Christine Mangan - Tangerine

They sat together on the sofa, the two of them, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, a tray of tea and biscuits before them.

“What’s going on?” I demanded.

Aunt Maude looked up, startled. “Alice, there you are.” She stood, crossed the distance between us, and gave me a brief, perfunctory hug. “I was early, but Sophie was here to let me in.” She frowned at my expression, which was, I knew, frozen in fear, in terror—at finding Maude here, with her, and all the implications that hung around that one simple fact. “Alice, what’s happened? You’ve gone pale.” She began to step toward me, saying, “The police have told you, then?”

I looked at Lucy, sitting there, perched on the edge of the sofa. She was, I noticed, wearing that same black, belted dress she had first arrived in. Her disguise, I realized now. “That’s not Sophie Turner,” I replied, ignoring my aunt’s question.

Maude frowned. “What on earth are you talking about?” She turned around, toward Lucy. “Do you have any idea?”

Lucy’s face collapsed with concern. “I think perhaps it’s the stress of the situation. As I said on the telephone, she hasn’t been herself since John’s disappearance.”

“She’s lying,” I snapped, so that Maude turned to me in surprise. “Everything Lucy says is a lie, it always has been.”

“Alice,” Maude began, quietly, “I think you’re confused, dear. I think you’re mixing up what happened with John with what happened before, with Tom.”

“No, no, I’m not,” I said, shaking my head.

“Yes, dear,” she replied, her hands clutching at her throat, that same gesture of worry, the one trait that we shared, the one visible proof that the same blood ran through our veins. “You told me yourself about Sophie staying with you, only a few days ago. Don’t you remember?”

I shook my head, unable, in that moment, to find a way out of my own lies. And then I remembered her earlier words. “Have the police told me what?” I asked.

She stopped, confusion sweeping her features. “I assumed that was why you looked so upset. That you had just come from the police.”

“What’s happened?” I demanded.

Lucy stood. “Alice, the police were here earlier. I’ve told your aunt what they came to see you about—a group of fishermen found him, down by the port. John, I mean.” She paused, her face a picture of concern. “They’ve been looking for you.”

“For me?” I asked.

“Yes, Alice,” Maude replied. “They need you to identify him.”

I had been right, then. John was dead, just as Tom was dead.

I crossed the distance between us in only a few short steps, ignoring the shock on my aunt’s face, the amused surprise on Lucy’s own.

I grabbed at her handbag, tearing it away from her.

“Alice,” Maude cried, “what are you doing?”

I ignored her, rummaging through the bag, searching for what had to be there, knowing that not even she could have foreseen this. “Her passport,” I said, my hand grasping onto the small booklet at last. I tossed the handbag aside, watching Lucy flinch as it clattered onto the ground, a silver compact landing facedown, its powder crumbling, covering the tiled floor. “Here,” I said, thrusting the booklet toward my aunt. My hand faltered, though only for a moment, remembering as I did so the incidents at Bennington with the bracelet, with the photographs. I brushed away a stray piece of hair that clung, stubbornly, to the sweat on my forehead. It did not matter, I reminded myself. That was a different time, a different circumstance. Back then Lucy had planned it, plotted each and every step, so that there was nothing I could do but fall into the trap she had set for me. Now, she was acting only on instinct. She was reacting to my refusal to yield, the denial of which had caught her off guard, unaware. I could see it, written plainly across her face.

“Open it,” I commanded my aunt. “Open it and you’ll see she’s lying. You’ll see that she’s not Sophie Turner. That she’s someone else entirely.”

“And who is that?” Maude demanded.

“I’ve already told you,” I said, my voice pleading. “Lucy Mason.”

She let out a noise of frustration. “Oh, Alice.” She shook her head. “How are we back here again?”

“No,” I said, refusing to listen. “You’ll see, this time you’ll see that I’m right. Just open it.”

Aunt Maude sighed, holding the bundle between her fingers, as though she dreaded to open them, dreaded even to touch them. But why, I wanted to shout, why when they would prove her niece right, when they would cast suspicion and doubt onto the woman, the stranger sitting beside her, instead of on her flesh and blood?

“Auntie, please,” I whispered, hating her in that moment for forcing me to ask her to choose her own niece.

“Very well.” She sighed, opening the pages.

I waited—for the frown of confusion, the inevitable anger once Maude realized she too had been taken in by the seemingly innocuous girl sitting on the sofa before us.

And yes, there it was. I smiled in relief—watching as a frown stole over her features, the lines between her eyes folding, deepening. I watched as she handed Lucy the papers—wanting, I knew, an explanation. My body arched toward them, eager to hear the excuses that Lucy would produce, knowing that there was nothing she could say, nothing that would save her this time.

But then Lucy was placing the papers into the pocket of her dress, and Maude was settling back onto the sofa.

“What’s happened?” I demanded. “What has she done?”

Maude shook her head, as though disappointed. “Sophie hasn’t done anything, Alice.”

I struggled to breathe. “Why are you still calling her that?” I shook my head, trying to understand. “You saw her passport, you just looked at it.”

Maude nodded. “Yes, Alice, I did.”

I looked from Maude to Lucy and back again. The two of them, the pair of them, sat gazing up at me, their faces steely and hard. It struck me then just how similar they were—strong and sometimes distant, hard and oftentimes unyielding. I wondered how I had never seen it before. And then, the thought flickered across my mind, even though I knew it was nonsense, that it was a thought of desperation, of madness, and yet still, looking at them, together, I wondered whether it was possible—whether they were in on it together. If this, all of this, wasn’t for the sole purpose of driving me mad, of putting me away forever. It would make Lucy glad to know that I would never belong to another, that locked away, no one would ever touch me. And Maude? I thought of the trust that would be mine within a short time, of her role as my guardian. It was insane, it was madness, and yet I could not help but think that it all made sense.

“Why are you doing this?” I whispered, my voice cold and still.

“Doing what?” Aunt Maude asked.

“This,” I said, willing my voice to remain steady, calm. “What was on that passport?” I demanded, realizing that I had not seen it myself, had not seen the words written beside the photograph.

Maude watched me, coolly. “What do you think was on it, Alice?”

I wasn’t sure if it was the way she looked at me—detached, as though we were no longer bound together by blood—or her voice, low and challenging, and which in that moment I could only read as a threat. Or perhaps it was the simple realization that the one woman I had always trusted, the only real family I had left, had abandoned me, betrayed me. The knowledge of that threatened to smother me, such that I let out a strange, demented cry as I lunged toward Lucy once more—this time, toward the pages in her pocket.

I had to know, I told myself, pushing away her hands that she held up in self-defense, my nails sinking into her flesh. I had to know what was on the passport, whether my aunt simply did not believe me, or whether she was working with her, with Lucy—whether it was my best interest or my fortune that she had on her mind. And so I pushed and pulled. I scratched until I felt the blood, her blood, beneath my fingernails. I did everything I could until I tasted copper, until I felt two powerful arms pull me away.