by Carrie Laben
Mom had broken it up after only a few repetitions though. “They don’t set people on fire for that bullshit any more,” she’d said with a laugh. “Stop scaring the girls.”
“They didn’t set us on fire,” Grandma said. “They hanged us. And pressed us. And you never know when they might start again.”
Now Abby struggled to remember, and felt pressed. “Our Father,” she said, then hesitated. The next bit had sounded old-fashioned, she remembered that. “You art in heaven. Hello. Be thy name.” Some of the kids were starting to laugh, and Mrs. Grant was getting madder. The next bit was something, something, kingdom come, she was pretty sure.
But before she could figure it out, Mrs. Grant grabbed her by the shoulder. “You’re in a lot of trouble, young lady.”
“Mrs. Grant! Mrs. Grant!” Nicole sounded so eager that only her red eyes showed how miserable she’d been acting a minute ago. “Let me say a real prayer, Mrs. Grant!”
“Of course, Nicole. I know you and Jeremy were friends.”
“Dear Jesus, I just…” Nicole hesitated. Abby noticed that Mrs. Grant didn’t turn mad at her. “I just want to thank you for your love and grace and just ask you to take Jeremy into your arms in heaven and Justin and Jeffrey too, and help Jessica and Mrs. Davis get better in the hospital. And I just want to thank you for saving Jessica and Mrs. Davis, and for sending the firefighters and just, uh, just help them not be sad, Lord. And please make sure Jeremy can still watch football in heaven. He was really excited about the next season.” Nicole looked over at Abby and smiled broadly. “And make sure they catch whoever blocked up the dryer vent and then put him in jail for a long time. Amen.”
The simultaneous amens from the other students surrounded Abby and almost drowned out the fact that Martha had started crying.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The influx of energy Abby felt when she got into the truck peaked and rolled back before she was even half satisfied. It wasn’t hard to see why; Ryan’s attention was getting as far as Martha, jammed in tight between them, and no further. It kept drifting from Martha’s face to her cleavage and jerking back up again, although there was nothing particularly predatory about the thoughts themselves, they were just warm and wanting. Abby was the thirdest of third wheels, completely extraneous.
There was no accounting for taste, it could even be as simple as the fact that they were touching. It could be that he saw Martha first. The why didn’t really matter. Martha had just better not screw things up. Abby didn’t have the patience right now to be the fixer.
She could have just grabbed at his mind and straight-up stolen him back from Martha, but she decided it would be smarter to conserve her strength for later if this weak shit was all the attention she was going to get. A man like that would probably kick at being separated from his truck just as hard as he’d fight ditching his dog, maybe harder. Attention he wasn’t freely giving would be the opposite of what she needed, a drain and not a fountain. And more than any of that she shouldn’t have to, god dammit. He should be able to figure out which sister was the better deal on his own.
The radio turned itself on, but before she could hear the first notes of the song Ryan slapped at it without any apparent thought and it shut off again.
Her welts itched and she clenched her hands around the handles of the last shopping bag to stop from scratching. Martha giggled again—giggled! for real!—as Buddy sniffed at her from the back seat, and Ryan tried to conceal a grin. The dog was another idiot, then, because Martha had to be at least as ripe as Abby felt, a full stressful day since their last shower.
“There you go,” Ryan said, with a laugh in his voice. “Now I know you’re not escaped bank robbers or something. Buddy is an excellent judge of character.”
Abby turned to stare out the window. No use dwelling on the spectacle Martha was making out of herself when she wasn’t getting anything out of it. The landscape wasn’t that much different than what she was used to—more vines and rhododendrons in the woodlots, fewer cars on the road, but the same sort of disappointed houses and hayfields she knew from childhood. She wondered, not for the first time, how anyone could stand to stay in such a place very long once they had a choice. She knew that someone like Ryan here, for instance, actually did stay on purpose, that he wasn’t secretly yearning to be free, but she couldn’t understand how that could be so. It really was like these people were a different species or something.
A hawk sat on a speed limit sign, unmoving, hunched, and neither Martha nor Ryan noticed. Abby couldn’t miss it, though. Its yellow eyes were full of rage. She ground her teeth and tried to will her share of anger back onto the bird as well, but it didn’t work—one tiny bird mind couldn’t hold that much.
Choke on it, she thought to the bird. You get none of her, not now and not ever, you get none of anything that’s mine.
Looking back, Abby could see that the right strategy for her fifth-grade year would have been to seek out other outcasts and bring them under her sway—even the special ed kids and that one girl who kept dead birds in her desk would have been of some use. She didn’t have that sort of perception back then, though. She still bought into Grandfather’s view, the world and all the people in it as things to be crushed, not to be used. All she could see was that this flock of people surrounding her had decided that she and Martha needed to pay for what had happened to Jeremy, Justin, and Jeffrey, even though they weren’t Grandfather, even though there was no proof that Grandfather had done anything, even though there wasn’t even proof anyone had done anything—the official verdict was a starling nest in the dryer vent, to the class’s palpable disappointment.
Without Martha’s talent, that year would have been an even worse hell. Abby could stave off actual attacks, when they were one-on-one, or even a few-on-one. But she couldn’t do anything about being ganged up on. She couldn’t do anything about the weird constant keep-away game of being ostracized when peoples’ intentions flew all in tangles not really ignoring them. Martha could at least make the days slip by.
At home things were tense and fearful. Not only did Martha still have nightmares, but Abby started waking up with a feeling of being watched. One morning while she was brushing her teeth, the steam on the bathroom mirror began to shift, melting away faster than it should, creating patches that almost looked like they would have formed a face if Abby hadn’t swiped at them with her sleeve before she bolted out of the room and called for Grandfather.
“This is your fault,” Mom said, after they’d covered every mirror in the house with dark cloth. Abby flinched but Mom was facing Grandfather, who was ignoring her, bent over one of the forbidden books that he’d brought down from the bedroom to the well-lit, mirror-free kitchen. He grunted at the accusation but didn’t lift his head.
“Honestly, it would have taken about two seconds to bind it when it was first awake and confused. But no, you need to get revenge on those little idiots over on Harlow Road, who you don’t even know for sure if they did it…”
“Of course they did it,” Grandfather said, and his voice sounded dangerous to Abby, but Mom went on.
“Even if they did, aren’t there a million better ways to deal with it than letting something like that run loose? You know it’s going to come back here eventually, to someone with Waite blood. You know you can’t control it if it gets too strong. You can risk yourself if you like, but I live here too, and my children. How dare you put us in danger.”
“You’ll be in more danger if you don’t let me read,” Grandfather said, and Abby grabbed Martha’s hand and pulled her from the room.
That September was rainy and cold, so they were stuck inside most of the time, with Grandfather burning gross-smelling powders and chanting at things that didn’t seem to respond. The mirrors stayed covered and that wasn’t so bad, except when Abby was trying to do her hair, but they had to be careful of butter knives and the metal garbage can and dishwater in the sink, and they left the TV on all the time, and when it got dark outs
ide the windows were dangerous.
Abby tried to get Grandfather to explain what was going on. She said she wanted to learn and help, and that was true, but more than that she wanted to be able to handle it on her own. It wasn’t just pride, it wasn’t just knowing what he’d done to Martha. It wasn’t just Mom’s “you can’t control it if it gets too strong.” She didn’t want to have to run and get Grandfather again.
He told her it was something she’d learn when she was older.
She should have tried harder to find out, but she let it go. The problems at school were worse than some ghost-creature trying to talk to her through mirrors; they were fifth grade kids and they hated her. After what Mrs. Grant had done they could tell it was open season. Her pens disappeared, starting with the fancy glittery one with ten different colors of ink, but eventually even the boring clear Bics and the ones Mom took from the bank would vanish if she turned her back. Then she got in trouble for coming to class unprepared. Meanwhile, in the coat closet, someone kept stuffing plastic crosses and comic books about Jesus into her jacket pockets. Spit balls hit her in the back of the head.
It was worse for Martha. Martha would cry when someone upset her, and when she tried not to she would slowly turn red and the tears would build up in her eyes and her nose would go snotty. The other kids thought this was hilarious.
Finally Abby told her to just go ahead and tell Mom, breaking all their rules about their secrets. At least Mom outranked stupid Mrs. Grant.
Mom looked at Martha and then over at Abby. “Is this true?”
Abby nodded, and wondered what would make Mom think they’d lie about something like this. Lying was for making yourself look better, not worse.
“Well, you need to look out for your sister, then. You know that’s your job.” She turned back to her cooking. “You two can’t come running to me with every little problem that you have all of your lives.”
Abby was almost out of ideas. She could try punching someone, she supposed. Girls who did that usually got sent to the counselor, and with the counselor one-on-one maybe she could get herself and Martha moved to a different class, one where the teacher didn’t hate them even if the students did. But Mrs. Grant had already decided she was a bad kid, and boys and bad kids got sent to the principal, not the counselor.
She racked her brain for something else for weeks, but they were short weeks, because Martha was folding time tighter and tighter in her misery, and Abby couldn’t very well tell her to stop even once it got annoying. Nothing came to her. And so one afternoon on the playground she found herself standing by the tall slide, curling her fingers and getting ready to take a swing at Amelia Matthias. Amelia wasn’t a popular girl, and if she’d been trying to accomplish something in that direction by picking on Martha she’d failed. Firstly pushing Martha into a mud puddle was not that impressive. Secondly no one was watching, not even in a sideways ostracizing way.
Still, Abby couldn’t ignore it and she was just about ready to give up and get in all the trouble there was anyway. She didn’t even know if it was possible to get kicked out of school in fifth grade, that was something she’d only heard of happening to high school kids, but she might as well try.
She put up her fists like Bugs Bunny did in cartoons, and Amelia got a funny look on her face and her mind went funny too, like she hadn’t expected that at all. The tendrils of her thoughts were slow and lazy, like the creek gone muddy in the summertime, and Abby didn’t even bother to try to push or block them. It didn’t matter what this stupid girl did at this point, so it wasn’t worth trying to change her mind. The thoughts were going to touch her, and it would feel gross, and then she’d punch Amelia in the nose as hard as she could.
As they touched her, Abby felt the unpleasant buzz and almost did push back just out of habit. Then she realized what it felt like. It felt like the neighbors’ electric fence.
Just to see what would happen, she let the feeling linger for a moment. Amelia’s brain was so slow! And her intentions didn’t jump around or grow or shrink or sway; it was like they were barely alive. After she got used to it they almost weren’t even unpleasant, slightly warm, still buzzing. And Abby felt ever so slightly better, as though she’d gotten a good night’s sleep.
She pushed back at Amelia, making her drop her fists and turn away. It came easy, like jumping from the top of the swing’s arc. Amelia wasn’t even looking at her anymore when Abby stopped her, made her turn to Martha and pull her up and apologize.
Martha, shocked, moved to Abby’s side. They could have held hands, but everyone knew that was for babies now.
By the next day, Abby had a plan for what she supposed Grandfather would have called an experiment. Mrs. Grant didn’t like Amelia either so antagonizing her wasn’t as dangerous as it might have been. All morning, Abby stared at her and poked at her mind to make sure she noticed—completely deniable, not actually an offense, but she could tell that it bothered the other girl. A couple of times, when she felt she could risk it, she threw little wads of paper at her, but they never connected. She crossed her eyes. When they stood near each other in the line for the water fountain, she hummed very, very quietly.
By the time they reached the cafeteria for lunch, Abby was so warm with the tingling energy that she was actually beginning to sweat a little.
Someone always started something at lunch. It wasn’t always the same someone—usually it was her own classmates, especially Nicole or Robert, but other kids would get in on the act too. Jeremy’s cousin Troy had actually tried to pick Martha up and stuff her in the garbage can once, which turned out to be beyond the limit of what the lunch ladies would tolerate. But today everyone was leaving them alone. It was like they knew she’d powered up.
“What’s going on?” Martha whispered over the top of her fruit cup. “What did you do?”
Abby just smiled at her, because she never admitted to Martha when she didn’t know.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The cafe Ryan took them to was the kind of place that could parlay its relentless mediocrity into a Food Network publicity binge of road-trip nostalgia, but it didn’t have to because it was the only non-McMuffin game in town. There were fifteen kinds of jam, four kinds of sausage, and only one kind of sweetener for the one kind of coffee. The option to get your omelet made with egg whites was penciled in at the bottom of the breakfast menu, a recent concession to not killing the customers.
Abby got a rush as soon as they stepped around the corner that separated the entrance from the main dining area. The curiosity of the old-timers washed over her, not the thin trickle of attention that you got from people who expect to deal with strangers daily, but thick like lotion, with an almost living warmth. Just as she’d suspected—they must have wandered pretty far from the highway. It was amazing, that there were still places where it could get this good, that it ever was this good. For a moment she was reminded of an aspiring travel writer she’d known in college, a girl who would gush about the trout streams in Montana or the stars over Joshua Tree until Abby finally told her to just get a dildo and shut up, already. They’d never spoken again, and Abby still didn’t regret that, but she understood the impulse to gloat now.
She ducked into the bathroom even before they were seated. After a long satisfying scratching of her thighs she scrubbed her hands and splashed cool water on her face. It helped. It helped enough that even when she came out to see Ryan and Martha leaning in to talk, she just absorbed the curiosity of the rest of the restaurant and let it go.
They sat in a booth towards the back, Ryan on one side and Abby and Martha together on the other. A pair of old men sitting nearby nodded to Ryan, who nodded back. There was a certain similarity that made Abby think they might be related, but in truth everyone in here looked the same—not just the same race and class but all light-hued, much of a height, a similar cast of features, with retiring eyes and dry mouths that were soft-set but not necessarily generous. She and Martha stuck out here. And yet the flickers of
curiosity that came their way were also dry now that the first rush was over, now that everyone was satisfied that Ryan was handling it and they didn’t need to do anything about her.
She could almost understand why Grandfather thought it was a good idea to settle in a town so like this, isolated, vulnerable. She might make the same mistake herself if she hadn’t already lived with the results. The things people could learn to ignore and live with in places like this were amazing. And even if someone came looking for you in a place they didn’t know even existed, they’d be outsiders too, with the same handicaps.
“Excuse me,” Martha said, and made off in the direction pointed out by the restroom sign. Abby directed her attention to Ryan and turned the smile back on before his eyes finished tracking Martha’s ass out of sight.
“Thanks again for rescuing us,” she said. “I don’t know what we would have done. Heck, we were so turned around before all this happened, I don’t even know where we are.”
“Welcome to scenic Daines, West Virginia,” Ryan said. “Stay awhile. Try the pancakes.”
“West Virginia?” Well shit. “Shoot. We were lost!”
Ryan chuckled. “Yeah, I figured as much when I saw the New York plates and then your sister said you were going to Minnesota.”
Ah yes. Martha’s big mouth. “Well…” Abby leaned in. “Look, can I tell you something?”
“Sure.” Ryan’s smile faded a little and he leaned in in turn.
“Well, you might have noticed that my sister, well… she’s kind of sweet but she’s not very smart sometimes.”
Ryan nodded, although intellectually Abby would guess he couldn’t touch Martha’s hem.
“In fact, she’s not 100% all there.” Abby dropped her eyes to the table, tried to look sorry to have to say it. “That cabin she thinks we’re going to, Daddy sold it back in 1996. So if she says stuff that sounds weird, sounds off, don’t worry about it too much, okay?”