Splintered (Splintered, #1)(11)

“Il tuo gelato, signora bella,” he says.

“Grazie meatball!” she blurts, in a rare moment of levity.

Dad laughs and she giggles, a tinkling sound that makes me think of the silver chimes we have over our back door at home. For the first time in a while, she feels like home. I start to think this is going to be one of our good visits. With everything going on in my life lately, it would sure be nice to have a moment of stability.

I sit, and Dad takes my crutches, laying them on the ground, then helps me prop my ankle on an empty chair between Alison and me. He pats my shoulder and takes a seat on the opposite side.

For several minutes, we laugh and sip sticky cheesecake soup from our teacups. We talk about normal things: the end of the school year, tonight’s prom, last night’s graduation, and Tom’s Sporting Goods. It’s like I’m in a regular family.

Then Dad ruins it. He takes out his wallet to show Alison snapshots of my mosaics that won ribbons at the county fair. The three photos are stuck in the plastic sleeves along with an assortment of credit cards and receipts.

First is Murderess Moonlight, all in blues: blue butterflies, blue flowers, and bits of blue glass. Then Autumn’s Last Breath—a whirlwind of fall colors made up of brown moths and orange, yellow, and red flower petals. Winter’s Heartbeat, my pride, is a chaotic tangle of baby’s breath and silvery glass beads arranged in the image of a tree. Dried winterberries dot the end of each branch, as if the tree is bleeding. Jet-black crickets form the backdrop. As morbid as it sounds, the mixing of bizarre and natural somehow creates beauty.

Alison wriggles in her chair as if disturbed. “What about her music? Is she still practicing her cello?”

Dad squints my way. Alison’s had very little to do with my education. But one thing she’s always insisted on is my participation in orchestra, maybe because she used to play the cello herself. I dropped out this year when I only had time for one elective. We haven’t mentioned it because it seems so important to her that I continue.

“We can talk about that later,” Dad says, squeezing her hand. “I wanted you to see her eye for detail. Just like you with your photographs.”

“Photographs tell a story,” Alison mutters. “But people forget to read between the lines.” Breaking her hand out of Dad’s, she becomes deathly quiet.

Eyes filled with sadness, Dad’s about to close the wallet when Alison spots the air freshener with the moth’s picture … the one he hasn’t yet hung in his truck.

With trembling hands, she grabs it. “Why are you carrying this with you?”

“Mom …” My tongue strains with the effort to form the word, unnatural and stiff, like trying to twist a cherry’s stem into a knot. “I had it made for him. It’s a way to keep a part of you with us.”

Jaw clenched, she turns to Dad. “I told you to keep that album hidden. Didn’t I? She was never supposed to see this. It’s only a matter of time now …”

It’s only a matter of time till what? I end up here where she is? Does she think the photographs made her crazy?

Frowning, she tosses the air freshener across the table. Her tongue clucks a steady rhythm. The sound snaps inside me, as if someone is plucking my intestines with a guitar pick. Her most violent outbursts always start with the tongue cluck.

Dad stiffens his fingers around the air freshener, wary.

A fly alights on my neck, tickling me. When I swat it away, it lands beside Alison’s fingers. It rubs its tiny legs together. “He’s here. He’s here.”

Its whispers rise above the wind and the rest of the white noise, above Alison’s clucking tongue and Dad’s cautious breaths.

Alison leans toward the bug. “No, he can’t be here.”

“Who can’t be here, Ali-bear?” Dad asks.

I stare, wondering if it’s possible. Do crazy people share delusions? Because that’s the only explanation for Alison and me hearing the exact same thing.

Unless the fly really did talk.

“He rides the wind,” it whispers once more, then flits off into the courtyard.

Alison locks me in her frantic gaze.

I tense, stunned.

“Hon, what’s wrong?” Dad stands next to her now, his hand on her shoulder.

“What does that mean, ‘He rides the wind’? Who?” I ask Alison, no longer caring about giving my secret away to her.

She glares at me, intense and silent.

Dad watches both of us, looking paler by the second.

“Dad?” I lean across my propped up leg and tug at my sock. “Could you get some ice for my foot? It’s throbbing.”

He scowls. “Can’t it wait a second, Alyssa?”

“Please. It hurts.”

“Yes, she’s hurt.” Alison reaches over and touches my ankle. The gesture is shocking—so normal and nurturing, it chills my blood and bones. Alison is touching me, for the first time in eleven years.

The monumental event rattles Dad so much, he leaves without another word. I can tell by the twitch in his left eyelid that he’ll be bringing Poppin’ Fresh back with him.

Alison and I don’t have long.

The minute he vanishes through the door, I jerk my leg off the chair, wincing against a jolt of pain in my ankle. “The fly. We both heard the same thing, right?”