Cackle(63)

“It was perfect. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, my pet,” she says, walking upstairs.

I’m left sitting on the steps drinking cold coffee and questioning everything.

I let my eyes wander around the foyer. They distinguish each detail. The shape of the crystals dripping from the chandelier, not quite teardrops. They’re too sharp, and in this exact light, at this particular time of day, they look dangerous, like the kind of icicles that kill people.

The colorful silhouettes the crystals project onto the walls, they’re in constant movement. They make me dizzy.

I put my face in my hands and rub my temples with my thumbs. It smells like incense in here, a scent so rich it’s almost rotten. I’m finding it hard to breathe.

There’s a pain in my chest. A gnawing.

Once Sam and I were watching some show on the History Channel about medieval torture, and there was one type where the torturers would adhere a bucket of rats to your chest and then heat the bucket so the rats would panic and chew through you.

“That’s actually happened to someone,” I said to him, “to multiple people.”

“I don’t want these anymore,” he said, setting the bowl of Cheetos we’d been snacking on down on the coffee table. Then he used his foot to push them farther away.

“I feel bad for the rats,” I said.

He laughed.

“They didn’t do anything! Must be scary for them.”

“Yeah,” Sam said, still laughing, “too bad for the rats. Not the guys getting eaten by them.”

“I feel sorry for the people, too,” I said, because I did feel sorry for them, and because I didn’t like it when Sam laughed at me like that, like I was crazy in a not-adorable way. But then I decided to be honest. “I feel worse for the rats, though.”

I thought about how terrifying it must have been for them, to be minding their own business, happily nibbling on garbage and scurrying through the streets, only to be scooped up and find themselves in a situation in which they thought they’d burn to death if they didn’t eat through some smelly dungeon human.

“Pet,” I hear. Sophie emerges from her room in a dress that looks pretty much identical to the robe. I don’t know why she bothered to change. “You look upset.”

“Just thinking about rats,” I tell her. “Do you think I have too much empathy for rats?”

I ask because I know she won’t laugh at me. She won’t think I’m crazy in a not-adorable way. She would never.

“Rats are selfish creatures,” she says. “They want to survive, and they do whatever they can to survive. I admire them.”

“Yeah.”

She reaches for my hand and helps me up.

“Shall we?” she asks.

I follow her out the door. I hear it lock behind us.

We walk in silence for a while, the ground chomping beneath our feet like it’s something alive, like it’s something we bring to life with our contact, with our presence.

“Are you still thinking of rats?” Sophie asks me.

“No,” I say, “I’m back to thinking about last night. What do you mean, it was me?”

“Here,” she says. “Open your palm.”

I do. In it, she deposits a large spider. So large I can see its face perfectly without having to squint. Countless eyes and a smile. A big lively grin.

“This is Ralph,” she says. “He and I are good friends. He’s very cheery.”

“Is this real?” I ask her.

“Annie,” she says, “there’s only so much I can tell you, only so much I can teach you. I can show you things about the world, about yourself. Beautiful, wonderful things. But I can’t make you believe them. There are some things you need to discover on your own. Do you understand?”

“I . . .”

I look down at Ralph, whose smile is so big it takes up most of his dark, fuzzy face.

He’s the most adorable creature I’ve ever seen. And she’s right. He is very cheery.

And suddenly, I’m cheery, too.

“He’s amazing.”

“I thought you two might hit it off,” she says. “He’s good company. Almost as good as me.”

When we arrive at the diner, we sit in our usual back booth and order pancakes. Sophie pours maple syrup into her spoon and lets Ralph stick his face in it.

“Should he eat that?” I ask.

“I don’t know,” she says. “But he loves it.”

“This is so weird.”

I almost say that I can’t believe it, but I stop myself. Instead, I say, “There’s a lot I used to believe wasn’t possible.”

She smiles, picking an apple out of thin air and tossing it to me. She says, “I know.”





INTERLUDE


In the weeks after the date, Jill, along with the rest of the staff, avoids me like I’m a leper on fire. I assume Jill told them what happened and I have to admit that between the Chris Bersten spider incident and the bone-date incident, they’re fully justified in being wary of me, though, since the date, there have been no other suspicious occurrences on my end.

It’s unclear if it’s a phenomenon I can control. My curiosity has been outwrestled by my extreme apprehension. I try not to give it too much thought. I’m well aware I can’t avoid it forever, but that’s a problem for future me.