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“It should have a garden,” Alessa pronounced solemnly, her tone the same as when she read passages out of her battered, old prayerbook, “with lavender and violets, and then we can watch butterflies in the summer.”
“Sunflowers too,” Claudia agreed, quickening her pace until she was beside Alessa again. Alessa was taller than her and walked faster, forcing Claudia to half-jog every third step to keep up. When they were alone in the park, Alessa would hold her hand and remember to walk slowly, but she didn’t like to be touched in public.
“And maybe some roses,” she continued. “Roses are beautiful.”
They were also sharp. Claudia thought they were even prettier because of it.
Alessa kicked at a pebble, sending it skittering off the sidewalk to skip along the road. She was usually more careful of her patent leather shoes, worrying over every little scuff.
Her frown deepened for a moment, and she said, “We should have a moat.”
“A moat?”
“To keep all the bad people out. We could have it wide enough that they’d all drown trying to get in.”
“Oh.”
There were things they didn’t talk about, like the yellow-blue bruises the sleeves of Alessa’s uniform couldn’t quite hide, like the cracking scabs marking Claudia’s legs, like scrapes, broken bones, and the words carved into Alessa’s desk. There were nights Claudia was too afraid to go home, Alessa’s arms around her not even providing the illusion of safety while she shook and cried. And there were times Alessa’s voice would break during prayers as she pleaded with God.
But bruises healed, Claudia left, and God remained silent.
Pretending otherwise was fun, though. Describing a perfect house, a perfect life, was one of Claudia’s favorite games. It was impossible to lose and only hurt at the very end.
“Could we have goldfish in the moat? I think you’d like goldfish,” Claudia said.
Finding a good pet for their fantasy was the hardest part. At first Claudia had fallen in love with the idea of a slobbery golden retriever, who would jump up and lick her face every time she opened the door. But Alessa couldn’t stand dogs, so Claudia dutifully tried to get excited for cats or fish or, one time after they had seen a flyer for the amusement park, rabbits.
“Of course we can.” Alessa kicked another pebble into the gutter. “The house should have stained glass windows like the church. Huge ones, so colors spill all over the floor when we have our morning prayers.”
Claudia waited for a man in a rumpled suit to pass them and ran back to Alessa’s side, grabbing for her hand in the half-second it took her to remember not to. She quickly drew back, but not before Alessa saw the movement. There was always a moment of fear whenever she broke one of the unspoken rules of their friendship, and she couldn’t help the flinch as Alessa reached for her.
Alessa would never hurt her, not with fists, words, or anything else, and her hand was warm in Claudia’s.
“And we’d be real sisters, my little Claudia,” Alessa said, softly. She squeezed their joined hands, turning away as her expression darkened. “I don’t want to play this game anymore.”
Neither of them spoke for a while, content to hold hands in silence. Their reflections were distorted in every display window they passed, the images watery, murky, as if they were staring up from the bottom of a lake.
Claudia wasn’t sure she wanted a moat even if they could keep goldfish in it. Alessa had tried to teach her how to swim once and she remembered the thrashing, gasping panic of it, the foul taste of lake water in her mouth. To die like that, she shuddered to think of it.
Once, it had just been a wall around their house, high and smooth enough that no one would ever be able to climb it. Then, barbed wire, the metal strands twisted around each other like snakes, their fangs tearing into anyone who dared come near.
Now it might be mists to choke them, water to drown them. And sometimes, scratches on her face and tears in her eyes, Alessa spoke of fire.
They always took the long way home, passing the same stores two or three times. Mannequins stared out at them from behind the dusty glass, modeling leather handbags and brightly colored dresses. Though their faces were just smooth, plastic skin stretched over smooth, plastic bones, they seemed infinitely more cheerful in their patterns and silks than the grey-suited men and black-dressed women trudging down the streets.
They turned a corner, and Claudia couldn’t help but smile. Walking past the amusement park was her favorite part. Lights gleamed on every surface, clinging to the painted horses on the carousel, winding up the steel beams of the rollercoaster, waking up even as dusk began to dull the rest of the town. The scent of popcorn, gasoline, and those neon red, chemical sweet drinks was thick in the air.
Alessa and Claudia alternated pointing out new sights to each other as they went. Their heads turning left and right to catch a glimpse of the rollercoaster barreling along its tracks or some game Alessa desperately wanted to try. She had already promised to win Claudia more stuffed animals than she could carry, and the number grew every time they passed the amusement park.
Claudia brushed her fingers along the fence. So little separated them from what they wanted. On one side were happy, shrieking children, their cheeks bulging with candy as they dashed from ride to ride, on the other were Claudia and Alessa with their dull blue uniforms and their dull blue bruises, and separating the two were just a few metal bars with gaps large enough for Claudia to fit her fist through.
“-we could see the haunted house. I’m sure it’s not as scary as everyone says it is.” Alessa lowered her voice to a whisper, “They say some man really did kill himself there after his family was murdered. David or Daniel or something.”
Privately, Claudia thought it was more sad than frightening. A world that had carousels and cotton candy should have had enough happiness to spare for David-Daniel-somethings.
“Anyway, even if it was scary, I’d protect you.”
“You would,” Claudia echoed, “I’d protect you too.”
Alessa laughed and squeezed her hand. “And God can protect us both. Look, they repainted the carousel.”
Colors bloomed everywhere on the carousel, brilliant white horses with scarlet and gold tack, glistening in the light as if the paint was still wet. The brass poles that pinned them in place may as well have been gold. Equally vibrant were the children riding them, laughing and grinning. Claudia was certain that if she even tried smiling that wide her face would tear.
“If we saved up we might be able to – oh.” Alessa’s voice suddenly went tight.
Claudia followed her gaze to the little boy on the loveliest horse, his mouth smeared with something sticky sweet and his brown curls flopping in his face while his mother fondly watched. She knew him. He was in Alessa’s class, the one who laughed the loudest when she was teased, the one who carved the word ‘witch’ into her desk in splintering gouges.
And there he was, happy, stupid, and so very cruel.
Alessa stopped dead, her free hand wrapping around the bars of the fence in a white-knuckled grip.
Envy and wrath were sins. Claudia had spent enough time kneeling on a wooden pew while Mother Dahlia read passages from her yellowed book of scripture to know that, and her father filled in whatever gaps there might have been in her understanding of error and penance. Sin was plain on Alessa’s face, etched in the stretch of her mouth, the narrowing of her eyes.
“We should leave,” said Claudia, tugging on Alessa’s arm. Her voice shook, just a little. Good friends did not let each other stray from the path of righteousness.
Alessa held fast to the fence, pressed up against it as if sheer want might bend steel and let her through.
“Alessa, please. We’ll come back, I promise. I’ll save up for however long it takes. I could,” she swallowed, “I could even ask my father for some money.”
For Alessa, she would steal from the collection plate.
“Whatever we have to do, I’ll do it. Then we can ride the carousel and play silly games and eat until we get sick. Alessa, look at me,” Claudia cupped Alessa’s cheek and gently turned her head, “I promise.”
Alessa gnawed on her lower lip for a moment then nodded slowly.
“Let’s go home now, but we will come back.” Claudia spoke as if saying the words forcefully enough would make them true.
They would, she was certain. They would come back to the amusement park and have a turn on the carousel, they would have a chance to laugh as if their bruises were no more than bad dreams, and, someday, they would leave Silent Hill behind and never have to be angry or afraid again.
“I promise.”
And she prayed that God would not make her a liar.