Not at all, murmurs my sister on the couch from behind her hands. But her voice is full of pain like Hud Hudson’s. I see Mother’s face in my mind. Looking at me like I was a stranger. Like she was empty. Emptied. And me looking at the emptiness, feeling sick, afraid. Responsible—why responsible?
“People disappear, the police told me, if you can believe it. I started looking into it and that’s when I stumbled upon our house on the cliff. On Rouge.”
My sisters sigh at the sound of this word. The way Hud Hudson says it. How it lights up his eyes, darkens his voice.
“Try looking into Rouge, I told the cop. He said, That fancy French spa by the water? My wife’s a member. Loves it. Barking up the wrong tree there, Hudson.” Another angry drag of his cigarette. He shakes his head at Mother’s mirrors. I know he sees nothing there in the glass. Just himself on the other side, broken and looking in.
“That cop didn’t know it, but he confirmed something for me. Some people, like his wife, seem to be enjoying the services of Rouge, paying for them, without losing their minds or dying. Others, like your mother, like Edward, aren’t so lucky.”
I look at my sister by the window, frozen but still gazing out at the water, a tear midway down her cheek.
“That’s the thing I don’t fully understand yet,” he says. “Why do some members pay, why do others get free treatments? Why do some lose their minds from the treatments and disappear? Why do some disappear quickly and others not so quickly? There seems to be no standard timeline, no—”
“Well, everyone’s Journey is different, isn’t it, Detective?” I say. Didn’t someone tell me that in a waiting room once? “Very peril—personal.”
“Like our demons. Maybe some are more appealing to Rouge than others.” He’s still staring at my face, his eyes tracing its particular configuration of contour and shadow. Why is he looking at me like this, Sisters? But they all still seem to be dreaming.
“You know Edward tried to kill me once?” he says, eyes on my eyes.
A sharp shiver runs through me. “He did?”
“When we were nine. For some reason, he had it in his head that I was the prettier one, if you can believe it. Even though we looked so alike, most people couldn’t tell us apart. But Edward was convinced. So one day he broke one of our mother’s perfume bottles and he did this.” He points to his scar, shining in the light. A burning on my forehead suddenly. Cold rushing through me like wind.
“After that, Edward went to live in Santa Cruz with our father for a while. It was the strangest thing…” He breaks off, shaking his head as if to shake it all away. I reach out my hand to his face. My fingers trace the raised, pale slash on his cheek.
“What?” I whisper.
He looks at me. Presses my hand against his face. “I used to be able to look at Edward and know his thoughts. I could feel his joy, his fear, his pain. Whether I wanted to or not, I felt it. But when I saw him again, that was all gone. He was like a different person. He’d forgotten what had happened, what he’d done. He was smiling, but distant. So distant with me.” Crack running through his voice like a crack in a glass. Eyes still on my eyes. A sorrow there, fathoms deep. His sorrow or mine? I’m drowning in it like dark water.
“Why are you telling me this story, Detective?”
“Because he was a Perfect Candidate. Like you.”
I drop my hand from his face. “Me?”
“Your mother paid for her treatments, like the cop’s wife, like many people seem to. She paid, but she still lost her mind, still disappeared. That’s less common from what I’ve seen, though it happens. Typically it’s the ones who don’t pay, who get free treatments like you and Edward—the Perfect Candidates, they call them…”
A skipping of my heart now at that phrase. A flicker of some recollection. Hud Hudson sees it. “Those,” he says, “are the ones who—”
“Go on a very exciting Journey,” I cut in.
Exactly, Sister, whispers my sister on the couch. In the mirror, she’s suddenly wide awake. Glaring at Hud Hudson, who’s looking at me with such let me in.
Because he’s a little in love with you, says my sister by the flowers. Awake now too in the glass. Elbows on the coffee table, chin in her palms, watching us like we’re a film, an old favorite.
He’s not in love, spits my sister on the couch. He just desires what he doesn’t understand. Men love a mystery, don’t they?