Black Sheep - Softcover

Harrison, Rachel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0593545869 ISBN 13: 9780593545867

Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group, 2024

Inhaltsangabe

A New York Times Best Horror Book of the Year 

A cynical twentysomething must confront her unconventional family’s dark secrets in this fiery, irreverent horror novel from the author of Such Sharp Teeth and Cackle.
 
Nobody has a “normal” family, but Vesper Wright’s is truly...something else. Vesper left home at eighteen and never looked back—mostly because she was told that leaving the staunchly religious community she grew up in meant she couldn’t return. But then an envelope arrives on her doorstep. 
 
Inside is an invitation to the wedding of Vesper’s beloved cousin Rosie. It’s to be hosted at the family farm. Have they made an exception to the rule? It wouldn’t be the first time Vesper’s been given special treatment. Is the invite a sweet gesture? An olive branch? A trap? Doesn’t matter. Something inside her insists she go to the wedding. Even if it means returning to the toxic environment she escaped. Even if it means reuniting with her mother, Constance, a former horror film star and forever ice queen.
 
When Vesper’s homecoming exhumes a terrifying secret, she’s forced to reckon with her family’s beliefs and her own crisis of faith in this deliciously sinister novel that explores the way family ties can bind us as we struggle to find our place in the world.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Rachel Harrison is the national bestselling author of Such Sharp Teeth, Cackle, and The Return, which was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel. Her short fiction has appeared in Guernica, in Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading, as an Audible Original, and in her debut collection, Bad Dolls. She lives in western New York with her husband and their cat/overlord.

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1

As I stood singing the birthday song for the fifth time that evening, I realized I was wrong for not believing in hell. Hell was the birthday song. Hell was Shortee's. Hell was the green polo shirt, the khakis, the whole stupid fucking uniform. Hell was my life.

"And the happy Shortee's happy birthday to you, hey!" I clapped, and I thought, This must be it. This must be the summit of loathing. I imagined a climber atop Mount Everest, only bitter instead of victorious, grappling with their dissatisfaction with the view.

Kerri presented the chocolate lava cake to the kid, and when he blew out the candle, we all applauded and whooped and I longed to feel what I typically felt, which was numb, instead of what I felt in that moment, which was miserable.

The kid's parents kissed his forehead, ruffled his hair. His sister asked meekly if she could try a bite. I observed them as I distributed extra spoons and napkins, and for the first time in a long time I thought about my family.

For the first time in a long time I missed them.

Or, if I'm being honest, which I suppose I should be, it was the first time in a long time that I admitted to myself I missed them, and how much. In that moment, I surrendered to the tidal pull of family. Of blood.

My hand found my neck, which was naked, absent the token of my youth, a sometimes coveted but more often resented piece of jewelry.

"You okay?" Kerri asked, ushering me back to the kitchen.

"Sure," I said, unconvincingly.

"Awesome. Yeah, so, I was wondering . . ." she said, trailing off, distracted by a stain on her polo. "Ugh! Chocolate. That is chocolate sauce, right? Shit."

"Wondering what?" I asked, checking the window for table eight's order.

"Do you think you could cover my section 'til close?" she asked, batting her lashes, flakes of mascara falling to her cheeks like ash.

"Why would I do that?" I said, poking my head into the window to see what the line cooks were up to, suspicious they were once again slacking off.

"Because I'm asking very nicely," she said. "And because you owe me."

"I owe you?"

"I pick up your shifts all the time."

I snorted. "When?"

"Last week."

"I was sick," I said. It wasn't a lie. I was sick. Sick of working.

"Please, Ves?"

"Why do you need to leave early?" I said, sidestepping an overambitious busser who was barely balancing a tray of precariously piled dishes.

She picked a waffle fry off of a plate in the window. A plate that was not for table eight. "Sean."

"Sean?" I asked, dumbfounded. "Really? That guy? You're ditching work for that guy?"

"You're so judgmental."

"The guy treats you like a travel toothbrush. He'll use you for a week straight, then forget about you for months," I said. "And you either don't care or your self-esteem is too low to do anything about it. Either way, the whole thing is messed up."

Her jaw hung open for a moment, eyes widened like those of a child discovering something new about the world, something brutal. Your burger was a cow. Moo. I knew this look. I'd offended her with my honesty. But the truth was the truth, and she needed to hear it from someone. Might as well have been me.

She crossed her arms over her chest. "Will you take my section or not?"

"I don't really want to be aiding and abetting, but sure. I'll do it. But I swear, if I have to sing that goddamn birthday song one more time, it's game over."

"Thanks," she said, turning on her heel. She paused on her way to the back room, looked over her shoulder at me. "You know, you're not pretty enough to get away with being as mean as you are. And you're really pretty."

I almost applauded. It wasn't easy to burn me, and she'd straight up smoked my ego.

"Order up-got eight in the window," yelled one of the line cooks. When I went to retrieve it, I thanked him, and then I heard him whisper under his breath, "You're welcome, Your Highness."

There were worse nicknames, worse insults. Worse things.

⛧


After ten p.m. Shortee’s turned into a cesspool of drunks and rubes, and some nights I’d have the patience for it and other nights it’d make me want to cartwheel off a cliff.

This night was one of the latter.

"Four top at bar," Amy, the host, told me while snapping her gum. Staff wasn't allowed to chew gum, but she did anyway, and I respected her unwavering commitment to such a small act of rebellion.

"Great," I said, checking the clock. Close was in less than forty-five minutes, and I doubted this new table would be out by then, meaning I'd have to stay late. I cursed Kerri and her bad decisions. I cursed my own.

I peeked over and saw that the party was four dudes, one in a backward baseball cap. If I smiled, feigned effervescence, maybe-maybe-I'd improve my chances of a solid tip. But I doubted it. At that point I'd been at Shortee's for three years, and in the food service industry for six, ever since I left home at eighteen. I could tell just by looking at someone what they were going to tip, down to the cent. It was like shitty magic, like an evil fairy bestowed a cruel, useless gift on me. A highly specific power of foresight.

"Hey, how we doing tonight?" I asked the guys, approaching the table, struggling to summon any artificial zest. "My name is Vesper and I'll be taking care of you. Can I start you off with something to drink or do you need a minute?"

"Yeah, uh, I'll take a . . ." was how each of them ordered.

I kept my head down, scribbling in my book, trying to ignore the hot nudge of a stare. I was being scrutinized in a way that was, unfortunately, quite familiar to me. I knew in my gut what was coming. I considered running.

This is what I get for thinking of them, for missing them, I thought. I've called them back in.

"Vesper?"

I looked up, instinctively, at the sound of my own name.

"First of all, that's a rad name," the guy said. He was the oldest at the table, about the right age. Mid- to late thirties. Old enough to have snuck into her movies, to have rented the videos. He had a five-o'clock shadow, wore all black. His ears had been gauged once upon a time. A former Hot Topic punk. He'd probably bought her poster, had it up on his wall. I knew the one. In a cemetery she posed provocatively in black fishnets, a chain mail bra, and a signature piece of jewelry that everyone assumed she wore just to be cheeky. "Second, has anyone ever told you that you look exactly like Constance Wright?"

"Who?" I asked. It was how I usually responded, because I knew it'd piss her off.

"The scream queen? You know, the chick from Death Ransom, Bloody Midnight, Farm Possession, The Black Hallows Coven Investigation?"

I shook my head, deriving devious joy from the lie.

"Seriously? You've never heard of any of those movies?"

"I'm not into horror," I said, another lie. "I should get those drinks in."

"You don't need to be into horror to know Constance Wright. You have the exact same face. I swear to God."

He took out his phone, and I bailed. "Be right back with those drinks."

I'd hoped that by the time I returned to the table they'd have moved on to another topic, but no luck. When I went back to drop off their beers, the guy still had his phone out. He'd Googled her, pulled up her image page.

And there she was. My mother.

"You seriously don't know who this is?" he asked. "She's an icon."

"Dude, relax," one of the other guys said.

"I don't see it," I said, shrugging. "I'm sorry."

"Really?" he asked. He seemed disappointed, and I felt a twinge of guilt for deceiving him. But it was necessary deceit.

"Maybe it's the hair," I said. I'd cut it off in an attempt to avoid situations like...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2024
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593545869
• ISBN 13: 9780593545867
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 304
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Penguin Random House Verlagsgruppe GmbH; kundenservice@penguinrandomhouse.de; ; Neumarkter Straße 28; München; Bayern; 81673; Deutschland