The Onion Girl by Charles De Lint Read Free Book Online Page A

head. “When they give up, nobody can help them.”
    â€œI won’t let her give up,” Sophie had told him.

    But that was easier said than done. How did you make someone want to live?
    â€œI don’t want to be here,” Jilly had said, lying there, broken and pale. Half her head shaven, the words spilled out of a crooked mouth. At least the tubes had been removed from her nose and she was no longer dependent on machines to breathe.
    â€œI know you don’t,” Sophie told her. She was sitting on the side of the bed, wiping Jilly’s forehead with a damp cloth. “None of us wants you to be here. But you don’t have any choice right now.”
    â€œI do have a choice,” Jilly said. “I can go back to sleep. I can go back to the dreamlands.”
    It was the most she’d said to Sophie all morning.
    â€œThat’s not a solution,” Sophie said. “You know that, don’t you?”
    But Jilly only closed her eyes.
    â€œSophie?” Mona asked. “Are you okay?”
    Sophie had paused halfway up the stairs, tears brimming in her eyes. She shook her head. Mona came down to the riser she was standing on and put her arms around her. For a long time they stood there, holding on to each other.
    â€œThanks,” Sophie said finally, stepping away. “I needed that.”
    â€œMe, too.”
    Sophie’s gaze went past Mona, up the stairs to Jilly’s door.
    â€œLet’s get this done,” she said.
    It was both worse and not as bad as Lou had made it out to be. At least half the paintings were untouched, so the loss wasn’t as complete as when, years ago, Izzy had lost all her work in the fire. But looking at the art that had been damaged, it was difficult for either woman to understand the sheer savagery of the sick individual responsible for the wreckage. There would be no fixing those paintings. Most of them hung in tattered ribbons from their frames. The remainder had even had their frames broken and splintered. Fifty or sixty of Jilly’s gorgeous paintings, all destroyed beyond repair. Some were works in progress, but most were ones she’d just loved too much to be able to sell.
    The reek of turps and solvents that stung their nostrils when they entered the loft came from some bottles that had been broken near Jilly’s
easel, almost as an afterthought, it seemed. The sharp sting in the air was enough to burn their eyes, but at least they hadn’t been poured over the furniture the way Sophie had feared from Lou’s terse description the night before.
    Jilly’s other belongings—her clothes, books, everything—were scattered around as though a squall had blown in off the lake and through the apartment. Only the kitchen area was relatively untouched. Some glasses and mugs had been broken there—they must have been in the drainer which Sophie found lying on the floor under the kitchen table. Except for that small bit of damage, the doors of the cupboards and fridge were all still closed, guarding their contents.
    After a quick circuit of the loft to assess the damage, they opened the windows facing onto Yoors Street to help air the place out, removed a couple of boards from the back window to create some airflow, and got to it. They began with picking up the broken glass and porcelain, mopping up the turps and solvents from around Jilly’s painting area.
    â€œAt least no one had a dump on the floor,” Mona said as she wrung out the mop in a bucket.
    Sophie turned to her with a handful of fired clay and porcelain fragments that had once been mugs and raised her eyebrows.
    â€œLike what happened to Miki last year, remember? The people that trashed her place peed on her clothes and furniture and smeared feces everywhere.”
    Sophie grimaced. “God, I’d forgotten about that.”
    â€œIt’s the kind of thing you want to forget,” Mona said. “Like this.” Her gaze