“Someone’s here,” Stacia whispers. “Hurry.”
We dig hastily, not doing the job we had wanted to do. I feel far less magical and powerful than I did moments ago. My breath is caught in my throat. What if we get in trouble? How would we explain ourselves? “Sorry, sir, we were casting a spell”? Once the hole is deep enough, we drop the peanut butter container in and quickly cover it with dirt. Stacia pats the mound with the back of her shovel.
“Hey!” a man’s voice shouts. “Who’s there?” The beam from his flashlight is on us, and he is walking quickly in our direction. We jump up and begin to run. We run, laughing, all the way to the park three blocks away, where all the stoners get stoned during lunch break.
The park at night is empty.
Stacia and I sit on the swings. The waning moon above us lights up the playground, and beside me, Stacia sighs.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t able to stop him. I heard him talking to his friends; I knew last night was the night. But …” She drifts off, then shrugs.
“It’s okay. I’m sorry no one tried to stop him for you,” I say.
“I wouldn’t have listened either,” she admits. I feel heavy at the thought of her, carrying her secret alone. At least I’ve had her to talk to. She’s had weeks with no one to confide in.
We rock back and forth on the swings, but slowly, not like little kids pretending to fly.
“Are you going to be okay?” Stacia’s chin nearly touches her chest. She is looking down toward her own legs, but I wonder what she is really seeing.
I still see myself on the ground in the dirt. I still feel the pressure of his hand, the pain, like being split open. In that, I feel like something was released, something dangerous and angry. I don’t know if I can control it. But I can’t tell Stacia that.
“I’ll be okay,” I tell her.
Can’t sleep. I close my eyes and all I can see is a cage against the night sky. Stars twinkle behind the bars of the cage like some false hope, bright and unattainable as the moon. Unattainable as a dead father. Or my past. Or my future. There’s a pounding in my head, a slow rhythm like a death march. I reach my hand up behind my ear and twirl a finger around a small hunk of hair. And I yank. Until my closed eyes see only red. Stupid girl, the pounding in my head recites. Pathetic. Prick tease. Little bitch. Waste of time.
Finally I sleep. When I wake up, clumps of my hair lay scattered like chameleons on the floor.
The next morning, Drake isn’t in English, and by the time I get to class, a construction paper get-well card is being circulated. Olive shows it to the girl in the seat in front of me.
“Zoe, can you sign this for Drake? He was in a car accident last night.”
“Oh my God.” My hands fly to my face and a lump of guilt lodges itself in my throat. “Is he hurt?”
“He’s not not-hurt,” Olive says curtly, snatching the card from Zoe and bringing it to my desk. “You should sign this, since you’re, like, sleeping with him or whatever.”
“Ew, I am not,” I say, harsher than I meant, and as I push the card from my desk, it bends and crumples.
“Oh my God,” Olive says, trying to flatten the card as she gapes at me. “You are such a bitch. He was nothing but nice to you, because he felt sorry for you. I can’t believe what a bitch you are.” All around me, people glare. I grab my bag and spend first period in the bathroom.
Leaning against the stall, I think of that weird picture I drew yesterday in class, the one with the spell. I thought it was silly. I thought it was laughable. But this is so not funny. I killed frogs. I put a boy in the hospital. Cheyenne was right about me. I am a monster. Drake split my body down the middle with his fingers and the old Lacy flew out. Demon girl. Fierce bird. There is no point in trying to be good anymore. No point in trying to be like Anna. It is my mother’s blood that churns through my veins. Anna is soft and sweet, like a stuffed animal. My mother and I are all shit and edges and barbed wire. We are capable of pure evil. You don’t want to get too close to us.
At snack, Stacia grabs me and pulls me to a quiet corner. Her eyes are wide with fear. “We did it,” she says. “We caused the accident with our spell.”
“No,” I say. “It was a binding spell. It couldn’t hurt him. It’s just to keep him from hurting others.”
“What if it’s keeping him from doing that by taking him out of the equation?”
I shake my head. “Magic doesn’t work that way,” I tell her. I can tell it doesn’t help. I should tell her the truth, that I alone caused the accident. That with my own quiet spells, I turn everything to shit.
My mom gets out of bed from time to time, to make big pots of coffee or sit in the backyard, her long fingers trailing in the murky pool water. Her boss called a couple of nights ago, left an angry message on the phone. “Don’t bother coming back, princess.” My mother scowled and showed the phone her middle finger.
I leave her alone. I learned my lesson years ago, when she’d stop going to work and stay in bed, and I’d lie beside her, brushing her sweaty black hair with my fingertips. “I’m sorry you’re sad,” I’d say. But she would just roll away from me. I’d perform puppet plays using angels and monsters made from socks, and she’d tell me to get out, or pretend to snore. Once she threw a glass of water at me.
Who cares? I’m as tough as she is. A fierce bird, sharp beak, gilded wings. I don’t need her to be my mommy.
It is Sunday, and I have invited my two friends, Stacia and Martin, to the house for breakfast. I may be a monster, but at least I have good friends. With that, there is something good in me still. My mom is lying in her bed watching cartoons, and every once in a while she bursts out laughing. Stacia and Martin sit as far from each other as possible, eyeing each other warily. But I’m not worried. They are both good people and they are both my friends. I know they will like each other.
I serve them cherry Pop-Tarts and kiwi strawberry Snapple, and we settle onto a blanket on the floor in the living room to eat. “I like your earrings,” Martin finally says.
“Thanks,” Stacia says, fingering the ’80s-style miniature lightning bolts that hang down from her ears like chandeliers. “I like your orange socks,” she says, referencing the ones he wears like gloves.
There now.
On Monday morning, Olive and their friends aren’t under the cherry tree. Maybe they can sense the intentions buried beneath the soil.
In the hallway, people look at me funny. I smile, but most everyone averts their eyes. One girl smiles at me a little, like she feels sorry for me. A group of girls see me coming, giggle, and turn to walk the other way. I close my eyes. The slut rumor is circulating, I guess. I head straight for English.
When I get there, Olive is already at her seat. “He has the number right there on his phone,” she’s saying. “It’s not a rumor; it comes straight from her own mother.” When she sees me, she stops talking and purses her lips like she’s been caught at something and finds it funny. Oops, her expression says. Busted, but oh well!
My breath catches in my throat and I shiver. What is she saying about me? Is this about my mother? Martin comes in and his eyes find me, and he smiles at me the same sympathetic way as that girl in the hall. I want to go grab him and take him outside and find out what is going on, but I’m afraid of how it would look. That it would worsen whatever it is they’re saying.
The bell rings and I try to breathe. Whatever it is they’re saying, I have to make it through this period. I take a piece of paper from my bag and draw lavender stalks. Then lightning bolts like the ones from Stacia’s earrings. Finally, Mrs. Kesey comes in, clutching a maroon-colored book in her hand, “Hey, guys,” she says, hoisting herself atop her desk and holding the book against her baby bump. “Sorry I’m late. I thought I was out of the morning sickness phase, but I’ve been hugging the porcelain goddess all morning long. Anyway.” She makes a flourishing motion with her hand. “This is The Catcher in the Rye. I read it when I was your age and it changed my life. When yo
u read it, try not to think of it as a school assignment but your priest, therapist, and best friend, all rolled into one.”
The next ten minutes are spent with us checking out our own maroon books. Then Mrs. Kesey returns our papers on archetypes, then a spelling quiz. The minutes tick by like the slow death march of tiny toy soldiers. Left … left … left … Olive checks her tattoo periodically. Yup, still there.
Finally the bell rings and everyone shuffles out. Mrs. Kesey also kind of pushes her way through the door. “Sorry, kids,” she says. “Time to go revisit my breakfast.” Megan Chan glances back at me, then whispers something to Olive and they crack up. Drake’s friend Jacob leans in to hear what they are saying. I grab Martin and pull him out into the hallway.
“What is it?” I ask.
“It happens. Some women get nausea in the third trimester just because the baby’s so big.”
“Not that.” I punch him, whispering fiercely. “What are they saying about me?”
“Oh, that. It’s just a stupid rumor,” he says, and I feel a pang. Martin doesn’t have any friends aside from me, and even he knows what they’re saying.
“What is it?” I ask again. I hold my necklace in my palm as it heats up.
Martin looks over my shoulder like he might try to make a run for it. Then he sighs. “They’re saying Olive went to visit Drake in the hospital yesterday after school and she was playing with his phone and she saw your mom’s name in his call log. So she was teasing him and he told her it wasn’t you that called, it was your mom. But he wouldn’t tell her anything, so she waited until he fell asleep, and then she listened to his messages. And there was one from your mom from a few nights ago. She said on the message that she knew you’d snuck out of the house to be with him, and she called him to tell him to be careful with you. I guess … what they’re saying is … that your mom told him on his voice mail that you’re crazy. Olive listened to it a bunch of times.”
I exhale slowly. “Look, it’s just a rumor,” Martin says. “No one’s going to believe it, not really —”
“It’s fine.” I hear how my voice sounds, sharp and mean, but I turn away from him anyway. Olive could have made the whole thing up. But why would she make it so detailed? My mom’s name and phone number on his caller log. It could have been me, using the landline. But I never called Drake, not once.
By break, they are saying I am fresh out of an insane asylum — that’s why I came to the school midsemester.
By lunch I was receiving shock therapy, and I bit the guy who was administering the shocks. Martin and Stacia sit beside me in the plaza. No one is under the cherry tree. “I guess the spell didn’t work,” Stacia says.
I bite my lip. “Maybe it did. Olive started the rumor, not Drake.”
“What are you talking about?” Martin asks.
“Nothing,” we both say quickly. Stacia must think I’m such a baby, messing around with spells and magic. Unless she believes the rumors and thinks I’m a raging lunatic.
All day long I feel eyes boring into the back of my head, people judging me, thinking their mean thoughts. I can’t stand it, and I’m literally itching to get out. I scratch at my arms. I scratch at my burn mark. In the bathroom I pull out bits of my hair. In the old days I would have cut school, and I don’t know what is keeping me here now. Some loyalty to that good girl I became, I guess. To that girl in Chico with her basket of herbs and sweet-smelling tinctures and pouches. But that girl has been replaced by a monster. And now everybody knows it.
I don’t wait around after school to hear in what ways the rumor has evolved. Maybe I’m like the guy from The Silence of the Lambs, maybe I’m making a coat of human skin. I go to grab my bike, but the lock is stuck. Around me people wait for me to move so they can get to their own bikes. I can feel them watching me, waiting to see what I’m going to do, who I’m going to bite. Finally, I get it unstuck and I nearly tear it from the bike rack, desperate to get away.
At home, I check Cheyenne’s bed, but she’s actually gotten out of it. She’s not in the house, and she’s not in the yard. I go into my room and play my father’s guitar fast and furious. I strum at it hard. Maybe the strings will break.
My cell chirps, probably some jerk prank call, but the ID says Anna. I pick up without thinking. After asking me how I am (“Fine”), she launches right in.
“I want to come and visit,” she says. “So do the Treehuggers. And Shell and Mechelle. We all want to take a road trip in the bus. Do you think Cheyenne would mind? We could meet you somewhere if she would.”
I imagine them here. Anna. My best friends. But then they would see what I am. Monster. They would see who I am here. Crazy girl, mean girl, the girl I’ve tried so hard to stow away.
“I don’t think so,” I whisper. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“No?” Anna sounds confused. Simple Anna. She is cotton candy, not barbed wire and steel wool. “Well, we really miss you.”
I say nothing nothing nothing.
“Is everything okay there?”
“Yes.” No no no.
“Lacy, I’m coming there. Something’s wrong. I can be there in an hour.”
“No, look. I’m just having a bad day. I’m being a jerk and I’m sorry.” I know I don’t sound sorry, though.
“Oh. Well, that’s okay. Everybody has bad days.” Her optimistic tone makes me even more furious. I envision myself punching through walls. I envision my father knocking down the door. His rage my rage.
“I have to go,” I say, practically choking into the phone. My vision is a channel on TV that doesn’t come in. I put my head between my knees and try to breathe, but all I see are burning cows in a field. Maybe those kids are right, maybe I am crazy. It has been a long time since I’ve cut myself. But I have catalogued the drawers in the kitchen. I know which knives are the sharpest.
I take the paring knife and sit on the floor. I press the knife into my heel until blood pools. The fear and frustration releases along with my blood. Now I won’t be able to take a single step without being reminded of what an awful person I am.
I remember when my mom started messing everything up. Robbing houses, getting caught. It was the year I started kindergarten. I had just moved in with her full-time because the court had named her the primary custodial parent. After that she kept having to go back to court, the first time for arson, the next for petty theft. For a while she kept eluding the law. I remember the babysitters who watched me during her court dates. One of them told me if I ate all my peas, there would be a surprise for me at the bottom of my Princess Jasmine bowl. I ate all the peas, but there was no surprise, only the picture of Princess Jasmine with Raja, and I already knew they were there. We’d watch old reruns of Little House on the Prairie, and I’d imagine my mom before some crown-wearing puppet king like the ones on the TV shows I watched every morning. I imagined the way she’d appeal to the puppet king, the way he’d fall to his knees in mercy. And maybe he did. Until, suddenly, when I was eight, she went to prison for three months and I was sent for the first time to live with Anna and my dad.
I don’t remember much of that time. I remember crying a lot. Missing her, longing for her until my entire body hurt. After she got out, we were allowed supervised visitation. We’d meet at McDonald’s and she would just stare at me while I ate my hamburger, chewing slowly, trying to make our time together last. I hated that it had to end. I hated saying good-bye. I wanted to live with my mom, to bask in her glow, her beauty so piercing and dangerous. And eventually I got my wish. She got joint custody, and she took my dad to court for child support, and she won that too. But that was when she changed in other ways. She started taking pills that made her crazy and deranged; she’d lock me in the bathroom without food. Of course it wasn’t the first time she’d done crazy mean things to me. There was the time when I was little that she tied me to a tree. The time she burned my wrist with a cigarette because I was asking too many questions. There was the time she lit our apartment co
mplex on fire.
We moved again. All over Sacramento, off Stockton Boulevard, Florin, Oak Park. We must have moved six times the year I was twelve. I took to stealing. I started with Cheyenne’s cigarettes, but then it was jewelry from my classmates and lip gloss and magnets from whatever stores we went into.
And then she disappeared. I came home from school one day and she was gone. That was when I started living off beans, salami, ketchup. Finally, I called my dad, who stayed the night and took me home to Chico the following morning. We kept waiting for her to come back for me, but she never did.
In the meantime, she kept the child support that was being garnished from my dad’s wages. Every month, four hundred dollars came out of his pay and went into her bank account. I heard my dad tell Anna that he’d had a huge argument with the people at work who filled out the papers for his paycheck, and they said they couldn’t stop without a court order. We couldn’t get her to return it because we didn’t know where she was. We couldn’t take her to court for the same reason.
I would lie under my moon garden and look up at the glowing white flowers against the night sky. I thought of the sleep sachet I’d made for Anna, the one stuffed with hellebore and nightshade. I thought about the sugar I put in her perfume. It hurt my own feelings when I snubbed Anna now. I would say mean things to her and she would shrug them off, but I couldn’t. I went inside. I saw how dark and mean it was in there. I didn’t want that anymore. I didn’t want to be the person who burned butterflies. I wanted to be the person who worshiped them.
It wasn’t easy to change. I started by playing the role. I met friends at my school, Shell and Mechelle, and I complimented them on their clothes, but only when I meant it. I told them, “I’m so lucky to have you as my friends,” and it didn’t take long for me to believe it. And then it became the truest thing.
When My Heart Was Wicked Page 10