The Face of Death

45

'YOU'RE BAD LUCK, PRINCESS,' KAREN WATSON SAID AS THEY drove away from Ned and Desiree's. 'Some people just have bad luck. Yours rubs off on the people around you.'

Sarah sneered. 'Maybe I'll get really lucky someday, and my bad luck will rub off on you, Ms. Watson.'

Karen glanced over at Sarah. Her eyes narrowed. 'Keep talking like that and it'll be a long time before I let you back into any foster home.'

Sarah turned back to the side window. 'I don't care.'

'Really? Fine. Then you can stay in a group home till you're eighteen.'

'I said I don't care.'

Sarah kept her gaze fixed on the scenery rolling by. Karen felt dismissed. This made her angry. Who the hell did this kid think she was? Didn't she understand what a burden she was?

Screw it. She'd dismiss Sarah right back.

'You can rot in there then, for all I care.'

Sarah didn't reply. Karen Watson had gotten under her skin, as always, but only for a moment. The numbness had settled back in, bringing that thousand-pound weight along with it. Sarah had been taken to an emergency room and examined. She had a mild concussion (whatever that was), which meant she wasn't supposed to go to sleep. Everything else was bruised and hurt, but no major damage had been done. Not on the outside, at least. Ned, Desiree, Pumpkin. Mommy, Daddy, Buster.

Your love is death.

She was starting to believe that this was true. Everyone she'd ever loved was gone forever.

A twinge of uncertainty.

Except for Cathy. And Theresa. And maybe Doreen, if she was still alive.

Sarah sighed.

Theresa was in jail. Surely that was enough for The Stranger, for now. She could decide what to do about her foster-sister when she got out. As for Cathy, she was a policewoman, she should be able to keep herself safe, right? Right?

She'd have to worry about that later. She had other things to concentrate on, for now. Sarah had learned the lessons of the group home from her last stay there. She had no intention of starting out at the bottom of the food chain again.

Janet was still skinny, and still running things at the home. She remained oblivious to the perils of the place. Janet was the worst kind of do-gooder: one who was incapable of recognizing evil. She gave Sarah a sympathetic nod.

'Hi, Sarah.'

'Hi.'

'I know what happened. Are you in a lot of pain?'

The answer was yes, but Sarah shook her head.

'I'm okay. I'd just like to lie down.'

Janet nodded. 'You can't go to sleep, though. You know that?'

'Yeah.'

'Do you need help with your bag?'

'No, thanks.'

Janet led her down the familiar hallways. Nothing had changed in a year.

Probably nothing has changed in the last ten years.

'Here you go. Only two doors down from your old room.'

'Thanks, Janet.'

'Sure.' The skinny woman turned to walk away.

'Janet? Is Kirsten still here?'

Janet stopped and looked back at Sarah. 'Kirsten was killed by another girl three months ago. They got into a fight and things got out of hand.'

Sarah stared at Janet and swallowed once.

'Oh,' she managed. 'Okay.'

The skinny woman looked worried. 'Are you going to be all right?'

Sarah had a hundred pounds of iron sitting on the top of her head. Numbness. Hug it tight.

'I'm fine.'

Sarah had unpacked her things and settled into her bunk to wait. She'd arrived in the late afternoon; the dorm would remain pretty much empty until early evening. That's when she knew she'd have to make her move.

Her head still ached, but at least she wasn't nauseous anymore. Sarah hated barfing.

Nobody likes it, dummy.

Someone who'd had a more normal life might worry about talking to themselves so much. The thought never occurred to Sarah; when you were alone as much as she was, you talked to yourself to keep from going crazy, not because you were.

Numbness cloaked her, soaked her, bonded with her DNA. Sarah felt that she'd crossed a threshold of pain. Sadness, grief--these emotions had to be suppressed. They'd grown too large to let roam free. They'd eat her up if she let them out of their cages. Other emotions were allowed. Like anger. Like rage. She could feel them building inside her. A well had been dug in her soul and it was filling up with darkish, violent things. A beast of a dog lapped at the well and wouldn't stop growling. She wondered how long she could keep it leashed, or if she could at all.

With all of it had come a tectonic shift in pragmatism. Survival was her god. All else was illusion.

I'm changing. Just like he wanted me to.

How?

I think I could kill someone now if I had to. I couldn't have done that when I was six.

Happy birthday.

She twirled a strand of hair in her fingers and smiled an empty smile.

I broke a girl's finger and I took her bunk, and that was that. I was top dog of the room again, queen of all I surveyed. Hey, don't make that face.

I'm not proud of what I did, but I did what I had to. Besides, I have a lot more in common with that 'me' at nine than I do with the 'me' at six. The 'me' at six is long gone and buried deep. 46

When I look back and write this, I think Cathy becomes my mirror. A way to look at how I was through someone else's eyes. I wonder: Did she think these things? Or am I putting my own words in her mouth? Maybe a little bit of both? Maybe Cathy was Cathy, but in these pages, Cathy is also the me-now looking back at the me-then. Hea-vy, man. . . .

CATHY WAS DISMAYED BY WHAT SHE SAW HAPPENING WITH

Sarah. But what else was new?

It was Sarah's eleventh birthday. Cathy had come by with a simple offering--a cupcake and a single candle. Sarah had smiled at this, but Cathy could tell she was being polite.

What bothered Cathy the most was Sarah's eyes. They weren't open and expressive they way they'd once been. They were full of walls and blank spaces and watchfulness. The eyes of a poker player, or a prisoner. Cathy was familiar with eyes like this; she saw them on hardened street-hookers and career criminals. They said: I know how things work, I'm watching you, and Don't even think about taking what's mine. Cathy had recognized other changes over the last two years. She knew that Sarah was the 'head girl' of her dorm and she had a pretty good guess as to how that had come about. The other girls deferred to Sarah. Sarah's attitude toward them was dismissive. It was prison mentality, the rule of power and violence. Sarah seemed to have learned it well.

Why are you surprised? This place is might-makes-right in spades. Cathy was frustrated by her own inability