Moonglow (12 page)

Chapter 9

My house is quiet. The only sound comes from the clock ticking in the kitchen. Even the voices that often fill my head are silent, taking a much-needed rest and leaving me alone. I would like nothing more than to stop, stand still, and melt into the silence, lose myself in the absence of sound. But I can't. I don't have that luxury. I'm still visible, which means I can still be caught.

Standing in the living room I close the door behind me, careful not to make a sound. The sun hasn't fully risen yet, so only a dull light penetrates the curtains, illuminating the lower half of my body; the rest of me remains in darkness where it wants to be, where it belongs. Slowly, I walk up the stairs, thankful my father either forgot or was too busy to follow through on his promise to pull up the carpet. My footsteps are cushioned; on hardwood my arrival could not be kept secret.

I pause at the top of the stairs when I see a light peeking out from under my brother's door. He's awake. All he has to do is open his door and I'm screwed. One step, two steps, only a few more until I reach my bedroom door, until I can retreat into my own privacy and start to put this nightmare behind me. My hand hovers over the doorknob, and I watch it shake. I'm a fool. This nightmare isn't ending; it's only just beginning. With one eye on Barnaby's door, I grip the knob and turn it. I don't want to be caught unaware at the last second. I push; I'm inside; I'm free. I'm not.

“You are in so much trouble.”

In the shimmerlight I see Barnaby sitting on my bed. He's fully dressed; his ankles are crossed. He's been waiting for me, waiting for this moment since I strangled him or perhaps since the moment he realized that as his big sister I would always make him feel inferior. Now he has the upper hand to watch me squirm under his superiority and beg for his silence. Sorry to disappoint him, but he's waited in vain.

“Get out of my room.”

My voice is unraised, but unwavering.

“Dad's been out looking for you all night,” he says. His hands are holding the sides of the mattress, his crossed legs lifting up, then down, up, then down. It's like he's on a swing and enjoying every moment of his ride. “Where were you all night long?” Barnaby asks. “Doing it with Caleb?”

I hate to spoil my brother's fun, but I need some alone time. I grab him by the shoulder and pull him off my bed. He wriggles, trying to break free of my hold, and I jerk forward, my jacket opening up to reveal my torn shirt underneath. Barnaby loses his bravado; I'm still his flesh and blood, and he turns as white as three-quarters of my walls.

“What happened to you?” He can't take his eyes off my chest, and it's not because he's trying to get a quick look at my bra. He's frightened.

“Nothing,” I reply. A stupid thing to say, but it's all I've got.

“What do you mean
nothing?
” Finally Barnaby looks me in the eye, and he looks more concerned than I've ever seen him look before. Looks like my nightmare is going to be shared. “Your shirt's all t-t-torn up,” he stutters. “And . . . and you've got scratches.”

“Shut up, runt!” I let go of Barnaby so I can cover myself up. “I told you it's nothing.”

“Did Caleb do this to you?” he asks. “Dominy, did Caleb hurt you?”

Three wrinkles appear on Barnaby's forehead, the exact same wrinkles that appear on my father's forehead when he asks a serious question. If nothing else my father and brother will be forever connected by three squiggly lines that appear on their flesh. They'll never be able to deny each other like they're going to want to deny me.

“No, I wasn't with Caleb.”

“Then who were you with?” Barnaby insists. “Who did this to you?!”

His voice catches with fear, and now he not only looks like my father, but he sounds like him too. He's afraid something terrible has happened to me. If he only knew the whole truth his expression would change, but he can't; he can't find out what really happened. No one can.

“It's none of your business!” I scream. “Get out of here!”

I want him to stop asking questions that I can't answer; I want him to stop staring at me with my father's face; I want him out of my room. One strong shove and I get my wish. Barnaby stumbles backward and falls onto the floor; shock and pain register in his eyes. I slam the door and lock it. I hear him scramble to his feet, then I hear him bang on the door.

“Dominy!!”

Between the ferocity of his voice and his fists, I expect the door to splinter into millions of little pieces. I step back because I seriously don't think the door stands a chance against Barnaby's rage, and I am about to crouch down behind my bed to take cover from the inevitable flying shards of wood when the banging and the yelling suddenly stops. The silence is deafening, and I can't hear a thing; it's when I venture closer to the door that I hear his voice.

“Dad, she's home!”

I don't think—I don't have time—I just act. I kick off my sneakers and grab some dirty but untorn clothes from my bedroom floor, fling open my door, startling Barnaby, who's standing right on the other side holding his cell phone, and run to the bathroom. The lock clicks shut just as I hear Barnaby shout.

“Come home now, Dad!” my brother squeals. “Something bad happened!”

I laugh out loud when I hear that. I guess my killing Jess could be described as bad. It can also be described as insane, unconscionable, “twenty to life” in state prison. All of the above. Laughing turns to sobbing, and I can feel my body shake; I think I'm pacing the tiled floor of the bathroom, but who knows? I could be standing still; I could be jumping out the window. It's like my body and my mind are disconnected, like those skew lines we learned about in geometry, living independent of each other, destined never to connect.

My knees crash to the floor, and the skew lines are given a jolt. Suddenly my mind and my body crash into each other, and I crawl to the toilet bowl just in time to throw up my guts. My legs feel like hundred-pound weights that are being pulled away from me, and I clutch the side of the bowl, closing my eyes so I don't have to see the mess, the vile disgust that's rupturing out of my body. But I can taste it, and I recognize it. It's the bitter taste from last night, and a sick, twisted part of my mind wants to swallow because I remember how much I liked it. Violently, I shake my head to prevent that from happening, and I can hear myself scream while retching.

Somewhere off in the distance I can hear my brother calling out to me, telling me that my father is coming home, that it's all going to be okay.
It's never going to be okay,
I want to shout. Nothing, not me, not him, not this family is ever going to be okay again after what happened. He sounds like he's crying, and I want to tell him to save his tears for someone who deserves them.

I spit once more into the toilet then flush away the foul contents. Looking in the mirror, I'm startled because I look normal. A little pale, but otherwise completely normal. Until I take off my shirt. Across my chest, just below my neck, are four scratches, four more perfect skew lines that will never connect but are forever linked. They're brownish, littered with small crusty blotches of dried blood that are even darker, and they run about six inches long. Not very deep, hardly life-threatening, but a reminder that Jess fought against me before I took her life. A symbol of my guilt. Then I remember that they are connected, not to Jess, but to my father. My scars are exactly the same as the scars on my father's face in my dream.

I can't look at myself anymore so I bury my face in my hands, which only makes me feel worse because my fingernails are still chock-full of Jess's skin. Luckily, my stomach is empty, so when I lean over the sink I just gag; nothing comes out.

Furiously I wash my hands until I think they're going to bleed. I rummage through the drawers underneath the sink until I find the brush with the soft ivory bristles that was given to me by an aunt years ago, but that I have never used, and start scrubbing my fingernails. I stop when they feel raw. Tentatively I look at my fingers and let out a deep sigh; I let out the breath that I've been holding in. They're clean.

“She's in the bathroom!”

My brother's voice echoes off the tiles as if he's in the room with me. I hear my father bounding up the steps; sounds like he's taking them two at a time. He's as eager to see me as I am not to see him. Quickly, I take off my clothes and put on new underwear and jeans. Just as I'm putting on the T-shirt that I swiped from my bedroom floor, my father bangs on the door.

“Dominy, open up!”

One last look in the mirror and it's remarkable; I look fine. I can do this. I can look my father in the eye and lie that nothing bad happened last night. No cover story is formulating in my brain at the moment, but I'm sure when the time comes inspiration will strike. Before I can turn to unlock the door, reality strikes first.

Decorating the sink are tiny pieces of Jess's flesh. Pieces of pink staining the otherwise white porcelain. She won't leave! She won't stay away from me. It's like she wants to remind me that I can't run from what I've done. I've taken her life, and she's prepared to haunt me for the rest of mine.

“Dominy!”

I've never heard my father scream at me like this. I've never heard him scream at anyone like this before. Sounds as if we're all entering new territory.

“Open this door right now or I'm breaking it down!”

I twist the water faucet and watch Jess's flesh begin to swirl around the sink in a clockwise motion. Round and round and round and round. I don't have time to wait, so I help it out and push the pink clumps into the drain. When my father bursts into the bathroom, the sink is empty; there's not a trace of Jess to be found. Except in the vibrant silence that separates me from my father.

We stare at each other. I'm so preoccupied with my own thoughts and emotions that I have no idea what's going on inside my father's head. He looks like he hasn't slept; he looks like he's been out searching for me for hours, but he also looks incredibly grateful that he's finally found me alive.

His hand reaches out to grab the counter. I think he's going to fall, but he only needs strength to speak, to ask the question he doesn't want to know the answer to.

“What happened last night?”

Before I can stop myself, I cross my arms in front of my chest. I know I look defensive, but I can't help it. Could be that I'm still just self-conscious and trying to hide my fingers from his view; I don't know. I also don't know what to say. Inspiration has not come; it's abandoned me. So without a plan B, I answer my father's question with the truth. Well, part of it anyway.

“I don't know.”

My father doesn't need to use the bathroom counter as a crutch any longer; he's got his strength back. “That's not good enough, Dominy,” he says. “You were supposed to be home before dark so we could celebrate your birthday. Now tell me, where were you?”

The force of my father's question makes me take a step back, but my shoulders hit the tiled shower wall that juts out from the counter. There's nowhere for me to go. I feel trapped; the feeling is uncomfortable and unnatural, and I don't like it. Unfortunately, my father is standing in front of the only exit, and Barnaby is right behind him, so it's the feeling I'm stuck with. There's nothing I can do to change things.

“I was out,” I reply, trying to sound casual, but coming off defiant.

“Where?!”

Oh my God! If he's so insistent to know the truth, I'll tell him. “By the hills!”

A wave of panic spreads across my father's face; he wasn't expecting this. Clearly he was hoping I was going to say something else, like that I
was
doing it all night with Caleb. That's not how a father wants his daughter to spend her sixteenth birthday, but better to lose her virginity than begin a career as a homicidal maniac. He takes a step closer to me, and it looks like he's wading through water; it takes effort for him just to move his leg. “Why?” He's exerted so much energy, he can only utter one word before he has to regroup to be able to speak again. “Why were you by the hills?”

The smooth tile feels like a series of sharp needles jutting into my back, and I can't stand still. This interrogation has gone on long enough. Darting to the right I try to get around my father, but despite his tired, weary appearance, he's too quick for me. He is a cop, and he's used to dealing with antsy criminals who freak out when they're cornered.

“Look at her shirt!” Barnaby cries. “It's all torn up.”

It doesn't matter that Barnaby is trying to do the right thing, that he's trying to help me by offering my father proof that something terrible happened last night; when I look at him all I see is my spiteful little brother who's only motive in life is to get me into trouble. A low grunt escapes from my lips as a reminder to him that I will make him pay.

“Show me,” my father commands. He's existing somewhere in between being a father and being a cop. Face filled with fear, voice dripping with authority. There's absolutely no way I'm getting out of this one, so I bend down to grab my ripped T-shirt from the floor and hand it to my father. He takes it from me and holds it tenderly in his hands like he just delivered a newborn. His eyes fill up with wonder and amazement; he's acting as if my T-shirt, like a baby, is a product of destiny.

“How did this happen?” my father asks, his voice now barely a whisper.

Once again I don't know how to respond, but it doesn't matter; Barnaby answers for me. “She was in a fight.”