Читать книгу Prom Nights From Hell: Five Paranormal Stories - Стефани Майер, Meg Cabot, Stephenie Meyer - Страница 9

Readers, beware! The following story was inspired by “The Monkey’s Paw,” first published in 1902 by W. W. Jacobs, which scared the dickens out of me when I was a teenager. Be careful what you wish for, indeed! —LAUREN MYRACLE

OUTSIDE, THE WIND WHIPPED around Madame Zanzibar’s house, making a loose rain-pipe thump against the siding. The sky was dark, though it was only four o’clock. But within the garishly decorated waiting room, three table lamps shone brightly, each draped with a jewel-toned scarf. Ruby hues lit Yun Sun’s round face, while bluish-purple hues gave Will the mottled look of someone freshly dead.

“You look like you’ve risen from the grave,” I told him.

“Frankie,” Yun Sun scolded. She did a head jerk toward Madame Z’s closed office, worried, I suppose, that she might hear and be offended. A red plastic monkey hung from the office doorknob, indicating that Madame Z was with a client. We were up next.

Will made his eyes go vacant. “I am a pod person,” he moaned. He stretched his arms out toward us. “Please to give me all your hearts and livers.”

“Oh no! The pod person has taken over our beloved Will!” I clutched Yun Sun’s arm. “Quick, give him your hearts and livers, so he’ll leave mine alone!”

Yun Sun shook free. “Not amused,” she said in a tone both singsongy and threatening. “And if you’re not nice to me, I will leave.”

“Stop being such a pooter,” I said.

“I will take my thunder thighs and I will march right out of here. Just watch.”

Yun Sun was on a my-legs-are-too-fat kick, just because her superslinky prom dress needed a little letting out. At least she had a prom dress. And a for-sure chance to wear it.

“Bleh,” I said. Her grouchiness was endangering our plan, which was the whole reason we were here. The night of the prom was getting dangerously close, and I was not going to be the sad shell of a girl who sat home alone while everyone else went crazy with glitter dust and danced ironically in spectacular three-inch heels. I refused, especially since I knew in my heart of hearts that Will wanted to ask me. He just needed a little encouragement.

I lowered my voice, all the while smiling at Will like la la la, just girl talk, nothing important! “It was both of our idea to do this, Yun Sun. Remember?”

“No, Frankie, it was your idea,” she said. And she did not keep her voice down. “I’ve already got my date, even though he’s going to be squished to death by my thighs. You’re the one hoping for a last-minute miracle.”

“Yun Sun!” I glanced at Will, who turned red. Bad Yun Sun, throwing it out in the open like that. Bad, bad, naughty girl!

“Ow!” she yelped. Because I’d whacked her.

“I am very mad at you,” I said.

“Enough with the coyness. You do want him to ask you, don’t you?”

“Ow!”

“Um, you guys?” Will said. He was doing that adorable thing he did when he was nervous, when his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. Although, huh. That was kind of an icky image. It made me think of bobbing for apples, which was only one step away from bobbing for Adam’s apples.

But. Will was indeed possessed of an Adam’s apple, and when it moved up and down in his throat, it was indeed adorable. It made him look so vulnerable.

“She hit me,” Yun Sun tattled.

“She deserved it,” I countered. But I didn’t want it to go further, this line of conversation that was already too revealing. So I patted Yun Sun’s totally unfat leg and said, “However, I forgive you. Now shut up.”

What Yun Sun failed to get—or more likely, what she totally got and yet failed to appreciate—was that not all things needed to be said aloud. Yes, I wanted Will to ask me to prom, and I wanted him to do it soon, because “Springtime Is for Lovers” was only two weeks away.

And fine, the name of the dance was dorky, but springtime was for lovers. It was an indisputable truth. Just as it was an indisputable truth that Will was my forever boy, if only he could get past his enduring bashfulness and make a frickin’ move. Enough chummy shoulder slugs and giggling, snorting tickle wars! Enough clutching each other and shrieking, blaming it on our Netflix copies of The Body Snatchers or They Come from the Hills! Couldn’t Will see that I was his for the taking?

He’d almost popped the question last weekend, I was ninety-nine-point-five percent sure. We’d been watching Pretty Woman, an overblown romance which never failed to amuse. Yun Sun had disappeared into the kitchen for snacks, leaving the two of us alone.

“Um, Frankie?” Will had said. His foot tap-tap-tapped against the floor, and his fingers flexed on his jeans. “Can I ask you something?”

Any fool would have known what was coming, because if he’d just wanted me to turn up the volume, he’d simply have said, “Hey, Franks, turn up the volume.” Casual. Straightforward. No need for any preparatory remarks. But since there were preparatory remarks … well, what could he possibly have wanted to ask me besides “Will you go to prom?” Eternal delight was right there, only seconds away.

And then I’d blown it. His palpable nervousness triggered a spaz-out of my own, and instead of letting the moment play out, I’d skittishly changed the subject. BECAUSE I WAS A FREAK.

“Now see, that’s the way it’s done!” I said, pointing at the TV. Richard Gere was galloping on his white steed, which was really a limo, to Julia Roberts’s castle, which was really a crappy third-story apartment. As we watched, Richard Gere climbed out of the sun roof and scaled the fire escape, all to win the affections of his beloved.

“None of this namby-pamby ‘I think you’re kinda cute’ baloney,” I went on. I was blathering, and I knew it. “We’re talking action, baby. We’re talking grand gesture of love.”

Will gulped. And said, “Oh.” And blinked at Richard Gere in a startled-teddy-bear way, thinking, I’m sure, that he could never, ever compare.

I stared at the TV, knowing I’d sabotaged my prom night happiness through my own stupidity. I didn’t care about “grand gestures of love;” I just cared about Will. But brilliant me, I’d gone and scared him off. Because in actual real reality, I was an even bigger wimp than he was.

But no more—which was why we were here at Madame Zanzibar’s. She would tell us our futures, and unless she was a total hack, she would state the obvious as an impartial observer: Will and I were meant for each other. Hearing it spoken so plainly would give Will the guts to try again. He’d ask me to prom, and this time I’d let him, even if it killed me.

The plastic monkey twitched on the office doorknob.

“Look, it’s moving,” I whispered.

“Oooo,” Will said.

A black man with snow-white hair shuffled out of the office. He had no teeth, which made the lower half of his face look puckered, like a prune.

“Children,” he said, tipping his hat.

Will stood up and opened the front door, because that’s the kind of guy he was. A gust of wind nearly toppled the old man, and Will steadied him.

“Whoa,” Will said.

“Thank you, son,” the old man replied. His words came out mushy, because of the no-teeth thing. “Reckon I best skedaddle before the storm blows in.”

“I think it already has,” Will said. Past the driveway, tree branches thrashed and creaked.

“This weensy old wind?” the old man said. “Aw, now, this is just a baby waking up and wanting to be fed. It’ll be worse before the night is over, mark my words.” He peered at us. “In fact, shouldn’t you children be home, safe and sound?”

It was hard to take offense when a toothless old-timer called you “children.” But come on, this was the second time in twenty seconds.

“We’re juniors in high school,” I said. “We can take care of ourselves.”

His laugh made me think of dead leaves.

“All right, then,” he said. “I’m sure you know best.” He small-stepped onto the porch, and Will gave a half wave and shut the door.

“Crazy coot,” came a voice from behind us. We turned to see Madame Zanzibar in the office doorway. She wore hot pink Juicy Couture sweatpants with a matching hot pink top, unzipped to her clavicle. Her breasts were round and firm and amazingly perky, given that she didn’t seem to be wearing a bra. Her lipstick was bright orange, to match her nails, and so was the end of the cigarette she held between two fingers.

“So, are we coming in or are we staying out here?” she asked the three of us. “Unveiling life’s mysteries or leaving well enough alone?”

I rose from my chair and pulled Yun Sun with me. Will followed. Madame Z ushered us into her office, and the three of us scrunched together in an overstuffed armchair. Will realized it was never going to work and lowered himself to the floor. I wiggled to make Yun Sun give me more room.

“See? They’re sausages,” she said, referring to her thighs.

“Scooch,” I commanded.

“Now,” Madame Z said, crossing in front of us and sitting behind a table. She puffed on her cigarette. “What’s your business?”

I bit my lip. How to put it? “Well, you’re a psychic, right?”

Madame Z exhaled a cloud of smoke. “Gee, Sherlock, the ad in the Yellow Pages tip you off?”

I blushed, while at the same time bristling. My question had been a conversation opener. Did she have a problem with conversation openers? Anyway, if she really was a psychic, shouldn’t she already know why I was here?

“Uh … okay. Sure, whatever. So I guess I was wondering …”

“Yeah? Out with it.”

I gathered my courage. “Well … I was wondering if a certain special person was going to ask me a certain special question.” I purposefully didn’t look at Will, but I heard his spurt of surprise. He hadn’t seen this coming.

Madame Z pressed two fingers to her forehead and let her eyes go blank. “Ahem,” she said. “Hmm, hmm. What I’m getting here is muzzy. There is passion, yes”—Yun Sun giggled; Will swallowed audibly—”but there are also … how do I say? Complicating factors.”

Gee, thanks, Madame Z, I thought. Could we dig a little deeper here? Give me something to work with?

“But is he—I mean, the person—going to act on his passion?” I was brazen, despite my knotted stomach.

“To act or not to act… that is the question?” Madame Z said.

“Yes, that is the question.”

“Ahhh. That is always the question. And what one must always ask oneself—” She broke off. Her eyes flew to Will, and she paled.

“What?” I demanded.

“Nothing,” she said.

“Something,” I said. Her message-from-the-spirits performance wasn’t fooling me. She wanted us to think she’d been suddenly possessed? That she’d had a stark and powerful vision? Fine! Just get to the bloody answer!

Madame Z made a show of pulling herself together, complete with a long, shaky draw on her cigarette. Looking dead at me, she said, “If a tree falls in a forest, and no one’s there to hear it, does it still make a sound?”

“Huh?” I said.

“That’s all I’ve got. Take it or leave it.” She seemed agitated, so I took it. Although I made cuckoo eyes at Yun Sun when Madame Z wasn’t watching.

Will claimed not to have a specific question, but Madame Z was oddly insistent on relaying a message to him anyhow. She waved her hands over his aura and warned him sternly of heights, which was curiously appropriate as Will was an avid rock climber. What was more curious was Will’s reaction. First his eyebrows shot up, and then a different emotion took over, like some secret anticipatory pleasure. He glanced at me and blushed.

“What’s going on?” I asked. “You have your sneaky face on.”

“Exsqueeze me?” he said.

“What are you not telling us, Will Goodman?”

“Nothing, I swear!”

“Don’t be stupid, boy!” Madame Z harped. “Listen to what I’m saying.”

“Oh, you don’t have to worry about him,” I said. “He’s a total Mr. Safety.” I turned back to Will. “For real. Do you have a fabulous new climbing spot? A brand-new shiny carabiner?”

“It’s Yun Sun’s turn,” Will said. “Yun Sun, go.”

“Can you read palms?” Yun Sun asked Madame Z.

Madame Z exhaled, and she was barely engaged as she traced her finger over the plump pad below Yun Sun’s thumb. “You will be as beautiful as you allow yourself to be,” she told her. That was it. Those were her pearls of wisdom.

Yun Sun seemed as underwhelmed as I was, and I felt like protesting on all our behalves. I mean, seriously! A tree in the forest? Be careful of heights? You will be as beautiful as you allow yourself to be? Even with her somewhat convincing touches of atmospheric creepiness, the three of us were getting cheated. Me in particular.

But before I could say anything, a cell phone on the desk rang. Madame Z picked it up and used a long orange nail to punch the talk button.

“Madame Zanzibar, at your service,” she said. Her expression changed as she listened to whoever was on the other end. She grew brisk and annoyed. “No, Silas. It’s called a … yes, you can say it, a yeast infection. Yeast infection.”

Yun Sun and I shared a glance of horror, although—I couldn’t help it—I was also delighted. Not that Madame Z had a yeast infection. I mean, ick. But that she was discussing it with Silas, whoever he was, while all of us listened in. Now we were getting our money’s worth.

“Tell the pharmacist it’s the second time this month,” Madame Z groused. “I need something stronger. What? For the itching, you idiot! Unless he wants to scratch it for me!” She twisted on her swivel chair, pumping one Juicy Coutured leg over the other.

Will looked up at me, his brown eyes wide with alarm. “I will not be scratching it for her,” he stage-whispered. “I refuse!”

I laughed, thinking it a good sign that he was showing off for me. The Madame Z experience hadn’t gone as intended, but who knew? Maybe it would end up having the desired effect after all.

Madame Z pointed at me with the lit end of her cigarette, and I ducked my chin contritely, like Sorry, sorry. To distract myself, I focused on the strange and varied clutter on her shelves. A book called Magic of the Ordinary and another titled What to Do When the Dead Speak—But You Don’t Want to Listen. I nudged Will with my knee and pointed. He mimed choking the poor deceased bastard, and I snortled.

Above the books I saw: a bottle of rat poison, an old-fashioned monocle, a jar of what looked like fingernail clippings, a stained Starbucks cup, and a rabbit’s foot, claws attached. And on the shelf above that was … oh, lovely.

“Is that a skull?” I asked Will.

Will whistled. “Holy cannoli.”

“Okey-doke,” Yun Sun said, averting her eyes. “If there really is a skull, I don’t want to know about it. Can we leave now?”

I took her head in my hands and pointed her in the right direction. “Look. It still has hair!”

Madame Z snapped her cell phone shut. “Fools, every one of them,” she said. Her pallor was gone; apparently talking to Silas had shaken her out of her funk. “Ahh! I see you found Fernando!”

“Is that whose skull that is?” I asked. “Fernando’s?”

“Oh God,” Yun Sun moaned.

“Wormed his way to the surface after a gully washer, out in Chapel Hill Cemetery,” Madame Z told us. “His coffin, that is. Crappy wooden thing, must’a been from the early nineteen hundreds. No one left to care for him, so I took pity on him and brought him here.”

“You opened the coffin?” I said.

“Yep.” She seemed proud. I wondered if she’d worn her Juicy Couture during the grave robbing.

“That’s gross that it still has hair,” I said.

“He still has hair,” Madame Z said. “Show some respect.”

“I didn’t know dead bodies had hair, that’s all.”

“Skin, no,” Madame Z said. “Skin starts to rot right away, and believe me, you don’t want to smell it when it goes. But hair? Sometimes it keeps growing for weeks after the deceased has made his crossing.”

“Wowzers.” I reached down and tousled Will’s honey-colored curls. “Hear that, Will? Sometimes the hair keeps growing.”

“Amazing,” he said.

“What about that?” Yun Sun asked, pointing to a clear Tupperware container in which something reddish and organlike floated in clear liquid. “Please tell me it didn’t come from Fernando, too. Please.”

Madame Z waved her hand, like Don’t be ridiculous. “That’s my uterus. Had the doc give it to me after my hysterectomy.”

“Your uterus?” Yun Sun looked ill.

“I’m going to let ‘em toss it in the incinerator?” Madame Z said. “Fat chance!”

“And that?” I pointed to a clump of dried-up something on the highest shelf. This show-and-tell was proving far more enjoyable than our actual readings.

Madame Z followed my gaze. She opened her mouth, then closed it. “That’s nothing,” she said firmly, although I noticed she had a hard time tearing her eyes from it. “Now. Are we done here?”

“Come on.” I made praying hands. “Tell us what it is.”

“You don’t want to know,” she said.

“I do,” I said.

“I don’t,” Yun Sun said.

“Yes, she does,” I said. “And so does Will. Right, Will?”

“It can’t be worse than the uterus,” he said.

Madame Z pressed her lips together.

“Please?” I begged.

She muttered something under her breath about idiot teenagers and how she refused to take the blame, whatever came of it. Then she stood up, pawing the top shelf. Her bosom didn’t jiggle, but stayed firm and rigid beneath her top. She retrieved the clump and placed it in front of us.

“Oh,” I breathed. “A corsage.” Brittle rosebuds, their edges brown and papery. Sprigs of graying baby’s breath, so desiccated that puffs of fiber dusted the table. A limp red ribbon holding it all together.

“A peasant woman in France put a spell on it,” Madame Z said in a tone that was hard to decipher. It was as if she were compelled to speak the words, even though she didn’t want to. Or, no. More like she did want to but was struggling to resist. “She wanted to show that true love is guided by fate, and that anyone who tries to interfere does so at her own peril.”

She moved to return the corsage.

“Wait!” I cried. “How does it work? What does it do?”

“I’m not telling,” she said stubbornly.

“‘I’m not telling’?” I repeated. “How old are you, four?”

“Frankie!” Yun Sun said.

“You’re just like all the rest, aren’t you?” Madame Z said to me. “Willing to do anything for a boyfriend? Desperate for a heart-stopping romance, no matter the cost?”

I felt my face go hot. But here it was, out on the table. Boyfriends. Romance. Hope flickered in my chest.

“Just tell her,” Yun Sun said, “or we’ll never get to leave.”

“No,” Madame Z insisted.

“She can’t, because she made it up,” I said.

Madame Z’s eyes flashed. I’d provoked her, which wasn’t nice, but something told me that whatever it was, she hadn’t made it up. And I really wanted to know.

She put the corsage in the middle of the table, where it sat doing absolutely nothing.

“Three people, three wishes apiece,” Madame Z declared. “That’s its magic.”

Yun Sun, Will, and I looked at one another, then burst out laughing. It was ludicrous and at the same time perfect: the storm, the wacko, and now the ominously issued pronouncement.

And yet the way Madame Z regarded us made our laughter trickle off. The way she regarded Will, especially.

He tried to resurrect the hilarity.

“So, why don’t you use it?” he asked in the manner of a teenager being helpful and polite.

“I did,” she said. Her orange lipstick was like a stain.

“And … were your three wishes granted?” I asked.

“Every last one,” she said flatly.

None of us knew what to say to that.

“Well, has anyone else used it?” Yun Sun asked.

“One other lady. I don’t know what her first two wishes were, but her last was for death. That’s how the corsage came to me.”

We sat there, all silliness squelched. The situation felt unreal, yet here we were, in this moment.

“Dude, that’s spooky,” Will said.

“So … why do you keep it?” I asked. “If you’ve used up your three wishes?”

“Excellent question,” Madame Z said after staring at the corsage for a few heavy seconds. She pulled a turquoise lighter from her pocket and struck a flame. She picked up the corsage with a fierce determination, as if committing to a course of action long overdue.

“No!” I yelped, snatching it from her grasp. “Let me have it, if you don’t want it!”

“Never. It should be burned.”

My fingers closed over the rose petals. They were the texture of my grandfather’s wizened cheek, which I stroked when I visited him at the nursing home.

“You’re making a mistake,” Madame Z warned. She reached to reclaim the bundle, then jerked her hand back convulsively. I sensed the same internal warring as when I first goaded her into speaking of the corsage, as if the corsage had an element of actual power over her. Which was ridiculous, of course.

“It’s not too late to change your fate,” she managed.

“What fate would that be?” I said. My voice broke. “The fate where a tree falls in the forest, but poor me, I’m wearing earplugs?”

Madame Z fixed me with her thick-lashed eyes. The skin around them was as thin as crepe paper, and I realized she was older than I originally assumed.

“You are a rude and disrespectful child. You deserve a spanking.” She leaned back in her swivel chair, and I could tell—snap, like that—she’d released herself from the corsage’s unhealthy hold. Or perhaps the corsage had done the releasing? “You keep it, that’s your decision. I take no responsibility for what happens.”