A Certain Slant of Light (19 page)

  
"Helen!" James pounded on the door.

  
The creature raised its right hand into a fist, pulled back, and
broke the mirror. At this sound, James threw his shoulder against
the door. Only one shard of glass dropped into the sink—the
other pieces reflected monstrous deformities but stayed on the
wall. With a disgusted grunt, the creature flung me from the
body, and I flew through the wall and into a rack of clothes out
side the bathroom. My fear caused the hangers to gently swing
around me. I looked out from the circle of cotton nightgowns and
saw James step back in surprise as the ladies room door opened
and the woman in the hooded jacket walked out, her right hand bloodied on two knuckles. She kept glancing behind her as she
strode off, ready to fight.

  
I moved to James's side and the relief in his face did nothing
to calm my panic.

  
"I'm so sorry," he whispered. I followed him into a corner be
hind a rack of slippers. "I thought she sounded empty." He had
to catch his breath. "The machines in here confused me. It won't
happen again. I am so sorry." Finally he looked me in the eyes for
a long moment. "Was there someone inside her?"

  
"Something dark."

  
"Are you all right?"

  
"Yes." He knew I was lying—I was still quaking. All I
wanted to do was be alone with him and far from everyone else.

  
Finally we walked out of the store and into the mall again,
moving slowly back toward the entrance where we'd started.
Without warning, James stopped in the flow of walking people so
that a couple holding hands had to part and walk around him on
either side. I looked around, not knowing what had caught his at
tention. He stepped off to the side, up against a huge potted
plant.

  
"There," he whispered, nodding in her direction. "The girl on
the bench. Wearing yellow."

  
I saw a teenaged girl, wearing a yellow linen dress and brown
shoes, sitting with a small brown purse under the hands in her
lap. She stared at the floor.

  
"She's empty," he whispered.

  
"Are you sure?"

  
"She has a pure ring."

  
The girl, her blonde hair neatly combed and hanging to her
shoulders, looked familiar.

  
"She goes to Billy's school," James whispered. "Her name's
Julie or Judy or something like that."

  
Then I heard it, a faint sound like a finger moving on the lip
of a crystal goblet. And it was coming from this girl. A pair of
women crossed in front of her, bumping into her knees with their
shopping bags, but the girl didn't even blink.

  
"She's safe," he whispered. "I promise."

  
I couldn't make myself move away from him. "Stay with me,"
I said.

  
"As long as I can."

  
Slow as a snail, I moved to the girl in yellow and stopped a
few feet in front of her. She was breathing shallowly, her eyes a lifetime away. I sat next to her. James was watching us from his
place beside the plant. I was wondering how difficult it would be
to learn the slump necessary to imitate the way twenty-first-cen
tury women sit and stand, but this girl had prim posture, almost
as if she were wearing a corset.

  
"Jenny!" A slim woman in a gray dress and high heels came up to the girl. "Let's go, honey." The girl Jenny looked up at the
woman, smiling mechanically, and rose smooth as smoke from
the bench.

  
I thrust my hand out and grasped the girl's arm. It didn't feel
like touching Mr. Brown or James, but it didn't feel like the dark woman, either. It felt cold like a pincushion of ice. But as Jenny
moved, I was pulled along. I floated after her, looking to James for
guidance. He nodded encouragement, so I clung to Jenny as she
walked with her mother briskly out of the mall and into the
parking lot.

  
"I found something I think will work for the door prize," said the older woman. "It's a Bible Atlas."

  
"That sounds great, Mom." I was chilled by the dead tone of
Jenny's voice.

  
"Your father's picking up the cake. We'd better get home and
change. We're supposed to be at the park at four and it's after
three-thirty."

  
Jenny's mother pressed a button in her purse, and the lights of
a maroon car blinked on and off. The vehicle that gave a short
beep had a fish symbol and a small sign that said ABORTION IS
MURDER on the back fender. The two stepped up to either side.
James rolled by on his bike, waved a hand as he passed, and
called, "Hi, Jenny!"

  
Both of them stopped and looked. Jenny's mother watched
James disappear between two rows of cars. "Was that a boy from
school?" she asked.

  
"I don't know," said Jenny.

Eight

"I IRONED YOUR BEIGE SHORTS, honey," said Jenny's mother.
"Unless you think it's too cold."

  
"That sounds fine," said Jenny.

  
I was stowed away in the back seat, tasting terror like a metal
bit. What had I done? I was cleaving to a host I would never want
to choose. What if we'd made a mistake again and something
waited inside her?

  
"Did your blue sweater come back from the cleaners?"

  
"I think so." Jenny looked out the window, but her eyes were
focused on the glass rather than on what lay beyond.

  
"Teri and Jeff are going to sing a duet." Jenny's mother
tapped her heavy diamond ring on the steering wheel as she
drove. The car felt like a hearse—large, clean, and the outside
sounds were strangely blocked out.

  
"They have such nice voices," Jenny droned.

  
"I should get my camera," said the mother. "Remind me."

  
"Get the camera," Jenny murmured.

  
"I mean before I get back in the car, silly," she laughed.

  
The garage they pulled into was nicer than Billy's house. It was huge, large enough for two cars and a boat, though it was
empty when we pulled in. There was an immaculate counter
with a shiny sink, a spotless "white freezer, and a tool shop board
with every hammer and saw perfectly outlined in white paint on
the wall. There was a poster of a descending dove on the door and
an ivy plant with a cherub wind chime beside it hanging from
the ceiling.

  
Jenny's mother pushed a button under the steering wheel and
waited for the mechanical jaws of the garage to close behind
them before she got out of the car. While the garage door was
only halfway down, I looked back, hoping to see James and his bi
cycle. If he had followed us, I could change my mind and fly to
him. But he wasn't there.

  
"Hop hop," said the mother.

  
Jenny followed the woman into the house with her purse
clutched to her middle. They came through an enormous
sparkling kitchen, then Jenny passed her mother, who stopped at
the dining room table to look at the headline on the newspaper
neatly folded there.

  
I followed Jenny into her bedroom and watched her undress. I
couldn't imagine trying to step into her flesh while she was in
motion. She moved like a sleepwalker, folding her dress and slip
daintily before setting them in the laundry hamper. She put her
hosiery in a zippered net bag and stored her shoes in a box on the
closet shelf.

  
Standing in her matching white panties and bra, she paused
as if in a trance.
She's stopped,
I thought.

  
"Are you ready?" her mother's voice called from down the hall.

  
Jenny blinked and began to move again, like a machine re
sponding to the turn of a crank. She found shorts and a sweater
on hangers and put them on. Another box in the closet held white
canvas shoes, and from a dresser drawer filled with socks neatly
rolled together in little balls, she took a white pair.

  
"Are you almost there, missy?" called her mother.

  
"Almost," Jenny called back. She pulled the socks on, right and then left, sitting on the edge of the bed. Then the shoes, ty
ing the laces in symmetric bows. Now she sat staring again as if
her pilot light had blown out. Again she was still, but I was too
scared to touch her.

  
I looked around her room, decorated in little-girl white lace
and yellow roses. The dressing table, the rug, the desk: Every
thing was spotless. The walls were bare except for a painting of
praying hands and a poster of Jesus with children gathered at his
knee.

  
The girl sat as if hypnotized, and I stood in front of her. She was so young. It would have seemed more appropriate for us to
choose a woman of my own age, but we needed an abandoned
ship, and after all, James was in a body just as young. I was nerv
ous. If I somehow floundered and could not cling to this child
from the inside of her flesh, perhaps I would fall back into hell. She very well might be the last thing I saw before an eternity of
pain.

  
Sitting beside her, I touched her hand, the delicate, tan fin
gers on the white lace bed. She must be empty, I thought. I didn't
feel that falling sensation or the heat of danger, only an absolute stillness, like touching a statue. I recoiled, but she so generously
lay down on her back now, as if surrendering, that I had to try. I reclined into her cold space. She seemed quite hollow, but there
could still be a blackness hiding. A terrifying shuddering over
whelmed me. It was so violent, I jumped up again and looked
down at the girl. She took a deep breath and sat up.