Waking (6 page)

“Oh.” Beauty blinked, stepped aside. “Sure, of course. Sorry.”

“I can come back another time if you're busy?”

Beauty bit her lip. This was her opportunity to send Luna home, to keep everything simple and faded. If she sent Luna home, she could go on pretending everything was okay. She shut the door firmly behind Luna.

“No, come on in,” she shouted over the music. Beauty led her to the kitchen after turning down the stereo. Luna looked around curiously.

“Cool house,” she said. “It's so normal. Unlike mine.”

Beauty nearly snorted. “Do you want a drink or something?” she asked. “Juice? Tea?”

“I'd love some tea.” Luna dropped down into a wooden chair and opened her knapsack, pulling out books and binders and a pencil case covered in beads and star-shaped sequins.

When the kettle whistled, Beauty poured hot water into the pot to steep the rosehip tea mixture she'd made from her grandmother's recipe. The scent was tart and comforting. Luna spread out her papers and picked up a green felt-tip pen.

“Okay,” she said. “We have to figure out what we want to put in this journal and how we should lay it out. Did you get a chance to look through some of the books?”

“A little,” Beauty said. “They were basically groupies, right?” she asked hesitantly. “For John Keats' poetry and that critic guy, John Ruskin or whatever?”

Luna grinned. “You're right, actually. I hadn't thought about it that way. We could do something really fun with that.” She tapped her pen on her notebook, leaving little marks like stars fallen in the grass. “Why don't we start with our favorite stories or paintings and go from there? You pick the paintings since you're into that.”

Beauty poured the tea into cups and then started flipping through the books in front of her as Luna continued to speak. It was nice to have a friend who didn't mind silence, who didn't look at you askance as if trying to figure out if you were going to crack. She recognized Waterhouse's
The Lady of Shalott
and several Rossetti paintings of dark-haired women.

“Okay, my favorite story is about Dante Rossetti,” Luna was saying. “He was so creepy, I just love it. He wrote poems for Elizabeth Siddal, who he called ‘his Lizzie.' I think she was one of his models as well. Anyway, she was sick a lot and eventually died of an overdose, and Rossetti had all of his poems buried with her.”

Beauty glanced up. “That's romantic, not creepy.”

Luna leaned back in her chair, looking smug. There was a star rhinestone on her cheek. “That's not all,” she said. “A few years later, after several affairs I'm sure, Rossetti decided that he wanted his poems back.“ Luna paused. “So he had his Lizzie dug up so he could pry the poems from her cold dead hands. He said her hair was still thick and bright, all coiled in a braid.”

Beauty blinked. “You made that up.”

“Well, maybe the part about her hair, but everything else is true.” She sipped at her tea, looking proud of herself.

Beauty shuddered. “That's gross.”

“I know. Cool, huh?”

“You are so weird.”

“This is true.” Luna seemed completely unperturbed by the friendly accusation. “Your turn.”

Beauty turned back to the reproductions in front of her. There were several beautiful ones that she liked, and many of them seemed to be attached to some poem or other. “We could show
The Lady of Shalott
and then have the poem next to it,” she suggested. “And have Keats' ‘Isabella and the Pot of Basil,' which is also creepy by the way, and then show Hunt's painting.”

They spent the next hour searching through books for paintings and poems and anecdotes. Beauty thought she might have liked to live in a house full of artists, especially with William Morris and all his hand-painted furniture and medieval fabrics he loved so much. It would be like living in a dream. She could understand now why Luna had claimed to live in a Pre-Raphaelite house.

She couldn't remember the last time she'd hung out at the kitchen table with a friend to do homework. She'd missed this normal feeling. Even the homework was fun, finding out weird details about a bunch of poets and artists who'd lived over a hundred years ago but didn't seem all that different from today's artists. There would always be people who mourned the death of beauty at the hands of technology.

She blinked and rubbed her eyes when the print started to blur a little. She was thinking too hard, trying to absorb too much.

Luna smothered a yawn and smiled sheepishly. “Let's take a break,” she suggested, standing up and stretching. “I could use a dance party. Crank up the stereo again.”

Beauty ignored the dry scratchy voice of the desert inside and the shy girl who wanted to hide in the attic and decided to just let herself go. It seemed easy when she was with Luna. They listened to song after song, shouted out the lyrics and danced wildly, like dandelions in a strong wind. The roses pressed against the glass. Beauty twirled and twirled until she grew dizzy and collapsed on the couch.

Luna stretched out on the carpet, panting for breath. “Whew,” she said. “I needed that.”

Beauty lifted handfuls of heavy hair off her sweaty neck and laughed. Luna turned her head, saw the sunlight glinting off glass bottles on a locked cabinet. She frowned curiously.

“How come the liquor cabinet is locked if all of the liquor is out on top? My mother would never trust me like that. No fair.”

Beauty's smile faltered. She swallowed. “Dad keeps other stuff in there,” she said.

Luna waggled her eyebrows. “Old high school pictures of him with bad hair, or top-secret FBI documents?”

Beauty shook her head, momentarily distracted. “Why is everyone a spy in your world?”

Luna shrugged. “It's more fun that way. So what's in there?” She held up a hand. “You already know I'm rudely nosy, so you don't have to answer.”

Beauty took a deep breath, considered what to say. Should she pretend she didn't know? She was pretty sure Luna would then convince her to pick the cabinet's lock. Was this something she was ready to share?

She thought of the way they had turned in circles until the room was a blur of colors and made her decision. “Dad keeps the knives in there,” she explained quietly.

Luna turned her head slightly to look at her. “Like hunting gear? Ew.”

Beauty shook her head. “Kitchen knives, scissors, needles, anything sharp.”

Luna pushed up onto her elbows. “Oh. Why?”

Beauty took a deep breath. “Because of my mother.” Luna watched her curiously but didn't say anything. She waited for Beauty to continue. “She didn't just die, she killed herself.”

Luna blinked. “Oh, Beauty.”

Beauty shrugged, willed her eyes not to water. “Just before summer. She cut her wrists.”

Luna got to her feet and sat on the edge of the couch. She looked like she wanted to hug Beauty but wasn't sure if she should. “What's your favorite memory of her?”

Beauty stopped, confused. No one had ever asked her that before. She tilted her head. “I guess being in the garden with her. The way she picked all the roses and put them all over the house.” She shrugged. “That sounds dumb.”

“No, it doesn't. I don't remember my dad at all. He left before my mom even went into labor.”

“Do you hate him?”

“Sometimes.”

“What about your mom?”

Luna shrugged. “Star says he was beautiful but they just weren't meant to be together. She says they had one night together and it was special and that's all they needed.” She leaned back against the cushions. “That doesn't really help,” she admitted. She hesitated. “Why'd your mom do it?”

“She was sick, a chemical imbalance of some kind,”Beauty answered, fiddling with the ring on her thumb. “Dad won't really say. But now it's like he's terrified I'm going to do the same thing or something.”

“I'm sorry.”

Beauty's smile wobbled. “Thanks.”

“Is that why you asked me if I'd heard the rumors about you?”

Beauty nodded. “Yeah. It made everyone really uncomfortable for a while. They'd whisper when I came into a room, or everyone would just fall silent and stare at me. I hated it. I still do. Sometimes I wish I was invisible.”

Luna squeezed her hand. “Well, if I'm a slut and you're a freak, I guess we're perfect for each other.”

Beauty giggled. “I guess so.”

7

I guess it's winter,

but I don't feel the cold at all, even though I'm wearing a thin white gown edged with silver ribbons and crystals, and there's snow everywhere, covering the old garden and the stone wall that surrounds it. There are hazel bushes and yew under the snow, and roses everywhere. The roses are in full bloom, white and perfect and completely untouched by the cold.

The cobblestones leading around a marble fountain and toward a medieval-looking tower are slippery with ice. Everything spar
kles like the glitter painted on my arms and shoulders. The moon is fat and high above my head, dressed in a gown of lacy clouds.

That's when I notice a long table draped with white velvet and studded with lit candles, like stars. I see glass jugs filled with white wine and apple juice, bowls full of pears and peeled lychee nuts, and cakes sprinkled with icing sugar. There are cups of custard and vanilla ice cream and warm milk.

The table has three place settings, each one marked with a rose: one red, one white and one black. I look around, but I can't see anyone else. The tower is slim and pale, the windows glow with candlelight. On the other side of the wall the forest is thick and shadowy.

I'm mildly surprised when I suddenly see a woman sitting across the table from where I stand in a white throne-like chair. She has pearls around her throat and in her hair, and she's wearing a veil. Her wedding dress is as white as the snow around us.

“Welcome to the feast,” she says. Her voice is quiet and soft.
Familiar.

When she stands up, her veil blows back and her face is bathed
in moonlight.

Rose Dubois. My mother.

I know I'm staring, and I don't care. I don't know what to say. This isn't like the other dreams, not even the one with the cottage. This feels too real, and I want to cry but it's been too long. I'm not sure I remember how.

And in the vast white winter of sorrow I discover a red
burning ember of anger.

“Mom?” I say to break the awful silence. I sound annoyed,
bratty. I can't help it.

She nods. “It's me, honey.”

I've been feeling so little in the last few months and all of a sudden I'm feeling too much at once. I don't know what to do. I sit down heavily in an intricately carved chair.

I realize she's wearing her own wedding dress. I remember it from all the pictures Dad used to have around the house. Now there's just the one, on his dresser, surrounded by vases of roses from the garden.

“Why am I dreaming this?” I ask. “I don't want to be here. I
want to wake up.”

“Not yet, Beauty. Not yet.”

I cross my arms and scowl. “What happened, Mom?” I whisper. It's the one thing I never got to ask her. “Why? Was it something we did? Or didn't do?”

“I fell asleep, Beauty,” she tells me sadly. “It seemed like the
easiest thing to do.”

“You left us.”

She nods. Her eyes are watery and a tear falls down her cheek. It makes me mad. She can cry and I still can't. And even though I'm furious and hurt and confused, I still miss her.

“I'm sorry, Beauty. I didn't know what else to do.”

“Was it me?” I think about the dream I had, the one where she's lying in a bathtub of roses. I didn't know then that it was a premonition. I didn't know.

“It was me,” she answers. “Just me. You aren't to blame.”

“I don't believe you.”

She tries to smile. “Stay. Eat with me.”

I shake my head. Ice cream isn't going to make everything better. At this point I don't know if anything can. My mother left me and then I left myself.

“I have to get out of here,” I say.

“Beauty, I love you.”

I don't look at her. Instead I stare at the glass plate in front of me, a white rose in its center. I'm not mad anymore. I feel deflated, sad. I wonder for the hundredth time if I could have stopped her. If I'd told her about my dream, would things have been different?

I can see my reflection in the plate. My face is as pale as the moon over me and the white dress billowing around my ankles. I hate it. I don't want to look at myself for a second longer.

I pick up the plate and hurl it to the ground where it shatters, glittering in the snow like ice. My mother sighs, reaches out a hand toward me.

“Oh, Beauty,” she says. “Be careful.”

I turn away from her and start to run down the path. I don't know where I'm going. The shattered fragments of the plate have cut into my feet and blood seeps into the snow. I barely notice. My mother's screams follow me.

“Beauty, there will be another dream. The third one is always
the most dangerous.”

I shake my head and keep running.

“Remember your name,” she says, but her voice is fading.
“You're beautiful, don't ever forget that.”

When I wake up I'm outside in the garden, standing in the middle of the white roses and shivering in the cold night air.

8

Beauty knocked on luna's

front door and waited, feeling as if she was about to step into an adventure. It always felt like that in Luna's house. Every corner held some impossible curiosity or a muse waiting for you to join her for tea. The wind picked up in the street behind her and Beauty shivered. Autumn was developing teeth early this year.