Rouge: A Novel

Mira goes to Belle of the Ball, observing that she can “think clearly.” She sees her mother in the glass front of the shop. The shop assistant, Esther, tells Mira that she is not supposed to let her in, but Mira pushes through, again thinking the shop belongs to her. Mira continues to talk to her mother’s reflection. She sees Noelle in a garden within the mirrors, picking red flowers. There are gray, headless mannequins in the window, and Mira decides she needs to get rid of those “monstrosities” immediately.

Sylvia enters and is aghast at Mira’s appearance. Mira doesn’t recognize Sylvia and thinks she is a customer. While Mira tries to sell Sylvia dresses, Sylvia says Mira needs help. In the stockroom, the store’s old avant-garde mannequins are piled up. Mira thinks they look like her mother and calls them her sisters. She dresses them, preparing to return them to the front of the store, replacing the gray mannequins. Sylvia threatens to press charges, and Mira finally realizes who she is. A man appears and flashes a badge. Sylvia begins explaining the situation, addressing him as “Officer,” but Mira recognizes him as Hud Hudson. She says she won’t leave without the mannequins, and he escorts her home with them.

Hud takes Mira home and gives her a business card that indicates he is a private investigator. He tells Mira things are becoming serious and asks her basic biographical questions that she is unable to answer. He reflects that she has fallen into the hands of evil people and regrets not telling her the truth earlier. She talks to the mannequins and sees them moving.

Hud asks if they took her below the Depths and if they used a blend of eucalyptus and ether to take something from her. She asks how he knows, and he tells her his brother, Edward, had been a member of Rouge. Edward also experienced word slips and physically transformed before disappearing entirely. He even tried to kill Hud once. Some Rouge members pay for their treatments and enjoy them, staying themselves, whereas others—Perfect Candidates—receive free treatments and become disoriented, disappear, or die. Noelle paid for treatments but had negative psychological effects anyway.

Mira sees Rouge in the apartment mirrors and her mother descending the stairs. She tells Hud she needs to go, and he says she can’t go back there without him. She decides to seduce him so she can go to Rouge alone, and they kiss.

Mira arrives at Rouge and says she is looking for her mother. One of the large jellyfish is looking at her sadly. The assembled partygoers congratulate her on reaching “the Precipice.” The woman in red asks if Mira had any trouble getting to the house, and they dance together. She remembers having sex with Hud and him falling asleep. Mira continues dancing and finds herself in the arms of a disguised Hud. He tells her he is getting her out, and if she undergoes the third treatment, she will be lost.

The girl-woman and a man in black cut in, and the man dances away with Mira. The girl-woman removes Hud’s disguise, entrances him, and leads him away. She recognizes the man in black, later identifying him as Seth. Remarking that he knew she’d take her beauty back one day, he escorts her to her treatment. Her red shoes won’t allow her to walk down the stairs, and when he tries to remove them, he finds they’re fused to her feet. He carries her instead. In the treatment room, he takes the red jellyfish out of the tank and tells her it is “their story” and that they’ll finish it story together. He lies on the table beside her, and on the ceiling, she sees a memory of her lying in her childhood bed beside Seth.

In the memory, Seth tells her to go to her friend Stacey’s garden to pick 13 rose petals. While doing this, she feels something drop from her arm, which she later realizes is her Eye of Horus bracelet. She sees a light go on in the house, and the family’s cat begins to attack her. She runs home and hides the bag of flowers.

In the morning, her mother tells her to come out and say hello to Bryce. She hesitates, worried her mother will see the scratches on her face and body. Noelle doesn’t comment on them because she is preoccupied with her audition that day. After Bryce and Noelle leave, Mira crushes the rose petals in a mortar and pestle and puts them into Noelle’s face cream. Seth also instructs her to sprinkle the rose dust onto her mother’s hairbrush and into her perfume. She asks if this will kill her mother, and he lies, saying it will just cause a rash.

Mira wakes to the sound of sirens and Bryce yelling.  Noelle has red, raised bumps on her face and body and is breathing shallowly. Noelle looks at Mira, understanding what her daughter has done. Mira is left alone in the apartment while the paramedics take Noelle away. Stacey’s mother, Alla, calls to reprimand Mira for trespassing in their garden. Mira pounds on the mirror, begging Seth to take her away, but he’s nowhere to be seen. She hears a knocking on the patio door and starts hitting the glass harder. It shatters, cutting her all over her body. Her blood pools on the floor, coloring a clipping of Tom Cruise red.

Back in the treatment room, Mira asks Seth why he did that to Noelle. He tells her he only ever reflected her darkness. She tells him he broke her heart. He asks what happened after the poisoning, and Mira lies, saying that she doesn’t remember. They watch the memory together.

In the memory, Mira wakes up in the hospital in Montreal, healing from her cuts. Grand-Maman tells her that Noelle left. Mira only vaguely remembers what happened, and Grand-Maman encourages her to bury her feelings. After that, Mira lives with Grand-Maman, who sends her to the French Catholic school and has her baptized. Four years pass before Noelle decides Mira can come and live with her in California. By this point, Mira has grown up to be beautiful. When Mira arrives in California, her mother stops smiling for a moment when she first sees her.

In the present, Seth comments that Noelle saw that Mira took some of her beauty back with the rose dust poisoning. Mira sees her jellyfish, now red, floating up a tube. She asks Seth where it’s going and realizes he is gone. The room goes black.