“My parents died when I was three, I’ve been around foster homes ever since then,” Lucy looked out the window and across the carpark. I’m not sure what had caught her attention, but she was clearly enthralled by it, for the moment at least, and I could do nothing but wait for her to return to this plane.
She shook her head suddenly, and rubbed at her eyes, then turned to me.
“Sorry, I thought I saw something,” she glanced quickly out the window again, but whatever she thought she had seen was now gone. She blinked owlishly, as though trying to clear her sight, and continued with her story.
“I was never anywhere for long. Apparently I scared all the other children I was with. And the last time they put me in care, where there weren’t any other kids, he turned out to be not the kind of person that should be looking after young girls.” Lucy picked up her spoon and started to attack her ice-cream with gusto. If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought that Lucy had never been given ice-cream before.
“Not very often, anyway,” she spoke through the dessert. “And never anything other than vanilla. I’ve never had cookies and cream ice-cream before,” she continued to shovel spoon after spoon into her mouth, hardly pausing for breath. I looked at her, a little shocked, but tried to cover it. She shrugged at me, and licked the last of the ice-cream off the spoon.
“You’re wondering how I knew that was what you were thinking.” She wasn’t asking me if that was what I was wondering, she was making it a fact, and again my mouth opened in surprise.
“I don’t know how I know. It’s just that sometimes I can hear what other people are thinking.”
“All the time?”
“Nope, just sometimes, and only some people.” She looked around for the waiter, and waved him over. “Can I please have another bowl of ice-cream?” she asked him, opening the menu again to the list of flavours available.
He nodded and took out his notepad.
“Umm… I think I’ll go with the macadamia nut this time around,” she stated, although I was fairly sure that she didn’t actually know what a macadamia nut was. It was just the next flavour down from cookies and cream.
As the waiter turned to put in her order, she turned on me. “I do so know what macadamias are. One of the foster families I lived with in Queensland had a macadamia farm, and we used to go hunting at night for the ones that had fallen off the trees. It was the only time we were ever allowed to eat them.” She sat back in the chair and crossed her arms over her chest, huffing a little bit, indignant. I smiled, because in that moment, she was a little girl, not the rough and angst ridden teen she was most of the time.
“Have you ever really been happy, Lucy?” I asked quietly, surprising myself at the question. I hadn’t thought it, it had just popped out of my mouth. She took a moment, to collect her memories, I thought, and then answered me cautiously, as though I might try to take away the few joyous moments she treasured.
“When I was at my third home, they had a cat. Her name was Marmalade, although I never could figure out why, she was as black as tar,” she smiled then, and her face lit up. I tried to hold onto that for her, and stayed quiet while she told me her story. “The first house, and the second one as well, they’d had pets there too, but those pets would never come near me. Dogs, cats, even the bunny rabbit was scared. I’d just pretended I didn’t like animals anyway, but I couldn’t figure out why the dogs would always growl at me, and the hackles on the cats would rise, and they would hiss. One of the cats at the first house used to turn and run away, fast as he could, whenever I walked into the room. Only time he ever did that, he’d jump on everyone else’s lap.” The waiter returned then, with Lucy’s ice-cream, and placed it in front of her. She thanked him, and then started to dig into it. I ordered another coffee and waited for Lucy to resume talking.
“Anyway, Marmalade was the only cat who would come near me, not exactly friendly, mind you, but at least she was never scared of me. Or she pretended not to be anyway.”
“Why do you think that was?”
Lucy shrugged, her brow creased. “Don’t know. The neighbour said it was because Marmalade wasn’t a real cat, she was the devil incarnate. I didn’t know what she meant by that at the time, I was only 7, but now that I think about it, she might have been right.”
I raised my eyebrows, hoping for further explanation on this, but Lucy ws momentarily distracted by her ice-cream. At least now I knew how to get the girl talking. It had taken me nearly two weeks to get her to say this much after our first meeting, and I found myself desperately wanting to know more about her every time I saw her. At night, once I’d left the hospital, I dreamed about her, and I had woken on several mornings swearing that she had been beside me in the bed. I had thought I was going crazy, and the sleep medication hadn’t been helping, but the more I learned about Lucy, the more I realised that it was quite possibly a part of her that was coming home with me.
She started to slow down her ice-cream intake, pausing to enjoy each macadamia she came across in the soft cream. I watched her, curious about this young girl who knew so little, and yet seemed so old beyond her years that it was a stark contrast, and a shock, when she asked questions I felt she should have known the answers too. At some point in her foster care, she had discovered Google, most likely while she was at school, and I knew that her immediate response to anything she didn’t understand was to turn to it. Knowing the perils in what Google could provide, I wasn’t entirely sure that this was the best educator for her, and had attempted to adequately provide any answer I could, to the best of my abilities if she asked.
“Do you think there’s an afterlife?” she suddenly asked.
“I’m not sure, Lucy. I’d like to believe that we go somewhere better when we die, but I’m not entirely convinced that it’s an ‘afterlife’,” I didn’t think now was the best time to get into the philosophical debate that had been raging for centuries, especially when I was more interested in her story about Marmalade the devil cat. She must have sensed my reluctance to discuss this further, and instead continued to tell me about the black cat.
“Marmalade used to wait for you, she’d sit just on the other side of the doorway, and as soon as you walked past, she’d stick out her paw and go for your ankles. If you were really unlucky, she’d latch on and bite down, real hard, then just run off, like it was some great big joke.
“She hated the telephone as well, big time. Whenever it rang, she’d go nuts, chasing after you as you went to answer it, and trying to jump onto your back. Her hackles would all raise up about ten seconds before the phone would ring. Usually that would give you enough time to grab her and throw her outside, so you wouldn’t be killed when you picked up the phone, but she soon learnt how to open the door, and as soon as you’d closed it, she’d be back in the room. As soon as you picked up the phone though, she’d settle down and go back to what she was doing, which was usually sleeping.” Lucy shrugged again, and I caught the ghost of a smile lingering in her eyes.
“Marmalade made me laugh, and she’d always sleep on the end of my bed. Although if I ever knocked into her, she’d eat my toes, but she was the closest thing I ever had that loved me.” The smile faded, and Lucy turned back to her ice-cream, scooping the bowl clean with her finger. I looked at her again, trying to see past the hard exterior. It wasn’t hard when she was with me, though, and I’d like to think that she was comfortable in my company. I liked her, she had some spunk, and while she wasn’t exactly endearing in a cute young lady type of way, there was definitely something about her that made you take notice.
“You’re nice to me,” she responded to my unspoken comments. “And you do make me feel comfortable, not like I’m some freak, which is how everyone else treats me. I know I’m a little strange, and that I have a tendency to spook people out, but I’m just as normal as the next person, I swear it.” Her eyes had widened, and although she spoke with the attitude of someone reciting her catechisms, I felt as though, secretly, she was pleading with me to believe her. There was so much more to this girl than she would ever let on, and I so desperately wanted to know as much as I could.
“How did your parents die?” Again, the question had popped from my mouth before I had actually thought it, and I put my hand out to hers. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry. If you don’t want to talk about it…”
“Nah, that’s cool. I actually know the answer to that, anyway, and you’ll find out sooner or later.” She picked up the spoon and started to twirl it through her fingers, and I was amazed at her dexterity. The ice-cream was finished, and I wondered if she would order anymore. I opened the menu for her again.
“We were out walking one night, and this huge storm just kinda came out of no where. It had been hot that day, I don’t know what the temperature was, but I know it was real hot. I was only wearing my knickers, and I remember dad had one of those dorky hats with the battery operated fan. Mum had this beautiful Oriental paper fan – it was massive. She’d never let me play with it, and I remember her yelling awful loud at me the one time I’d ever tried to. I think it was a present from someone, but I don’t know who.
“Anyway, this storm started to roll in, and it was mostly lightening to start with, but there was a bit of thunder. Mum started singing, she had the most amazing voice, and then I remember dad screaming. I could smell burning, it took years for me to get that stench out of my nose, and I know I was only young, but, still. Even now when I smell burning I sometimes get a fright. There was this huge crash of thunder, so loud that I could hear buzzing in my ears, and then all I remember is this immense pain. It was unlike anything I’ve ever known, I don’t even know how to describe it. After that, I woke up in the hospital, and there were all these nurses, and my grandma, and she was crying. Wailing, more like. I don’t know how I knew, but I did, that mum and dad were dead, and that I probably should be too, but somehow I wasn’t. The doctors called it a miracle, but I’m not too sure. There hasn’t been anything too miraculous about my life since then.”
“Why didn’t you stay with your grandmother?” I was shocked that the only blood relation Lucy had left hadn’t taken her in.
“I did, for a while. But one night, after I’d been with her for about a month, she came into my room with an axe, and started to swing it about. Apparently I just sat there, in my cot, and watched her. The neighbours found her the next morning, and she’d cut off her own head.” I gasped, but Lucy had delivered this gruesome part of her story with a straight face and an even voice. It didn’t seem to bother her that this was not a natural way for a woman to have died, or that even her behaviour was normal.
“They told me after, that she’d been sick for a long time. Having delusions and such. They thought it was maybe a precursor to Alzheimer’s, but I know it was me. Nan had always been fine until I moved in with her.”
“Did anything like that happen at any of the other places you lived?” As horrified as I was at the way Lucy’s grandmother had perished, I was morbidly curious. This wasn’t the type of thing that happened regularly, and you certainly never heard about it in the news. Lucy shook her head, and for a moment I was disappointed. But, I quickly berated myself, and tried to hide the thought, lest Lucy pick up on it.
“There was this one time, at my sixth home. One of the other kids there had a pet mouse, and I hated it. He used to let it just roam around the bedroom, and for some weird reason, it used to like to sleep in my shoe. I’d wake up every morning, go to put on my sneakers, and out would pop this little mouse, scaring the daylights out of me. I swear you could see it laughing at me. If anyone was a devil it was this mouse,” she paused for a moment, and took a swig of her water. “Anyway, we came home one afternoon from school, and there was this mouse on the bedroom floor, it’s stomach split open and it’s guts trailing across the boards.”
“That could have been a cat?” I suggested. Lucy’s face had taken on a haunted look, and there appeared to be a great deal of guilt and shame hanging over her.
“I know that. That’s what everyone said. But the thing is, the night before, I’d had a dream about killing that mouse, about splitting it open and cleaning it out. Just getting rid of it in the most horrible of ways. I can’t help but think that maybe it died because I wanted it to.”
“I don’t think anyone has the power to do that, Lucy. Positive thinking doesn’t work quite that way.” I leaned over and took Lucy’s hand in mind. She looked devastated, and I was sorry I’d asked about it. I tried to think of something light to change the conversation when she glanced up at me quickly, her eyes bright.
“I’d like to think so too, but I’d be kidding myself if I thought that was the case.” She snatched her hand out of mine. “I’m haunted, let’s just face that reality.” She turned quickly then, out of her chair and leaned over to give me a hug. The edge of her shirt rode up past the waist of her jeans, and I was shocked to see the skin of her back ridged and raw. I grabbed the edge of her shirt, and pulling it down, hugged her back, but she’d noticed that I’d tried to cover her up. She turned away from me, and pulled the shirt all the way up. The waiter noticed, and gave me a glare, but there was no one else in the restaurant by this stage, so I pretended not to notice.
Lucy, holding her shirt up, turned a slow circle in front of me, and I came face to face with the reason it had taken her so long to get rid of the burning scent from her memory. The skin across her stomach and her back was red and scarred, but it was smooth in most places, the scarlet hue blending into the dark almond colour the rest of her body was. One spot, just above her left hip, and mostly on her back, was rippled and puckered, and the skin there was drier than anywhere else. I reached out to touch it, to run my fingers across the ruined skin, but pulled back at the last moment. I stared, knowing that I shouldn’t, but unable to stop.
Lucy dropped her shirt and turned to look at me. She tilted her head a bit to the right, then to the left, waiting for me to say something. I didn’t know where to begin.
“You were struck by lightening?” I asked, slowly coming to the realisation that this was what had killed her parents. She nodded. “My god, Lucy, how on earth did you survive that?”
She shrugged, again, and I noticed that when she did that, the temperature around her changed. It was suddenly much warmer than it was before, but it was fleeting. I thought back to while she was eating the ice-cream, every time she’d shrugged, she’d scooped it in quicker, because it would start to melt. Whatever it was that happened when Lucy shrugged, she was aware of it.
“Like I said, the doctors said it was a miracle.”
“But you don’t believe them?”
“I’m not Harry Potter. My parents didn’t die to save me, they just died. I got struck by the same bolt, I was in a metal pusher. There’s no way I should have survived. But I did. And no one can figure it out.” Lucy took a deep breath, preparing to impart with me information that I didn’t think she’d told anyone else before. “Do you know what a doppelganger is?” she asked, one eyebrow raised. I nodded. “Well, I think mine is attached to me, like a retarded guardian angel or something.”
I almost laughed, but managed to stop myself before I hurt Lucy’s feelings. Her voice had quieted to a whisper, and she had leaned in close to share this confidence. I didn’t want to break her trust.
“What makes you think that?”
“Something saved me from dying that day. But it wasn’t something good. And it wasn’t entirely evil either, because if it was, more stuff like what happened to Nan would follow me.
“But, Marie, I see ghosts. Everywhere. And animals don’t like me. Most people get ‘this feeling’ about me. Kids don’t want to come near me. Sometimes when I look at myself in the mirror, it’s like there’s something floating around, just behind me. When I turn to see what it is, it’s gone, but I feel that. Like someone’s just walked out of a room and left the door open. And when I shrug… Don’t tell me you didn’t notice that.”
I glanced across at her. She had spent so much time on her own, lonely and alienated. I didn’t know whether or not this was just her imagination, coming up with a way of dealing with being excluded by society, or if this was the only explanation that she could find. Either way, when she had started to speak, there was a stillness that had come over the room, and it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
I had goosebumps across my arms, and I shivered slightly, before regaining my composure.
“Lucy, surely this is just some…”
“Some what, Marie? Some game you think I’m playing?” She looked at me then, with disgust. I’d just betrayed her trust. “Never mind, I thought you, of all people, might understand and take me seriously. But you’re just like every other adult,” she shook her head, and grabbed her bag. “Thanks for the ice-cream.” She said, and then she left.
“Lucy! Come on, I was just…” But she’d gone.
Random Murmurs 