Other Words for Smoke

by Sarah Maria Griffin

  “I found a spot of coverage. Da says they’re settled in the villa, it’s gorgeous and sunny,” she said, careless, not looking up. “I’m going to send him a selfie of me and Bobby.”

  Rossa flinched, pulled his phone out of his back pocket. No messages.

  “He texted you? He didn’t text me,” he said, voice catching, cheeks on fire.

  Mae shrugged, putting her phone away, adjusting her grip on Bobby so she was holding him like an enormous, unwieldy baby. His deep purring was audible across the hall, and it only incensed Rossa even further. He didn’t say anything, the twins staring at each other there in the corridor.

  “He probably just thought I’d tell you,” Mae said, eyes flicking to her brother’s reddening cheeks, his fists clenching and unclenching. “It’s not a big deal.”

  “It wouldn’t be a big deal if it was the only thing!” Rossa exploded. “Why is nobody including me!”

  Mae didn’t flinch, matched his volume. “Because you’re pissy and moody and no fun! You don’t include yourself! Why would anyone bother talking to you?”

  “Because . . . because . . . ,” Rossa stammered. “Because you and me are meant to be the same!”

  “We were the same, Rossa, until you got all grumpy and weird. I’m still just myself, you’re the one who sulks all day.”

  “I don’t sulk!”

  The cat watched the argument ricochet back and forth.

  “What were you doing before I came up?” Mae asked, cocking her head to the side, accusatory.

  “I was drawing and listening to music!”

  “Sounds like sulking to me. You’ve been up here since after lunch.”

  “That’s because, unlike you, I don’t need to be in everyone else’s faces all the time, sucking up to Rita, putting weird makeup on your eyes.”

  “Being nice and polite isn’t the same as sucking up.” Mae was starting to go red now herself. He’d hit a nerve. “And my mascara looks savage!”

  “You’re not going to impress them. They’ll see through you eventually, it’s plain as day that Bevan thinks you’re a sap—”

  “You shut your mouth!” Mae was scarlet then, quieter, eyes shining. Her grip around Bobby tightened.

  “She’s not going to be your friend. Mam and Dad and Rita can fawn over you all they want because you’re a girl or whatever, but Bevan knows you’re just a child.”

  Mae didn’t say anything back this time, hot tears spilling from her eyes. She lowered the cat softly onto the floor and turned away from her brother. She began to walk away, down the stairs. Rossa watched her go, steadying his breath. Bobby padded after her.

  Only when Rossa heard the swing of the living room door did he let himself cry. Just for a moment, one ugly moment; then he wiped his tears away with the sleeves of his hoodie. He hadn’t been fair. Mae got the worst of their parents. But she also got the best of them, and that made him angry, and he had to keep quiet about being angry all the time. From down the stairwell he could hear the rise of the weird easy listening oldies she was, he assumed, passive-aggressively blaring.

  He didn’t want to go back into his room; he needed air. The garden, he thought. He scurried quietly down the stairs and off through the kitchen. Rita sat, smoking, with a book, news rolling mutely on the little television, the sound of Mae’s emotional orchestra bleeding into the room.

  “Headed outside?” Rita remarked, not looking up.

  “Yes, wanted to . . . catch the sunset. I’m—I’m coloring it.” Rossa’s voice caught as he turned the key in one of the glass doors. He left the kitchen, stepping out into the coral pink light.

  The air was beginning to cool now, and it soothed him. He exhaled deeply and stepped down the patio onto the winding cobble path, past the small, empty chicken run, the lush waterfalls of wisteria flowing from the shed’s roof. There, on the bench at the back wall, sat Bevan. Christ’s sake, thought Rossa, here we go.

  Christ, you think. Here we go.

  She was reclining, legs stretched out, golden and muscular, drinking something from a pink water bottle. Does she ever just wear jeans, like a normal person? Rossa wondered. A glossy magazine was open in her lap, ignored, her phone angled toward her face. Rossa despised her, so proud and willowy, her easy demeanor a taunt.

  “Want something to drink?” she offered, without so much as a hello. Rossa was sure this was the first sentence she’d ever said directly to him. He looked at the pink bottle again: it was full of a dark liquid.

  “Is that . . . alcohol?” Alcohol. Nobody calls it alcohol. Nice, Rossa. Real smooth.

  Bevan snorted. “No. As if I’d give booze to a child. It’s actually something a little better.” She took a long swig, resumed staring at her phone, as if Rossa wasn’t there at all. Anger prickled through him. He was still upset over Mae, and this was the last thing he wanted or needed. He clenched his jaw. “What’s in it, then?”

  “Tea.” Bevan didn’t look at him this time. “But, like, magic tea.”

  Rossa scoffed at her. “It’s not fair to take the piss out of me, Bevan.”

  “Don’t say piss. You’re only twelve. No cursing.” Still no eye contact whatsoever. “Do you want the magic tea or not?”

  “I’m fourteen.”

  “Whatever.”

  The boy hissed an exhale. “Tell me what’s in it.”

  Bevan sighed dramatically. “Fiiiine. White tea leaves, dried rose petals, three jasmine pearls, elderflower cordial, a spoonful of brown sugar, and one gray moth.” She drank deep from the bottle. “And a whole rake of gin. I lied. There’s alcohol.”

  “A moth?”

  “Yeah. I caught a moth a few days ago. Then I took a nap, and when I woke up it had gone to powder, so it was either snort it or drink it, and here we are.”

  “You are so weird.” Rossa took a step back.

  Bevan laughed. “Yeah. I suppose.” She drank again and Rossa flinched, picturing skittering moths on a ceiling, their flaky wings.

  “At least sit down. You’re so awkward, you’re worse than your sister.”

  Rossa flushed, wanting to stay standing just to spite her, but took the other end of the bench, almost autopilot, obedient despite himself. A few more disquieting silent beats passed. She took another swig.

  “Fine. Give me a shot of it then,” Rossa demanded, gruff.

  Bevan handed the bottle to him, her wrist an indifferent hinge, barest sly smile on her face. Rossa unscrewed the top and without pause, took a long drink. Vile, sweet, strong liquid in his mouth—he forced a swallow—was that a rose petal caught in his throat? Or a piece of a wing? The weird spike of alcohol, he knew immediately. It was like something innate, though this was his first-ever taste. Maybe he was only imagining his head lighter, his limbs looser. Why was he grinning with his whole mouth, what was this laughter?

  Bevan stood up, looming over him, her skin rippling iridescent. Like a fish, like a seashell, like terrible, like oh no.

  “What . . . what was in this?” Rossa slurred, full of a rolling, strange joy—frightened, elated—and Bevan just laughed. She placed her long fingers in her own mouth but somehow Rossa felt them in his, something moving and deep and sore in the back of his jaw. A god-awful pulling, the metallic undeniability of blood on his tongue.

  Mae had knocked out one of his teeth with a television remote when they were five and that same disgust rolled up now, the sureness of something leaving his body before it was ready. Bevan was doing this, taking this—she was pulling a dormant tooth from the back of his mouth.

  His eyes were fixed open on her form, fingers in her mouth, glimmering all wrong in the sunset. He couldn’t make a sound. He couldn’t stop her.

  She’s a witch, he thought. She’s a witch.

  The tooth broke free then, a severing bolt of agony in his mouth. He gagged and burbled it out, spit bright blood into his palm and down his chin. He retched and Bevan thrust the bottle at him again.

  “Finish it,” she said, her voice deep and unholy
, and Rossa obeyed her.

  She plucked the tooth from his open hand and wrapped it in a square of kitchen towel—she was prepared, she had planned this—but the bottle was to his lips, that sweet sharp tea quelling the deep ache at the right side of his jaw, washing away the copper, flooding him with hazy good again.

  Rossa drank deeper. The bottle emptied, a loss greater than any tooth, how he’d have loved just a few drops more. But Bevan took it from him and picked up her magazine from the bench. She thrust another slice of paper towel at him, patterned with strawberries and lemons and apples cut in half.

  “Stay here for ten minutes. Clean your face, then throw this over the garden wall. You won’t feel like anything is missing. Actually, you won’t feel a thing. Not a single thing,” Bevan instructed, turning on her heel to walk back into the house.

  “Why? Why did you take my tooth?” Rossa managed, tongue heavy.

  Bevan didn’t turn around to answer, just said, “Stop asking questions. Do as you’re told.” Then she stepped into the kitchen, sliding the door closed behind her.

  Chapter

  Eight

  In the afternoon, the day after the fight, Mae sprawled out on the living-room floor in a fat beam of sunlight. A bright record turned on the stereo, and Doris Day breathed sweetness through the air. Bobby lay beside her on his back, his belly to the ceiling, and Mae absently stroked the plain of his body. He purred happily.

  She still felt a little strange talking aloud to him. A cat. She was always sure that eventually he’d just not talk back, that she would have been imagining it.

  “When can I tell Rossa?”

  She was still upset with him. Really upset. But maybe sharing something like this would bring them closer together—if Rossa was angry at her for having secrets, perhaps giving him one, like a gift, would mend things. He’d been cruel, but she could tell from his eyes that he was hurting her because he was hurt himself.

  Bobby stretched. “I’m not stopping you from telling him. But we can get better work done if this is just you, me, Bevan, and Rita.”

  Mae furrowed her brow. “I’m not so sure. It’s not really fair.”

  Bobby spoke through his purrs. “I am not sure he would be open to me.”

  He wasn’t wrong. Mae didn’t know much about her brother lately, and if he wasn’t open to her, he wasn’t going to be open to a talking domestic animal. He would have loved it last summer, back when they were still telling each other stories and having actual conversations instead of merely exchanging syllables. These days it felt like Rossa hated the sound of her. She could almost see his scorn.

  She didn’t say anything for a moment or two, listening to the sugary crescendo of Day’s voice, something about secrets, something about love. She thought, despite herself, of Bevan then.

  Maybe she should ask Bobby about Bevan. Get up the courage to say the girl’s name aloud. Inquire. Gently. All right.

  Couple of deep breaths. Then, “Is she nice? Bevan?”

  Bobby chirruped, something like a laugh. “No, she’s not, but that won’t stop how you feel.”

  That stung. Not that he said it, but that it was true. Day changed key, and her voice swelled up. Mae’s stomach lurched. It felt good and bad all at once.

  The cat nuzzled his head into her side. “Love’s a funny one. This is just your first go-round. You’ll love again when it’s over.”

  Love. The word was too big for the shape of the room, too big for the shape of her. But no sense in denying it. She knew it was love, like she knew colors and numbers. It was obvious. Fine, let love be what it was. Calling it other names doesn’t change how it feels. Even when it feels shameful and kind of sad and worst of all, absolutely impossible.

  “That doesn’t sound very hopeful, does it?” whispered Mae.

  “No.” Bobby made eye contact with her, and she was alarmed by how human his gaze was, even though he wasn’t at all human—or all cat.

  She sighed and sat up, the record clicking and hissing to a halt. “I think I’m going to listen to that song again.”

  “You’ll listen to it all summer, then every time you hear it again you’ll think of her. Even when you grow up.” Bobby rolled over and stretched out, flexing his fat paws.

  “You’re a cat. How do you know how I’ll feel?” Mae buzzed over to the record player. They didn’t have one of these in her house, a hefty machine from long ago. Using it had a certain ceremony to it, the flat black moons of vinyl like relics, full of mystery. She leaned her face low and checked to make sure she kept the track just right, lifted the needle, and placed it carefully. Hiss, then melody, gorgeous.

  “I’m so old, and you’re so young,” Bobby replied, over the music. “I know lots of things, and one of those things is that love is love is love no matter what kind of soul you are or where you’re from. I saw all of Rita’s heartbreak. This won’t be so different.”

  Hold on. Rita’s heartbreak?

  This was gossip. Mae loved gossip. Gossip is lessons learned through other people’s mistakes. And if they were talking about Rita, they didn’t have to talk about Mae herself anymore.

  “Ohmygoodness.” Mae leapt over to him and rubbed that endless snowy belly again. “Tell me the story.”

  Bobby shook his head, “No, no, no . . . not yet.”

  Mae could envision Rita and some handsome young man in the days gone by. He must have left and she must have stayed behind, how tragic! Maybe he left on a boat for America, or took the ferry to England for work. Maybe he promised her he’d return,12 but never did. Maybe he promised he’d write letters, maybe he wrote her one or two but then forgot13 all about her! Mae was wistful already.

  “Please?” She scratched Bobby’s chin, and he narrowed his eyes in that lovely cat way, that happy way.

  “No way, girleen, it’s not my story to tell you.”

  She flopped back down beside him and sighed. “It’s not fair that you know my big secret but won’t tell me any.”

  “I am a secret, isn’t that enough?”

  He didn’t even look at her, but he said it with such certainty that Mae was stilled by it. She was in the presence of something cosmic, and yet trusting it was so easy. Liking Bobby was so easy, he drew all this sweetness out of Mae. He was right, though, wasn’t he? He was the secret she got to keep. That was a fair deal, wasn’t it?

  “I suppose. I suppose it is.”

  Someone stopped in the living-room door and Mae froze, bolting upright.

  Bevan leaned against the frame. Was her hair that long yesterday? There was so much of it. She took in the scene with big, icy eyes and removed a tube of lip gloss from her hoodie pocket. Pastel pink, like a doll. Her shorts were denim and Mae was absolutely not under any circumstances looking at her legs, the sheer length of them. Her heart was absolutely not beating in her chest, pounding heavy chords on the piano inside her. There was, in fact, no piano inside her. Her mouth was not dry. Her mouth was normal. Everything was normal. She was just hanging around on the floor waiting for the rain to stop. She was just talking to the cat. Bevan knew the cat could talk. In this house, talking to the cat was a perfectly ordinary activity. Nothing suspicious was happening here and yet, Mae felt like she’d been caught cutting into a birthday cake not meant for her.

  “Mae. Bobby,” Bevan said coolly, and Mae forgot how to breathe for a second. Then she forgot how to talk.

  Then she remembered again, but a little too late. Awkwardness cloyed its way into the room.

  “Hi, Bev—Bevan.”

  Stupid voice, Mae admonished herself as Doris Day’s voice swelled again in the background. The blond girl raised her eyebrows. “Listening to some absolute bangers there, yeah?” She managed to speak in some strange cadence in between sarcasm and sincerity. Mae had no idea if she was taking the piss out of her or not. She flushed and her stomach flipped. How was she supposed to answer that? Why was everything about Bevan so impossible? She opted on the side of sarcasm, just in case.

  “Yea
h . . . yeah. Rita has lots of weird stuff around.”

  Bevan nodded, slowly applying thick and glittering gloss to her lips. Mae wondered if her own mouth would ever look like that.

  “Rita’s wicked cool,” Bevan said. “And her music is deadly. Doris Day’s gorgeous, like. Do you want anything down in the shop? I’m buzzing down to get some groceries, for dinner and all. You can come if you like, if you want a change of scenery.”

  The universe paused around Mae for a moment there on the carpet, and Bobby looked up at her, holding the stillness of time in his gaze. The pure thrill of this invitation was like nothing she’d ever felt. An invitation to step out with Bevan into the town, two girls on a mission. Walking through the suburbs under the mountains, side by side. But this watercolor impression of a romantic afternoon was splattered by an immediate bolt of insecurity: what if she said something stupid to Bevan during this walk? What if this was the instance during which Bevan decided Mae was annoying and unworthy of her company in the future?

  Mae wasn’t ready for a whole walk to the village with Bevan yet. She had to rehearse a little more. Get better at saying words out loud, for a start—maybe even practice a few cool things to say, a few interesting questions to ask. They had Doris Day in common, at least, and that would be a start. If she was going to spend time one-on-one with Bevan, it just couldn’t be a mess. It needed to be perfect. And the way that Mae was feeling right now—terrified, just about breaking out in a cold sweat—this was not perfect.

  Bobby yawned. “Well? Cat got your tongue?”

  Mae stammered, made a couple of noises in attempt to say no, but even those two letters couldn’t land together.

  Bevan trilled a laugh. “Be sound, Bobby, give her a minute.”

  “No, no—I’d just—I’ll stay here, thanks. I don’t need anything in the village.” Mae managed full words, somehow, a miracle. She didn’t think it was too harsh a refusal. She might be slightly shy. Shy. Shy was likable, wasn’t it?