Hunger (12 page)

Next, two cupcakes. For the first piece, Tammy ate the filling and cake together. She split the second cupcake up the middle, licking the filling first and then eating the cake. More milk. Nine minutes.

On the television set, a family sat down to dinner. They argued to a backdrop of laughter. Tammy ate, and Lisa felt nauseated.

Tammy reached for a chocolate bar and removed the wrapper. She nibbled the outer ridge almost daintily, then clamped down, finishing the bar in six bites. Milk. Four minutes.

Lisa's stomach growled, saying that it, too, wanted to be stuffed. But then she thought of dead children, their bodies like broken dolls. Her stomach settled, perhaps out of respect.

Tammy ate. Cookies, now, with milk-chocolate frosting spread thickly on top. Still more milk. Sixteen minutes.

A lifetime, as the dead children went into their pit of a grave, tucked in with blankets of dirt.

Tammy pulled herself off the bed, tossing the remote control to Lisa. "Back in about twenty," Tammy announced. She staggered out, and Lisa stared at the discarded wrappers on the bed, scattered like dead leaves on the earth.

Like dead rats before a cook pot.

She heard the bathroom door shut and the lock click into place, and she shuddered. Lisabeth Lewis closed her eyes.

A moment later, Famine opened them.

Her black gaze followed Tammy into the bathroom, watched the girl gather her hair back into a ponytail and wind it into a bun at the top of her head, saw Tammy strip off her shirt and reach into the bathtub to turn on the water. The water poured out, life-giving water, its sounds filling the bathroom. Tammy removed her bra and unzipped her jeans.

Famine watched with pitiless eyes, knowing the girl didn't want to get vomit on her clothing because the smell would never come out of the shirt. With her left hand, Tammy braced herself against the porcelain toilet bowl. Her right index and middle fingers tickled the back of her throat. When she didn't retch, the girl turned on the sink faucet and gulped down water. Then she turned back to the toilet and tried again.

The water came spurting back out of her, bringing some food with it. Tammy's fingers reached down. This time, the milk came up in mottled white chunks. She gripped the bowl as she puked. When no more food came up, she rinsed her fingers off in the sink, then crouched again before the porcelain toilet.

Famine saw the spewed food floating in the bowl like drowned maggots, felt the food spraying from the girl's mouth. Tammy's nose ran freely. Her eyes watered. Her knees threatened to buckle. Famine felt all of it.

It slipped into the rhythm of routine: insert finger, vomit, rinse, repeat. Tammy flushed the toilet when the bowl was filled with more regurgitated food than water. She rinsed off her fingers and wiped her nose. Tammy knew she shouldn't have a problem with not washing her fingers until she was completely done, but she couldn't put her fingers in her mouth when they were caked with undigested food. It was too nasty.

Famine knew Tammy's thoughts; she felt Tammy's throat burn from stomach acid, her esophagus weaken closer to a rupturing point, her tooth enamel erode. Tammy, oblivious to her body's reactions, reached down, heaved. A large mass of solid food flooded out her mouth. Both of her hands grasped the bowl as her body rippled with spasms. Chips and cupcakes and chocolate splattered in the toilet. Brown globs splashed up and sprayed Tammy's face, flicking against her lashes. She flushed again, wiping her eyelids and nose.

Famine, relentless, bore witness.

It took fifteen minutes from start to finish. When Tammy was done, she sank down in the corner, knees pulled up to her chest, arms crossed over her legs. She rubbed her hands over her arms, her fingers raw from constant exposure to stomach acid. She leaned her head against the wall as her breath came in ragged pants. Tears meandered down her cheeks, and her eyes swam with misery.

Famine watched, her black eyes blazing.

Soon Tammy got up and rinsed her hands and face. She brushed her teeth and gargled with mouthwash. She shut the water from the sink and tub, and she wiped down the toilet seat. She splattered tap water onto her neck and chest, removing any stray particles that had found their way onto her skin. She urinated. When she was done, she took off her jeans and ran her hand over her stomach, then stepped onto the scale.

Famine watched Tammy look down and sniffle, watched Tammy slowly get dressed again. She watched Tammy spray Lysol in the small room, masking the stink of sickness with the stench of canned roses. She watched Tammy slap a grin onto her face that looked sickly as she opened the bathroom door.

Famine, done watching, closed her eyes. And Lisa opened them as Tammy came back into the bedroom. Feeling scooped out and confused, Lisa stared at the TV screen, trying to focus on a mindless sitcom.

Tammy wasn't in control at all. It was an act, a
lie.
Lisa had seen that with every spray of partially digested food that had hit Tammy's face. She had felt Tammy's agony, her self-loathing, her burning desire to be thin. She was disciplined only in as much that her particular routine of food ruled her life. That wasn't control. That was surrender.

Lisa understood that all too well.

All those months ago, Tammy had made it sound as if she were sharing something important with Lisa by telling her about her binging, about her purging. And Lisa had felt as if she'd found a sister, someone who understood her own fears about being fat. But Tammy didn't understand any more than Lisa did. Lisa had seen that as Famine.

Tammy had betrayed her even worse than James and Suzanne had, and worse than her father had.

God, no one understood. She had no one to turn to.

Lisa wanted to cry, or shriek, or take a knife and cut herself until she bled dry. She hated her life. She wanted to die.

But she didn't think Death would be so kind to her this time.

"Well," Tammy said after a few minutes of strained silence, "no worries, everything came out okay."

Lisa didn't think the usual joke was funny. Cold, she rubbed her arms.

"Wow, you really are a buzzkill today," Tammy commented.

Thinking about Tammy making herself puke out of fear, imagining rats scurrying in Tammy's pantry and eating all of the food stored there, Lisa said, "Got into a fight with James." That was perfectly true, if not what was actually on her mind.

"Ooh! Dirt!" Lisa wasn't looking at Tammy, but the girl sounded as if she were salivating. The naked hunger in her voice made Lisa feel sick. Tammy demanded, "What happened?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

Three beats before Tammy sniffed, "Well fine. Way to trust your best friend."

Lisa had nothing to say.

She and Tammy stared at the television set, the air between them thick with resentment and anger and a sense of sadness, and of something lost. The bond between them, always fragile, had finally shattered.

Onscreen, a perfect television family experienced their perfect television problems. In half an hour, everything was television perfect again.

Lisa left before the credits finished rolling. If Tammy tried to stop her, Lisa was too caught up in her own bleak thoughts to notice.

Lisa walked out of Tammy's house in a daze, her head cottony thick, her chest heavy. She hadn't grabbed a jacket when she'd fled her own house that morning, but she didn't feel cold. She was too numb to feel much of anything. Even the hunger inside of her, the hunger that defined her, had been reduced from a raging boil to a low simmer.

Those she'd held closest to her had all betrayed her trust, each and every one of them. This came on top of how for the past two days she'd been thrown into an insane situation, traveling across the world on the back of a black horse and commanded to deal in starvation—or possibly salvation, if the White Rider were to be believed. (And, admittedly, Lisa didn't believe him. If Pestilence was the philanthropist of the Horsemen, then Lisa was the cynic.)

It was just too much.

She walked past Midnight, who looked up from the chrysanthemums as she approached and then flared its nostrils as she went past. It whinnied at her, perhaps trying to snap her out of her funk. But she walked on, her feet on autopilot as she headed toward home. The steed snorted, cast a longing look at the flowers, and then followed its mistress, a black specter shadowing her like misery.

No one saw Lisa or the horse; people walked around them as if to avoid a cold spot, or suddenly crossed the street, or just angled themselves to go around them. Normal people don't perceive the otherworldly that hover in this world. It's a Darwinist safety switch in the mind, something to help keep humans from screaming at shadows. But deep in our souls, or our collective unconsciousness, we know those things we hesitate to define are there, walking among us. We know, even if we don't see.

Lisabeth Lewis walked on, and the steed of Famine followed.

Maybe the horse's presence influenced the shape of Lisa's thoughts. Even though she didn't want to think at all, let alone think about the crazy things that had happened, she found herself contemplating her role among the Horsemen. If she bore the Scales and played the part of Famine, she was going to bring chaos and pain to the world. And if she balked, Death was going to let War slaughter her. Of course, the Red Rider might do that anyway, depending on which way the wind blew.

And she thought she'd wanted to kill herself
before.
Lisa let out a short, bitter laugh. She was so screwed.

When she finally got home, all she wanted to do was go up to her bedroom and bury herself under her covers. Maybe she could pray once more that this was all some weird Lexapro-inspired dream. Mentally, she was tired of dwelling on food and Famine; she was completely wrung out emotionally. And physically, she wasn't much better: she was already exhausted just from the short walk from Tammy's house to her own, and far too thirsty—and so damn cold. A hot cup of tea (no sugar, no milk) would do wonders, she decided.

Standing on the front steps, she realized she didn't have her keys—or her purse. Of course she didn't; she'd dashed out of the house to escape James and Suzanne, and she hadn't thought to grab her jacket, let alone her shoulder bag. She'd been lucky that she was already wearing boots; otherwise she might have fled with only her thick socks covering her feet.

Midnight whinnied.

Lisa looked over her shoulder at the black horse. "I need a break."

The steed blinked its white eyes, as if in disbelief.

"I'll be out soon," she said, wishing it were a lie but feeling in her soul that it was God's own truth.

Midnight snorted, then trotted around the side of the house—probably to the garden, Lisa thought. The horse seemed to enjoy grazing. Maybe instead of pralines, she should get her steed a huge tossed salad.

Sighing, Lisa rang the doorbell. If her dad hadn't returned, she could always knock on their neighbor's door. She preferred to stay away from old Mrs. Rizzo, who was blue haired and had a tendency to want to stuff her visitors as if she were plumping them up for her oven. But Lisa would chance it if it meant getting the spare key. If only she were rebellious enough to keep her window unlocked and primed for sneaking out and in.

But the door swung open, cutting short her momentary desire for a life of juvenile delinquency. Lisa's words of thanks and greeting died in her throat.

In the doorway, her mother frowned at her. "No jacket, Lisabeth? You want to catch your death of cold?"

***

Lisa felt her mother's gaze riddling her back. She did her best to ignore it as she fixed her tea.

"That sweater is too big on you," her mother commented. Lisa bristled. This is what her mother did: she nitpicked. Nothing was ever good enough, let alone just right. She'd grown up with the constant backhanded compliment, "If you'd just lose ten pounds, you'd be so beautiful." Well, she'd lost the ten pounds (and then some), but now her mother's criticism tended toward Lisa's sallow skin or her limp hair or her clothing.

"I like the sweater," Lisa said, sounding defensive to her own ears.

"It makes you look like some castaway refugee." Lisa decided not to call her mother on mixing metaphors. Instead, she focused on dunking her tea bag into the mug of hot water.

"And those jeans. Really, Lisabeth. I realize that fashion today might lean toward the baggy, but those jeans are all but falling off you."

Lisa closed her eyes and tried to think of a happy place.

"I'd appreciate it if you acknowledged me when I speak to you."

Lisa swallowed her anger and dunked her tea bag. "Sorry."

She fished out the bag and dumped it in the garbage, then took her cup and tried to leave the kitchen.

"Sit with me," her mother commanded.

Damn it.
Resigning herself to another lecture that pretended to be affectionate conversation, Lisa sank into one of the kitchen chairs. She must have pulled a muscle while riding on Midnight, because the act of sitting made her wince.

Sandy Lewis, however, didn't sit right away. She stood there, in her immaculate kitchen that gleamed with technological innovation and managed to sparkle with homespun charm: top-of-the-line appliances balanced with quaint pictures of apples in baskets going for five cents a pound; caches of cutting boards that folded into drawers; grass-green cushions meant to soften the harsh angles of expensive chairs more at home in magazine spreads than in an actual home. Lisa's mom was as much a prop as the stove she rarely used: hair sculpted into perfect form and glued into place; fully made-up face from foundation to lip liner; a smart skirt-suit adorned with tasteful buttons; the matching accessories that carried the eye from head to ear to throat to wrists to fingers to legs; the shoes polished bright enough to blind. Perfectly groomed, perfectly poised, she had a calculating gaze and a smile as rare as spring snow.

Lisa sipped her tea. She'd seen it all before. She just hadn't planned on seeing it right now.

"Well." Mrs. Lewis took a seat opposite her daughter. "I'll be on the road in a few hours, so we have some time to talk."