An Apple for the Creature

I said nothing, and the silence was terrible and heavy, heavy on me because I saw myself in that moment; me, in Ruth’s place, sprawled on the porch with a broken back and some other girl standing over me, ready to take my place with a fury. Future or not, it chilled me.

“Oh, God kill you,” Ruth whispered. “God kill you, and the Devil, too.”

“In time,” I said, and twisted the poppet’s head.

—

Freedom should have a tingle, some flash of light, but I felt no different afterward. Maybe I wasn’t free. Maybe being free of Ruth wasn’t the same thing at all.

I burned all the dolls, except mine. I was too much a coward to tempt my own death, though I deserved it in a mighty way. Shadow of death over my heart, waiting, waiting, for the needle and thread. Wicked stitchery.

I wanted to learn a different kind.

Ruth, I burned with the dolls. I broke her needles.

But I kept her house.

—

A week later, I heard word that Delphia had passed. No relatives nearby to care for the baby, and no one stepped in to take claim. I waited, to be sure, and then went down into the valley to take the girl. I did not ask. I held out my arms, and there was something in the way those folk looked at me, something I’d never seen before except when they looked at Ruth, but I supposed I finally had her eyes.

I took the child in, but the only doll I made for her was stitched for play, with a needle from her father’s hand.

Things would be different, I promised.

All for sympathy for the bones.

Low School RHYS BOWEN

Rhys Bowen currently writes two historical mystery series: the Molly Murphy novels, featuring a feisty Irish immigrant sleuth in 1900s New York City, and the lighter, funnier Royal Spyness series about Lady Georgiana, thirty-fifth in line to the British throne in the 1930s. Rhys’s books have received many award nominations and she has won thirteen major awards, including Agatha, Anthony and Macavity as well as Reader’s Choice for Best Mystery Series. Her books are definitely traditional mysteries so she loves writing short stories where she can reveal her inner dark and evil side. Rhys is a transplanted Brit, now dividing her time between California and Arizona, where she goes to escape the harsh California winters.

“Where are your two number-two pencils, properly sharpened?”

I looked up at a man who had a face like a skeleton—sunken eyes, skin stretched over cheekbones, thin humorless mouth. His glasses were perched on the end of a long nose and he was almost bald, too, completing the skeletonlike effect. He was wearing a grayish-white, short-sleeved button-down shirt with ink stains around the pocket, and a tie onto which egg had dripped at some stage. The word schoolteacher formed in my mind at the same moment that he repeated the question.

“Your two number-two pencils? Properly sharpened?” He paused, those colorless sunken eyes staring at me now with distaste. “You do have your two number-two pencils, properly sharpened, I hope?”

I patted my side, then looked around me. “I don’t seem to have brought a purse.”

He made the sort of tut-tutting noise I’d only read about before and gave a big dramatic sigh. “Not a good start to our first day, is it? The instruction sheet clearly told you that two number-two pencils would be required and that they should be properly sharpened as there is no sharpener available in the examination room.”

“I don’t think I received . . .” I stammered. “I don’t remember receiving any kind of instruction sheet.”

“Everybody is sent the instruction sheet in preparation for their first day,” the man said. “Clearly you chose to disregard the instructions. I shall have to report this to Ms. Fer.”

“Ms. Fur?”

“Our principal. And no, it is not spelled fur like the animal’s hair. It is Fer from the Latin ‘to do’ or ‘to make,’ as I’m sure you know, being a student of the subject.”

I nodded.

“I’m afraid Ms. Fer will not be pleased. Oh, dear me, no. We expect everyone here to obey the instructions to the letter.”

I shrugged. “Well, I’m sorry but I don’t remember receiving any instruction sheet. I guess it must have been lost in the mail. And I can’t make pencils appear out of thin air.”

He reached into his shirt pocket. “As it happens, I do have a pencil I can lend you, just for today,” he said. “To help you out this once. Until you know the ropes. But I expect it to be returned immediately after the examination, you understand. And don’t break the point because there is no way to sharpen it in the examination room.”

I stared at his pocket, blinked, then stared some more because I could have sworn there had been no pencil sticking out of that pocket before but now there appeared to be several. He handed it to me solemnly, as if he were bestowing a great gift. Then he glanced at his watch. “You’d better hurry. Showing up late for the examination is something that wouldn’t be so easily forgiven. Go on. Off you go.”

“Where is the exam room?” I asked. My heart was racing now.

“Didn’t bother to read that either, I see,” he said, looking down at me as if I were a hopeless case. “Not a good start, Miss Weinstein. Not what we expect here. It’s room six hundred and sixty-six. Off you go then. Hurry.”

He pushed open a door for me and I stepped through into a long hallway. It was dark and dingy, lined with lockers and with doors spaced at intervals along either side. From behind these doors came the occasional murmur of voices. But the hallway was deserted. Nobody to ask where I should go. Where the hell was I anyway? I tried to remember but my brain remained fuzzy. My nose twitched at the familiar smells—chalk and books and old sweaty socks and food left to go bad in forgotten lunch bags.

“High school!” I said out loud. That’s where I was. I was in a high school, but certainly not my own. My school was all glass and brightly lit hallways with murals on the walls. This one hadn’t had a paint job in years, nor had a janitor been around with a broom for decades, judging by the drifts of trash in the corners. I stopped walking. So what was I doing here? Why couldn’t I remember? The word accident formed itself at the back of my consciousness. Something to do with an accident. That was it—I’d been in the hospital. A bad accident, obviously, since I appeared to have lost my memory. Perhaps my parents had decided to send me to another school until I could catch up with the work I had missed. Perhaps I was only here to take an exam I had missed—the SATs? A college entrance exam? But wait—hadn’t I already taken my SATs? Or had that just been a practice test?

My stomach had tied itself into knots at the mention of the word exam. I couldn’t be late for an exam, whatever it was. I broke into a run, feeling my shoes, which were somehow too big at the heels, slipping off as I ran. Why was I wearing heavy, unfashionable shoes and not my usual heels? I tossed that thought from my mind. The only thing that mattered at this moment was to find the exam room and be on time.

I was never late for anything. I always aced exams. Honor student. Class president, that was me. And whatever this exam was, I’d ace it and get back to my own school and my old life because I sure as hell wasn’t staying in a dump like this. I almost skidded on a tossed banana peel. A door opened and a boy came out. Before I could ask him where I’d find the exam room he glanced in both directions, then took off at a run down the hall and disappeared into the gloom through more double doors at the other end. I glanced up as I saw a movement to my right. A girl was walking beside me—a dumpy, overweight girl with an awful haircut, an atrocious hand-knitted purple sweater and a long droopy skirt. Honestly, how could some people be so clueless about fashion sense? Didn’t she realize her clothes made her look like a pathetic, sagging balloon? No wonder she was sneaking along, cutting