Tangerine(17)

“How old were you?” I asked, tentatively, unsure whether her wounds were still fresh like mine, or even whether she would want to talk about it at all, recent or not.

“Five years old,” she replied, that same nonchalant tone lacing her words, so that I found myself hoping I would one day be able to answer such questions in a similar tenor, that my voice would not shake and quiver as it fought to pronounce each word, to form sentences that conveyed who my parents had been and just how much I had lost with their deaths. “I don’t really remember my father anymore, he’s more of just a hazy impression—a suggestion, really,” she continued, whispering. “I know he worked at a garage, but beyond that, I don’t remember anything much about him. But my mother—sometimes I think I can remember everything about her, even the little things. Like a tube of lipstick, honey colored. Or the strange little glass bottle of perfume that she used to keep on her vanity—it was brown glass, with a clear top.” She shifted. “Anyway, I try not to think of her anymore.”

She stopped then, and I could feel the curls of her hair, so close, tickling my face.

“Does that work?” I asked.

“Sometimes.” I could feel her shrug. “It’s harder in the morning.”

I knew what she meant. “Sometimes I forget,” I said. “I wake up in the morning and it’s like my mind has completely reset. And then I remember, and I have to live through it all over again.”

She nodded, but I could see that something else had pulled at her attention.

“Look,” she whispered.

Jennings Hall, the mansion that sat just beyond the main campus, unfolded before us. The college’s very own Gothic story, made real. There were always whispers about mysterious footsteps, ghostly voices, and strange noises that could never be accounted for, stories about various hauntings that had occurred over the years since it had been donated to the college. Perhaps it was only the sherry, but I was struck in that moment with how ridiculous a notion the idea actually was. Its outside was covered almost entirely by ivy, which had turned a blazing autumnal red in the weather, highlighted further still by the setting sun. It was beautiful, I thought, the walk through the forest more frightening than anything the building in front of us seemed to promise.

And so when Lucy tilted her head toward the entrance, a silent invitation between us, I took a quick, deep breath and followed.

“Is this what your home is like, in England?” she asked, turning toward me as we made our way into the hallway, a queer expression on her face.

I frowned, wondering exactly what type of image Lucy had managed to sketch from the letters we had exchanged. Aunt Maude was well-off, that much was true, but she had lived alone prior to my parents’ death—a spinster, they might have called her only a few years before—and had not seen any reason to change things when her niece had unexpectedly arrived. “No,” I said, with a slight shake of my head, “there’s only just the two of us.” I looked around at the vast emptiness of the hallway. There was little in the way of furniture, and our voices echoed as we moved across the marble-tiled floor. “We wouldn’t know what to do with this much space.”

Lucy, I thought, looked vaguely disappointed at my words. I waited, then, for her to say something about the place she had grown up in, but she remained silent.

“Look at this,” she exclaimed. She crouched so that she sat half-hunched, balancing on the balls of her feet, only inches from the object of her excitement: two stone lions that sat side by side in the large, and apparently unused, fireplace. Reaching out her hand, she let it rest on the carving’s head.

I felt uneasy, in the quiet of the house, conscious that we were not meant to be there but rather, should be dining with the other girls from our house.

“Don’t, Lucy,” I pleaded, looking around me, as if expecting someone to materialize and tell us off for not following the rules. “We’re not supposed to even be in here.”

She looked up, a smile forming in the corner of her lips. “Relax, Alice. Nothing will happen.” But her hand remained on the lion, and I was struck by the conviction that this strange little demonstration of defiance was for my benefit—to prove that she was a girl who could not be told what to do, that she was not afraid.

A shiver passed through me, and I clutched my cardigan tightly to my body. Without the heat of the sun, the sweat that had slipped down my back only moments earlier had grown cold, and my skin rose in goose pimples as I fought to keep warm.

Lucy stood. “You should have said that you were cold,” she said, pulling me closer, enveloping me in a strange embrace.

My aunt Maude was not one for affection, and during my time with her, my life had turned into something solitary and cold. I had missed it at first, those small displays of intimacy, so that even when a stranger would walk by and accidentally brush against me, it was enough so that I could feel their touch for the remainder of the day, burning me, marking me, where we had collided. But now I struggled to relax, and when Lucy finally moved away, I could feel the space where she had just been, humming, vibrating, there in the air before me.

She looked down at the lions. “It’s odd, but they remind me of a pet I once had as a child. A dog named Tippy.” The smile left her face then. “He was a complete surprise, especially if you knew my mother. She detested animals. She used to cringe at the idea of actually owning one. But then, one day, there he was. I guess a neighbor’s dog had had puppies and he was the final one, the runt they couldn’t manage to sell, let alone give away for free. He was small. White and tan. Not really a puppy any longer, since they had been trying for so long to get rid of him.” She stopped, taking a breath. Her eyes remained fixed on the statue, refusing to meet my own. “I remember taking him in my arms, promising to take care of him. My mother just watched from the corner.” A small laugh. “You should have seen her face.”