Cynthia Bond - Ruby

The girls were quiet for a while. They heard footsteps. The door opened and a man looked into their room, paused, whispered to Miss Barbara, then walked ahead and stopped.

Miss Barbara poked her head into the room, and smiled especially wide and sweet. Ruby noted that she had taken to doing so ever since she’d gotten what seemed to be new perfect white teeth. She spoke to them slow, as if they were cats, “Well, we got ourselves a very special friend who done paid extra for y’all two. So do exactly what he say and two big scoops of chocolate ice cream after, all right?”

Ruby nodded dutifully. Tanny just grinned. When Miss Barbara walked away Tanny turned, crossed her eyes and stuck out her tongue.

Ruby laughed. The man poked his head into the room, “What’s so funny?” He was tall with round features. He wore a smooth brown hat. His eyes were soft and kind. Different. So different that Ruby wondered if he was a spy sent by her lost mama.

“Hmmm? What’s so funny, girls?” He walked into the room, took off his hat and hung it on the coatrack. Ruby still looked at him hopefully. He knelt down in front of them, face open and smiling, his eyes bright water blue, the black in the center of his eyes big.

“Hmmm?” he asked.

“Nothing,” Tanny finally answered.

“I don’t believe it!” He tickled Tanny. Ruby’s hope cracked like a sour egg.

Tanny didn’t giggle like he wanted her to. She sensed his strangeness too. So he reached out and tickled Ruby. She laughed dutifully. He pinched her cheek. “Aren’t you a sweet little thing.” The strangest thing was that he did not avert his eyes. Ruby realized what it was that made him unlike the others. He didn’t have shame.

Then the man started patting his pockets and smiling until he reached into his back pocket and retrieved a Hershey bar. Ruby couldn’t help but beam. The man grinned back at her, unwrapped the bar and broke it right down the middle, handing half to Ruby and half to Tanny.

“My name’s Peter Green. You can call me Peter,” he volunteered. Ruby and Tanny chewed in quiet. They weren’t used to men at the Friends’ Club giving over their names.

Then the oddest thing of all happened. Mr. Green started asking them questions, normal questions that regular folks might ask. What games did they like to play? What was their favorite color and why? Tanny answered quick and short, but Ruby talked about freeze tag and fishing, bluebells and yellow sun.

He told them about other little girls he’d met in his travels, in places just like Miss Barbara’s. How they told him their favorite game was “Queimada” in a place called Brazil, and “I-Wen Hu” in Taiwan and “Eun Suk Ji” in Korea. He said there was a game like hide-and-seek in Germany that sounded like a fish, “Sardines.” He said it so funny it made Ruby laugh. How there was “Ampe” in Ghana that was something like playing Simon Says. He named other towns and games and talked about all the pretty, good little girls he had met and how nice they had made him feel. He smiled so big and sweet while he talked. He said how of all those girls Ruby and Tanny were the prettiest. Ruby liked him talking about playing and faraway places. She liked thinking about how there were girls playing all over the world even if they had to do what she was about to do, what she had been made to do for four years now. Still she liked talking before best, anything to stretch out the candy-eating time. When the man looked away for a moment Tanny snuck a wink to Ruby.

“Now,” Mr. Green smiled broadly, “which one of you is in this room originally? Is in it most of the time?”

He looked at Ruby. “Is it you?” She nodded. He smiled warmly at her. “Good for you, sweetheart.” He rubbed her back and whispered, “There’s my good girl.” It was the first time Ruby had been called a good girl since Papa Bell died. Then he turned to Tanny. “And that means you are usually in room number twelve?” Tanny nodded yes.

Then Mr. Green walked over and sat on the edge of the bed. He motioned to Ruby. “Come here, sweetheart.” And Ruby did. “My good little girl sits on my right, like Jesus.” He pulled Ruby beside him. Then he looked at Tanny. His face twisted as he said, “And the other one on my left.” Tanny cut her eyes to Ruby for a millisecond. His voice shook, “ Don’t look at my good girl.” And he pushed Tanny down between his legs, unzipped his trousers and forced her mouth onto him.

All the while, Ruby felt transfixed by the gentle of his voice. He was no worse than the others, and he had brought them candy.

He leaned over and whispered to Ruby, “My good girl doesn’t have to look. Cover your eyes princess.” Ruby did, until she heard Tanny gag. She opened her eyes to see Tanny looking about in horror, a thin black wire about her neck. Mr. Green held it looped like a tight leash as he plunged into her mouth. He was trembling.

“ Look what you’re making Daddy do!” Tanny’s face grew dark, dark. She vomited the chocolate.

Ruby felt a snap inside of her. “Miss Barbara!”

She beat against Mr. Green with her fists. She leapt on his back and grabbed at his face. Tanny’s eyes walled back in her head. Ruby screamed, “Miss BARbara! MISS BAR-BA-RA!”

Mr. Green spun on Ruby like a snake. Eyes too black. Blue too narrow. He hissed like razors, “Little girl, I am the Devil. I know everything about you. I see who’s good. Who’s bad. But sometimes I make a mistake — did I? Maybe you’re the bad one. Are you?” Ruby looked at the girl who used to be Tanny. The girl struggling for breath. Then the man removed the snare from Tanny’s neck. She fell to the floor coughing, gasping, and he brought it over Ruby’s head like a black halo. He lowered it and pulled. Ruby could barely breathe. She urinated.

“Did I make a mistake?” He pulled the cord tighter. Ruby felt the world spin darkly.

“Did I? Did I?”

Ruby spit out, “No.”

“No? You’re sure? You’re sure now?”

Ruby nodded, unable to speak. “So you are my good girl. You are she.” He loosed the cord a bit and added, “And good things don’t mind when we punish bad things, do they?”

Again no.

“And if they do, then we know that they are bad too. Don’t we?”

Ruby nodded yes.

So the man removed the cord from Ruby’s neck and turned and lifted Tanny from the floor.

Tanny cried out when he put the cord around her neck again. She coughed and pooped, as the man dragged her all about the room, Tanny trying to fight, Ruby saying nothing. Then she hated Tanny for being so evil with the Devil. And then she did not. As he put himself in Tanny’s mouth again, Ruby shot silent words into her friend’s heart, i’msorryi’msorry​sosorry​iloveyou​sorry , until Tanny hung limp, and the man’s body trembled and jerked. When he was done he dropped Tanny to the floor. Still. Too still. The entire world slowed up then stopped. Her chest did not rise. Did not fall. Her face was plum dark, fat. Her ankles were too twisted under her waist. Her body like an empty sack.

So Ruby died with her. Where was she? Ruby looked wildly around the room. Then high up, she saw Tanny shooting up through the ceiling, and she wailed, Wait! I’m sorry! Sorry! So Ruby lifted up, spirit to spirit, up above the tin roof, out of the gray. Where … where to go. Where … Then down, Ruby looked down and saw herself sitting on the bed, pink dress, pigtails, and sadly guided Tanny back. Down into Ruby’s own body. Invited her inside, to live in there with her, to take root. There was no place else to go. No God, no nothing else. Couldn’t be. So she swallowed Tanny in deep where it was safe.