And just as I see Mik, right where he’s supposed to be, someone says my name. Well, not my name. A version of my name. ‘Zuzachka?’ From behind me, in the courtyard.
Only one person calls me that, if he even deserves the designation ‘person,’ which he doesn’t. Only one jackass calls me that, and I feel the cool of venom spreading through me, ready for deployment. Patience. I don’t turn to respond yet, because I’m watching Mik, who is right this very moment sitting on a velvet settee at Pestilence – Karou’s and my spiritual domain, which had been kept waiting for him by way of a RESERVED sign and a lovingly carved angel puppet – and I need to make magic happen right now.
‘What are you doing?’ asks jackass-voice.
My hand is already in my pocket. My fingers find a scuppy. Mik’s facing the new puppet like it’s a friend who saved a seat for him. It’s the counterpart to the devil (which he’s holding in his lap): an angel of the same proportions. I made them last semester, for a St. Nicholas Day performance for my Puppetry grade, which of course was an A.
I make the wish. I can’t see it come true, but the bead vanishes between my fingertips and I know from the way Mik rocks back in surprise that something has happened.
Whereas the devil has a little canary on a swing where its heart would be, the angel has a heart-shaped hole carved in its chest, and in it, a sparkler…which has just ignited, turning its heart into a mini-firework. In the show, I had to light it with a match. In this case, I wished it alight. I hope it looks fancy. I can’t really see it from here, though, and anyway, with that done, I have less pleasant business to attend to. I turn around.
‘What do you want.’ No question inflection. Nothing but sticky, poisonous disdain.
For Kaz. Kazimir Andrasko, Karou’s disaster of a first boyfriend. First and last. Her despoiler. She thinks I don’t know, but I know. And let me tell you something about me. I love vengeance like normal people love sunsets and long walks on the beach. I eat vengeance with a spoon like it’s honey. In fact, I may not even be a real person, but just a vow of vengeance made flesh. My parents swear I was a real baby and not a demonic bargain, but of course they would say that. Bottom line: There is enough spare vengeance in me to act on behalf of mistreated, undervalued, toyed-with girls everywhere, and this is Karou we’re talking about.
On behalf of Karou, Kaz has achieved the rarified status of Nemesis First Class, but has not yet been subjected to his personalized, Zuzana-tailored Scheme of Total Annihilation.
Yet.
‘Just saying hi,’ he says, looking taken aback, like he actually thought I’d be happy to see him. ‘What’s your problem?’ he asks.
‘What’s my problem? I have so many, but violent tendencies and probable demonic origins are the ones that should concern you.’
‘Huh?’ He gives me dumb-face, which is such a disappointing response to a good nemesis zinger. Kaz might deserve First Class status for Crimes of High Douchebaggery, but he’s just not quality enemy material.
I sigh, and tell him so. ‘You are not a worthy opponent.’
‘What are you talking about? Opponent at what?’
‘Opponent at opponenting. Duh. What are you doing here, Jackass?’
‘What do you think? Is Karou here? Are you meeting her?’
I laugh. ‘You’re not seriously looking for Karou,’ I say, but I see by the persistence of dumb-face that he is. ‘She put you through a window the last time she saw you. Does that somehow leave room for hope?’
‘She didn’t know it was me when she did that,’ he argues. ‘What was up with her that night, anyway? Is she okay?’
Is Karou okay? No. No, she’s really not, but in the scheme of her problems now, Kaz has become about as significant as a gnat inhaled by god. Snuff. I just shake my head. ‘Oh, Jackass,’ I say with what I hope comes across as gentle pity. ‘Poor Jackass. Let me explain something. You know in fairy tales, when a bunch of princes all try to win the princess’s hand, but they’re all vain and entitled and self-involved and they fail at the task and get put to death? And then there’s one who comes along who’s clever and good and he wins and gets to live happily ever after with her? Yeah, well, you’re the first kind.’ I pat him on the shoulder. ‘It’s all over for you.’
Still dumb-face. And then he says, ‘You mean she’s seeing someone else?’
‘Oh my god!’ I can only laugh. ‘Talking to you is like playing catch with a toddler. Get out of here, Kaz. Did you think I was kidding before? You’re not welcome here. Imrich will put you in a coffin, and I will nail it shut.’
The tables in Poison Kitchen are actual coffins, and the one-eyed owner, Imrich, is fond of me and Karou. We’ve been coming here at least three times a week for two and a half years. We painted murals in the bathrooms in exchange for goulash. Imrich is on our side.
‘Right,’ says Kaz, rolling his eyes, not believing – or fearing – it for a second. ‘Let’s go in, then. I hope you have your coffin nails ready.’ And he takes a step toward the door, calling my bluff.
Damn. It.
It’s not a bluff! Imrich will do it. He’s not entirely sane. I mean, look at his cafe! It’s full of gas masks and skulls, for god’s sake. Real ones. He will totally put Kaz in a coffin, and yes, he does have coffin nails. Like everything else in Poison Kitchen, they’re antique, and authentic. He says they’re from the coffins exhumed in Kutná Hora after some monk sprinkled Golgotha dirt there in the Middle Ages, making it the most popular graveyard in Central Europe. Most popular graveyard, what a thing! You’d only get to stay in the ground for so long before they’d dig you up to make room for the next guy. And – oh! Then in the late nineteenth century they hired some wood carver to make art out of all the dug-up bones. It’s awesome. Imagine afterlife as part of a skeleton chandelier. For real.
The point is: coffin nails, check. Coffin, check. Crazy one-eyed Imrich and his bar cronies ready to take hold of pretty boy here and introduce him to the satiny interior of a hexagonal box?
Check.
Me, able to participate? Not check.
Any other night. Any. Other. Night. But tonight is not for vengeance. I take a deep breath. It’s for a dazzling.
I do not look to the window. I so strenuously don’t look to the window that my neck feels turned to concrete. I’m dying to know what’s going on with Mik, but I don’t want Kaz to catch me looking. He could mess everything up. I’m on a carefully calibrated schedule here.
Has Imrich brought Mik’s tea yet? That’s the plan. Pestilence – Karou’s and my table, tucked under the giant equestrian Marcus Aurelius statue – was to be kept clear by a RESERVED sign, the angel puppet sitting there with its legs crossed on the velvet settee, and when – if – Imrich saw a guy come in and sit there, he was supposed to bring him a tea tray. Mik’s last clue will be tucked in the arsenic bowl. (The sugar bowl, that is. Tea at Poison is served in antique silver services, the cream and sugar dishes engraved arsenic and strychnine, hemlock, cyanide. Cute, right?)
So basically, if Imrich has brought the tray, and Mik has found the clue, he could come through this door at any moment and I’ll just be standing here, and Kazimir Andrasko will witness our very first words.
Nope. I’ve got to wrap up this snark-fight. ‘Actually,’ I tell Kaz, ‘I have other plans. But by all means, you go right ahead. And when you’re trapped in there, in the dark coffin, hungry, thirsty, hallucinating, and desperate to pee, when the cafe’s closed and there’s no one left to hear your screams, just know…that I’m not thinking of you at all.’ I gesture to the door, and as the coup de grâce, I give him…Excited Maniac eyes. These are the eyes that say, I have something fascinating to show you in the cellar. Come with me. It’s one of my favorite looks, and, incidentally, my brother’s least favorite, because it’s the one that invariably signals an escalation of hostilities to a level of dedicated vengeance that he could never match. He simply doesn’t have it in him. Tomas knows:
You cannot defeat the Excited Maniac. You can only provoke her.
Kaz might not know this experientially, but he intuits it. The eyes freak him out. I see it. He quails. Glances at the door. Gives me that curled-lip look that bullies get when they’re afraid of someone and trying to cover it up. He’s going to call me a freak next. Wait for it.
‘You’re a freak, Zuzana.’
‘Yeah,’ I confirm with relish, amping up the eyes. ‘I know.’
And that’s it. He makes the decision. He turns and leaves. It’s disappointing and satisfying at the same time. Disappointing because Kaz just came this close to getting coffined and I talked him out of it, and satisfying because I scared the big tool, and that’s pretty much my mission statement.
With Kaz finally gone, I swivel toward the window—
—and see Mik headed my way! He’s got the angel cradled in one arm, the devil in the other, and I have approximately three seconds to vanish into thin air before he opens that door.
That, or dive behind a tombstone.
Thank god for murdered monks.
9
Heart Hole
The door swings open, loosing the cafe din of voices and music into the courtyard, and then it shuts again, sucking back the noise like a cuckoo into a clock. Footsteps crunch across the snow. I can’t see, and I’m fairly sure I can’t be seen. I’m crouched behind a tombstone, just beyond the splash of light from the window, and as the sound of footsteps fades, I think two things:
Hiding behind tombstones definitely constitutes stalker behavior.
and
Mik is en route to Location Three, and Location Three is the final location, the place where I am supposed to manifest my actual self and commence human interaction.
Do I have to? a voice in me whimpers. Can’t the puppets act on my behalf? Puppet ambassadors? Yeah, because what’s creepier than a stalker? A stalker ventriloquist who speaks through angel and devil puppets. I imagine Mik introducing me to his family: ‘I’d like you to meet my girlfriend Zuzana and…her representatives.’
No no no. You can do this.
I can do this. I unfurl myself from behind the tombstone. I am the same person who just put fear in the heart of that best-friend-despoiler, Kaz. Rabid fairy, rabid fairy. Why should speaking to a boy I like be so much harder than speaking to one I despise? I know it’s all brain chemicals – everything is brain chemicals – but my excitement and dread feel like tiny wrestlers in my heart right now. I picture Excitement choking out Dread and gently, almost lovingly, lowering his inert body to the ground.
Go. Now. Leave Dread lying there. Go fast, before he gets up and sees which way you went. Breathe. Walk. Breathe. Walk. Look, Mik’s footsteps. Follow them.
Breathe.
Walk.
Okay. I’m good. I’m going. I set my feet in Mik’s footprints and feel a connection to him, like a total lunatic. Location Three isn’t far, and it’s a route I’ve walked hundreds of times, usually with Karou. Breathe. Walk. Mik’s probably there already.