was when she started helping others. It was the only thing that stoppered the nightmares. In the next seaside town, and the next, more women would come. That was their, and her, curse. She raised her glass to the flensed moon that shone in the bloodshot sky. Whisky burned her throat, and her voice would scorch the world.
THE MUSIC BOX
BY L. L. MCKINNEY
“Mother Barbot is nice, but creepy.” I slide my stack of books off the table and into my waiting backpack. The sudden weight nearly yanks my arm out of socket. “Christ.”
“Language.” Mom spins from where she’s stirring something savory and sizzling on the stove. “And what’ve I told you ‘bout dumpin’ books in your bag like that. You gon’ rip your arm clean off.” Frown lines etch her brown face.
“I think I did.” The burn in my shoulder subsides as my fingers work the abused muscle.
Mom shakes her head before sliding over – her house shoes scritching across the tile – to kiss my forehead. “Dinner’ll be ready soon. Sure you don’t wanna wait so I can pack you some?”
“Naaa.” I grab a bottled water from the fridge, my stomach giving an angry twist at my refusal. Not like I didn’t eat a whole No. 3 from In’n’Out on the way home, hungry thing. “Running late as it is. Wanna reach Castle Barbotula before dark.”
“Drama queen.” Mom lops at something green and crunchy, the knife clacking against the cutting board. “It’s just a house.”
“A creepy house. Owned by a creepy, old, white lady.”
“Ain’t nothing wrong with creepy. You say your cousin Byron is creepy.”
My shoulders hunch at the mention of my second least favorite relative. Byron was always trying to follow the other kids around, trying to find out what folks was up to so he could snitch and win brownie points with the adults. They let him sit in the living room and watch whatever was on TV instead of being banished to the basement or the back yard like the rest of them.
We found out when me and my cousins Jasmine and Lexi asked him why he was always just standing and watching, never doing nothing with us; he tried to act like it was because he had asthma. Which, true, he did. When we were all toddlers. Now he done clearly outgrew it but still like to use it as an excuse.
So, we faked a conversation about asking to walk to the QuikTrip down the street and instead meet some boys at Price Chopper on over the hill. Sure enough, ten minutes later here come our mommas asking where we was planning on going. Our plans were “ruined,” but we caught Byron red-handed, ol’snitchin ass.
“Byron is I-wear-the-same-outfit-all-three-days-during-a-con-even-though-I-have-access-to-a-shower creepy. Mother Barbot is double-double-toil-and-trouble creepy. There’s a difference.”
Mom sputters, her shoulders shaking with silent laughter. “Regardless, that woman ain’t been nothing but nice to us, for years. She always spoke, always wore a smile, and never missed an opportunity to tell me my baby is such a purty theeng.” Mom coated those last few words with her imitation of Mother Barbot’s French accent. “I was like, I know, mm-mhm, she get it from her momma, okay?”
“She always touchin’ my hair and pinchin’ my cheeks.” I rub at my face as my lips twist. “One of these days she’s gonna pull ’em right off. Talkin’ bout how she wishes she had my good skin, whatever the he—whatever that’s supposed to mean.”
Mom cuts me a look but keeps on chopping.
“Now she talkin’ ’bout how I remind her of her dead granddaughter, Belle or whatever.”
“Her granddaughter is a missing person, not a corpse. Such a shame, too, after the girl’s momma passed last year.” Mom dumps the green stuff into a pot. Setting the board aside, she brushes her hands together then folds her arms over her chest. One of her eyebrows shoots up. “You know how these old ladies be. And if you have a problem with her, why you say yes whenever she asks you over for tea?”
I make a face. “Her tea tastes like hotdog water.”
“Or watch her place while she does…” Mom trailed off and gestured at nothing. “Whatever it is she does out in the world?”
I shrug, playing at nonchalant. “Y’all told me to respect my elders.”
“That doesn’t mean doing things that make you uncomfortable.”
“I know. And I’m not. Not really. Besides, fifty bucks for sitting and watching TV for a couple hours is worth a pinched cheek or two. Oh! I ever tell you why she has me ‘house-sit’ for so little? So the plants don’t get lonely.” I set a hand on my hip. “The plants.”
“Plants need conversation. Your Nana used to say that.” Mom nods and scritch-scritches over to the fridge. “Text me when you get in, then when you’re on your way home.”
“Yes ma’am.” I grab my bag, minding my shoulder, and head for the door.
The screen bounces closed behind me, and the humidity sucks my clothes against my body. Florida in May is like midsummer everywhere else, but twice as hot and thrice as miserable when the rains are burning off. Thankfully Mother Barbot only lives a few blocks over.
Ten minutes later, I’m close to drowning in my own sweat as I approach the oldest house in the neighborhood. It’s two stories tall, resembles a brownstone, and looms over a shadowy lot darkened by weeping willows that are more shaggy, green clouds than trees. Weeds sprout along the cracked driveway, the latest in a long line of shrubbery rebellion. The rest of the yard is just as scraggly and unkempt. I’m surprised the HOA hasn’t made her do something about the mess, but at the same time not really. Everyone tends to steer clear of her, including various embodiments of authority.
The front door swings open as I approach the stairs and Mother Barbot steps out. “If it isn’t my favorite house sitter.” The porch wood creaks under her feet, or maybe that’s her bones because she’s more wisp than person. Her frame has shrunk in on itself, her pale skin wrinkled and spotted. Her bony hands reach to grasp mine as I top the steps.
“Hey Mother Barbot.” I smile and squeeze her fingers gently. At least it’s not a hug. I hate hugs. But then those fingers go for my face and I hold my breath as she pinches and pulls.
“Oooooh you’re such a purty theeng!” She bites at some of the words a little, her long years in America fighting with her native tongue. Sometimes she rambles about how different living here is from growing up in some place in France I can barely pronounce. “If I could I would just box you up and put you on my mantel like a leetle doll.”
I force a smile, a half-hearted laugh escaping between my teeth. My nose wrinkles when I catch a whiff of what smells like mold and old cinnamon.
Mother Barbot pats one of my stinging cheeks and takes my hand again. Her knuckles bulge, the skin of her fingers stretched over them. “Come in, come in.”
The inside of the house is as creepy as the outside. Old furniture covered in old blankets and pillows, surrounded by old tables with old lamps, and old pictures on every wall. The only thing that doesn’t look 100 is the television, a 52-inch smart TV that takes up nearly the whole wall.
Mother Barbot bustles around inside the door, getting ready to go… wherever. I never ask.
“Make yourself at home, dear.” She ties a scarf around her head, white curls poking out around her ears. “Eat what you want, drink what you want. Like always, there’s a spare room upstairs if you get tired.”
“I think I’ll just settle in down here.” I run my hands over my shorts then shove my fingers in my pockets. “Do some homework, watch a movie.”
“Such a good girl, looking after your grades.” Mother Barbot brushes my cheek with her fingers and it’s like ice exploding along my skin. I clamp down on the urge to recoil, and I’m smiling so hard my teeth hurt. That was new.
“Order any movie you like. I’ll be back in a tick or two.” She smiles, all dentures, dark eyes peering out from her sunken face. They lock with mine and my chest tightens.
I look away and wave a hand over the room to play it off. What the hell? “I’ll be here.”
“That you will.” Mother Barbot waves, her wrist bending oddly. “Au revoir!”
I’m still “smiling” as I lock the door behind her. Shivers crawl through my limbs and I shake them out with a low groan. “Soooooooo creepy.”
After making the rounds to water the plants and make sure the place is locked down, I flop across the couch and start channel surfing. Even after nearly killing myself to haul my books over here, I don’t feel like bothering with homework.
Half an hour into a rerun of House Hunters International, the music starts, real faint. Bobby, a Korean boy I know from school – gorgeous – practices with his band in the garage next door. He might be the main reason I don’t mind coming over here. I hit mute, hoping I can hear him sing, but… that isn’t his guitar. No, the sound is gentle. Fluid. Beautiful.
And it isn’t coming from outside.
The remote clatters against the floor. I jump, freed from staring at the ceiling like some sort of zombie. The music is coming from inside, somewhere upstairs. At least I think it is. My heart pistons in my chest so loud it pushes everything else aside.
“Calm down,” I whisper, shutting my eyes. “Stop acting so scary.” After a few deep breaths my nerves settle, and I can hear more than blood rushing through my ears. I push to my feet and cock my head to the side, listening, straining. Silence fills my ears with so much nothing it gives me a headache. I hadn’t imagined it, had I?
Naw, I know I’m not trippin’. There was music coming from upstairs. Maybe she left the radio on, or another TV going. And it would be rude to just leave it running. Two seconds, I tell myself. I’ll peek around, turn whatever it is off, and be back down in no time.
A strip of carpet down the center of the stairs mutes my steps, but the wood still creaks under my tennis shoes. Light from the street sweeps in through a small window overlooking the landing. There’s enough for me to make out three doors along the hall. My fingers slide along the wall, searching for a switch and dodging photos of a girl in flowing gowns and pointed slippers, her auburn hair bound at the back of her head. Each picture is a different dress, but it’s the same girl I think, a ballerina. Her face is always turned away or smudged or something. Mom has some pictures of me that’re like that, from years of being touched. It’s usually the edges, though, not the face.
I stop at the first door to listen. Nothing.
It’s unlocked, and swings inward. There’s a switch just inside. Yellow light bathes a dusty bathroom full of ceramic turtles. Big turtles, little turtles, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I stifle a snicker and turn the light out again, shutting the door.
The next door reveals a simple bedroom. Dresser, bed, closet. Ballet slippers dot the cream-colored paper on each wall. Similar shoes cover the pillows, the bedspread, the carpet. Pictures and posters of dancers in poses line the far wall. There’s one poster that stands out, black with the white silhouette of a dancer and the words:
Beauty is grace. Beauty is pain. Heavy is Beauty’s crown, long may she reign.
“I’m starting to sense a theme, here.” I search the room for signs of a radio. There isn’t one, but something on the dresser catches my eye. It’s one of those wood cutouts that spells your name or LOVE or something.
Belle.
This must be the granddaughter’s room. I’m convinced when I spy another picture, this one with Mother Barbot and the ballerina from the pictures in the hall hugging each other, though the girl’s face is blurry again.
Feeling a pang of sympathy for the old lady, and saying a quick prayer that her granddaughter is found safely, I back out of the room and close the door behind me.
I’m heading for the stairs when I hear it again. The music. Louder this time, light and clear, like the twinkling of chimes. I’d forgotten that’s why I was up here in the first place.
The notes string together in a familiar melody. I’m not big on ballet, but I know this song. It’s from Swan Lake.
There’s one more door at the end of the hall. That’s where the music’s got to be coming from. I set my hands against it and press my ear to the wood. The tinkling builds into a chorus of strings and horns so crisp and clear it’s like there’s a symphony on the other side. Before I realize what I’m doing, my hand grips the knob and twists.
This room is smaller than the other two. Plain walls and floorboards stare back at me. Shelves corkscrew around the room, set with dozens of small boxes spaced meticulously. They’re different sizes and colors, some made of metal, some of wood knotted and worn. Paint chips and fades on several of them. A couple even look like they’re carved from stone.
