She’d become the trickster.
Now, she was a Clark, not a Bard; her illusion wasn’t perfect. She was a pinkie’s length too short. Her nose was too long, her lips too thin. Her expression—twisted mouth, narrowed eyes—was one the trickster had never worn. She wasn’t beautiful and symmetrical like the trickster, but perhaps this was how she saw him.
She looked like a hateful version of the trickster.
She even walked like one, with a cutting swagger that hurt to watch.
The wind rushed after her as she knocked aside an older woman on the sidewalk and then shoved past a couple opening the apartment building’s door.
The wind swirled around her feet. What was she doing? What did she want?
At the lucky one’s apartment, she gave two quick knocks.
The wind moaned, tapping on the lucky one’s door. She wouldn’t be fooled. She was new-penny-tossed-in-a-fountain-lucky. She was?—
Opening the door. Smiling.
“What are you doing back alre?—?”
Her smile died.
She tried to slam the door, but the cruel one’s sister was too fast.
She shoved into the apartment and blew the door closed with a blast of air.
The wind shrieked and flew back across the hallway.
There was a sharp scream. It was muffled by the door, but the wind knew the sound of the lucky one’s voice.
It raced over the tiles and hit the door. It thudded against the wood and bounced back. The lucky one screamed again. The anguished sound was cut short, like a cord sliced by a knife. The scream was strangled.
The wind moaned at the silence and made itself flat. It rushed beneath the wooden door. Too late. The cruel one’s sister was already swinging it wide.
She was herself again. This time, her face was clean, her hair smooth, her dress long.
The wind rushed around her legs and blew through the apartment, searching. No furniture had been overturned. Nothing was shattered. The bed was still mussed. Still warm and scented with lovemaking. The kitchen tap was dripping, a coffee pot half-filled beneath the faucet. Coffee grounds were measured out in a filter on the counter. Nothing else.
The lucky one wasn’t there.
The wind rushed after the cruel one’s sister and escaped the apartment just as she closed and locked the door.
The hate-filled look was gone. As she left the apartment, she was smiling. It was a happy, joyful smile.
The wind moaned and blew through the small wicker basket she held. It was round, with a solid bamboo top and bottom and a smooth ivory handle. The basket was loosely woven, so the wooden slats made a tiny, open-aired cage. It was barely bigger than a cantaloupe. But it didn’t need to be large. It only held one small being.
“Stop crying,” the cruel one’s sister said. “Crickets don’t cry. They sing. I expect you to sing. I expect you to be happy when I give you to my husband as a wedding gift.”
When the cricket began a frightened, quiet humming song, the cruel one’s sister smiled.
“That’s better. You’ll like this. You’ll be with him all the time. You and me and him. After my husband dies, if you’re good, I’ll keep you. I like crickets. I had one once who looked just like you. It lived for years in a little basket. I’ll call you . . . No . . . you don’t get a name. Creatures who are insects don’t get names.”
The wind hummed a question to the cricket, but it only hunched in the corner of the cage and sang a low, frightened song.
The cruel one’s sister swung the basket and hummed happily as the sun rose high over the city.
55
It was impossible to discern the time in the asylum’s black basement rooms, but by the gritty, puffy feeling in my eyes, I’d only slept for a few hours.
