Death in a Funhouse Mirror by Kate Flora Read Free Book Online Page B

against the blue-black sky, Eve perched on a stool, her small, black-capped head tipped sideways, watching curiously. Then the crunch of shoes on gravel, the murmur of voices in animated conversation as Cliff and Rowan strolled into the picture, arm in arm, and stayed to watch Helene's pathetic progress.
    Helene, staring at Cliff and Rowan, speaking with an effort, pleading with them to help, and Cliff, smiling his irresistible smile, speaking in that warm, inviting voice. "It wouldn't be good for you, Helene. If you truly want to be a strong, independent woman, you have to help yourself. Anyway, I have my own personal agenda to pursue." He patted Rowan on the arm. "I really don't have the energy for your issues right now."
    And Helene, propped up on the sidewalk, her body ripped open and her insides spilling out over her arm, trying to smile. "I know, Cliff. I understand. I just wish this once you could find some time for me." Footsteps as Cliff and Rowan walk off into the night. A thin snatch of laughter floating back.
    Helene and Cliff had been among my heroes. Not good at childrearing, maybe, but otherwise admirable grownups. Real and accomplished and competent, yet genuinely interested in Eve and her friends and what we were doing. There had been a time in my impressionable youth when I thought I wanted to be a woman like Helene married to a man like Cliff. So of course I tried to step into the dream and help her, but it was a dream, and I was only the voiceless audience.
    Then the dream changed. I was standing in my Uncle Henry's garage, wearing a bright red woolen jacket with a peaked little hood, an elfin figure, my breath coming out in clouds of steam, staring up at the six-point buck he'd shot. The deer hung from the rafters, innocent eyes vacant in death, proud antlers sprouting from its head, slender legs standing stiffly out, the belly a gaping red slash where he'd dressed it, and the graceful throat slit to let it bleed. He and my father were swapping hunting stories, while my brother Michael danced about, infected by their excitement, trying to get them to agree that he could have the antlers. And I, included at my own insistence in this sublimely male moment, disgraced myself by vomiting down the front of my new red jacket. Dad and Uncle Henry were solicitous and kind, but I felt them, and Michael, draw together in scorn for my female weakness.
    The smell of vomit and the faintly metallic odor of blood were so vivid I awoke, afraid that I'd been sick. But except that I was drenched with sweat, I was fine. I got up and padded through the sleepy darkness to the kitchen, poured myself a stiff measure of bourbon, and took it out onto the deck, closing the slider quietly behind me. The cool wind off the water felt good. I lay back in the lounge chair and filled my lungs with salty air, letting the bourbon's sharp, sweet heat soothe me. Below me, the waves lapped the rocks like a cat giving itself a bath.
    I've always been troubled by dreams. When I was small, I used to wake up screaming and scare my parents. It got better as I got older, though it never completely went away until I met David. Sleeping beside him with his arm pulling me tightly to his side, I felt a security I'd never felt before. In the two years we were together, I only had one dream bad enough to wake me up, and when I awoke, I couldn't remember what it had been about. It was the night before he was killed, and it may have been a premonition. I don't really believe in that stuff—signs and premonitions and omens—but a few times in my life, I've had these flashes where I knew what was going to happen before it happened, some sort of ESP, so while I would never expect it or depend on it, I'm not completely skeptical, either.
    I heard the slider and then Andre came out. "You okay?"
    "I had a dream that woke me up."
    He didn't say anything, just sat down beside me and put an arm around me. He knows about my dreams. He took the glass from my