Tigers, Not Daughters - Samantha Mabry Page 0,72

fingers in the rain.

Even though her leg stung when the hydrogen peroxide hit the scrapes, it was a pain she could manage.

“Iridian,” Rosa called back. “Have you ever touched someone’s hand? Like, really studied it?”

Iridian had written so many descriptions: what it was like when a hand brushed against another hand, or stroked hair, or pinched tender skin. She’d had lines and lines, pages and pages. And now she could describe what it was like to care for broken skin—the soft pressure; the cool, gentle burn of the peroxide; the feeling of being very close but not all the way close.

But, no. She’d never touched someone’s hand, not the way that Rosa meant, anyway.

“I hope you get the chance sometime,” Rosa replied, watching raindrops bounce off her fingernails. “It’s wonderful.”

“Uh-huh,” Iridian replied. It was all she could say. Maybe that was true—she was sure that hands could do wonderful things, but all Iridian could think about at the moment was hands doing destructive things: smashing against cheekbones, pulling hair, tearing book pages.

Iridian kept applying the peroxide until there was no more burn and her wounds stopped fizzing. Jessica kept driving, directionless, in circles it seemed. The winds were picking up. The receipt from the pharmacy flew from the back seat and out the window before Iridian could catch it.

“Where are we going?” Rosa eventually asked.

“Nowhere,” Jessica replied. “Just around. Peter said he’d come by the house after his shift was over, and until then I’m just killing time.” She paused. “He said he thinks Ana is trying to get us out of the house. That’s why she’s scaring us, ripping up Iridian’s things, sending Rosa to search for the hyena.”

“Leave the house and go where?” Rosa asked. “Where does Ana expect us to go?”

“Anywhere.” Jessica let out a dry little laugh. “Or maybe she’s lonely. Maybe she wants some company.”

That wasn’t funny. Iridian immediately thought of The Witching Hour, which doesn’t have a happy ending. Whenever Iridian got close to the last few chapters, she always hoped that things would turn out differently. She didn’t understand how a story could bring two characters together only to pull them so hopelessly apart. Why create something great only to destroy it? Even though the ending broke Iridian’s heart every time, she never skipped it. She felt like the story was punishing her, but that it was a punishment well earned.

At the end of The Witching Hour, the ghost wins.

Jessica

Here’s a secret: Something interesting happened four days after Ana died. Jessica was taking a shower. Just after turning on the water, she crouched down and peered into the drain. As the hot, hot water rolled down her back, Jessica pulled a clump of her older sister’s hair from the trap. She knew it was Ana’s because it was longer than hers was, and because a few of the strands were gray at the root. Jessica held the wet strands between her fingers for a few moments before putting the hair in her mouth and swallowing it.

Jessica

(early Monday, June 17th)

Peter smelled like lemons, fake lemons like laundry detergent. Jessica could still smell it, even in her moldy old car, even over the dirt-smell of the rain. The lemon scent had been sucked up in her nostrils as she’d gasped and snorted against Peter’s work shirt. She imagined it mixing with her cells and entering her bloodstream. She imagined it scraping against the walls of her organs and changing them, the way acid eats away at rock.

When Jessica had clung to Peter, she’d dug her nails into his lemon-scented shirt—through his lemon-scented shirt—and into his flesh. She’d created little hooks to hold him in place. She wondered if he still felt the impression of those hooks and if the small crescents made by her nails were still there in his skin. She wondered what she smelled like—she hoped it wasn’t moldy like her car—and if her smell still hung in Peter’s nose.

After almost an hour of doing loops through the neighborhood and the rain-soaked, near-empty streets of downtown San Antonio, Jessica stopped for gas at a corner store. She stood with her hand on the