Call of the Raven (19 page)

Without her even hearing footsteps, a man
suddenly stood at her side. Downtown Indianapolis teemed with
nightlife, especially on the weekends. The corner was a busy
intersection, even on such a cold, dreary night, so she didn’t
think much of it. Along with the Art’s Garden, the Circle Center
Mall and the Repertory Theatre, there were numerous restaurants and
clubs to hang out in, but Elle didn’t know anything of that life.
The man looked down at the book in her hands and a strange
sensation swept over her.

“Well if it ain’t the bookworm.”

Glancing up, Elle took in the same leather
clad man that she had seen in the library trying to take the little
girl. Without thinking, she rushed into the street before the light
could properly change. At the sound of a honking horn behind her,
Elle hurried to the safety of the office building across the
street. Going through the revolving door, she didn’t look back
until she was safely inside and standing in front of a security
guard’s desk.

She saw no signs of the man, but that didn’t
mean she wouldn’t once she stepped outside and headed home. Elle
asked the guard if she could use the phone, knowing Julio always
kept his cell on him for business. The very second she heard his
voice speaking loud over the sound of music in the background, she
knew she would live to regret the call.

***

Elle hit the
floor hard. The bottom of
her toe stung, her mouth was bleeding again, and her hip hurt from
where Julio threw her into the bathtub. She told herself to stay on
the ground, to let the comment fly right on by, but Julio knew that
she didn’t like to be called ugly, and that’s exactly why he did
it. Just as she was going to retort something just as ugly back, he
threw the book at her and struck her in the stomach, sucking the
comment and her breath right out of her.

“Julio, I can take it back and get the
money,” she panted. Had she just walked home, she could have hidden
the book before he had a chance to see what she spent the money on,
her money. Elle didn’t understand. She never bought anything for
herself and she always did what she was told.

“No. I want to see you burn it.”

“I won’t Julio,” she responded. He was angry
for having to pick her up and now he was going to make her pay.
Elle wondered which skanky stripper he had to put off till later.
She told Julio about the man, but of course he believed she did
something to cause him to follow her—an invitation to bed no doubt.
He didn’t believe her about the little girl either.

Everything was always her fault and Elle was
tired of being treated so poorly. Swiftly rolling over, she grabbed
the book and sent it back with equal force as he’d thrown it at
her. Taking him off guard, book four in Hatori Matasuto’s series
hit Julio right between the eyes. She felt like cheering in
triumph, but as the shock wore off and his dark eyes narrowed on
her, Elle realized she had only proceeded to make him angrier.

She had to think of something fast. Quickly
taking to her feet Elle waited for him to get just inches from her
and then she spit in his face. Surprised, he stopped in mid-swing
and she took advantage of the distraction. He had meant to punch
her in the stomach, but instead she balled up her fist and punched
him in his.

A startled gasp escaped Julio’s lips as her
knuckles made impact with his soft stomach muscles. Her attempt
made Julio laugh and that made her furious. She pulled back her
hand to slap him, but he caught it before she could do any damage.
As she fought him with everything she had, he dragged her in the
direction of the bedroom. She begged him to leave her alone but he
never listened.

“You have no choice. Don’t ever forget that.
No one would ever want you. You’re trash. Your life is here with
me, forever.”

***

Mary lay in
bed, heart and nerves
refusing to calm. Countless times, she’d seen pictures of missing
children, whether on the bulletin board at Wal-Mart, on a flyer in
the mail, or on television, and each time she had told herself that
she was smarter, that she would never get into such a situation. In
the bleakest of neighborhoods and the worst of mother’s boyfriends,
Mary had learned to play it safe. She knew how to be quiet, make
herself scarce and how to avoid trouble, but then no one had ever
told her that they knew her father before.

Things went so much better when mother wasn’t
drinking. There was food to eat and she didn’t have to worry about
moving because there wasn’t any money to pay rent. Mary wanted to
go to her, tell her what happened at the library with the man, but
she knew mom wouldn’t listen, so she stayed in her dark room
haunted by things she didn’t understand. The small room off the
kitchen was in reality a pantry, but a coat of pale blue paint, the
color of the summer sky, and some remnant carpeting taken from a
dumpster had turned it into the closest thing Mary ever had to a
real bedroom.

Some of her fondest memories were spending
time with mother, visiting secondhand shops and yard sales looking
for things to make the place feel like home. Whenever mother had a
boyfriend, Mary was all but ignored. Burly, mother’s newest
boyfriend, had made it all too clear that he didn’t like children.
Whenever he was around, mother made her go outside to play, or sent
her to her room to read a book.

That was why she had taken to following the
lady upstairs to work every day, and stopped taking baths. Sooner
or later mother would notice that she was gone. Sooner or later,
mother would have no choice but to notice her.

Up until a few seconds ago, Mary had been
lying quiet and still, every fiber of her body tuned to the sounds
of the argument brewing to a hostile level in the apartment above,
but now everything was quiet, and she was glad. The air blowing in
through the cracked kitchen window was cold, but Mary liked the
window open. She would rather burrow under her comforter for warmth
than inhale the cigarette smoke drifting in from the living
room.

Mother and Burly had put in an old war flick
an hour ago, sitting down with popcorn and two full bottles of Jim
Beam. But the last time Mary had gotten up to go pee, she saw that
Burly had passed out on the couch and mom was watching the movie
with the sound turned down. The last bottle was her mother’s alone,
and she was no longer using a shot glass. Instead, her mom was
tilting the bottle skyward and drinking it straight without Coke,
taking several big gulps at a time.

Mary closed her eyes, longing for sleep.
Before long she began to think of the moon, full and white lighting
a blue-black sky. She felt peace whenever she thought of the moon.
Often, a wolf, silver grey with blue eyes, visited her thoughts and
dreams. And just as it did now, it led her through thick woods and
played with her in a field of wildflowers; but soon those images
began to change into something scarier. Mary dreamed of mother
sitting in the worn green chair, bottle tilted and Burly standing
above her with a knife ready to plunge into her chest.

Mary bolted upright in bed. A steady stream
of perspiration had beaded on her forehead and was now dripping
downward along the bridge of her nose into her eyes. She blinked,
trying to think, trying to reason and then the scream frightened
her again. It took several seconds to realize that it wasn’t coming
from the living room at all, but instead from the apartment
above.

Sometimes for hours, the arguing would rage
until eventually one or both would cave, often resulting in the
slamming of a door. Sometimes the boyfriend would drive away in his
fancy hotrod, squealing the tires and yelling out the window as he
went. Miss Ison never left though, except to go to work.

Something heavy thudded against her ceiling
and she knew that the fighting couple above was in their kitchen.
And she also knew that this time, the boyfriend planned to hurt
her, possibly even kill her. Mary had seen her a few times on the
stairs and once on the fire escape with a bag trying to leave, but
he always caught her, and then the fighting would start all over
again. Mary realized she must have been trying to leave again. Mary
jumped out of bed searching the floor for her lost slipper.

Dropping down, she fumbled under the cot
until she found it next to a shoebox of Hot Wheel cars that she had
stolen from a boy at school. He was rich enough that Mary figured
he would never miss them. She had just sat down on the bed to put
on her slippers when mother pushed aside the dark blue shower
curtain with the big yellow moon on it which separated her room
from the kitchen. Mother’s eyes were bloodshot and glazed over.

“Do you hear that?” mom asked. “Maybe we
should call the police?”

Mary nodded, surprised that her mother had
woke from her drunken stupor long enough to notice or care.

“I’ll call.” Knowing they didn’t have a
phone, Mary started for the door. Mother’s last boyfriend had liked
to call dirty numbers and until the bill was paid, the phone
company wouldn’t give them service. Mother didn’t ask where she was
going. She was aware that it was Mary whom genuinely took care of
things.

Scuffing back to the living room, mother
plopped down in the green chair. As Mary slid the many chain locks
on the front door, her last image of her mother was her tilting the
bottle at a steep angle to drain the last few drops of whiskey into
her gaping mouth.

The wood felt rough and cold under Mary’s
knuckles as she pounded on the door. Mrs. Overton was old and had
trouble hearing. Mary highly doubted that she would get up to
answer anyhow. People hid behind locks and slept with guns in her
neighborhood at night. Suddenly hearing footsteps on the stairs,
Mary ran back inside her door, leaving it open just a crack to see
out. She saw him—Miss Ison’s boyfriend, in a flash of baggy jeans
and white muscle tee, as he passed by.

The door slammed below and Mary tiptoed out
into the hall to the stair railing. Through the glass double doors
of the entrance to the building, she could see him getting in his
car and within seconds he was squealing out of the parking lot in
his usual manner. Mother called him a thug and said for her to stay
away from him because he was no good. Mary thought that was funny
since she considered Burly a thug too. Hurrying up the stairs
before she could change her mind, Mary saw that the door was left
open, so she crept and peered in.

A coffee table lay on its side and there were
noodles spilled on the carpet. A lamp lay broken, several books lie
in random places as though they had been thrown—covers open—pages
peeled back. A shattered mirror was by the door. At the sound of
crying, she crept carefully inside. It wasn’t hard to find the
bedroom. The apartment was the exact same layout as hers. It was
just at the end of the hall and to the left.

The room was messy with clothes scattered all
over the floor and things strewn across the dresser top, but Mary
got the impression that it was always like this. A striped blue and
green sheet was tacked to the window as a curtain. Unlike the rest
of the apartment the bedroom had a dusty mildew smell with a hint
of men’s cologne lingering on the air.

On the bed, Miss Ison sat, and what little
she had on in the way of clothing, an oversized tee-shirt with a
bear on the front was torn and falling down off one shoulder. Her
mouth was bleeding, her eye swollen and red, and there were long
red scrapes across her right shoulder.

“Are you okay Miss Ison?”

Gasping, she looked up at Mary, wild panic
and fear causing her eyes to fly open in surprise. Mary thought she
had pretty eyes, when they weren’t blackened and puffy. Her eyes
were blue like the sky. When she was done up just right, Mary
thought she looked a little like a movie actress. Miss Ison was
definitely too pretty to be with someone like her thug of a
boyfriend.

“You…!” she exclaimed. “What are you doing
here…in my apartment?”

“My name is Rosemary but my mom calls me
Mary. I live downstairs.”

Again, Miss Ison’s eyes widened. Her tongue
flicked out to lick at the blood on her lip. “You…live…downstairs.
Well…if that don’t beat all.”

“I heard the fighting and since the door was
open, I thought I would see if you were all right.”

“Just great, that guy’s an idiot. I told him
that I thought someone might have been following me home after
work, so what does he do? He leaves the front door open so anyone
can walk in.” She got up slowly as though every muscle in her body
ached and Mary followed her to the living room.

Miss Ison stepped over the broken lamp,
stopped to pick up a book and proceeded to shut the door. Once all
the locks were in place, she turned around and glared at her.
Suddenly, Mary felt small and frightened.

“So, if you live downstairs, why haven’t I
seen you around before?”

“My mother and I haven’t lived here
long.”

“Wait, is she the skinny bleach blonde with
the Harley biker for a boyfriend?” she asked. Mary nodded. She knew
what she thought. Mother looked bad. Whenever she was back on
booze, she seldom stopped to eat or take care of herself. Her hair
always looked uncombed, her clothes wrinkled and dirty. But she
could be pretty when she wanted to be.

“Yeah, the idiot likes to take Julio’s
parking spot,” Miss Ison said. “And Julio just loves it when
someone gives him a reason to use his blade.” She squatted down and
shook her head at the shattered mirror. An odd expression took over
her countenance as she picked up a sliver of glass. “This mirror
belonged to my grandmother. Aah, what does it matter now? I don’t
need a mirror to know that what Julio says is true. I am ugly.”

“You’re not ugly Miss Ison.”

“It doesn’t matter what you think. After what
Julio did…I feel ugly on the inside and that’s what counts.” For
several long seconds, she stared at the sliver of mirrored
glass—eyes traveling back and forth between the sharp point and her
wrist.