All the Best People

by Sonja Yoerg

  Strength and might. Might makes right as rain.

  Carole paused a few steps from the top, her heart hammering. Her daughter sat cross-legged on the floor. Light from a candle shone on her face and hands as she held her index finger over a piece of paper with a drawing on it. In the other hand was a needle.

  Needle and pins needle and pins trouble begins.

  “Heal my—”

  The needle went in. A drop of blood fell.

  Blood fell. Blood will tell.

  Bad blood.

  Carole screamed.

  32

  Alison

  She dropped the needle, startled by the scream, and turned to the door. Her mother, her face twisted, her mouth open. Before Alison could think what to say or do, her mother disappeared down the stairwell, her footsteps loud and fast. Her father shouted her mother’s name from below. Alison put her bloody finger in her mouth, tasted the salty sweet.

  Her father was in the upstairs hall. “What’s wrong, Carole?”

  Her mother was crying. Her father was asking her questions, soothing her.

  Alison looked down at the blue box. Blood spells were the strongest. The drop of blood was supposed to hit the pearl, but it missed because her mother made her jump. Plus she hadn’t finished the incantation. It wouldn’t work, and now her mother was crying.

  Her father was coming up to her room. She knew his feet. Alison stood, waited.

  He flicked on the overhead light and glowered at her. “What the hell is going on?” His eyes fell on the magical things: the green construction paper with Satan’s circle drawn in soapstone, the candle, the blue box with the pearl, the needle. “What in God’s name is this?”

  “I was trying to help Mom.”

  “Trying to help her? How?”

  Alison knew he wouldn’t understand. He wouldn’t believe she had any powers at all. She shrugged and wound a curl of her hair in her fingers.

  He pointed at the green paper. “What’s that drawing?”

  “A magic circle.”

  “Magic? Jesus Christ. Is everyone one in this family crazy?” He ran a hand through his hair. “Blow out that damn candle before you burn the house down.”

  Alison knelt and blew it out. She closed the lid on the blue box. A lump stuck in her throat. “I was only trying to help.”

  He let out a big breath. “You want to help? I’m putting you in charge of dinner. Should be some TV dinners in the freezer. Maybe make some mac and cheese, too. You know your brothers.”

  She pulled at her curl again and looked up at him. There were lines around his mouth she’d never seen before. Or maybe never noticed. “Sure.”

  • • •

  The macaroni stuck to the bottom of the saucepan. Alison had been setting the table and had forgotten to stir it. She turned the heat all the way down, hoping it hadn’t burned. She glanced at the clock. The TV dinners would be ready in five minutes.

  Lester came in from the office, followed by Warren and her father. Her mother was upstairs, supposedly resting.

  “Hey, Alison!” Lester peered into the pot. “I’m starving!”

  Warren went to the fridge, pulled out the milk and set it on the table.

  “It’s done.” She stepped away from the stove. “Daddy, can you get the dinners?”

  He came around behind Lester, twisting sideways in the narrow space, took the oven mitts from the hook on the wall and slipped them on. He looked strange, like he was in a comedy skit. “Who gets which?”

  Lester was guzzling milk and slammed the glass down, sloshing it. “Salisbury steak is mine. It’s always mine.”

  “I don’t care, Daddy,” Alison said. “Whichever.”

  “Okay, then.” He gave Lester his, and plunked the fried chicken dinner in front of Alison. Warren had loaded two cereal bowls with macaroni for him and Lester, and moved his to the side to make room for his turkey dinner.

  Lester reached across and almost stuck his fork in their father’s food. “You got Salisbury steak like me, Daddy.”

  “I sure did.”

  Warren spoke around a mouthful of food. “Where’s Mom?”

  “Resting upstairs.”

  “She sure rests a lot.”

  “You know she hasn’t been well, Warren.”

  Alison picked the corn and slices of carrot out from among the peas and moved them over to the mashed potato compartment so she could eat them together. She took a couple of bites of a chicken leg and put it down again. She didn’t feel very good. Even though she was practically touching her father’s elbow, the kitchen felt too big without her mom there. The silence was awkward.

  Finally, her father said, “Lester, what did you do today with Miss Honeycutt?”

  His mouth was full of macaroni that almost fell out when he started to talk. Alison put a finger to her closed lips. Lester smiled and finished chewing. “She gave us some tests, except they weren’t like tests at all. There were puzzles and games and stuff like that but you had to do them as fast as you could but not so fast that you messed up.”

  “Sounds fun,” Alison said.

  “Better than PE.”

  Lester hated PE because of all the rules and because he always got picked last if Warren wasn’t there to threaten people.

  Warren nudged Lester. “Miss Honeycutt’s a real fox, isn’t she?”

  Their father had been bent over his plate, but that got his attention. He pointed his knife at Warren. “That’s not any way to talk about a teacher, son.”

  “Daddy’s right,” Lester said. “You should treat her with respect. It’s a class rule.” He speared a chunk of meat. “Anyway, she can’t like you, Warren, because she already likes Mr. Bayliss.”

  Alison was sure she didn’t hear that right. “What?”

  “Miss Honeycutt can’t like Warren because she already likes Mr. Bayliss.”

  Warren said, “Likes him how?”

  Their father cleared his throat. “This isn’t the right kind of conversation to be having—”

  Lester started giggling. “I saw them!” He had macaroni in his mouth and a yellowy dribble ran down his chin.

  Alison looked down at her plate. A creeping feeling started climbing her spine and was at the back of her neck before she could get out the words. “Saw them what?”

  Lester couldn’t talk from laughing so hard. Warren patted him gently between his shoulder blades. “Take it easy, man.”

  He took a long breath. “I forgot my lunch box. If I forget my lunch box then I don’t have anywhere to put my lunch for tomorrow and I have to eat school lunch and it might be salmon pea wiggle or something else gross.”

  “Shit on shingles,” Warren said.

  “Warren!” Dad said.

  Warren shrugged because that’s what everybody called salmon pea wiggle. Pink goop with peas the lunch ladies poured on crackers.

  Lester went on. “I’m gonna finish my story now. I forgot my lunch box. So I went back to Miss Honeycutt’s room and Miss Honeycutt and Mr. Bayliss were behind her desk all smooshed up together. I saw them. They were kissing!”

  “For Pete’s sake,” their father said. “At school?”

  Alison shut her eyes to block out the picture her mind was drawing of her teacher and Miss Honeycutt with their arms around each other. Miss Honeycutt as close to him as Alison had been last week when she’d hugged him. Blocking out wasn’t working. A cord pulled tight in her belly. The tightness moved up into her chest, squeezing out the air. She opened her eyes. Her heart pounded with an anger that spread over everything in her sight. The pieces of chicken with soggy crust pulling off, peas with dimples in them, carrots cut with a stupid crinkle pattern. The table crammed with TV dinners and milk and macaroni and elbows and that ugly dolphin salt-and-pepper shaker. Her anger grew larger and hotter and devoured her family: Warren
, who trampled on feelings and laughed it off; Lester, who didn’t know any better and still made her mad; her father, who couldn’t see the truth about anything, who didn’t get that she’d been helping her mom with the spell. It all made her so completely furious. Her head was going to explode from the force of the unfairness of it—how she didn’t matter, how she had to fight just to breathe.

  Her fork was in her hand and she stabbed it into the fat part of the chicken leg, jamming it all the way through. She couldn’t see very well through her tears, but she kept pushing the fork deeper, straight through the metal tray and into the table. Her palm hurt from squeezing the fork and she focused on the pain, making it bigger, as big as her anger, willing it to spread up her arm and across her chest and take over her whole body.

  “Hey, squirt,” Warren said, his voice dancing around like everything in life, but especially her, was a big fat joke. “What’s your problem?”

  She yanked the fork out, slid her hand under the foil tray of her dinner and flung it at him. It hit his chin and arm and knocked over his milk.

  “What the fu—”

  Alison was on her feet. Her father’s arm shot out to stop her, the way her mom’s arm flew like a human seatbelt when the car stopped short. She ducked around it and stepped back until she was almost in the hallway. The three of them were staring at her, but she could hardly see them. The kitchen was filled to the ceiling with her anger now, and it blurred them. Her dad pushed back his chair. He was going to do something, get her to stop, smooth things over, put everything back into place. Back to normal. It was too late for that.

  Warren swiped mashed potato from his chin. “Stupid crazy bitch.”

  Her father wheeled around and slapped him, a move so fast she wasn’t sure it had happened. He froze, half-standing, leaning over the table. “Don’t you ever use those words in this house. Do you hear me?”

  Warren nodded. His mouth hung open in shock, his fingers on his cheek. Lester looked back and forth between Warren and their dad and let out a low moan. Her father shifted his gaze from Warren to Lester to Alison, his face scrambled with confusion and rage and disappointment. “I don’t know what’s going on with this family. Honest to God, I don’t.”

  Alison trembled, her emotions spinning in a thousand directions. Anger was the biggest, and the loudest.

  Her father got up, motioned to her. “Come clean this up now. This was your doing, Alison.”

  “I won’t! I’m not doing anything. Why don’t all of you just leave me alone!” She spun away and ran up to the attic and slammed the door shut. If only she could lock it. She threw herself on the bed and buried her face in the pillow. Her rage had been holding back her tears, like a tall dam, but now she was alone and there was no one to show her anger to, no one to throw it against. The solid burning tower of it began to weaken, and her tears spilled over.

  Her father shouted from the stairs. “Alison!”

  She covered her head with the pillow and let the tears come. They poured from her in giant sobs that squeezed her chest so hard she could barely catch her breath. The sobs came in waves, washing over her, and she let herself be thrown against the shore again and again. She heard sounds from downstairs and pretended the people talking and opening and shutting things were strangers. It was true. They didn’t know her. They didn’t understand the first thing about her. She sank deeper into the pain. As far as her family was concerned, she might as well be someone else, or dead.

  She wanted more than anything else to run away. It was so much worse to be here where the people she thought loved her were pretending or lying or stupid or crazy or just plain mean. She wanted to get away from them, not hide in an attic. She wasn’t going to pretend the way grown-ups did. She wanted to be honest and have someone to trust. She wanted someone to love her for real. It didn’t seem like such a lot to ask for.

  Alison wiped her face on the bedsheet. Her breath came in painful chunks and her throat was raw. She hiccupped and it hurt. Every few seconds, another hiccup. She sat up, pushed wet hair from her face and dug out a duffel bag from under the bed. A lump in her throat made it hard to swallow. She did her best to ignore it. She crammed some clothes into the bag, enough for a couple of days. Flopsy’s ear stuck up from under the blanket. Alison smoothed her ears, propped her against the pillow. No stuffed animals for this trip. She wasn’t five.

  Her bag was packed. She put on her jacket, went down the attic stairs to the landing and stopped to listen. Except for the television on low, the house was quiet, like it was holding its breath. If she was lucky, she could leave without anyone noticing. She passed the closed door of her parents’ bedroom, felt a stab of guilt for leaving her mother, then tiptoed down the steps and slipped out the back door before she could change her mind.

  The night air was sharp and cold. Alison moved out of the light falling from the windows, crossed between the shed and the house and headed for the road. The moon hung low in the cloudless sky, helping her find her way.

  First she had to decide where to go. Delaney was closest but Alison couldn’t imagine being this pathetic in front of her. She’d probably tell everyone about it at school on Monday. What about Aunt Janine? Her house was a long way, maybe four miles, and the last time she’d tried to talk to her aunt, she hadn’t been exactly helpful. She’d probably just drive her straight home.

  Mr. Bayliss? Even if what Lester said was true (and she didn’t quite believe it), he was still her teacher and her friend. If she told him about how her whole family didn’t think she mattered, he’d understand. He’d let her stay and give her a ride to school on Monday. He might even have ideas about what to do about her mother. And his house was only about a mile down the road.

  She kept away from the edge of the auto graveyard, where the heaps of metal threw shadows so black and huge they could swallow anything, walked through the circle of yellow from the security light and onto the shoulder of the road. Even with the moon’s help, she could barely see the ground, and what light there was made it easier to imagine what she couldn’t see. The back of her neck tingled.

  Alison shifted the bag to her other hand. Her feet crunched on the gravel. She walked faster and kept her gaze ahead, ignoring the pull of her house behind her, and thought about arriving at Mr. Bayliss’s house, and him smiling at her when he opened the door. Alison got that feeling in her stomach like swinging too high, but it was mixed in with a sadness so thick and deep it was like cement oozing out of her pores. The swirling of her feelings was making her sick, as if she’d eaten ten hot dogs and jumped on a Tilt-A-Whirl. She rehearsed what she would say to him when he opened the door. It all sounded ridiculous: “My mother hears things.” “My father gets mad when I try to help.” “Delaney was my friend and now she’s not.” The realest truth was too awful for Alison to say, except in the far corner of her mind, away from dictionary words and hurts and jealousies and tarot cards, away from everything she knew and felt, far away even from the magic of a wish: no one loves me.

  Tears sprung into her eyes. She looked around her at the dark shapes and deep shadows, at the bright moon and scattered stars, and felt hollowed out. Alison stopped. There was no point to going anywhere.

  Footsteps behind her, coming fast. She froze, too terrified to turn around. She dropped her bag, ready to run for her life.

  “Hey! Squirt!”

  Alison spun around. Warren was jogging toward her. Her fear disappeared and her anger flared. “Leave me alone!” She picked up her bag and walked off.

  He ran past and stood in front of her. “What are you doing, squirt?”

  “None of your business. And stop calling me that.”

  “I saw you out my window.”

  “So?”

  He pointed to her duffel bag. “Running away isn’t going to solve anything.”

  “It solves being with you, and everyone else.”

  His voice went soft
. “No, actually, it doesn’t.”

  Alison sniffed back tears but they ran down her cheeks anyway. “Just leave me alone.”

  “Mom and Dad don’t know you left. If you come home now, you won’t get into any more trouble.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “What’s wrong, anyway?”

  Alison shook her head.

  Warren waited.

  She peered over his shoulder at the dark road. The bag was heavy in her grip. Worn out from crying and being mad, she wanted to be in her bed. She didn’t want to see anyone or talk to anyone. She was done with her family.

  Warren reached for the bag and she let him take it. And when he started down the road for home, she went, too.

  33

  Alison

  The next morning, she hung out in the kitchen, her face sore and tight from all the crying she’d done the night before. Her grandmother’s present, wrapped in paper with balloons on it, lay on the counter near the office door. A couple of weeks ago, when her mother was almost normal, Alison had picked out the sweater from a store in town while her mother stayed in the car. The woman behind the counter had wrapped it, and now the stick-on bow was peeling off. Alison pressed it down. She hadn’t asked her parents if she could go with Aunt Janine to visit her grandmother and she wasn’t going to. She’d just ask Aunt Janine. Alison had already made a card, figuring it would be harder for her aunt to turn her down.

  The door from the office swung open and her aunt marched in.

  “Hi, Alison.” She was on a mission and pointed at the present. “That for me? I mean, for my mother?” Her lips puckered like the words were sour. “Your grandmother.”

  “Can I come?”

  “Oh, I don’t know—”

  Alison showed her the card she’d made with a vase of colorful flowers on the front. “I could give it to her in person. Please?”

  “I’m not staying long. Just a few minutes.”

  Alison grabbed her jacket from the chair and picked up the card and present. “I’m ready!”