#Jackie doesn't get a loaded gun in this chapter unfortunately

[toyybox]

Spiderwebs #54: Rose

Masterlist

content: disordered eating, hallucinations, animal testing, discussion of suicide

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By morning, it had stopped raining. Jackie woke up with his head on a pillow again, covered by a blanket that blacked out the light. He couldn’t remember falling asleep. There was a sour taste in his mouth. 

He lifted his head. The blanket fell off. The sun shone from the kitchen window, bright and warm, but it was no longer enough to cheer him up.

As he sat upright, a sharp ache sparked in his left wrist. He tried to lift his hand, but he found that it was still in the handcuff. The other end of it was locked around one of the table legs. A rung in the table prevented the cuff from sliding out.

A memory of that first day came flashing uninvited in his mind, so long ago, the hours after that first death, a day he could hardly remember anymore. It had been summer then, and it was summer now. The earth was always moving, even if they couldn’t feel it. The sky was still shifting.

His right wrist wasn’t locked around anything. He stretched as well as he could, then put his head back down on the pillow with a soft thump. It wasn’t a comfortable position, despite the cotton fabric, as he was perched on one of the wooden chairs, his legs tucked underneath him and the side of his ribs pressing into the table’s edge. Nevertheless, he preferred it to the basement. 

The cold surface of the wood seemed to stick to his arms. The living room was in much brighter light now, but he had no wish to see his prison. He screwed his eyes shut and tried to go back to sleep.

A minute passed, he estimated.

Sleep had abandoned him. Left him behind, alone, all alone. Slowly, he lifted his eyelids. Black shapes darted from the edges of his vision. They didn’t surprise him anymore. In the basement it had been worse. He had started to hear things, too, started to feel things crawling on his skin, and time always passed in such a strange way. He began to sleep through much of it after a month or so, but for brief moments he started awake, unable to recall where he was.

He could not recall sitting down at this table. When had he fallen asleep? Heather wasn’t in the room. 

She was busy elsewhere, he decided. Cleaning up. Maintaining the house. This table was much more sturdy than the last, so there was little chance of him breaking free while she was gone. Even in times of grieving, there was always work to be done. 

Jackie turned to look at the window. There was the wide sky, and there were all the flowers he had missed in the winter. He knew some of their names. Thistles and dandelions. Queen Anne's lace. This kitchen was sterile in comparison, without even potted plants or fruit on the table. He was getting hungry, now, and he was starting to feel restless. All he could think about was the smell of the air outside, the sounds of the woods. He wanted to see that river again. He wanted to feel the water on his hands.

The floorboards creaked. He turned around as Heather came in, holding a glass jar. 

“You’re awake,” she said, seeming pleased. “You slept through the afternoon yesterday. I was getting worried. Look—I found this inside the drain.”

Inside the jar was a harvest mouse, its nose twitching as it pawed at the glass. Mud caked its golden fur. He felt a hollow sort of pity for the animal.

She left the kitchen again, returning without the jar. “Good timing, really. I’ve been trying to see if I can transfer the organism to another host. A human subject would work better, but I’m willing to use animals until I find one. Enough about that, though. Let's not kill our appetites.”

Heather moved over to the kitchen counter and began preparing something. The smell of salt and eggs filled the room. Her knife came down on the cutting board over and over, slicing through vegetable skin, hitting the surface underneath. He looked away and tried to ignore the sound.

Soon enough, plates slid onto the table, carrying omelets. There was a fork beside his portion. She sat down opposite him and began to eat.

She took a few bites. Then she looked up at Jackie.

He rubbed his wrist, without really noticing. It was starting to feel sore. He was so hungry. It was starting to take root now, that craving, that nauseating insistence deep in his body. Jackie regretted leaving his peach behind. Even that plain dish looked like angel cake—like ambrosia. 

She gestured to his plate with her fork. “Eat. At least a little. You look pale.”

But he was already starting to feel dizzy. He glared at her instead. 

"You’re hungry. That’s a good thing!” she added when he pushed the plate away. “You never eat enough. Immortality won’t prevent you from going blind, you know. I’m not kidding.”

He didn’t eat, though. The silence lingered.

She sighed. “So picky. And you’re so quiet these days.”

That was what she wanted. She wanted him to shut up and to stop fighting her. She was just acting like this so it seemed like his fault. So he would apologize and roll over at her command again. He wanted to see her bleed, rip her heart open with his teeth—what a thought, that violence once made him queasy. To think, long ago, he wouldn’t have the guts to hurt a fly.

She met his gaze, somewhat amused, somewhat annoyed. “What is it? You look like someone walked over your grave. Not that it would be easy to keep you in one.”

He didn’t give her the grace of a witty response. He didn’t find any of this funny. 

“You can’t keep doing this forever, Jack.” She leaned in closer towards him. “It must be tiring. Just trust me. We can put everything as it was before. We can go back to normal. I promise you I’ll never hurt you like that again. It was a mistake. I won’t even make you go back to the basement. You can stay here as long as you like. What’s the alternative? What else could you possibly want?”

When he finally spoke, his voice was still only slightly louder than a whisper. “I want you to blow your brains out and leave me alone." 

That faint amusement was gone from her expression. It seemed that the professor’s death had brought a morbid fervour over their thoughts; it was a heavy thing to discuss so early.

“I will never forgive you,” he said when she didn’t respond.

Heather didn’t have a reply for that, either. Her gaze shifted towards the window behind him.

It wasn’t true, of course. He would forgive her. Sooner or later. Everything would return to its slow, domestic rhythm. It was the pendulum that always swung back. It made him sick with rage. He would forget this pain, forget the look on her face as she sat knee-deep in his guts, forget every injustice. It was too painful to remember. And if her mood changed again, he wouldn’t have any defense. He would trot willingly to the blade. He would look at her with love as it happened. 

It was useless to dwell. It was an affection he couldn't kill, a rose-colored cockroach. Nobody had ever loved him before. For all he knew, this was what love was supposed to feel like.

There was a banging sound—they both turned towards it at once. Someone had knocked on the door. 

Though the kitchen wasn’t anywhere near the front door, Heather walked over to shut the blinds. The room took on a dark tint. Bars of sunlight still slipped through on the wall opposite, around Jackie’s shadow.

She disappeared through the doorway. The floorboards creaked as she moved through the house. Faintly, the front door opened, then closed. She reappeared with an envelope, torn open across its length, which she set down on the table. There was a letter in her other hand.

It must have been bad news. Heather’s shoulders were tense. Her eyes darted over the piece of paper, three times at least, before she gave up and placed it beside the envelope.

He slid the letter closer. Cursive writing. Little hearts and looped tails and all. Despite the creases, he could read everything:

Dear Heather Rodriguez,

To preface this letter, I am aware you killed Lukas Callaghan. No, I am not angry. I have ensured the authorities’ silence, in fact. I am intrigued by you, and I would like to meet you. I’m having dinner this Friday evening, at 9. Please reply soon.

Love,

Mary

That was certainly interesting. It explained why Heather was not behind bars yet. Matthew might have been clawed by bears or smashed against rocks, because he was an ordinary name in a sea of ordinary names. But Callaghan? Professor—no, Doctor Callaghan? Such a wealthy and respected man?  A death like his would not be forgotten. Heather owed her freedom, and perhaps her life, to this Mary person. 

“I don’t understand,” Heather finally stopped pacing to say. “I’ve never met this person—how did she get my address?”

“You don’t remember?” He put the letter back down. “Mary Callaghan? The professor’s sister? The one on the card. I assume it’s his sister, anyway, or that’s a weird coincidence.”

She closed her eyes in frustration. “Of course. I should have recognized that name.” Her eyes opened, and she studied the piece of paper by his hands. “That still doesn’t explain how she got my address, though. I don’t buy this. Why would she want to meet me?”

“That’s easy. Call her. The professor gave you her number, didn’t he? On the card? Don’t tell me you threw it away.”

“No, I still have it.” She hesitated, however. “I’m not sure if I want to contact her. From what the professor told me, she has her own criminal history.”

Then she was not so different from Heather. Regardless, he was not particularly interested in this stranger, and he did not care much either way.

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