Page 46 of The Killer Cupcake
“Janey's having one of her spells.”
“Spells?” Kathy repeated.
“Unraveling—worse than I've witnessed since she came back from California, and Carmine was upset with her. She had left us for two years before she returned, then ran off to you in Butts. It nearly drove him mad.”
“I know, she told me she was in California,” Kathy said. “What do these spells do to her? What causes them?”
“Losing her favorite niece’s love and respect, I suppose. You never know what triggers Janey. Her mind cracks at times, and the spells come and go. Some of them are worse than others. This one looks bad.”
"I don't care what happens to that woman?—"
"She's your blood!" Pinkie insisted. "Love doesn't quit when someone disappoints—it fights harder to pull us back from the edge. And Janey? She's standing on a very high cliff right now, Kathy. We can’t reach her. But you might. She was so excited about you and Willa coming. She planned everything foryou girls. In her twisted way, she thought giving Willa to the Thibodeauxs was a good thing. She really did."
Kathy stared toward the café entrance where Carmine waited like a well-dressed soldier; his mission was clear. Guard and protect Janey at all costs.
"Fine," Kathy breathed, the word turning to ash in her mouth. "I'll come. But I'm not promising forgiveness or understanding."
Pinkie's "thank you" was barely audible, a tremor of desperate relief as she guided Kathy toward the door.
CHAPTER 20
JANEY’S ATONES
The house didn’t just welcome them—it swallowed them whole.
Kathy stepped across the threshold into a silence so thick it pressed against her eardrums. No creak of floorboards. No distant clatter from the kitchen. Only the frantic drumming of her own heart.
Carmine walked stiffly through the gloom, his canehumpingdully as he veered left toward his study—and the bourbon that waited there. In the span of the drive, he’d aged. Streaks of silver threaded his temples, Kathy hadn’t noticed before; his shoulders sagged under an invisible weight. Every step seemed labored, pain radiating from him in waves.
"It drains him,"Pinkie whispered, watching him disappear. She set her purse on the hall table with deliberate calm, then peeled off her gloves, finger by trembling finger. "When Janey shatters… he shatters too. When she disappears, he becomes a ghost in life. It’s just torture. Getting her well is the only way to mend him."
She turned to Kathy, eyes dark with exhaustion."Here’s how this visit goes. Mama gave Janey laudanum in her tea. Pa…" Pinkie’s voice hitched. "Pa tied her wrists to the bedposts.They’re too old to wrestle her demons anymore. I made them do it for their safety when we decided to come for you."
Kathy was shocked. "You tied her up? Like some?—"
"Like someone who tried to claw her own eyes out last night!" Pinkie’s composure snapped. She turned on Kathy.“She was screaming about spiders under her skin. About blood in the walls. Would you rather we let her break her hands on the window trying to fly?"
There was a beat of horrified silence.
"We go in, united,” Pinkie whispered. "When the laudanum fades… she’ll need us.Bothof us."
Kathy’s gaze slowly moved to the staircase looming like a dark spine in the hall. “Will she… try to hurt us?" The question felt small, childish. "Has she ever hurtyou?"
“Never meaning to. Even at her worst, the harm’s never aimed outward.” Pinkie paused, the memory tightening her voice. “And I never tell her when it happens that she does hurt one of us. Truth would shatter what’s left of her. You don’t know how fragile she is beneath all that fire.”
She turned, facing Kathy fully.
“I had just turned eleven when I found them. Carmine on their bedroom floor, drowning in his own blood—vomiting it, choking on it. Janey was naked, fresh bruises from their sex games, kneeling beside him, covered in his blood, rocking back and forth like a child asking him to please and hurry and die. She’d baked him a pie days ago, and nothing. She then slipped poison little candies into his whiskey and convinced him to drink. All to avenge me.”
“I didn’t run for a doctor. I ran to the train station, sent a telegram to your mother: ‘JANEY DYING COME NOW.’ Your mama came on the first train south. She walked into that nightmare… and pulled them both back from the edge. Stopped the bleeding. Flushed the poison. Sat with Janey for three daysstraight, singing hymns while Janey raved about devils in the wallpaper and the Tinsel man.”
A tear traced Pinkie’s cheek.
“Wait? Mama has a cure? Knows a cure?” Kathy asked.
“She knows a lot about the poison. I think their mother spent the most time with your mother, teaching her how to use and care for the person. I seen it with my own eyes. Carmine is alive because of your Mama.”
“I don’t know my family at all,” Kathy said.
