Who is Mackie Spence?

by Lin Kaymer

  Halfway through Sadie One, we have a fifteen-minute break in dancing. As music continues to play on the sound system, Mackie and I see a wave of our friends led by Wes, Angela, Jon, and Erica.

  The girls want to use the restroom, which means they’ll be gone for all of the fifteen minutes. So I head with the guys to the end of the gym where tables are topped by soft drinks and fruit-flavored sparkling water. My throat and lips feel dry. Not as bad as when I run, but close. Red, blue, and black 1950s toy cars, big sets of dice, and a flowered tablecloth decorate the beverage table. Pink, green, and gold Japanese paper lanterns twirl slowly under the overhead lights.

  Jilly stands nearby with a pack of sophomores. She doesn’t look happy and keeps searching around the big room. I don’t see Brody.

  “Jeremy,” Wes jolts me out from my fog. “You and Mac look good out there. What’s up with that?” he teases me.

  “Oh, she’s okay,” I say. The guys look at me like I’ve gone mental. Then I smile and slap my forehead. “Dancing with Mackie is . . . better than just about anything.”

  “Nice,” Wes agrees, nodding in approval.

  Near the end of the break, Erica and Angela sock-skate back to us. Where is Mackie? Erica sees the question on my face and aims directly for me, getting so close I can hear her breathing.

  “Brody’s with Mackie. He looks kind of wild,” she blurts.

  “Where?” I ask, my body tensing.

  “By the Chem labs.” Erica looks like she will go for Mackie if I don’t.

  I try to get out of the room as fast as I can, pushing against the crowd returning to the gym. What is going on between Brody and Mackie?

  Once I clear the double doors, I dodge a group of girls and sprint down a side hallway. There, under long panels of dimmed overhead lighting, I see them. Brody’s hands are on the wall behind Mackie as he leans in. Mackie catches my movement out of the corner of her eye and holds up a hand for me to stop.

  I don’t. When I’m ten paces from them she says, “Give us a minute, Jer. I want to make sure Brody and I are clear about something.”

  She says it so charmingly, and with a shake of her head like this is just another time she has to make something plain to that silly Brody. I wonder if she might really have things under control.

  Then Brody leans in closer. I’m not going anywhere.

  “I’d rethink that, Brody,” I growl.

  He turns to look at me like I’m just coming into focus for him.

  “We’re done when I say we are,” he says to me, or maybe to Mackie. Then he stands up straight, and steps away from her with a shitty grin.

  “Think about what I said,” Mackie says to him.

  Brody shrugs. “This isn’t over.”

  “Don’t think I won’t do it,” Mackie counters.

  What is going on? What does Mackie mean?

  Brody turns, sneers at me, and stomps off. Mackie falls back against the wall and closes her eyes.

  In a second I’m next to her. She starts to shake.

  “Are you okay?” I ask.

  “Yeah. Jeremy, I don’t want you to go after Brody. He’s my problem, and I need to handle it. I’m serious. It would kill me if he hurt you again, because of me. Let’s go back to the gym. I’ll tell you what happened, but right now I just want to get out of here.”

  She looks rattled.

  I put my arm around her waist and she does the same with me. We walk back to the dance. A fast song is playing, but I don’t feel like dancing. I lead Mackie to the closest stand of bleachers. We climb up to the third row and sit.

  Mackie hugs her knees with her arms, looks out into the crowd of dancers, and takes a big breath. “It’s like he’s obsessed,” she says. “I told him if he doesn’t leave me alone, I’ll go to his parents. His mother knows I wouldn’t make this up.” She pauses and bites her lower lip. Then she turns her eyes to mine. “I told him his fight is with me, not you,” she says.

  I hold her hand in mine. “I’m not going to let him do anything that you don’t want. But what did the two of you do? I mean, what were you to each other?” I’ve asked the questions knowing I might not like the answers.

  She gives me a startled look and then a slight smile.

  “There’s not much to tell you. I know everyone thinks that since Brody and I were together, we were doing it.” She grimaces. “It was never that way. I never liked him that way. But I’ve been trying to figure out this odd feeling I have when he’s around. Don’t take this wrong. It’s just that I seem to know what Brody’s going to do, and he seems to know what I’m going to do whenever we’re around each other.”

  She’s never liked him!

  “I think he views me as a challenge.” She waves her hands like it seems preposterous to her too. “He wanted to see me a lot more than I wanted to see him. This summer, after the accident, I told him to forget it. And me. But he still texts and calls all the time.”

  “That’s it? What does he want?” I ask, astonished by what I’ve heard. Mackie has shut Brody out? The guy has a reputation as a big-time player with the ladies in our school.

  “He acts like I owe him something and now he’s ready to collect. I think he actually believes it,” she says, shaking her head.

  I take her hand again and smile reassuringly.

  “Do you want to stay?” I ask.

  She doesn’t say anything, just stands up, steps slowly down the bleacher stairs, turns, and looks up at me with both hands outstretched.

  ‘Sea of Love’ is playing and she feels warm and soft as we slow dance. This time, I hold her close. Against-school-rules close. I hope the song will never end.

  When Sadie One is over, everyone clears the gym, fast. We meet Jon and Erica at Jon’s locker, retrieve our shoes and jackets, and walk in the cool, damp air to his car. Jon and Erica, in the two front seats, excitedly review the dance and don’t seem to notice Mackie’s and my silence.

  When we arrive at the Spences’ house, Wes and Angela are in his car bobbing to music, waiting for us. Mackie seems to get a second wind as we head to the front door.

  Inside, Mr. and Mrs. Spence greet us, ask about the dance, and offer fresh popcorn. As the adults retreat, we stampede to the kitchen. I watch for Noelle, but she never shows up.

  Erica asks, “Mackie, do you still have your Ouija board?”

  The girls giggle. I know from previous experience what’s coming.

  When we were kids, Mackie told us the Ouija board belonged to her great-great-aunt, a spiritual medium who lived in Atlanta during the 1930s. Shunned by her church for her “black magic,” Martha Spence had made a very good living on the Eastern seaboard, using the board to hold séances for wealthy women who became her clients.

  Mackie opens a large cabinet in the great room that houses electronic and board games. She returns with a flat, antique wooden box whose colorful printed image has faded with time.

  Opening the hinged top, she carefully sets the playing board on the dining room table and the six of us ring the table, taking seats. Lifting out the planchette, a small heart-shaped piece of wood, and placing this indicator in the middle of the playing board, Mackie looks up to make sure the game is what everyone still wants to do.

  She dims the lights and places a candle on the table. Mac told us years ago that candlelight improves Ouija board outcomes. I’ve wondered if the low light covers up some kind of visual trick.

  “Angela, do you know how to play?” Mackie asks as she lights the candle.

  “No, this is all new to me,” Angela says.

  “Just watch. It’s easy. You ask someone a question. They place their fingers on this planchette piece that always starts out in the middle of the board. Supposedly a spirit guides your answer to point the planchette to letters or numbers,” Mackie explains.

  Erica raises her hand.

  “Jon,” she says, I have a question for you. Are you ready?”

  He squints at her and wrinkles his nose, but places his fingertips on t
he planchette.

  “Okay, let’s do this, but you have to play FireStorm,” he says, negotiating for time with Erica on another game.

  Erica grins and nods at him.

  “Who do you like?” Erica asks.

  Jon snaps his neck back and forth, and makes gurgling noises like he is possessed. The pointer moves first to a J, then an E, next a T, and then drifts away and returns to the T and then an A. JETTA. Jon likes his car, a hand-me-down Volkswagen Jetta.

  Everyone breaks up laughing. So far, the Ouija spirit is 0 for one.

  Jon celebrates with an arm-pump, points a finger at Erica, and gloats, “You owe me a FireStorm. Prepare to burn.”

  Erica takes it all in good humor. She and Jon are, after all, evenly matched gamers.

  “Now you go, Wes,” Erica says. “Angela, ask him something.”

  Angela puts her hands up and fans them back and forth, as if to say no-no. But once the Ouija board questioning starts, no one can get away with saying they don’t want to play.

  Angela pauses for a moment then grins and says, “I’m going to ask a simple question. Wes, what are you doing this weekend?”

  Looking very serious, Wes places his fingers lightly on the planchette and makes an eerie sound, “Oooo.” The response on the board is JAVA WITH ANGELA. Angela looks thrilled with his answer and blushes. She’s kind of cute.

  Then Erica turns to me. “Jeremy, it’s your turn. Ask a question.”

  Looking at Mackie, I hesitate. I don’t want to ask anything that will cause her more stress after tonight’s episode with Brody.

  “Mackie, what’s in your future?” She can go anywhere with that.

  Mackie shoots me a quick smile, inclines her head so that she looks like she is really concentrating, and begins. D, A, N, G, E, and resists adding R.

  “Danger!” Erica shrieks. “What do you mean? You have to give us more!”

  Mackie looks shocked. She glances at me across the table, then slides her eyes away from mine and puts her fingertips back on the planchette. She picks out letters that read DARK WATER. No one makes a sound. Is this about what Mackie went through in June, when she nearly drowned?

  Mackie recovers first, and says, “Those words are in the past. This Ouija is way too old. Jeremy, it’s my turn to ask you something.”

  The remote look I’d seen in her eyes has too swiftly been replaced with mischief.

  As I shift so that I can put my fingers on the planchette, she locks her eyes on mine.

  “Jeremy, what’s in your future?” she asks, repeating my question to her. I feel the token slide under my fingers, and have to wonder why it always feels like there’s a magnet under the board. My mind is blank. Unlike Jon and Wes, I’m not going to try to be funny. I spell SAVE AKESO.

  I look up quickly and say, “Huh, weird. It doesn’t mean anything to me. Does anyone know the word Akeso? Who wants to play cards? Texas Hold ’Em?” It hasn’t escaped me, though, that Mackie has the same stunned look on her face as when she chose her own letters.

  “Yeah, poker. We need a real game,” Wes stresses in a voice far deeper than normal.

  Everyone gets up. Some go to the kitchen for more snacks. Mackie returns the game board to the cabinet and places two well-worn decks of cards on the table. It’s just after eleven, so we have plenty of time for a few rounds. I think about her expression when she saw what I’d spelled out. She’d been surprised and closed her eyes. Interesting. What is her interpretation of “Save Akeso,” “danger,” and “dark water”? What do those words mean?

  Before the card game begins, I expect Mackie to whisper something about our Ouija board answers in my ear. She never says a word.

  At a quarter to midnight, Mr. Spence walks into the room. “Anybody need a ride home?” he asks.

  That’s his way of saying that the party is over.

  I tell Jon that I’ll walk home, even though it has started to rain. Mackie and I stand on the front porch and wave goodbye to our friends. I want to ask her about our Ouija responses, but her eyes are half closed, and she looks like she could fall asleep on her feet. I feel tired, too.

  “Jeremy, thank you for going to the d . . . ,” she starts to say, but I stop her with a kiss. She hugs me to her, and Mackie is stronger than she looks, so it’s a really big hug.

  “The dance was special because I was there with you,” she says.

  Somehow I find my voice. “Yeah. I really had a good time, too. I hope your feet survived the night.”

  She laughs.

  “Maybe tomorrow we can walk in early to the shelter?” she asks.

  I nod, and we say goodnight.

  I watch as she turns and goes back in the house, then I turn on my flashlight and plunge into the rain-cooled, deep night. In no time I’m home and in bed, dreaming of dancing with Mackie, dark water swirling at our feet.

  CHAPTER 7

  I sleep in Saturday morning past nine, and wake with images of Mackie, the dance, and dark water still in my head. I want to call her, but decide the memory of us dancing will have to do because I don’t want her to think I’m pushy, like Brody.

  Throwing the covers off, my muscles tense as I move from warm to cool air. Mom and Dad won’t turn the heat on until mid-October. It costs a lot to heat our house, so we just tough out cold, late summer mornings. I climb into a pair of old warm-up pants and pull a heavy sweater over my T-shirt. Then I put on a pair of thick socks. Pushing under the covers again to stay warm, I recall the two words I pieced together on the Ouija board: SAVE AKESO.

  I prop myself up against my headboard, and reach over to my desk for my notebook. After tapping in ‘save akeso’ I expect no response from my browser. But oh yeah, the fish are biting!

  Akeso: A Greek goddess of the healing process. One of several children of Asclepius, the god of healing and medicine, and his wife Epione. Akeso and her sisters, Hygieia and Panaceia, are linked to health. Akeso (also called Aceso) specifically represents the process of curing wounds and illness. Akeso is derived from the Greek word akesis, meaning healing or curing.

  I try to add it up: Hurt or sick animals improve when Mackie is with them. A whale pulled her to him, and she made him better. Akeso can’t be a name I came up with by chance last night.

  But Mackie aids wounded animals. Had Akeso healed animals too, like Mackie? Is there even a connection?

  Better question: What does Mackie know? Her reaction when I spelled ‘SAVE AKESO’ on the Ouija board was shock. The words clearly meant something to her.

  Now totally awake, I have to share this with Mackie before we walk to the shelter. I send her a message:

  i found something can U meet? when?

  Within about a minute her reply comes in:

  Now is good. UR house?

  It’s after ten. Mom teaches a Saturday morning class, and Dad and Justin usually spend Saturday time together in Dad’s office above the garage. I walk out of my room, onto the stairway landing, and listen. It’s quiet, so they’ve already left. Mackie and I should have privacy. I send another message:

  11:00 is good C U soon

  I head downstairs to the kitchen and pop a slice of bread in our toaster. Spreading peanut butter and blackberry jam on the toast, I eat fast, finishing with a sliced orange.

  After returning upstairs, I take a quick shower and dress in jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt. Then I carry my notebook downstairs to the family room and set it on a low table in front of the couch. Either Mom or Dad started a fire last night in our wood stove. The pressed logs still burn, and the air in the room feels toasty.

  I watch Mackie through the front window as she walks down our driveway. She doesn’t look any different than any other day. Her hair swings behind her back, and she wears a zipped-up warm-up jacket. My heart starts pumping faster.

  I hurry to meet her at the front door.

  “Hi,” I say. “I found something.”

  Mackie doesn’t say anything, just sends me a questioning look. She follows me into ou
r family room.

  “This may be a clue about what’s been happening. Remember that word I spelled out on the Ouija board last night? Akeso. Take a look at this,” I say, pointing to my notebook.

  We sit together on the couch. Mackie leans in to read what I have pulled up on the screen, her hair swinging forward so I can’t see her expression. When she finishes and sits back, she looks puzzled. I’m disappointed; I’d hoped for more of a reaction.

  “What do you think this means?” she asks, resting back on the cushions and keeping her eyes on mine.

  “Well, I think it has to be related to what’s happening. I’d never heard of Akeso or her family before reading about them today.”

  She looks doubtful.

  “I know it’s weird but follow me on this. Animals heal faster when you’re around and somehow, all of a sudden, the name Akeso pops up on the Ouija when I’m thinking about you. Akeso is a healer. Is there a connection?” I stop. I want her to tell me what it means.

  Mackie’s eyes no longer hold mine. She seems to be off somewhere in her head. For a minute we’re both quiet, as she rereads what is on the screen.

  “Does this mean anything to you?” she asks in a soft voice. She looks sorry for me. Why does she feel sorry for me?

  “You’re able to heal animals. We don’t have anything in animal science to explain it. What if it’s a different kind of explanation?”

  “You mean a mythological explanation?” she asks.

  “Ah, let’s not go that far. Do you know where your ancestors came from?”

  “My great-great-grandparents came from Scotland and Ireland. Before that, I don’t know,” she says thoughtfully, twisting a piece of her hair in her fingers, something I’ve watched her do since we were little when she’s trying to figure things out.

  “Okay, I know about the human genome and how everyone is related, but will you ask your mom and dad specifically if any of your ancestors came from Greece or Italy?”

  “If they did, so what? It doesn’t prove anything,” she replies with a shrug.