Vassa in the Night Read Free

around and run the other way! Chop me, chop me!”
    We don’t bother. Maybe it means we’re getting old. Maybe the nights are so long now that we’re only superficially kids, and we’ve lost years to the darkness.
    Steph suddenly puts a hand to her throat and lets out a gasp.
    â€œWhat?” Chelsea asks her. “You lost your locket?” She shoots me a significant look. The slight squirming in my pocket stops dead.
    â€œI was wearing it! I hope—maybe I just knocked the clasp open?” Steph starts ransacking her pillows.
    â€œIt will show up soon, I’m quite sure,” Chelsea says, taking time to enunciate each word, and arches her eyebrows my way.
    I excuse myself to the bathroom and perch on the toilet lid. The bathroom is bright pink, with this cheesy mermaid wallpaper Steph picked out when she was five; the shower curtain is stained with garish purple streaks from my hair dye. I can feel the lump in the pocket of my hoodie but it’s as still as a wad of used tissues. Erg is pretending to be asleep. I get her by one tiny wooden foot and drag her out anyway. She dangles upside down, her eyes closed, her painted black hair gleaming in its flat spit curls. She doesn’t react when I drop her in the sink, which is enough to prove that she’s faking.
    I turn the water on full blast. I’m not a kleptomaniac, really. I just harbor one. Erg leaps up sputtering, water sheeting off her spherical head. Her feet clop on the pink porcelain as she leaps around but the sink is too slippery for her to climb out; she’s lacquered so she doesn’t have much traction. She lands on her carved blue rear, legs clacking. “You turn that off! Vassa! You’d better stop!”
    â€œAre you going to give the locket back?” I’m not going to yield quite so easily. I’m sick of getting blamed for Erg’s lousy behavior.
    â€œProbably. Eventually. If you don’t do anything to provoke me in the meantime.”
    I reach toward the knob that lowers the stopper into place. “How about you do it tonight? You can put it in her bed. So there’s at least some plausible deniability in regard to my being a thieving psycho?”
    Erg squeals and snaps her legs closed, wedging her feet below the metal disk that stoppers the sink. I could just pull her out of the way, though. Being fierce doesn’t get you too far when you’re an imposing four and a half inches tall. “You wouldn’t dare!”
    â€œOh, Erg,” I say. She reminds me of my mother more than I like to admit. “Just quit the damn stealing and we won’t have these problems. Okay? Say you’ll put it back tonight and I’ll dry you off.”
    â€œAnd oil me?”
    I turn off the tap. No matter how mad she makes me, Erg is still my doll. Her painted lashes flick up and down, batting droplets out of her flat blue eyes. “Sure. Just put it back.”
    â€œYou’re going to ruin my finish if you keep doing this,” Erg complains. “I might even split.” She waits for me to pick her up, buff her in a warm towel. Instead I stare at her. I know her ways. “I’ll slide it in her bed tonight, and she won’t have any reason to accuse sweet Vassa of doing anything untoward, okay? Okay?”
    I pick her up between my thumb and forefinger and wrap her in a hand towel. She’s a pretty thing with her swooping violet eyelids and tiny ruby mouth, her thin arched black brows and perfect curls. She has a carved wooden dress, sky blue with white painted loops standing in for lace at the collar and cuffs. Her exposed skin is just varnished pale wood, then her legs end in white socks with more of that curly trim and black Mary Janes, all painted. Her knees, elbows, and waist are jointed and she can pivot her head. Nice workmanship. Too bad they didn’t spend more time on her personality.
    In spite of myself, I kiss the top of her shiny head.