Momma! Her blond hair flowed as silken, streaming ribbons, writhing forward on the floor to snare us both like snakes! Slithering coils of her hair twined up and around our legs, to creep nearer our throats . . . trying to strangle us into silence. . . no threat to her inheritance then!
I love you, I love you, I love you, she whispered without words.
I woke up, but Chris slept on and on, just as the twins did.
I grew desperate as sleep wanted to come and take me again. I tried to fight it off, the terrible drowsiness of drowning, drowning, and then again I was sunken deep in dreams, in nightmarish dreams. I ran wild into the dark, and into a pool of blood I fell. Blood sticky as tar, smelling of tar, and diamond-spangled fish with swan heads and red eyes came and nibbled on my arms and legs so they went numb and unfeeling, and the fish with the swan heads laughed, laughed, laughed, glad to see me done in, and made bloody all over. See! See! They shouted in whiny voices that echoed and re-echoed. You can't get away!
The morning came pale behind the heavy drawn draperies that shut out the yellow light of hope.
Carrie turned over in her sleep and cuddled up closer to me, "Momma," she murmured, "I don't like this house." Her silky hair on my arm felt like goosedown, as slowly, slowly, feeling began to return to my hands and arms, feet and legs.
I lay still on the bed as Carrie squirmed restlessly, wanting my arms about her, and I felt so drugged I couldn't move my arms. What was wrong with me? My head so heavy, as if it were stuffed full of rocks so my skull was pressured from the inside and the pain was so great my skull was likely to split wide open! My toes and fingers still tingled. My body was leaden. The walls advanced, then retreated, and nothing had straight vertical lines.
I tried to see my reflection in the shimmering mirror across the way, yet when I tried to turn my swollen head, it refused to budge. And always before I went to sleep, I spread my hair on my pillow so I could turn my head, and nestle my cheek in the sweetsmelling silkiness of very pampered, well-cared-for, healthy, strong hair. It was one of the sensual things I enjoyed, the feel of my hair against my cheek to take me into sweet dreams of love.
And yet, today, there was no hair on my pillow. Where was my hairy
The scissors, they still lay on the dresser top. I could vaguely see them. Swallowing repeatedly to clear the way, I forced out a small cry, uttering Chris's name, not Momma's I prayed to God to make Him let my brother hear. "Chris," I finally managed to whisper in the strangest, gritty voice, "something is the matter with me."
My whispered, weak words roused Chris, though I don't know how he heard. He sat up and sleepily rubbed his eyes. "What yuh want, Cathy?" he asked.
I mumbled something that took him from his bed, and in his rumpled blue pajamas, his hair a golden mop, he ambled over to my bed. He jerked up short. He drew in his breath and made small gasping sounds of horror and shock.
"Cathy, oh my God!"
His cry sent shivers of fear down my spine.
"Cathy . . . oh, Cathy," he moaned.
As he stared, and as I wondered what he was seeing that made his eyes bulge, I tried to lift my leaden arms and feel my swollen, heavy head. Somehow I managed to get my hands up there--and that's when I found a loud voice to scream! Really scream! Over and over again I howled like someone demented until Chris ran to gather me in his arms.
"Stop, please stop," he sobbed. "'Remember the twins . . . don't scare them more . . . please don't scream again, Cathy. They've been through so much, and I know you don't want to scar them permanently, and you will, if you don't calm down. It's all right, I'll get rid of it. I swear on my life, that today, somehow, I'll get the tar from your hair."
He found a small red prick on my arm where the grandmother had plunged in a hypodermic needle to keep me asleep with some drug. And while I slept, she had poured hot tar on my hair. She must have gathered it all into a neat bunch before she used the tar, for not a strand was left free of the gook.
Chris tried to keep me from looking into the mirror, but I shoved him away, and had to stare with my mouth agape at the horrible black blob that was my head now. Like a huge wad of black bubble gum, chewed and left in an unsightly mess, it even ran down my face and streaked my cheeks with black tears!
I looked, and I knew that he'd never get the tar out. Never!
Cory woke up first, ready to run to the windows and draw aside the closed draperies and peek outside to see the sun that kept hiding from him He was out of bed and ready to dash to the windows when he saw me.
His eyes widened. His lips parted. His small fluttering hands reached upward to rub at his eyes with fists, and then he was staring at me again with so much disbelief. "Cathy," he managed finally, "is that you?"
"I guess it is."
"Why is your hair black?"
Before I could reply to that question, Carrie was awake. "Oooh!" she howled. "Cathy--your head looks funny!" Big tears came to glisten her eyes and slide down her cheeks. "I don't like your head now!" she wailed, then began to sob as if the tar were on her hair.
"Calm down, Carrie," said Chris, in the most ordinary, everyday tone of voice. "It's only tar on Cathy's hair--and when she takes a bath, and shampoos her hair, it will be the same as yesterday. While she does that, I want the two of you to eat the oranges for breakfast, and look at TV. Later on we'll all eat a real breakfast, when Cathy's hair is clean." He didn't mention our grandmother for fear of instilling in them even more terror of our situation. So they sat on the floor close as bookends, supporting only each Other, and peeled and ate orange sections, losing themselves in the sweet nothingness of cartoons and other Saturday morning violence and foolishness.
Chris ordered me into a tub full of hot water. In that almost scalding water I dunked my head over and over again while Chris used shampoo to soften the tar. The tar did soften, but it didn't come out and leave my hair clean. His fingers moved in a sodden mass of sticky goo. I heard myself making small whimpering sounds. He did try, oh, he did try to take out the tar without taking out all my hair. And all I could think of was the scissors--the shiny scissors the grandmother had laid on the dresser top.
On his knees by the tub, Chris finally managed to work his fingers through the mass, but when he withdrew them, they were clogged with sticky black hair. "You'll have to use the scissors!" I cried out, tired of the whole thing after two hours. But no, the scissors were the last resort. He reasoned there must be some chemical solution that would dissolve the tar, without dissolving my hair. He had a very
professional chemistry set Momma had given him On the lid was a stern warning: "This is not a toy. This box contains dangerous chemicals and is for professional use only."
"Cathy," he said, sitting back on his bare heels, "I'm going up to the attic schoolroom and mix some compound to take the tar from your hair." He grinned at me shyly then. The light from the ceiling caught on the soft downy fuzz that covered his upper lip, and I knew he had stronger, darker hair on the lower part of his body, the same as I did. "I've got to use the John, Cathy. I've never done that in front of you, and I'm kind of embarrassed. You can turn your back, and put your fingers in your ears, and maybe if you go in the water too, the ammonia might unglue your hair."