So they were lost. The thought made her hug herself tighter—and oh boy, big mistake. A jag of bright, splintery pain radiated to her right jaw, and then her cheek exploded: ker-POW! Grimacing, Rima trapped the moan behind her teeth, thought to the kid’s whisper: Calm down, honey, it’ll be okay. In a few seconds, the pain’s grip loosened and she could breathe again.
Idiot. The parka was her fault, a Goodwill refugee with duct tape slapped here and there to mend the holes. The parka’s previous owner had been a little girl, barely twelve, named Taylor. You wouldn’t think that would be a problem, except Taylor’s final moments were a jumble of glassy pain and a single clear thought: Daddy, don’t hurt me; I’ll be good, I promise! The asshole killed her anyway, pitching the kid over a fourth-floor balcony to break on the sidewalk like a raw egg.
To be honest, Rima had nearly tossed the parka back with the other whispers: drug addicts, an old lady murdered by her son, a guy with high blood pressure whose last, very bad decision was to mow the grass on a hundred-degree day. Leaving behind poor little Taylor felt wrong, though; no one but a screwed-up parent could so completely mess with your head. So she took the poor kid.
Swear to God, though, when she grew up and actually had some money? Rima was so never digging around a Goodwill ghost-bin. Like, ever.
2
FATHER PRESTON, THE headmaster at All Souls, called it a gift. Her drug-fogged mother thought she was possessed. Rima just called them whispers, the bloodstains of the dead. Once Rima touched something for long enough—soothing, drawing—the whispers eventually dissipated, like morning mist under a hot sun. Whispers such as Taylor’s, whose death had been violent, took longest and were acid in her veins.
Of course, Rima was to blame for her mother’s drug habit because, oh, the strain of living with a possessed kid. There had been spiritualists, psychics, and so much incense you needed a gas mask. A hatchet-faced voodoo priestess was the worst, graduating from a raw egg squirreled under Rima’s bed to catch the departing demon—Rima’s room stank like an old fart for a week—to a noxious stew of ammonia, vinegar, and olive oil Rima was supposed to toss back with a smile. Uh … wrong. That voodoo chick was always trying to spill Rima’s blood, too. The crazy bitch never said cut; she always said spill, like Rima was this big glass and whoopsie-daisy, look at that mess. Not a lot of blood, Anita explained: Just a half-cup to feed the spirits.
Oh, well, when you put it like that … If Anita wasn’t so dead serious loopy, the whole thing might’ve been funny. Eventually, the voodoo also went bye-bye, either because Anita got tired of Rima being just so ungrateful, or the priestess thought she was a lost cause. Whatever.
The damage was done, though. Last week, dead of night, her mother got her supplier to pick the lock of Rima’s bedroom. Before Rima knew what was happening, the supplier had pinned her wrists while Anita pressed a very long, wickedly sharp boning knife to Rima’s throat. No spilling, not for Anita, nosirreebob: she was going all the way.
The only reason Rima survived was the supplier got cold feet and booked. After another tense half hour, Anita drifted off from all that meth she’d smoked to work up the nerve and then all the downers she popped to take the edge off. It took Rima what felt like a century to ease out from under, and even then the knife won, the keen edge scoring her flesh with a hot spider’s bite.
That was just too darned close. Stick around, and one morning she’d wake up shish kebab. Forget Child Protective Services; they’d only shuffle her from foster home to foster home for the next two years until she turned eighteen. Then it was a handshake and YOYO, baby.
Why wait?
3
CALIFORNIA OR CANADA, she figured. California had the movies; maybe she could learn makeup or something. Canada … well, everyone in Minnesota who wanted out went to Canada, but only because it was closer than Mexico.
Her thumb got her to Grand Rapids. After a night shivering in the thin light of the visitor’s center doorway, she was contemplating the merits of a bus to Milwaukee when Tony’s vintage Camry, a drafty four-door hatchback from the early Pleistocene, rattled into the lot, trailing a single crow that bobbed along like a black balloon on an invisible string.
Okay, crows were bad. But there was only the one. So maybe this wouldn’t be so much of a problem. She decided to chance it.
They got to talking. He was a preacher’s kid, not a born-again, and a nice guy. Same age, same grade, and from his stories, the public high school bullshit factor sounded about the same as Catholic school’s, minus the uniforms and grim-faced nuns, some of whom could definitely use a shave.
When he offered a lift, she said yes, despite the crow. Settling into the front passenger seat, she cringed as the whisper sighed and cupped her body.
“You okay?” Tony asked. “I know the seat’s a little shot, but I got the car for a song.”
Yeah, no shit. No one would want a car whose last passenger had, literally, lost her head when the impact catapulted her right out that busted windshield like a cannonball.
“I’m fine,” she said, and this was true. The woman had been dead-drunk when she died. A fuzzy moment of awareness, a spike of fear, and then blam! No white light, no meet-up with old friends and family, no floating around for final good-byes or if-I-stays. Just hello, darkness, my old friend, which meant the dead woman’s whisper was easily soothed. After an hour, Rima couldn’t finish a sentence without punctuating with a yawn. Dropping her seat, she blacked out, only coming to when
4
THERE’S A THUNK of a lock and a squeal of hinges as Tony drops into the driver’s seat, wreathed in the aroma of fried eggs, salty grease, and coffee.
“Here.” He thrusts a large brown paper sack into her hands. “I didn’t know if you liked ham or sausage, so I got one of each. There’s coffee, too, and some sugar and milk. Or they’ve got that artificial stuff, in case you like that, or orange juice.”
“No, this is great. Thanks.” The paper sack warms her hands, and the aroma is so good her stomach moans. She hasn’t eaten in almost two days. “You didn’t have to do this.”
“I know. It’s just I would’ve felt guilty eating in front of you.”
He doesn’t lie well. He could easily have wolfed something inside and she’d never have known. “I don’t have a lot of money,” she says, which is the truth. Her nest egg’s a whopping $81.27, all that was left after her mother found her stash. Again. All that coke, it’s a miracle Anita still has a nose, much less a sense of smell. Dirty socks Anita’ll let go until they sprout hair and teeth and start moving up the evolutionary ladder, but squirrel away a wad of cash? Then the woman morphs into a frigging bloodhound.