Rose Madder

“Good,” that sweet, slightly husky voice answered.

“That’s good, Rosie Real.” A mottled hand floated into her field of vision, and something dropped into Rosie’s lap. It flashed a single glint of gold in the pale late light.

“For you,” Rose Madder said.

“A souvenir, if you like. Do with it as you will.” Rosie plucked it out of her lap and looked at it wonderingly. The words on it-Service, Loyalty, Community-made a triangle around the ringstone, which was a circle of obsidian. This was now marked by one bright spot of scarlet. It turned the stone into a baleful watching eye. The silence spun out, and there was an expectant quality to it. Does she want to be thanked? Rosie wondered. She wouldn’t do that… but she would tell the truth of her feelings.

“I’m glad he’s dead,” she said, softly and unemphatically.

“It’s a relief.”

“Of course you’re glad and of course it is. You shall go now, back to your Rosie Real world, with this beast. He’s a good one, I judge.” A hint of something-Rosie would not let herself believe it could be lust-crept into the voice of the other.

“Good hocks. Good flanks.” A pause.

“Fine loins.” Another pause, and then one of her mottled hands came down and caressed Bill’s tumbled, sweaty hair. He drew in a breath at her touch, but did not look up.

“A good beast. Protect him and he’ll protect you.” Rosie looked up then. She was terrified of what she might see, but nevertheless unable to stop herself. “don’t you call him a beast again,” she said in a voice that shook with fury.

“And get your diseased hand off him.” She saw Dorcas wince in horror, but saw it only in the corner of her eye. The bulk of her attention was focused on Rose Madder. What had she expected from that face? Now that she was looking at it in the waning moonlight, she couldn’t exactly say. Medusa, perhaps. A Gorgon. The woman before her was not that. Once (and not so long ago, either, Rosie thought) her face had been one of extraordinary beauty, perhaps a face to rival Helen of Troy’s. Now her features were haggard and begi

“You’re brave, Rosie. You’ve fought well for your… your friend. You’re courageous, and you have a good heart. But may I give you one piece of advice before I send you back?” She smiled, perhaps in an effort to be engaging, but Rosie’s heart stopped momentarily before skittering madly onward. When Rose Madder’s lips drew back, disclosing a hole in her face that was nothing at all like a mouth, she no longer looked even remotely human. Her mouth was the maw of a spider, something made for eating insects which weren’t even dead, but only stung into insensibility.

“Of course.” Rosie’s lips felt numb and distant. The mottled hand stroked smoothly along her temple. The spider’s mouth gri

“Wash the dye out of your hair,” Rose Madder whispered.

“You weren’t meant to be a blonde.” Their eyes met and held. Rosie discovered she couldn’t drop hers; they were locked on the other woman’s face. At one corner of her vision she saw Bill continuing to look grimly down at his hands. His cheeks and brow glimmered with sweat. It was Rose Madder who looked away. “dorcas.”

“Ma’am?”

“The baby-?”

“Be ready when you are.”

“Good,” said Rose Madder.

“I’m eager to see her, and it’s time we went along. Time you went along, too, Rosie Real. You and your man. I can call him that, you see. Your man, your man. But before you go…” Rose Madder held her arms out. Slowly, feeling almost hypnotized, Rosie got to her feet and entered the offered embrace. The dark patches growing in Rose Madder’s flesh were hot and fevery-Rosie fancied she could almost feel them squirming against her own skin. Otherwise, the woman in the chiton-in the zat-was as cold as a corpse. But Rosie was no longer afraid. Rose Madder kissed her cheek, high up toward the jaw, and whispered, “I love you, little Rosie. I wish we’d met at a better time, when you might have seen me in a better light, but we have done as well as we could. We have been well-met. Just remember the tree.”

“What tree?” Rosie asked frantically.

“What tree?” But Rose Madder shook her head with inarguable finality and stepped back, breaking their embrace. Rosie took one last look into that uneasy, demented face, and thought again of the vixen and her cubs.

“Am I you?” she whispered.

“Tell me the truth-am I you?” Rose Madder smiled. It was just a small smile, but for a moment Rosie saw a monster glimmering in it, and she shuddered.

“Never mind, little Rosie. I’m too old and sick to deal with such questions. Philosophy is the province of the well. If you remember the tree, it will never matter, anyway.”

“I don’t understand-” “shhh!” She put a finger to her lips.

“Turn around, Rosie. Turn around and see me no more. The play has ended.” Rosie turned, bent, put her hands over Bill’s hands (they were still clasped, his fingers a tense, woven knot between his thighs), and pulled him to his feet. Once more the easel was gone, and the picture which had been on it-her apartment at night, indifferently rendered in muddy oils-had grown to enormous size. Once more it wasn’t really a picture at all, but a window. Rosie started toward it, intent on nothing but getting through it and leaving the mysteries of this world behind for good. Bill stopped her with a tug on the wrist. He turned back to Rose Madder, and spoke without allowing his eyes to rise any higher than her breasts.

“Thank you for helping us,” he said.

“You’re very welcome,” Rose Madder said composedly. “repay me by treating her well.” I repay, Rosie thought, and shuddered again.

“Come on,” she said, tugging Bill’s hand.

“Please, let’s go.” He lingered a moment longer, though.

“Yes,” he said.

“I’ll treat her well. I’ve got a pretty good idea of what happens to people who don’t. Better than I want, maybe.”

“It’s such a pretty man,” Rose Madder said thoughtfully, and then her tone changed-it became distraught, almost distracted.

“Take him while you still can, Rosie Real! While you still can!”

“Go on!” Dorcas cried.

“You two get out of here right now!”

“But give me what’s mine before you go!” Rose Madder screamed. Her voice was squealing and unearthly.

“Give it to me, you bitch!” Something-not an arm, something too thin and bristly to be an arm-flailed in the moonlight and slid along the madly shrinking flesh of Rosie McClendon’s forearm. With a scream of her own, Rosie pulled the gold armlet off and flung it at the feet of the looming, writhing shape before her. She was aware of Dorcas throwing her arms around that shape, trying to restrain it, and Rosie waited to see no more. She seized Bill by the arm and yanked him through the window-sized painting.

There was no sensation of tripping, but she fell rather than walked out of the painting, just the same. So did Bill. They landed on the closet floor side by side in a long, trapezoidal patch of moonlight. Bill rapped his head against the side of the door, hard enough to hurt, by the sound, but he seemed unaware of it.