by Kira Stüssy
He glanced down and shrugged, “Mira, it doesn’t really…” he stopped short at the sight of my glare. He threw his hands up in defense and motioned for Danny to accompany him to his room. I reached out and grabbed Kelsey’s hand, pulling her up the stairs and into my room. I ran a shaky hand through my hair and closed my eyes, desperately trying to keep my anxiety under control. Calm down, it’s not a big deal. It won’t take that long to get ready. Chill. But taking one’s own advice rarely ever reaps positive results.
“Do you mind if I get dressed too?” Kelsey questioned. I shook my head and fled to my closet, whipping aside the sparkly gray curtains that concealed the small hole in the wall. The dress I had chosen last week for this specific event hung separate from the rest of my clothing articles, like VIP seating for clothes. I ripped it off the hanger and threw it onto my bed.
It didn’t take long for the two of us to strip down and replace our casual wear with our dresses. They were nothing too formal of course, this wasn’t prom or anything, but they certainly were not the sort of pieces one would wear on a normal school day. I turned to see Kelsey, who now wore a dusty pink high-waist dress that cut off at mid-thigh. The v-cut neckline was low but not scandalous and the cloth material made sure the dress did not appear too formal. Her short dirty blond curls barely brushed the top of her shoulders with the front on both sides twisted back. She now sat in front of my vanity with her makeup bag set out before her. She was pretty without makeup, I had seen her bare-faced during our many sleepovers over the last year, yet she never left the house without at least a touch of mascara. I had told her once that she did not need it, but she had simply stared at me and laughed disbelievingly.
I watched in wonder as she applied the light pink lipstick and dusted her cheeks with blush. She had moved on to lining her eyes with a dark purple that really brought out their round doe shape before she caught me staring. She grinned, “You’re so lucky.”
I frowned in confusion, “What do you mean?”
She rolled her eyes, that now stood out so boldly against her peaches and cream skin. She could easily pass for the goddess Aphrodite, “I have never even seen you put a smidgen of makeup on. So either you wake up at the crack of dawn and secretly apply it or you are just naturally, freakishly gorgeous.”
“Uh…” I stuttered, unsure of what to say. She was not incorrect; I never did put on makeup. I never felt the need to. I had once stared at my face, trying to understand why I was different from other girls my age. My eyes were naturally outlined and darkened, seemingly with silver eye shadow, but no matter how hard I rubbed and scrubbed it never came off. My dark lashes were extra long and thick and never failed to remain the color of midnight. My lips had always been the color of champagne and my pale skin had never experienced a pimple. Any additional makeup I had ever tried only made me look like a clown.
Kelsey stroked one last bit of mascara onto her long lashes before swiveling in the chair to face me, “Sit.” She ordered.
I did as she said and took a seat on the stool in front of my vanity as Kelsey released my hair from the constraints of the messy ponytail I had pinned it up in during the day. As soon as my hair was not held back by a clip or hair band of some description, there was no stopping it from being unleashed. Extremely long, extremely thick, and extremely curly; all decent adjectives for the beast. Oh, and did I mention extremely red. Fact: Only 2% of the earth’s population are natural redheads. But mine did not possess the natural red tint that is actually light orange. No, I am talking red. Crimson is a better term. Almost daily people asked who did my hair and I always smartly answered “God” thinking I was rather witty. My flaming locks reached down to my waist in thick curls. I often considered dying it but I honestly don’t think it would work. Plus, I can not help but sort of like it. How many people can say they have naturally red hair. The corners of my mouth twitched upwards and my big gray eyes laughed back at me. I glanced away, feeling uncomfortable looking at my own reflection.
After many attempts at trying to do something with my mane, Kelsey decided that a simple twisting back of my bangs would have to suffice seeing as the guests would start arriving at any moment. She grinned at me, “Good Lord, no wonder all the boys drool over you. And that dress.”
I blushed and looked down at my attire of choice. I had to say, I did like the dress. The cobalt blue color popped and the strapless style allowed for free movement of my arms. The hem barely reached my knees, exuding a dainty but informal appearance. I looked in the mirror again, shocked by how striking the stark blue was against my scarlet locks. I smiled at her graciously, thankful to have such a supportive person with me since my stress level concerning the party climbed sky high.
“You look phenomenal Kels, I can’t imagine that a single guy won’t be looking in your direction tonight.” I said it and meant it. She looked down bashfully, something I rarely saw from her.
“Yeah, right.” Was that wistfulness that fled across her face? I couldn’t be sure and the emotion had come and gone in a flash, much too quickly to interpret its meaning. The doorbell sounded from below and my heart skipped a beat. The first guests had officially arrived.
“Come on!” Kelsey sang, urging me to my feet, “Let’s party.”
*
The music pounded in my eardrums like one hundred heartbeats.
My living room filled to the maximum capacity, as did every other room in our cramped house. As more and more people arrived, I realized that our house may not have been up to the challenge of squeezing so many people inside. But it hardly mattered now as half the school hopped up and down to the vibrating beat and snacked on the food I had slaved over. It looked as if everyone pulsed to the same heartbeat, swaying similarly to the music. The rocking motion hypnotized me.
I could not even begin to count the number of times somebody approached me and either complimented me on the awesome party or asked to dance with the birthday girl. By the end of the first hour my feet were achingly sore and my social need exceeded. The thought of approaching another group of laughing girls and fist pumping guys induced a mild migraine. I excused myself discreetly to the less populated foyer. Glancing out of the windows, I saw at least five of the boys from the football team, Hank included, horsing around in the front lawn. Someone had supplied a football which was being carelessly tossed into surrounding bushes and trees. One of the boys chucked the ball as hard as he could and I heard the horrible thump of ball meeting wood as it slammed into the neighboring house. I’m going to hear about that from the neighbors tomorrow. I inwardly groaned at the thought.
Gentle fingers tapped my shoulder. I jolted in surprise and turned around to meet Danny’s light green eyes. I felt my face spread into a small smile and witnessed his do the same. “Hey.”
“Hi,” his eyes lowered, a habit I had noticed from early on with Danny, like he was eternally embarrassed, “Want to dance?”
“Sure,” I grinned, pushing my growing headache aside, and allowed him to lead me back into the living room. The intense hip hop song faded into a slower, calmer ballad. I silently thanked God for giving my head a break from all the rap and whatnot. The new song featured a violin and a haunting female vocalist. The tempo started off slow, like a scent in the breeze, but as the chorus crept closer and closer, the speed picked up until the climax enveloped me in a series of passionate strings and wailing voices, peaking at notes that I only dream of being able to hit. As I swayed back and forth, my arms around Danny, I lost myself in the harmony and the story the woman told. I realized that part of a poem we had been reading in class by Yeats worked itself into the song: “Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths- Enwrought with golden and silver light”, I racked my brain for the name of the poem and it finally came to me: He Wishes for Cloths of Heaven…or something to that effect. I loved the way the syllables rolled along when you spoke the lines of poetry, the elegant way it elevated one’s speech. I shut my eyes and allowed the eloquent lyrics to lull me away.
&nbs
p; “I didn’t know you sang,” Danny said into my ear. My eyes shot open in horror. I had not realized that I’d begun to hum aloud, subconsciously trying to harmonize with the song. I bit my lip, embarrassment heating my face. But Danny did not seem to care in the slightest. In fact, his eyes actually brightened, seemingly surprised.
I laughed nervously, “That was an accident.”
“Well, you have an amazing voice.” He insisted, “Do you take lessons?”
“Uh, no!” I could never sing in front of a crowd. Everyone staring at me while I stood vulnerably on stage? No thank you. I was perfectly content with plugging in my iPod and jamming out privately in my room like the normal, awkward teenage girl.
We danced in silence for the next verse until he spoke again, softer this time and his voice rough, “You look nice tonight.”
“Thanks,” I replied as we broke apart with the end of the song. The hip hop was back and, therefore, slow dancing had come to a close. “You don’t look so bad yourself.”
We stood there for a moment in silence before he spoke again, his eyes were on Kelsey as she danced suggestively with a couple of boys from school, “She’s something else, isn’t she?”
I snorted. But I never got the chance to reply. The words choked up in the back of my throat as my eyes fell on the surprising and unwelcome sight located across the room. The brown haired siblings from earlier sat across the makeshift dance floor, perched on the couch as if they owned the place. The boy leaned back with his feet propped up on our expensive mahogany coffee table. I racked my brain, trying to remember if they attended our school before today. No, they had to be new, and they had definitely been shooting me curious looks all day. Of course, people typically ended up staring once they heard about my accident track record and wondered what my curse could be, but something seemed off in the way they whispered to one another and then meaningfully look my way. Like they were plotting. A lump formed in my throat. I had completely neglected to discuss my fears concerning the siblings with my brother. Even if my foreboding was unwarranted, I still liked to run things by Caspian; he always seemed to be able to provide wise advice whenever it was needed. I scoured the room for my brother, but he was nowhere to be found.
With a hurried apology to Danny, something I would amend later, I scurried away from the dance floor and directed my path for the downstairs bathroom. I hoped Danny wouldn’t be too upset with me for ditching him, but getting to Caspian was of precedence right now and the only thing that seemed bound to cure my worries. What was it about those two that raised such a panic within me? They appeared normal enough; they were probably just typical new kids at school who wanted to make friends at a party…right? But I knew there was more to it than that, something about them stirred up a warning inside of me so primitive I couldn’t deny it. Something about the way the girl’s smile curved upwards into a mischievous grin or the way the boy’s eyes gleamed with a predatory light sent chills raging down my spine.
I whipped out my phone and dialed Bram’s number. When he had not shown up with Iris earlier I assumed that he had taken her out for a movie or something knowing that the house would be jumping with crazy teenagers. Bram was not usually the kind of person who would leave a party like this without a chaperone but maybe my mom talked him into giving Caspian and me some space? But with a glance at the time, 7:23pm, I was getting antsy. He was supposed to be home over an hour ago. I lifted the phone to my ear, impatiently listening to the faint ringing on the other line. I made it to the bathroom and threw open the door. Thankfully, nobody was inside because knocking was not a priority of mine at that point.
I slammed the door shut, locked it, and collapsed onto the raised side of the bathtub. My toe tapped anxiously against the faux tile flooring. I looked up and saw my reflection in the mirror only to swiftly evade catching another glimpse. Seeing my eyes so wide and frantic only increased my stress.
“You have reached Bram Gale…” his voice came through crystal clear. I grunted in frustration. Where the heck was he? Wasn’t he supposed to be here acting as the responsible adult figure in a house full of rambunctious teenagers? Obviously, they were not too rambunctious considering I had refused to supply or house alcohol...but still! Bram was nothing if not reliable; definitely the strongest trait I discovered in him early on. My assumption, so far, had struck true. Until tonight, that is. The rational part of my brain insisted that calling Bram would do almost nothing for me at this point; but I could think of no other way to try and subdue the unjustified panic welling up inside me.
I dialed his number again, praying he would just pick up his phone.
Voicemail.
I fought the urge to hurl my phone across the room into the mirror above the sink. I imagined the liberation, to chuck the worthless object into the reflective surface of the mirror and witness the fissure spider web across the glass until the shards flew every which way. All the stress and anxiety of the night bottled tight inside of me, threatening to burst violently. I felt like an aerosol can being lit of fire and that at any moment I would explode. My head pounded in sync with my heart. I stared at the mirror; the need to break something overwhelming all other thoughts. I never before felt the need to hurt anything or act out irrationally when stressed. But now, the desire became my only focus. I stared at the mirror and watched my gray eyes morph from shocked urgency to set determination. With a jolt of surprise, my eyes unexpectedly flashed an electric shade of cobalt, causing me to cry out.
My stomach curled into a knot, twisting and turning, as if someone had reached into the inside of my gut and then squeezed. I clutched my right hand to my abdomen and gasped in pain. My teeth clenched painfully to refrain from letting anything louder than a strained wheeze escape my lips. It was like everything inside of me contracted and pulled together into a menacing gnarl. My ears deafened by a shattering roar. The pressure in the room suddenly become too intense and folded me into a tiny compacted ball. After many long seconds, the contortion in my stomach loosened and I was able to breathe again. These stomach pains were not uncommon, but I had never before experienced two in one day. As the pain faded to a dull ache, my eyes glanced upwards to look in the mirror. I could not hold back my horrified gasp.
The bathroom mirror shattered into a million tiny shards. The pieces dusting the ground like stars tossed upon tile.
Hesitantly, I knelt down and delicately pinched a piece of the glass. I held it up to eye level, positively sure that I was hallucinating. Nobody had entered the room and, amidst my torturous pain, I hadn’t even been able to stand up, let alone punch out a bathroom mirror. I stared at the glistening slice of glass in awe and disbelief for a long moment, unable to move.
Someone knocked on the door.
My heart froze inside my chest. It felt like someone hit the pause button on time, forcing me to stay exactly where I was without a twitch. The knock came again, this time forcing me into action. I cleared my throat, “Just a second!” No reply.
My eyes soaked in the disaster of the bathroom and I knew that I couldn’t let anyone see the mess I had made and I didn’t even want to think about what Bram would do when he saw the destruction. I would have a hard time explaining this one. I quickly swept as much of the glass that had scattered across the floor as I could using my hands, ignoring the sharp stabs of pain as the edges pierced my skin. Once I gathered the largest of the shards into a pile, I swiftly swept them into the cupboard under the sink, making a major mental note to clean them up later. The place where the mirror itself used to be now stood as just an empty wood frame; there wasn’t much I could do about that. After making sure all of the dangerous pieces were off the floor, I sighed in displeasure, knowing I had only disposed of the most noticeable damage, and opened the door.
The brown haired girl with the tattoo on her wrist stared back at me, that curious smile planted on her face. It took every ounce of willpower to stifle a groan when considering the irony of the situation. I tried to ignore the fact that every cell i
n my body cringed at the nearness of her, like my body screamed a natural warning of “get away, get away”. I forced my lips up into a returning smile. I felt physical pain as the corners of my lips curled upward.
“Hey,” Her blue eyes burned into mine with shining intensity, “you’re Mirabelle, right?”
“Mira,” I corrected automatically, my full name much too long and far too formal.
She grinned and I couldn’t help but acknowledge that she was pretty, with her bright eyes and light skin against dark hair. I would not call her drop dead gorgeous or anything, she appeared a little young to be considered that (maybe thirteen?), but someday she would have her fair share of suitors. She held out her hand, allowing me to get a closer look at her tattoo. Only her right wrist had seen a needle and the marks were unlike anything I’d ever seen. Black cursive letters scrawled across the back of her wrist. I read it, sounding the odd words out in my head: dominium ex evocatis mittebant. My breath caught as I saw movement, as if the tattoo came to life and squirmed by its own free will. I blinked a few times and looked again. All was still.
“Thank you so much for letting us come over,” I wanted to say that I never gave her permission but at the last second realized this could be offensive. I noticed that her voice had a unique lilt to it that could have passed for Scottish or Irish or perhaps something completely different. I don’t claim to be an accent expert. “It was so nice for Wiley and I to be able to meet some people from school. We just moved here from out of country.” She gestured over to the couch where a couple of girls now sat on either side of the brown haired boy, Wiley, with their flirty faces on.