“Damn…” he muttered, then jerked open the door and stalked out.
“I hope you die, Jake Parkey,” she said quietly, tearfully, then raising her voice to scream at the door, “I hope you die!”
Doris pressed herself against the wall trying to stop the trembling. But she didn’t think it was going to help.
For there was scratching on the other side of the wall. Something moving. Where the slab butted up against her house.
Her hair was burning.
She awakened in the hollow cavity under the slab, with the damp and the rats and the bugs and the snakes, and she was frightened until she remembered what had happened to her, what she had become. Her hair was burning.
She could not remember what her name had been, and that bothered her.
She sifted through the debris inside the slab, the things that had fallen down the cracks and holes over the years, and picked up the dusty things. Pretty things. Bottles and silver spoons and bits of lace and carvings and other things with prettiness under the grime, with brightness under the dust. She remembered that such things had been important to her at one time… when she had been something else.
She heard voices near her, and moved closer to them. One was female, as she had been. She felt something odd inside herself.
A piece of shiny stuff was propped up in the corner. She looked into it. Her hair was beautiful. It glowed.
The little girl had always liked bright things, shiny things. Things to play with. So she found herself floating toward the bright lights, moving through the dark the same way she vaguely remembered moving through the water: her mouth open, her limbs bobbing up and down, her pale dress and pale flesh melting into the dark liquid…
She remembered being in and near this place many times, a long time ago. Before the waters came.
Where was her mommy? She wanted her, she thought… the want was somewhere deep inside herself. Not quite hers. She saw the mother inside herself… the mother’s beautiful red hair. Daddy had always liked that red hair. He’d say it was the only reason he’d married mommy and then he’d laugh. She’d never liked that joke about mommy; she didn’t think it was very funny.
She let herself float over the brush, her feet dangling, but not touching the ground. The darkness moved over her like a coat, but she wasn’t afraid. She hadn’t been afraid of the dark since the Creeks jumped over their house. The dark made her all warm inside.
Her hair was burning.
She slipped out of the slab and let her beautiful, glowing hair lead her down the street. Her hair had become like a living thing, the most alive thing on her body, so she let it tell her what to do. It was more woman than she had ever been.
She floated up to the window and let her burning hair fill the glass. She let the woman see her. She smiled, even when the woman began screaming.
Then she let the beautiful hair lead her inside.
He watched the man and the younger man go inside the house. He felt rage, rage burning up from his feet to his head. He was angry at these two, especially the younger one. He wanted to come to them, lay his teeth on their pale throats, and taste copper. He wanted to do that to all the males of the town, the ugly, evil males. He wanted to rage and tear, gnash their dead bodies to bloody threads.
He was glad the bear and the burning woman, the dead little floating girl were not around just then. They, too, angered him. He didn’t want them around. They made him afraid. He would have to do something about them… soon.
They had Hector Pierce back in his bed in Inez’s rooming house once again. Inez had dismissed them all, angry with them for having seen a member of her family like this, and even angrier with herself for feeling that way. She had grown ashamed of her brother. Sometimes, she discovered, she hated him.
Now he was motioning her closer, his eyes rolling, lips smacking like some animal. He obviously wanted to tell her something, but she didn’t want to be near him.
He smacked his lips and rolled his eyes… popped his mouth and blinked and blinked… beckoning her with a spastic hand, a hand flapping like a beached fish…
Get it over with, she thought, get it over with… and bent over him, her left ear over his popping, smacking mouth.
“Part of him… stayed behind,” Hector whispered hoarsely. Inez drew back. She had no idea what he was talking about, but it frightened her.
“Part of him… he’s been here… all these years…” Hector said, grinning spastically, insanely. “Boy shoulda… stayed and… drowned!”
Chapter 20
Doris pushed herself back into the corner, pushed back and back until she could feel both walls coming together in her skin, the corner becoming part of her spine, hurting, hurting, but at least she didn’t have to know what she was seeing here, passing through her window, floating through her window like it wasn’t even there, all blazing like a fire ball… but it was a woman, wasn’t it? The most beautiful woman Doris Parkey had ever seen. She even wanted to touch her, she was so beautiful, although she was terrified, have that beauty against her skin, but that was wrong… but oh, so beautiful it hurt your eyes!
Doris knew this woman, she was sure! Something about the face… she had known this woman at one time, had seen her shopping… years ago… had talked to her, but the woman was long gone now, long gone. Moved away…
…or dead.
She wasn’t sure, she wasn’t sure… oh, how could she be sure?
The woman came closer, slipping across the carpet and not even bothering it none… and Doris wanted to stay and talk, she really did. She wanted to be sociable and show this pretty lady just how sociable she could be even living in such a hick town, but Doris was afraid of fire… see… and this woman’s hair was all in flames.
Doris opened her mouth wide, somewhere between a laugh and a scream, and felt her body take her through the doorway and out into the night.
She must have turned out in the street, reversed herself and run back past the house, past the Taylors and up the hill, heading off the left side of the embankment there, because before she knew it she was in the woods. And there was no one there, not even any sounds. And the glow was bobbing in and out of the darkened trees behind her, like a child skipping and dancing with ajar full of fireflies in the dark. Just like Doris had done herself when she was a child. Just like Doris had done a long time ago.
This woman wanted something from Doris… what did she want?
Doris started to run, but didn’t want to take her eyes off the glow, no telling what might happen to her if she took her eyes off the glow, so she kept turning her head, turning her head. And she fell on her back. Legs spread. Dazed.
And looked up at the woman with her head on fire. Beautiful. Staring down at her.
Doris felt the vague itchiness, the anxiety running down the inside of her legs. And thought of Mr. Emmanuel, strange little dapper man, whom she had thought and thought about since he had first come to live in her house. After years living with that rough, smelly man who drank all the time and didn’t care what bothered her, didn’t care about what she needed. Doris hadn’t felt much like a woman in years…
She felt the tension in her legs, and lower belly, and thought of him. And saw the woman with burning hair watching her, rubbing her own pale legs.
It was then Doris knew what the flaming lady wanted from her. They were very much alike, the two of them.