Chapter 30 30

12 - 12 - 12, the clock is flashing.No matter how time passes, the electronic clock repeats this number forever. One more thing before you start.Your courage is at its peak, and that's good.But you have to focus.If you drop that damn cup on the floor in the first place, you're really ruined. "Go away, dog!" she screamed.She didn't know that the dog had retreated into the bushes at the end of the drive a few minutes earlier.She hesitated for a moment, considering another prayer.Then assume that she has said all the prayers she intends to say.Now she would rely on those voices in her head—on herself.

She reached out for the glass with her right hand, and she did not move with the tentative care she had before.Part of her--perhaps the part that loved and admired Ruth Neary so much--knew that this last job was not an act of caution, but a hammer hammered down hard, and hit hard. Now I have to be Mrs. Samurai. She thought about it and smiled.She clasped her fingers around the cup she had so laboriously acquired in the first place.She looked at it curiously for a moment—like a gardener who spots some unexpected variety among her edamame and peas—and clutched at it.She squinted her eyes almost a slit to protect them from the shards of glass.Then she smashed the glass against the shelf the way people smash hard-boiled eggs.The sound of the glass was absurdly familiar, absurdly normal.This sound is no different from the sound made by hundreds of cups.Over the years she'd either slipped them between her fingers or elbowed them to the floor as she cleaned them.There is no particular echo that she has embarked on that unique work, risking her life to save it.

She did feel a shard of glass hit indiscriminately just below her forehead, just above her eyebrows.But that was the only splinter that hit her face.Another piece—a large one, judging from the sound—twirled off the shelf and smashed to the floor.Jessie's lips clenched into a white line, and she waited for exactly where the pain was coming from, at least where it started.Her fingers, gripping the glass as it shattered, felt no pain, just a faint pressure and even fainter heat.It was nothing compared to the spasms that had been tormenting her for the last few hours. The cup must have been lucky.why not?Shouldn't I be lucky?

Then, raising her hand, she saw that the cup was not in luck.Crimson blood bubbles gushed from the tip of her thumb and the middle of three of her four fingers, only the little finger remained uncut.Shards of glass stuck like weird quills on her thumb, second, and third fingers.The numbness in her extremities prevented her from feeling the tearing pains much, but they were there.She watched her fingers, as large drops of blood began to trickle onto the pink mattress, staining it a darker color. Those narrow glass spikes stuck between her middle fingers like needles on a pincushion.Even though her stomach was empty, they made her feel sick.

You have become some warrior lady.The voice of an unknown object sneered. But, they are my fingers!she yelled at it.Can't you see it?They are my fingers! She felt a wave of panic, and she forced it back, turning her attention back to the shard of glass she was still holding.This arcuate fragment is the upper part of the cup, perhaps a quarter of the entire cup.One side of the cup crumbled into two smooth arches.They're almost perfect, gleaming coldly in the afternoon sun.With luck, then... maybe yes, if she could find the courage to keep going.To her, the curved pane of glass looked like a magical weapon from a fairy tale—a miniature scimitar, something a warlike elf would carry on his way to fight beneath the toadstool.

Your mind is wandering, my dear.baby said.Can you afford to desert? The answer is of course no. Jess put the quarter of the glass on the shelf.She lowered it carefully so that she could reach it without twisting too much.Its smooth, curved belly lay upside down, with scimitar-like points sticking out.A focal point reflecting the sun glowed hot on the shard's tip.If she was careful not to press down too hard, she thought, it might be perfect for the next job.Had it been hard enough, perhaps she would have pushed the glass off the shelf, or snapped the accidental blade with a snap. "Just be careful," she said. "If you're careful, you don't have to do your best, Jess. Just pretend—"

But the rest of that idea didn't seem to be working.then.She raised her right arm, stretching it as far as she could, until the chains of the handcuffs were taut and her wrists hung from the gleaming glass-pointed hooks.She wanted so badly to sweep the other shiny shards of glass off the shelf—it felt like a minefield waiting to be cleaned—but she didn't dare.After learning the lesson of Nivea cream, she didn't dare anymore.If she accidentally knocks the scimitar-shaped piece of glass off the shelf, or breaks it, she'll have to sift through the remaining pieces for acceptable alternatives.This precaution seemed to her to be beyond reality, and she told herself that it was unnecessary.If she was a little careless, she would bleed much more than she is now.

Just do it the way you understand it, Jesse, just like that...don't be timid. "Not timid," Jessie said hoarsely, reaching out and shaking her wrist, hoping to shake the shards of glass off her fingers.She almost made it, except for a splinter on her thumb, embedded deep in the tender flesh beneath the nail, refusing to come out.She decided to let it go and move on with the rest of the affair. What you're going to do is absolutely insane.A nervous voice told her.There are no sounds of unidentified objects here.The voice was very familiar to Jessie. It was her mother's voice.

You know, I'm not surprised, this is typical Jesse Mechter excess.If I could say I've seen this happen, I've seen it a thousand times.Come to think of it, Jesse - why cut yourself up, and maybe bleed to death?Someone will come to your rescue, anything else is simply unthinkable.Died in a summer villa?Die in handcuffs?Ridiculous!Take my word for it.So go beyond your usual irascibility, Jesse - just this once, don't cut yourself in that glass, don't do that! That was indeed her mother.It is puzzling that the voice is so similar.She wants you to believe that what you're hearing is love and common sense pretending to be angry—though the woman isn't entirely bad at expressing love.Jessie believed that the woman who walked into Jessie's house that day and threw a pair of high heels at her without a word of explanation, then and afterwards, was the real Sally Mechter.

Beyond that, everything the voice said was a lie, a terrible lie. "No," she said. I will never believe you.Nobody's coming—except maybe the guy from last night.I am not timid.With that said, Jessie stretched her right wrist down toward the shiny glass blade.