Oliver remembered the old man chastising him in his dream. Before he could even sort out his words, wishing to give her some solace, some sign he wasn’t completely unsympathetic, he said, “It can’t be all bad, being a whore.”
“Maybe not,” she said. Miss Parkhurst hardly made a blot in the larger shadows. She might just fly away to dust if he turned his head.
“You said being a whore is being empty inside. Not everybody who’s empty inside is a whore.”
“Oh?” she replied, light as a cobweb. He was being pushed into an uncharacteristic posture, but Oliver was damned if he’d give in just yet, however much a fool he made of himself. His mixed feelings were betraying him.
“You’ve lived,” he said. “You got memories nobody else has. You could write books. They’d make movies about you.”
Her smile was a dull lamp in the shadows. “I’ve had important people visit me,” she said. “Powerful men, even mayors. I had something they needed. Sometimes they opened up and talked about how hard it was not being little boys anymore. Sometimes, when we were relaxing, they’d cry on my shoulder, just like I was their momma. But then they’d go away and try to forget about me. If they remembered at all, they were scared of me, because of what I knew about them. Now, they know I’m getting weak,” she said. “I don’t give a damn about books or movies. I won’t tell what I know, and besides, lots of those men are dead. If they aren’t, they’re waiting for me to die, so they can sleep easy.”
“What do you mean, getting weak?”
“I got two days, maybe three, then I die a whore. My time is up. The curse is almost finished.”
Oliver gaped. When he had first seen her, she had seemed as powerful as a diesel locomotive, as if she might live forever.
“And if I take over?”
“You get the mansion, the money.”
“How much power?”
She didn’t answer.
“You can’t give me any power, can you?”
“No,” faint as the breeze from her eyelashes.
“The opener won’t be any good.”
“No.”
“You lied to me.”
“I’ll leave you all that’s left.”
“That’s not why you made me come here. You took Momma—”
“She stole from me.”
“My momma never stole anything!” Oliver shouted. The iron coffins buzzed.
“She took something after I had given her all my hospitality.” “What could she take from you? She was no thief.”
“She took a sheet of music.”
Oliver’s face screwed up in sudden pain. He looked away, fists clenched. They had almost no money for his music. More often than not since his father died, he made up music, having no new scores to play. “Why’d you bring me here?” he croaked.
“I don’t mind dying. But I don’t want to die a whore.”
Oliver turned back, angry again, this time for his momma as well as himself. He approached the insubstantial shadow. Miss Parkhurst shimmered like a curtain. “What do you want from me?”
“I need someone who loves me. Loves me for no reason.”
For an instant, he saw standing before him a scrawny girl in a red shimmy, eyes wide. “How could that help you? Can that make you something else?”
“Just love,” she said. “Just letting me forget all these”—she pointed to the coffins—“and all those,” pointing up.
Oliver’s body lost its charge of anger and accusation with an exhaled breath. “I can’t love you,” he said. “I don’t even know what love is.” Was this true? Upstairs, she had burned in his mind, and he had wanted her, though it upset him to remember how much. What could he feel for her? “Let’s go back now. I have to look in on Momma.”
Miss Parkhurst emerged from the shadows and walked past him silently, not even her skirts rustling. She gestured with a finger for him to follow.
She left him at the door to his room, saying, “I’ll wait in the main parlor.” Oliver saw a small television set on the nightstand by his bed and rushed to turn it on. The screen filled with static and unresolved images. He saw fragments of faces, patches of color and texture passing so quickly he couldn’t make them out. The entire city might be on the screen at once, but he could not see any of it clearly. He twisted the channel knob and got more static. Then he saw the label past channel 13 on the dial: HOME, in small golden letters. He twisted the knob to that position and the screen cleared.
Momma lay in bed, legs drawn tightly up, hair mussed.
She didn’t look good. Her hand, stretched out across the bed, trembled. Her breathing was hard and rough. In the background, Oliver heard Yolanda fussing with the babies, finally screaming at her older brothers in frustration.
Why don’t you help with the babies? his sister demanded in a tinny, distant voice.
Momma told you, Denver replied.
She did not. She told us all. You could help.
Reggie laughed. We got to make plans.
Oliver pulled back from the TV. Momma was sick, and for all his brothers and sister and the babies could do, she might die. He could guess why she was sick, too; with worry for him. He had to go to her and tell her he was all right. A phone call wouldn’t be enough.
Again, however, he was reluctant to leave the mansion and Miss Parkhurst. Something beyond her waning magic was at work here; he wanted to listen to her and to experience more of that fascinated horror. He wanted to watch her again, absorb her smooth, ancient beauty. In a way, she needed him as much as Momma did. Miss Parkhurst outraged everything in him that was lawful and orderly, but he finally had to admit, as he thought of going back to Momma, that he enjoyed the outrage.
He clutched the gold opener and ran from his room to the parlor. She waited for him there in a red velvet chair, hands gripping two lions at the end of the armrests. The lions’ wooden faces grinned beneath her caresses. “I got to go,” he said. “Momma’s sick for missing me.”
She nodded. “I’m not holding you,” she said.
He stared at her. “I wish I could help you,” he said.
She smiled hopefully, pitifully. “Then promise you’ll come back.”
Oliver wavered. How long would Momma need him?
What if he gave his promise and returned and Miss Parkhurst was already dead?
“I promise.”
“Don’t be too long,” she said.
“Won’t,” he mumbled.
The limousine waited for him in the garage, white and beautiful, languid and sleek and fast all at once. No chauffeur waited for him this time. The door opened by itself and he climbed in; the door closed behind him, and he leaned back stiffly on the leather seats, gold opener in hand. “Take me home,” he said. The glass partition and the windows all around darkened to an opaque smoky gold. He felt a sensation of smooth motion. What would it be like to have this kind of power all the time?
But the power wasn’t hers to give.
Oliver arrived before the apartment building in a blizzard of swirling snow. Snow packed up over the curbs and coated the sidewalks a foot deep; Sleepside was heavy with winter. Oliver stepped from the limousine and climbed the icy steps, the cold hardly touching him even in his light clothing. He was surrounded by Miss Parkhurst’s magic.
Denver was frying a pan of navy beans in the kitchen when Oliver burst through the door, the locks flinging themselves open before them. Oliver paused in the entrance to the kitchen. Denver stared at him, face slack, too surprised to speak.
“Where’s Momma?”
Yolanda heard his voice in the living room and screamed.
Reggie met him in the hallway, arms open wide, smiling broadly. “Goddamn, little brother! You got away?”
“Where’s Momma?”
“She’s in her room. She’s feeling low.”
“She’s sick,” Oliver said, pushing past his brother. Yolanda stood before Momma’s door as if to keep Oliver out. She sucked her lower lip between her teeth. She looked
scared.
“Let me by, Yolanda,” Oliver said. He almost pointed the opener at her, and then pulled back, fearful of what might happen.
“You made Momma si-ick,” Yolanda squeaked, but she stepped aside. Oliver pushed through the door to Momma’s room. She sat up in bed, face drawn and thin, but her eyes danced with joy. “My boy!” She sighed. “My beautiful boy.”
Oliver sat beside her and they hugged fiercely. “Please don’t leave me again,” Momma said, voice muffled by his shoulder. Oliver set the opener on her flimsy nightstand and cried against her neck.
The day after Oliver’s return, Denver stood lank-legged by the window, hands in frayed pants pockets, staring at the snow with heavy-lidded eyes. “It’s too cold to go anywhere now,” he mused.
Reggie sat in their father’s chair, face screwed in thought. “I listened to what he told Momma,” he said. “That whore sent our little brother back here in a limo. A big white limo. See it out there?”
Denver peered down at the street. A white limousine waited at the curb, not even dusted by snow. A tiny vanishing curl of white rose from its tailpipe. “It’s still there,” he said.
“Did you see what he had when he came in?” Reggie asked. Denver shook his head. “A gold box. She must have given that to him. I bet whoever has that gold box can visit Miss Belle Parkhurst. Want to bet?”
Denver grinned and shook his head again.
“Wouldn’t be too cold if we had that limo, would it?” Reggie asked.
Oliver brought his momma chicken soup and a half-rotten, carefully trimmed orange. He plumped her pillow for her, shushing her, telling her not to talk until she had eaten. She smiled weakly, beatific, and let him minister to her. When she had eaten, she lay back and closed her eyes, tears pooling in their hollows before slipping down her cheeks. “I was so afraid for you,” she said. “I didn’t know what she would do. She seemed so nice at first. I didn’t see her. Just her voice, inviting me in over the security buzzer, letting me sit and rest my feet. I knew where I was ... was it bad of me, to stay there, knowing?”
“You were tired, Momma,” Oliver said. “Besides, Miss Parkhurst isn’t that bad.”
Momma looked at him dubiously. “I saw her piano. There was a shelf next to it with the most beautiful sheet music you ever saw, even big books of it. I looked at some. Oh, Oliver, I’ve never taken anything in my life...” She cried freely now, sapping what little strength the lunch had given her.
“Don’t you worry, Momma. She used you. She wanted me to come.” As an afterthought, he added, not sure why he lied, “Or Yolanda.”
Momma absorbed that while her eyes examined his face in tiny, caressing glances. “You won’t go back,” she said, “will you?”
Oliver looked down at the sheets folded under her arms. “I promised. She’ll die if I don’t,” he said.
“That woman is a liar,” Momma stated unequivocally. “If she wants you, she’ll do anything to get you.”
“I don’t think she’s lying, Momma.”
She looked away from him, a feverish anger flushing her cheeks. “Why did you promise her?”
“She’s not that bad, Momma,” he said again. He had thought that coming home would clear his mind, but Miss Parkhurst’s face, her plea, stayed with him as if she were only a room away. The mansion seemed just a fading dream, unimportant; but Belle Parkhurst stuck. “She needs help. She wants to change.”
Momma puffed out her cheeks and blew through her lips like a horse. She had often done that to his father, never before to him. “She’ll always be a whore,” she said.
Oliver’s eyes narrowed. He saw a spitefulness and bitterness in Momma he hadn’t noticed before. Not that spite was unwarranted; Miss Parkhurst had treated Momma roughly. Yet...
Denver stood in the doorway. “Reggie and I got to talk to Momma,” he said. “About you.” He jerked his thumb back over his shoulder. “Alone.” Reggie stood grinning behind his brother. Oliver took the tray of dishes and sidled past them, going into the kitchen.
In the kitchen, he washed the last few days’ plates methodically, letting the lukewarm water slide over his hands, eyes focused on the faucet’s dull gleam. He had almost lost track of time when he heard the front door slam. Jerking his head up, he wiped the last plate and put it away, then went to Momma’s room. She looked back at him guiltily. Something was wrong. He searched the room with his eyes, but nothing was out of place. Nothing that was normally present...
The opener.
His brothers had taken the gold opener.
“Momma!” he said.
“They’re going to pay her a visit,” she said, the bitterness plain now. “They don’t like their momma mistreated.”
It was getting dark and the snow was thick. He had hoped to return this evening. If Miss Parkhurst hadn’t lied, she would be very weak by now, perhaps dead tomorrow. His lungs seemed to shrink within him, and he had a hard time taking a breath.
“I’ve got to go,” he said. “She might kill them, Momma!” But that wasn’t what worried him. He put on his heavy coat, then his father’s old cracked rubber boots with the snow tread soles. Yolanda came out of the room she shared with the babies. She didn’t ask any questions, just watched him dress for the cold, her eyes dull.
“They got that gold box,” she said as he flipped the last metal clasp on the boots. “Probably worth a lot.”
Oliver hesitated in the hallway, then grabbed Yolanda’s shoulders and shook her vigorously. “You take care of Momma, you hear?”
She shut her jaw with a clack and shoved free. Oliver was out the door before she could speak.
Day’s last light filled the sky with a deep peachy glow tinged with cold gray. Snow fell golden above the buildings and smudgy brown within their shadow. The wind swirled around him mournfully, sending gust-fingers through his coat searching for any warmth that might be stolen. For a nauseating moment, all his resolve was sucked away by a vacuous pit of misery. The streets were empty; he briefly wondered what night this was, and then remembered it was the twenty-third of December, but too cold for whatever stray shoppers Sleepside might send out. Why go? To save two worthless idiots? Not that so much, although that would have been enough, since their loss would hurt Momma, and they were his brothers; not that so much as his promise. And something else.
He was afraid for Belle Parkhurst.
He buttoned his coat collar and leaned into the wind. He hadn’t put on a hat. The heat flew from his scalp, and in a few moments he felt drained and exhausted. But he made it to the subway entrance and staggered down the steps, into the warmer heart of the city, where it was always sixty-four degrees.
Locked behind her thick glass and metal booth, wrinkled eyes weary with night’s wisdom, the fluorescent-lighted token seller took his money and dropped cat’s head tokens into the steel tray with separate, distinct chinks. Oliver glanced at her face and saw the whore’s printed there instead; this middle-aged woman did not spread her legs for money, but had sold her youth and life away sitting in this cavern. Whose emptiness was more profound?
“Be careful,” she warned vacantly through the speaker grill. “Night Metro any minute now.”
He dropped a token into the turnstile and pushed through, then stood shivering on the platform, waiting for the Sunside train. It seemed to take forever to arrive, and when it did, he was not particularly relieved. The driver’s pit-eyes winked green, bull’s head turning as the train slid to a halt beside the platform. The doors opened with an oiled groan, and Oliver stepped aboard, into the hard, cold, and unforgiving glare of the train’s interior.
At first, Oliver thought the car was empty. He did not sit down, however. The hair on his neck and arm bristled. Hand gripping a stainless steel handle, he leaned into the train’s acceleration and took a deep, half-hiccup breath.
He first consciously noticed the other passengers as their faces gleamed in silhouette against the passing dim lights of ghost stations. They sat almost invisible, crowding the
car; they stood beside him, less substantial than a breath of air. They watched him intently, bearing no ill will for the moment, perhaps not yet aware that he was alive and they were not. They carried no overt signs of their wounds, but how they had come to be here was obvious to his animal instincts.
This train carried holiday suicides: men, women, teenagers, even a few children, delicate as expensive crystal in a shop window. Maybe the bull’s head driver collected them, culling them out and caging them as they stumbled randomly aboard his train. Maybe he controlled them.
Oliver tried to sink away in his coat. He felt guilty, being alive and healthy, enveloped in strong emotions; they were so flimsy, with so little hold on this reality.
He muttered a prayer, stopping as they all turned toward him, showing glassy disapproval at this reverse blasphemy. Silently, he prayed again, but even that seemed to irritate his fellow passengers, and they squeaked among themselves in voices that only a dog or a bat might hear.
The stations passed one by one, mosaic symbols and names flashing in pools of light. When the Sunside station approached and the train slowed, Oliver moved quickly to the door. It opened with oily grace. He stepped onto the platform, turned, and bumped up against the tall, dark uniform of the bull’s head driver. The air around him stank of grease and electricity and something sweeter, perhaps blood. He stood a bad foot and a half taller than Oliver, and in one outstretched, black-nailed, leathery hand he held his long silver shears, points spread wide, briefly suggesting Belle Parkhurst’s horizontal position among the old men.
“You’re in the wrong place, at the wrong time,” the driver warned in a voice deeper than the train motors. “Down here, I can cut your cord.” He closed the shears with a slick, singing whisper.
“I’m going to Miss Parkhurst’s,” Oliver said, voice quavering.
“Who?” the driver asked.
“I’m leaving now,” Oliver said, backing away. The driver followed, slowly hunching over him. The shears sang open, angled toward his eyes. The crystal dead within the train passed through the open door and glided around them. Gluey waves of cold shivered the air.