I go to bed feeling this warm, fuzzy comfort, as if I were a child held in my mother’s arms. Did my actual mother ever hold me while I slept, back when I was a little boy? My childhood memories are spotty, but I have the sense that she was always more the distant, authoritarian type. Not a cuddler. So it’s no wonder I’m so drawn to Lore.
The next thing I know, I’m at a party. An old-school loft with girls in short velvet dresses and guys in turtlenecks. Somebody’s doing projections of bug wings, their delicate veins enlarged until the dancing faces roll fishlike in nets of colored light. There’s a clawfoot bathtub full of ice and champagne on one wall; a beautiful redhead is straddling it and swigging straight from a bottle, champagne frothing down her neck. A shelf of wolf masks with bared fangs and empty eye sockets; paintings of green-splashed nudes. At first I’m afraid of seeming conspicuously normal compared to all the vivid, giddy guests around me. But no one seems to be looking at me askance, so I must fit in better than I think I do.
Then there’s a skip in my heart. The staccato of a signal coming in, an irregular beat like Morse code. It’s so clearly the reason I’m here, and that can only mean one thing. Her. I look toward the source of the feeling, trying to spot her soft fawn skin and sunset-streaked hair, but she’s not there.
Instead my perceptions home in on a pale, short girl in black satin and white tights, her sleek black hair in flipped-up curls at the bottom. Plump and lipsticked, with a lovely china-doll face, all big blue eyes and pink cheeks. But there’s something in her expression that’s like a vicious little girl smashing the same doll to shards. I get the feeling she’s been trapped in that too-sweet face all her life and she’d break anything if only she could escape.
Her.
But how can she be her, when she isn’t the girl from Bluebell’s? There can’t be more than one, can there?
I feel a bit ashamed of myself, a bit faithless. But a her is a her—and anyway, isn’t there a similar slant of feeling around her? A refusal to accept the world’s terms, a certain brisk clarity. Maybe I’m more loyal than I think. The black-and-white girl sees me approaching and waves, her bloodred lips diving into a bright bird of a smile.
“Angus! I thought you weren’t going to show.”
I almost stammer an apology for being late. Then her sarcasm hits me with the snap of a rubber band. She means, If I’m somewhere, you’ll show up like a rash. That pretty little smile is taut with malice.
“You shouldn’t invite me if you don’t want me to come,” I say. “Pearl, you know I can’t stay away from you. It’s not as if I haven’t tried!”
Pearl. It’s old-fashioned but it suits her, the same way the big satin bow at her collarbone suits her. Now that I think about it, this party must have an early sixties theme, or why is everyone dressed as antique hipsters?
“Maybe you shouldn’t think of it as an invitation,” Pearl says, jutting one satin-squeezed hip to lean on the back of a bright green sofa. “Next time, consider it a dare to stand me up. Prove you can do it! Then we’ll see how I choose to respond.”
She straightens and turns on her heel, her gaze already winging toward a guy I don’t remember, even as I know he’s my good friend.
“Theo!” Pearl calls brightly. “I haven’t seen you in ages!”
Consider it a dare, she said. Fine. I grab her by her shoulders and swing her around to face me. My fingers curl into her soft skin hard enough to bruise, and I yank her forward so that she stumbles into my arms. The blue of her eyes is so wide that it’s like I’ve just jumped out of an airplane and into a terrified yawn of sky. Freefall. My mouth is open, maybe calling her name or maybe about to kiss her.
It won’t be any ordinary kiss, I know that much. I’ll kiss her till I pluck free the threads of her being and she starts to unravel. Maybe it won’t happen in a moment—hey, maybe I’ll be long gone by then, the way she apparently wants me to be—but soon enough there won’t be anything left of her but a meaningless tangle of creamy skin and black lacquered curls.
Wait. What am I doing?
Screaming, that’s what. My thigh smacks hard into something solid. My opening eyes collide with absolute dark. And the whole time I’m flailing around trying to get my bearings, a long, thin scream keeps tearing out of my throat.