Read Paper Tigers Online

Authors: Damien Angelica Walters

Paper Tigers (9 page)

BOOK: Paper Tigers
4.25Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

“Not for another couple of months. I just saw him, though, and he didn't mention anything about any changes.”

Meredith helped her sit. “Maybe you should give him a call. I
don't want to jump the gun here, but I had to at least tell you about it because it looks like an improvement to me.”

“I'll give him a call,” Alison said, but she looked past Meredith to the album, still on the coffee table.

“Okay, good.” Meredith said. “Time for some stretching.”

Alison groaned. “Please, can we skip that today? I'm not feeling up to it. I promise I'll stretch after I take a nap.”

“If you didn't have huge circles under your eyes, I'd say no, but I'll let you go this once.” Meredith lifted one eyebrow. “Just this once.”

“Thank you.” She smiled her careful, non-grotesque smile and linked her hands together while Meredith folded up the table.

After Meredith left, she trudged upstairs, wincing with each step. She didn't want to sleep—it was all she'd been doing for the past few days—but she was too tired and sore not to. The clothes she'd worn the other night were still puddled in the corner of her room. Sticky grey dust coated the fabric and several tufts of navy blue fiber were caught in the hem of the pants.

Would she go back into the album if she had the chance? Knowing she'd hurt this much afterward? She traced the scars on her cheek. Heard Meredith's words. The skin tugged as she smiled. If there was even the slightest possibility the album was healing her, of course she would.

CHAPTER 10

The brisk October air stung Alison's unscarred skin, stars glimmered in the sky, and the full moon gave off a brilliant light. Her soft-soled shoes whisked across the pavement with hardly a sound. As soon as she crossed the first street, a deep, relentless throb built in her hip.

Her limp turned into a lurch after she crossed the next street, but she kept going. The walks had been Meredith's idea, and it had taken Alison months to sum up the necessary courage.

Courage, something she'd once taken for granted.

After the fire, her mother had wanted her to move back home, but she'd refused. She knew once there, in the rooms of her childhood, she'd never leave. And her mother would take care of her, never complaining, but how much of her own life would she give up to care for her daughter? Too much. But more than that, Alison had wanted a space where she could forget she'd ever been

anything

anyone other than the Monstergirl.

Her mother had arranged for the house. “Consider it a gift from your father. He was a strong believer in life insurance, and I've been careful with the money,” she'd said, when Alison pressed for details.

Of her father, Alison had no memory at all. Growing up, he'd simply been a photograph on the fireplace mantel. The photos all showed the same smiling face and laughing eyes. Her mother told her how he'd read to her every night before tucking her into bed, and how, after she learned to walk, he'd taken her for walks through
the neighborhood with her tiny hand in his. When Alison was young, her mother would tell her the stories and she would smile and clap her hands and say, “Yes, yes, I remember,” but any memories she'd truly had vanished over time.

Not until much later did she find out her father had been involved in a head-on collision with a drunk driver. She had one memory of a crowd of people with somber faces touching her head and speaking in hushed tones. Whether it was a true memory or a dream plucked from how she knew a funeral to be, she didn't know.

Her feet came to a stop at the elementary school. She didn't even remember making the turn in its direction. No teenagers were on the grounds tonight. Swings swayed in the breeze and a cat, too well-fed to be a stray, loped across the grass. She looped her fingers through the chain-link fence surrounding the playground and closed her eyes. She could almost hear the children laughing, the crunch of wood chips beneath their feet, the squeak of tennis shoes on plastic, and the creak of swings.

She wanted so much to open her eyes and see the children for real, wanted to hear them calling, “Miss Reese, Miss Reese,” wanted to turn the clock back and erase what had happened, wanted to be free from the self-pity and the fear.

She scrubbed at her eye with the back of her hand, wiping away the tears before they could fall, and gave the playground one last glance.

When she stepped down from the curb to cross the next street, sharp pain drove from her heel to the middle of her back. She gasped, retreated, and grabbed the street sign, her heart racing. Too much pain.

A tightness shifted in her abdomen, a hard knot of
go-home-now-go-home-now
worse than the pain. A scarf-hidden Monstergirl might pass by someone without being noticed. A hunched-over, limping Monstergirl wouldn't. The quiet streets gave lie to her fear,
but the walks never hurt this much. Was this another gift from the album? If so, it was a gift she didn't need, but if it was the price she needed to pay…

With a sigh, she turned around and hobbled home.

She carried the album into the living room with hope on her lips. The ache in her muscles had ceased, but the knot in her abdomen remained. Balancing the album on her lap, she opened to the inscription page. The pages rustled as she turned to George's photo, then to the house, and back to George. An odd warmth tingled deep under her skin when she set her hand down on the pages, but nothing else happened.

“Please,” she said.

It would let her back in. It would. It
had
to. How many times would she have to go into the paper world before she was healed? Five? A dozen? A hundred?

As many as it takes
, a voice piped up. Not the Monstergirl's voice at all, but her voice from before the fire and smoke. A tiny part she'd thought was dead and gone. Like her fingers.

She shouldn't get her hopes up. Maybe it had been a fluke. But Meredith had seen a change in her scars, and scars didn't change on their own. At the very least, she'd get to wear her old face again, and maybe it would stay this time.

She was still staring at George's photograph when her phone rang. (And she should be doing something else, something other than sitting, but what if the album opened its door and she wasn't there?) She jumped, saw her mother's name on the display, and was about to answer when the page holding George's photo lifted of its own accord.

She dropped the phone. The page continued to lift up, up, and
over, settling down with a tiny, rustle. Her hand shook as she held it over the photo of the house, but before her skin made contact, that page lifted, too. It brushed against her hand, pushing, insistent. On the edge of the page, tiny depressions appeared—fingertip shaped depressions.

With a jolt, she yanked her hand back. The page hovered, floating half-up and half-down, and then lifted and flipped over. The depressions in the paper disappeared.

The new photo showed a narrow room with flowered paper on the walls, a daybed with tasseled pillows, a tall wardrobe, and a small bedside table holding a glass vase of roses, their full petals glistening with dew, apparent even within the sepia tones. Lace curtains hung at the tall window, slightly parted to reveal the top of a tree. And at the far left edge, a tall, man-shaped shadow hovered, darkening the wallpaper.

“We're waiting…”

Alison brushed a strand of hair off her forehead, closed her eyes, and started to lower her hand. Then she paused, her mouth dry,

Why are you being such a scaredy cat? Footprints in dust and cold ghost hands can't hurt you, you know.

then lowered her hand on the photo.

A low laugh. A distant piano note. One dark and discordant note, droning on. Soft murmurs of conversation, the sound of liquid pouring into a glass, quiet clicking steps, a snick-snick sound she couldn't identify. Laughter again. A child's voice, crying out. Another. And the music note played again and again. A bracelet of cold wrapped around her wrist.

Alison held her breath and her fingers twitched, but when she opened her eyes, her gaze met the walls of her own living room. She groaned, pushing the album off her lap. And one last music note echoed away.

Alison carried the album with her upstairs and placed it on the back of the toilet while she showered. Twice she thought she heard a faint whisper, but when she peeked out, only the water bouncing off the porcelain gave reply.

She took it with her into the kitchen when she heated a can of soup. No unexpected sounds broke the quiet. The microwave hummed, the refrigerator kicked on, and somewhere in the neighborhood a dog barked for several long minutes, then fell silent.

With the album on the table an inch away from her elbow, she ate without thinking, without tasting, taking care not to look at the spoon, even though chunks of vegetables and broth concealed the shiny metal. After she emptied her bowl, she sat with her hands in her lap and her head bowed. One little Monstergirl all alone. Hurt and waiting.

When she called her mother back, the sun had begun its descent from the sky, draping her living room in shadows. Outside, her next-door neighbors were engaged in loud conversation, their jovial tones punctuated with bright peals of laughter. Alison kept her right hand on the photo album, tucked close to her on the sofa, and held the phone in her left.

“I tried to call earlier to see if you wanted me to bring over dinner.”

“I was in the shower when you called. Sorry,” Alison said, stroking the open page with her fingertips. Pins and needles crawled beneath her skin.

“Not to worry. I've already eaten dinner, but I bought an amazing Key Lime pie. Do you want me to bring it over and we can at least have dessert together?”

Alison's fingers twitched. The pins and needles intensified.

“I'm not really feeling up to company, Mom. Save me a slice, though, and maybe you can come over tomorrow night?”

“Oh. Okay then. Is everything…”

“Everything's fine. I'm

waiting to be swallowed up, swallowed whole

a little sore and a little cranky. I wouldn't be good company.”

“I understand.”

Her mother didn't understand. No one stared at her when she went outside, no one whispered behind their hands.

She felt the pins and needles deep in her palm, and she wiggled her fingers. The sensation grew then receded.

The scent, no, the
taste
, of tobacco pushed up and out of the photo, and the dark moved beyond the edge, disappearing from sight. Alison let out a gasp.

“Alison? Is everything okay?”

“Everything is fine, Mom. I'm going to go and take a nap now. I'm tired. I'll talk to you later.”

Alison disconnected the call without saying goodbye. The shadow retreated back into the picture, but the smell of tobacco lingered. The music note intoned, low and melancholy. An arm lifted, one sepia-toned finger curled in, out, in. Beckoning. A cold chill ran down her spine.

Don't you dare chicken out now
, Red said.

Close it and forget about it
, Purple said.
You don't need this.

One more time to make sure it wasn't a fluke. Wasn't her imagination.

Alison took a deep breath, lowered her hand on the album and stifled a gasp as the tiger wrapped its paws around her and pulled her down once more.

BOOK: Paper Tigers
4.25Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

A Widow for One Year by John Irving
Gill Man's Girl by Carolina Connor
JillAndTheGenestalk by Viola Grace
Girl on a Wire by Gwenda Bond
Jamie Brown Is NOT Rich by Adam Wallace
The Resurrectionist by White, Wrath James
Removing the Mask by Aimee Whitmee