But Mother would not have that.
They went through the gates and a church bell in the distance gonged out the hour of midnight. It was a perfect time for a resurrection and Emily knew it. And knowing it, she giggled. Then they were in the car and Emily remembered that she hadn’t been in the car since the night her appendix burst and the infection set in. She couldn’t remember much of that, just the fever and the pain and the sound of Mother crying at her bedside.
“Everything’s going to be okay now, baby,” Mother said. “You’ll see. Mother will make everything right.”
Emily just kept grinning, feeling the hollow in her belly and wanting to get her teeth in some meat. She thought of crunching bones and chewing graying meat and the image of these things made her stomach growl. If it wasn’t for the heat in the car that Mother insisted on blasting, things would have been perfect. Emily sat there as they drove into town, remembering things from before but associating no warmth with any of it.
She knew only hunger.
“Talk to Mother, baby, please talk to me.”
So Emily did. “I’m hungry,” she said.
*
At home, Mother told her they had to be quiet. Very quiet because George was sleeping upstairs and they didn’t want to wake him. Not yet. Not before Mother had time to explain certain things. But Emily understood. When you came out of the grave, certain things had to be explained. She remembered George just fine. George was her step-father, Mother’s husband. Not Emily’s real dad because he was dead a long time. George had liked Emily when she was alive. He took her to the zoo and the circus, he took her shopping and bought her things and helped her with her homework. George had been very nice. But like everything else, there was no fondness associated with George now. Emily had liked him before and maybe she would even like him now…once he was cold.
“The first thing we have to do is clean you up,” Mother said.
Mother cleaned herself up first and made Emily wait in her old bedroom. Emily looked at the posters on the pink walls, the princess bed and frilly pillows, the books and CDs and dolls lined up on the shelf. It meant nothing to her. Just things that she had collected up and coveted once, but no longer. She did not see how they would get her meat so they had no practical value. The bed felt soft and spongy. Emily did not like it, nor the clean stink of detergents on the Beauty and the Beast coverlet.
What she did like was the mirror.
She could remember how she liked to put on dress-up clothes and look at herself in it. She looked at herself in it now. She looked… changed. She was very thin and her skin was very white, gray shadows under her eyes, her lips almost black. Still grinning, her teeth looked long and narrow and yellow, black stuff wedged between them. Her gums were gray and her lips were shriveled back from them.
Emily liked how she looked.
She liked the patch of fungus at her throat, the soil that clung to her white lace burial dress. The beetle that crawled over her brow and the larva squirming in her cheek. She especially liked her eyes which were large and black and never seemed to blink. They stared and stared, wide and cataleptic. She held up her hands and her fingers were bony, the skin gray and seamed, dirty and damp.
She had a smell to her that was all her own.
It was fetid.
And absolutely delicious.
Mother took her into the bathroom and scrubbed her under a hot spray of water. The heat was sweltering and it made Emily nearly sick to her stomach. Mother shampooed her hair and scrubbed her with pink soap, scrubbing and scrubbing, cleaning the grave dirt off her and the patches of green mildew that had grown up her cheeks and down her arms. Emily did not like being washed. The soap smelled of berries and lilacs and the shampoo smelled of coconut and she found it nauseating. She liked her other smell. The smell of wormy earth and embalming fluid, putrescence and casket satin.
But Mother would not have that either.
She dressed Emily in lavender pajamas, the ones with prancing cutesy unicorns on them. Emily remembered that she had loved unicorns before, but now things were different. She did not understand unicorns any more. She only understood burial. And meat.
In the kitchen, Emily’s other smell beginning to make itself known, seeping through the perfume of soaps and shampoos, Mother made her some food. First toast and Cocoa Pebbles. Then waffles and Ore-Ida French fries in the oven. But Emily did not want these things. She did not want pre-sweetened cereal or bread, pizza or Hostess pies. She wanted other things.
“You have to eat something,” Mother said. “You’re…you’re so thin.”
“I’m hungry,” Emily said.
So Mother went through the cupboards and refrigerator, trying to find something Emily might want. Emily was sickened by the smell of everything Mother made. But there was another odor, one that was intriguing. When Mother’s back was turned, Emily followed it to its source: the garbage can under the sink. In there, amongst egg shells and old lettuce leaves and discarded tissues there were a few scraps of raw hamburger clinging to a foam carton. They were discolored and rank-smelling. Emily began to lick them free, the juices in her mouth running at the wonderful taste, the wonderfully rotten smell.
“Emily!” Mother said, slapping the carton from her cold white hands. “You can’t eat that! It’s yucky! It’s full of germs!”
“I’m hungry,” Emily said.
And then she heard footsteps coming down the stairs and knew it was George. She could smell his cologne and it was disgusting. But there was a good, yummy odor there as well. Some reeking juice, perhaps, from thawing meat he had dripped on his sock. Just a speck, no doubt, but Emily could smell it and it made her mouth water.
Mother heard George’s approach, but too late to do much about it. Her eyes wide and frightened, she looked over at Emily. “Hide!” she whispered. “Get in the pantry.”
So Emily did.
George entered the kitchen. “Christ, Liz, where have you been? You had me worried sick.”
“There was some shopping to do,” Mother said.
“At this hour?”
Emily could sense Mother’s apprehension. She could smell the sweat that ran down the back of her neck, hear the steady tom-tom beat of her heart. “Some places are open twenty-four hours,” Mother said, thinking quickly.
Like cemeteries, Emily thought.
George grumbled a bit. “What’s that smell in here?” he asked. “Smells like something died.”
Emily giggled under her breath.
“It’s…it’s the garbage,” Mother said. “I was just going to take it out.”
Oh, Mother’s juices were running hot now, her nerves jangling with electricity. Her palms were sweaty and her lips quivering. George had her very upset. Emily thought it was funny. It was a game Mother was playing, a gag she was playing on George.
George did not seem to like it.
He stepped farther into the kitchen. Emily could see him from the darkness of the pantry, hidden there as she was amongst the shelves of canned goods and dried pasta, the bags of potatoes and onions that smelled very sharp, though not unpleasant.
“Are you all right, Liz? You don’t look so good. Do you feel all right? You know what the doctor said. You’ve been through an awful lot, you need your rest.”
“I’m fine,” Mother told him. “Why wouldn’t I be just fine?”
Emily grinned from her hiding place. Though the pantry was pungent with the odors of dried food and vegetables, she was smelling that drop of juice on George’s sock. It was intoxicating.
“Liz…c’mon, honey, let’s talk, okay? Tell me what’s on your mind. Is it Emily? Let’s talk about it.”