“All done,” the nurse said. She scribbled down the pertinent details, gave me a cookie, and told me to drink lots of water.
“It’s good to get out of the house, from time to time, Claire.” Mickey said.
“Yeah I guess you’re right. It’s always something I’ve wanted to do, give blood. That was easy, easier than I thought it would be.”
I pulled my coat tight against the chill of winter's breath. As we crossed the park crowded with overhanging willow, pigeons scattered, forming Rorschach images against the moon, leaving grey feathers as drab reminders. We didn’t talk on the walk home. Mickey looked at me and his lips shaped as if to speak, but something held the words in his mouth. He never was a talkative man, that brother of mine.
***
The house hasn’t been the same since my mother died. Looking at it as we swung through the gate and crossed the lawn, it looked the same -- over grown weeds, shutters shedding red paint and that great wooden door -- but it wasn't. It shared that lonely slumber, that heartache that only widowers know.
Mickey had spent a lot of time away from university since the funeral and I wondered at times, if he really needed to be here. Suspects were cleared, suicide was confirmed. I was fine, really.
“I think it’s time for you to get back to college, Mickey,” I began as soon as the door closed behind us.
“College can wait.” He said shortly, then he dropped into the dusty sofa and turned on the TV. “It’s a big house to be in alone, Claire, and I need a little time myself. But, if you are that eager to have some alone time, I am going out for Halloween on Saturday with a couple of guys I went to school with .”
Halloween already, great.
***
Don't stay, Claire. Just go, get on with your life.
***
It didn’t wake me, I couldn’t sleep anyway. But it sure as hell knocked the thought of sleep right out of my head. My door whined a little as I pressed through it. With my phone held out as a lantern, I carefully stepped down the stairs, through the lounge and into the kitchen. It was the same again, at about the same time. It poured, beating a steady flow against the steel sink. The bastard plumber, said it was fixed. I let it run and arched my neck, turned my head and sucked up a few mouthfuls. The kitchen tap was loose, it turned itself on when it pleased.
God it was cold, like snow in my gloves. Sprinting home with pig tails bouncing behind me, wailing and moaning about the snowball ambush. She took me into her arms, but that was forever ago. We are adults now.
***
The morning came, like an ex-lover. Abrupt and unwanted, but oddly familiar. I rolled out of bed, the same routine; long hot shower, coffee and track pants. Then I found my spot on the couch. It didn’t matter how valiantly the heaters fought, the open cobbled-stone fireplace always brought the chill. It wheezed and huffed with the wind, then a faint buzzing started. It ticked at first, a frenzied tick high in its throat. Then the beating, clapping din got louder. Louder. LOUDER. Then it spat it out of its gaping mouth and right across the room. My heart lurched up my throat and into my mouth. I sent it back down, with a hard swallow.
A pigeon. Well I think it was a pigeon, it came so fast I couldn’t tell. Past my ear. Beating and flapping. It opened its wings, curled through the kitchen and back into the fireplace. A few loose charcoal feathers were still falling as shock coursed down to my legs, and suddenly I was on my feet. The lost bird beat its way back up the chimney.
I sat. Still and quiet for at least an hour, thinking about those abandoned feathers on the hardwood.
***
The next evening after dinner-time -- well, what others call dinner time, these days I have a gram cracker and a glass of warm water -- I was in the bathroom upstairs, watching myself in the mirror. Some people called me pretty, years ago – no not years, months. Months since mother ran her bony fingers through my long blond mess. Months since the purple loops around my eyes started. Months since my lips were full and healthy, now they sat, chapped with little disparity between the parchment skin of my face. I ran my fingers over my gaunt cheeks. I studied the bathroom in the mirror, like this bathroom, though filmed in dust and fingerprints from when I had reached out to hold my reflections hand, but found cold glass. I watched and my eyes seemed to shine dark for a second. I smiled in the glass, though I didn't feel a smile form on my face. The room was changing, as though the mirror wasn't a reflection but a window. A face behind me. Peeling skin-
"Ahh!"
The fear brought out the sweat on my back bone. A sudden lurch, as though my bones were abandoning my skin, out through my mouth. In the mirror. There it was. Skin peeling, sagging like wax. eyes contorted and dark. A disembodied head. Moving closer. I jumped and screamed.
“Mickey!” My breath came so loud I could barely hear his laughter. “You prick.” I gripped my chest to keep my heart from crashing through my ribs and onto the white tiled floor.
“Got ya sis, how do I look?” I could barely look at his mask. And from neck down he was wrapped in black. The feeling still made my skin itch. I shook my head and looked down at my arms, marbled with gooseflesh.
“You look how I feel, awful.” I said, and it sounded cold, though I didn’t mean it to. My tone must have resounded, because his laughter ceased and through the mask I could see his eyes wash a little with concern. “Go on, get out of here before you give me a heart attack. Have a good time.”
“Are you sure you are fine to stay home alone, Claire?”
“Yes! Mickey, for the last time, I am fine, go have fun.” I closed the door with him still standing in his dopey mask, just outside the bathroom. I heard him call good night a moment later, and I leant against the door. Fell to the floor with bent knees and let a few tears come. It was the shock. Good he was an prick sometimes.
It happened in that bathroom you know. I found her. Eyes staring at me, as though she was watching the door when she pressed that blade into her wrist, as though she was wanting someone to find her. Perhaps the pain was worse than she thought it would be, like giving blood, though she gave it all. The water was a hideous pink, still giving off steam. God she looked awful, her mouth was ajar, her grey blonde hair tangled like tentacles. And I didn’t scream, all I could do was weep.
***
There wasn’t much to do at nights at that old house. Floor boards creeked as I moved about sweeping and fixing the furnishings. The fireplace sighed and wheezed as the gale made a wind chime out of the old cobblestoned chimney. A knock. Not a thundering knock but a tap at the door. What was that?
Then again. I stepped closer uneasily and opened it enough to review the visitors. Batman, Dracula and a mummy stood, toting bags of treats and a chorus of demands. I picked out a few mints and handed them through the narrow opening of the chain locked door. It must have been a hard gust from the chimney, but I swear that door slammed by itself, so hard that if it happened a second earlier I may have lost a finger.
The wind was howling along the street outside. I turned the lights out downstairs to avoid any more unwanted visitors. I left it chain locked; I had an anxious feeling bubbling, like the baking soda and vinegar volcanoes she used to make us for school. A little red dye thrown in and we had ourselves enough of an eruption to take the big blue ribbon at the science fair. She was so proud, she wore that grin for weeks after, my little scientists she would say.
It came again. The gentle washing sound of water hitting the sink. I went to the kitchen. It’s not here. It was upstairs. I didn’t want to enter that bathroom. Her eyes, desperately searching, forever eyeing the door. The pink water. It all flashed before me. I climbed the stairs slowly, in the dark with my mobile phone lantern. The stairs creaked and the chimney whistled a little. I entered the bathroom with a whine from the door. I hit the light. It stopped. The water was falling, but it stopped as I entered. Blood was washing in and out of my ears. My heart was beating louder than the whistling wind outside. The tap didn’t turn, the water simply stopped. I eyed myself again in the mirror. Searching for that beauty, others had once seen. My eyes looked back with contempt, disgust. I watched as my hands made a move, acting on their own. I couldn't stop. I saw that blade, still in her hand, as though her body was left there in the tub to rot. I stopped. My fingers were trembling, the tips white, they moved toward my throat as if out of my controll. I turned, hit the light and went to my room.
I needed a walk. I needed to leave that house, Mickey was right, it was no place to be alone. I took my coat, ran down the stairs and out the door, dead locking it behind me. Despite the thick cloud and way the hard wind jerked the rooster weathervane around, the streets were alive with ghouls and zombies, mummies and prison-escapees. I avoided their eyes. Making my way up the street. I felt the cold rising up my sleeves. The wind carried something, that touch of moisture that lets you know rain is coming. And when it started I was running. Even out there on the street the water got me, it came so hard I had to resist the urge to pull through it with my arms in a bathers stride. I got back to the house and I rifled through every pocket for the key. I found something hard. I pulled it out, dark as jet, a stone. I buried my hands again, another one. One more than another. No key but handfuls of stones. I dropped them, there was something else, feathers. But not the steely grey of pigeons feathers, but black as a magpie's soul. They came out by the handful. I looked down at the pile amassing at my feet: black stones, black feathers and the rain still beating down. I was heavy. Loaded with soaked wool and cotton. I finally found it. The key.
I pushed the door open, shed my clothes to my underwear and went back to that bathroom. I hit the light, turned the bath water on full and hot. Steam was rising, the mirror began to fog but I could still see my faint reflection. My hips no wider than my knees, my ribs protruding and my gaunt face. I watched my reflection, it wasn’t me. It was a shell of me. I wiped away the fog and saw those eyes, pained and dark. I got that feeling. I wanted to control my hands but I just watched, like a passenger. I took the scissors, tapered to a knife's point. Slick, shining. Tears started and I watched my chest rise and fall, steam invading my lungs. The chrome point flirted with my wrists.
It had me, the girl in the mirror had me. I fought it, believe me, I fought it. And even as I broke the gaze and fell into my porcelain grave, I turned for the door, eyeing it with the last ounce of hope. Someone will come, someone will find me. I knew they would.
Spoiler! :
You had some fragments, and while it did make the story feel choppy and more horrifying it was also a bit annoying and too broken up. Also, the whole space between Mickey saying the next night was halloween and the ending of the story when she dies seemed too long. Maybe I just wasn't reading carefully, but it seemed like that space was too long and had an extra night. Plus, it's all about Claire, and shouldn't Mickey still be around? Anyway, other than that it was a great story! Good job!
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