55. Ambrose—present day
Ambrose—present day
P eople stroll around, placing flowers against the marble stone that has both of my parents’ names in gold writing.
Pink roses seem to be the majority’s favorite.
Mom’s favorite was dahlias, which is why I have a pretty bunch set safely in my passenger seat.
I’d chosen these with both of my parents in mind.
Dad didn’t particularly like flowers, but he’d buy a bunch weekly because he liked the smile they’d put on Mom’s face.
And weekly, she’d struggle to keep that bunch alive.
It was a novelty that started after they’d earned thousands from book deals and documentaries about their missing kids.
My head drops for the seconds I feel I shouldn’t be here.
Another semi-familiar face lays flowers on their gravesite when I look over.
People start to move off, heading back to the cars that clog up the car park, leaving me out on the edge of the road in this tiny cemetery.
A few linger behind, preventing me from paying my respects here for the first time ever.
A knock on the window I face away from makes me jump, but it’s just a friendly face. Clara smiles at me. Her black dress and ankle Wellingtons are an odd combination and help to lift my lips as I let my window down.
“Hey, hon.”
My tight smile places my father’s face in my head. The skin tone I’d inherited from my birth mother’s mixed heritage and all the scars prevent me from being a replica of him, but there’s no denying we look similar.
“Do you want me to walk down with you?” Clara’s curled gray hair blows around her ears.
The weather is mild today, but the breeze is still enough to steal your breath for a few seconds when it hits your face.
Clara tucks her hair behind her ears, her black nails shiny and fitting with her outfit. They take me somewhere.
“Can I paint your nails to practice?”
For a minute, I’m unsure. The majority of guys don’t wear nail polish, and I’m talked about enough. Nyx and Annabelle, who visit occasionally, tell us the stories, and it makes me never want to leave the house again.
Dollie’s smile flattens. “No one will see.”
I shrug, offering her my hand because it’s true.
We don’t go out on bikes or rollerblades like all the other ten and twelve-year-olds. We spend our time as we have for the last three years, locked in her pink room.
A pink chair with a padded seat, barricading the door, was my idea, originally. Dollie places it there through habit mostly these days.
“Pink?”
There are a dozen pinks on the shelf at our side.
I shrug again, giving her my hand to pick whichever she pleases. An excited smile lifts the corners of her lips, and her eyes sparkle in a way that reminds me of her younger self.
Innocence, that’s what it is.
I spread my fingers slightly as she struggles with keeping the polish off my skin.
“It’s even harder to do my own.”
Dollie’s fingers move before me, flaking paint along her cuticles.
It’s because I have bigger hands, I tell her silently. That’s why it’s easier.
“Yeah. They’re huge. Like shovels. You could dig graves.” She laughs, and the sound is a sweet melody to my ears. I don’t care that mocking me led to it. Dollie always keeps her teasing away from things that bother me, like the scars that make me ugly.
She doesn’t touch those with words, just featherlight caresses as we huddle down to sleep up in her dome.
It’s my favorite place on earth.
A glass sphere filled with pillows that’s currently letting in too much light.
A knock on the door startles us both. The tiny paintbrush rushes over my skin, and a pink streak follows.
“You guys want some company?”
“You only just left from tutoring us.” Dollie feels the same way I do.
“That was two hours ago.” Mom’s voice almost makes me pity her. She or my father have never sat us down and spoken to us about their part in our disappearance, and I’ve never told them that I know.
Sometimes, I wonder if they suspect it in the distance I keep. In how I keep Dollie glued to my side with my arm around her whenever they are near.
“What do you say? Family night?”
Something happens to my face, all the scars twisting in hate over such a ridiculous idea.
“Do you hate Mom and Dad?” Dollie whispers, quiet enough that Mom probably won’t hear.
I don’t hate Mom and Dad, I mouth. I should, but I don’t.
“Oh, I know you don’t, hon.” Clara’s gentle voice brings me back to the present. “Pay no mind to them.”
She points behind her, to the others who have noticed I’m here.
It’s hard to ignore the hate being yelled across the otherwise peaceful resting grounds.
“You’ve no right to be here!”
“Your parents would be turning in that grave if they knew you were here!”
It’s hard to swallow that down.
“Ignore them.” Clara’s smile matches her voice. Small and gentle. “I can walk down with you. I’m sure they’ll move along.”
“You shouldn’t be here, you monster!” Clara steals my tight smile when another person disrupts the peace.
My mouth opens, and I lick my lips like a wounded animal. Those words hurt enough for me to feel like one.
I can wait, my lips move, and then the tight smile switches faces again.
Her eyes lower to the gash on my throat as she silently questions if I can speak. I don’t take offence. Everyone is guilty of glancing there at some point: Valaria, Annabelle, even Mom and Dad.
“I’ll see how long the locals are going to be.”
Clara’s little Wellington boots do little to help her on the slopes in these grounds as she slips and slides through mud.
She makes it back to those she considers neighbors, and words about me are exchanged.
Everyone in town likes Clara, but that isn’t enough for her to win a fight when she’s standing in my corner.
I can’t let another word seep into my head.
Drawing the window to a close, I try to block out the reasons why my parents wouldn’t want me here.
One comment is particularly hateful and leaves behind a random string of words that repeat in my head.
Scumbag. Vile. Murderer. Rapist.
It’s too much for me today, on the tenth anniversary of my parents’ death.
Twisting the key, I save Clara further trouble of defending me and take off down the flower-lined road.
To make my day better, Dollie is avoiding me.
When I step into a room, she steps out of it, leaving behind her candles, crystals, and what looks to be a beat-up small altar.
For that reason, I don’t speak to her when I cross her and all her witchy things for a second time in the reading room.
I continue to the hallway, Bubbles in tow, the flowers I’d bought and a vase half full with water in hand.
I place them on a small table near the bookshelf in the foyer, and I ignore the worries about moisture transferring as I arrange the pink flowers.
Mom would like them.
A weak smile crawls to my face.
“Are they for Mom and Dad?”
My head bobs before I turn to face Dollie in the doorway. She reeks of burning sage and old paper, so different from the perfect scent of roses and chocolate.
I use my hands to ask a question of my own.
Are you done ignoring me?
It’s been days since our last encounter.
Maybe I shouldn’t take it personally, as she isn’t responding to Lucky, either.
Even Annabelle hasn’t stayed over, not even the day she picked up and brought the cupcakes to The Funhouse for Dollie.
For a while, I considered that maybe Annabelle had blabbed, but I asked, and she denied everything.
This is something else.
And, maybe I shouldn’t take it personally, but I do.
“Could you feel it?”
The distance, yeah? Where is he today?
“How do you know it wasn’t my idea?”
I tap my forehead, near the temple, with five closed together fingers, then point to Dollie, telling her, I know you.
She breathes deep, looking away, giving the truth away.
Bingo.
Her eyes find me again, and I convey another message, and I know you don’t want this weird distance between us.
“Shane thinks we’re too close. Given our history, he’s probably right.”
Loads of siblings lean on each other.
“Most don’t share a bed until they’re teenagers.”
Most didn’t have our childhood. Or our bond.
“We’re not kids anymore.”
And we don’t share a bed.
“Don’t be an asshole. He’s uncomfortable.”
Shame.
I’m about to give her my back and the silent treatment because I’m not in the right frame of mind for this shit, when another question heads my way.
“Why didn’t you take them to the cemetery?”
Because the locals feel they have more right to be there than I do.
She has no reply to that, and with her head down, she slinks back into the reading room.
The late hour brings black clouds to the kitchen window. It’ll be midnight in less than half an hour, and Mom and Dad’s day will be over for another year.
And I’ll have missed it.
I pour myself a whiskey. The smell numbs me before anything enters my mouth.
My buzzing phone alerts me to a message, and I leave the drink on the tabletop to answer it.
Annabelle:
You doing okay?
Ambrose:
I wanted to go and see them.
The locals didn’t want me there.
Annabelle:
I doubt any locals are there now.
Ambrose:
I doubt anyone is there now.
Annabelle:
You could ask Dollie.
She’s having a hard day.
I glance into the reading room where Dollie catches up on some reading before moving off that way and leaving my untouched drink behind.
Jane Eyre, chapter twenty-seven. I catch a glimpse when she sets her book down. The golden glow from the light overhanging her torments me, but it makes it easy to see where she is in the book. She’s finally caught up.
“Where did you come from?”
I point to the kitchen over my shoulder, then drop my phone into my jeans pocket.
“I didn’t see you come down.”
I say nothing because I’ve not told her about the walls since reuniting, and I’m not sure she ever believed me in childhood. I’d mentioned it once, and a second later, she was talking about something else.
I’m gonna try the cemetery again. Do you want to come? Or are you not allowed to go anywhere with me?