Mary

The smell of it reached his nose before the sight did, and he remembered Hell as he did not wish to, unexpectedly and unwelcome. The thoughts of it entered his brain and refused to leave, the vision of revulsion and secret pleasure, as the bodies burned and the guilt along with it. “Hell,” he said, breathing in and closing his eyes. “The smell of burning bodies.” He heard her laugh a whispery laugh beside him. “It’s only a barbeque.” To some the same, he thought
He dared to indulge in her presence beside him, alive and unharmed. He tried not to tense, oh, not to ever tense when he thought of her. She was his darling, and he did not want her to become a part of the Hell he had brought with him when he met her. He needed to let go. For now, he would enjoy the barbeque as much as he could, indulge in the guilty pleasure of the smell of burning bodies.

When Mary had worked at the Revelance household, she felt more alive than she ever had before. It was not that her own life had actually gotten any better, but she enjoyed the lives of those around her, feeding off of their memories, their pride and their sorrows. She felt them more than she ever felt herself anymore. She felt that that might have been Ginny’s fault for not loving her. For unrequited love is really the worst kind.
When she left Ginny’s wedding she had not planned on ever doing anything again, but was happy that she had decided against it. She could still remember the night of the reception, and the man that she had met afterwards, the man who had told her that there need not be any more of the pain that she felt. The man who called himself David.
Mary had been Ginny’s friend for many years, ever since college. But Mary had not ever though of her as anything but a friend until a year ago. Mary had been having coffee with her when she looked at her, really looked at her. At her raven hair, and her blue eyes, and her pale skin, and perfect lips. That was when she realized that she would never want to be with anyone else. Never want to kiss any lips but hers. For there were none so perfect, nor so beautiful. But she was the queen of ignoring things, a believer in the theory that if you don’t think about things, they go away. But her love for Ginny wouldn’t follow her careful calculated formula of ignorance, not at all. It persisted in her soul, pushing at her insides, and crawling under her skin, escaping out of her eyes in tears. But she never listened to it, never let herself feel it, and it never really occurred to her what Ginny being married meant until she watched her drive away in the limo, peeking her beautiful head out the sun roof to wave at everyone, blowing a kiss to Mary, who felt it sting her, the closest she would ever come to the intimacy that she so desired from those perfect lips. So as she walked out of the park where the reception was being held, she stopped refusing to believe it, stopped ignoring the loss of the love of her life, and let it all wash over her. After her practiced goodbyes, her kisses smiles and laughs, and her long walk to her car, she sat in the front seat, fully realizing the magnitude in which her life had changed.
So when David had come to the car window, to ask if she was ok, she was willing to tell him everything and take any advice that he had to give. His expression did not change as she told him of her love for Ginny, he only smiled, a hungry smile that sickened, and yet pleased her, and he made her feel better, just by the hope in it. “All is not lost my dear,” he said when she was finished, handing her a handkerchief from his back pocket, “all you need is to enter another place, another life, another world. I always believed that when your life isn’t going the way that you want, just steal someone else’s.” He told her that he owned a nanny business, one where he hired out women to families that needed stay in babysitters and housekeepers. She almost laughed at the absurdity of such a thing, but kept her mouth shut. He offered her a job, and out of desperation, she took it, and that was how she ended up at the Revelance household. But she knew somewhere within herself that things were not all ok with David, for when she looked into his eyes she saw the devil in them, saw the fire, but she had no problem becoming one of his sins.

Angelica Revelance had never liked the idea of having someone else take care of her children. It all seemed so distant and business like and cold. But it was the only way to keep her job after her eldest daughter left her with an 11 year old and went to college. So she looked it up in the yellow pages, called up the number and hired one, as simple as pie. And for the first week, it seemed fine. Mary was a private, sweet woman, about Angelica’s age, with short curly blonde hair, and a tiny body. But she wasn’t cutesy, or funny, or even shy. She was clever, almost, and silent, rather that quiet, as though she had many thoughts but would rather keep them to herself.
It was in the third week of Mary’s stay that everything changed. Angelica had felt that things might end the way they did when she noticed her husband’s hungry eyes roving over Mary, and had felt the distance of her children whenever Mary was around to do things with them. And she had felt the absent of love in her friend Rebecca’s eyes whenever Angelica spoke of Mary as anything less than the perfect being, but it was the Friday of the third week when Angelica actually became afraid of her.
She hadn’t been getting much sleep since she had begun suspecting that her husband was cheating on her, on this night she couldn’t even be in the same room with him. She retched silently into the small wastebasket by the counter, falling back down onto the floor. She heard her footsteps coming across the kitchen, and placed her hands down on the cold linoleum, lacing air into her fingers, wishing it would turn to solid. Wishing it would dig deep into her hands, and crush her bones, and snap the ligaments. Angelica wished to see the blood from her own hands run smoothly ‘cross the floor, a beautiful dance of pain. Wanted to hurt herself as much as she possibly could, to slowly drown in the blood of her hands. For she remembered how she had promised herself she wouldn’t let Mary hurt her, yet here she was, sitting on the cold linoleum of her own kitchen, retching into a trash can. Angelica felt dizzy, and imagined the blood from her hands hands running down across the floor, now sidways and spinning, leaking into the cracks until everything was blood, and she wouldn’t feel any of this anymore. Snap, snap, snap goes the bones, Angelica thought to herself. And gushing goes the blood. And she will slip in it. And I will not be here anymore. But Mary reached her, and leaned down towards her face. Angelica could smell the sweetness in her breath, even in the middle of the night. Mary’s eyes not only held sympathy, but stories of sympathy, stories of life and love, of everything she had fixed in everyone, of everything Angelica couldn’t even fix in herself. So Angelica merely smiled and said, “Oh, I just couldn’t sleep.”
Mary bent down beside her and put her hand to Angelica’s forehead, a look of concern pasted on to her beautiful face. “Oh, you look awful darling, come into the den and have a sit,” she said, leading Angelica into the red leather chair in front of the television. She then walked out of the room and into the kitchen; Angelica could hear her getting water from the tap. Mary stood in the doorway when she was done, a water glass in one hand and the other by her side. “Want to tell me what’s wrong?” As much as Angelica hated her, she felt drawn to her, and to her compassion, fake or not, so she sighed and smiled.
“Oh, I couldn’t sleep, and I guess I was feeling a bit woozy from lack of it, but I think I’m ok.”
Mary smiled, “I know what you mean, about not sleeping, some nights when I feel restless, I just come down hear and drink water, it always makes me feel better.” Angelica could imagine why it might be difficult for Mary to sleep.
Angelica was puzzled, for Mary did not move to give her the water. She looked a bit scary in the moonlight, and Angelica leaned forward to look closer at her. As her body shifted, the moon threw light onto Mary and Angelica saw it glint off of something held in her hand. She felt all words, and screams lost in her throat as she recognized it as the knife she had cut some cucumber with earlier that day, resting comfortably in Mary’s right hand. Mary must have known she could see it, for she stood completely still, and her eyes moved to the knife in her hand. She lifted it up and gestured towards Angelica, smiling tentatively, “I thought I would make you something to eat, like toast.” But her words sounded evil, sounded cruel and mocking, and Angelica flinched as Mary drew towards her and placed the glass on the table next to her.
The next day she told her husband the story, and Rebecca. Both of them believed Mary, and were shocked to hear of Angelica’s theory. “Whether you believe me or not,” Angelica said, trying to keep the anger out of her voice while still sounding forceful, “I am still firing her.”
But she never got the chance to fire Mary, for within the hour, she was standing in the kitchen, with a tearful Mary, and angry Husband, a saddened Rebecca, and two bewildered children. “We wanted to talk to you,” said her husband, putting a hand around Mary to comfort her, “About firing Mary.”
Her eleven-year-old Tiffany spoke up, “What? You cant fire Mary, we love her!” the passion in Tiffany’s voice nearly drove Angelica to tears.
“And we all feel this way,” her husband continued, “We are going to go to dinner and leave you to think things over, I have an idea that you will change your mind.” They left, one by one, first Rebecca, “I hope you can understand”, then her husband, “This is important to us,” and then Mary, who waited till they were out of view, and then smiled, a sickening, hungry smile, and walked away.
Angelica looked around the kitchen, for something that would help her, she remembered the gun that was in the locked drawer next to her, but was afraid if she didn’t do it just right, it would hurt. Then she thought of the six vikadin pills left in the medicine drawer, but dismissed that, for it was too silly a way to die, with the vomit, and the ambulance she knew would take her to the hospital, where, if they saved her life, she would have to explain all this to them, something she didn’t know how to even begin explaining. And then remembered what her husband had said about the stove. The Pilot light was out. She giggled at the thought. Just like Sylvia. They would all come home, expecting to find a remorseful Angelica, falling at their feet and begging for forgiveness, but they wouldn’t. This was the only way to beat Mary and she knew it. If she let Mary stay, she would continue to steal the ones that she loved, continue to push Merridy to the back of everyone’s minds, continue to slowly torture her. And if she continued to fight Mary, she knew that her loved ones would leave her anyways, for Mary. But who wouldn’t? Mary was more than pretty, she was fun, and witty, and lovely, and graceful, she knew more than just what to say, but how to say it. She would leave her own mother for someone like Mary, for someone who could make her happy. But this way, they could never forget her, no matter how much they tried to push her from their minds, they would have to think of her, have to remember the woman that they had pushed to death, the woman they once loved, a woman forgotten. She leaned her head into the oven and rested it on the grate, breathing in the gas, choking on the deathly sweet scent of death.
She was awakened by Mary, her eyes foggy, and her head spinning, but definitely not on the verge of death. Her plan had failed. But it was only Mary there in the kitchen. “I came back early, to clean up while they all went for dessert, what are you doing?” but she didn’t sound like she didn’t already know, nor like she cared. Angelica laughed, sadly and painfully, but ruefully. “I don’t even fully know, the only ting I would do I guess. But does this fit with you perfect plan? You could convince them that you were better than me, its not that hard; you could alienate me from them. But you can’t make them forget a woman who killed herself over them, never.” She laughed a bit more and leaned close to Mary’s ear and whispered, “there are something’s you cant ignore.” She could feel Mary stiffen beside her. Could feel that she had finally touched something within Mary. “What are you trying to ignore?” Mary stood up and fumbled with her keys, opening the drawer where the gun was with them. While she was doing this, Angelica stumbled upwards, holding onto the counter for support.
“Tell me Mary, do you do this to others?” Mary smiled, pausing in opening the drawer.
“No, you are my first, but I plan to do it again.” Mary found the key and giggled. Angelica continued.
“Do you like to think of yourself as Bloody Mary or something of that sort.” She didn’t know why she was asking these questions, she want staling or anything, just filling up the silence with words as she had been taught all of her life. Mary paused again, the key in the lock. Then she opened it and pulled out the gun, talking.
“No, I like to think of myself as the Virgin Mary.” She turned towards Angelica, holding the gun. “Though I am a virgin, I still have a child. I have darling Tiffany, I disciple, if you will. My daughter, of the devil! Oh how life will be a dream for her, without the silliness of good things, of right and wrong. She can decide for herself,” Mary paused to smile at Angelica. “And don’t think for a second that she will choose to do the right thing. No one in their right mind would, not with so may options of evil things, of easy things.” Angelica wanted to cry, listening to the planned destruction of her own daughters life, though she found that she was unafraid, could Mary possible be about to give her what she had wanted in the first place? Mary placed the gun in Merridy’s hands as she stood up, and then backed a few feet away.
“You can’t conquer me Angelica,” said Mary, laughing without a hint of fear in her voice, and holding out her hands, giving Angelica all her body, to hurt, to kill. “You can’t escape yourself.” Angelica laughed and pointed the gun right at Mary’s heart, “What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means,” continued Mary, stumbling a bit out of wooziness because of all the gas in the room. “It means that you have two choices, nether of them good. You can pull that trigger and I will be dead, but I will not be gone. They will never ever forgive you for killing me, your husband will leave you, your children distance themselves from you, and your friend Rebecca desert you. And for the rest of your life you will know you killed the one person who could have made their lives happy. Or, you can let me go and I will continue to steal everything from you. Besides, I have already called to police, before I woke you up, so I am sure you should think twice about what you are going to do. You have only to decide who the nice people in the ambulance will need to try and save.”
Angelica could hear the sirens far in the distance; they would be here any minute now. She shivered a bit, and almost lost her balance in the haze of the gas. She reached over with one hand and turned the stove off, letting the gas escape through the door that Mary had left open. She could hear them on the block now, barreling down the street at break-neck speed. “You got to chose,” Mary giggled, finding the whole situation hilarious. They were getting out of their cars now and nearing the door. Merridy pulled the trigger and shot Mary somewhere in the chest, she did not look, too busy quickly putting to gun to the side of her head. “Freeze!” yelled a young cop from the room, and Merridy did. “Drop the gun!” she slowly let her last hope go, it hit her shoulder and fell behind her. She hoped that it would go off and shoot her in the leg somewhere, so that someone would be forced to take care of her, forced to care whether she lived or died, even if it was a hospital worker. But the gun fell to the floor, and was silent. She put her hands above her head and sighed, wondering if she was really sorry about what she had done, and if she ever would be.

David spotted the couple across the pool, standing by the fence. He made his way towards them, with her following in his wake. He smiled, again and though of Hell as it had been, this was certainly as enjoyable. He approached the couple, the man, whom he knew as Warren, was wearing a blue polo shirt, and jeans, the woman, Kelly wearing a long floral dress. He had never met them, but already disliked Kelly, with her blank eyes, and straight brown hair, and sickly, rotted looking skin, of some ethnicity he could not put his finger on. He held his hand out to each of them in turn, which seemed to surprise them. “Hi, I’m David.” They smiled at him.
“I am Warren, and this is my fiancé Melissa.”
The woman giggled and held up her left hand, “It still feels weird to hear him say that,” David nearly wretched at her accent, some mix of Mexican and Texan.
Warren moved his eyes to the woman standing next to David; with eyes so intense he could feel them in his very mind. “And who is this lovely lady,” he asked David, not taking his hungry eyes off of her.
She smiled sweetly, and let her eyes quickly turn to Melissa, who felt her breath leave her at the strangely important meaning of the stare. Her eyes left Melissa’s and went swiftly back to Warren; she leaned forward, wincing slightly at the pull at the stitches below her right breast. She smiled again and took his hand in a gentile but firm handshake. “I’m Mary.”


yeah, so its not edited very well. sorry if it says Merridy sometimes, its supposed to say Angelica. I changed the name. I dont know how i feel about this story. Hoping for feedback.