Cackle(68)

“Who are those from?” Madison asks, picking fuzz from her glossy bottom lip.

“They’re from me,” I say.

She doesn’t bat an eye. “Nice.”

“You’re a special person,” I say. “Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

She sits up a little straighter.

“Thank you,” she says, the compliment coaxing a rare smile.

When I get home, my apartment is crowded with flowers. A hundred floating bouquets. Pink and yellow roses, cobalt delphinium, pastel snapdragons, white calla lilies, red carnations.

I pick one of the carnations for Ralph.

“This is for you,” I tell him. At first he’s sheepish, but then he accepts it. He cherishes it the rest of the evening. He carries it with him to bed, cuddles it as he sleeps.



* * *



—

“I grew my own flowers,” I tell Sophie.

We’re in the conservatory watering plants. It’s balmy in here, and the humidity clouds the glass walls, the glass ceiling. Without any view of the world outside, the room is claustrophobic, overcrowded with plants and kneading fists of hot air. I draw a flower in the condensation on a window. It’s gone in seconds, engulfed in fog.

“You did?” she asks, spritzing a leafy fern. “That’s lovely.”

“With my mind,” I say. “I made them appear.”

“Mm,” she says, unfazed. Because, of course, right? No big deal. “Annie, these plants are thirsty.”

“Oh, yep. Sorry.” I lift my mister and begin to spray.

I’ve been useless lately. I can’t stop thinking about the chicken bones. I can’t stop thinking about the flowers. About what else I might be able to do. The possibilities have become the bright stars of my obsessive thoughts.

My questions breed. I can no longer keep up with them. I look at Sophie, too perfect with her hair in a romantic updo, a few strategic curls framing her face, and there’s so much I want to ask her, so many things I want to know that I just can’t seem to articulate.

“It’s all new to me,” I say. “I feel annoying bringing it up, because I know it’s not new to you.”

“Nonsense,” she says, playfully spraying me with her mister. I’m comfortable around Sophie, but not comfortable enough to spray her back. “I’m here for you, pet. Anything you need. Anything at all.”

“How about a haircut?” I ask. I’m joking, though I could actually use a haircut. My hair has been dried out by the weather. It’s coarse and brittle. My ends are atrocious.

“Happy to,” she says.

“Really?”

She sets down her mister and takes me by the hand, leading me up to her bathroom. It’s dark and Gothic, all black marble. In the center of the room there’s a round tub that’s roughly the size of an aboveground pool.

“I never use it,” Sophie once told me about the tub. She refuses to submerge herself in water. I wonder if it’s because the townspeople tried to drown her. She didn’t seem too bothered by the incident when she offhandedly brought it up a few months back. Maybe she was kidding. I don’t want to pry. I figure she must take showers, because she appears very clean and never smells anything but dreamy.

Above the vanity hangs a large mirror with a frame that’s a giant silver Ouroboros. Its fanged mouth is open, and its tail is just inside, closing the circle around the mirror. It’s got big rubies for eyes, like two red golf balls.

Sophie sits me on a black velvet stool and positions me in front of the mirror. She produces a pair of antique scissors. They’re ornate, perhaps Victorian era. But they’re not rusty. They’re freakishly shiny.

“Fancy scissors,” I say.

“Thank you,” she says. “My murdering scissors.”

“Sophie!”

“They’re great for cutting hair as well,” she says, grinning. “Your face, darling. Oh, I’m sorry. Bad joke.”

“No,” I tell her, “it was a good joke. As long as it was a joke.”

“Of course,” she says. “I wouldn’t use scissors to murder someone. Terribly inefficient.”

“I do appreciate your morbid sense of humor, but . . .”

“But what?” she says, beginning to snip away at my ends. “I’m going to cut it dry. I was thinking shorter. Is that all right?”

“I’ve never had short hair.”

“Let’s try it. If you don’t like it, I have a serum. It’ll make your hair grow like that.”

She doesn’t snap her fingers, but I hear the sound.

“Okay,” I say. “Let’s do it.”

Maybe if I look different, I’ll feel different. Why didn’t I think of this sooner?

I’ve been in a good place for the past few weeks, but it’s nothing I can savor. It’s tentative. Regression looms. I worry I’m in constant danger of slipping back into sadness and self-loathing.

Maybe this haircut will anchor me in the embrace of who I’m becoming. It’ll be a visual, tangible change.

“Tilt your head down, darling,” she says.

Listening to the crisp snips of the scissors, I do and watch as my hair gathers on the floor. It’s cathartic.