by Mintie Das
Those skinless humans are freaks. They’re also my classmates and some of them are my friends. With their outer costumes—skin color, eyes, hair—all I see are our differences. But that day, we were all the same. Freaks drowning in our collective river of pain.
I start to tremble. Sitting here in the pitch-darkness of my room, I feel so alone. Yet I know that beyond these walls, I’m not. Not if I don’t want to be.
What had Lukas said? That empathy is one of my most powerful tools as a fighter.
Naomi was killed for reasons beyond her control. But the girl lacked any sort of empathy for others and herself. So do I. Lie and deny. I can try to say that Naomi and I are different people, but she called me out on it. We’re not. We’re both manufactured. I am Naomi.
So what is it that I want? I mean, I was given a second chance. Am I really going to piss that away by continuing to be blind to everything that’s happening around me? I walked through my school hallways and I felt them. There was no denying it. I could recognize their fear, their shame, and their hate because I’ve been trapped in it for as long as I can remember.
I just thought I was the only one. Like Naomi did. Now I know that I am not alone. I feel the rage run through my veins and it fuels me. I am so angry.
I turn on the lamp on my nightstand and grab my phone. I hold it in front of my face, open the camera, and press the Record button. I pay no attention to the fact that my teeth are yellow and my hair is a big, messy ball on top of my head.
Before I begin, I don’t really know what I’m going to say, but it’s okay. I can feel someone else guiding me. My last conversation with Naomi plays fresh in my mind. Once the red light goes on, I start to speak. My voice is quiet, and at first, it doesn’t even sound like it’s coming from me.
“Naomi Talbert was a mean girl. A mean girl is a caricature. She’s a one-dimensional stereotype who doesn’t exist outside of fiction. But Naomi had colors, curves, corners, and even cobwebs because she was real. Somewhere underneath Princess Naomi, my friend did exist. She just spent her entire life too afraid to show it.”
I take a long, deep breath.
“I’m scared too and I know I’m not alone. We’re all so afraid of showing our true selves that we turn on each other any chance we get. We slut-shame, body-shame. Shame, shame, shame. It’s killing all of us, bit by bit, and I don’t want to die.”
I hear my voice quiver and start to shut off the camera but then I decide to continue. “I’m a freak. I tried to hide it but now I know I can’t. And I don’t want to.”
I press the Stop button and upload the video onto Heffers and Hos. Then I lie back down in bed. The giant, gaping hole continues to pulse and ache inside of me. I close my eyes and let myself collapse under the weight of it all.
Day 12: Alive
I slump down behind my desk. It’s Tuesday morning, first period. I didn’t want to come to school but Dede threatened me by saying that she would bring Naresh back home if I didn’t get out of bed, so I reluctantly took a shower, brushed my teeth, and put on some almost-clean clothes. Meryl was so sure that I was just going to sneak back to bed (which was exactly what I was going to do) that she insisted on driving me here.
“Hey, Violet!” Emma Lammas, a senior who has never paid attention to me, calls out. “Welcome back, chica!”
I haven’t been counting but this is, like, the ninth friendly greeting I’ve gotten already and I’ve been here less than fifteen minutes. It’s true that if you added up the dead days and my absence yesterday, I’ve been gone for four entire school days, but that is hardly cause for all the friendliness.
Mr. Helm turns the television to the in-school channel, WMHS. Morning announcements are always a bore to listen to. I take out my French binder. I’m way behind in all of my subjects.
I open my textbook and stare down blankly at the page. I can’t stop thinking about Naomi.
On my way to homeroom this morning, I walked past Naomi’s old locker. It’s still decorated with photos, ribbons, and messages like RIP and We miss you. A part of me wants to believe that it is all phony and my classmates have moved on. That may be somewhat true but it isn’t the entire picture. Even if all of us are going on with our usual daily routines, there’s this cloud of sadness that seems to hang over us. I realize that I’m not the only person here suffering from the loss of Naomi, and knowing that somehow makes me feel a little better.
Plus, I haven’t heard from the Aiedeo since Naomi’s funeral, which also helps to raise my spirits. I know they aren’t gone for good but I’m happy for the rest.
“Violet Choudhury.”
I hear the school news anchor say my name but I have no idea what it’s connected to. Suddenly, the class erupts in cheers.
“Way to go, V!” Jess shouts.
“Congrats!” a bunch of other people yell.
“You have no idea what just happened, do you, Violet?” Austin smiles.
I feel butterflies flutter around in my stomach. I ghosted him again, but from the way he’s looking at me, I don’t think he minds. I think about our last kiss and my face turns pink.
Austin reaches out and caresses my cheek. “Your humility is so hot.”
At least he didn’t say I was exotic. I know that I need to call him out for that, but that means I have to cop to snooping through his phone. I reason that it doesn’t have to be right at this exact moment. I mean, he’s touching my face!
“Oh my God, Violet! Why aren’t you jumping for joy?” Jess leans across her desk. “You’re the first junior to be nominated for homecoming queen in, like, twenty years!”
“What?”
“We voted on homecoming-queen nominations yesterday when you were still sick. Which is even cooler, because you weren’t out there begging for votes like some of those desperate seniors.” Jess points to two girls sitting in the front of the class. “But apparently, enough people wrote your name in that you’re now officially on the ballot for homecoming queen, which you know is usually only for senior girls!”
“Why?” I wonder if I’m being punked.
“Because of that kick-ass freak video you posted on Heffers and Hos,” Austin chimes in. “You were awesome with all that colors, curves, corners, and cobwebs stuff!”
I gulp. I completely forgot about that tape until this very moment. It was pretty ballsy. Especially for MHS, and particularly for me. “People watched that?”
“It’s gone viral,” Jess says. “You’re like our very own Beyoncé.”
Austin lowers his voice and says, “It was a really powerful way to honor Naomi.”
I blink back my tears and Austin squeezes my hand. I don’t know what to make of all the homecoming stuff but for the first time in a while, I don’t feel like I’m dead inside. I don’t know how long that will last, but for now, at least, I want to hold on to it.
* * *
“You’re sure you don’t want to celebrate with me at Stumpy’s, homecoming queen?”
I laugh and shake my head. “Mer, it’s just a nomination. And I promise I will celebrate with you, but not tonight. I’ve got way too much homework to catch up on from all the days that I missed.”
“Lame. School sucks and you suck.” Meryl stops rummaging through my closet and turns to face me. “I hate all that royalty bullshit, but this is a big deal. Because you got it being yourself. I’m so proud of the way you let your freak flag fly,” Meryl says, then goes back to rummaging through my closet.
I lift an eyebrow. “Both you and I know that I’ve got a whole lot more freak than that.”
“It’s a start.”
“I don’t know what it is, but I have to admit that today felt good. I mean, of course there were some haters. But overall, kids and even some teachers were really supportive of what I said in that video.”
I still couldn’t quite believe just how many people came up and thanked me. Their encouragement gives me courage to stand behind my words. I think my head is actually kind of swelling from the attention.
That doesn’t mean that I’m not wrestling with my usual tendency to stay silent and hide. However, for the moment, at least, I feel like I actually matter.
“I heard Austin wants to write a song about you.” Meryl grabs my phone from my hand. “Just what I thought. You’re not skipping Stumpy’s because of homework—you’re totally spending it sexting your bae! Actually, why aren’t you guys just booty-calling? I mean, he lives down the street.”
“He’s stuck babysitting his little brother and sister, so the booty call is gonna have to wait for another night.” I throw a pillow at her. “And don’t call him my bae! Especially in front of him.”
Meryl plops down on the bed next to me. “It just feels good to see you happy again.”
I nod and rest my head on her shoulder. “It’s been a wild ride.”
“But you survived.” We sit there in silence for a second before Meryl holds out a set of bangles. “Can I borrow these?”
I take one of them from her. “Where did you find them? They’re from Assam. I didn’t even know I had them anymore.”
“Oh, then they’re way too nice for Stumpy’s,” Meryl says as she stands up and carefully places them in my jewelry box.
“No. You can totally have them!”
“They’re yours.” Meryl shuts the jewelry box. “But maybe take better care of them because I found them on the floor of your closet and they look kinda special.”
I thought I lost these bangles years ago and I’m a little confused on how they just turned up.
“Come out if you change your mind.” Meryl opens my bedroom door. “Later.”
After spending a little bit of time studying and a lot more time chatting with Austin, I finally go to bed feeling loads better than when I’d left for school this morning. That night, for the first time in I don’t know how long, I actually have a good dream and not a nightmare.
Tucked deep in the foothills of the Himalayas lies my kingdom, mighty Assam. Majestic river valleys loop through rolling blue hills like the bamboo baskets the tribal women weave along the banks of the Brahmaputra River. I throw my chappals off and bury my feet in the cold sand, then get up and run through the dark red poppies that grow everywhere.
The hot Indian sun burns down on me before she takes her afternoon nap. While she sleeps, buckets of rain pour from the dark, angry sky, washing away the filth from the city streets near the river.
Drenched from head to toe, I run to my room, dripping water onto the cold marble floor. I quickly change out of my wet clothes and into a warm, dry kurta. My long hair is sopping and curly. I wrap it up in a towel before heading to the balcony. There I sit in an oversize bamboo chair, watching the rain.
My house rests on top of a giant hill, surrounded by the thick, lush minty greens of the jungle. Monkeys greet us on our porch some mornings, but those are the only animals the armed guards allow in.
When I was little, my mother took me for walks in the jungle. We ignored the uniformed men following close behind, their guns ready to shoot any beast that threatened to harm us. We pretended we were explorers as we ran through the tall plants, searching for gold. In our knapsacks we carried magnifying glasses, a book for identifying the flora, and bananas in case we encountered an elephant that let us feed him.
A loud crack of lightning shatters the sky and I tuck my feet up underneath me. I hear a lion roar as he ushers the other animals to safety. I know this is just my active imagination teasing me, but I play along.
My game is interrupted when a servant places a cup of chai in front of me. A bloom of cardamom and cloves lingers in the air. I suck on the cinnamon stick floating in the cup before taking a long, delicious sip. The steaming, hot liquid tastes sweet as it slides down my throat, warming me from the inside.
My mother turns the corner, scolding me as she approaches. She throws a blanket over me and tucks me into the chair, insisting that otherwise I’ll catch a cold. As she dips her head near me, I smell jasmine and cilantro. Her brow furrows as she continues to chastise me for coming home soaked and barefoot. I try to look sorry but I know she isn’t really angry. She’s never really angry.
Her scowl turns into a smile and I smile back. She is beautiful standing in front of me wearing a white sari. Her hair is black like mine. She wears it to her shoulders with light bangs that frame her oval face.
Mine is slightly rounder and my cheeks are chubbier. Our skin is caramel velvet, like the chai, without a scar, pimple, or wrinkle. When we talk, which is often, we both gesture wildly as though we’re Italian rather than Indian. And when we laugh, the green speckles in our big brown eyes dance. We get many compliments on our eyes, though secretly our lips are our favorite features—lush and pink, the bottom lip a bit plumper than the top.
Neither of us would ever pass up a plate of potatoes or a basket of lucci. And we hate all sports except tennis. She is me and I am her. We are not alike or identical. We are one . . .
My name is Violet Choudhury. I descend from an ancient royal heritage. Since the days when India was the enchanted playground of gods and maharajas, the women in my family were queens—Aiedeo. The men in my family, many of them kings themselves, added wealth and prestige to our name with their courage and honor. But it was my female ancestors who were powerful.
Thousands of years ago, the first of our line, Ananya, stepped onto the golden pathway that would forever bind our destinies. Her blood, fused with the blood of my mother, my grandmother, and the generations of women between us, runs through me. Their power is my inheritance.
“Not since Ananya has anyone else been so powerful,” they whisper when they think I cannot hear.
I reach out to my mother. My fingers skim the top of her hand before it all goes away—the tea, the balcony, the rain. Her. Everything disappears. Only I am left.
* * *
I wake up refreshed, renewed, and ready. I have never dreamed of my mother before and I don’t know if I ever will again. But I do know that last night, she was with me. And if that’s all I’ll ever get of Laya, then I’ll settle for that. For now, I have to put my pain aside and do what I need to do.
The Aiedeo is not about my mother. It’s not about my duty or my responsibility or even about my legacy. It’s about me.
I am an Aiedeo. From now on, I get to decide what that means because I’ve spent too long letting others tell me who I am. I don’t know what those bitches have planned for me, and that scares me shitless. But I will no longer allow my fear to keep me from claiming my power.
Epilogue
“OKAY, SO I GOT IT. Exotic is not cool.” Austin’s lips skim mine and I taste his cinnamon gum.
“Thanks for letting me school you.” I smile.
Luckily, I didn’t have to confess to snooping through Austin’s phone when I was a bhoot to have this very necessary conversation. He actually complimented me on my exotic hair, which gave me the perfect opportunity to talk to him about it.
“You can school me anytime, Miss Choudhury,” Austin says as he swoops me up in one those movie kisses that I love.
After a few more seconds, we finally unlock. “So I’ll see you tonight?” I ask. “Meryl says your friend better be hot because she’s skipping dollar-pitcher night at Stumpy’s to go out with us.”
Convincing Meryl to go out on a double date with me, Austin, and his buddy who was visiting from out of town was harder than any shama I’ve ever had to do.
“He’s waxing his back hair just for her,” Austin jokes, and he heads down the street we both live on.
I laugh and turn the other way to walk home. Inside the house, I’m about to call out for Dede when I remember that she and Mrs. Patel are shopping. My stomach grumbles. I drop my stuff and go into the kitchen.
A witchy-looking woman with a long, sinewy frame and wild white hair that flies all around her is stirring something putrid in a big black pot on my stove. She turns to face me. I stare. Her skin is so black it’s like the light has been sucked out of it. My pulse races. I instantly
know that she’s not of this world. I am so over being a Bhoot Buster that I don’t bother to hide my disgust.
“This is a no-bhoot zone. Get out,” I shout in what I hope sounds like a menacing voice.
“Bhoot?” The woman cackles. She starts creeping toward me.
“Stay back!” I holler.
“You know nothing, Little One.” She sneers as she runs a bony, crooked finger down the side of my face. Her touch feels like a hundred spiders crawling all over me and I shiver. I feel chills down my spine.
“Who the hell are you?” I ask, realizing I sound a lot braver than I feel.
The woman opens her mouth, exposing her black tongue and tiny rotten teeth. I want to run away but I’m frozen in this spot. I watch her mouth getting bigger and bigger by the second. Her tongue turns into dozens of writhing snakes. They lash out and coil themselves around my body and jerk me closer, so close that I can see inside the gigantic gaping hole that is her mouth and smell the rotten flesh it’s made out of.
“I am Ananya!” she roars and swallows me.
Acknowledgments
I think it’s only fitting that after writing a story about badass bitches, I should start the acknowledgments by thanking the badass bitches in my life. To my Mr. Miyagi/Jack Sparrow/Yoda nanny, Dede—your stories shaped me. I listened to every word and I wrote it all down. Too bad dead people can’t get royalties. Mommy and Ita—thank you for being my teachers in this world and beyond.
Tan, Lamb, Suzy, and Bron: Meryl is equal parts of each one of you. Since the days when we were figuring out The Facts of Life to surviving our own 90210 and now navigating the Seven Kingdoms, thank you for always believing and believing in my stories. To the rest of my soul sisters: Venla, Alisa, Rena, Shadia, and Liisa—thank you for a lifetime of unconditional love, unconditional encouragement, and unconditional wine.