Beautiful Lies (25 page)

“Hello?” I call, startled all over again by how soft and hoarse my voice is. Before I can sleep, I have to give my aunt some explanation as to why I’m home so early. It won’t be difficult to pretend I’m not feeling well. As I stand in the foyer, I summon every remaining shred of my strength, trying to muster the energy to find her. From the corner of my eye, I see Linda McCartney—the cat—taking deliberate steps down the stairs. Overnight, she has become so skinny that
I can make out hollows near her rib cage beneath her long orange fur. I can see the outline of her spine. It’s probably because she’s nursing her kittens so much; they’re sucking everything out of her.

My aunt is sitting on the floor of my bedroom. She’s looking through one of my old sketchbooks, which sits open in her lap. Beside her, there’s a whole stack of them, probably going back at least a few years. She’s crying.

My aunt is not my friend; we have never gotten along well. But in all the years I’ve lived here, she has quietly encouraged my art, even when things between us have been particularly rough. Every birthday and Christmas brings new paints, canvases, pencils, and brushes. It’s not cheap, I know, and since my parents didn’t leave us any money, she and my uncle are under no obligation to indulge my interest. In return for this kindness, I have treated them terribly; I know this. There is a part of me that understands how much I owe them. They fought to raise Rachel and me when our grandmother wanted us, because they believed they could do a better job. They have been strict but fair. They love me. Yet in the past year, I have done little else but put them through endless troubles.

I have my reasons. Good ones. To my aunt and uncle, though, I’m just a brat.

But as I stand here, watching her cry, her eyeliner and mascara smudged, foundation worn away beneath her eyes to reveal fine wrinkles, I feel nothing but sorry for her.
Maybe I’m just too tired to waste what little energy I have left being angry and resentful.

“Rachel,” she says, surprised, “what are you doing here?” She glances at her watch. “It’s barely twelve thirty.”

“I feel sick,” I say, slumping against the wall, out of breath just from climbing the stairs. “The nurse sent me home.”

She sniffles. “They let you walk? It’s over a mile.”

I nod. “I guess it was okay because I’m eighteen.”

It’s a flimsy explanation at best, but she doesn’t question it.

“What are you doing up here?” I ask. “You’re going through Alice’s things?”

She shakes her head. “No. I mean, I didn’t mean to. I came home from my meeting and sort of wandered up here, and before I knew it I was looking at her sketches.” She stares down at the open book. “They’re so good. She really has a gift. You already knew that.”

The book in her lap is open to a portrait of the gap-toothed girl I’ve been sketching for so long. Because of the way her eyes are drawn, no matter where you’re standing in the room, she’s always looking at you. I didn’t plan it that way, not at first, but for some reason that’s how most of my drawings of her have turned out.

“Come here,” my aunt says. “Sit down with me.”

As I take a seat on the floor beside her, it almost feels like an unseen hand is tugging me downward, like I don’t have control over my own body. I lean against her, still catching
my breath, grateful for the moment that she believes I’m Rachel; I can rest my head on her shoulder without it seeming too odd.

My aunt runs a finger along the jawline of the gap-toothed girl. “Do you know who this is?” she asks me.

“No.” My eyelids flutter. I could fall asleep right here. “Do you?”

She doesn’t answer the question. Instead, she says, “There are pages and pages of her in these books. It’s the same face, over and over again.” She gives me a sideward glance. “Alice must know her somehow.”

Despite my exhaustion, my lips tilt upward in a slight smile. “Alice says she’s never seen her before in her life.”

Aunt Sharon shakes her head. “She’s wrong. She must be.”

“Oh?” I yawn.

“Yes,” Aunt Sharon says. “She must have met her somewhere, at some point. Maybe just crossing paths on the street, but still. Her face didn’t come from thin air, Rachel.” And she pauses, glancing down at the portrait again. The girl stares up at us, and even though she’s half-smiling, there is something incredibly sad about her expression.

“You know, I recognize her from somewhere myself,” my aunt says.

The information surprises me; a jolt of energy ripples through my body. This isn’t the first time she’s seen one of these portraits, and she’s never mentioned that the girl looks familiar until now.

“Where do you know her from?” I ask, sitting up a
little straighter. There’s an edge to my voice, and my aunt senses it.

“I didn’t say I knew her. I said I recognized her. And I don’t know how. But I could swear I’ve seen her before.”

She touches the drawing again. Then, abruptly, she closes the sketchbook and sets it aside, on top of the others. The redness around her eyes has faded somewhat; it’s like she was never upset at all. “Anyway,” she continues, “that’s not important right now. You look exhausted, Rachel. You should take a nap.”

She stands up, extending a hand to help me to my feet. I’m too tired to think about anything right now, even my sister. All I want to do is fall asleep.

My aunt pulls the covers aside and helps me climb into bed. I feel like a small child as she tucks the blanket beneath my chin and presses her hand to my cheek, checking for a fever.

“You’re warm,” she murmurs, but my eyes are already shut, and her voice sounds far away. I feel her hair brush against my face as she leans down to kiss me on the forehead.

“Get some rest, sweet girl,” she whispers. But I barely have time to process her words before the room slips away—slowly at first, and then all at once—like someone is reaching out from the darkness to yank me toward them, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

The dream is vivid and bright: I’m on the trail again, but this time Rachel is walking a few steps ahead of me. She’s in her outfit from Saturday night, but her feet are bare as she navigates the stone-covered path, stopping every few seconds to kneel down and peer at the ground.

I try to walk faster, but my legs won’t move as quickly as I need them to; no matter how hard I struggle to catch up with her, she remains a few paces away, just out of reach. The wound on the back of her head is nearly identical to mine, the shiny, damp circle of bare flesh oozing fluid, refusing to heal.

She glances over her shoulder, looking at me. “Can you help me, Alice?” she asks. There is almost no expression to her face; it’s like she doesn’t understand who I am, even as she says my name.

“What are you looking for?” Again, I try to get closer, but it’s difficult to walk. Each step is a struggle for me, like I’m wading through a layer of sap.

She shades her eyes from the bright light all around us, which is harsh and blinding, even though I don’t see the sun anywhere. The bruises on her face are much worse than mine; her left eye is swollen shut, and she has a split lip. There is blood smeared around her nose, dripping from her nostrils. When I look at the ground, I see that the droplets have been falling onto the stones, leaving bright-red bursts of color every few paces as she moves along, like a grisly trail of bread crumbs marking her path.

She doesn’t seem like she’s in pain, though; instead, she’s preoccupied by her search, oblivious to the way she looks. “I’m so thirsty, Alice. I’ve never felt so thirsty before in my life.” She pauses. “Will you help me look? I could swear I just had it a minute ago.”

“You could swear you just had
what,
Rachel? Tell me,” I plead.

My desperation has no impact on her. “I got it at the fair,” she continues, “from an old man. It’s the most amazing thing, Alice. It’s a little monkey carved out of a peach pit.” She frowns, biting her bottom lip, a blossom of blood appearing as her teeth sink into the flesh.

“Rachel, you’re bleeding! You’re hurt!” I try to reach for her again, without success. If anything, the distance between us seems to be growing wider, even though we’re both standing still.

She gives a dismissive wave of her hand; her wrist is encircled by a thick line of dried blood. “That’s not important right now, Alice. Help me find it, please? I was going to give it to Charlie.”

“I have one too,” I say. “Don’t worry about it—I’ll give mine to Charlie. Just come home.”

“No,” she says, shaking her head. “That’s not good enough. We need to find this one.”

“Why?” I demand.

“Because it doesn’t belong to him. It belongs to me.”

“What do you mean?”

She pauses. She tilts her head, listening. “Be quiet,” she whispers. “He’ll hear us.”

“Who will? Rachel, who is it?” I try to take a step forward, but I cannot even lift my feet off the ground; it’s like I’m glued in place.

“I have to leave,” she says, looking around, a trace of worry in her voice. “Promise me you’ll keep looking, okay?”

Paralysis begins to spread through my body, starting at my feet and creeping upward, until I can’t even move my arms. I try to speak, but I can’t open my mouth. All I can do is stare at her.

“Promise me,” she repeats.

Even as I nod, my neck begins to stiffen.

“Good.” She smiles. “I knew I would find you, Alice. I knew you would help me.”

She begins to walk away, more quickly this time, hurrying along without stopping to look for the monkey anymore. As she recedes into the distance, her form starts to blur, until she is so far away that I can’t even recognize her. I watch, helpless, until she disappears, her body slipping out of sight like she’s been swallowed by the horizon.

When I look down at the path again, I see the long, crooked trail of blood that she has left behind, a horrifying series of connect-the-dots, their color throbbing beneath the light, threatening to burst at any moment. If I could only
move,
I could follow them. I’m certain they would lead me right to her.

But I can’t do anything. I can’t even blink anymore. All I can do is stare straight ahead, hoping for another glimpse of her even as the light begins to fade all around me.

As the darkness grows, there is a brief flash of white light at the horizon, and another form appears. I can tell immediately that it’s not Rachel, though; it’s a man. At first I feel afraid as he approaches me slowly, seeming to take his time, almost like he knows I can’t go anywhere, that I have no choice but to wait for him.

As he gets closer, even in the near-darkness, I can see that it’s Robin. His body radiates a soft, eerie glow from within; I can see his veins mapped out beneath his flesh, the textured fibers of his muscles; I notice that the hairs on his arms are flattened against his skin, curled into continuous swirling patterns, like they have been smoothed carefully into place. By the time he reaches me, as he stands just a few feet away, I realize that he’s soaking wet. His clothing clings to his body. His form ripples against the dark background, like there’s a wall of water separating us.

As he reaches toward me, his hand breaks through the wall, and the water comes splashing down in a foamy wave, soaking the ground all around him. Somehow I remain completely dry.

“I want to help you, Alice,” he says to me, putting a hand on my arm. His hand is cold. Even though I can’t shift my gaze to look downward, I can feel that his fingers are shriveled, like they’ve been soaking in water for a long time.

I give him a desperate look, still unable to speak or move.

“It’s too late for me,” he continues. “I would do anything to take it back, Alice, but I can’t. I have to keep going. It’s the way things are. A person can’t hold still forever.”

He brings his face close to mine, so our noses are touching. “It’s too late for us, but it’s not too late for her. I promise.”

I want to hold him so badly, to warm him with the heat from my body. But I can’t do anything. Even as he begins to back away, my body is so paralyzed that I can barely breathe.

“I’ll see you soon,” he says. They are his last words to me. He turns, begins to walk into the darkness, the light around him receding as he moves forward, growing dimmer by the second like a flame deprived of oxygen, until it finally slips away completely. The last things I see before everything around me goes black are his footprints on the path, their indentations filled with muddy water, one after another arranged in a meandering line that runs parallel to Rachel’s trail of blood.

The air grows very cold all around me as I stand in complete darkness, frozen in place. My mouth is dry, but I can’t swallow. As I stand there, I am aware of someone lingering close behind me. I don’t know how, but I’m certain it’s a man—I’m also certain it isn’t Robin, not this time.

I can hear him breathing as he watches me; I can sense his gaze at my back. He has been observing me the whole time, I know, even though I’ve only become aware of him
now. I don’t know who he is, but I understand that he’s staying close for a reason, reassuring himself of my immobility, keeping watch in the dark, ready to pounce if I get too close to her.