Beautiful Lies (5 page)

My mother knelt beside my sister. She shook her hard. She screamed her name over and over. She slapped her across the face. Still, my sister did not breathe. Her eyes were open, but she wasn’t looking at us. It was like she wasn’t there.

My mother lay me down on the floor, her gaze filled with horror as she tried to help both of us at the same time. She struggled to lift up my sister and pound on her back. “Steven!” she screamed, calling for my father. Then she put her arms around my sister’s stomach, hands clasped together against her small tummy like a knot, and pushed.

My sister spit something out. She coughed and coughed. Then she threw up all over the floor.

My mother gazed at the mess. With her thumb and index finger, she reached into it and picked something up. She stared at it, then she looked at me.

I was breathing again. It all happened in an instant. I felt fine.

My mother, though, did not seem fine. Her face was white. I looked at what she was holding. It was a big wad of pink teaberry gum.

That was the first time.

I dream of my sister all night long. At least that’s how it feels; I read somewhere that dreams only last a few seconds, even though it might seem like they go on for hours.

We are standing on the running path, walking side by side with our fingers laced together gently, our arms swinging as we stroll along.

In the dream, I feel worried. There is a strong, cool breeze that whips my hair into my line of vision, obscuring my surroundings. I grip my sister’s hand more tightly. “We should go home,” I tell her.

She stops. She reaches toward me and brushes the hair from my eyes. “You go ahead. I have to stay behind.”

“Why?” I ask, still holding her hand. I feel certain that I can’t let go, or she might slip away forever.

She doesn’t answer me. She looks up at the sky, which is overcast, thick with dark, puffy cumulus clouds. “It might rain soon.”

“I don’t want to leave you here,” I say.

She smiles at me. “You don’t have a choice.”

Then the oddest thing happens. It’s like she starts to fade, her form growing translucent, her hand slipping away from mine even as I struggle to maintain my grasp. The wind picks up, and she begins to blur around the edges. It’s like an invisible hand is taking an eraser to her figure.

I want to lunge after her, to save her, but I can’t move. I am frozen in place. All I can do is watch as she grows fainter by the minute. I open my mouth to scream her name, but I can’t make a sound.

Just before she disappears, she speaks to me one last time. Her voice is strong and firm, so different from her appearance. “Don’t. Tell. Anyone. Not a soul.”

I find my voice, shouting her name even as she vanishes into thin air. I feel incredibly cold all of a sudden, unable to move, shivering, waiting for her to reappear. I stare at the empty space for what feels like hours, but she doesn’t return.

I wake up with my legs tangled in her sheets, sunlight leaking through the cracks in our window’s wooden shutters. It’s 9:13 in the morning. I feel something in my hand; looking down, I see that I’m still clutching the carved monkey. I’ve been holding on to it all night.

Beside me, resting on the fitted sheet, is my phone. Its tiny message light is off. No missed calls. No texts. Nothing.

But the panic is still here; almost immediately, I realize that I’m sweating. The sheets are all wet. My sister, I know, did not come home last night. She isn’t downstairs watching cartoons with Charlie. She isn’t making herself some cinnamon toast in the kitchen. She isn’t anywhere.

I put my feet on the floor. I stare at the monkey again, holding it up to the sunlight, noticing its precise detail. For
some reason, I don’t want to put it down. Each individual finger is visible against the tree trunk. Its mouth is an almost-perfect tiny heart shape. I’ve never seen anything like it.

I get out of bed and hurry downstairs. My aunt and uncle promised they’d call the police this morning if my sister wasn’t back. We need to be looking for her. We should have been looking last night.

The house is a big old Colonial with creaky hardwood floors and thick plaster walls. The staircase leading to the third floor is wide and curved, the steps carpeted with an expensive Oriental pattern, held in place with brass poles. On the landing just outside the door to our bedroom, there’s a cozy window seat overlooking the street, except that the view is obscured by a huge stained-glass peacock. The bird’s tail is fanned into numerous slivers of color, its bright green eyes always open, watching, sometimes catching the light so that it almost seems alive. There’s a huge landing on the second floor, its staircase gently sloping, open into the foyer.

The coolest thing about this place, though, is that there’s a genuine hidden staircase. In the smallest second-floor bedroom, which is a guest room, there’s a rectangular seam in the blue-and-white-striped wallpaper. If you press on the edge, right where you’d expect to find a doorknob, it releases a hinge on the other side, and part of the wall swings out to reveal a dark, narrow staircase. It leads to the kitchen, where there’s a latch that opens from the inside. And in the kitchen, to the left of the refrigerator, there is a similar flat panel with
no visible doorknob—just a slim rectangular crack in the wall. It’s barely noticeable.

Nobody else in this house ever uses the secret staircase; it’s dark and inconvenient, the steps are steep and narrow, and its unheated air is chilly. But I like it. In the months after we first came here, I used to hide in the wall for long periods of time in the afternoons, sitting with my knees pulled against my chest, thinking of my mother and father. I imagined that I was in a secret, magical corridor—kind of like the wardrobe leading to Narnia—and that I’d step out of the darkness and into my old life at my old house, and my parents would be standing in the kitchen like they’d always been there, like they would never go away.

It didn’t work, of course. There was no magic. But in the cool darkness of the hidden stairs, if I listened closely to hear the whispered vacuum of air circulating past my ears, sometimes I almost believed that it could.

This morning, I open the latch and step into the kitchen, where my aunt and uncle, along with Charlie, are gathered in a semicircle around a big cardboard box on the floor. Inside, there’s a fat calico cat lying on top of an old yellow blanket, her breathing rapid and shallow, eyes so wide and glassy that they look like wet marbles.

My aunt looks at me. “Alice?”

I shake my head.

“Oh. Rachel.” Pause. “Your sister still isn’t back, then?”

“No.” My eyes are watering, and I’m continuing to sweat. “Please do something.”

“She didn’t call you?” my uncle asks, not looking up from the box. The cat gives a low-pitched meow, in pain, and rolls to her other side. Her fine belly fur is licked so thoroughly that it’s soaking wet, her swollen nipples a deep, angry shade of red.

“No. You said we’d call the police today. You
promised.
” I close the secret door and stand beside the box, between my aunt and Charlie. “What are you staring at? It’s just a cat.” The house feels like an oven; a bead of sweat rolls down my forehead and into my eye. “Aren’t you worried, now that Alice didn’t come home all night? You said you’d listen to me. Aunt Sharon, you promised.
Please.
”

“Oh, honey …” My aunt sighs. “Maybe we should call around first. She could be with Robin.”

“She’s not. I talked to him last night.”

“You talked to Robin?” My aunt gives me a sharp look. “Rachel, he’s—”

“I know. But I was so scared.” The cat sort of gurgles and howls all at once. It wriggles around on the blanket.

“You’re still worried, aren’t you? Even though she’s run away before?” My aunt Sharon picks up a mug of steaming coffee from the floor beside her. Charlie made the mug in a ceramics class that he took at the community center last year.
It’s dark green and lopsided, a few of his big fingerprints visible in the glazed clay. My aunt uses it every morning, washing it by hand after she’s finished drinking coffee, carefully drying it with a dish towel before placing it on the ledge of the kitchen window. Every morning.

I close my eyes for a moment. The feeling of dread is almost suffocating. “Something bad is happening. You have to believe me; I know her better than anyone.” I open my eyes to give them another pleading look. “I can tell. I know it sounds crazy, but I’m certain of it.”

My aunt glances at the clock above the kitchen stove. I can see that she’s starting to worry, too, but doesn’t want to show it too much. “Maybe Robin was lying to you.”

The idea annoys me. My aunt and uncle don’t like Robin, but they’ve never even
met
him. They don’t know him at all. “He wasn’t lying.”

“Oh … would you look at that,” my uncle whispers.

“Ew!” Horrified, Charlie brings his hands to his face. He separates his fingers, peeking out from between them. “Dad! It’s so gross.”

My uncle rubs Charlie’s back. “It’s okay, buddy. She’s having her kittens. You should watch. You might never see anything like this again.”

But Charlie’s right; it
is
gross. I stare as the first kitten emerges, contained in a clear, gelatinous sac, its tiny paws working to break through the membrane without much success.

Charlie and I look at each other. He puts an index finger in his mouth to make a gagging gesture. In spite of everything, I smile.

“All right, Rachel. If she doesn’t get in touch within the hour, I’m going to call the police,” my uncle says, unable to take his eyes off the cat. He adds, “Sharon, where’s the camera? We should be taking pictures.”

“Within the hour?” I almost shriek. “Are you kidding? Call them
now.
You promised me.” I look at the cat again. “And why would you want pictures of that? It’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen.”

My aunt sips her coffee. Her expression over the edge of her mug is serious. To my uncle, she says, “I think Rachel might be right. Maybe we should call the police now, Jeff. Alice didn’t come home last night. We shouldn’t wait around all morning.”

My uncle barely looks at her. “If you think so.”

“I
do
think so. We can’t just assume she’s okay. Even if she did run away, the police need to know she’s gone.”

My face is flushed, my forehead wet with sweat; why hasn’t anybody else noticed how warm it is in here? A flutter of worry beats hard in my chest. “Will you call right now?”

My aunt stands up. “Yes,” she says, glancing at the box. As she’s heading toward the phone, she adds, “Rachel’s right, Jeff. That’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen.” She means the cat. To me, she says, “I know you’re worried, but please don’t panic. The police will track down Alice. And when she gets home, we’ll deal with her.” She sighs. “Somehow.”

I lean against the wall in relief, sliding downward until my butt hits the floor, pulling my knees close to my chest.

My aunt drops her mug. It shatters against the floor, coffee and thick green shards of ceramic all over the place, some of the brown liquid seeping into the side of the cardboard box.

Charlie looks at the mug, at my aunt, and then at me. His bottom lip begins to tremble. He starts to cry.

“What the hell, Sharon?” My uncle jumps to his feet, his arms spread out, the cat howling wildly below him, four newborn kittens in the box now, and when I look at my aunt again she’s staring at me, a look of pure horror on her face, her expression crumpled somewhere between frowning and crying and screaming. She covers her mouth with a hand, shakes her head, steps toward me, and reaches down with her free arm to pull me to my feet.

“What is that?” Charlie asks, crying.

“Jesus.” My uncle stares at me. “Charlie, go get the phone, buddy.”

“Dad, what’s all over the wall? Dad?” I’ve never seen my cousin so scared. What does he mean, what’s on the wall? I am too afraid to turn around and look.

“Charlie. The phone!”

His footsteps heavy, my cousin runs toward the family room.

“What? What’s wrong?” I’ve never been looked at this way before.

“Rachel … oh, sweetie. You’re hurt.” My aunt reaches toward me with a shaking hand.