Evil Returns (12 page)

Devnee cringed. There was no mind on earth like hers. A stolen mind. What was Victoria’s mind now? Dim? Unlit? Confused? Did Devnee have the entire contents of Victoria’s mind? Or just the academic facts? Would she one day slide into Victoria’s life as well, with Victoria’s family and history?

Trey smooched Devnee. The kiss she would have given her soul to get a month ago was nothing. Damp lips bunched up and tapping her cheek. Trey had no idea what he was kissing and didn’t care. He wanted only looks.

But so did I, thought Devnee. I wanted only looks. So this is fair.

“And what does your brilliant mind want on its ice-cream sundae?” asked Trey.

Victoria’s brains,
thought Devnee.

She bit her lip to keep from saying that out loud, covered her mouth with her hand, wondering if the fangs in her mouth …

No.

I don’t have the fangs. The vampire has the fangs. I must keep my story straight.

“Chocolate, of course, like you,” said Devnee. And then, because she could not help herself, “How’s Victoria?”

William looked confused, as if when Victoria’s mind was emptied, the minds and memories of her friends were also sapped. “She’s fine,” he said dubiously. “She just … I don’t know … I guess … I guess I don’t know.” He stirred his chocolate sauce into his melting vanilla ice cream. He shrugged. “I’m not really sure what’s going on,” he said.

“Women,” said Trey, dismissing half the race. “They can really be a pain.” He grinned at Devnee. “I go by looks, and that spares me the trouble of ever worrying about their problems.”

Lovely, thought Devnee. Just the kind of boyfriend we all want.

“I guess Victoria’s just in kind of a slump,” said William.

“We miss her on the team, of course,” said Mrs. Cort briskly. “But life goes on. Now, tomorrow we’ll have practice.”

The boys moaned.

“You practice for High School Bowl just the way you practice for any other team,” said Mrs. Cort firmly.

“Dev doesn’t need to practice,” said Trey. “She knows it all already.”

In the English class where once Mrs. Cort had only had Victoria to call on, Devnee had all the answers, while Victoria was simply dense.

Mrs. Cort loved test questions in which you must know the facts in order to answer, but you don’t write the facts down. You write down an independent conclusion. Devnee had always failed these questions.

It was Victoria who did not have to think; Victoria’s questing mind would have already probed at the difficulty this aspect of literature presented.

Whereas Devnee would certainly never have thought of it before and would be completely flummoxed having to think of it now.

But things were different.

Now it was Victoria whose mind didn’t lead anywhere. Just sat at the desk, thick and uncertain. It was Victoria who nervously bit a lock of hair and nervously drummed a pencil eraser, and nervously stared at the wall clock and then her wristwatch.

Is that how I used to look? thought Devnee. Pathetic? Hopeless?

She could not bear the sight of Victoria. You could actually see Victoria’s mind scrabbling for facts, like a falling mountain climber scrabbling for a crack in the rock.

A dreadful taste coated Devnee’s mouth.

A queer moldy glaze coated her eyes.

Victoria ran out of energy. She lay down her pencil, turned her test over, and put her head on the desk, eyes not closed, but soul not looking out, either. Just dim staring.

What have I done? thought Devnee Fountain.

Her mind skipped on without her: Victoria’s mind, actually; a mind redolent of intriguing observation and complete knowledge. Thoughts so amusing they begged to be shared with the class. Intelligence so excellent it demanded a pencil, so she could write down her conclusions.

Inside the new body, isolated from the new mind, Devnee herself sat very still. I never knew the real Devnee, she thought, and now I’m not going to. I’m going to be pieces of other girls instead.

Sunlight poured in the side windows and the shadows, as clear as drawings, of the students were outlined against the walls: silhouettes of pencils poised and heads bowed in thought.

Only Devnee cast no shadow.

She stared at the blank wall.

My shadow hates me, thought Devnee. The vampire lied. It isn’t that my shadow doesn’t like to be around when the event occurs. It’s that my shadow doesn’t want to be around somebody like me.

Somebody whose wishes destroy other people.

Devnee had a hideously clear view of herself, as if she had turned to ice, and all the inessentials were chipped away.

She was bad.

Event.
What a ridiculous word. Those were not “events”—those moments that destroyed Aryssa and Victoria. Those were betrayals: the selling of friends to evil.

But it is not possible to look at oneself for long. The sight is too dreadful. So Devnee quickly looked away.

At the end of class, to remind herself of why she had done it, she stopped in at the girls’ room, where a row of six mirrors awaited the desperate reflections of desperate girls.

It was delightful to stand at a distance. Smiling. Knowing her hair was perfect, knowing she was perfect. Pitying the stubby, faded girls who leaned up close to the mirrors, repairing or changing faces and hair, in a futile effort to have what Devnee had.

One of the girls was Aryssa.

What happened to Aryssa is not my fault, Devnee reminded herself. How was I to know he was a vampire? It was just a wish. A plain old wish. Lots of girls wish to be beautiful. How could I know it would really come true?

Stolen beauty is not like stolen jewelry. There’s no prison sentence, no time in jail. The police can’t catch me.

Aryssa was looking at Devnee. Her lusterless eyes were seeking answers. Large eyes, those of a waif in the gutter, hoping for handouts. The eyes of Aryssa came to rest on Devnee.

She knows I did it,
Devnee thought. Her heart went into spasms.

But Aryssa said, “Hi, Devnee. Are we still buddies? I kind of forget. I’ve been having a bad time lately. I’m sorry I haven’t kept in touch.”

Devnee flinched and drew away. Bumped into Victoria. Not a leader now, but merely somebody in the line.

It was remarkable how her personality had been sapped. She was even more of a husk than Aryssa; when Victoria’s demanding presence collapsed, there was not much left.

“I love how you do your hair,” said an unknown girl to Devnee. “I mean, you look so perfect all the time. I wish I looked like you.”

Two other girls turned away from the mirror, also, and smiled at Devnee. “You should go into modeling,” said one of them. “My sister is a model. But you’d be even better.”

“You have the bones for it,” agreed the first girl.

Devnee turned her back on the remains of Aryssa and Victoria.

D
EVNEE WAS NOT A
particular fan of television, being too attached to her radio to turn on the TV. Devnee had three stations from which she continually switched. One was soft old-fashioned rock, beginner rock, so to speak. The next station was current rock, but not the kind that got parents up in arms. The final station was country, where the lyrics told sad stories and the rhymes were like greeting cards.

She loved them equally. She could not bear talk shows, or advertising, or news.

Her mother, however, loved a local station full of friendly local weather idiots, and giggling local celebrities, and dim local thinkers.

Devnee came home from another day of triumph and beauty to find her mother swaying in the kitchen to the beat of a local department store jingle. Really, how pathetic, thought Devnee. This is the best I can do for a mother? A mother whose radio station plays bingo and describes spaghetti suppers at the firehouse? Please.

I deserve better than this.

“Hello, darling,” said her mother, kissing her swiftly. “Tell me what you think of this wallpaper for the breakfast room.”

“It’s perfect,” said Devnee, not looking.

“Here are two possibilities, Devnee. Help me choose.”

“Mom, you have a great eye for color. Whatever you choose is perfect.”

“Come on, Devvy,” said her mother, pulling out the old baby name.

“Ma.”

“Dance with me,” said her mother, pulling out the old baby after-school activity.

“Ma!”

Her mother deflated. She stepped away and looked sadly at the wallpaper samples, as if she had expected great things to come from them; as if she had expected to transform both the wall and her life and perhaps also her relationship with her daughter.

Her mother stared out the kitchen window. The backyard was grim and wintry, and the hemlocks were like a dark green prison wall. No sky, no town, no neighbor was visible.

“I don’t know, Devvy,” said her mother sadly. “You are a different person since we moved here.”

Devnee had decided several days ago to stop thinking about the differences. It just gave her an upset stomach. The point of life was to be beautiful and have fun. She was not going to think of the techniques used to arrive there.

“I can feel you full of wishes,” said her mother. “Wishing to be somebody else. To be somewhere else. Wishing you had a different family.”

The truth stung. Devnee must not let her mother see any more of it. She rallied. “I like the wallpaper with the ribbon effect, Mom. I think your watercolors would look terrific against it.”

Her mother continued to study the hemlocks. She frowned slightly, tilted her head, and looked more intently.

“I don’t even feel as if I recognize you these days,” said her mother with infinite sadness.

“I’m just wearing my hair differently,” said Devnee casually.

Her mother nodded. “I love it like that. You’re beautiful, sweetheart. I love looking at you. But—Devvy, you don’t even talk the way you used to! What’s going on? Tell me. Please.”

“I’m just learning to manage my study time better, Mother. Aren’t you proud of me?”

A shadow crossed her mother’s face. She fiddled with the wallpaper samples. She tilted her body, looking out the window again, toward the hemlocks. Devnee followed her gaze.

Caught in the hemlocks like an immense moth was the vampire’s cloak.

“There’s something …” Her mother’s voice trailed off. “I can’t quite focus on it. My perspective is off. There’s—I don’t know—it looks like—I think it’s dirty laundry stuck on the tree.”

Only her mother would look at a vampire’s cloak and see laundry. Her mother was probably even now thinking of bleach and detergent; probably even now making the kind of pitiful plans that filled her day:
I’ll just go out there and get that; run a load of laundry and have it all nice and starkly clean and freshly white.

Pathetic, thought Devnee. I wish I had a different mother.

The wish went right out the window, fluttering toward the hemlocks.

A different mother, thought Devnee.

Her heart stopped. Her tongue thickened.

She looked with horror at the woman standing in her kitchen: a happy woman, who liked her life and her family. Who loved her daughter.

“No,” said Devnee. “No!” And then much louder,
“No! I didn’t mean it!”

Her mother did not seem to have heard. She moved toward the back door. Put her hand on the knob.

“No,” said Devnee, “don’t go out there, Mom. You stay inside. You—listen, I love this wallpaper. I’ll go out there and get that thing off the hemlocks and you—um—well, let’s go to the wallpaper store together! Huh? Won’t that be fun?”

“Really? Would you like to?” said her mother. “Maybe while we’re there we can look at paper for the tower. I know you love it the way it is, Devvy, but somehow when I’m up there alone, it feels dark to me.”

Devnee’s laugh was hysterical. “Don’t go there alone, Mom, okay? I keep my room clean. You don’t need to go there.”

Her mother was still frowning, still confused. “I don’t know, Devvy, there’s so much about this house. … Sometimes in the day I feel as if I’m not alone. … Sometimes I even seem to hear someone laughing.”

It was Devnee who was laughing now. Horrible little bursts of insane hysterical laughter spurted out of her.

Her mother shuddered. “Just like that, Devvy. Don’t laugh like that. It makes me so nervous.”

Devnee stopped laughing, as if she’d sliced off her laugh with a machete. “I’ll be right back, Mom,” she said. “You stay here where it’s warm. Promise?”

Her mother was getting her jacket. Getting her gloves.

“Mom,” said Devnee, “let’s have a cup of tea. You put the water on to boil. I’ll have apple mint, okay? We haven’t had a cup of tea together in weeks.” She put her mother’s jacket back. Stuck the teakettle in her mother’s hand.

Wild distant laughter pealed. Mother and daughter swung toward the kitchen window and saw hemlocks shaking, as if the heavy green branches were crackling with fire.

How dare that sick, twisted, perverted vampire try to get near her mother! Devnee would kill him!

“Wait here,” she said sternly to her mother, and she stormed out the back door, strode over the dead grass of winter, marched to the hemlocks, and grabbed hold of the cloak.

“Don’t you dare go near my mother,” said Devnee Fountain.

The vampire’s teeth appeared, loose in the trees, a fang here, a fang there. “I believe you made a wish.”

“I take it back. I wasn’t thinking.”

“Pity,” said the vampire. “I’m afraid it’s still a wish.”

“You scum!” spat Devnee. “How dare you!”

“I’m afraid,” said the vampire, “I cannot quite follow your distinctions. Why was it fine to wish for Aryssa’s beauty and Victoria’s brains, but not fine to wish for a different mother? I think you deserve a better mother, too.”

“This is the one I have!” said Devnee.

“That was the body you had,” pointed out the vampire, “and the mind. You wouldn’t settle for them. Why settle for a pathetic excuse of a mother? Other girls have mothers who are successful attorneys, or brilliant novelists, or creative designers.”

“I’m keeping my own mother.”

“Mmmmm. The wish, however, my dear. The wish is here, you know. I possess it. It was a very complete wish. I was in your mind at the time, and I saw quite clearly the kind of mother you would prefer.”