Chapter 10

Afternoon the next day. I'm in Mother's car with Tad driving to the antiques dealer downtown. Tad's driving because I seem… a little out of it, he says, looking concerned. Well, it's understandable. Grief is a journey, isn't it? Winding, unexpected dips and turns and circles. He keeps the Beach Boys at a respectful volume. "God Only Knows" filling the dark jaguar with so much splotchy sunshine.

"Shouldn't take long. You'll like this guy. Buddy of mine. He'll give you a great deal."

That's right. This is what this is all about. Selling Mother's things. Mother's antique chest, now in the back seat. Her lamp shaped like a lady in a red dress. Her statue of a British butler holding out a tray. Le petit homme, she used to call him. A painting I always loved that is just a dirt road to a dark house in the woods. All about to be sold by Tad. Handsome young Tad, who has no idea of death or loss.

I stare out the windshield. How did it become afternoon? Did I do my morning ritual? I touch my face. I did not. Pretty sure I didn't do my night ritual, either. Marva says if you must skip the morning, so be it, but the night ritual is crucial for barrier repair. How could I fail to restore and replenish? Am I sitting here now, without my overcoat for the face, my skin dirty and exposed and unprotected from the light of day? The last thing I remember is sitting across from the girl-woman in black, the small white jellyfish pulsing in my palm. She took it from me, tipped it into a tiny glass box of water. And then her hands were on my forehead. I was shivering at her cool, soft touch, a tear dripping down my cheek inexplicably. She watched it like it was miraculous. Would Daughter of Noelle like to go on a journey?

And what did I say again? What words did I splutter nervously into her beautiful, waiting face? I'll think about it, I said. I feared she might be angry. She wasn't at all. She was still smiling. Maybe just a slight crack in that. A hair of a hair of a hair.

And then she walked away from me, around the aquarium tank. It felt terrible, her walking away from me, my face suddenly untouched. I wanted to follow but I couldn't because my shoes kept me nailed in place. Instead I looked at her through the tank, standing on the opposite side. She was looking at me, too, right through the blue-green water. Still smiling like all was well, like my thinking about it was fine. Then a red jellyfish darted between the two of us and hovered there. I could still see the girl-woman through its translucent, pulsating head. What I saw made me gasp. Suddenly she looked very old. Much older than Mother. Maybe Grand-Maman's age before she died. Maybe even older. Gnarled was the word that came blazing into my mind. My nightmare of age and death in one face. I couldn't stop staring at her thin mouth, her eyes like black pits, the sunken, shriveled cheeks etched with so many folds and lines, like she was melting right before my eyes. I could see the skull behind her sagging flesh, beaming at me. Then the jellyfish drifted away and she was herself again. The beautiful maiden once more from my child's dream. Smiling just like she was before. Maybe more widely now. All those white teeth.

Think about it, she said through the tank, repeating my words. You do that.

"Well, here we are," Tad says.

I see we're parked on a street in front of a crooked-looking house. A weathered sign out front reads ANTIQUES in an antique-y font.

"It looks closed," I say. It really does. All the windows are dark.

"Oh, it's open," Tad says, grinning. He already looks like he's having a ball. An old man's face appears in the shopwindow above the sign. Tad waves, and the man frowns and disappears. "That's Al," Tad says. "Good guy. Super knowledgeable." Such magic in the world of Tad. Such faith. His eyes are literally shining with it. I wonder if this is how I look when I watch Marva. A flush creeps into my neck, my cheeks.

"Tad, did my mother ever talk to you about Rouge?"

He looks at me. Just for a second something flashes darkly in his eyes. Like a cloud passing quickly over the sun. It's there and then it's gone. And then: "Rouge," he repeats like a question. Too much of a question. He squinches up his face like he's confused. "No? Never heard of that. Rouge, huh? Is that French or something?"

"It's French for ‘red.'?" I look carefully at Tad.

He's turned away from me now, staring at the windshield strangely. Like he sees something there. Something terrible or lovely, I can't tell. But then he just smiles and turns to me again. "Well, how about that? You learn something new every day, don't you?"

The shop is a labyrinth of old things collecting dust. Aisles of glass animals in mid-roar. Dreary paintings of dreary landscapes in heavy gilt frames. End tables. So many little end tables fit for only one vase. And the vases themselves, of course. Urns patterned with carnivorous-looking flowers and white-eyed maidens in diaphanous gowns. The air in here is full of death. Everything still and sad. A decadent scent rises up from the furniture that reminds me of Grand-Maman's place. Her dark, creaking rooms full of crap. The way she glided through them in one of her long nightgowns of cheap, Easter egg–colored lace. Carrying a small gold-rimmed plate full of pastries she would eat in the dark. The way she'd sit on her rose-gold chaise and watch soap operas or else read Nostradamus and talk to me about the end of the world. The Four Horsemen on their black horses. Did I know they were coming soon? I shook my head. Their eyes were black as pits, Grand-Maman said, and she looked at me with her own eyes black as pits. She was very excited about the horsemen. And the black horses with their foaming mouths galloping through a world full of fire. She'd smile and lean back in her chaise as though she were picturing it all burning in her mind. Her white arms, hairless like Mother's, covered in gold bangles my father had brought back from Egypt. Then she'd turn on the television, a giant black box. I watched her soul close its eyes inside her body as she stared at the screen.

At last, Mother would appear in the doorway to pick me up. Belle, are you all right? Why do you look so pale?

Mother, are the Four Horsemen really coming?

And Mother would frown. Whisper something to her mother in rapid French, something I wouldn't quite catch. About filling my head. About religion. And Grand-Maman would hiss back. My granddaughter. The truth. Deserves. What did I say?

"Belle," Tad says. And then I'm back in the shop, standing still in the aisle full of glass animals and urns and end tables. Tad's looking at me worriedly. "You coming? It's just back here."

At the very back of the shop stands Al, behind a tiny antique register. He's wearing a sailor's cap and a sky-blue Hawaiian shirt patterned with obscenely red flowers that look like vulvas. He does not look up at me and Tad. Instead, he eyes the items that Tad has just set on the floor. He picks up the lady lamp. Lifts the hem of her dress in a bored way, exposing her coils and wires.

Don't fucking touch her, I want to scream. But I just stand there letting him fondle Mother. Mother's lamp, I mean. His fat fingers. Assessing eyes. He picks up the butler statue and puts him back down. Strokes the gilt frame of the painting. Hundred already like it in the shop, says his face. Then he turns to the black antique chest. My heart starts to pound as he grips the lid. But it won't open. Al looks at Tad, raises an eyebrow.

"Belle," Tad whispers. "Do you have a key?"

I look at the chest, Al's hands on the lid. I shake my head. "No key."

"Well maybe a screwdriver could—"

"No screwdriver!" I shout. They both look at me. "It could damage the wood," I add quietly. "Or the lock. Best to leave it locked."

Al and Tad exchange another look. "Well, maybe we could—"

"Look, I'm very sorry, but if it's locked, it's locked, okay?" I bend down, tugging on the lid. And it comes right open.

I can feel Al looking at me with new interest. Tad beaming like he knew this would happen. "Magic touch."

I look in the chest. Empty, of course. Just a blackness. What was I expecting to find?

"Oh hey," Tad says, reaching down into the chest. He holds up a key. Tiny and golden. The size of a penny. "The key was inside the chest all along. How about that?"

"That's not the key to the chest," Al says.

"Sure it is."

"Too small," Al says, his hand still under the lamp lady's skirt. "Looks more like the key to a cheap jewelry box. Or a diary."

The red diary I found in the basement box flashes in my head. "I'll take that," I say, snatching the key from Tad.

Behind us, the shop bell rings.

"Cool," Tad says, clapping his hands. "Well, the chest's open, anyway. Now we're in business, aren't we, Al?" He's looking at Al like he's an oracle. "Al?"

But Al's looking at the shop door, suddenly pale. "Fuck," he whispers.

"What is it?" Tad says, turning toward the door.

"Her," he says.

I turn to look. But even before I turn, I know whom I will see. Maybe it's the way he said her with such contempt and fascination and fear. The woman in red. Dressed in drapey velvet like she belongs to another century, another world. Red parasol crooked in her wrist. Clutching a pair of—is it opera glasses? Yes, actual opera glasses, the long golden handle in her red-gloved fist. "Freak show," Al whispers.

We watch her wandering the aisles like a bride. Touching each item she passes. Stroking it, really. Right beneath the signs that say DO NOT TOUCH! But Al's not clearing his throat. Not reminding her about the signs. He's just staring at her.

"She comes in here all the time," he murmurs, his hand still under the lamp lady's skirt, gripping now.

"Huh," Tad says. "What's with the glasses?"

"I don't ask," Al says.

"She must love antiques."

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.

Or maybe she told him nothing at all.

But if she told him nothing on those nights, then why is he looking at me like that? Unsure. Maybe even suspicious. Of what? Of what?

"Look," Tad says, "I'm just trying to help you find a solution, Belle. I thought you needed money. My fee is whatever, I can wait for it. But I can't repair the entire apartment myself. There's just too much to do. And some things are far beyond my meager expertise."

He smiles sadly, so handsome, so capable, so clearly Mother's man. The sun beats down on us, making him look divine, making me squint and melt in my black dress, like a witch. I remember I'm not wearing Glowscreen. No moisturizing overcoat to prevent the transepidermal water loss. The loss is likely happening as we speak, to say nothing of the oxidizing damage from unprotected exposure. Marva would be horrified. Prevention, my darlings, is our mightiest weapon against the onslaught of the elements. Our armor must be thick, thick. The only time you can afford to go without is if you happen to find yourself in a black hole. And we'll all find ourselves in a black hole soon enough, won't we?

"Belle?" Tad says.

In the distance I see the woman in red walking away hurriedly under her red umbrella. A red umbrella on a sunny day. I don't think it's strange. What I think is: What a brilliant way to keep out the sun. I feel the red card in my breast pocket. Right over my heart. It seems to pulsate like it has a heart of its own.

"Just give me a day or two, okay?" I tell Tad.

"But you're leaving tomorrow, aren't you?"

"A day, then."

"Who was that woman in the shop? She seemed to know you."

"A friend," I lie. "A friend of my mother's. I'm surprised you didn't recognize her." I'm turning it on him. I look at Tad's face closely now.

"Well, your mother was popular," he says slowly. "She had a lot of friends, didn't she?"