Dear Killer (21 page)

“Oh.”

Both of us were quiet for a moment.

“It’s wonderful how you’re taking care of Maggie. I know Michael’s death really affected her,” Dr. Marcell said suddenly. It was unexpected. No one was talking about that anymore.

“Oh, thank you. It’s only natural. She’s my friend.”

“You spend a lot of time with her.”

“She’s a good friend,” I said carefully.

Dr. Marcell looked unsatisfied. I looked out the window. It was snowing again, soft and light, like breath in the air.

“The weather’s nice,” Dr. Marcell noted. I nodded.

“It’s peaceful,” I said.

It was. There was silence over everything. There was silence and tranquillity, like a cold lake, like a day without wind. The snow always did that. Muted everything, made it fade away somehow, as if everything was something less than real.

“Cold,” she said. We laughed.

Another moment of complete silence as we both looked out the window.

“Why?” Dr. Marcell breathed.

“What?”

I don’t think she had meant to say it out loud. “What?” she asked.

“You asked why.”

“Oh, did I?”

“What did you mean?”

She halfway shrugged.

“I don’t know.” She shook her head, looked at me almost guiltily, almost suspiciously, hanging somewhere between the two emotions.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I think I was wondering why I can’t trust you,” she replied softly.

She had never said what we both knew in so many words. I had always felt and carried her silent suspicion like a burr—a constant reminder that I was, in fact, perpetually guilty—but having it so out in the open made it feel that much more real. It made me feel a bit more like Diana, a bit less like Kit. A bit more on edge, a bit less attached to the normal world around me. I took a few breaths before answering.

I smiled. “Sorry,” I said, as if her distrust were something I could fix with an apology.

“I’m sorry too.” And she was, really she was.

“For what it’s worth, I’ve enjoyed your class.”

“You’ve been a good student.”

“Thanks.”

“I’m so, so sorry.”

“That’s . . . good,” I murmured absently, not really thinking.

I exhaled and smiled again and nodded at her and picked up my things.

“Have a nice Christmas,” I said honestly.

“You too.”

I dismissed myself, having nothing more to say. I walked away toward the cereal aisle.

Dr. Marcell’s eyes followed me, always on me. I felt anxious. I felt like screaming. But everything around me was peaceful. I didn’t want to disrupt the calm.

I found my mother on the stairs past midnight. I was coming downstairs for water. Somehow I always seemed to need water near midnight. And so nearly every night I would make my way down the steep stairs, and usually I would be alone. Usually. But not tonight. Tonight my mother was sitting there on the stairs, one landing above the ground floor, underneath the black-framed photograph of the enraptured violinist, staring down at the red-green-yellow rug in the front hallway.

“Mom?” I asked faintly, seeing her there, pulling down on the hem of the overlarge T-shirt I wore to sleep because I was wearing nothing but underwear underneath. I hadn’t expected to see anyone else awake.

“Kit,” she replied, not turning to look at me, “sit down.”

For a moment anger boiled up in me—who was she to tell me what to do? But it occurred to me that perhaps it had been more of a request than an order, and so, quietly, I sat down next to her. I folded my hands in my lap. She was sitting with her head leaning against the wall, and the stairs were narrow enough so that I could lean against the railing. I wondered absently how my father would get up the stairs when he came home—or down, maybe, I realized, if he was home already. I didn’t really know. But then I remembered he was far away right now, on a trip, in America or somewhere like that, somewhere I had never been.

I looked at her hands. They hung over her knees, long and slim and graceful, just like the rest of her. They were fascinating hands. They meant so many things, those hands. They could do so many things.

Her sleek hair was mussed and wispy now, as if she had been sleeping but had woken up for some reason for the express purpose of waiting on the stairs for me.

“What do you want?” I asked gently.

“Just sit.” She sighed. And in that moment, as she looked sidelong into my eyes, she sounded distinctly like a mother. Like the mother who had swept me up on Christmas and offered me to my father and comforted me when I began to cry. That mother. That long-ago woman.

So I did what she asked. I sat with her. We sat in silence for a very long time; it was a comfortable silence, the kind of silence where we didn’t need words to fill the spaces, and even the ticking of the grandfather clock seemed almost too loud.

Eventually she spoke, her words slipping painfully through her lips like each one was taking something from her, like each word was making her vanish even more than before.

“I built this all myself,” she said.

“Built what?” I replied, looking at her, not understanding. She was half dreaming; I could see by the look in her eyes. She was so tired.

“I built this house of cards.”

“It’s not a house of cards.”

“It is, though, don’t you see? A brilliant house of cards. A castle of cards. Constructed, contrived under my fingertips. It all belongs to me. It’s beautiful, the way we live. My killings, and now yours—I taught myself everything I know, and taught you everything I learned. It’s magnificent, what we can do. But it’s like spun sugar. Our little world, our little game can be destroyed so easily, Kit. I didn’t see that before.”

I had to laugh.

“You sound like a poet,” I told her.

It made her angry.

“
Listen
to me,” she snapped. Now I was angry too.

“It will only fall apart if I’m careless. And I’m not careless. Not any longer,” I replied, perhaps a bit harshly, but it was her fault that I was angry, wasn’t it?

“That’s not . . . that’s not what I meant.” She paused. “Tomorrow’s Christmas Eve,” she said.

“Yes.”

“I’m living in a house of cards.”

I took one of her hands and held it tightly; she closed her eyes.

“You should get some sleep,” I advised. “You haven’t slept, have you?”

She shook her head.

“I’m living in a house of cards,” she said again.

“I promise I’ll be careful. I won’t ruin things, I swear. I’m a professional. I’ll make things okay. You shouldn’t worry. Trust me.”

Confidence swelled in my chest suddenly. I was the Perfect Killer. I could do anything and more. I held her hand. The grandfather clock struck one. A car passed by outside; I heard the sound of its engine, like a growling animal under the silence of a midnight sky. My mother looked infinitely sad.

“Stay with me,” she begged.

So I did. I stayed with her. It rained until three a.m., then stopped for an hour as water froze across the streets, and at about four in the morning, snow began to fall. I stayed with her until morning bloomed through the windows. We slept together, sitting on the stairs, our hands intertwined, the rhythm of our breaths synchronizing in sleep. She woke before me, and when I opened my eyes she was already gone.

Chapter 21

C
hristmas Eve.

It was neither silent nor holy. The train roared with conversation and merriment, and I could feel tonight’s latex gloves, safe in an interior pocket of my coat, pressing up against my chest. I didn’t have Maggie’s present with me; my hands were empty and cold. I didn’t see the point in bringing it. She would never get the chance to open it, anyway.

I couldn’t tell you if the train was mostly full or if it was empty, or whether it was cold or it was warm, or whether I sat alone or with someone else, because quite honestly I wasn’t paying attention. I was near the door with my hands folded over my small purse in my lap, and I was thinking too intently to register much around me except for how many stops there were until I had to get off. You’d think I’d remember something as important as that train ride. But I didn’t. I just didn’t.

I was sad. I didn’t think I would be sad. Logically I knew that she had to die. She had started a chain of events that sent me sliding. She had begun everything; she would end everything. I had to kill her in order to leave it all behind me. If I didn’t, she might make me forget how I was, revert to how I had been before, when I had gone to meet Cherry.

I had taken Michael’s challenge, and I couldn’t turn away from it. It had to be that way. Unlike Maggie and so many others, I had a
purpose
. There were things that I was meant to do, had to do. There were rules. I made a decision and I killed; there were no exceptions, and that was just the way things worked. Maggie was no different from the rest, because I couldn’t let her be, for the sake of my own sanity.

But even though I knew that much, the familiar lethargy of sadness settled over me. In the traitorous part of me that was still self-loathing, I didn’t want Maggie to die.

But even though that corner of me hated the thought, I knew she had to.

Looking back on it, I realized she had been the root of everything.

She had been the catalyst to set things in motion. She had made me her friend and led me to be enemies with Michael. It was her fault that I had taken such a stand against him—without her influence, Michael and I could have been friends, or at least passive strangers. This relationship with Michael she had created for me had led me to murder. And that murder had led me to half madness.

It all began with her. She was to blame.

I was sure of it.

In every inch of me, down to my last molecule, in every thought, in every iota of my being, I was so sure.

With Cherry, before, I hadn’t been sure, and that had been my downfall. I had been so uncertain. I wouldn’t waver now, wouldn’t waver, not even as Maggie breathed her last shuddering breath.

Michael’s letter, cut and trimmed so it was small enough to fit, was folded in a heavy, ornate locket around my neck.

I felt like crying, but I couldn’t.

Sometimes I ask myself, “What does it mean to be me?”

Whenever I ask the question, it just stares back at me. There is never any answer. Just a silence. What does it mean to be me? I don’t know. Maybe that’s just it. Maybe it doesn’t mean anything. Maybe that’s the answer. Maybe all I am is emptiness, is nothing.

As I sat on the train on the evening of December 24, all I felt like was nothing.

When Maggie said “party,” what she really meant was something more like “carnival.” Her extended family must really have been fantastic to pull a party out of a hat like this.

It was visible and audible from blocks away. I walked from the train—a rather slow, cold, desolate walk—to her house. It was a bit out of the way, and the street was more open than most of London, with trees and alleys and patches of frosted grass between the town houses so they weren’t just crunched up to one another. Much of the neighborhood was quiet, eating dinner or sitting around cozy indoor fires, but Maggie’s house—midsize to large, white, and bland, just about as exciting as oatmeal—was lit up with Christmas lights like fireworks and filled with laughter. Its cheerfulness was almost intimidating. I stood outside it for a few minutes, just staring at it. I didn’t quite want to go in. I had never been one for large crowds.

I took my phone out of my pocket, considered texting Maggie to meet me outside so I didn’t have to brave the crowd alone. But then I put it back. I wasn’t sure I wanted to have any permanent record of the fact that I had been talking to her. Not tonight at least.

I lingered on the sidewalk, watching figures pass by the window. Tall men, well-dressed women. All of them saying something, their mouths moving incessantly. It was strange. I had never imagined Maggie as a person who knew people like this.

The air chilled me. Faint wisps of snow and ice were tossed up from the sidewalk by the breeze, brushing my cheek, frosting my eyelashes. I didn’t want to go inside. I hesitated. A deep feeling sank over me. Maggie would die. I choked on my breath. Maggie would die. I took a step away from the house. Maggie would die.

There was no use in delaying it.

I made myself walk forward. Up toward the house. The sound of voices and music grew louder as I grew closer. The muddled noises turned clearer—I could hear individual people now, and the sound of a trumpet and guitar, playing on the radio, within the noise. The sounds emerged into clarity. And closer, and closer.

And then I heard the sound of a door opening, and then Maggie’s voice, behind a tall white fence that protruded from the side of the house, fencing off a small garden next to it.

“Come on, stupid dog,” she said affectionately. I heard the patter of paws and the clinking of a dog collar as Maggie and the dog came out into the snow. I didn’t know she had a dog. I changed course, away from the door and toward the gate, with a grin I forced onto my lips.

“Maggie!” I called.

“Kit, is that you?”

“Yeah, it’s me.”

“You made it!”

“I did.”

“Is your mom here?”

“Nah, she couldn’t make it, unfortunately.”

“Oh, that’s too bad.”

“She’s having dinner with some friends, so it’s fine,” I lied.

“Wait a second, I’ll let you in,” she said. I heard her walk over to the gate. After a few seconds she opened it slightly, just wide enough for me to get in without the dog escaping. I slid through the gap and into a small, quaint garden. The far end of it, covered in Astroturf, was apparently the dog’s area. I watched the dog—a small, white, fluffy thing with legs so short you could hardly see them—walking around down there for a few distracted seconds, and then I turned back to Maggie.

“You’ve got quite a party here.”

“Yeah, it is a bit big for such short notice,” she said sheepishly. “But that’s my family for you, I guess.”

We were standing next to a window. The curtains were closed. Thick, dark curtains. The windows of the house next door were closed too, and we couldn’t see any other windows on her house from where we stood.

I looked her in the eyes and forced myself to smile.

I think I had been wishing, in my heart of hearts, that it wouldn’t work, that it wouldn’t be perfect. But it was. My luck was too good. Nothing I could do about it.

No turning back now.

There was a small step in front of the door, which was hanging slightly ajar. I sat down, putting my head in my hands. I sighed.

“Something wrong?” Maggie asked, sitting down next to me.

“What?”

“You seem sort of unhappy.”

“It’s not the best day.”

“Why? It’s Christmas Eve, you should be happy.”

A pang ran through my heart.

But it had to end.

“Christmas Eve,” I mused.

“I love Christmas Eve. It’s always so cheerful. With the presents and everything. Everybody’s together, and everyone eats so much”—she giggled—“and feels sick after dinner since they eat so much.”

I pulled up my knees and put my forehead against them so my hair rustled against my cheekbones. Inside, there was music. Faint, wafting music. I recognized the song. It was Cherry Rose’s song, a new, slow song of hers that had been gaining popularity recently.

“Where have you gone,

Where will you go,

Where is your home,

Tell me, can I know . . .”

I imagined her singing it, red lips moving rhythmically, glistening, glittering in the stage light. I imagined her on a pedestal, with everyone watching her. A silhouette. Just a shadow in the dark.

“What would you do if you knew you were going to die?” I asked wearily, my voice muffled. I was speaking into my legs.

“What?” Maggie yelped. “Oh God, Kit, are you dying? Please say you’re not dying.”

I laughed, darkly amused.

“No, I’m not dying.”

Not exactly.

“I want to hold you close,

Hold you in my arms,

But when you are here,

You always do me harm. . . .”

“I’m just having a weird day,” I clarified. “I’m fine.” Under my breath, I repeated, a second time, barely audible, “I’m fine. . . .”

There was an uncomfortable pause. Maggie was thinking.

She put a hand on my shoulders carefully. I shivered under her touch. I felt the patterns of her fingertips like a firebrand.

“We’ve been through a lot this past year, haven’t we?” she said. I could feel her wistfulness. She exhaled slowly. She enjoyed our camaraderie, just like I did, our soft friendship.

“It’s been a strange year,” I agreed.

She laughed. “That’s one way to put it.”

“You’ve changed this year.”

She shrugged. “I’ve grown. We all have to grow up sometime.”

“Yeah.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to tell me what’s wrong?”

“A few minutes. A few minutes, then I’ll tell you.”

“Okay.” She rubbed my shoulder and let go.

“But really, what would you do? If you knew you were going to die?”

“Well, I already know I’m going to die. Everyone dies.”

“I mean soon.”

She laughed again. “But I’m not going to die soon.”

I hated this part of her. The insipid, emotionless part of her. She didn’t understand what I was asking.

Michael had seen this part of her as well, hadn’t he? Hadn’t he written about it?

She can’t understand anything you want to tell her—she pretends to understand, but when you really need her to understand, she just runs away like nobody matters but her.

Sometimes it seemed like all Maggie knew how to do was run. In some ways, she had changed so much—in some ways, she hadn’t changed at all.

“Never mind,” I said.

The silence was heavy.

“Really, what’s wrong?”

Snow covered everything beautifully. It dusted treetops. At the other end of the garden, the dog rolled in it.

“Your red-stained lips draw me to you—

Your dark deep words, I know they’re untrue—

Your heart encircles mine

And squeezes it tight

I want to see a sign—”

Snow over everything. Quiet. Deep. I had always liked snow. It always made things seem less real.

“But even with the dark and pain

Even though things can never be the same,

Yes, you know it’s true—

I still love you.”

I stood up and looked at the dog.

“Come on,” I called. “Come on.” With a yap, the dog came running. Maggie smiled as it ran around my legs. I reached down and petted it, and then I opened the door to let it inside. It went in happily, nails clicking against the hardwood floor. I closed the door again.

I stared at the white door. It needed new paint. It wasn’t exactly worn, but it had a faded feeling to it, a tired feeling. Light leaked out from the window from my left, warm, making the white paint seem almost yellow.

I shivered.

It was cold.

Maggie was wearing a dress that wasn’t warm enough for the weather. It was red, like blood, like Cherry’s dress on the CD cover. She stood, her curly dark hair bouncing, a half smile on her lips.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

I stared at the door. I found the faint whorls of wood beneath the paint. I traced my eyes along each one, memorizing every line.

“Kit?”

I closed my eyes.

It was time.

I remembered the door, every inch. And then I made myself forget it, forget everything, and then I became someone else.

I breathed out. I smelled peppermint in the air.

Something
burned
through my skin, illuminating me from the inside out.

Just
burned
.

I opened my eyes.

“No,” I said, “That’s not my name.”

“Yes it is,” Maggie said, as if she knew everything, and took a step toward me.

I turned.

I would end this now.

“No,” I said, “I’m not Kit.”

She stared at me, unseeing.

I smiled.

And burned and burned and burned.

“I’m Diana,” I said.

I’m Diana.

I walked in the front door with a smile. My gloves were quietly buried in a corner of the neighbor’s garden, washed out with their hose so none of my fingerprints would stick to the inside of the fingers if the police somehow found them. I had to go to the party; there was definitely surveillance footage of me coming here, somewhere along the way, and if I were caught on camera again, leaving so soon without joining the festivities, it would look incredibly suspicious. It was only natural that I would be at the party, anyway. Maggie was my friend, after all. There was nothing suspicious in it.

I couldn’t go home. I couldn’t just run. Running was too simple. Things were more complicated than that. I had to face the moment.

Right?

Oh, I didn’t know. My thoughts were a blurred jumble.

I was stainless. My locket was empty.

I walked around the room casually, drinking ice water. They would find her eventually. It was only a matter of time.