Pretty Little Dead Girls by Mercedes M. Yardley Read Free Book Online Page B

pretends, you see, and there is a safety in the pretending. The person she is onstage can get hurt and it doesn’t affect Syrina. The words she says aren’t hers; the ideas that are shot down belong to somebody else. If Syrina simply pretends hard enough, then it will all go away. Don’t you see, Rikki-Tikki? It is her own way of protecting Bryony. It is her own way of surviving.
    Rikki-Tikki is many things. He is kind and he is patient, and he is strong and steady like a great stone wall or a tree that you want to rest your back against when you are weary or in the midst of a fight. But most of all he is insightful, and listens to that little voice inside of his head and stomach that says “Stop pushing now,” and “Perhaps you had better dig into this a little deeper” and even occasionally, “Your car keys are stuck between the cushions on the couch. Please be more careful with them in the future.” And now this voice was warning him that Syrina’s head was spinning with the thought that even her very finest effort at pretending might not be enough to keep her dear friend Bryony around. This is a harsh realization indeed, and one that Syrina particularly didn’t want to face, so she chose instead to glower at Rikki-Tikki, who sighed and wisely kept the smile from his face.
    “You’re right, dear one,” Rikki-Tikki said, and ruffled Syrina’s hair. “We won’t speak of such things. Not when there is such an entertaining movie on television.”
    In truth the movie was only subpar, and generally Syrina would pounce upon that sentence with a: “What, are you kidding? What horrid taste you have! Sometimes I wonder if we really have anything in common. The script is amateurish and the acting makes my brain want to burst out of my eyeballs!” But right now she was simply grateful for the distraction, as B-rated as it may be.
    “Yes, you are absolutely right. Let us watch this movie about . . . radioactive giant grasshoppers. There really is nothing more in the world that I would rather do at the moment.”
    So he tightened his arm around her, and she rested her head upon his shoulder, and they both thought their separate thoughts.
    Bryony will live forever, I know it, Syrina thought with a sternness that was endearing and also a bit frightening. She will, she will. There simply can be no other way. Then she vaguely wondered aloud if she should wear her purple high heels with her dress tomorrow or if she should just stick with fire engine red.
    Rikki-Tikki’s thoughts were like the sea, wide and deep and constantly shifting. He knew one day death would come for their dear friend, and there was no denying it. It did not do anybody any good. He also knew he wasn’t ready for that time to be quite so soon, and he had a trick or two up his sleeve that could help stop it, at least for now.
    “The purple,” Syrina decided, and snuggled closer. Rikki-Tikki nodded his head, and Syrina took that as a positive sign toward her footwear choice. She had told him about all about dresses and shoes before. Use your hips to distribute the weight while walking, for example. Five-inch heels are sexy, but six-inches have just thrown you straight to trashy. Perhaps if Rikki-Tikki had been wholeheartedly engrossed in the conversation, he would have said yes, wear the purple, they all lovely and will convey everything you silently want to say about yourself. But what Rikki-Tikki was really nodding about was his decision: although it wasn’t in his power to save Bryony, he was determined to try.
    “It’s getting late. Bryony should really be home by now,” Syrina said. She kissed Rikki-Tikki and took their empty ice cream bowls to the kitchen. She stood at the sink and thought yes, Rikki-Tikki was right about Bryony’s malevolent fate, but she couldn’t let her mind explore the idea of a world without Bryony, because it would be a dim and cheerless world, an exceptionally ugly world, and nobody should be forced to live in