to provide hope. She hadn't been able to convince anyone else of her belief in Sarah's story of The Stranger. Truth be told, lying in bed at night, she wasn't sure she'd completely convinced herself. She'd tried, she'd failed, and while Sarah had told her it was no big deal, Cathy knew this was a baldfaced lie. It mattered. Cathy had been doing what she could. She'd gotten copies of the case files on the deaths of Sarah's parents, and the murders of Ned and Desiree. She'd spent many nights after work poring over them, looking for hints and inconsistencies. She'd even found some. In this way, at least, she and Sarah still connected. Life came into those hard eyes when they discussed the cases. The fact that Cathy believed her was important to Sarah. It mattered.
But we're losing you, aren't we, Sarah? This place and your life are killing you off. Right in front of my eyes.
'I have some news about Theresa,' Cathy said.
A spark of interest.
'What?'
'She's getting paroled in three weeks.'
Sarah looked away. 'That's nice.' Her voice sounded faint.
'She wants to see you.'
'No!' The word snapped out with a vehemence that startled the cop.
Cathy waited, chewed her lip.
'Do you mind if I ask why?'
All the blankness and hardness and distance vanished, replaced by a naked desperation that made Cathy's heart ache.
'Because of him, ' Sarah whispered, her voice urgent. 'The Stranger. If he knows I love her, then he'll kill her.'
'Sarah, I--'
Sarah reached across the table, grabbing Cathy's hands with her own. 'Promise me, Cathy. Promise me that you'll make her stay away.'
The cop stared at the eleven-year-old for a long moment before nodding. 'Okay, Sarah,' she said in a quiet voice. 'Okay. What do you want me to tell her?'
'Tell her I don't want to see her while I'm in here. She'll understand.'
'You're sure?'
Sarah smiled, a tired smile. 'I'm sure.' She bit her lower lip. 'But tell her . . . it won't be long. When I get out of this place, I'll find a way to get in touch with her. A way we can be safe.'
The smile and the spark and the urgency all vanished. The blankness was back. Sarah stood up, grabbing the cupcake. 'I have to go,'
she said.
'You don't want to light the candle?'
'Nope.'
Cathy watched Sarah walk away. The young girl walked straight and tall, a walk that said she was sure of herself without having to double check. She looked small to Cathy. The swagger only emphasized it.
Sarah lay back on her bunk, bit into the cupcake, and eyed the envelope. It was addressed to her, care of the group home. There was no return address, just a stamp and postmark. It was the first piece of mail she'd ever gotten, and she didn't like it. Just open it.
Okay. Maybe it's from Theresa.
She thought about Theresa almost every day. Sometimes she dreamed about her foster-sister, fantasy dreams where they sailed or flew away together. The places they came to were never dark and always had signs posted that proclaimed: No Sorrow Or Monsters Allowed.
Those dreams left Sarah wishing she could sleep forever. Theresa was the hub around which Sarah's only wheel of hope spun. She ripped the envelope open. It contained a simple white card. On the front it said, Thinking of you on your birthday. She frowned and flipped up the front. Inside was drawn a picture of a domino, next to it the words Be A Wild Thing.
The frosting from the cupcake went sour in her mouth. A chill ran through her body from head to toe.
This is from him.
She knew it to be true. It didn't matter that he'd never sent her anything before this. It didn't need any explanation at all. It just was. She stared at the card for a moment longer before putting it back in the envelope. She placed it under her pillow and resumed eating the cupcake.
I am turning into a Wild Thing.
Come and see me again and I'll prove it to you. Her smile was joyless.
One nice thing, she thought, it can't get any worse. That's something. I know what a silly thing that was to think now. Of course it could be worse. A lot worse. And it was.
Karen Watson ended up in jail. I don't really know why, but I'm not surprised. She was evil. She hated kids and she liked being able to fuck up kids' lives. She was a big old vampire, but instead of sucking blood, she sucked souls, and someone finally caught her doing it. She made sure all the other homes I went to were bad ones. Bad peo- ple. In some places they hit me. In a few places, they touched me, and that was bad, real bad, but we won't talk about that, no way, uh-uh. I guess Theresa tried.
Even so, nothing was ever quite as bad as when Desiree and Ned died. I've thought about it a lot, and that was really the beginning of the end for me. It started with Mom and Dad and Buster, and it ended with Desiree and Ned and Pumpkin. Everything since then, good or bad, has just been me walking through a dream.
Cathy offered to adopt me once, but I didn't let her. I was afraid, you know? That if Cathy took me in, that would be the end of her.
But Cathy disappeared later anyway. They told me she'd gotten hurt, but they wouldn't tell me how, or who'd done it. She didn't answer her phone when I called, and she never called me back. I let that drop into the big black pool, like everything else. That's what I call it--the big black pool. It's what's inside me. It started to fill up the day after Desiree and Ned died. It's thick and stinky and it feels like oil. But it's kind of cool too, because you can drop things that hurt into it, and they sink and disappear forever. Cathy not calling hurt, so I dropped that into the big black pool. Bye-bye.
One thing I didn't drop into the pool was what happened to Karen Watson, when that cunt went to jail. I know, I know, cunt is the worst word ever, especially for a girl to say, but I can't help it. Karen Watson was a cunt. I mean, come on, the word was practically invented for her!
I hated her, and I hoped she'd die in jail. Sometimes I dreamed about someone sticking a knife in her and cutting her stomach open, like a fish. She flopped around and screamed and bled. I always woke up smiling after I had that dream.
One day, she actually did die. Someone slit her throat, from ear to ear. I smiled till I thought my cheeks would split open. Then I cried, and The Crazy blinked a few times and it cried too. Black, watering-hole tears. Bad water, baby, it's all bad water now.
As for me, I'd always end up back in the group home. I had a rep from before, so not too many girls tried to mess with me. I kept to myself. Which is for the best, because I'm pretty much over, you know? I get this feeling sometimes, like I'm sitting naked at the north pole, but I'm not cold, because I can't feel anything anyway. And I'm looking down at the big black pool, watching it bubble. Every now and then, hands shoot up out of it, and sometimes I recognize them. The Stranger left me alone for a few years. I don't know, I guess he was keeping an eye on me. So long as the homes were bad, I guess he was fine.
I got another card on my fourteenth birthday. It said, I'll be seeing you. That's all. I woke up that night screaming and I couldn't stop. I just screamed and screamed and screamed. They had to drag me off and strap me down to a bed and give me some drugs. That time I was the one that got dropped into the big black pool. Blurp. Bye-bye. The Kingsleys decided to foster me, and I'm not sure why I didn't fight it. I'm finding it hard, these days, to feel like fighting anything. Mostly I float. I float and I shake sometimes and every now and then I talk to myself, then I go back to floating. Oh yeah--and dropping
