Black and Blue Ivy

Grace

The sun had already begun to dip below the black treetops as I climbed and climbed, just like in my dream, up the steep path leading up the hill. I heard Bentley's voice calling after me. How I hated the sound of it. Suddenly I understood so much, that "special bond" between mother and stepson was something very real. Bentley and Gardenia were lovers. The thought made me retch and I gripped a slender tree branch and bent at the waist. My empty stomach produced only bile. Bentley's voice loomed closer. I pushed myself off the branch and continued on. My eyes stung with tears, my feet trudged through the crusted snow. At some point I realized where I was heading, toward the upside down cross of Luther Black's estate. There was a wire fence with a red No Trespassing sign tacked on to it.

Violators will be shot. Survivors will be prosecuted.

Do me a fucking favor, Luther Black.

I found a section of the fence that had collapsed under the weight of the snow. I scuffled over it. What will I say when I reach Luther Black's house? I heard what sounded like the howl of a wolf. Did Luther Black set his dogs on me already? I didn't care. My feet, numb and wet by now, marched toward my destiny until I couldn't walk another step. My lungs burned, and my legs folded under me. I collapsed, boneless, to the ground. The snow was cold and wet but very soft, and as I gazed up at the trees, black bare branches swaying gently across a graying sky, I thought that freezing to death out here in the woods was not a bad way to die after all. That would show them, I thought with a sob of self pity. I wanted all of them: Gardenia, Bentley, Morningstar, every adult who ever let me down, to know what pain feels like. Tears streamed down my face, warming my chilled cheeks. As I lay there, I did something I used to do when I was little and Morningstar would leave me alone in the apartment to drink with one of her boyfriends at the local bar. I began to sing a song I'd loved since I could remember. My sobs garbled the words and the notes, but in a moment the music had calmed me as it never failed to do when I was a child. I sang, first in croaking sobs, until I found my voice:

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I'm found. Was blind but now I see.

The sound of crashing footsteps through the snow stopped my song. Bentley found me. I sat bolt upright and gasped. Stumbling toward me was Luther Black. He wore only a t-shirt, soaked with sweat. His hair hung wildly about his face. His eyes were wild and glazed. It was a face I'd seen before on junkies about to OD. His face was terrifying enough, but I screamed when I saw that in his hand he held a rope, a swinging noose.

I leaped to my feet like a cat and sprinted away.

"Wait!" he cried after me. "Angel, wait! Angel!"

Why was hell was he calling me angel. Had he lost his goddam mind? Was anyone sane in this world?

I realized I was running back down the hill, slipping and sliding through the snow. I had no other recourse than to return to Providence House. Then what?

I was shivering so hard I couldn't speak. Just get to your room, get a hold of Ellen Crenshaw, tell her everything!

I was almost at the clearing leading to the lawn when a branch cracked. I turned with a gasp as jumped out from behind a tree. He gripped me in a tight bear hug. I had no struggle left in me, and with a cry I promptly fainted.

* * *

I awoke in my own bed to the sound of whispers. Gardenia, Bentley, Mrs. Roche perhaps, were talking about me but I couldn't understand their words. All I knew was that I was shaking despite the three blankets piled on top of me. My hair was damp and so was my body, naked within a fresh flannel nightgown. Someone had undressed me, placed me in a hot bath. Why didn't I remember any of it? Suddenly the whispers ceased. I felt the impression of someone sitting on the edge of the bed. I opened my eyes and Bentley was gazing down at me. He wore a strange expression, more like a doctor checking on a drug's effect on a patient than a what? A stepbrother? A lover?