A Fierce and Subtle Poison - Samantha Mabry Page 0,26
of Spanish in the rhythm of her words and the way she rounded her vowels.
I ignored her dig and cast a glance through the open glass doors of the house that led to the lit dining room I’d stood in the previous day. My eyes moved to a corner of the courtyard, where a white hammock was strung up near a massive pile of water-logged hardback books and the remains of a single smashed terra-cotta pot. The gold lettering on the spines of the books shimmered; squinting, I tried to make out the author. Borges, probably. It wouldn’t have surprised me. It also wouldn’t have surprised me if a red and green macaw flew out of the plants, landed on my shoulder, and starting reciting poetry or some shit.
A thin wisp of clarity filtered through my brain long enough for me to remember why I’d launched myself into this bizarre situation. I reached into my back pocket and pulled out the notes.
“What is this?” I asked, holding the slips of paper between us. “How do you know my name?”
The girl tilted her head as if she’d misheard me. “Everyone knows your name.”
“Not everyone knows what room I stay in.”
“Yes, they do. It’s the haunted one.”
I focused on the girl’s eyes, which now appeared so black that they reminded me of the shiny jet stones of a brooch my mother had worn to my grandmother’s—my dad’s mother’s—funeral. She’d referred to it as her “mourning jewelry.”
The girl—Isabel, I now remembered the note had said—was examining me, too, and I could tell by the way her lips were pursed that she wasn’t completely convinced she liked what she saw.
I flicked at her last note. “Why did you call her this?”
“Call her what?”
“The disappeared girl.”
“I overheard the señora next door say that.” Isabel still hadn’t taken her eyes from mine. “She was talking to one of our neighbors about a girl named Marisol. She said she’d gone missing and that a boy named Lucas found her on the beach.”
“How do you know I know a girl named Marisol?”
“Because the other night I heard the two of you joking about trying to jump over the wall of my house.” She paused for a beat. “My cursed house.”
I choked out a laugh.
“You’re kidding, right? How about on the night before Marisol and I were joking outside your house, you pelted me in the face with rocks?”
Isabel finally broke eye contact. Her thin lips twisted into a sneer as she reached up to tug at the hood of her sweatshirt.
“You were bothering me,” she muttered.
“Bothering you? This is why you asked me to come here? To rub salt in my wounds and tell me that I’ve been bothering you?”
“It’s not like you’re the first couple to ever go down there.” Isabel threw out her hand, gesturing toward the stone wall on the far end of the courtyard. “I’m tired of being subjected to everyone’s amorous encounters. I . . . ”
Her mouth slammed shut as if she were trying to catch whatever words were going to fall out of it next, but it wouldn’t have mattered because she’d pretty much already landed hard onto my wrong side.
Isabel thought for a moment and changed her course. “I’m sorry. Okay? I wanted you to come so I could apologize. I was playing tricks before—with the other letters, and the stones. I realize now it was all in such poor taste, considering all that’s happened to you recently.”
“All that’s happened,” I echoed. “Marisol is dead.”
It was the first time I’d said those words out loud. In the next instant, my left temple burst with pain, and white light flooded my vision. I had to slam my eyes shut and press my fingers hard into my forehead just to keep my balance.
“You’re not well,” I heard Isabel say.
“I’m fine,” I lied. “But if you wanted to apologize, there are better ways. You could have just written I’m sorry on one of your cards. You could have knocked on my door. You didn’t have to formally request my presence and make me dive in here like an idiot.”
“It’s not that simple, actually.”
The pain in my head eased enough so that I could peer at Isabel through narrowed eyes. She’d retreated away from me, dissolving herself into the shadows cast off by a canopy of leaves.
She was clearly so strange. All this time cooped up in this house had really taken a toll on her ability to act like a normal human being.