Al shakes his head. “She loves something.”
I watch her zigzag more quickly through the aisles now, as if she’s hunting. Stroking a gilt frame here, then a glass animal there. Picking up a pewter goblet and clutching it to her chest, then putting it back hastily. Bringing a glass figurine up to her face and… sniffing? No, she couldn’t possibly be sniffing. I blink and she’s moved to the next aisle, holding up an urn now, a giant one patterned with vines. She’s turning it in her gloved hands as though marveling at its design. Holding it up to the light. Bringing it terribly close to her face and… yes, sniffing. Her nose is twitching now like a dog’s. I watch her take what looks like a hit from the urn. She shudders with ecstasy. Gasps a little. Now she’s bringing it to her lips, her long tongue protruding.
Al clears his throat loudly. She whips her head toward him, urn still in hand. Icy stare. Looks through her glasses, then lowers them slowly. She’s seen me. Just like that, a light goes on behind her eyes. She’s all teeth now. White and shining.
She puts the urn down and glides toward me. Throws her arms wide. Suddenly I’m crushed in her velvet embrace. I smell oceans and roses, and beneath those scents, something else… sulfury and mammalian that recalls my placenta serums. But fresher, riper. I’m aware of Tad and Al watching us, exchanging looks.
“Daughter of Noelle,” she whispers into my ear. “What a delightful surprise.” She looks over at Tad and Al. Is that a growl I hear from her lips? Impossible. She’s smiling.
“Tell me, tell me,” she says, taking my hands and drawing me away from them, leading me deep into an aisle full of glass animals. “What is Daughter doing here?”
“Taking care of some… business.”
“Ah,” she says, looking over my shoulder at Mother’s things by the cash register. “I see.” Lowered voice. Sympathy in her eyes now, suddenly glistening like she could weep for me. “Poor, dear Daughter. She is desperate, isn’t she? Désespérée. Mother left her in some… straits.”
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
“Oh, I love coming here. J’adore. Especially being around… old… things.” She seemed to choke briefly on the word old. “Don’t you?”
She strokes the head of a dusty glass jaguar. “They have so very much to teach us.” She crouches down beside the jaguar so they’re cheek to cheek. Closes her eyes. A strange, unholy bliss passes over her face.
“Well, I didn’t mean to disturb your… shopping,” I say.
Her eyes fly open. “Nonsense. Daughter of Noelle is so much better than any stupid bit of glass.” Suddenly she’s very close to me again. I blink and she’s standing inches from my face. Looking deeply into my eyes as I’m looking into her eyes. Blue as the outside sky. Red eye shadow around each of them like the strangest, fiery clouds. I’m held by her gaze like a moth to the light.
“A little bird told me you came by La Maison last night,” she says.
I picture the little bird. Blond corkscrew curls that made her look like a doll someone forgot to put away. Looking at me with her sapphire eyes full of amused judgment. Her heart-shaped face so like the face I’d conjured long ago in my child’s mind.
“A little bird,” I repeat, staring into her eyes. “Yes.”
“She said you were perfect.”
“She did?”
“Oh yes, the Perfect Candidate.”
The word perfect from that perfect mouth. About me. I smile in spite of myself. And then I think, Candidate? For what? I glimpse Tad and Al watching by the register. They suddenly seem miles away.
“Many congratulations, Daughter. You must be terribly excited.”
“Yes.” For what, for what?
“Though she also said you were leaving us? Flying back to the Dark North? Is it true? C’est vrai?”
I lower my eyes to the dusty black-and-white floor. I feel her sigh heavily. A cold breeze on my face.
“How that grieves us. When we were just getting to know one another. But of course, we are aware of the dire situation in which Daughter of Noelle finds herself.” She looks back at Mother’s items strewn by the cash register. Tad and Al watching us, whispering. “She is quite désespérée, isn’t she?” she says into my ear, her lips grazing.
“Yes.”
“It is no wonder Daughter’s face is in such a… predicament.” She looks up at my scar, which tingles hotly under her gaze. “We empathize. Deeply. Which is why we’d love to offer you a free treatment before you fly away from us.”
Something in me lifts then. A darkness brightens. Free treatment?
She hands me a small red card from inside her red glove. VOUCHER, it says in a golden font like runes. “A transformative experience. Highly prized. Of course, one treatment—un seul—is never enough to achieve the desired results, tu comprends. But it’s a crucial first step on your Journey. One might even say the key.” She looks down at my fist like she knows there’s a little gold key in there.
“The key?”
“To Rouge, of course.” And her face when she says this fills with an impossible warmth like light. The hairy wings of my soul beat excitedly. How the light she emits warms me. I could sleep by it like a fire.
“You would do that?”
“In honor of your dear mother. Whom we so loved like a daughter. So that now we love Daughter, too.”
“Belle?” Tad calls from the cash register. “You okay?”
The woman in red glares at Tad. Again, I hear something like a growl from her mouth. Surely not a growl. Surely just clearing her throat. She grips my shoulders, drawing me close. Once more her lips are at my ear. “Tonight at Vespers,” she says. And her cold breath makes the skin along the side of my neck sing.
“Vespers?”
“You’ll come by the house.”
“I’ll come by the house.”
“And all will be taken care of. Clear your head. When one is offered the key to Rouge, dear Daughter of Noelle, one doesn’t say no. One says yes a thousand times.” She smiles. “I think you’ll find the results quite breathtaking. In fact,” she whispers, “I think you’ll find they take your breath away.” She looks at me meaningfully. “Like that old song. Te souviens-tu?”
* * *
“What do you mean you’ve changed your mind?” Tad calls after me. I’m back outside now in the San Diego sunshine, out of Al’s wretched shop. The lady lamp’s tucked under my arm. I’m gripping the butler statue by his waist. I don’t stop walking until I’ve reached Mother’s car. Tad’s behind me, carrying the chest, the painting.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I just can’t, okay? I’m not ready to sell her things. Not to that awful fucking lech. Not to anyone.” I shake my head. I think I’m going to cry, but I don’t. I remember those two tears I shed before the girl-woman in black. One and then the other. How she watched each one drip down my cheek like it was so delicious.
Tad stares at me curiously. Leaning against the Jaguar, gripping the lady lamp to my chest. What does he know about me and Mother? What did she whisper to him after sex, in the dark? Awful truths about me, my childhood, that I can’t remember? Though they’re still there inside me, aren’t they? Rising up in memory fragments. I can feel them folded up in my heart, in my brain, like a dark weight. A black box with many gleaming locks. It only seems heavier as I grow older, weighed down with more and more locks. Mother never spoke to me of the past. But did she speak to him? I picture Mother and Tad in bed in the dark. Neither of them sweaty after fucking. Neither of them sweats, they glisten probably. Tad would be staring adoringly at Mother’s profile. Mother loved her profile. She’d turn away in conversation, and I knew she was just offering it up to people like a gift.
My daughter, she might say to the ceiling. Shake her lovely head. Light a cigarette. Let me tell you.
Tell me, Tad would whisper, entranced.
I imagine the words that might emerge from Mother’s traitorous throat. Hateful. Jealous. Estranged. What a weird child she was.