Welcome to the Dark House (3 page)

I
PUSH THE TIP OF
the blade into the skin and make one solid cut. The onion falls in halves. I rip
the skin off one of the halves and make a series of cuts, trying to get the layers
as thin as possible—a technique only attainable with the sharpest of knives and the
precision of an Iron Chef.

I toss the onion shreds into my bowl and look up, nearly awestruck by Enrique’s Italian
sausage. It’s perfectly plump and juicy, slathered in a red chili glaze and stuffed
with paprika and oregano.

“Ivy!” my sister Rosie shouts. She jumps in front of the TV screen, distracting me
from Enrique’s stuffing technique. Rosie is eight years old and in love with SpongeBob.
“What are you doing?”

I’m elbow deep in ground pork shoulder and shredded onion. “What does it look like
I’m doing?”

She peeks at the TV screen, where Enrique, also dubbed the Spicy Italian Chef (even
though he’s from Argentina), is dressed in a bib apron and a pair of heart-patterned
boxer shorts (his usual TV attire). Though I’m fairly certain his tanned, rippling
muscles are part of the ensemble as well. Enrique’s explaining the merits of a chunkier
sausage over a lengthier one (something about moisture retention), but I’m pretty
sure the vast majority of female viewers—not to mention his growing number of male
admirers—could care less.

“He’s hot,” Rosie says. “But shouldn’t you be using a fork to mix that stuff?” She
points her glue-encrusted fingers into my bowl, coming way too close for my culinary
comfort.

“Get out.” I swat at her. “Have you been eating glue again?” There are suspicious-looking
globules stuck in the corners of her mouth.

“I want a snack,” she says, avoiding my question. “And I also want you to read my
tea leaves.” She takes a jar of dried mint from the spice rack and smacks it down
on the counter.

“I’m saving that for Willow’s stomach.”

“Willow can spend the night doubled over in pain for all I care. She refuses to let
me borrow her blush.” Rosie’s big brown eyes bulge out in annoyance—a teenager stuck
in an eight-year-old’s body, Elmer’s glue included.

“You’re too young for makeup. Go find something productive to do.” I flash her my
porkified palms in an effort to repulse her, but the porkiness doesn’t seem to bother
her one bit.

Rosie starts singing extra loud—
“tra la la”
—and flailing her arms, trying to block the TV screen. Meanwhile, Willow, my twelve-year-old
sister, comes rushing into the kitchen, saying there’s something in the living room
that I just
have
to see.

“I’m busy,” I tell her.

“Well, get
un
busy,” Willow says. “Because Rain and Storm are at it again.”

Rain and Storm are my ten-year-old twin brothers, and the reason that people take
birth control. I can hear Rain’s menacing giggle from the living room. Meanwhile,
it seems I’ve missed at least three of Enrique’s steps. He’s pouring a cup of red
wine vinegar into a separate bowl, but I have absolutely no idea why.

“Come on!” Willow shouts. “They’re going to mess up the drapes.”

I grab a rag to wipe my hands, moving from behind the island. In doing so, I accidentally
bump my bowl. It drops to the floor. Ground pork shoulder falls against the tile with
a slimy thud.

“Ewww,”
Rosie squeals, nibbling glue residue from her fingers. “I’m not eating that.”

I hurry into the living room, where Storm and Rain stand with their backs toward me,
facing the bay window. “Prepare!” Storm orders.

I hear an all-too-familiar zipping sound.

“Aim!” Storm calls out.

“Fire!” they both shout.

It takes me a second to realize what they’re doing. Pee shoots out, hitting the two
potted plants in the window, splashing against the soil, and spraying all over the
window screens.

“Go to your room!” I yell.

“Well, you
did
tell us to water the plants…” Storm argues, still giggling.

“Now!”
My tone must scare them, because they do as they’re told.

“Enrique’s all done,” Rosie says, from the kitchen. I can already hear the theme song
to
SpongeBob
. “
Now
can you get me a snack and read my tea leaves?”

Most other eighteen-year-olds would probably hate my life. But I honestly don’t know
what I’d do if it weren’t for the distraction of this household. I was placed with
this family by protective services after my parents were murdered. My foster parents,
Apple and Core (self-renamed from Gail and Steve) were a stark contrast to that darkness.
Once hippie environmentalists, who named all their children after something in nature,
they now need to make a decent living. So, while they go off to work, I stay at home
playing full-time nanny for zero-time pay as the eldest of their five kids. School
is my only time off, but it’s April vacation, and everyone’s home.

And
speaking
of April…that’s my real name, my birth name I should say. But my foster parents changed
it to Ivy. We had a renaming ceremony, complete with floral head wreaths, a dip in
the lake, and dancing around a fire. I can’t say I minded. I wanted to be someone
else. I prayed to be someone else. Except for my name, so far my prayers have gone
unanswered.

M
Y CELL PHONE CHIRPS
, announcing that I
have an e-mail. I pull it from my pocket to check. It’s a message from the Nightmare
Elf, only this time it didn’t go into my spam box. I click on it, remembering the
nightmare contest I entered months ago.

TO: IVY JENSEN

FR: [email protected]

SUBJECT: YOU’VE BEEN CHOSEN

2 ATTACHMENTS

Dear Lucky Dark House Dreamer,

In my hefty elf sack, your nightmares now keep.

Better think twice before falling asleep.

—The Nightmare Elf

YOU’VE BEEN CHOSEN

What:
To attend an all-expenses-paid weekend, including an exclusive look at director Justin
Blake’s never-before-seen companion film to the Nightmare Elf movie series, plus the
chance to meet Blake himself. Congratulations. Your entry was one of seven selected
from over twenty thousand applicants.

Where:
Stratten, MN, home of Stratten University. Winners will stay for two nights at a bed
& breakfast, chosen specifically by the Nightmare Elf.

When:
July 17–19

Transportation:
Once your attendance is confirmed with receipt of your registration packet and release
form (see attached documents), air and local transportation arrangements will be provided.

RSVP:
To reserve your spot, complete the attached forms and return ASAP. Space is limited.

NOW, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?

PACK YOUR BAGS
…
AND PREPARE
FOR THE SCARE OF YOUR LIFE.

“T
HIS DISCUSSION IS OVER
,” my mother says in her 1950s cardigan with an angel pin poked through the fabric.

Did a discussion ever start? There’s a smug smile on her face because she thinks she’s
putting her foot down, but the fact is that her foot—as well as her entire body—has
been under my dad’s thumb ever since I can remember. My mother doesn’t have a single
thought that she can actually call her own.

We’re sitting at the dining room table. A vase full of tea roses separates us, marking
our opposing territories: me against them, thorns against roses.

“You need to think seriously about your future,” Dad says. Before retirement, he worked
at a plastics factory making BPA-infested food containers. He knocked my mother up
when he was in his late fifties—when he was married to someone else, too—and when
my mother was twenty-year-old eye candy, working as a teller at the bank. “Do something
meaningful with your life,” Dad says, as if I could ever compete with Harris.

My brother Harris and I were the product of said affair—twins, born less than sixty
seconds apart. Even then we didn’t want to leave each other’s side.

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” I tell them. “My essay stood out over
all the other entries.”

“Exactly,” Dad snaps. “You have potential, but instead you hide it beneath that costume
of yours.”

“You wouldn’t forbid Harris to go,” I say; the words come out shaky.

Dad’s face blows up like a balloon with too much air. He hates it when I bring up
Harris. He hates it when I talk, period.

Before he explodes entirely, I storm to my room, locking the door behind me. The e-mail
announcing that I’m one of the winners is still open on my computer. I read it again,
making sure that it’s real—that it still says what I think it does. My parents can
never take that away.

I gaze over at my bookcase, the shelves of which are filled with all of Justin Blake’s
work, including a copy of
My Nightmare
, his autobiography, in which he talks about feeling like a constant disappointment
to his parents. I know that feeling all too well.

I move over to my dresser mirror. There’s a desk blotter covering the glass. I take
it down, careful where I look; I don’t want to see my whole reflection right away.
My pulse racing, I pull off my sweatshirt, trying to focus on just the Nightmare Elf
tattooed on my belly. When I went to the tattoo parlor, I told the artist to make
an extra bulge in the elf’s sack for my nightmare—the biggest one of the bunch.

I grab an eyeliner pen off my dresser and, across my belly, beside the elf, I start
to write the words
In his hefty elf sack, my nightmare now keeps
, but there isn’t enough room. The letters are squished.

I turn sideways to scope out the space on my back. Justin Blake’s birth date is tattooed
at the very bottom, right in the middle of my underwear line, right below Pudgy the
Clown’s chain saw.

Harris thinks it was psycho of me to get a man’s birthday permanently inked on my
skin. But at the time that I got it—just after my mom and sister had girls’ night
out and “forgot” to invite me—it made perfect sense, because I couldn’t thank God
enough for placing Justin Blake on this earth.

I angle my back a little more toward the mirror and pull down my underwear to see
the couple of tattoos on my ass cheeks: Little Sally Jacobs’s skeleton keys and part
of the Nightmare Elf’s infamous catch phrase, “Better think twice before falling asleep.”

Looking at all these tattoos now, I want to tell myself how ballsy I am—how ballsy
I was to have gotten them in the first place. But the truth is, they were strategically
placed. I could never have gotten them where my parents would see, just like I could
never go against their wishes and accept Blake’s generous offer.