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She touched the tufts of it with her bare fingers. “Do you have some?”
“Sure.” He took her inside the house and showed her where they were and how they worked. Then he made her a cup of tea, and they watched Ban of the Banned on the television until her mother came looking for her.
“Is my daughter here?” Lila’s mother asked from the doorway while Lila pretended to be asleep on the couch.
“Sure is,” Mr. Singer said.
“I’m so sorry,” her mother said. Her voice was a little unsteady, like she was afraid. Lila cracked open her eyes.
Mr. Singer was shrugging. “No trouble. Kids are always in and out in the summer.”
Lila got up, and she and her mother walked home together in the early dark. For a long time, they didn’t speak. Lila was braced for shouting.
“You can’t go over there anymore,” Lila’s mother said softly, instead, as they got to the edge of their lawn. She didn’t comment on Lila’s hair or the fact that she was going around gloveless.
“Why not?” Lila asked. “I always play over there.”
“That man works for your father,” her mother said. “None of them are good people and they’re beneath you besides.”
“Cassel’s my friend.”
“He’s not even a worker. He’s nothing. Listen to me—you stay away from Mr. Singer and those Sharpe boys. Things are different now. I don’t want you winding up like your father.”
When Lila got back to her grandmother’s, she took the pen into her bedroom and finished drawing the swirls, covering her fingers in black ink. In the mirror of her room, she could see her hair, military-short and gold with reflected light from her desk lamp.
Things were different now.
She was different.
She was alone.
* * *
After what felt like hours of sitting in silence, someone finally took the hood from over Lila’s head. Cool air started drying the sweat on her brow. She swept back her bangs with one bare hand and tried very hard not to tremble. Tried to seem like the kind of girl who was never afraid.
Three men were standing in front of her—three men she’d known for a long time. Fat Jimmy, Big Louie, Nat the Knife. They were like uncles to her. Wicked uncles who had tutored her in wickedness.
The room was dark, but the shadows seemed to cling to the dusty boards of the wall. The only light in the room came from a candle on a table. Next to it was a cloth, a knife, and a fifth of cheap vodka. She could hear traffic, but distantly. She would bet the building she was in was abandoned. It would be an excellent place to leave a body. She just hoped that body wasn’t going to be hers.
“This is my initiation, right?” she asked.
Nat grinned, but none of them answered.
“Where are my gloves?” she asked.
“Take a shot,” Fat Jimmy said. “And toast to your old life. Say good-bye.”
The scent of old blood rose up, maybe from the floorboards, maybe from the cloth or the knife. Sometimes, when Lila was a little girl, her father would come home smelling like this. She wondered what it would be like to smell the scent on her own skin.
She went to the table, found a small glass hidden behind the wadded-up cloth, and poured vodka in it. Despite feeling nauseous and a little dizzy, she downed the drink. It seared her throat.
Fat Jimmy said something else, something about honor or respect or silence, but Lila couldn’t quite pay attention. She wasn’t done saying good-bye.
* * *
Once upon a time there was a girl with golden hair and no fear. She burned her hands on stoves because she wanted to touch the pretty red coils, she stuck her fingers in sockets and ran with knives. She told her cousins that when she grew up, she would be the boss of them all, and she meant it. There was a girl whose heart was as hard as diamonds.
Until someone locked her in a cage and hid the key.
