These Lying Eyes

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These Lying Eyes Page 9

by Allen, Amanda A.


  “That’s nonsense.” The first scoffed. She was tall, curvy, and beautiful, despite her snake’s eyes. “I googled it, and it’s just made up excuses. My mom said if it were me, I’d be medicated and housed somewhere.”

  “Your mom said that,” drawled the other. That girl was far more shocked than Mina. It wasn’t the first time Mina had heard that one.

  “It doesn’t do any good to ignore mental illness. That’s how school shootings happen.”

  The second girl, the nicer one, gasped.

  Mina barely prevented an eye roll and turned back to her notes.

  The whispering continued; the weight of their gaze did not abate.

  Mina popped a piece of gum in her mouth. Should she move? It was stupid to move, but it was stupid to let them bug her.

  “You need to leave her alone,” a deep voice said. Slightly husky, wholly familiar.

  Mina paused in the middle of snapping her gum.

  “Finally,” Zizi said.

  “Yay,” Poppy squealed.

  Hitch growled.

  Max stepped forward, blocking the girls’ view of Mina. He had been sitting one table over, but behind her, so she wouldn’t see him. She frowned at his bag. Only one over. As if he couldn’t quite find it within himself to sit across the library, but couldn’t quite join her.

  She scowled.

  “Or what?” asked the mean girl.

  “There is no ‘or,’” Max said. “There’s just not being total hags.”

  “Excuse me?” the mean one again. The other was silent and flushed, and by the way her gaze was directed at the floor, probably ashamed.

  But Mina wasn’t watching her. She was watching the tips of Max’s ears turn red, a sure sign he was furious. She saw how he stepped between them, as if she needed him to rescue her.

  And she nearly choked on her anger. She slammed her computer closed and shoved her books back into her bag.

  “Max,” she could barely speak; encompassed by that stupid bag—one flipping table over—and felt her face flushing.

  He turned around surprised; she knew he could tell she was upset.

  “I don’t need you to stand up for me.”

  “I’m just,” he protested. But he stopped. He could catalogue her signs of anger as well as she him. Her fingers clutched the strap of her messenger bag. She could feel the heat in her cheeks, but he seemed surprised.

  “I…” he tried again.

  “I don’t need you to ignore me for weeks, and then try to swoop to my rescue.”

  The girls were laughing. At them. At the intensity of their emotions, as if they were nothing more than players on a soap opera, and real feelings weren’t stabbing at both of them.

  “I haven’t…”

  “What you think sitting next to me in our same classes and avoiding me the rest of the time is? Being friends?”

  Max said nothing, but the red in his ears was nearly crimson now.

  “Friends ask, Max,” Mina said softly, watching Max’s jaw tighten. His flush was spreading from his ears to his cheek bones.

  Mina added, “They ask if you’re ok. They ask what happened. They just…ask.”

  She looked past him to the two girls; they were both…smirking. Mina spun, refusing to hurry, as she walked out of the library. It was anger that blinded her now, but regardless, it was only Hitch’s guidance that prevented her from slamming into random people.

  “Mina,” Max called.

  She glanced back; he was only steps behind her. She shook her head at him, hoping he’d just let her go. But as she did, she caught sight of her cousin, Peter. He was looking up; Mina followed his gaze and saw…Zizi.

  The sprite zigzagged, and Peter’s whole head moved as he followed her flight.

  And Mina’s fury disappeared, overwhelmed by an ocean of hurt.

  “Pete?” she whispered, but he caught the sound of her voice, and with it, he froze.

  Their eyes met.

  He paled.

  And with the guilt in those familiar eyes, all the air rushed out of her lungs.

  “Mina,” Max said, taking a gentle hold of her arm.

  But she didn’t turn, though Max must have felt her trembling. She stared at her cousin, tears welling in her eyes, until she bit the inside of her lip. She was not going to let those tears fall. Not in the middle of the school hallway. Not as the other kids were already circling, excited for yet another Mina Roth meltdown.

  “You…” She began, licking her lips, she opened her mouth. But she couldn’t find words. The emotion was too big for words.

  Peter said nothing, though it seemed as though everything that needed to be said was communicated by the weight of the other’s eyes, with the emotions that roiled between them.

  She could see that he was sorry. He could see that it wasn’t enough. She could see that he wanted, needed even, to explain. But he could see that…she just couldn’t. Not with him. Not with her Petey. The guy who’d taught her to play the guitar in her loneliness but never explained why she was so alienated from everyone by what she saw.

  And she could see that there was more to his story. But it didn’t matter.

  Not yet.

  “Are you kidding me?” She barely knew she was speaking; wasn’t even certain what she was saying until the words left her.

  “Mina?” Max still held her bicep, his fingers moved—back and forth, back and forth—.

  “I, I…Mina…” Peter’s voice was soft, hardly audible.

  “It will be ok, Mina.” Zizi said, landing on Mina’s shoulder, rubbing her hand along Mina’s neck.

  “Are you kidding me?” She repeated, whispering this time. But Peter knew what she was saying.

  “Mina, please,” Max said.

  “How long?” Mina demanded, knowing Max was absorbing every word, as was the breathless crowd.

  Peter shook his head.

  “How long have you known?” Her hands were shaking from the death grip on her messenger bag.

  Nothing.

  “How long,” she demanded, fierce now.

  Peter swallowed and said something, but she couldn’t hear him through the pulse pounding in her ears.

  “What?”

  And this time she caught it.

  “Always.”

  The tears were back, but Mina wouldn’t let them see.

  None of them could see.

  “Always?” she asked softly, only the slightest hiccup in her voice, and the hall was quiet enough that everyone heard her. And that telltale hiccup.

  “Mina...” Peter and Max said together, both voices pleading.

  “Just give me a chance,” Max added. “I…”

  Mina closed her eyes to block all the faces, the two she loved—the mass she’d happily never see again.

  “It will be ok,” Zizi said again, though they both knew that was a promise Zeez couldn’t make.

  “Don’t cry,” Poppy ordered.

  “Just walk Mina,” Hitch said. “Walk away.” His voice was the tender one, the careful one, the one she needed to hear.

  “Walk away,” he repeated, landing on her shoulder, pressing his hand into her neck, somehow anchoring her despite his tiny size.

  And she did.

  Chapter 9

  “You didn’t go to your appointment today,” Dad said as Mina pushed herself away from the dinner table. Sarah was already clearing the dishes. Erik and the triplets were watching cartoons in the family room. Mina had expected this conversation before. But when she’d come home, late, wet, and without her jacket, her parents were on the phone with her oldest siblings Jase and Kate. Those two were—thankfully—planning to backpack Eastern Europe next semester rather than return to their colleges. Jase and Kate’s timing couldn’t have been better for distracting their parents.

  Mom stood, as Dad spoke, rounding the table, and pulling a chair between the two of them.

  Mina licked her lips and looked at Dad. Mom was prepping to referee. Just from the way her parents were
turned towards each other, Mina could tell that her mom had coached Dad. He was controlled. He was even—not angry—more on the edge of irritation.

  That was incredibly surprising seeing as how she’d had her Vespa for only days. Mina’d expected a much longer period of using the scooter to control her.

  “I’m not going anymore,” Mina said, forgetting the Vespa in the next moment. Even she heard the defiance in her voice. And as she recognized it, she knew she shouldn’t have said it like that, especially with the way Mom’s eyelid twitched just the slightest bit.

  Mina swallowed, waiting for Dad’s objection.

  For his command.

  She could see it coming, and she closed her eyes for it was a sight that she didn’t want. Dad had been so nice lately, and she’d ruined it. Why hadn’t she talked differently? Softly like Mom? Sweetly like Sarah? Teasingly like Kate? Why hadn’t she tried to tell him how she felt?

  Only he didn’t explode. Mina cracked her eyes, and he was just looking at her. With an expression she couldn’t identify.

  But, maybe if she wasn’t so…incapable of talking to him, he wouldn’t be so stalwart against telling her the big secret about why she was so different. Knowing, though, that he didn’t want to explain it to her made her feel…like the kid he wished they didn’t have.

  But Mom shifted, placed a caressing hand on Dad’s, and asked for both parents, “Why?”

  It was Mom’s softness that let Mina and Dad have a chance to try again.

  Mina felt like she was navigating new waters. After all, she never had been able to not set Dad on edge.

  He swallowed.

  Just like she did when she needed a moment. She stared at him; he was trying so hard to wait. It was physical for him, controlling his need to fix things, and giving her a chance.

  She was his only kid with any red in her hair, though she had just as many gold curls as she did red. Her eyes were the same gray. She was the only one who clearly had the stamp of him on her, and yet, he was so foreign to her.

  She decided to try for bald honesty, “It makes me feel like crap.”

  Dad blinked slowly. She thought he was going to let her have it now, but then she caught sight of how he was gripping Mom’s fingers.

  “It’s supposed to help you,” Dad leaned forward, reaching out, and taking hold of Mina’s hand.

  She looked down on his hand, just touching hers, and suddenly understood that sending her to the shrink was his way of “making her better.” It was him Dadding her—taking care of the problem.

  It was so awkwardly him. Fix her up. Help her to be happy. Whatever she needed, but always without asking what she wanted.

  “But it doesn’t. It makes me feel like I’m not good enough. I don’t like Doctor Seal. She makes me feel like a bug she’s about to dissect.”

  Dad licked his lips.

  Mina licked hers.

  There was a blanket of emotion in the air between them, thick and suffocating.

  “I thought it would help you feel better. Psychiatrists…” He stopped, struggling for words, and no longer her foe.

  “Can’t we try without Dr. Seal? Can’t you give me a chance?” Mina heard the pleading in her voice. They all did. And it was rife with emotion.

  Dad squeezed her fingers. “Would you feel better with another Doctor?”

  Mina shook her head.

  “Are you sure?”

  Mina nodded.

  “Ok.” Dad said, still tense. But, he rose, dropped a kiss on her forehead, and left the table. Just before leaving the room he added, “If you change your mind…”

  Mina nodded, and he was gone.

  She looked at her mom. Still so quiet; silently directing everything that had just happened.

  “Your Dad loves you.”

  “I know,” Mina said softly.

  “You skipped school today.” Mom said.

  Mina waited.

  “Don’t do it again for a while.” Mom rose and left the kitchen as well.

  Mina looked at her silent sister, who had not just heard—she’d understood, and Mina helped her sister clean the kitchen even though it was Sarah’s turn.

  They were quiet in the work until Sarah finally said, “It’s time to stop walking on tiptoe.”

  “What?” Mina dried a frying pan.

  “Ever since…what happened, you’ve been all careful.” Sarah set a now clean salad bowl on the dish rack.

  Mina put the pan away and began drying the wooden bowl.

  “Just stop.” Sarah pulled the plug on the sink and wiped the water splashes up. “You have to go back to being yourself, so they can let it go.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Sneak out again. Skip your smoothies for apple pie shakes. Sleep late and tease the triplets.”

  Mina stared at her sister.

  “As long as you act hurt, they’ll treat you like you’re broken. As soon as you start acting like yourself, they’ll quit haunting you.”

  “How do you know I sneak out?”

  “Everyone does.” Sarah said. “Mom and Dad just think that you’re at the old lookout in the woods or walking that path down by the creek.”

  “And why would they think that?” Mina wound her bi-colored mop of curls into a messy bun.

  “Because I told them you were.”

  Mina just looked at Sarah, calmly sweeping the floor, hair neat as a pin, clothes perfectly pressed. She seemed to be the ideal child, manipulating them with her puppet master ways.

  “So, sneak out?” Mina said.

  Sarah nodded, pushing her white-blond hair behind her ears, brows raised as if it were obvious. “Buy extra stuff with that VISA card, but not too much. Skip classes. Ignore dinner. Do your normal stuff.”

  “Are you sure?” But Mina didn’t wait for an answer. It was as if Sarah had opened the door to a cage Mina hadn’t realized she was in. She almost ran up the stairs, gathering the sprites, her bag, and the Vespa keys and was over the side of the patio, down the trellis and off her parent’s property before anyone could call her back.

  * * *

  “Where are we going?” Zizi asked.

  “I don’t know.” Mina drove the Vespa through the wet streets as if she was being chased.

  “What happened?”

  And Mina told them.

  “I alwayz liked Sarah best.” Poppy was inside of Mina’s jacket, only her head and torso hanging out above the zipper.

  “I don’t want to wait anymore.” It was Hitch who said it, but he was right. Mina didn’t want to wait anymore either. She wanted to figure out what was happening with her. And she was going to start today.

  “Your Grandma haz been at the cabin for a few dayz,” Hitch added, a bit of a dare in his voice. “I heard your mom say she was going to take the triplets up tomorrow and let them play by the lake.”

  “So the beach house is empty.” Zizi added as if Mina needed further explanation.

  She didn’t. In minutes, they’d driven the scooter to the little gray, beach front house. Mina hid the scooter on the side of the house, and they let themselves in using the hide-a-key.

  They looked around. It had been a long time since Mina had been here, but the straight-backed couches were placed precisely in the center of each wall. There was a throw rug in the direct center of the room. A few books were lined on the bookshelves, spines to the edge, sorted by size.

  Grandma had neat down perfectly. There were no drawers of papers, shoeboxes full of memories, or cabinets full of knick-knacks. It took the four of them only about an hour to search the entire house from top to bottom.

  “Think she’ll notize?” Hitch asked as they were checking for any sign they’d been there.

  “She’ll never know it was us.” Mina said, but she checked and rechecked each room. She didn’t want her grandma, mean though Grandma was, to be afraid if she noticed her house had been rifled.

  “What next?” Poppy asked, as they stared at the still perfectly neat house that had
given up no secrets.

  Zizi pointed. Across the room was a small chest. It was under the window facing the ocean. And each of them had walked or flown past it time and again, and yet as Mina stared, she realized she’d never noticed it before. A chill spread between them.

  “Weird.” Poppy darted across the room to drop to the carpet before the small chest. It was only a foot wide by, perhaps, a foot and a half.

  Poppy flipped the latches and lifted the lid while Mina, Zizi, and Hitch joined her in front of the small wood box. As it opened, Mina held her breath.

  There was a small silver tray at the top. Mina lifted it onto her knees and opened a yellowed cloth to find an old knife. The handle was etched with swirls. It had a large, wicked blade. Black with age. Several candles rolled around the tray, a small cup.

  “This knife is like the one the girl had in those fae books Grace lent me.” Mina set the tray aside to find several candles, chalk, and another cloth with small stones.

  “Just like the book,” Hitch said.

  “The book that Grace gave you,” Zizi said, emphasizing the librarian’s name.

  Mina replaced everything in the chest that she’d never seen before, and she left the house as silently as she’d come.

  * * *

  The library had long since closed, but there was a light on in the library as Mina passed it. She turned around, stopping at the intersection. Already, Mina knew it was Grace’s desk lamp; Mina knew she’d find Grace’s SUV behind the old stone church turned library. She knew that if she continued to sit below the library, she’d feel the weight of the gargoyles eyes; and that if she went inside, she might find something out about herself.

  Mina sat on the scooter, sick to her stomach. She let herself be caught up by the steady glow until a horn tapped behind her. With a deep, held breath, Mina parked in front of the library and tapped on the stained glass window in the door.

  And in moments, Grace’s familiar face appeared, distorted, behind the glass.

  “What are you going to do,” Poppy asked, and a world of meaning was held in those words. Was she going to just ask Grace if she was a witch? Can you see the sprites, Grace? Did you give me those books, so I’d put the pieces together? Are you a witch? A fae?

  What am I?

 

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