Paper Tigers Read online

  Why do you even fight it, Monstergirl?

  “Go away.”

  Never, the voice said, trailing soft laughter as it slipped back under her skin.

  A chill raced up her spine, and she closed her eyes, searching for a blank slate, but the steady throb in her back and the numbness of her fingers wanted a voice of their own. She would give anything at all to feel again, to be something close to normal, something less than a Monstergirl.

  She pushed the photo album off her lap onto the cushion beside her, and the front page flipped over, covering George’s face with ink-smudge writing, the paper tiger swallowing his image whole. She steepled her fingers under her chin and caught a whiff of tobacco. Unless it was a phantom smell. Like the heavy smoke and the roasting—

  “Stop,” she said.

  She closed her eyes and took another deep breath. George’s face appeared in her mind. He bent over his journal, smiled around the pipe jutting from the corner of his mouth, and scratched black words onto the paper with a gold-nibbed fountain pen. He caught her gaze and turned the journal around.

  Lonely in isolation.

  He tapped the page with his pen and new words took shape.

  Lonely, scarred, and alone.

  “Yes, that’s me,” she said.

  He nodded and took the pipe from his mouth. “Perhaps we can do something about that,” he said, his voice timbrous and heavy with inflection, not accent.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Many things are possible, if you want them enough. The real question is, how much do you want the things of which you dare not speak?”

  Smoke curled from the end of his pipe and spiraled around his head in a dark blur. It swirled and expanded, obscuring his face. A heavy rush of wind, cold and biting, pulled the smoke up and out and when it vanished, so too did George.

  She blinked awake. Aware. The setting sun bathed the room in shadows and grey, a cobwebby veil of solitary confinement. She transferred the photo album to the coffee table, and stretched out on the sofa, groaning under her breath. From the back of her neck to her tailbone, her muscles cried out. The tingle of almost-feeling beneath her skin was gone, leaving behind the dead space of ruined flesh, but she tucked her hands under her cheek and smiled.

  CHAPTER 4

  Using the back of her left hand, Alison gauged the temperature in her shower, turning the knob until the water ran lukewarm. The rings rattled across the bar as she pulled the curtain closed, closing herself off in a dark cocoon, untouchable by either the sunlight, blocked by a window darkening blind, or the room’s solitary 25-watt bulb. She put her face into the spray, turning so the water ran down her left side, and kept still for a long time with her palms pressed against the tiled wall. Dark hair hung over her forehead and clung to her cheek, the one-sided ripples mimicking the folds of the shower curtain. A few wispy strands partially concealed the reconstructed ear on her right side. When she was

  whole

  younger, she wore it halfway down her back; now the hair on her left side barely skimmed the top of her shoulder. Moving out of the spray, she grabbed for the shampoo, her skin pulling uncomfortably with the movement. A dark image of her slippery red insides coiled on the white of the tub played through her mind then danced away, a grim little fairy tale of illusory horror. After she turned off the water, she parted her hair on the left with her fingers and flipped it over, hiding some of the scar tissue on the right side of her scalp. A grim comb-over trick a nurse once showed her. A trick used by many, she’d said. Alison tugged a few of the strands forward in Veronica Lake fashion and slid the shower curtain open, neither a Hollywood starlet exiting a limousine nor a butterfly escaping the chrysalis in a drapery of color, but a morbid grotesquerie climbing up from the depths of hell. An open set of shelves hung on the wall in place of a mirror, sparing her the sight.

  Maybe it was time to replace the mirror; maybe it would help. She ran her finger across scar tissue and exhaled softly. No, she wasn’t ready for that yet.

  She patted her skin dry, applied lotion, slipped on a pair of pajamas and exited the bathroom in a wreath of steam.

  Thump.

  She stood immobile. Heard the thump again. Cold droplets ran from her hair down onto her forehead and the back of her neck, cold until they met scar tissue, but she made no move to wipe them away. She stood with her arms slack and her head tilted to one side. A neighbor’s voice, muffled through the walls, filtered through the quiet then dwindled away.

  She crept to the top of the stairs on tiptoe. The furnace kicked on, sending out a whoosh of warm air through the vents, and she squeaked in surprise.

  “Mom?”

  The furnace responded with another push of air. With slow steps, she descended the staircase, her breath a tight knot inside her chest; when she hit the landing, she stopped and sniffed the air. Tobacco?

  “George?”

  Laughter spilled from her lips. George, long dead and captured in a photographic capsule of time, was merely a paper man in a paper world, tigers not included. The living room appeared as it always did—sofa with a fleece throw draped across one arm, two standing lamps, a coffee table made of dark wood, a small television in one corner, and in the opposite, half-hiding the slate hearth from the walled-up fireplace, a bookcase with various hardcover and paperback novels. Next to that, a fire extinguisher, one of four in the house, hung from a waist-high bracket on the wall. Her eyes flickered over everything once, twice, and snapped back to the coffee table, occupied by a half-empty glass of water. Before her shower, the photo album sat next to the mug with its cover closed. Now the album rested on the floor next to the table, its cover open and George’s picture exposed.

  She checked the front door lock, but the dead bolt held fast and secure. The front windows were also locked; same for the back windows, the kitchen door, and the door leading into the basement. She remembered setting the album down on the corner of the table, far enough from the edge to keep it from toppling over. She picked up the album, resting her right palm flat on George’s face. One of his eyes peeked out from the space where her pinkie and ring finger should be. Sudden pins and needles tingled from her palm to the tips of her fingers, and she dropped the album on the table, waving her hand in the air until the feeling vanished.

  She headed for the kitchen, water glass in hand, pajama pants swishing around her ankles. Ice cubes clinked and splashed as she dropped them into her glass one by one. Slivers of melting ice stuck to her fingertips, cold and stinging; she wiped them away on a dishtowel softened to the texture of a baby blanket by many tumbles in the dryer and turned the faucet on. Stepping back from the sink, she picked up the towel again. Underneath the skin of her left hand (all finger-piggies present and accounted for, as useless as the three on her right hand), the blanket was a not-thing, held but not felt; in her right, the velvety fabric, far too real and smooth for an illusion of memory, slipped and slid across her patchwork skin.

  She tossed the towel on the counter, stuck her right hand under the faucet, and shivered. Laughing out loud, she trailed her wet fingers along the edge of the sink, the stainless steel cool beneath her touch. Forgotten, the water rushed and splashed from the tap, sending droplets up and out. She extended her arms and ran both hands along the counter; one hand met nothing at all, the other met old tile and rough grout. At counter’s end, she slid her hands back up and down again, the scars on her face tugging as her lips stretched into a distorted smile. Her hands crept back up and the sensation stopped. No pins and needles, no fading away, but an abrupt cessation, all the feeling severed as sure as a limb cut off by an axe-wielding movie villain. Minus the theatrical screaming and fake blood, of course.

  She turned the water off, her movements clumsy.

  Phantom, phantom, it fooled you again. Stupid, gullible, ruined girl.

  The children ran in circles in the yard, the summer sky bright and clear overhead. Helen watched them with a smile on her face, one hand up to cover the birthmark. She d
idn’t even know she did it and he couldn’t bring himself to tell her. He liked the birthmark. It made her a little more real, a little more human—

  The phone rang with a shrill pitch, shattering Alison’s daydream into pieces.

  After their hellos, her mother said, “I’m getting ready to run out to the store to get some Do you need anything?”

  “No, I’m good. I have a delivery coming tomorrow.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Alison flipped open George’s album and picked at the corner of his photo with her thumbnail hard enough to make a tiny snick-snick sound, but not hard enough to tear the paper. “Yes, I’m sure.”

  “I was thinking of stopping by the bakery, too.”

  Alison rested her hand on George’s face. “You are evil. You know that?” Pins and needles radiated through her hand. She gave it a shake.

  Her mother laughed. “Sugar cookies, maybe?”

  The sensation receded. Alison lowered her hand again. “The last time you brought me those, I ate them all in a day.”

  And sat in a sugar-induced stupor, afraid to move, afraid the expanding fat, albeit imaginary, would push the scars to their breaking point.

  “So is that a no?”

  The paper warmed underneath the skin of her hand. She frowned and pressed her palm flat, splaying her fingers. Warmth spread to her fingertips. She took her hand off the album and turned it palm-up.

  “Alison?”

  The skin, with its crisscross pattern of pink and red flesh—a macabre pie crust holding in the bones and gore—tingled. She held it against her left cheek and gasped at the heat.

  “Alison?”

  “Uh-huh?”

  “Is everything okay?”

  “Yes, everything’s fine. I, I almost dropped the phone, that’s all.”

  “Okay, so do you want me to pick some up for you?”

  Alison ran her hand against her sleeve. The fleece of her pajama top rubbed smooth against her skin. “Sure, that sounds good.” She traced her fingers over the sofa cushion; the pattern in the fabric sprang to life beneath her fingertips.

  It was real, not phantom. She didn’t care what the doctor said. This was real.

  “Okay, then. I’ll bring them over when I’m done shopping.”

  She ran a throw pillow’s silken tassel between her index finger and thumb. “Okay, thank you.”

  “Then I’ll see you in a bit. I love you, babygirl.”

  “Love you, too.”

  She tossed the phone aside and set George’s album on the table. Ignoring the strange heat still pulsing in her palm, she circled the room, trailing her fingers across everything she came in contact with—the bead fringe on the lampshade, which gave off a musical tinkle, the hard edges of her television, the smooth screen with a thin layer of dust that came off on her skin in streaks of grey, the pitted plaster walls, the many small holes filled in with putty and painted over again and again by the previous owners. When she touched the blinds covering the window, outlining the honeycomb shape designed to hold out the light and keep in the shade, tears burned in her eye.

  She ran her right hand across the photo albums’ spines. The textures mixed and mingled—slick vinyl, velvet worn smooth, rough burlap with its crosshatch pattern, leather torn with time and many hands, and then nothing at all. She shook her hand. No pins and needles. No heat. A corpse hand, dead and lifeless, the blood inside little more than a lie.

  Did you think it would stay? It’s your imagination anyway.

  “It was real,” she said.

  Lie to yourself all you want, but touch something now. Go ahead and tell me what you feel.

  Alison cupped hands over ears, but the voice wouldn’t stop.

  You want to be whole, you want to be real, but you’re not. Even if your stupid hands learned to feel again, it wouldn’t make you anything but what you are, Monstergirl.

  Alison paced back and forth, her breath slow and even as she searched for the white calm buried under the hurt. Inside her private war, time slipped and slid away, and when her mother knocked on the door, she forced a half-smile.

  In addition to the bag with the bakery’s swirling logo, her mother carried a shopping bag and two plastic grocery bags nearly filled to bursting. Alison nudged the photo album aside to make room for the bags, and as her right hand whisked George’s picture, pins and needles crawled under the skin again. She curled her fingers in then out, gave them a quick shake, and the tingle diminished.

  “Mom, I told you, my groceries are coming tomorrow. You didn’t need to get anything for me.”

  Her mother shrugged. “I picked up a few things I thought you might like. Here, this one has perishables. The other bag doesn’t. The shopping bag has books in it I’ve been meaning to bring over.”

  Alison took the bag from her mother and held it with both hands. The handle slid across the skin of her right hand with a cold kiss of plastic; on the left, the expected nothing. She tipped her head to one side. Her mother’s voice lifted in the air, the words a gentle susurration. Alison shifted the bag to her left hand and ran her fingers over the surface, shivering at the chill from the contents within.

  “Alison,” her mother said, touching her shoulder. “Is something wrong?”

  Alison blinked, and smiled again, wider than the careful and not quite grotesque half-smile. “No, not exactly. In the past few days, I’ve had some feeling come and go in my right hand, and it happened again. I can feel the bag. And the ice cream inside.”

  Her mother smiled back, but the tiny lines at the corners of her eyes didn’t crease. She opened her mouth, clamped it shut, and tucked Alison’s hair behind her ear.

  “I know you don’t believe me,” Alison said. “It’s okay. But I know what I feel. It isn’t my imagination. Not this time.”

  “I know it’s all still hard for you. Maybe you could come over this weekend or next weekend and stay for a few days at the house. A change of scenery might do you some good.”

  Alison’s fingers dug into the bag.

  “I have plenty of room at the house, you know. You could stay in the guest room and you could even bring some of your photo albums.” Her mother laughed. “Except for the smelly one.”

  “No. I appreciate the offer, Mom, but I’d rather stay here in my house.”

  “If it’s the, the mirrors you’re worried about, I can easily cover them up.”

  “It’s not the mirrors. I want to stay here, okay?” She hoisted the bag. “I should put this stuff away.”

  Her mother gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I wish I could stay and talk more, but I’m going over to Nancy’s house tonight. You remember her, right?”

  Alison ran her finger along the bag. “Sure. Miss Nancy from the neighborhood. The one who used to yell at us if we stepped one foot on her lawn.”

  “Yes, she did, didn’t she?” She patted Alison’s arm. “You would call me if you needed something right? Even if you just wanted to talk. You know I’m here whenever you need me.”

  Alison bit the inside of her left cheek. “Mm-hmm, I know.”

  The sensation faded from her fingertips as soon as her mother left the house. Alison unpacked the bags, slamming both the freezer and cabinet doors. Then she stalked back into the living room and gathered the photo albums. Halfway into the dining room, her sock slipped on the wood. She let out a shout and lost her grip on the albums. They cascaded to the floor with a rattle-thud of old paper and heavy covers. She grabbed for something, for anything, her body jerking forward like a ballerina with lead feet attempting a pirouette. The heel of her foot came down on the corner of an album, sending it across the floor in a slow spiral. She cried out, and knees buckled. The right landed atop a cushion of photos and thick paper; the left slammed into the hard wood, and all the air rushed out with a loud gasp. Both palms struck the closest album with a dull thump.

  Breathing heavy, she held still, eyes closed, while the hurt in her knee sang a lullaby of pai
n. Once it subsided to a soft hum, she lifted her head. George’s photo album rested beneath her hands, the cover flipped open, his face covered by her palms. She shifted her weight back on her heels and lifted her hands. George’s eyes glared from the photo. The intensity of his paper gaze sent a cold chill down her spine.

  “Stop looking at me,” she muttered and closed the cover.

  The long crack in the worn leather ran sharp beneath the skin of her left hand. The chill returned. She raised her hands to her face, her fingers trembling. Warmth kissed her skin. Under her right palm, the scars nestled against the ridges of scar tissue on her cheek, a rough map of almost-matching lines. Under her left, the skin a smooth, unmarked canvas, pulled the heat in. She took her hands away, held them out, and tipped them from side to side. Scarred and ruined, as always.

  She stood, keeping her weight on her right leg, picked up the albums one by one, and slid them back onto the shelf. Spirals of pale rose filled her. Pink held only a handful of hope in the palm of her hand, hope as light as dandelion fluff and equally as prone to shifts in the wind. She was as fragile as spun glass, and battered and chipped at the edges. The others banished her to the far corners of Alison’s mind and did their best to keep her there.

  When Alison’s skin turned to nothing again, she hooked her finger around the spine of George’s album and carried it with both hands as she limped into the kitchen.

  The pink swirled deeper when she set it on the counter.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid, a little voice buried deep within—neither distinctly Red nor Yellow, but a melding, not a blending, of the two—said, but the pink swallowed it up.

  Her hands didn’t shake. In slow motion, she spread her fingers wide and lowered them onto George’s picture, breathing slow and easy while the second-hand on the wall clock tick-tick-ticked away the time.

  “Please,” she said, her voice a rasp of sandpaper.

  The clock ticked. A car raced down the alley, prompting a slew of barking from several dogs. Alison leaned her hips against the counter and flexed her left knee. The ache in the joint was too big to ignore, but too small to cause worry.