Web of Angels (27 page)

“I don’t care. I’m going to fix this. I’ve got to. It’s my fault she shot herself. I stole the gun.”

“For protection, not for her to kill herself.”

“You still don’t get it. If I hadn’t, she would have jumped like she planned.”

“And the baby would have died, too,” Dan said, as if that was the worst thing possible, while his wife was considering the other options.

They had alters that were babies. The abuse started younger than any sane person could imagine. The younger the pricier. And now people could buy real-time on the Internet. It was a three-billion-dollar business.

“If I was pregnant in my parents’ house, I’d be thinking that they were going to start training my baby when she was in diapers,” Lyssa said. “And that before she started school, they’d be putting her in porn and selling her to men. Before she could write her name, she’d wish she was dead. I’d be thinking nothing was worse than that.”

“You see?” the girl said, explaining as if for the first time in her life she wasn’t walking among the blind. “Every time Heather got away, like, she’d forget everything. And she’d come home as if it was a great place and she was so bad to even think of leaving it. The same thing happened after she got knocked up. She painted that crappy crib like nothing had ever happened. I had to tell her. What else was I supposed to do? I showed her the website so she could remember. I just wanted her to run away again, that’s all. Then she started putting her desk in front of the door every night. My mom would push at the door and make her move it back.
She said it was a fire hazard. They fought and my mom yelled and Heather said as soon as she got some money she was out of there and they’d never see the baby again. Then they had a little talk with her about that idea. Afterward she got so quiet it was scary. That’s why I showed her where I hid the gun. I said she could have it. I thought she’d go away and take it with her, you know? And she hugged me. She said, thanks, you’re the best. Everything was cool. I figured she’d get her own place and I could go live with her. I was sleeping on the floor in her room and she must’ve walked over me to get the gun. I didn’t even know. So stupid. I didn’t hear anything until the shot. So guess what? My sister died and, because of me, they can do whatever they want to her baby. You know?”

“I do. But you can leave. I bet they said you couldn’t, but they lied,” Lyssa said.

The girl shook her head, incredulous. “How could I?”

“There was a better option for your sister,” Dan said. “You can call the police. That was what she should have done.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Lyssa said as the girl shivered.

“Don’t, don’t. I’ll be good.” Her voice was high, her eyes fluttering. “Promise.” A little one was out. A child alter who’d be thinking that punishment was due for telling: sex, a beating, jail, all the things that had been done or threatened.

“It’s okay. Nobody’s in trouble.” Lyssa turned to Dan. “She’s a lil. I can’t leave her like that. We need to get an adult out.” The kid was hugging her knees, rocking a little bit, trying not to be noticed.

“Did I do something wrong?” he asked.

“Just let me talk to her,” Lyssa said, and knelt in front of the desk chair. “I’d like you to do something, sweetie. Can you get a big out?”

The girl shook her head.

“Okay.” Lyssa stood up again. Turning to the computer, she put her hand on the mouse. Most lils could read and write phonetically. If you were five for long enough, you’d learn how. But the girl who did the web maintenance might come forward again if Lyssa talked about the Internet. “See here? You can download this chat software free. This is the port address. You click here to get to a chat room for people like us. Take a look.”

“Who’s Lyssa?” the girl asked.

Lyssa glanced at Dan. This wasn’t the way she’d imagined telling him her name. “Me,” she said, and gestured at the monitor. “Those are our friends. They all got away and they’re safe now. RG stands for rockgirl. And you’re?”

“Call me Ceecee. It stands for cunt.” The girl smiled her sharp and bitter smile though the person she was talking to
knew all the kinds of names there were and was surprised by none.

In that spare, neat boy’s room there were two adults and a girl visible to the average eye, as well as a multitude of children who knew how to split and separate and cope with being whipped, burned, beaten, shocked, terrorized, threatened, mocked, raped in every way by man, woman and animal, for kicks and for profit. They were reaching out through the eyes to the children outside, all the children of the night being used for pleasure and for pain, small hands reaching to small hands, invisible, despairing, scrabbling for hope.

“Hey, Ceecee. Why don’t you stay here tonight?”

The smile vanished. “I can’t. I have to go home. The baby’s there.”

They looked at each other, sizing things up. Greeting each other as warriors of the children’s war, battle weary, wanting only to rest and knowing they couldn’t, not yet, maybe not ever.

Lyssa’s heart sank as Ceecee looked away, unable to hold on anymore. The good girl was back, covering up her confusion that her art tablet was plugged into the computer when she’d come here to study, not to draw.

“I should be getting home,” Cathy said. She unplugged the tablet and put it back into her bag.

“But Josh will be back soon with snacks and a movie,” Lyssa said, hoping for another chance to talk. “It’s not that late.”

The girl’s eyes went flat, opaque, the blue of an eggshell. And just for a moment, someone else came forward to say,
“My parents let me sleep in Heather’s room with the baby. I’ll take good care of her.” Then Cathy was back, blinking. She rubbed her tired eyes. “I’ve got to call my dad,” she said. “It’s not safe to walk home in the dark. He said he’d pick me up.”

While she took out her cell, Dan pulled Lyssa out into the hallway. “How can we let her go home?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she said.

Rick rang the bell twice, not impatient, but cheerful. He was in an expansive mood. Even his hair seemed less grey, maybe touched up to match his good spirits. He said he’d spent the afternoon with architects, who were quoting on an addition to the cottage. You have to keep looking ahead. He’d have a good-sized study, with built-in drawers for his digital cameras. His new camera had twelve megapixels. And there would be an ensuite guest room. It was exciting to design your own home. You could put in secret passageways or a dungeon, he joked, standing with an arm around his daughter. She neither leaned into him nor resisted, like a stick of wood, like petrified wood as hard as stone, waiting for the sun to age and the earth to grow cold.

He didn’t seem to notice Dan’s stiffness or Lyssa’s pained expression, her stomach hurting as he went on talking. After the move, he’d keep a hand in the Committee for Youth. He’d be teaching downtown and if the commute was too onerous, he could rent a small place for weekdays. He was just in the midst of arranging a corporate sponsorship for
the gifted class in Seaton School. The kids needed computers and cameras for multimedia presentations.

He was still going on that way, all of them standing in the hallway, when Josh unlocked the door and came in. His backpack was loaded with chips and drinks and the movie, a big box of donuts in his hands. “You’re going, Cathy?” he asked. “So early?”

“I have to,” she said to Josh.

“Early to bed and early to rise, my friend,” Rick said. “I’ll see you soon to talk about the fundraising for the Committee for Youth, Dan.”

It was all Lyssa could do not to kick him in the nuts. Finally he left, and she was able to lock the door. Her stomach cramped and she dashed up to the bathroom, switching on the light at the top of the stairs.

T
here were two sinks in the second floor bathroom. Beside one was a Barney toothbrush and a SpongeBob toothbrush, a stack of yoghurt tubs used for rinsing the girls’ hair, a brush, Emmie’s hair clips with a couple of red hairs stuck in them, Nina’s Silly Putty. Beside the other sink, toothpaste with baking soda, deodorant, a magician’s biography, a shoelace. On the window ledge, African violets. Talking inside:
we are safe, nobody can get us anymore, we are big, this is our house, with flowers
.

Lyssa stripped, clothes too painful on her skin, and lay naked on the floor of the bathroom, her eyes on the windowsill. As long as she kept her eyes fixed on the flowers, the room wasn’t so spinny, and she could get to the toilet again if she needed to.

If only she could get the pictures out of her head. She swore in French and she swore in Chinese but the girl she’d seen on the computer screen kept morphing into her cousin Karen, who also had blonde hair and blue eyes. Karen wasn’t a real cousin but that was what they called her, a big girl in
grade one. She made good money for her dad, even at the parties. Later she was in a wheelchair, but back then she did everything better.

They worked in the business room, the finished part of the basement, which was furnished like a bedroom with an orange shag carpet, a bed, a night table, and a velvet painting of a clown. At the back, next to the door to the garage, there was a couch to sit on while they waited their turn. The floodlights and camera were set up at the front. There was a table and a big chair for her father. At the top of the stairs, the door to the rest of the house was kept locked.

Lyssa’s earliest memory took place in that basement. Lester was working them that day. He had a bushy beard, he smoked brown cigarettes and he smelled of the same aftershave as the father. They were both Aqua Velva men. First the kids drank their medicine mixed with red Kool-Aid. It made them dizzy and queasy, but throwing up wasn’t allowed. Across the windows there were bars and blackout curtains, on the walls striped wallpaper. Mummy always put a clean white sheet on the bed, sprinkled with Chanel No. 5 so it smelled nice. There were bunnies on the night table because it was Easter. The straps were on a shelf in the headboard.

Karen went first because she was prettier, Alyssa was second. They always called her by her middle name when she was working, or Ally for short. She wasn’t very good and she didn’t get a treat hardly ever. She had pigeon-toes. She was supposed to keep her feet turned out while she sat on the couch at the back of the business room, waiting her turn. It was vinyl and in summer the cushion stuck to her. In winter
it was cold. If she moved it squeaked. She moved too much. That’s why she was always making Daddy mad. He was never in a movie only in a bedroom. He had an important face so he just watched. She could tell he was mad before his face changed. She looked inside his head and it was there. She wished she could have a little chickie. Some people got chickies at Easter. They were soft and yellow. If she got her feet to turn out maybe she could have a chickie, too.

After Karen was finished, Mummy came downstairs with a tray of ginger ale. Stripes in the wallpaper. Squares on the ginger ale glasses. Ally didn’t get a drink. Mummy said, “If you are a good girl, you’ll get some later.” Everybody else got some ginger ale and there was a glass on the table for Daddy and a glass for the cameraman. Lester went to pee. When he came back it was Ally’s turn and the couch squeaked when she got up. She looked at Daddy but he wasn’t mad. Maybe Ally would be good. Maybe she’d get a big glass of ginger ale and a treat. But there was another idea, too. Of being very bad, so bad nobody could ever be as bad as that.
Shhh
she said in her head. She had to talk in her head without making her lips move because if lips move then somebody could say she was crazy. And crazy kids got sold down the river to bad people.

Lester smiled at her. “Okay, sweetheart. You’re next. Let’s play school.” He put out two chairs for Ally and her next older brother. Ted was nine, skinny like her. He had marks on his back from a hanger. So did their bigger brother, Gary, even though he was not skinny. One of them answered the door without permission to a lady selling makeup in a
pink suitcase and they both got it. Ted was a good runner but not such a good speller. He wouldn’t be very good at playing school. He was biting his lip. They had to sit with their backs to Lester and their legs around the chairs, facing the bed and the picture of the clown holding balloons. Teddy’s shoulder was touching hers. Click. Movie lamps went on. The light was hot and hurty and she squinted her eyes.

Lester had a long thin stick. He said to Teddy, “Spell ‘Antarctica.’ ”

It was a big word. Ally kept her fingers crossed.

“A-n-a-r-t-i-k-a,” Teddy tried.

“Wrong,” Lester said and Teddy had to turn around and face Lester to be hit with the long thin stick. The stick whistled. Then it whacked. His shoulder jerked. She could feel it every time, jerking against her.

The only words she knew how to spell were “cat” and “bed” and she couldn’t stop her legs from shaking.

“Spell ‘cat,’ ” Lester said.

She nearly peed she was so happy. “C-a-t,” she said.

“Good girl,” Lester said. He had red hair, too. He liked her. She was good. “Turn around. Show me how good you can be.”

Ted’s face was mad. She got such an easy word. But he didn’t have to be mad about it because he got to be assistant teacher and whack her all over even though she kept saying “c-a-t” and again, “c-a-t,” the stick biting her ribs and her chest and her legs until something exploded through the drugs in the Kool-Aid. She kicked and she screamed. Lester picked her up and threw her onto the bed. The body was wetting so it wouldn’t get torn inside but she wiggled and
yelled while he put the leather straps around her wrists and ankles, biting right through the wart on his hand, only that wasn’t her anymore.

“Alyssa! Obey!” The father got up from his chair. When he got up, he knocked glasses off the table. Crash. The mad in his head was very very mad.