“Oma, I’m home. Where are you?”
Silence. Charming.
“Oma!” I dropped my pack in the hallway, seeking the bedroom. Oma lay in bed with her arms folded across her chest, lips pursed, and eyes spitting fire.
“Oma, I’m home. Why didn’t you answer me?”
“Were you talking to me?” Oma snapped.
I straightened my back, steeling for the battle. “I’m so sorry about lunch. I’m sorry I’m late, too, but didn’t the school call? They said they would. They were supposed to. They probably called Uncle Jan since he’s the contact. There was a bomb threat, so we had to go to the Catholic Church, but everything is settled now. It was just a scare or a prank. It wasn’t a real bomb, just made out to look that way.”
Oma glared out the window. “Are you done now?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m waiting for you to confess.”
“Confess to what? I just told you where I was.”
Oma snorted. “You know what I mean. Don’t play your little games.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You put something in my dinner.”
“Um, what?”
“I had a stomach ache all night, and I couldn’t sleep, and my stomach still hurts. You poisoned my food!”
“Why would I poison you?”
“Why would you?” Oma countered.
“Oma, be reasonable. I don’t even have any poison.”
“Where do you keep it?”
“I’m not discussing this.” I ached to slam the bedroom door. Instead, I stormed into the living room. Oma would forget. She always did. She forgot everything.
Except for that.
Oma had found an old box of laxatives in the far back of the kitchen cupboard. She’d eaten the whole box and had “accidents.” I fought back nausea as I cleaned up the mess after school, the empty box on the counter and dirtied sheets in the washing machine.
Oma swore I’d tried to poison her. She refused to eat anything I prepared. Aunt Marta threw a fit because it meant Uncle Jan had to visit Oma on his lunch break to make sure she ate, and he had to feed her at dinner.
“We must put her in a home,” Aunt Marta insisted.
At night, I laid awake, plagued with nightmares about putting Oma in a nursing home. She wouldn’t be able to handle it. That step seemed so cold and unfeeling.
I blamed the bomb scare for the whole issue. If I’d come home at lunch, Oma wouldn’t have eaten the laxatives.
Yes, it was the bomb scare’s fault.
I also blamed the janitor, just in case he was a Goat Child enemy.
****
I am eight years old. It is Christmas, but I have a cold. Uncle Jan and Aunt Marta are visiting. Mama baked a spice cake. They’re eating dessert and drinking some red wine Uncle Jan brought.
I sit on my bed, playing with a new dollhouse. It is shaped like a castle, and the figures wear crowns. Oma combs the princess doll’s hair.
“You can go out with them.” I feel bad she has to stay with me.
“I would rather be here with you.” She leans close. “Adults are so boring.”
I laugh and hope I’ll be better soon, since Oma says that laughter is the best medicine.
Chapter 21
The social studies teacher partnered Meg with me for the December project. At least it was Meg, since I knew her, even if we weren’t friends. I picked the assignment from an old-fashioned top hat the teacher carried around the room.
“What did we get?” Meg slid her hands into the pockets of her jean shorts. Ever since it had started snowing, Meg wore shorts and striped knee socks every day. Logic!
I unfolded the yellow paper to read the black ink. “Cemeteries.”
Meg whistled. “There is nothing hotter than cemeteries in the dead of winter. Get it? Dead of winter?”
I forced myself to laugh, even though her comment was more morbid than humorous. “Yeah, very witty.”
The December project involved receiving an assignment place and then writing about how that place fares in the winter. We needed to include pictures, facts, fiction and nonfiction stories, as well as personal reflections.
“We’ve got three weeks before it’s all due.” Meg pointed to the date written on the top of the project description form. “You wanna procrastinate until the last minute or do it this weekend?”
“This weekend,” I said.
Meg chuckled. “You don’t have to bite my head off over it.”
I wondered if she joked. Her lips quirked, but they always looked happy.
“Um, sorry.”
Meg lifted her chin, tucking a black tress behind her ear. “I was kidding.”
It’s a great feeling, awkwardness. “So, um, the cemetery… this weekend?”
“You know where the place is?”
“Yeah, Mama and I went over the summer.”
“You need a ride? You don’t have a car yet?”
“No car.”
“I’ll pick you up. I know where you live. Noon a good time for you, or do you want to make it for midnight?” Meg wiggled her eyebrows.
I closed my eyes and imagined moonlight reflected off pristine snow, tombstones watching like little soldiers, guarding over the dead. Wind howled, then clouds passed over the moon, and the gravestones turned black.
My eyelids flew open. “Noon is fine.”
“I was kidding, you know, about going at midnight.” Meg’s piercing eyes didn’t look as if she joked.
****
Walking home from school, I rehearsed what I was going to tell Oma about Saturday. She probably wouldn’t find the New Winchester Cemetery a good place for a weekend romp, so I would have to say something good, but also convincing, without actually lying.
“So, Oma,” I said aloud to a maple tree. I stepped over its root as it grew over the sidewalk. “Meg and I have to do a project on Saturday for school.” No, Oma would think Meg was a codename for a boy. Even if I could convince Oma that Meg really was a girl, she would say something like, “You’d rather spend time with your friend than with me?”
Oma had said that when I’d asked to stay after school to help set up for an art show.
Something twinkled from the ice encrusted alongside the sidewalk. I caught my hair back in a fist to keep it out of my eyes, and bent at the knees. I poked at the twinkle with my silver-lacquered fingernail. The brightness blinded, boring into my retinas. The twinkle lay trapped within ice coated with snow.
I picked at the ice even when it tore a hole in my glove. I stopped only when my finger bled. Beads of blood formed on my skin.
“What the…” Never apt to fixate on things before, but as I felt compelled to have whatever it was that so twinkled. I used my boot, digging in my heel. The best use for kitty heels had finally been discovered. Using the point as an ice pick, I chipped away until the ice cracked. Crouching, I pulled off my gloves and used my fingernails to maneuver it free.
The twinkle belonged to a silver ring. A small charm shaped like a woman with a unicorn’s horn protruding from her forehead attached to the circular band. In her hands, she clasped a blue stone.
When I tipped the ring, tiny silver flecks winked at me from the blueness. When I turned it sideways, the flecks turned black.
The ring didn’t feel cold, even though it had been in ice for quite some time if the thickness of that ice stood as indication.
“It must not be real silver.” I slipped it on my middle finger. It was a little loose, so I moved it to my pointer. The ring still wobbled, but it didn’t fall off. I pulled my gloves back on, fingering the bulge in the wool. My heart swelled with pride for having saved the ring.
The jewel whispered into my mind, I was lonely.
Wow, Oma had me so worked up that now I heard voices. I couldn’t let her get to me like that. I still had a life. Right?
****
Uncle Jan had his car parked in the driveway. I groaned. That
was never a good sign when he was there right after school. Walking up the snowy cement to the porch, a squirrel darted across the road and up the magnolia tree. The branches swayed, moaning, and snow drifted to the ground.
The house smelled like burnt toast, and I made a mental note to hide the toaster and unplug the microwave. Oma might forget about it, or set it too high.
“I’m home.” My bag hit the floor with a thud that rattled the winter decorations on the table.
“Hi, Keziah!” Uncle Jan’s booming voice filled the house. “We’re in the bedroom. Mom, Keziah’s home.”
In the bedroom, Uncle Jan hung a prism sphere on a clear cord from the curtain rod. Oma lay flat on her back in bed, the pillow fallen on the floor unnoticed. A seam had torn sometime that day in the comforter, and Oma had attempted to fix it with a bobby pin.
“Hi, Oma.” I dropped onto the bed beside my grandmother.
Oma pursed her lips, nodding.
“Ta da.” Uncle Jan clapped his hands like a child. The prism twirled on the cord, sunlight bouncing through to reflect as rainbows across the white walls.
“Look. Rainbows,” Oma exclaimed. “It’s good luck. They’re happy with us.”
“I saw it at the gas station and thought she might like it,” Uncle Jan said.
Oma touched a rainbow on the blanket. A pain jumped through my veins when I realized Oma didn’t know where they came from.
“After lunch,” he whispered, “she called me up to say someone had broken into her house and moved the furniture around.”
“What?” My breath caught in my throat.
Oma scowled at a rainbow.
“She forgot. She thought the kitchen table was moved.” He shook his head.
Oma always knew where her things were—at least the things she used every day, like the kitchen table. Little things, such as extra bars of soap, I always had to retrieve.
“Are you talking about me?” Oma demanded. “It’s rude, you know. If you want to go whisper, do it in the other room.” Her voice trembled. “You’re just trying to make me feel bad.”
“We’re discussing the prism.” Uncle Jan chuckled. Oma stared at him without blinking, so he pointed at the prism. “We’re talking about the rainbows.”
“Right.” Oma folded her arms and glared out the window from the bed. I followed her gaze to see the squirrel leap onto the birdfeeder. The bottom half popped off and seed sprayed into the air.
“Dumb squirrel,” Uncle Jan roared. “Look at what he just did. I bought that seed and he wasted it, dumb thing.” He bolted away from the window, and bumped the front door on his way out.
I laughed as Uncle Jan ran across the yard after the squirrel. It ran up the magnolia tree and he shook his fist. “Stop breaking my birdfeeder. That’s the fifth time this month you’ve knocked it apart.”
“Look what I found.” I peeled off my gloves and showed Oma the ring, wiggling my fingers so it twinkled. Oma squinted, then pawed around the bedside table for her glasses.
I leaned over my grandmother to pick them up. “Here they are.” I helped Oma open them.
When I twisted my wrist, more lights caught in the gemstone.
Oma sucked in her breath, grabbing my wrist so hard I gasped. Her long fingernails bit through my skin.
“Stop it. You’re hurting me. Ow! Oma.” Fear tingled through my nerves.
“Where did you get that?” Oma shook my wrist, fire in her eyes.
My heart leapt into my throat. “I…I f-found it. On the way home from school. It was stuck in some ice on the sidewalk.”
“It’s from them. It’s from the Goat Children!” She reeled back, her eyes wide.
“Oma, I found it. It’s not from the Goat Children. They aren’t even real.”
“This is what they do,” Oma hissed. “This is a zerain jewel. Only the Goat Children have it, and only those they choose to join them can see all the colors. They leave the jewel somewhere you’ll find it. My jewel was on a bracelet.”
“Oma.” I peeled my grandmother’s fingers off my wrist. “It’s just a ring. There’s nothing else to it.”
“The Goat Children are real, and now they’ll approach you. They want you because I was one of them. They like choosing from bloodlines.” Oma’s face turned ashen. “Don’t go with them. Say no!”
“But, Oma—”
“Don’t go with them. I need you. You can’t leave me.”
“Okay, I’ll say no! I won’t go with them. I’ll stay here with you.” It wasn’t a good time to bring up Saturday. I extricated myself off the bed. Outside, Uncle Jan yelped when he pinched his finger while trying to reattach the bottom of the birdfeeder.
****
Meg’s black Mercedes drove through the cemetery entrance. A massive wrought-iron archway welcomed us into the sacred depths, a sudden chill creeping up my spine with icy claws. On either side of the archway brick towers rose and windows reflected the sunlight.
Meg must’ve seen the direction of my gaze, because she said, “Those used to be the offices. Now, the office is way over there by the old church. You’ll be able to see it in a second.”
I didn’t want to mention I already knew in case she felt proud, so I didn’t answer.
She turned the car along the road. “See, over there.” Rounding the corner of the hill, Meg took one hand off the steering wheel to point at a church and a small brick building. A maintenance truck rested in front, covered in snow.
“Are you sure we’re supposed to be here in the winter?” I shivered again, recalling the time I’d come with Mama and planted flowers for strangers.
“People go to cemeteries year round. Actually, though, they don’t open if there’s been a blizzard, or a lot of snow, so it’s kind of hit or miss. This part of the road is paved, so they plow it, but they don’t do anything with the other paths leading over the hills. Those are just dirt roads, so we’ll have to walk if you want to go all the way to the top.”
I peered out the window at the passing whiteness. The stone tops of graves peeked through the snow. Crosses guarded the occupants. Angels pled for forgiveness.
Meg pulled her car into a roomy area of cement, and extinguished the engine. “This is as far as it’s plowed, so come on, it’s time to hike. At the very top of the cemetery, there’s this really old mausoleum, and if you climb on top of it, you can see the whole city.”
I followed Meg from the car. When she slammed the door, the sound echoed across the graves, and I shivered again.
“This place isn’t giving you the chills, is it?” Meg snickered.
“No.” I slid my gloved hands into my coat pockets.
Meg crunched through the snow to my side of the car. “Do you ever think about dying?”
“No!”
“I do. Sometimes.” Meg shrugged. “My family’s buried over here. My mom said that, someday, I’ll be buried here, too. It’s a family tradition. Your parents never talk about stuff like that?”
The “no,” froze on my tongue. I shook my head.
“Come on, this way.” Meg stepped off the plowed area. “We’ll go to the top. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen a view like this one.”
“We have to work on our project.” My breath plumed in the cold air. A snowflake landed on my cheek, melting into a tear.
“We will. I’ve got my cell phone, so we’ll have pictures, and you’ve got the notebook, right?”
I nodded, feeling the mini spiral notebook in my pocket.
“See, we’re all set. Bam, let’s go.”
My thighs ached after five minutes of trekking through the unplowed snow. Neither of us spoke. I concentrated on setting one foot in front of the other. Meg must have been frozen in her knee socks and shorts, yet she never complained.
The graves watched us with silent, condemning glares. We were alive, and they were dead. If there was less snow, I could have read the names. How old were they when they perished? Were any of them related to me?
“You’re shive
ring again.” Meg’s voice traveled to my ears. “You’re either really cold or really freaked. Which is it?”
I blew a breath, pretending to smoke a cigarette. “Honey, cemeteries don’t freak me out. I’m as cold as ice.”
“Yeah, you’ve totally never smoked a cig in your life. That’s not how you hold one.”
“You smoke?”
“A long time ago. I quit.”
A long time ago made it sound like decades. Poor Meg. She was too young to have smoked a long time ago.
I wrapped my arms around myself. My breath came thicker now, and my nose felt ready to break. The hairs inside had frozen together, making it feel like someone had stuffed tissue paper up my sinuses. I cupped my hands over my ears, but I couldn’t feel them.
“Let’s take the pictures and leave.” My cheeks were so cold they felt hot.
“Scaredy cat,” Meg sang. “Scaredy cat, scaredy cat!”
“I’m cold.” I licked my lips, tasting the coarse, chapped skin.
“We’re almost there.” Meg bounced.
We were almost there when we arrived fifteen minutes later. By then, I sneezed. The snow on the hill was deep around the mausoleum, so it didn’t take much for Meg to grab the edge of the roof and swing up. When she held out her hand for me, I was too tired and frozen to care about danger. I laced my fingers through hers, grabbed a corner of the roof with my other hand, and jumped.
I felt the roughness through my jeans, the material was soaked all the way through to my leggings underneath. I sneezed when I stood, wobbling as my legs adjusted to the slope. Snot clung to my nostrils, and without a tissue, I wiped it off on my coat sleeve. It left a shiny, pale streak across the black fabric. Ew.
Meg spread her arms wide, stepping in a circle. “Isn’t the view freakin’ amazing?”
The cemetery lay before us, guarded by the wrought-iron gate, and the buildings lay past that. Tall offices towered over houses. Streetlights glimmered through enveloping whiteness, and it gave the city a feeling of majesty and magic. Everything was clean, verging on perfect. My lips parted in awe.
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