“I know what you’ve come to ask me,” she said.
“Oh?”
Were her eyes darker? Her lips thinner as they stretched into a wicked little smile?
Not Mavis.
“Go ahead and ask,” she dared. “Or are you too much of a coward?”
My throat felt dry and tight. “What is it you think I’ve come to ask?”
Not Mavis.
She remained silent. Watching with a grin, waiting.
“Okay,” I said. “Do you want to tell me what happened with Paul today? Why he left so abruptly?”
Her grin widened. “Poor Paul. He’s gone off and lost his head.”
“What do you mean? Did something happen between you two?”
“Wrong question.”
“But that’s—”
“That’s a weak question, Alison. Have some balls and ask a good one.”
Not Mavis.
“Okay.” My mind scrambled. What did I want to know? I blurted out the first question that popped into my head. “Why did you tell Olivia to call you Needle Sivam?”
My mother smiled up at me, such a wide smile that it looked as if it might hurt her, as if her face might actually split and her jaw come unhinged like the jaw of a snake about to swallow its prey.
“There was a little girl who had a little curl, right in the middle of her forehead,”my mother sang out.
“Your name is Mavis,” I said.
“What if it’s not?” she said. “What if I’m not really Mavis? Not anymore.”
I blew out a breath. The room seemed to get smaller, darker.
Or was my mother getting larger? Her limbs lengthening?
I blinked. Impossible.
“Okay then. If you’re not Mavis, who are you?” My voice came out small and high, my scared little girl voice.
The words Paul spoke as he drove away drummed inside my skull, a terrible cacophony:
That’s not Mavis.
That’s not Mavis.
That’s not Mavis.
“I wear Mavis like a skin,” she said. “I’m her and I’m not her. I’m so much more.”
There was a crackling laugh, like fire overtaking dry grass.
