Hell's Belles

by Alison Claire

  “Are you doing that?” I looked to her, but I couldn’t be angry. I felt a peculiar peace spread through my body like everything was okay. It was similar to when I had taken an Ativan or a Xanax.

  “I just want you to have clarity for a moment. I promise I don’t like to use my abilities on other Belles unless it’s absolutely necessary. You helped me and so now I want to help you.”

  Calista calls her human heroin.

  My body relaxed.

  “Good. Thank you, Josephine. Emma, do you want to get something to drink? Maybe some food?” Virginia’s voice was slow. Normally I would be annoyed with her placation, but I couldn’t find the energy in me to care.

  “I’m kind of tired.” I slowly stood up, using Josephine as leverage. “I honestly don’t really know what else to do right now.”

  “No one expects anything, Em. This is a lot. I know you feel completely alone, but you’re not. Trust me when I say that its better you found out while here with us. There’s never a way you will ever be alone again. You’re a Belle. Belles ride this wave together.” Josephine took my hand, “And now, let’s get you to your room.”

  When we got to my room, both Calista and Aleta were there, sitting on my bed.

  “Guys, please. I just want to be by myself,” I said, walking past them into the bathroom. In the mirror my reflection looked flushed.

  “I need to talk to you. For just a moment.” Aleta stood in the doorway.

  “Don’t do anything to me. Josephine already calmed me down. I’d really like to own my own mind for a little while, okay?”

  “I promise; I won’t go there. We don’t use our powers on one another unless completely necessary. Only in extreme emergencies.” Aleta stepped forward. “We can talk alone. Calista has to go speak to Virginia now.”

  “I do?” Calista said. She still sat on the bed. She’d wrapped a sarong around her waist and was wearing a pair of Jack Rogers sandals.

  “Yes. You haven’t earned Emma’s trust. You need to go.”

  Calista rolled her eyes and stood. “Fine.”

  “You too, Josephine. Let her feel how she needs to feel.”

  Josephine looked at Aleta. “I don’t want her to hurt.”

  “Sometimes we have to hurt. It helps us sort out what’s going on. Go.” Aleta had a presence that did not play around. Neither girl fought her, although Josephine looked forlorn to leave me.

  As soon as the door shut behind them, Aleta sat back down on my bed.

  “So what do you want?” I asked, walking over to the oversized chair next to the window. I glanced out at the backyard. Some young guy was skimming the pool with a net while wearing headphones.

  “I want to answer the questions that Virginia won’t.”

  “I have too many.”

  “Of course you do. Who wouldn’t?”

  I glared at her. “What do you know about me?”

  Aleta looked surprised. I assumed this wasn’t something that happened often.

  “Truthfully, I know everything about you.”

  “Like what? And since when? And exactly how? I want no more ambiguity. I want to know everything.”

  Aleta cleared her throat. “Well, that’s fair enough. I obviously know where you’re from. And not just geographically. I mean, I know who your parents are and who their parents were. I know your sister was the one who everyone assumed would be special. I know that you liked to stay out of her light, that you were more comfortable in the dark. You didn’t even need a night light as a child.” Aleta smiled at the memory and then continued.

  “You once healed your favorite elementary school teacher of breast cancer, but you never knew it. She now has five grandchildren that she sees every day. They live in Santa Barbara. Your mother used to read you A Wrinkle in Time before bed. You would dream of tesseracts and time travel. I know that when you first found out your family had died you wished tesseracts were real so you could go back in time and stop what happened. Your favorite food is steak, but your mom is a semi-vegetarian, so you always stayed away from it out of respect for her. One time you went skinny dipping with your friends at summer camp. You thought you heard someone in the woods watching and you always assumed it was your imagination. But it wasn’t. It was me.”

  I was crying. My heart was going to break. She continued.

  “One time when you were four years old, you were separated from your mother and sister at the mall. You went into a Nordstrom’s and asked the woman at the make-up counter to help you find them. That was me. Not that I actually worked there, I didn’t. I just told you that. Your mother tried to make me accept dinner at your home for helping her find you, but I declined.

  “I’d like to show you something. It will require my powers. I’d like to pull a memory from your mind and let you re-live it. In 3D, like virtual reality.” I must have looked skeptical. I was still processing the insanity into which I’d been thrust. “It’s a good memory, even better than you know or can imagine. May I?” I nodded.

  Aleta furrowed her brow slightly and suddenly the entire room changed. Lights, colors, sounds; everything was different in an instant. “When you were seven years old you went to a Children’s Network Telethon with your grandma in Durham,” Aleta explained. “There was a faith healer there, a complete scam artist. People had driven thousands of miles to see him to try to heal their sick children. He healed none of them but you healed six. You played with them in a bouncy house. When you would accidentally fall on them you felt bad and that empathy surfaced through your skin and into their bone marrow. Literally. Unfortunately, the scam artist got all the credit.”

  As Aleta spoke, I was transported back in time to the bounce house. It was more vivid than a memory – I could hear laughter and feel small hands and feet against me. Somehow, Aleta had entered my thoughts and created a 3D interactive theater, for lack of a better term. I saw the pallid little girl with the pale blue eyes and the pink headscarf huddled in the corner. I remembered locking eyes with her and rolling my way over to her corner to shield her from some more energetic kids who were playing too roughly for her.

  “That’s Lainee McGee,” Aleta said. Evidently, Aleta was experiencing the same vivid replay of my life that I was. “She had bone cancer. They’d stopped treatment for her, all that was left was trying to ease her pain. Lainee had been given four-to-six weeks to live. She’s now in her second year at Stanford now. She plans to become an oncologist. Every one of the kids in here with you, or who were in here with you, is alive and well now.”

  Aleta walked over to me. I was a complete mess. She wrapped her arms around me. The bouncy house and the children flickered and faded away. I was returned to the present, in shock.

  “Emma,” she said. “I could tell you everything that has ever happened to you. We could rehash it all, but right now it would only bring you pain and regret. When Josephine found her way here it took her years to come to grips with it. It was the same for me. Being special doesn’t mean you’re better off or better than. It is the greatest of weights to carry. You can never carry it alone. You will never have to, Emma. You don’t know this, but I have been keeping watch. You don’t know me at all, but I know you very well. And what I know is that you’re not just special because of what you can do. You are special because of who you are.”

  I looked up at Aleta, my cheeks streaked with tears. “But I don’t even know who that is anymore. I have no idea who I am. I feel like I have the opposite of amnesia. It’s like an overload of information and I still have no idea how it’s possible.”

  Chapter 14

  On Sunday I slept. Fiona had food brought to my room on a sterling tray, but I couldn’t touch it. I was emotionally exhausted. I turned off my iPhone and pulled the four-hundred-dollar duvet over my head.

  Various people knocked on my door that day. Virginia came by around lunch time wanting to know if I wanted to go with her and the other girls to the beach. About mid-afternoon when they were back, Josephine stopped by to see if I
wanted to go to a movie. At dinner Fiona brought another tray and Aleta tried to convince me to let her join me in my room.

  I said no to every single request. I wasn’t hungry and I didn’t want any company.

  I tried to read but my head was somewhere else. After re-reading the same page in my Flannery O’Connor book at least six times, I gave up and decided to go back to bed.

  At around seven that evening, Virginia was back. Her knock was aggressive.

  “I don’t want to do anything. I don’t want to eat, and I especially don’t want to talk!” I called to the door.

  “I’m not asking to come in. I’m telling you that I’m coming in.”

  Before I could argue, she was in my room. She was wearing a long silk kaftan (What was it with her and kaftans?) and her hair was piled up on top of her head.

  “What?” I asked sharply from under the duvet.

  “I wanted to remind you that you have school tomorrow.” Virginia sat on the corner of my bed. “Fiona is having your uniform pressed right now. We leave at seven so I want to make sure you get some rest.”

  I guffawed. “You seriously expect me to go to school tomorrow?”

  Virginia nodded. “Yes. You need to get back to normalcy and routine. Besides, there’s only a couple of weeks left until you graduate. It will be a soft introduction for you. I’m hoping it helps get your mind off other things.”

  I sat up and threw the duvet off me. Underneath it I was wearing my feminism t-shirt and Capri sweatpants. My hair was a tangled mess.

  “What am I even going to do at school for less than a month? I was told as far as my last school was concerned I was a graduate; they’d give me my diploma. I had more than enough credits. And get my mind off things? Off of the fact I’m an orphan with capabilities that involve healing people of terminal illness and extreme physical injury? I need to get my mind off the fact that my entire universe has just imploded? That my own history is now erased because it was never what I thought it was in the first place? And you think I can just forget about this by going to a school full of stuck up snobs who can relate to me in approximately zero ways? While wearing a stupid, typical school girl outfit? Oh, and I’ll ride to said school with other anomalies, one of which hates my guts. Sounds like the recipe for tons of enlightenment and distraction. I sure can’t wait.” I turned over again and put the comforter back over my head. Underneath I muttered. “Just leave me the hell alone.”

  Virginia sighed. “I’m not trying to make your life hard. But how are those things any less true a week from now? Or a month from now? It’s better to start the hard part as soon as possible. So you can move on from it.”

  From underneath my blanket cave I said. “Your empathy powers must be off today, Virginia.”

  In the shower that night I thought about whether I could really handle Bronwyn Hall tomorrow. It didn’t sound like I was being given much of a choice. I knew I could fight it, maybe even put it off for another couple of days. But what was the point of prolonging it? And maybe Virginia had a point. Maybe being back in school would help me concentrate on something other than grief. Even if it was just a month.

  It was weird to know I was going to be done with high school now. This wasn’t at all how I pictured ending my senior year.

  I had always liked school. Merritt had been the better student, but I hadn’t been so terrible, as long as it didn’t involve math. I was abysmal when it came to numbers. But I loved reading and writing. History was also a passion of mine, handed down to me by my mother. She would want me to keep learning, even now. She always told me there was no way any of us could know even one percent of all there was to know, but it was always worth trying.

  “After all,” she would say, “History is where all the secrets are.”

  Little did my mother know, I was apparently one of the biggest secrets of all.

  One of the things I wanted to work on was trying to be the kind of girl my mother would want me to be. One of the things she wanted most for me was to be a great student. In the classroom and in life. If my mother were here, there would be no other option.

  Tomorrow would be my first day at Bronwyn Hall.

  That night my sleep was restless. I kept dreaming of a big rig truck crashing into a minivan. I was there, watching my family die, but I was frozen in place, unable to do anything. No matter how much I tried to move, I couldn’t.

  I woke up sweating. As soon as I would try to go back to sleep, the nightmare would start all over again.

  So around 5 am I decided enough was enough. I was up for the day.

  My uniform hung in my closet. It was a pleated, navy blue skirt with a white button down that had Bronwyn Hall’s crest emblazoned on the pocket. It also came with white knee socks but Fiona had told me those weren’t mandatory; they just came with the outfit. She suggested I wear some tasteful Tory Burch flats (whoever that was). I would have rather worn flip flops or my Converse, but that wasn’t an option.

  Despite having taken one the night before, I took another long shower and thought about how the day might go. If everything was awful and I decided I’d be better off elsewhere, one thing that might convince me to stay with Virginia was the shower in my room. The water pressure and the endless scalding hot water were glorious. As for school, I honestly didn’t know what to expect. Would I have classes with Josephine and Calista? Would they even act like they knew me? Was it seriously all girls?

  Downstairs, Chantelle had put platters of bagels and cut up fruit on the table. There was coffee, orange juice, and milk. I grabbed a poppy seed bagel and smeared cream cheese all over it. At least I would never go hungry at this place. I popped a couple of sliced strawberries in my mouth.

  “Good morning, Em!” Josephine skipped into the room. “You’re up early.”

  “Couldn’t sleep.” I took a bite out of a banana. “And besides, I was in bed pretty much all day yesterday. Do I look okay?”

  She gave me a once over. “You look great. I’m glad you’re wearing your hair down. I like it like that. And where did you get those Tory Burch flats? Those are new! I can’t believe Calista hasn’t snagged them.”

  Virginia walked in a few minutes after that. Calista followed behind her. Josephine was in the kitchen getting a bowl of cereal.

  “Good morning, sweetheart,” Virginia smiled. “I’m so glad you changed your mind.”

  “I didn’t think I really had a choice.” My voice was flat.

  “True. You didn’t,” Virginia winked at me. “Kidding aside, I’m happy to see you this morning.”

  I shrugged. Calista walked past me and sat down three chairs away from the rest of us.

  “Do you want a bagel?” I asked.

  She looked at me. “I don’t do breakfast. Except coffee. Otherwise, no. Carbs are not my friends.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, you clearly need to watch that carb intake.”

  She gave me an icy glare. “Bagels and skinny jeans don’t mix.”

  Before I could retort, Josephine burst into the dining room. “Chantelle got Cinnamon Toast Crunch! It’s going to be a great morning!”

  The whole mood changed. Even Calista softened up. “Actually, Emma, pass me a nectarine. A small one.”

  As we ate, I looked at the girls and how they styled themselves. Josephine put her hair in a high ponytail and tied it with a white ribbon. She wore navy blue kitten heels. Calista wore her hair down and straightened it. It looked like a Pantene commercial, cascading down her back. She also wore Tory Burch flats; hers had a navy blue, hound’s-tooth pattern.

  Even though we wore identical uniforms, I felt like I looked leagues worse than they ever could on their ugliest day. There was something about them that was always so polished and effortlessly put together. I had just learned I could heal the sick, Jesus-style, and I was more impressed with their ability to match their accessories to their school girl outfits.

  We piled into Virginia’s Range Rover at 7 am on the nose. I sat in the front while Josep
hine and Calista shared the back. My stomach started pulling at my nerves. I had no idea what to expect out of this day. I hoped it just went by quickly and with minimum pain.

  “So, Emma,” Virginia said as she pulled out of the drive. “You and I will be meeting with the Dean today. Her name is Lillian Legare. She knows you’re coming and I’ve given her an uncomplicated version of the events that have happened to you the past month. She has made sure that either Josephine or Calista will be in each of your classes. Now, being that it’s the end of the school year, there won’t be much to catch up on since exams actually happened last week. So this will be more for you to kind of get the lay of the land. Bronwyn is its own special kind of place. I know you won’t be there long, but it will give you an idea of the sorts of people who live in Charleston.”

  I looked over at Virginia who seemed a little anxious herself. “You make it sound like I’m the new fish in a prison or something.”

  Calista snorted at the analogy. “That’s actually not such an inaccurate statement.”

  Virginia gave Calista a look in the rear view mirror. “Calista. You have promised to help us transition Emma. Do I need to remind you?”

  Calista’s eyes were large now. “No. You don’t. She’ll be fine.”

  “Good.” Virginia looked back at me, “Calista is completely overreacting. As usual. Bronwyn is a lovely institution of learning. Some of the great women of our time went there. Four First Ladies, numerous Senators’ daughters, a governor, great writers, and entertainers. You’re going to really love it. I know it.”

  I looked out the window for a few moments when something hit me.

  “If Josephine and Calista are really as old as you say they are, why are they even in high school? Shouldn’t they be on their twentieth Ph.D. or something?”

  All three of them glanced at one another, clearly waiting for one of them to answer the question.

  “The thing is,” Josephine piped in. “Bronwyn isn’t like a typical high school, per se. It’s one of those places that cater to the needs of people like us.”