SOME came forth and talked to her. The others stayed deep in her mind and hid. Like she was hiding. Janie would kill them if they came out, she might kill the ones who dared to speak now. Janie might even kill her, if they came too close and hurt with their words. She retreated further into a dark corner of her mind to wait. To watch.
"Bad girl, Janie. You were bad today. Very, very bad. Now you have to pay the price." The serrated knife sawed back and forth across her wrist.
Janie felt no pain as she watched the tiny grooves of the knife shred skin and bring blood—pain was someone else's responsibility. She felt no remorse in her act today, just bitterness in it being discovered by the righteous Tatum.
Of course Tatum would know, she knew everything. They all did. Eventually.
The knife slipped to the floor. Tatum didn't move to pick it up. Good. Maybe the punishment was complete.
Janie tugged at her Sunday school dress, tight across her developing chest, and smeared dark blood on soft green velveteen. Snow flurries, carried on a sudden gust of wind, floated through the broken kitchen window overlooking the cracked cement stoop and the dark woods of the backyard, then settled softly on her black patent leather shoes.
Tina came then, squatting like a frog balancing on a lily pad, and watched the little flakes melt to water. "Look, Janie. See how pretty they are? Mommy would like it. Beau, too." Her interest waned as quickly as it appeared. "Let's color. I have a new box of crayons." Then, grudgingly, as was her way, she added, "We'll share."
Janie dismissed the little girl as no more than a toddler aware of little around her except her own immediate needs, and wrapped her arms around her chest. The kid was one of the new ones. And an annoying one at that. She shuddered with the drop in temperature the broken window had allowed and felt her anger grow again. There was enough to do without worrying about a whining child who wanted to color.
"Look at this mess, will ya? Just look at it. And Sunday company coming any minute." Betty snorted in disgust, picked up glass fragments and flung them into the trash can under the sink. She pulled an uprooted violet out of a pile of house plant soil scattered in clumps across the floor and held it out accusingly. "What is this? Some new approach to horticulture? Save it for that television broad Hazel. I got everything I can do to keep your room clean." She snatched up a single navy blue pump, a torn jacket, and a severed paisley tie, and threw them into the coat closet. "It's a good thing your mother and Beau can't see this mess." She pulled her thumb across her neck and winked. "They wouldn't like it a bit. Not one bit. So, let's just call it our little secret."
She whisked a handful of ice cubes from an overturned tumbler into her open palm, tossed them carelessly over her shoulder toward the sink, then sniffed the air. "Whiskey. And today being the Almighty's day." The fallen high-back chair was righted and shoved under the table. It stopped short of flush with the table edge. " 'Course, it doesn't matter to them one way or the other. When it's time, it's time. And it's always time." A blast of cold air pierced her green velveteen dress. "Damn, it's cold."
"Janie," Tina whined, "I'm cold. And I want to color. Can we color now?"
Tatum spoke knowingly. "No coloring today, Tina. Janie was a bad girl. A bad girl who deserves what she gets. And more."
Janie eyed the knife, now lying on the floor. Maybe she deserved to be punished and maybe she didn't. A faint smile touched her lips.
Cold wind ripped through the room, crashing countertop trinkets to the floor. Potting soil rolled across the cracked linoleum and soaked up blood at the knife's edge under the table.
Her smile turned to a scowl. If it hadn't been for her, levelheaded, take-command Janie, they'd still be in this mess. All of them. Someone had to take matters into her own hands. Certainly she wouldn't. Unless you called hiding like a coward doing something.
They called her cold, aloof, and had never been anything else to her. Because she deserved nothing more, Tatum had whispered to her in the dark of their room, because she had earned nothing less. Janie had rolled over on the hard floor and curled into a tight ball, anger seething, growing.
But on the hard floor, she shivered uncontrollably, knowing that the pain in her ankles, knees, and elbows would mean bruises tomorrow. A few more to add to the growing quiltwork. If only she had a blanket, just a small one, or a towel, to take the edge off. There were plenty around for Mother and her new lover, nothing for her. Even the midnight prowl for warmth, with a return to the linen closet before dawn, had been a mistake. Their eyes missed nothing—"Discipline," her mother had said, and Beau agreed— and their hands left nothing on her untouched for the crime. Only the X rays would prove that now, and the insistent whispering of Tatum with her cold "I told you so."
It was a lesson repeated over and over again in both words and actions. From the adults, then finally from Tatum.
She would awake to frigid water from the well drawn for a bath, then be sent outside for hours in the snow-covered woods wearing last summer's clothes. Stiff from the cold, and numb with Tatum's constant taunting, she was called in for a supper of frozen food tossed at her in rapid succession. Whatever she could catch and hold was hers, until their adult patience ran thin and the thawing food was thrown away.
Tina had come then, for the first time. The little one cried and rubbed her empty stomach; then as her child's rage bubbled, she stamped her foot. Adult eyes saw the scene and their hands took action. She screamed with the realization as the closet door closed and locked, and heard their muffled laughter from the other side. Tatum had talked to her as a mother to a wanton child. "I hope you've learned something from this. You're a bad girl, and bad girls are always punished. Always. Your mommy and Beau won't like you if you're bad." She paused then, as if to let this sink in. Her eyes narrowed with new thought. "Janie put you up to this, didn't she? I knew it. It's always her fault. She never learns, but she will now. Won't you, Janie?"
Janie shifted her eyes from the darkening, moist soil at her feet to the locked closet door, and remembered.
Tina cringed. "Please. I'll be good. I promise. Don't let it happen again, Janie. Pulleeeze." Her wail ended suddenly.
"Damn." Betty hoisted her arms to her hips. "The second my back is turned, it looks like a bomb went off in this place." She released a long martyr sigh and reached in the closet for a broom. Its bristles worked savagely across the floor, whisk-whisk-whisk, in a contest with the wind. Marching to the broken window, Betty stared with contempt at the gray skies. "I hate winter, ya know it? Muddy shoes, damp clothes, being stuck in the house with a bunch of tyrants. Never can make them happy. Their eyes see everything, things that aren't there most of the time, if you ask me. Still, I suppose it's a roof over my head." Her voice dropped to a whisper. Got nowhere else to go." Her broom came down under the table edge with a wet thud. "I still hate it." She took a tentative sweep across the floor with a last look out the window, then turned her full attention to the work. Her eyes widened. Blood smeared in an arc where the bristles met linoleum. Her lips peeled back in a sneer. Did I say I'd keep your secret? Well, forget it, honey. I may be the last to know, but I'll be the first to tell." Her face softened suddenly, pleaded. "I hafta. I got nowhere else to go."
Tatum surfaced, smiled knowingly. "You deserve what you get. Bad girls always do. Give me your wrist." She dropped the broom and foraged under the table for the knife.
Janie stood and laid the knife carefully on the table. Clotted blood and soil stuck to it like icing on a chocolate cake. Anger filled her, traveled up her spine and exploded in her head. Who was Tatum to threaten her with punishment and then try to carry it out? It wasn't for her to decide. And it wasn't up to Betty to tell all either. In fact, it was none of their damn business what she did or didn't do. If they choose to interfere, meddle in what she knew was right, then it was up to her to stop it. Stop them.
Confusion crowded in. They knew her scheme and were planning to fight back by taking over. All of them. She blinked, tried to think straight. Fragmented thoughts surfaced and threatened to relieve her of control. She shook her head and tried to force the thoughts back to their dark, murky depths again.
You must be punished.
Aw, I'll clean it up. C'mon.
Bad girl, Janie. Very, very bad.
Who'll clean your room?
The knife, Janie. Give me the knife.
She reached for the filthy knife, ran it broadside against her green velveteen dress, and held it high to catch the sparkle of the kitchen light. She took a deep breath and let calm settle over her. She was in charge now, she was the one who made the rules. And although she hadn't created them, she could end their miserable existence. All of them.
Who could stop her? Certainly not the hiding one. She cringed in the dark corner of the mind and tried to make herself very small and insignificant. Almost invisible.
There was only one thing left to do.
She plunged the knife into her skinny belly.
It tickled. Almost.
A light smile fell across her lips before she blacked out.
Pounding. There. At the front, door. Insistent pounding that brought her to weak consciousness.
They mumbled to themselves, banged on the front door until it cracked but held, and shouted out for someone to answer. Their footsteps left the front porch and quickly rounded the corner of the house to approach the back door.
Her belly hurt, a stinging, burning hurt. Tears ran down her face. She raised her head ever so slightly and saw the torn, bleeding bodies under the table. "Mother? Beau?" She twisted away from them and stopped with the searing pain.
A face loomed in the broken window, then a second. The first turned away with a retching sound, the other screamed for help.
She whined. Nothing would help them now, it was too late. Too late. "Momma?" The whine turned to a wail, a keening of horrible realization, then stopped, cut short.
The newest one, a baby, sat up in an awkward, swaying attempt at balance, then reached out to touch a still hand for a game of pat-a-cake. Her lips jutted out in a pout when they wouldn't play.
They were cold. Somebody had made them cold.