“Her name was Monica,” I say.
“I heard they found her in the woods,” she says. “I heard she’d been there for a few days already.”
My legs are weak; someone’s sucked out all my muscle and blood and pumped them full of air, and now they’re deflating like twin balloons. “I need to go to bed.”
“That’s all I heard,” Melody continues, like I haven’t even spoken. “Do you know anything? I know you were with Five Banners people tonight, right? Did they know anything? Like, do the police think they know who did it?”
I try to squeeze past her, but she extends an arm and blocks my way. I’m just glad she doesn’t touch me. I’d pop. “I really need to go to bed.”
“You don’t look so good,” Melody says, and this time she does touch me, links her elbow in mine. The touch doesn’t pop me. It invigorates me instead, shoots me with an extra blast of air. “This whole deal must be bringing back all your trauma and stuff. Do you feel weird that they found you alive and not her?”
“Yeah,” I say. “That’s it.” It’s not.
“You know what would be just splendid right now?” she says. She doesn’t wait for me to answer. “Tea. I’ll make us some tea, and we can talk more. You can spill your soul.”
I’m too weak to protest, so I let her lead me downstairs and sit me at the kitchen table. I lower my forehead to the surface, letting the grain of the wood blur and unblur as she clinks about with her teapot and tea leaves and spoons and perfectly square cubes of sugar.
She didn’t even ask if I wanted tea.
I hate tea.
“So are you feeling okay?” she asks. She nods at my teacup. “Drink the tea. It’ll make you feel better.”
I obediently take a sip. It scorches all the taste buds from the surface of my tongue, which is actually kind of great because now I can’t taste it. “I’m feeling okay,” I say. I’m not, but there’s no way I’m confiding in Melody, of all people. “Sad, obviously, about Monica. She seemed really nice.”
“Really nice,” Melody echoes. “Yeah. I felt kind of bad tonight, actually. I was at Alexa’s and we heard the news and they didn’t even seem upset or anything. I had this epiphany, like, you know, she was a real person, like us, you know? And now she’s dead and it could’ve been any one of us. So I left.”
Her look is so earnest, maybe even apologetic, that it bolsters me enough to take another gulp of tea. “The tea is really good,” I say, trying not to let the ruin of my tongue touch the roof of my mouth.
She looks quite pleased with herself. “Thanks,” she says. “I’ve been practicing. They’re loose tea leaves, you know. Not tea bags. Tea bags are cheating, basically.”
I take another sip. “I always wished I could cook stuff like you,” I tell her. My tongue feels thick, but that’s probably just the burn complaining. “You’re so good at the…at the…”
I squint. Yellow light swirls in the corner of my eye; it floats across my field of vision, followed by green, blue, violet.
No. Oh no, oh no.
I shouldn’t have drunk the tea. I don’t even like tea.
Why did I drink the tea?
I slump over, but Melody catches me before I hit my head on the floor. She cradles me in her arms, and it feels almost like someone loves me. A cool hand slips under my dress, cradles my hip. “Hey!” she shouts over my head. “Dad! Dad!”
And I fade.
—
I wake the next morning cocooned in blankets, the plastic stars of my bedroom ceiling giving off a faint glow above me. My breath tastes like the air trapped inside a dirty Tupperware container.
Then I remember how I got here. I jolt out of bed, realizing as I find my footing that I’m dressed in my clothes from the night before, still cloaked in smoke. I avoid the mirror on my way out; I’m sure makeup streaks my cheeks. I hope Matthew’s already out, because if he sees me, he’ll probably run away screaming. Actually, I might be okay with that right now. I’m in the mood to make people run away screaming.
I bang open Melody’s door. She’s awake, but just barely; she sits at the edge of her bed, yawning, scratching her arm. Her eyes are puffy. “Morning,” she says. The exertion of that one word is enough to make her topple back over.
She’s not getting away that easily. “You drugged me again,” I say abruptly. “I know you did. You put something in my tea. Why? Why do you keep doing this?”
Over the course of my speech, her eyes have slowly expanded into portholes; it would be comical if I weren’t so angry. “Are you on something right now? Because if you’re on something, I’m going to call Dad.”
“Don’t turn this around on me,” I say. “Besides, I’m not on anything except for whatever you put in me. You drugged me at the park with Katharina, and you drugged the tea. I know you did. Don’t lie to me.”
The portholes grow into manholes. She slowly sits, stands, so we’re looking each other in the face. I could fit through one of her eyes. I wish I could for real; I’d dive right in and dig around in her brain until I uncovered whatever it is she’s planning. “I literally don’t know what you’re talking about,” Melody says. She’s breathing like she’s going to pass out. “You fainted at the table last night. You were drinking at the party, weren’t you?”
“Yeah, but not enough to pass out,” I say defiantly, but I wilt all the same. “And I saw the colors swirling and the—”
“Are you taking that from the Skywoman cartoon? That’s why you think I drugged you?” She doesn’t wait for me to answer. She doesn’t need to. “Oh my God, Scarlett, seriously? Are you serious right now?”
“That’s not the only reason—”
“Yeah?” Melody raises her chin. Her eyes have narrowed; I couldn’t get into them now if I wanted to. “Go tell Dad, then. See what he says.”
We both know that’s the end. I’m not going to go running to our dad and tell him that Melody drugged me, twice. He’d look at me like I was crazy. He’d keep an extra eye on me. He wouldn’t let me be alone with Matthew, because I’d be the crazy one in the family. Every family has one, and ours would be me.
“Don’t you have to go to work now anyway?” Melody continues. She sits back on her bed with a thump. “You’re going to be late.”
I’m going to be late if I leave right now, to say nothing of taking time to brush my teeth and shower, which I really have to do. So now I’m going to be really late. “Shoot,” I say, and whirl from the room. I don’t thank her. I can’t go that far.
—
More details come out in the next few days, which I spend working under Randall on the east side. From what I hear, Cady doesn’t come to work. I see Connor once, hurrying away from the Canteen, but he doesn’t have time to give me much more than a quick hello before Cynthia bears down and he has to run off. It’s a somber few days; nobody’s really in the mood to chat. Even the guests seem muted, like they’ve unearthed a bit of common decency and decided to avoid pitching a fit over the lack of Pepsi products in the park.
According to the police examiner, Monica had been lying in the woods for weeks, since the time she went missing. She was found naked and covered in leaves, and the bottoms of her feet were bloody, like she’d been running barefoot. Her eyes were closed and her mother was devastated and all the money that had been donated to the family was going to be put into a trust for Monica’s sisters and brother called the Monica Rose Jackson College Fund. Her funeral will be at the end of the week, with a private viewing and burial for family and close friends only, and then a memorial service open to the public later that night. I wonder if I should go. Cady will be there, and I think even a look from Cady would wither me right now.
But Monica was a part of the society. Like me. And she didn’t get lucky. Like I did. I’m not sure whether I want to go and pay my respects to a comrade or if I want to avoid ever thinking about her again, just so I don’t have to think about what might have happened to me. What might still happen to me. There’s no time limit
on going missing. Sometimes lightning strikes the same tree twice.
Finally, four days after Monica was found, I’m sent back to the south side, and I hurry to headquarters with worms squirming in my stomach. Lizzy of the most serious lack of eyebrows is at the registers; she stares at me dully as I walk in, but doesn’t say hi. It’s okay; I don’t say hi to her, either.
Rob is in the back filling the whiteboard schedule with swoops and squiggles. Connor isn’t there, unless he heard me coming and dove behind the stack of boxes filled with new Skywoman T-shirts and Wonderman-shaped baby bottles. “Good morning, Rob,” I say formally, adjusting an imaginary cravat.
He turns. “Hi, Scarlett,” he says. “Connor’s not here yet. He’ll be in later.”
My cheeks heat. “I didn’t ask. But okay. Where am I going today?”
Rob turns back to the board. Now that I’ve seen the real Rob, piercings and tattoos and spikes galore, this Rob feels inauthentic, sanitized almost, like the versions of the Skywoman comic that take out her conflicted (lesbian) feelings for the Blade, and the Blade’s feelings back. I know somehow that this Rob isn’t going to have the guts to say anything about me and Connor and Cady.
“I was going to send you to Wonderkidz, but that’s already full,” he says. “So I’m going to send you to Iceworks.”
“Iceworks,” I repeat. I’ve never been there before, but Rob must not hate me that much, because it can’t be worse than Wonderkidz. Nothing can be worse than Wonderkidz.
Except Iceworks. Iceworks is a tiny, one-register discount store full of outdated celebration T-shirts and three-eyed teddy bears, located directly under the coils of the Blade’s Revenge, which whooshes overhead only a few feet from the roof every ninety-five seconds and gives the store a bone-rattling shake you can barely feel over the roar of the track. I have plenty of time to count, as it turns out, because it also turns out that nobody wants outdated celebration T-shirts or three-eyed teddy bears. “The name is awfully ironic,” I say weakly as Rob sets up my register, though I don’t know if he hears me, as just then the Blade’s Revenge roars overhead.
“It is,” he agrees, wiping beads of sweat off his brow.
It’s called Iceworks, and it’s the only store on the south side without air-conditioning.
Rob hurries out—who can blame him?—leaving behind a rattling fan, flurries of dust, and a trace of a smirk. Well played, Rob, well played.
I settle in for a morning of swampy heat and monotony. The best way to break it up, I find, is to scrub the store clean. Evidently, generations of cashiers and managers have seen the sad merch and shrugged off the fuzzy layers of dust coating the shelves, the grime caked on the floor, but not I. I set upon cleaning with a vengeance, improvising with ancient T-shirts when I run out of rags, improvising with spit and tears when I run out of cleaner. Each swipe makes me hate myself more—the fact that cleaning like this soothes me, brings back the feeling I’m doing something that will help me survive, maybe get me a reward. At Stepmother’s house, cleaning was the only thing that kept me alive, and now it’s the only thing that keeps me sane. I hate Stepmother for doing this to me.
Fortunately, no customers come in during this time. It’s entirely possible that people peeked in the door as they exited the Blade’s Revenge, super psyched to buy one of last year’s collectable snow globes or commemorative anniversary T-shirts from three years ago, and recoiled upon the sight of the panting, red-faced monster clawing maniacally at the floor. I don’t blame them. I would run from me too.
So I’m more than a little surprised when I hear footsteps click through the entrance just as the Blade’s Revenge whizzes by overhead. I turn, the wince on my face instinctive, and see Connor. He’s not smiling.
“Hi,” I say. “I’m cleaning the store.”
“Good job,” Connor says, almost robotically. His eyes are rimmed in red, but they’re not puffy. Tired, not crying. “I’ll give you a positive write-up.”
I stand. “I’ll give you a positive write-up” isn’t something you say to someone you made out with. “How are you?” I ask, my insides writhing.
He sighs and rubs his forehead. “Not so great,” he says. “How are you?”
“Okay,” I say. All the moisture vanishes from my mouth and throat. Swallowing is painful.
“Look, I wanted to talk to you.” Connor shuffles his feet. I haven’t gotten to that part of the floor yet, so he shuffles around chunks of dirt and clouds of dust. “I really like you. Obviously. That goes without saying.”
If it goes without saying, then you wouldn’t need to say it, I think. “I really like you, too,” I say. The words hurt my throat.
“But with Monica…with Cady. I…I don’t think I can give you what you want.”
I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. “But you’re single, and I’m single, and we really like each other.” I know I sound shrill, but I can’t help it. “I don’t see what the problem is.”
He takes a deep breath. He can breathe, apparently. It’s not fair. It’s so not fair. “If I started going out with you right now, or even hooking up with you right now, it would crush Cady. She’s grieving her best friend. I can’t do that to her right now, Scarlett. I just can’t.”
“You’re not being fair to her,” I say, even shriller. “She’s just going to keep thinking you’re going to get back together.”
“But with Monica, and…” The Blade’s Revenge rushes overhead right on schedule, shaking the world around me and the floor beneath my feet.
Once the dust clears, he starts speaking again. “I’m really, really sorry, Scarlett. And I know this doesn’t mean anything right now, but I do want to be with you. I do. I just can’t…right now.”
He’s sorry. Well, that fixes everything. “You’re right. That doesn’t mean anything.”
He takes another deep breath and turns his eyes up toward the ceiling. Is it my imagination, or are they especially shiny right now? “I know. I know. In a few months…”
I’m squeezing my T-shirt rag so hard my nails are biting into my palms. “What, do you think I’m just going to sit around and wait for you? That I don’t have anything better to do?”
“Of course not,” he says. His eyes are definitely shiny. “Please, Scarlett. I want—”
It doesn’t matter what he wants. I throw the T-shirt rag at him; it splats against his chest, leaving a dark splotch on his polo. Good. I hope the stain doesn’t come out and he has to pay Five Banners for a new one. “I’m going to lunch,” I say. I’m not sure if it’s my lunchtime yet, but I don’t even care. I’m not going to let him see me cry. “Get someone to cover my register. You’d better not be here when I come back.”
I don’t stick around to hear his response.
—
I spent almost four years with Pixie in the house, sleeping curled around her on the mattress and waking to the weak strains of light trickling through the window.
Four.
Years.
Four years of shivering in the basement. Four years of listening to the girls cry in the bathroom. Four years of scrubbing mysterious stains off the floor.
It wasn’t all bad. It made me laugh, the first time I thought that: it wasn’t all bad. Sometimes if I was especially good, or if I had to tell on Pixie for doing something bad, I got to sleep upstairs in one of the girls’ vacated beds and eat something that wasn’t tuna fish.
Pixie didn’t feel the same way. To Pixie, it was all bad. She never gave up the thought of escape. She stopped darting away at every opportunity, but the idea was always there, a film shimmering just out of her reach, and her plots grew more daring, more convoluted. But she always got caught, and the beatings got bloodier, more painful. Angry welts painted her back like the stripes on the American flag.
I don’t know what I would have done if she had actually gotten away in those four years. I’d say she was my rock, but rocks are cold, unfeeling, just there. Pixie was there too, but she was anything but cold and unfeeling. W
hen she was upset, I’d soothe her with stories about my family and my school and my home. When I was upset—when one of the girls made a nasty remark to me, or when Stepmother slapped me after I spilled bleach on her hardwood floor—she’d coax the stories out of me and calm me with the thought of happier times. Sometimes I even let her touch my scar. Her touch felt like home almost, or what I thought home was like. I had a hard time remembering sometimes. I could barely remember my mother’s face or the color of Melody’s eyes.
But I was okay. We were okay.
When I stand in line at the employment office the next morning, waiting for the receipt that will tell me where I’m to work today, I can’t blame the other people in line for side-eyeing me and edging away. I know I look like a crazy person, but I can’t help the chanting under my breath. I feel like if I don’t chant, if I don’t want it hard enough, the universe won’t listen to me. “Don’t send me to the south side. Don’t send me to the south side. Don’t send me to the south side.”
The machine beeps and spits out its slip of paper. I snatch it from the girl behind the desk. “No,” I say.
She looks at me through cakes of mascara. “Next.”
I trudge to headquarters wishing I would just fall through the ground and disappear. Maybe I’d drop so far I’d eventually carbonize and become a diamond, and in thousands of years they’d dig me up and I’d get to be the diamond in some loving couple’s engagement ring. That would be kind of a happy ending, I guess.
I enter the back room of headquarters to find Connor, alone.
Naturally.
I clear my throat. Connor, working on the schedule, jumps, and a trail of ink flies off the edge of the whiteboard. “They sent me here,” I say. Sink through the floor, I will myself. I even jiggle my knees to try to help the process along, but no luck. Damn concrete. “I didn’t want to come here.”
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