Chapter Seventeen
SEVENTEEN
The heat slams into me as I push past Sam and chase Alice out into the yard. She is barefoot, golden hair unraveled from her ponytail like some febrile Lady Godiva. The crowd of teenagers—more than a dozen, I’d say at a brief glance—jeer and bark and whistle as she steps out of the house. The noise is jolting and provocative and I expect Alice to shrink away, maybe turn back and run inside. She does neither. She simply stands there, absorbing it, her face a blank and bloodless mask. I’m almost pleased to see that empty expression. Anything is better than that ghastly smile.
“Alice, come inside,” I tell her, grasping her shoulders so that she is forced to look at me. “You’re doing exactly what they want you to do. You have to ignore it.”
Her eyes are glassy and don’t flinch as the first egg snaps against her in a wet spray. I see it happen almost in slow motion; the spatter of albumen, the jerk of her shoulder, Vicky’s face contorted into a sick, dazzling smile.
“We know what you are!” she’s screaming, face raw and strained with the effort. “We know what you are, Alice Webber!”
Then another egg, and another. That music, still. Thud, thud, thud. Farther down the road a few neighbors are opening their doors, presumably to see what all the commotion is. An egg hits Alice square in the chest, causing her to sway backward. Beside her I’m splattered with yolk, stringy and viscous. Vicky is shrieking laughter, hands held high in the air. I grab Alice’s arm and I’m astonished how cold her skin is, like grasping wet cement. A wasp lands on her hand, crawling over the ridges of her fingers. Eggshell crunches under her bare feet as she takes a couple of steps forward, ignoring me.
Vicky hawks up a mouthful of phlegm and splits her fingers into a V shape, spitting through them at Alice and laughing wildly, looking around for approval. Tuff Shit has reappeared, cigarette behind his ear, hand reaching down the front of his trousers. He’s belligerent but it’s all for show: the swagger, the cocky sneer, the pecking motion of his head. I’ve seen it before in other boys his age. In my experience, there’s a vein of fear running through them as hard and bright as crystal.
“Alice,” I say firmly, trying to be heard above it all, “Alice, come on. Come back inside.”
But that smile has resurfaced and there is nothing behind her eyes. She doesn’t hear me. She is as cold and distant as Venus. For a moment I think she is speaking—I can see her shoulders twitch, her mouth slowly moving—but the voice I hear is slurring and thick, heavy. Like a throat full of molasses. It is a language I don’t recognize, Germanic maybe. The words spread like a ripple, like oil on water, dark and tainted. It fills me with something icy and unknowing and I taste the bitterness of bile in the back of my throat.
“Alice,” I’m pleading with her, my voice high and taut as string, and I don’t know what I’m begging for but I know something terrible is coming, I know it, and I want to stop her. “Alice, don’t—”
Vicky is on Buzz Cut’s shoulders and then suddenly she isn’t. I watch her fall with a sickening thud, toppling as if she were struck. Everyone goes very quiet, eyes big and round as zeros, heads turning. I reach the gate at a run, bursting out onto the pavement and pushing through the dense mass of people to where Vicky lies twitching in the road. The neck of her T-shirt is torn. Behind me one of the boys starts laughing. It’s breathless, slightly hysterical, and when no one joins in he stops.
I kneel beside her. I’m the only one. No one else seems to want to go near her. The crowd steps backward in an almost uniform motion, eyes seeking each other out for reassurance. Vicky must have been holding an egg when she hit the ground because there is eggshell all over the pavement and in the curls of her hair. At first I think it is flecks of bone as if her skull has shattered like porcelain and my stomach turns over queasily. The bitumen is hot and sticky and bites into my knees. Vicky’s hand is reaching for her throat. She makes a noise. “Urrrk. Urrrk.” Like a seal. Like she is gargling mouthwash. Her back arches and her feet drum into the ground. One of the boys says her name like a question, “Vicks?” His voice sounds small and frightened, very sober. I don’t know if it is Tuff Shit or the other one. They are all looking at her with wonder, as if they can’t believe their own eyes.
Vicky’s lips are turning blue. She grips the neck of her T-shirt and tugs as if trying to be free of it. She twists and bucks but can only dig her heels into the road so hard they have started bleeding. Her eyes bulge. One shoe has flown off her foot, landing a few feet away.
“Alice, call an ambulance! Alice!”
My voice doesn’t sound like my own. I sound stretched thin, exhausted. I’m getting frustrated with all these people standing and watching and doing fucking nothing. Can’t they see she’s dying?
“Call an ambulance! Someone, call an ambulance!”
I switch and turn on the crowd behind me, hands outstretched toward them. Most of them look away. The ones who don’t are bug-eyed with terror. I don’t blame them. I think Tuff Shit is laughing but then I realize he isn’t laughing, of course he isn’t. He’s crying. I hear a long ripping sound and see Vicky is tearing into the neck of her T-shirt so violently she has pulled it apart. I glimpse the strap of her bra underneath, the flash of a gold St. Christopher necklace. Her hands circle her neck as if she is trying to choke herself, eyes seeking me out helplessly. No sound comes out of her mouth. Such dark eyes she has, like pools of ink. Poor Vicky, I think as I use my fingers to lever open her stiff jaw, trying to get a look inside. By now people are drifting away. They didn’t want a part of this and I don’t blame them. Vicky’s throat is bulging like something is stuck in there, her tongue a fat wet slab that reminds me of that haunch wrapped in plastic on the counter. I think of Alice saying “the witch’s tongue is black” and I feel sick and cold all over. Vicky’s whole face is dark now, almost purple. Next time I look at her, she doesn’t see me. Her eyes are gone, gone all the way back into her head.