The Onion Girl (52 page)
Authors: Charles de Lint
Toby shrugged. “Think what you want. A dire attacked me on my way here, but it faded away to nothing when it bit me. See.” He held up his arm and pushed back the sleeve. “The teeth didn't even leave a mark.”
Dires were the ghostly remnants of some other story, gray-furred wolfish men with stooped shoulders and embittered souls. They'd haunted the middleworld for yearsâor at least they had once upon a time. Like other Eadar that Toby and the Tattersnake had seen come and go, there were few dires left now and those few were fading fast.
“If I find you've been lying to me ⦔
Toby gave another shrug. His feigned nonchalance was coming easier now.
“I've my own business to attend to now,” he said. “So if you'll excuse me ⦔
“I think I'll come along.”
Toby shook his head. “I can't allow that.”
Before the Tattersnake could respond, he took a quick step toward the taller man, his own fist cocked now. It was all he could do not to show his own surprise when the Tattersnake hastily backed away. Perhaps Maddy had been right. Perhaps all you had to do was stand up to a bully.
“Go bother somebody else,” Toby said, “before I decide to make you my business.”
The Tattersnake lifted his hands, palms out. “Easy now, Toby my good man. No need for rash actions. I'm already on my way.”
Toby watched him back away, schooling his own features to remain impassive until the Tattersnake stepped on a quicklands path and was gone. Then he allowed himself to breathe once more. His legs shook so much that he wanted to sit down, but he wouldn't allow himself the luxury. Instead he forced himself to hurry down to the vervain field and
began plucking plants until he had an armful, whispering “Sorry” and “Thank you” to every one he pulled out of the ground.
began plucking plants until he had an armful, whispering “Sorry” and “Thank you” to every one he pulled out of the ground.
But all the time he was thinking, I stood up to him. The Tattersnake! I made him back down. I actually made him run away!
It was as though the day had suddenly sprouted wings and flown off into the night, leaving the sun to look down from the sky and scratch its head in confusion. How could it even be possible? He was nothing. He was nobody â¦
He shook his head. No, that wasn't true anymore. He was real now.
The astonished sense of well-being filling him didn'tâ
wouldn't
âgo away. Only his worry for Jilly stopped him from doing cartwheels across the field and made him concentrate on braiding the vervain plants into a wreath.
wouldn't
âgo away. Only his worry for Jilly stopped him from doing cartwheels across the field and made him concentrate on braiding the vervain plants into a wreath.
He would add yarrow to it, he thought. For the healing. And perhaps rowan as well. But then he remembered the twig in his pocket. Surely the magic that had made him real could heal Jilly's sleeping twin, the Broken Girl. The twig and the vervain, together they would cure her. The twig hadn't worked before because it had only been Jilly's dreaming self that had tried to use it. It seemed so obvious to him now. She needed to be whole and complete, both parts of her joined, for it to work.
“Well, I'll give you this,” Raylene finally says. “You got balls, coming here with all the cards stacked against you.”
Her voice breaks the spell that had our gazes locked and lets me blink. I sneak a glimpse at Pinky. She is loading the shotgun.
“I should never have left you there,” I say. “In that house.”
“You got that right.”
“But I was just a kid myself, you know. I got so messed up when I finally got away that it was years before I was thinking straight again.”
“And that's supposed to make everything okay?”
I shake my head. “No. But I want you to know that I came back for you.”
“Bullshit.”
“It's true. But you were gone and the house was empty.”
I see something cold and dark rise in her eyes.
“You can ask Margaret Sweeney,” I say.
“That old bag wouldn't give nobody the time a day.”
I shrug. “Think about what it was like for herâall of us white trash moving into her neighborhood, treating the land she grew up on and loved like it was a junkyard. And she was supposed to like us?”
“Jesus, now I'm supposed to feel sorry for her? If she was such an angel, why didn't she do anything about what was happening to me?”
“She didn't help me either,” I say. “Maybe she didn't know. Or maybe she was scared of Del, too.”
“I ain't scared of Del.”
“Neither am Iânot anymore. But I was.”
“You should've done what I did and cut the bastard. Maybe then he would've left all of us alone.”
“You stood up to him?”
She pats the front pocket of her jeans. “Me and my good friend, Mr. Switchblade.”
“I could never find the courage.”
“I guess that's where you and me are different, big sister.”
“I'm sure we're different in a lot of ways.”
“Christ, I hope so.”
We fall into the hole of a long moment of silence, just looking at each other again. She seems as curious as I am, though it's not enough to take the dark anger from her eyes. I try again.
“I really did come back for you,” I say. “I know it was too late, but when I left that place I ended up becoming a junkie hooker. There are whole years that are just this awful blur in my head. But as soon as I cleaned up my act and was able to think clearly again, I came looking for you. Believe whatever else you want of me, but that's true.”
“You're just saying that,” Raylene tells me. “I got you running scared now. You'll say any damn thing to save your skin.”
I shake my head. “I'd die for you.”
I hear myself say it and I'm surprised. Here's me, so divorced from family that I changed my name, changed my whole life, to get away from them, and now I'm saying the thing that blood relatives say at times like this. But I guess the family tie is strongâexcept it's not the one of blood.
It's that we're both Children of the Secret and that's maybe the strongest bond of all. We could be complete strangers, but because of the horrors we've undergone, we know each other better than anybody else can. And since what happened to her was my faultâI'm the one who abandoned herâI'm the one who has to make good.
But I don't know how.
It's funny, but when my sister
comes sliding down the hillside toward us, that red rage I got every time I saw some damned picture of her just ain't in me. I don't know where it's up and gone. I find myself hungry to look at herânot like afore when I was sneaking me peeks of her lying in her hospital bed, but like this, face-to-face. Me looking at her looking at me. She knows who I am. I know who she is.
comes sliding down the hillside toward us, that red rage I got every time I saw some damned picture of her just ain't in me. I don't know where it's up and gone. I find myself hungry to look at herânot like afore when I was sneaking me peeks of her lying in her hospital bed, but like this, face-to-face. Me looking at her looking at me. She knows who I am. I know who she is.
And then she starts in on her explanations and I answer her back, smart-lipping and no give, and that deep dark anger, it's just not there. Oh, I'm still pissed, but now I'm not so rightly sure just exactly what it is I got to be so pissed about. Because she's right about this much: she
was
just a kid. What could she do but run off and get herself all fucked up like she done? And maybe she come back looking for me, and maybe she didn't. It don't seem to matter so much no more.
was
just a kid. What could she do but run off and get herself all fucked up like she done? And maybe she come back looking for me, and maybe she didn't. It don't seem to matter so much no more.
Don't get me wrong. I ain't about to turn this into no Hallmark moment or nothing. But I see her standing up there on the side of that hill and I wonder how I could ever have expected more of her. Hell, the reason
she probably took it as long as she did back in that hellhole we called home was on account of me. I suddenly find myself remembering all of them times she warned me to keep away from Del, and me, I just didn't listen till it was too late.
she probably took it as long as she did back in that hellhole we called home was on account of me. I suddenly find myself remembering all of them times she warned me to keep away from Del, and me, I just didn't listen till it was too late.
Where would I have been without Pinky giving me that knife? I was older'n my sister by then and I sure wasn't putting up any kinda fight my own self. I had Pinky, but Jillian May, she didn't have her nobody 'cept the raggedy-ass little kid I was who probably made things worse for her instead of better.
And then she delivers her killer line.
I'd die for you.
And damned if she don't mean it.
There's folks can lie to you with a straight face, but my sister don't appear to be one of them. There's so much emotion in her eyes when she says them few words and I guess the clincher is, I can tell she's about as surprised she said what she done as I am.
All I can do is stare at her.
Where we're going with this now, I don't know. And the sorry thing is, I don't get to find out.
“You 'bout done now?” Pinky asks.
I look over at her. She's standing there, got that shotgun cradled in her arms like it's a baby.
“'Cause I don't like me the look of how all of this is goin',” she says.
“How all what's going?”
“Her,” Pinky says, nodding at Jillian May with her chin. “You goin' all stupid on me now, Ray? Look. at yourselfâshe's got you bewitched and you're too dumb to even notice. I got me the same feelin' right now that I did settin' on Miss Lucinda's porch.”
“So what're you suggesting we do?” I ask. “Shoot her?”
“It's a notion.”
I give Jillian May. an apologetic look. We got us stuff to work out, no question, but what Pinky's proposing ain't no part of it.
“Wasn't it you telling me not to go all postal just a few hours ago?” I ask Pinky.
“Yeah,” she says. “But that was in some damned old hospital in the middle of the city. We're nowhere now. No cops. No rules. Nothing.”
“Pinkyâ”
“Christ in a cornfield, Ray. All of my life I've had to listen to you
cryin' over how your sister done you so wrong. Every damn thing went bad in your life, you laid it at her door. So now what're you goin' to do? Let her walk? Where the hell's the closure?”
cryin' over how your sister done you so wrong. Every damn thing went bad in your life, you laid it at her door. So now what're you goin' to do? Let her walk? Where the hell's the closure?”
Thing I forget, with her just a-hanging around most of the time doing nothing more strenuous than smoking and drinking and watching the TV, is how cold she can be. She might not give the impression of being too dangerous on a regular day, but she's shot a cop and cut more'n one man with that knife of hersâcut her some women, too.
“You been watching too many of them daytime talk shows,” I tell her.
She just shakes her head and puts the stock of that shotgun to her shoulder.
“I'll show you closure,” she says.
“Pinky, no!”
I don't even think about what I'm doing as I run to her. This's got nothing to do with what my sister said 'bout her being willing to die for me. It's about stopping something wrong, that's all. Plain and simple.
But I ain't in time.
Pinky shoots.
I ain't in time.
To stop her from pulling the trigger, I mean.
But I'm plenty in time to get in the way of that shot.
I take it right in the chest and it blows me off a my feet like some giant hand come down outta nowhere and flicked me with a finger.
I don't see my life go by afore my eyes. I wouldn't've wanted that anyways.
But as I'm lying there with the life leaking outta me, I find myself thinking about that sorry-assed little girl I met by the trailer park. How I'm going to be breaking my promise to her.
She's gonna think of me same as I thought of my sister all those years and it ain't even my fault, me dying like this.
That's if she bothers to think of me at all.
“You're dead!” I hear Pinky scream and I don't know if she's yelling at me or my sister.
And then I don't know nothing more 'cept that I'm falling into this big black hole, only the damn hole seems like it's above me and I'm rushing toward this spark of light I can see that's 'biding there at the end of it 'bout as far away as a thing can be.
That honey-blonde pit bull takes
me right to where they are, Jilly and her sister and the sister's friend. I've been hoping we can find a clean end to all of this, but we arrive way too late for any of that.
me right to where they are, Jilly and her sister and the sister's friend. I've been hoping we can find a clean end to all of this, but we arrive way too late for any of that.
We come out into a gulch in time to see the tall blonde take a shot at Jilly and damned if Jilly's own sister doesn't step into the line of fire and take that load of buckshot herself. There's a moment of shock when we're all frozen in place. They don't even realize that the pit bull and I are here. The blonde lowers her shotgun and is just staring at her dead friend. I focus on Jilly, see the horror in her face. As Jilly starts down the slope toward her sister, the blonde lifts her head. She screams something and that shotgun of hers comes back up to her shoulder.
It's only Jilly's dreaming self that she's taking bead on, but Jilly's body is here, too. Who knows what'll happen to her if her dreaming self gets killed?
I start for the blonde, but the pit bull's quicker. She launches herself
at the blonde and slams into her just as the shotgun fires. The buckshot goes wild, pinging against the rocks and trees. The blonde loses her balance and goes downâhalf twisting her body to see what hit her instead of doing the sensible thing of looking where she's going to fall. The crack of her head as it hits a granite outcrop makes my stomach do a flip and I know she's not getting back up again.
at the blonde and slams into her just as the shotgun fires. The buckshot goes wild, pinging against the rocks and trees. The blonde loses her balance and goes downâhalf twisting her body to see what hit her instead of doing the sensible thing of looking where she's going to fall. The crack of her head as it hits a granite outcrop makes my stomach do a flip and I know she's not getting back up again.
The pit bull landed easily. She's in ready mode before all her feet are back on the ground. She approaches the dead woman on stiff legs and gives her a sniff, then backs up and whines. Looks like she's no more fond of killing than I am. When she turns to me, I'm already in human form.
“You didn't know,” I tell her. “And she had to be stopped. I would've done the same if I'd been closer.”
Those dark eyes of hers fix their gaze on me and I can see it doesn't matter that it had to be done. She's going to be holding on to this for a long time. I know what she's thinking. With every life taken, we're all diminished. That's something too many people don't get. Yeah, we've got to stop violence and killingâbut you're only adding to the problem when the way you solve it is by more of the same.
The honey blonde turns to look at Jilly, who's bent over the body of her sister. My gaze follows. Jilly looks up, her hands red with her sister's blood, her eyes filled with confusion and hurt.
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