“Yeah?” I said. “Well, I already do that. The only question I have left is why the hell you won’t go away. I don’t need any great mysteries of the universe resolved. I just need you to go ‘poof’ and never come back.”
“I grow weary of your insolence,” Rigel said. His scowl deepened and he pointed at Aka. “Do not tempt me to remove his spark for the mere pleasure it would give me.”
So, Plan A didn’t work. I thought I might piss him off enough, or reject him hard enough that he would leave, realizing I was a foul-tempered, willful bitch.
“Then you’d remove one of my choices,” I said.
“There are billions of others to choose from,” Rigel said. “I require only one. I like my odds.”
“I won’t choose anyone at all if you hurt him,” I said. “You do that, and you’ll just disappear, like you said.”
“No, I said I will go back where I came from if I do not have permission from you to inhabit a vessel,” Rigel said. “But do not think for one moment I will not make everyone you love suffer endless torment until that hour arrives.”
“And it can be anyone?”
“Anyone you choose.”
“And there’s some kind of laws you have to follow?” I said.
“Yes, I am bound by the choice of the virgin I have chosen,” Rigel said. “I have to obey or I must return to my home. If I do not obey, there are consequences your small mind could never fathom. You have my word I will adhere to those laws.”
“Then I choose me,” I said. It seemed reasonable enough. I couldn’t live with myself if I ordered yet a third murder in my name, so I might as well not live at all. I refused to risk Aka’s life in case Rigel wasn’t being honest with me. He’d proven himself deceitful enough.
“You cannot,” Rigel said. “You are the one who chooses, and you cannot choose yourself.”
“Where is that written?” I said. It was meant to be rhetorical at first, but then I actually wanted to see it in black and white. “I mean, how do I know that? You said I have to choose a person, and I’m a person, so I choose me. You can infest me or mind-meld or whatever it is you do. I’m serious, come on. You said you have to obey.”
“Yes, well what I meant . . .” Rigel began, but was interrupted by the appearance of a billowing cloud of smoke that formed into another rather gorgeous young man who might have been his twin.
“Now you are cheating,” the newcomer said with an amused smile. “It is most uncivilized.”
Rigel smiled back at him. “Come now, Xolyn. I was merely verifying she meant what she said.”
“She said it twice, old man,” Xolyn said. “You know what that means.”
Rigel’s eyes returned to me, then he shrugged. “Very well. Here.” It seemed from thin air that Rigel pulled a bag of something, then he handed it to Xolyn.
“What is that?” I asked. It didn’t look magical at all. It looked like a plastic bag with writing and a bright logo or two.
Xolyn gave me a bright smile. “Beef jerky.”
It took me a moment to comprehend the words, and my gaze returned to the bag to confirm what I suspected he said. I was at a loss. Rigel stood before me and demanded the life of someone, forcing me to make the most difficult decision I’d ever made in my life, and now there was beef jerky?
I looked at Rigel. “Okay . . . why?”
“Those were the terms of the wager,” Rigel said. “He said you had a martyr’s heart, yet I believed you would never sacrifice yourself for a stranger. I was mistaken, therefore he is rewarded for his discernment.”
“You bet on me?” I said. I’m sure I looked like I was about to spontaneously combust. What was it about me that compelled people to place bets on what I would do? Sure, I’d made an odd comment once in a while and predicted one thing or another about someone, just about everyone did. But I didn’t whip out my wallet and lay money down.
Or dead animal pieces.
“This was all about a fucking bag of beef jerky?” I screamed my question, and came close to stomping my foot in protest.
“Teriyaki flavor,” Rigel said. “Xolyn was quite specific.”
His friend’s grin was broad. “Indeed, I was. Eleven ounces, teriyaki flavor.”
“And you?” I turned on Rigel. “What did you wager?”
“I expected to receive a snow globe of London. Well, Big Ben to be exact,” Rigel said. “Alas, I was arrogant in my assumption of victory.”
“A snow globe?”
“London is quite beautiful in the snow,” Rigel said.
“A fucking snow globe?”
“They are rather whimsical,” Xolyn said. His smile was really starting to irritate me.
“You killed people over a bag of jerky and a stupid souvenir?” I said. It was ludicrous. No, there was no word for it. Even “preposterous” didn’t cover it. They played with my life as if it were a game and killed my mother and Ryan just to win things I would have bought them myself just to make it all stop.
“I may have been a little overzealous,” said the architect of my breakdown.
Xolyn nodded and gave me a playful wink. “He does so hate to lose.”
Though I was furious as I’ve ever been, I was also powerless. They were two beings of incredible abilities and I was just some girl. My greatest powers were of observation and mockery. They were twisted, evil sociopaths, but they could probably squash me with their minds if they wanted to.
“Well, you did lose,” I said to Rigel. “So what now? Are you at least able to fix what you did?”
“Fix?” Rigel said. He glanced at Xolyn, then gave me a very perplexed look. “Fix what?”
“My mom, shit,” I said. “And Ryan. Can you make it go back like it was?”
“Kathleen, dearest,” Rigel said with a simpering smile. “We both know you would never want things to go back the way they were.”
He had a point.
“You know what I mean,” I said. “Can you bring them back from the grave or whatever? Make it like they didn’t die?”
“I am afraid not,” Xolyn said. “That sort of thing is beyond our repertoire.”
“So you’re just going to leave and that’s it?” I said.
They shared a look and Xolyn shrugged at Rigel.
“That was our intent,” Rigel said. “You seemed quite sincere in your wish for me to leave.”
“That ain’t no lie,” I grumbled to myself. “So, all that crap about sacrifices and virgins wasn’t real? You were just fucking with me that whole time?”
“I can say with deepest sincerity I would rather drink crushed glass than bind myself to you,” Rigel said. “And I mean that in the kindest way possible.”
Before I could retort with my own insult, they both vanished like the great illusionists they were. I startled when Aka suddenly sprang to life like a marionette pulled up from the floor by its strings.
“Where is he?” Aka said, breathless. “What happened?”
“You composed some really bad poetry, and he left,” I said. “In that order.”
Aka looked around the room, then back at me. His eyes narrowed.
“There was some other stuff in between,” I said. “I don’t think he left because of you.”
“Stuff like?” Aka said.
“You know what? I don’t even know where to begin.”
With a wrenching sob that burst from somewhere deep within me, I lunged forward and wrapped both of my arms around him, burying my wet face in Aka’s neck. His slender arms wrapped around me and held me tight.
If he’d asked me in that very moment what had brought me to tears, I wouldn’t have been able to give a coherent answer. It was not a specific thought or worry. It was not a specific guilt or a sense of remorse. Hell, it wasn't even that I missed, loved, grieved, or regretted. A terrible pressure like a vise beneath my sternum bore down on my heart and forced my pain out through my eyes. Yes, that was almost precisely what it felt like, as if I were a dishrag that was being wrung until all
of the moisture was drawn from my body.
My fingers curled into Aka’s clothing at his back. I clutched for handfuls of anything tangible that might be salve for my pain. There was a small voice in the back of my head begging me to not do it. I told it to go fuck itself.
***
I didn’t know how to pick up the pieces of my life. I knew who killed Ryan, but I couldn’t say anything about it to anyone but Aka. I knew my mother was dead, but I didn’t know where her body was. Rigel had taken me to a cellar that could have been anyone’s. Mom might never be found. Dad still hung onto the expectation she would turn up. I avoided his eyes for a long time. It was too hard to see that spark of hope.
The police either gave up trying to pin anything on me or found another suspect. I didn’t hear from them again in regards to Ryan. I went with Dad sometimes when he went to the station to ask if there were any new developments with Mom. He asked me to, and I didn’t have the heart to refuse him.
Things with Aka were a little strange. We were still best friends. He forgave me, and I forgave him. We knew we were just pawns in some game, and, being human, we made mistakes. I helped him put Alex back together, and he held my hand to give me strength when the kids at school were too cruel. I was never arrested, but my peers had tried me and found me guilty of murder in the court of high school. Josh intervened on occasion.
Rigel said so many things, and I didn’t know if any of it was true. He’d said Josh and Ryan summoned him, but I came to doubt it. There wasn’t a reasonable way to ask Josh about it, anyway. I didn’t know how Rigel found me, or if anything he said about being a skunk were true. It might have just been part of the game, some theatrics worthy of an Academy Award.
It had been two weeks and there’d been no sign of him. I’d been so anxious he would turn up again, just to irritate me some more if nothing else. I locked my window, and never opened it. It was a useless act. Rigel could do anything he pleased.
Aka sat with me on my front porch steps. That Monday was a teacher’s meeting day which meant a three day weekend for us kids. We spoke little as we watched cars drive by, but it was not an uncomfortable silence. I knew how he felt about me, and I planned to tell him soon what was in my own heart. The time hadn’t seemed right yet. I was choosing my moment.
I doubted I really needed to. Sometimes words were overrated.
We both watched a delivery truck slow to a stop in front of my house. A man hopped out, dressed in the usual uniform. He walked with a hunch, and I wondered if that was what years of manual labor would do to my own back if the journalism thing didn’t pan out.
“Package for Kathleen Hayson.” He spoke like he was actively sticking his own shit in his mouth. I only knew what he said from experience and deduction.
“Yeah, that’s me,” I said. He handed me the package, and I didn’t start to open it until he was climbing back into the truck.
“Pronunciation challenged,” Aka said.
“To say the least,” I said. “About as useful as a wickless candle.”
“He the usual guy?”
“I have the ass of an elephant, not the memory of one.”
It felt good to be our catty selves again. It was familiar and normal. If Aka and I ever exalted what we had into something more intimate, I was sure it would be free of saccharine sentiments and overt displays of affection. That sort of thing would make me uncomfortable.
When I peeled back the top of the box, I had to dig through some bubble wrap and packing paper. Finally, my hand found the prize within, and I pulled it out with a smile of anticipation that swiftly morphed into shock.
“An eggplant?” Aka said.
I nodded mutely. There was a string tied around the stem, and within the loop was my mother’s wedding ring set.
“It’s from him?” Aka said. I’d told him about my mother’s body as well as why Rigel felt it was an appropriate pelting weapon, so my friend knew the significance of the dark purple vegetable in my hand. He didn’t wait for an answer before he plucked something else from the box and handed it to me. It was an envelope.
There was no name addressed on the outside, and I didn’t want to know what I would find on the inside.
“Staring at it won’t solve the mystery,” Aka said.
I nodded again. Nervous fingers tore apart the seal. It was a standard sized piece of paper folded twice, and centered where the folds met were four words, one in each quarter.
Miss me? Miss you.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Christi Goddard was born in Arlington, Texas in the early seventies. Her earliest memories are of seeing Jaws and Star Trek: The Motion Picture in the theater. The first was a bit much for a pre-K kid to take, and the second has much to do with what has inspired her imagination my entire life.
Her father is a bit of nomad, and they moved a lot when she was a kid. She inherited this trait and has lived many places and been just about everywhere in America. She hit puberty in Colorado, got married in Las Vegas, had her first child in Kansas, and her second in Illinois. She returned to Texas just shy of turning thirty and has been there ever since.
http://www.christigoddard.com
True Connection
by
Rachel Walter
Chapter 1
Starting Over
Two months, four days and twelve hours ago, my life was perfect, whole. But now? Now it’s shattered and missing some important pieces.
These are the thoughts running through my mind as I stare at my alarm clock. I’m awake ten minutes before it’s set to go off. It was set for two hours before school starts anyway. My new school.
It’s April, and my brother and I had to move to Lupiterra to live with our uncle. Nine weeks away from the end of the year. But this isn’t just any school, though. This is Lupiterra High School, our old school’s rival.
At our old school, Penn Wood, I was on the volleyball team and my brother was on the football team.
We used to be the Warriors.
Now we’ll be the Trojans.
At Penn Wood, Lupiterra is known as Birth Control High or Condomville.
I roll my eyes as I get out of bed.
A rhythmic tapping on my door lets me know my uncle is done in the shower, and if I want to beat my brother, I should probably hustle.
I grab undies and a bra from my dresser drawer before reaching in my closet for my sister’s favorite band tee and some skinny jeans. Then I run to the bathroom.
After blow drying my hair, I check over my appearance in the mirror and tuck the front of my shirt into my jeans. Checking my hair once more, I run my fingers through and pull it up. “Looks like a damn blonde rat’s nest,” I growl and leave it down.
As I look over my face, I sigh at the bags under my eyes. Grabbing my foundation, I apply enough to hide the bags then put the rest of my make-up away and leave the bathroom.
“Mornin’,” my brother Henry mumbles as he sneaks past me to get in the bathroom.
I go back into my room and grab my schoolbag, iPod and phone. Before leaving my room again, I pause at last year’s family photo on my desk.
My family was whole then.
The doorbell pulls me from my thoughts, and I glance at the clock. That would be my cousin Alex’s nanny, Miss Jaynie.
I run down the steps to let her in. She’s in her forties, has the most amazing southern twang, and makes the best chocolate chip cookies I’ve ever had.
I smile as I open the door.
“Mornin’, Sugar!” she grins and kisses my cheek.
“Good morning,” I smile and follow her into the kitchen.
The smell of coffee brewing makes my mouth water and Leland, my NHL superstar uncle, hands me my favorite cup. I grin at him.
Leland had this girlfriend almost two years ago, “Psycho Sammy.” She hated my mom, and no one knew why. She ended up telling Leland that he and his sister were “freaks of nature” and siblings shouldn’t be that close, twins or not. After she left my uncle, w
e thought we’d never see her again. Turns out, Leland got her pregnant. After she had Alex, she dropped him off, and we haven’t seen her since. Leland said he saw her a few times for legal things, but she never once asked about her child.
“Are you excited for today?” Miss Jaynie asks. I snort.
“She and Henry have some not-so-nice things to say about this school,” Leland says, shooting me a look.
“Yea, well . . . ” I shrug.
Miss Jaynie laughs, but doesn’t say a word.
Henry comes running into the kitchen and grabs an apple.
“You ready?”
“I guess,” I shrug and we say our goodbyes.
“I’m sure you’ll have a great day!” Miss Jaynie winks. I smile and close the front door.
We walk to Henry’s Dodge Charger in silence but as soon as we get in, he starts talking.
“Jazzy, if today sucks, well we know it will. But if it’s too much for you, find me and we’ll leave,” he says.
“I know. I love you, too.” I grin, and he laughs as he backs out of the drive. Only Prettier by Miranda Lambert comes on the radio and reminds me of “Psycho Sammy.” She used to say Miranda Lambert was her soul sister. “Hey, bud?”
“Hmmm?”
“Do you think we’re weird?” I ask, fiddling with a loose string on the strap of my bag.
“Well, I’m not sure what you mean, but you know you’re strange and you know I’m awesome. Does that help?”
“That doesn’t really help at all,” I deadpan.
“Fine, what do you mean then?” He gives me a sideways glance and raises a brow.
“Well, you remember Psycho Sammy? She said Mom and Leland were weird and . . . ”
He interrupts me. “We are not discussing that crazy lady again. Why are you thinking about her anyway?”
I suddenly feel stupid for even thinking about it and bringing it up. I never thought we were weird, but we’re going to Lupiterra now, where no one knows the real us. They only know the Williams’ on the field and on the court.
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