by Mintie Das
That’s another reason the Aiedeo piss me off. It’s all fine and dandy for them to be using their magical powers, because they aren’t alone. I don’t have that luxury. I am already the brown girl. I can’t be the Aiedeo too.
How could it not get out in a little town like Meadowdale where some people have nothing better to do than expose others’ darkest secrets and then take them down? I shudder at the memory of Naomi’s bitch-out. And she was their beloved princess. I can only imagine what they’d do to an outsider like me.
Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, and Peter Parker are too afraid to reveal their secret identities, and they are white guys. Am I really supposed to believe that a teenage brown girl gets outed as an ethnic Harry Potter and they’ll throw me a parade? No! I’ll be burned at the stake like those Salem witches.
That’s why what happened with Austin yesterday almost feels like cruel timing. It wasn’t just a hookup. Yesterday, we connected. It was real. I realize that doesn’t mean he wants to be my boyfriend, nor do I believe that dating him would somehow give me the stamp of approval that I so crave. Even I’m not that lame.
However, it was a bite. A little taste of what it feels like to be wanted—to be accepted.
So, yes, I’m a selfish, frightened wuss because I know that I can never survive this life and be an Aiedeo. Now, though, the bitches have forced me back and I have no choice but to do whatever they want me to do, no matter how twisted it is. I stand under the steaming stream of water and cry. Either way, I’m dead.
* * *
I fly past the kitchen and run out the front door. I’m skipping breakfast again but it’s worth it to avoid Dede. I know I’ll have to face her eventually but I am just not up to it this morning.
I jump into my car and pull out of my driveway. It’s especially cold this morning so I crank up the heat. I notice I have a new voicemail and play it.
“Violet Choudhury, this is Detective Alvarez. We’re working on the Naomi Talbert case and we’d like to speak to you. Please give me a call. Thank you.” She leaves a phone number and hangs up.
I get a little fright. I’m sure the cops are interviewing all of the people around Naomi, but still, it’s unsettling. I’m running late as it is and decide I don’t have the time to call the detective back now but I’ll do it at lunch.
I arrive at school and race across the parking lot toward the entrance. I come to a sudden stop when I see the assistant principal standing by the front doors.
“One more tardy and it’s detention for you,” Mr. Kreps barks at a mousy brunette, shaking his bald head. Then he raises his hairy arm and points at a dweeby-looking freshman. “And you’re gonna wind up on my three-strikes list there, soldier!”
I can’t believe that with everything going on, I’m actually worried about getting a tardy. I duck as I pass by Mr. Kreps and just keep walking like everything is normal. My shoulders drop when I make it halfway down the hall without him calling me out. I race the rest of the way to my French class. The final bell rings just as I sit down at my desk.
“Bonjour!” Madame Morgan belts out in a slightly too sharp soprano. Rumor has it that she spends summers singing cabaret in a casino near St. Louis.
“Bun-jor,” a few students grumble.
While Madame begins roll call, I open my textbook and realize I’ve completely forgotten to finish my homework. I tap Jessica, who sits next to me. “Crud! I totally flaked on the assignment. Do you have the answers for eight, nine, and ten?”
Jessica looks at me but doesn’t say anything.
“Jess, I have everything else. I just need the answers for the last three questions.”
Jessica turns away. We’ve been copying off each other since elementary school so it isn’t like I’m asking Jessica to cross some ethical boundary. Maybe she’s annoyed about something else.
“Okay, I know the Squad is probably pissed at me about yesterday but didn’t Meryl explain that I was totally having a weird reaction to some medicine I took? Come on, Jess. You don’t usually pitch a fit about cheer stuff,” I whisper. Instead of replying, Jessica starts chatting with Beau Michaels, who sits on the other side of her.
“Seriously, Jess, you’re really gonna ignore me?” I huff. “Fine. I’ll just figure out the answers myself.” I open my notebook angrily.
“Vee-o-let,” Madame Morgan sings, using an exaggerated French accent that makes her sound like a drunken spoon from Beauty and the Beast.
“Oui,” I respond as I scramble to complete my homework.
“Vee-o-let!” Madame chirps again.
“I know the old bat is blind, but is she deaf now too?” I complain under my breath. “Oui, Madame! I’m here!”
Madame Morgan shrugs and moves on to the next name. I’m scribbling the translation for “Henry will not eat a sandwich today. Instead, he will eat soup” in my notebook when I notice my pinkie finger. I stop writing and look down at my hands.
It’s been a while since I had a proper mani-pedi but when did my nails become pointy little talons? I hold my right hand in my left and realize my skin feels frozen. No wonder I’ve been so cold all morning—am I coming down with the flu? I slouch low in my seat. I’ve been so preoccupied that I didn’t even check myself out before going to school today. Just how gnarly do I look? I take out my cell phone and click on my mirror app.
“Holy shit!” I scream.
It’s my face staring back at me, but it isn’t. Even if it’s been a rough couple of days, there is no reason for me to appear like . . . like what? I run my hand along my cheek. My eyes, my mouth, even my skin looks lifeless.
Then I gaze up at Madame Morgan. I just shouted out an obscenity in the middle of class and no one has reacted in the slightest bit. In fact, now that I think about it, has anyone made eye contact with me today?
I stand up hesitantly. My entire body shakes from both cold and fear as I walk up to the front of the classroom. I stand so close to Madame Morgan that I can see the hundreds of dandruff flakes that cover her shoulders and smell the green peppers from her breakfast omelet.
I catch my reflection in the window and stare at my full self from head to toe. I open my mouth and see my small pointy teeth. Then I wave my long Gumby arms around and stare at my hands and the talons at the ends of my fingers. I look like Naomi minus the backwards feet.
Everything inside of me stops. In fact, it is like I did the time trick again but to myself. I’m frozen in place. I recognize exactly what I am. Despite my paralysis, I can feel the loud thumping of my heart—is that my heart? Do I still have a heart? Whatever it is, I feel a rhythmic pounding.
The Aiedeo did what I was always afraid they’d do. I stand in the middle of the classroom and look down at myself and then out at the world that doesn’t see me. I know exactly what I am.
I am dead.
Fifteen
Day 7: Dead
I RUN THROUGH THE FRONT DOOR of my house. Maybe I’m supposed to be invited in, or is that only vampires? I frantically race to the TV room, looking for Dede. I don’t care about our fight from yesterday because that lady has several lifetimes’ worth of supernatural mumbo jumbo and right about now is the perfect time to use it.
“Dede!” I yell in a panic, although it’s pointless since no one can see or hear me anymore. “Dede!” I shout again out of habit.
“Hold the horse!” Dede hollers as she walks to the top of the stairs, drying her damp hair with a towel. “Where your fire?”
I am rendered temporarily speechless by Dede’s mixture of idioms and the fact that she is looking directly at me.
“Y-you can see me?” I ask.
“I always see you, mami.”
“But I’m dead.”
“I afraid this gonna happen.” Dede twists her thin hair into a bun.
“You knew the Aiedeo would do this to me?”
“I not ever know what Aiedeo gonna do.” Dede starts walking down the stairs. “You no go anywhere. We gonna talk.”
A couple of minutes
later and Dede is sipping her chai on the sofa, a folder next to her. My uneaten PB and J from this morning is on a plate in front of me, but I’m not hungry. Besides, isn’t loss of appetite an upside to death?
“I don’t know when this happened,” I say. “Maybe it was last night, maybe it was this morning, but sometime in the beginning of first period, I noticed that I was dead.”
Dede grunts as she takes it all in.
“Here’s the thing, Deeds. I’m invisible to everyone but you. And I look like dead Naomi,” I say as I hold up my tiny talons. “Except she’s, like, way scarier-looking than me and kind of hotter too. Totally irritating, right?”
Of course, even in the afterworld, Naomi reigns as the hot girl and I am condemned to an eternity in the friend zone. I think about Naomi’s white jeans and hope that ghosts can get hemorrhoids.
“I already know but I wonder when you gonna tell me you see Naomi.” Dede smiles slyly like she is Hercule Poirot and I am the daft chambermaid that she just caught in a lie.
“Yes, I’ve seen Naomi. In that Naomi’s wicked-ass ghost has been haunting me,” I answer wryly.
Dede slaps my hand. “What I always say you, Violet? Ghost only in Amrican movie. Ghost not real.”
“Yeah, well, Naomi felt pretty real yesterday when she was beating me up,” I growl. I don’t know if I can move through solid objects but now is as good a time as any to try. I stick my arm through the sofa and wave my hand from the other side. “Oh, and it looks like I can do this, which is, like, a classic ghost move.”
Dede opens the folder next to her. She takes out a photo of a grotesque phantom that resembles what Naomi looked like when she was hanging from my bedroom ceiling.
I jump. “How the hell did you get that pic?”
“Mrs. Patel son help me Photoshop it.” Dede cackles. She points to the image. “Naomi look like this girl in picture, right?”
“Well, yeah. I mean, the first time that Naomi came around, she definitely had a real gnarly vibe about her. Then she did a total one-eighty and now she’s a babe with a big booty and princess hair. Except that she’s, like, dead and evil.”
Dede pushes up her glasses. “Chht! You need be serious, Violet! I not talk about Naomi booty. I mean, she have fingernail like knife, she wear all white, and her feet beka.”
“Yes, her feet are backwards, she’s wearing white skinny jeans, and she’s got nails so long and sharp that they’re like claws. And her head is bashed in.”
“Then Naomi is bhoot.”
“Okaaay, and a bhoot is basically the Indian version of a ghost or something. Right?” I ask.
“No. Read,” Dede commands as she clicks on the screen of her cell phone.
“‘A bhoot is a spirit with a lost soul,’” I read aloud. Lukas called me a lost soul yesterday, which still makes my frozen cheeks burn.
“See, mami. That easy.” Dede beams. “Bhoot no scary. Bhoot more scared of people than people scared of bhoot. Bhoot just need your help. You always very nice with bhoot and they like you.”
“Hold up.” I raise my hand. There are so many parts of what Dede just said that make absolutely no sense. “What do you mean that I’ve always been very nice with bhoots? When have I met a bhoot before Naomi? You mean the Aiedeo?”
“Aiedeo not bhoot,” Dede says. “You remember when you very little. When we live in Texas, you have friend name Sarah?”
“Yeah, Sarah Larson.” I smile at the memory. “She lived next door and I played with her every day before we had to move here.”
“Sarah live in house next door for over twenty year because she die there when she very little girl. Sarah was bhoot.”
I feel chills up and down my arms. “But why didn’t I notice her backwards feet?”
“Maybe you notice but you don’t care because she your friend.” Dede shrugs and gulps down the rest of her chai. “Remember when you have six birthday party and you kiss that boy?”
“Phineas—Finney? He was a bhoot too?” I ask hesitantly. Dede nods.
My face falls. The fact that my first kiss was with a dead boy is more than a bit hard to take right now. I have half a mind to go raid my father’s liquor cabinet.
“You not friend with only kid bhoot. You also make friend with grown-up bhoot. One day you remember you see old lady out in rain and you bring her home and give her tea.” Dede chuckles.
I grimace. “Mrs. Doherty? She was dead? How dumb was I?”
“Dumb! You not dumb because you see bhoot. That make you special,” Dede retorts. “Like Lukas say.”
“Yeah, right, I’m special.” As far as I’m concerned, special is a euphemism for freak. But this was proof that I had these powers before my Aiedeo training began.
“Bhoot part easy.” Dede takes a deep breath. “But there more.”
I look at Dede and waves of trepidation run through me. However, I want to get the bad stuff over with, so I jump in and blurt out my questions. “Why the hell am I a bhoot? Is it because the Aiedeo killed me?”
Dede says nothing but takes out a stack of notebooks from her bag. They are all plain with black covers. I recognize them immediately. We used to read them together when I was a child. I called them “The Aiedeo Chronicles” because they apparently contain everything that my mother ever told Dede about the Aiedeo. I don’t know how comprehensive they are because Laya couldn’t have known everything about the Aiedeo, but they were certainly quite extensive.
My nanny opens up one of them and I feel a little quiver. They’re written in Dede’s small, neat handwriting, but in the margins, there are notes in flowery cursive that Laya jotted down. I smile to myself. Even now, as I glance at the pages, at the loopy l’s and fat s’s, I’m surprised that she didn’t dot her i’s with hearts. Dede wrote everything in Assamese, which I don’t read, so she always translated the stories for me. For some reason, Laya wrote her notes in English, and I read those over so often that I memorized them. But like so many other things, I’ve completely forgotten about them until now. I trace over one of my mother’s bubbly j’s.
“Yesterday, after Lukas tell us what your shama is, I think it sound familiar,” Dede says as she closes the notebook in front of us. She mutters something to herself as she picks up another one. “I remember your mommy tell me story once about her great-great-great-ita . . .” Dede licks her finger and flips quickly through some pages. She smiles wide. “Here! I find.”
“So what about Laya’s great-great-grandmother?” I say impatiently as I tap my talons against the sofa.
Dede ignores me and reads. After a few excruciating minutes, she looks up at me. “This say that this Aiedeo—her name Suchi—she also have shama where she need find preta to help little dead boy. Aiedeo turn Suchi into bhoot to help her. Then, when she find preta, they turn her back to alive again.”
“Really? She wasn’t dead anymore?” I’m so happy that I lean across the couch and give Dede a huge hug. “You mean this isn’t permanent? I’m just a temporary bhoot?”
“It say here that they turn Suchi back to alive because she complete her shama.” Dede grimaces.
I wait for her to continue but she doesn’t. “Come on, Deeds, tell me.”
I see that her eyes are misty and I know it’s bad. This broad doesn’t get sentimental. “If Suchi no complete shama, then she stay bhoot.”
“The Aiedeo are making good on their ultimatum.” My hands tremble. “If I don’t find the killer’s preta, then that’s it. It’s over for me. I’m dead.”
Dede nods and we sit together in silence. She tries to wrap her fingers around mine but it’s a bit awkward with my claws, so she just strokes my hand.
After a few seconds, I speak. “But why turn me into a bhoot? I mean, how does that help me find a preta?”
“I don’t know.” Dede looks down at the book again and then shrugs. “And Laya say nothing about that.”
“What did you say pretas were exactly?” I’m really trying my best to understand all this but it’s diffic
ult and the words are getting mixed up in my head.
Dede scrolls through her phone and shows me another page titled “Preta.” I scan through it:
Preta is a hungry soul created by a human’s vice, a human’s greed—his selfish desires. His longing grows and grows until he’s ravenous and the preta eventually possesses him entirely. Pretas are conniving and tricky. They hide so that you cannot see them but they are always out to get you.
I feel nauseated. I have no idea how to search for this preta, but, worse, I don’t know how I’m going to handle it if I actually do find it.
“Bhoot no scary but preta very, very scary,” Dede says as though that hasn’t been made abundantly clear.
“Roger on that.” I nod. “I mean, how does it work? Is a preta like something that possesses you? So you have no control over it?”
“No. Bhoot have lost soul but preta have evil soul. Human let soul become evil because they maybe greedy or jealous and they always want more, more, more. Never enough and always hungry. So hungry that they do anything.”
“Like murder someone.”
“Yes.”
The wheels in my head start turning, and slowly, I begin to see a way I might pull this off. I’m not gonna kid myself here. It’s still a massive long shot but I gotta do whatever it takes to make sure this bhoot thing isn’t permanent. That doesn’t mean that I’m playing nice with the Aiedeo, but I have to accept that for the time being, I’m their bitch.
This preta stuff is wack and I’m not even sure if I quite understand it. But if I put this bhoot and preta business aside for now, what my shama really boils down to is a classic whodunit. I’ve always loved a good mystery.
That doesn’t mean I know the first thing about finding a murderer, but like everything else, pop culture has provided me with thousands of examples. From my beloved Poirot, Sherlock Holmes, and Nancy Drew to Jessica Fletcher and even Scooby-Doo. Not to mention the half a dozen Nordic-noir TV series that I binged on last winter.
So I’m gonna channel my inner Saga Norén and do some “real” detective work. It sounds absurd, since I’m far from a super-sleuth. However, I do have one pretty powerful trick up my sleeve. I can talk to the dead.