Love Under Glasse

by Kristina Meister

  “So tell me what’s wrong. Talking helps get the facts out there. Somebody lied to you?”

  To her shock, Elyrra seemed to shake herself from head to knee like a tree in the wind. Then she twisted in place, stretched out her ghostly white legs, and ran her fingers through her long mass of pitch-black hair.

  “I had this secret . . . something . . . something I didn’t want my mom to know. And today, I found out she has apparently known about it for a while.”

  Riley closed her eyes and let the frail voice tremble through her mind. She caught every note and tenderly examined it for importance. She had an exceptionally sensitive ear, something developed while living with an ex-con. It made keeping track of the truth pretty easy, but it made listening to commercials almost a physical impossibility. That blender/ladder/cubic zirconia was the solution to life’s woes? Really?

  Yeah, no.

  “I’m guessing that she has some way of dealing with it that you know is gonna suck.”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, and why is that upsetting?”

  Elyrra’s thin fingers were wringing, her expensive manicure of chipped paint sparkling. “It’s bad . . . because . . . because my mother is so much worse than you think.”

  “Naw . . . You don’t look like I do without an expansive imagination.”

  To her relief, the girl managed a tiny smile. “I’m worried.”

  “Why?”

  Shocked into normal etiquette, Elyrra looked her in the eye, was evidently stunned by the contact, and ricocheted back into her solitude. “That’s not obvious?”

  “No, I mean, I get it. Your mom’s a wicked witch, no offense.”

  “None taken.”

  “Yeah. Right? It’s not really debatable. What I mean is, if she’s known all this time, what’s going to change? Are you worried she’s going to find out that you know she knows? Is that going to change what she does about this horrible secret?”

  Tiny confused ripples gathered above Elyrra’s brows, as she combed the grass with her fingers, looking for an answer. “I don’t know . . .”

  “I mean, in a way, you’re in a great position. Because she’s shown you her play, but I can see why you wouldn’t want her to know you knew it, because then she might change it, right?”

  “I . . . guess I didn’t think about that.”

  “So really, all you have to make sure of is that she doesn’t find out you know she knows. That way you have time to work out what to do next.”

  As they sat there, in a lengthy silence, Riley could feel an impression forming. At school, Elyrra was meek, largely mute, seemed always to be writing in her book. At one time, Riley had glossed over all the details she couldn’t fathom about Elyrra Glasse, by assuming there was nothing deep about her. Like she was just a hole in space that walked and whispered. Now, however, Riley was beginning to think that Elyrra was actually brimming with complexity and thoughts, but had no idea how to set them free.

  She tried again, this time searching for something a little more profound, a little more foundational—it was something her dad had said to her and Riley couldn’t imagine how it couldn’t make as great an impact here. “How long are you going to let other people turn simple math into magic, huh?”

  Elyrra blinked. “What?”

  “Math is just facts, objects. They have to balance and equalize. If something is an unknown, it’s given a letter or a symbol, and then it gets balanced too, until we can figure out what it actually means. But magic looks at those unknowns and substitutes all sorts of weird shit, makes all these assumptions about the missing pieces that basically screw with the ability to put in real info. Turns a simple equation into miracles and demons and whatnot. Takes understanding out of human hands, you know?”

  Riley hugged her knees as Elyrra processed this. Eventually, the girl’s voice snuck out between her pursed lips. “I’m not sure I understand what you mean. How . . . how does that apply to my situation?”

  “Everyone has facts they know about themselves—things that don’t change, won’t change. Even teenagers. I mean I know we’re nervous balls of utter batshit rebelliousness, or whatever, but we still have that core in us, and we know what sort of people we want to be.” She tilted her head at the girl. “You’re quiet, that’s a fact, but what does it mean? To me, it means you think about things all the time, which is good. Like, maybe if you were in a different environment, it wouldn’t be shyness, but strength, but that’s an unknown variable and my opinion doesn’t matter. Are you going to let other people interpret those in crazy ways, or are you going to take charge and tell people how they're allowed to think of you?”

  Even dumbfounded, Elyrra was pretty. She was nothing like her older sister—Miss Superficiality—who had bleached hair for days and a perpetual vagueness to her expression. She was nothing so brittle as her mother, who had a face of sharp edges she dulled with the three B’s: botox, booze, and bibles. Elyrra was a contrast of ivory and jet and a complete mystery, probably even to herself.

  Riley was a sucker for a good mystery.

  “You know most kids think that their parents have control over them. And I mean yeah, they have power, because they get to decide consequences, but they don’t have control. They don’t get to tell you who you are.”

  “Okay.”

  Riley unfolded and sat up. She was going to have to go soon, or risk the wrath of Russel. Those were some fucked consequences, but the power balance was about to change.

  “Nobody has control over you, but you. Everything else is magic. They interpret what they see of you and force you to live by it. They cast a spell. Maybe you need to just declare who you actually are.”

  “So . . .” It was faint, but there was a musical note of whimsy in that voice, all of a sudden. “What are the facts of Riley Vanator?”

  With a snort, Riley grinned at her boots. “That’s easy. I don’t like when bad things happen. I get bored really easily. I’m stubborn. I’m nosy.” She glanced backward and watched the blue eyes dip to the ground, but the rosy lips were smiling. “I have a temper, so I keep it under control by giving it things to do. I’ve got a handle on it. I’ve sort’ve figured out an important thing to help me with that.”

  The whisper was back, and lifted the hairs on Riley’s neck as Elyrra asked after her discovery.

  “This shit we’re going through isn’t about learning stuff. I mean, sure we learn a few skills here or there. Like last week, dude . . . in Chemistry, I learned how to make napalm!”

  It happened so suddenly, Riley forgot what she was going to say—Elyrra laughed, and it wasn’t the tinkling of glass she expected, but a low and smooth song that glided through her soul so easily it left only a ticklish feeling behind.

  Hearing it once, Riley was addicted and grinning like a fool.

  “I haven’t decided yet how I am going to use this information, but I’m pretty sure it’s valuable.”

  “A good graduation prank?”

  “I’m pretty sure burning down graduation is a terrorist act.”

  “Deforestation?”

  Riley let out a goofy chuckle. “I think I was making a point, here!”

  Elyrra’s laugh coughed to a halt. “I’m listening.”

  “I was saying that kids think they’re in school, or scouts, or whatever, to learn facts, but they’re not. We’re learning how to interpret facts, the process, you know? We’re learning how to think about truth, because truth is already there whether we know it or not. We find it, we pick it up, and we have to make sense out of it. See?”

  “I really don’t.” She sounded confused, but she was still smiling in Riley’s periphery, so it was all good.

  “The hoops are all laid out, right? A person who jumps through all of them graduates, gets a merit badge, or wins the pageant. But life isn’t about diplomas and crowns. It’s about making sense of yourself and being happy in spite of the bullshit the world throws at you. So while kids think they’re supposed to be learning all this u
seless knowledge, they’re not seeing the bigger picture. They’re not learning the most important thing.”

  “What is that?”

  “That kids who jump through hoops have normal lives. Kids who set hoops on fire with napalm . . . have interesting lives.”

  Elyrra tipped forward, her palms pressed to the earth as she shook with laughter. Her face was hidden behind a black curtain, but she was happy, and that was what mattered.

  Riley stood up and smiled down at her, finally managing to catch her in a shared look. “Outsmart magic by being clever. See what I mean?”

  “Yes, I think I do.”

  “Good, because I’m not really sure what the hell I just said. Like talking to the sphinx.”

  The laugh evolved into a giggle, quavering slightly as Elyrra braced herself against the tree and got to her feet. “No, it was good.”

  Riley pointed at the grimoire of graffiti, peeking out from her bag. “Is it ghostly communication from the other side?”

  The long hair swished back and forth. “It’s not a spell book, I promise.”

  “So you’re not a closet Wiccan?”

  “I don’t even know what that is.”

  “A girl who wears a lot of black and hangs in the broom cupboard, I guess?” Riley was granted a parting laugh and danced backward, her spine tingling. “Don’t you tell anyone about my napalm, Elyrra!”

  “I won’t! And please . . . call me El.”

  She tossed the girl a casual thumbs-up, and jogged into the parlor, nearly tripping when she realized El was still watching her.

  Russel glanced at the clock much too happily as she stopped to catch her breath. “You’re five minutes late. I’ll have to report it to Sam.”

  Riley let out a huff, and smiled with every microscopic trace of sweetness she could manufacture. “That’s cool, Russ. You do that.”

  Normally, El made full use of every second away from her mother to turn her notes into email drafts with a fervor that caused people to stare. Between school, in which cell phones were banned, and home, in which cell phones were confiscated until the next day, she only had so long, and Friday was the one day a week that bought her a few spare hours to sing Riley’s praises to her salivating fans, but at the moment, the phone was a dead weight in her slack hand. She couldn’t even use it to call Oscar and gain some of the comfort he offered.

  Today was the end and beginning of the world, and El had no idea what to say.

  Mama knew. She had known all this time, or suspected it. She’d told Reverend Williams. She’d arranged to have him ask the right questions and say the right things, to make El doubt herself and fear for her spiritual purity. Like some sort of expert interrogator, he had pulled the information from her, gained some of her trust, and all to betray her.

  How much had he then told her mother? Had he shown Mama the camp, or had her mother enlisted him? Neither made sense. If Reverend Williams were working for her mother, why would she have mentioned the camp, instead of leaving it to him? If Mama were following Reverend Williams’ instructions, then she still would have waited until after he’d mentioned it to convince El it was the spiritual path. They had to have come to it independently of one another.

  Which meant that it was possible Reverend Williams had not shared any information with her mother. If that was true, she could still fix the situation before it spiraled out of control.

  Riley, that snarky angel, had put her terror to rest in but a few moments, and finally El could concentrate without her mind running in circles.

  She leaned back against the tree and stared up into the leaves. Why, of all days, had Riley chosen today to notice her? Why couldn’t it have happened sooner? If it had, it likely wouldn’t have mattered. El would have been too afraid to whisper one word, let alone have a conversation. It had to be today, the day her inhibitions were utterly crushed by the sheer immensity of her circumstances, or she would never have been desperate enough to open her mouth. It was today because she was falling to pieces and Riley enjoyed puzzles.

  That much, El had observed. Dog-eared detective novels, metal knots hanging from keychains just waiting to be untied, the look in those brown eyes that could solve a problem before anyone noticed it existed. Colorful hair that confused others, makeup that defied an adult to tell her it was “too much,” a kind of aesthetic that mysteriously turned Army surplus and denim into feminine couture. Riley had crafted herself to always be a cipher; that much El understood.

  Compared to that, El was timid, bland, boring.

  But Riley had called her pretty. As she baked in the warm air, she knew it had to be because Riley was the most amazing individual the earth had ever known, and was being kind. Mama had told her that more than once—that people complimented her to be polite, not because she’d earned praise.

  El’s spine jerked her upright with a surge of insubordination.

  Wait a moment.

  That was something Mama had said. Which meant it was more than likely a self-serving lie. When Mama felt threatened by another person’s value, she just reinterpreted it. El wasn’t allowed to be her own person, and if someone told her she was pretty or smart, it had to be twisted.

  That was the magic Riley was talking about!

  The spell could only work if El allowed it to. All she had to do was stop believing it. Stop believing anything Mama said. Stop reaching for love and praise that was never there, stop accepting conditions for care and protection. If El wanted the suffering to end, she’d have to resist her own blood, her own mental conditioning that screamed about how children had only their parents as advocates against the world. It may be true for many, but nothing was universal.

  Her mother was the enemy. El could not allow the witch to usurp her feelings anymore. If she did, it would eventually kill her.

  The thought had physical consequences. Almost at once, El’s stomach tossed with anxiety. Even as she remembered all the terrible things her mother had done, she wondered if it was possible to turn the magic around. Perhaps, if she worked at it, if she was clever, she could redeem her mother and help her be a good person. Perhaps if El could be patient, find a way to open up and discuss herself honestly, she could create a path into her mother’s heart. They could heal and actually be friends. They could have that relationship other kids seemed to have with their parents.

  As the idea burned and then dimmed, tears fell, because her body knew what her mind could not say—that the magic didn’t work that way. The good could be overcome if they were too docile. The evil could only be overcome by themselves.

  She dialed the church. Reverend Williams answered, sounding distracted.

  “Reverend?”

  “Elyrra! Are you all right?”

  She cleared her throat. “I needed to think.”

  He let out a sigh. “I understand.”

  “Mama was already going to send me to that camp, but she didn’t tell me what it was.”

  “I see. I had no idea.”

  This was the moment she began taking back her identity, in tiny deceits and ever-increasing increments of strength. “Please don’t tell her I was so upset. She’d think I was being ungrateful. I don’t want that.”

  To her relief, he agreed in a warm voice. “Will you come back to finish our session? We didn’t get to say our prayers.”

  “I can’t. She expects me to be with my boyfriend now. But I’ll come next week, as usual.”

  “Okay. I’ll see you then. Remember the Lord always comes to those who place their trials in His hands.”

  She thanked him, even as she knew that if she left it to anyone but herself, her fate would be decided against her best interests. If God existed, then she was as she was meant to be, and the only way to keep being that creation was to stop listening to the Bible and to the people who represented it. If God didn’t exist . . . the same was true. Either way, she could not keep pretending to be someone she was not.

  A person like Riley would never love or respect her if she didn�
�t stand up for herself.

  A text message summoned her to Jay’s car. El gathered her things as the lump settled in her throat. Tonight would end the same as last time—in his heavy breathing and her cold compromise. She would drive to the river and get a little further from herself. It was the only way to subdue her mother and convince the world she was a normal teenager.

  She came to a halt in the middle of the road, only vaguely aware that Jay’s tires squealed to a stop at her very legs. Lost in a sudden epiphany, she didn’t give the honking horn much thought.

  Who decided “normal”?

  It hadn’t been her. El hadn’t looked around and declared that the standard was everything she wasn’t. She hadn’t chosen to be an outsider. She was just being herself.

  More magic . . . and she’d bought right into it!

  “Elyrra! What the fuck are you doing?”

  El turned and looked at the boy behind the wheel—this person she’d come to loathe. As she stared at him, he made faces at her, and while once she would have feared him, she now began to see that his power over her was that which she had given him.

  She didn’t owe him anything. If Mama was going to send her to a camp anyway, why even bother getting into the car?

  Even as she asked the question, she knew the answer; she needed time to plan, and going with him would give her that time. Even so, she wondered what their date would be like if she simply refused to let him undermine her integrity, and decided she wasn’t going to wonder. She was going to find out. Walking around the car and opening the door, she told herself that tonight would end on her terms.

  “Are you retarded or something?”

  “I don’t like that word. Don’t use it again.”

  He blinked. “The hell?”

  “You heard me. I don’t like that word. If you use it again, this date is over.”

  He let out a snort. El ignored him and gazed out the window at the ice cream parlor. Riley was in her classy turn-of-the-century uniform, giving it a rakish quality it could not have had on its own. Hat cocked at an angle, sleeves rolled up to reveal her rubber bracelets and compass rose tattoo, the girl chatted at her customers irrespective of their age. It brought a smile to El’s lips and gave her confidence like nothing else.