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  Advance Praise for Parasite Life

  “Victoria Dalpe’s stellar debut novel suggests that sometimes you consume the ones you love. The prose is tough and unsentimental, yet evocative in its depiction of the cancerous nature of abuse. Parasite Life battens down on you—insidious and predatory.”

  —Laird Barron, author of Blood Standard

  “How do you breathe new life into the YA vampire novel? If you’re Victoria Dalpe, you do it by wrapping a refreshingly humanistic interior and an incredibly compelling narrative voice in the Gothic, primal, atavistic horror that made the children of the night sing to us in the first place.”

  —Orrin Grey, author of Painted Monsters & Other Strange Beasts

  “All relationships are parasitic. That’s never been truer than in Parasite Life. A visceral and tempestuous ride through a genuine teen hell, Parasite Life is a beautifully written, gothic tale about that give-and-give-and-take in all kinds of love—familial and romantic—that slowly drain us dry even as they feed us. In Parasite Life, Dalpe tells a fine damned story.”

  —Susie Moloney, author of A Dry Spell, The Dwelling, and Things Withered: Stories

  “A dark and stormy read! Parasite Life is the kind of book that makes you want to lock the doors and draw the curtains just so you won’t be interrupted. Victoria Dalpe is such a charming woman that it’s surprising to realize she has such a dark and macabre imagination—a classic tale whose Gothic roots run deep throughout the story.”

  —Adrianne Ambrose, author of Fangs for Nothing, Confessions of a Virgin Sacrifice, and the “Betty and Veronica” Archie Comics

  “In Victoria Dalpe’s compelling debut, seventeen-year-old Jane DeVry shares a house in a small New Hampshire town with a mother suffering from a mysterious condition whose symptoms include mysterious wounds and sudden bouts of screaming. When the friendship of a new student at school awakens new desires in her, Jane sets out to learn who she is, beginning an odyssey that takes her first into her mother’s old journal, and then to the art scene in contemporary Manhattan, in search of a father she has never known. Smart, gripping, and possessed of real emotional depth, Parasite Life invokes the traditions of the Gothic while taking the form boldly into the twenty-first century.”

  —John Langan, author of The Fisherman

  “Already trapped in a claustrophobic life which forces her to play caretaker to her own mentally ill mother, teenaged Jane is finally forced to confront the secrets and lies which surround her when her attraction to Sabrina, a new girl at school, awakens hungers too violent to ignore. Victoria Dalpe’s Parasite Life is a coolly sensual slice of darkness that reads like Anne Rice for the post-Twilight age.”

  —Gemma Files, Shirley Jackson and Sunburst Award-winning author of Experimental Film

  “Parasite Life is a totally unique spin on the vampire genre. This dark and blood-soaked coming of age tale haunts and intrigues as the secrets of Jane’s past are revealed.”

  —Abby Denson, author of Cool Japan Guide and Dolltopia

  “Sensual, moving, and sometimes grim, Parasite Life explores the tough questions: what would you do for love? What would you do for need? And who would you betray to survive?”

  —Nancy Baker, author of Cold Hillside and A Terrible Beauty

  “Visceral but polished, grim but lush, and ultimately optimistic. A coming-of-age story in more ways than one.”

  —E.L. Chen, author of The Good Brother

  FIRST EDITION

  Parasite Life © 2017 by Victoria Dalpe

  Cover artwork © 2017 by Erik Mohr

  Cover design & Interior design © 2017 by David Bigham

  All Rights Reserved.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Distributed in Canada by

  Fitzhenry & Whiteside Limited

  195 Allstate Parkway

  Markham, Ontario L3R 4T8

  Phone: (905) 477-9700

  e-mail: [email protected]

  Distributed in the U.S. by

  Consortium Book Sales & Distribution

  34 Thirteenth Avenue, NE, Suite 101

  Minneapolis, MN 55413

  Phone: (612) 746-2600

  e-mail: [email protected]

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-77148-446-6 (softcover).--ISBN 978-1-77148-398-8 (PDF)

  ChiZine Publications

  Peterborough, Canada

  www.chizinepub.com

  [email protected]

  Edited by Sandra Kasturi and Samantha Beiko

  Poofread by Leigh Teetzel

  We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts which last year invested $20.1 million in writing and publishing throughout Canada.

  Published with the generous assistance of the Ontario Arts Council.

  CONTENTS

  PART I: Ars Moriendi

  PART II : Imago

  PART III: Memento Mori

  PART IV: Epilogue

  A scorpion approached a frog sitting at the edge of a river.

  “Would you carry me across?” it asked the frog.

  The frog was hesitant, naturally fearful of the scorpion.

  “You will be safe, I assure you, for hurting you would only drown us both.”

  So, the frog allowed the scorpion to climb on its back.

  When they were midway across the river, the frog felt a terrible pain; the scorpion had stung the frog.

  With its last breath as the frog began to sink, it asked the scorpion, “Why?”

  The scorpion replied, “Alas, it is my nature.”

  And the two sank beneath the waves.

  —animal fable originating in the 1950s

  Loneliness will sit over our roofs with brooding wings.

  —Bram Stoker, Dracula

  PART I: Ars Moriendi

  Pain wanders through my bones like a lost fire;

  What burns me now? Desire, desire, desire.

  —Theodore Roethke, “The Marrow,” ll. 11–12

  I.

  Fast breathing, twin mouths, horses galloping, their hooves tearing up the ground. Thump, thump, thump, thump, as regular as a heartbeat. Faster and faster, louder and louder. Rippled muscles gleamed on shining oiled backs, mouths frothy, eyes wild and spinning. Thump, thump, thump, thump, the footfalls echoed my heart, possibly were my heart . . .

  I sat up in the early dawn, confused. Pulling back the canopy bed drapes I squinted at the clock, it was nearly 4:00 a.m. Out the window, the sky was still a starless night-black. I wondered what woke me. My mouth tasted sour; my eyes were bleary.

  I stood up, swaying, and caught my reflection in the vanity. I looked terrible: my skin drawn, my eyes wet and feverish, bloodless lips pulled back to reveal blunt teeth. I tried to swallow but my throat was dry as parchment. I headed to the bathroom for some water. My hands shook so badly that I barely got the glass to my mouth.

  For a fleeting moment, the water was a welcome relief. Then it hit my stomach and immediately came back up.

  I found myself staring at the swirling bile in the basin of the toilet. Once it was gone, my bearings returned to me and I returned to bed. I crawled back in and pulled up my coverlet. My skin felt like it was crawling with insects, my head like it was trying to split open from the inside.

  I rolled into a fetal position and focused on my breathing, my heartbeat, before nodding back off.

  The horse was there, waiting for me, still and serene in a wide open field, the sky a pure cloudless cerulean.
As I drew near, it backed away, over and over. I never got closer; it was always out of reach. It was always moving farther toward the horizon. The sky darkened, and as it did the horse blended into the shadows, its gleaming hide winking in and out. The dream shifted in the way of dreams, and I was waist deep in warm dark water, and the horse was gone. Instead the water was filled with large wriggling fish, red as rubies, hard bodies bumping against my bare legs.

  The next time I woke it was to a shrill keening. It had to be an animal injured and wailing out in the yard.

  Then my eyes adjusted and I realized, no, I was not in my bed, but my mother’s. I sat up quickly, disoriented. My mother was awake, her eyes wide as she stared at me. And she was wailing. In terror? In pain? I couldn’t tell.

  I must have sleepwalked. Did I do that?

  “Mom! What happened?”

  She just went on with that strange and horrible sound.

  Then I noticed the smell. The air was rank with human waste. As I pulled up her nightgown to check, I was surprised to see a rosette of red sticking the cotton fabric to the skin of her inner thigh.

  “What the hell, Mom? Did you do this?”

  I sucked in a breath at the sight of the fresh wound. It was a deep half circle. Red and fresh. I felt woozy looking at it. Its tinny scent coated my mouth and throat and filled my lungs. I could feel bile rising, hot and acidic.

  I left the room, grabbing the first aid kit from the medicine cabinet in the en suite bathroom. As I cleaned and dressed my mom’s wound, I forced my mind to go blank. To go to black. To take me away from my present moment.

  Once she’d calmed, I changed my mother’s diaper and nightgown and settled her back into bed. Her breathing had slowed and the panicked gleam in her eyes had faded.

  Later, I stood trembling with exhaustion, staring at the pink water in the sink, her bloody nightgown floating around in bleach. My reflection in the mirror stared back at me as I scrubbed at the stain. Why was I in her room? What did she do to herself? I must have heard her crying out and come to her without realizing it. It was messed up to do things you didn’t remember doing.

  I woke a few scant hours later and trudged blindly through my day, the bad dreams and interruptions to sleep covering the day in a fog. Though if I was being honest, it felt like I’d been walking through that particular fog for two years. All my days blurred and overlapped, as did the weeks and months. Every November felt the same, and the November of my senior year was no different.

  The air had a bite to it as I stepped out of Ronald James High School. I pulled my jacket closer. Three dirty school buses idled in the cul-de-sac in front, the portly part-time drivers talking quietly while waiting for the bell. They periodically stamped their feet or blew into their hands. I was the first out. I had a tendency to move quick.

  Behind me I could hear the rest of the student body flooding out into the crisp air. Most of them would file onto one of those buses. Gossip and chatter their way home. My house wasn’t far, barely a mile, so I walked it. And after a long day of being crowded in school and herded by teachers it was nice to be alone.

  My house sat so far back off the road you’d probably never notice it if you weren’t looking for it. It was the last house before the road narrowed from crumbling asphalt to dirt and the woods crowded in on the sides. There was a tall stone wall with an ornate rusty gate that I had to shake and lift to get open. The aged tar driveway had surrendered to the earth below and was breaking apart into chunks, letting the dirt and roots through. I loved to stare at that broken asphalt, at the hidden things under it, pushing up to the surface.

  The large front yard was overgrown, dried grass and flowering weeds reaching to my chest. In the summer, with the window open, it was near impossible to sleep: all the creatures that lived down there, hidden away in the grass, would sing and scream, all night long. It was like a secret city in my very own front yard, hustling with its own life. Bursting with activity, oblivious to a larger human world above them. Microcosms upon microcosms. Living and dying, never understanding the finite nature of it all, their fragility. Hunters and hunted.

  But in the fall, it all went silent. The bugs either died off or nestled deep into the earth to wait for spring.

  I’d never seen the house in its glory, but looking up at the three-story Victorian with the sharp turret and wraparound porch, it wasn’t hard to envision: pink, with crisp white trim. It had the bearing of a gaudy old woman, all dolled up, but time had crinkled her face and yellowed her clothes. The porch had caved in on one side long ago and heavy vines consumed it. The peeling paint fluttered in the wind and all the windows were dark. If someone drove by, they’d assume the house was abandoned.

  Growing up, my mother had been neurotic about locking the doors, the windows, everything. But I didn’t see the point. Who’d want to come here?

  Inside, I could hear the radio and smell the wood in the fire. I shuddered a bit; that meant my mom was awake.

  My cat, Tommy, sauntered out of a dusty shadow and dragged himself along my shins. He was ancient and looked and smelled it. A fat old tomcat with orange stripes and loose skin. I scratched his head and ventured toward the sound of the music.

  The kitchen was at the back of the house, and the only room with any light on. The old radio was perched on the windowsill. Billie Holiday crooned at a low volume. A can of soup was open on the counter. My mother sat at the table with her head down, her hands pooled uselessly in her lap. Around her the table overflowed with unopened mail, mostly past-due notices, and miscellaneous crap. Mom was asleep, snoring softly.

  They were twins, my mom and this house. Both of them had an air of the lost, of the haunted, giving clues to the grand creatures they had once been, before time had worn them down.

  I reached out and touched her arm. She started awake and blinked up at me. Her milky eyes took a moment to focus. She smacked her gums together wetly.

  “Did you get enough to eat?” I asked.

  She was slow to respond, but finally gave a single shaky nod. It was more than I got on most days. I had to make sure she was eating. If I didn’t stay on top of it, she wouldn’t eat at all. Every morning before school I set out a breakfast and a lunch for her. If she wasn’t in bed by the time I got home from school, I’d make her dinner too.

  Today I had left soup and a sandwich. She seemed to be wearing the majority of the soup on the front of her nightgown.

  “I’m going to run a bath for you, okay?”

  She shrugged indifferently.

  Upstairs, I stopped up the tub in her bathroom and filled it with warm, rose-scented water. She’d always loved the smell of roses.

  I brought my mom up the stairs very slowly. Everything I did with her was at a creaking pace. Mercifully, her bedroom was the closest, being at the top of the stairs, facing the back of the house. By the time we got up into the bathroom, the tub was full and at the perfect temperature. This was all so routine.

  She stood staring at nothing as I slid her nightgown off and helped her into the water. Soiled laundry under my arm, I turned on the radio that was balanced on a shelf above the pedestal sink. Soft, benign jazz filled the room. I kept radios in all the rooms she went into. Music soothed her. Even made her smile on occasion.

  She was so small in the big mound of bubbles. Her body so skeletal, it was painful to look at. Her dark, circled eyes were vacant as she sat there, staring at the tile wall, completely oblivious to the world around her.

  I left the room to finish the rest of my chores. I threw a load of laundry into our rusted old machine in the dank basement, banging the side of it three times to get the water flowing. Back upstairs, I washed the dishes in lukewarm water. I dried and placed them back in the cupboard. Plates first. Then cups. Then silverware. Same order every day.

  Once that was done, I headed into the parlor at the front of the house to tend the fire. It was still warm from that morning, the kindling the wood stove fed off all day no more than glowing ash. I stuffed a
few logs in. The fire came back to life. Comforting, that.

  Then the final piece of the routine: I sat back in the worn leather chair and closed my eyes. Just for a minute . . .

  It was always at that moment, dancing between sleep and wakefulness, that I felt the pronounced hunger for something to change. The hope that if I opened my eyes, I would be somewhere else entirely, someone else even. The routine of my days felt like a prison. The entirety of high school had been much the same day in and day out. I’d outgrown the shape of my confinement, which seemed like it was for a smaller, more naïve version of myself.

  That minute of rest turned into twenty. I must have dozed off. Not good. I jumped out of the chair and then almost fell immediately back down again. My head was swimming. I pinched the bridge of my nose. Squeezed my eyes shut. Willed the wooziness away.

  I was probably coming down with something, again. Lately it took all my strength to do just the basics: keep us fed, keep us warm. As the feeling of light-headedness receded, I ran up the stairs as fast as I could.

  Mom was exactly the way I’d left her. She’d made no attempt to get herself out of the tub. Instead she’d opted to sit in the tepid water, shiver, and stare off at the tiles.

  I eased her frail, shaking body out of the tub. She was all knobby knees and loose skin shaking in the cold air. As I toweled her off, it was impossible not to look at her disfigured body. It was mottled with scars: puckered white and pink indentations, oblong welts, half-moons, some smooth, some rough-edged to the touch.

  Even when my mother was well and I was really young, I remembered those strange marks all over her arms and legs. I’d always assumed they were lesions or rashes, but I wondered now if the marks could have been self-harm. I lifted her forearm, looking at an old scar that was an oval, the skin raised and pale. I reached out and stroked her arm, her skin thin and silky as a baby’s. She allowed me to do this, unaffected, her eyes cloudy and distant. Looking at her, what I thought was: How can this woman be only forty years old?