A Shimmer of Angels

by Lisa M Basso

  Beside me on the step, Allison’s paint practically screamed at me. I was wasting time, in the hopes of being able to get up and walk out the front door without any more angelic hallucinations.

  This is what happens when you take yourself off your meds, Ray.

  I could go to Allison, though that could be risky. She could be upset enough to lash out at me. I twined my fingers around each other, the OCD taking over while I thought. I knew how she felt; I’d been there just this morning. And at lunch. And in History class. It was one of the worst things in the world, feeling all alone. I had to let her know she wasn’t alone, to prove to myself there was nothing to be afraid of, and possibly ask her why she’d painted a figure with wings.

  I forced myself down the last flight of stairs and into the basement.

  The dull buzz of the florescent lighting greeted me before I stepped out of the stairwell. Many of the lights had burned out, leaving the basement in half-lit abandon. Beneath the haphazard, flickering bulbs, the unused lockers that lined the walls cast strange shadows in the corners.

  I crept passed Ms. Morehouse’s office, where fully-working lights shone through the bottom of her door and dispelled the shadows. Explaining to her that I was tip-toeing around the basement because Allison Woodward had drawn an angel and ran out of class didn’t sound like a winning way to end my day. I edged past the office and down the hall.

  The footprints were almost impossible to see now. By squinting, I was able to spot one last, faded paint smudge outside the girls’ bathroom. A chill coated my skin.

  Guess I’m not the only one who runs to the bathroom to hide.

  I rapped lightly on the doorframe. “Allison?”

  No answer. I pressed my ear to the door. No noise.

  I pushed against the weight of the door. It stuck a little at first, then opened jerkily, as if the hinges weren’t lined up properly. Pink-tiled walls, a silvery basin sink, and three cream-colored stalls made the bathroom identical to the one on the third floor. Except for the liquid oozing beneath a stall door. It crept toward me in a puddle of bright, bold crimson.

  Chapter Seven

  A heart-stopping shriek rose up my throat. I took two steps, then fell to my knees by the stall. My jeans sopped up the thick, warm liquid. So much of it.

  From behind me, someone tugged my arm. I screamed, twisting and pulling myself free. I scrambled back against the wall, my chest filling with too-quick breaths. Ms. Morehouse wrenched me from the bathroom and dragged me out into the hallway.

  She yanked a cell phone from her pocket and punched in three numbers, her hands shaking with the same convulsions I fought. One last beep and she handed me the phone before rushing back onto the bathroom.

  “Nine-one-one. What is your emergency?”

  “There’s blood. In the bathroom. A girl—she needs help!”

  “Can you tell me what happened and where you are?” The man’s calm voice helped me a little.

  “I don’t know what happened. She’s in the girls’ bathroom—in the basement. San Francisco. Stratford Independence High School. One, uh, one twenty Ellis Street.” My hands shook almost as much as my voice. I blinked and found myself on my knees.

  “I’m sending a response team to you. They should be there soon. Try to remain calm. Do you know where she’s hurt?”

  “No.” I tried to stand. Collapsed, my knees liquid beneath me.

  I needed to go back in there. To help Allison and tell the operator what I could. But I couldn’t move.

  The calm man’s voice hummed through the phone, but my vision tunneled and my arm became too weak to hold the phone up. It tumbled to the floor.

  I stared at the phone. Blood. It covered my hands, filled the lines of my palms. Deep red, almost-brown. It was everywhere. The bloody imprint of my hand, every small line and crease, had transferred to Ms. Morehouse’s phone. Wide circles of it had sopped into the knees of my jeans. I gagged, scrambling back, desperate to run from the feel of it. But I couldn’t escape it, no matter how far I ran. Warm and sticky, the blood soaked through my jeans, onto my hands. Into my skin. I clutched my head and rocked. The drying blood matted into my hair. My thoughts jumbled in red.

  Ms. Morehouse emerged from the bathroom an eternity later, red staining her hands and the front of her shirt. Tears dripped down her pale cheeks, tacking the ends of her bob to her chin. Her movements were as languid as the pain in her eyes.

  She sat against the lockers beside me. “Are you okay, Rayna?” She didn’t look at me, her stare fixed on the door. Her voice was high, but whisper soft. Disconnected.

  Was I okay? That was a question I couldn’t answer without repercussions.

  “Allison?” I managed to squeak out.

  Ms. Morehouse shook her head. “Is the ambulance coming?”

  I glanced at the phone again. The call was probably still connected. I nodded.

  “Good.” She pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her trembling arms around them.

  Shivers tore through me. I forced myself to look at her face.

  I used to room with a girl on the inside who’d been stabbed to death with a spork. I knew those tears well.

  ***

  I stared out the half-inch the policeman had cracked the window for me, wishing it would let in more fresh air. The car reeked of doughnuts, stale coffee, and soiled leather. It made me feel confined, like I was locked up again. The sheen in my eyes reflected off the window’s glass.

  A white car pulled up in front of my abandoned police car. The man who stepped out closed the door and placed a brown Stetson over his dark hair. He turned in a half-circle, surveying the group of fifty or so students, faculty, and onlookers drawn by the yellow police tape. His eyes stopped on me.

  When the police had first arrived, they’d questioned me in the basement. Once the space became overcrowded with officers, they moved us near the front door. As soon as Ms. Morehouse had confirmed I was the one who’d found Allison, they’d put me in the car. Told me it’d be quieter there, away from the stares and flashes of camera phones, but it didn’t take a genius to know that when they’d brought Ms. Morehouse back inside, she’d shown them my weighty file.

  Sickness rumbled in my empty stomach.

  Another car stopped in the middle of the street. A woman in her early forties ran out of the passenger seat, wailing, her face twisted with more pain than I think I could ever bear. A tall, stoic man with thinning brown hair left the driver seat and joined her, his movements slower. She cried while his red eyes looked too far away, his hand absently clenching the buttons on his shirt. Allison’s parents. Chills that had nothing to do with the surrounding fog and cool air had me clutching my jacket closed.

  The police shuffled the crowd farther back, and the man in the Stetson helped Allison’s mother inside. Mr. Woodward slowly followed.

  Tears welled in my eyes, and I looked away. I didn’t want to think about Allison. About what I’d seen. Otherwise, I’d lose it too. I stroked the ends of my hair and tried to wipe it from my mind. Think about something else. Anything else.

  The painting. Not exactly a safer subject, but the only one that could compete with the image of her body lifted onto the gurney in the bathroom, wrists sliced into a bloody mess. … I took a deep breath and forced my thoughts to the painting. To the dark wings she’d drawn. I’d never seen them look anything but bright, attracting the sun the way they do. Of course the painting had nothing to do with my hallucinations. Angels weren’t an uncommon theme in art. No way her painting had anything to do with her death. Thinking they might, even for a second, proved just how crazy I was again.

  I clutched my backpack, eager for dinnertime, when I could take my meds again. I needed my dinner meds.

  Outside, Stetson man reemerged from the building with Mrs. Pheffer. A uniformed officer trailed behind them with a ripped canvas painting in a large, clear bag marked “evidence.”

  Stetson man stepped aside to allow the medics room to carry a gurney out
the front door. The matte black bag strapped to the top must have held Allison’s body. The crowd watched in stunned silence as the EMTs loaded the body into the ambulance. A single head in the crowd turned to look at me. I blinked at the sight of the gold rays that fired out from behind him. The new kid.

  I cringed at the sound of the wheels cracking against the brick stairs.

  I quickly turned, hands over my eyes, and lowered my head against the front seat.

  No, no, no, no! Not again.

  The ambulance doors clicked closed. It wasn’t him. It couldn’t be. I had to check again, so I used the ambulance’s distraction to peer at the crowd again. Not a single glimmer of gold in sight. He was gone. Or he was never there in the first place.

  Stetson man exchanged keys with a uniformed officer and headed my way. He tipped his hat back and slipped into the driver’s seat. His cologne reminded me of something my dad had worn—only on Father’s Day, and only before Mom’s death. Its scent was musky and all kinds of god-awful.

  He checked his leather-bound notepad. “Rayna.” Our eyes met in the rearview mirror. His were the color of cinnamon. “I’m Detective Carl Rhodes.” His tone wasn’t nearly as firm as I’d expected. It was as if he knew he was talking to someone fragile. Breakable. He turned, looping his arm behind the front passenger seat, and arched his brow. “Why don’t you tell me what you saw.”

  So I did. I left out the part about the wings in Allison’s painting, but he still watched me carefully, as if he knew there was something about me that wasn’t quite right. He took down a few notes, but stayed quiet until I was done. It didn’t take me long. There wasn’t much to tell.

  When I finished, he said, “According to your records, you have no classes in the basement. Why were you down there? Were you following Allison?”

  “Allison’s paintings are—were,” I corrected myself, my voice dipping lower, “beautiful, light, even her drawings … she worked with pastels. We did a project together once. The girl refused to even outline in black. And then today … I saw her painting, how dark it was. How … hopeless. And I know what it’s like to feel like that. When she ran out of class, well, I did the same thing earlier today. It wasn’t my place to check on her, but … I thought if anyone could help …” I shook my head, tears welling in my eyes again. “I … I didn’t know.” It was all I could say.

  Suicide.

  Poor Allison. No one deserved that end. My heart ached for her family.

  I’d seen girls get better. She could have gotten help.

  I wrung my hands together and forced myself to look out the window, to look at anything but the detective.

  “If you haven’t yet told me everything, now would be a good time to say it.”

  “I told you what I saw. Everything.” Or maybe I hadn’t. They didn’t know I picked today to see a boy with wings.

  What if …

  Stop. It.

  I mashed the heels of my hands against my eyelids, trying to blot out the insanity tumbling around my head. The detective looked me over. “Officers tried to get a hold of your father, but since there was no answer—”

  “He’s home! He’s probably working; that’s why he didn’t answer the phone. But he always gets home before we get out of school. It’s not far from here. Please, I’d really like to go home.”

  He started the car and pulled out into traffic. “Fine. We’ll stop by. If he’s not there, I have to take you to the station until an adult can come pick you up. Where do you live?”

  “2036 Sacramento Street. Across the street from Lafayette Park.”

  I squirmed in my seat, desperate to get home and strip off my bloody clothes. I scratched at my skin. Allison’s blood. It would be my undoing, not the hallucinations. The hallucinations of a boy with wings. My body begged me to rock, to let the insanity in again. It was knocking at my door, scratching at walls I’d erected around it. But I couldn’t give in, couldn’t let one hellish day implode everything I worked toward. I bit back the urge to tear through my skin with my fingernails. I forced my eyes on the road, breathing deep and erratic, sure, but still breathing. I just had to get through this. Just keep breathing.

  Chapter Eight

  Our house is a Victorian, the color of a typical, San Francisco sky. Most days, the gray matched the mood of its inhabitants.

  “Home sweet home,” I murmured as the detective parked the cruiser at the curb and circled the car to open my door for me. I was almost alone. Alone I could break down. A little. Only a little.

  We climbed the front stairs, each side covered with my potted flowers and plants. Pale pink and soft lavender asters interspersed with the more substantial sage-green, fuzzy lamb’s ear, while coral bells added height and brought in traditional fall colors. My attempt at making this place feel more like a real home and less like a stop between psychiatric wards. I dragged in a deep breath of earthiness. None of the flowers held much in the way of floral scents, but the moist dirt always reminded me of home.

  The forest-green door swung open before we could knock.

  “What did you do now?” Laylah glanced at the detective, then glared at me, like I was the reason for everything wrong in her life. Her superior smirk cut her glare short, the kind of artificial pull of the lips only a sibling could give.

  Even with her intolerable attitude, my twelve-year-old sister was nothing less than beautiful. Her eyes favored Dad, reminding me of the Nikko Blue hydrangeas I used to tend when I was locked up, and her blonde hair shone just like our mother’s used to. No hair products, just healthy, naturally shiny hair.

  Detective Rhodes followed me into the foyer, closing the door behind us. To the right, the living room TV buzzed with life. In direct contrast, the dining room in front of us sat as unused as the day we’d moved in.

  The smug look on Laylah’s face dropped off, replaced by alarm. Her gaze fell to my blood-soaked knees. “Oh my God, Ray. What did you do?” She grabbed my hands, pushed up my sleeves, and inspected my wrists.

  “Miss Evans is fine. I need to speak with your parents. Are they here?”

  I yanked my arms from Laylah’s grip. How could she think I would do that? And yet, I wanted to crawl into a corner for being responsible for putting that look on her face again.

  “My mother’s dead,” she said in a flat voice. I winced. “Dad!” She shouted through the dining room and into the kitchen behind it, then spun around and returned to the living room, where I could hear her friends whispering. Her weird, Musketeer clones dressed alike, even on the weekends, and never seemed to have an original thought or homes of their own, since they were always here.

  Dad emerged from his office behind the kitchen. When he wasn’t at work, he spent most of his time there, studying, working on side projects, and escaping. His tired-as-a-zombie look changed the moment he saw the blood on my clothes and the detective by my side.

  “Mr. Evans?”

  Dad moved faster than I’d seen in a long time. He wrapped his arms around me so tight, even my pancreas hurt.

  I hadn’t been fond of hugs since Mom’s death. It’s Dad’s form of group therapy. When one of us was caught crying—grieving—it was group-hug time. It didn’t matter where we were: living room, hallways, kitchen, even the middle of the mall. Hugs don’t make me feel any better, and they wouldn’t bring her back, so what’s the point? Hugs are torture.

  Maybe torture was the wrong word, but Mom used to say, “Go with your gut.” And my gut was telling me to run the other direction.

  “Are you okay?” He released me. I could breathe again. “What happened?”

  “I’m fine, Dad.” I hedged the truth, hoping the detective’s presence would distract Dad enough not to notice.

  “Detective Carl Rhodes.” He tucked a bag he’d grabbed from the car under his arm and removed his Stetson with one hand, offering his other to my dad. They shook. “We tried both of your contact numbers, but couldn’t get through,” Detective Rhodes filled in.

  I would have rat
her crawled into a hole than be here for this conversation.

  Dad stuttered for a moment. “My youngest was on the house line, and I was on a business call.” His voice was racked with guilt. “What the hell happened?”

  “Can we speak privately, Mr. Evans?” Detective Rhodes asked.

  “Of course.” Dad gestured toward his office.

  “Rayna.” The detective handed me the plastic zip bag tucked under his arm. It looked large enough to hold a Cocker Spaniel. “I’ll need your clothes for evidence.”

  Dad spun his wedding ring around on his finger and cast an uneasy glance at me. Worry wrinkled his brow. And I knew Dad was seeing me the same as he always had: as a victim, as poor, crazy Rayna.

  I accepted the bag. It’s just standard procedure, I told myself. It was a suicide, and you discovered the body. They can’t think you had anything to do with it. I jiggled the bag in my hand nervously, trying hard to believe my inner self’s logic. My shaking knees called me a liar.

  I blew through the living room as fast as I could, passing Laylah and her two friends dominating the couch. Their eyes were glazed, their mouths wide, as they took in MTV’s newest pop-princess.

  I fumbled up the stairs and burst into the bathroom. Instead of being alone with my thoughts, I riffled through my backpack for my iPod and jammed it into the small speaker Laylah and I argued over every morning, cranking up the most upbeat album I could find. I turned the shower knobs, letting a few drops from the showerhead wet the soil of my favorite orchid before I moved the purple phalaenopsis back onto the windowsill.

  My jeans stuck to me in the places where Allison’s blood had dried. I sat on the brown, fuzzy toilet seat cover and peeled them off, then shoved them into the evidence bag. He didn’t expect me to include my backpack, did he? He’d said “clothes.” Nothing about my backpack, though it, too, was bloodstained. I didn’t want to have to ask Dad for another backpack. I’d cost him enough already.