The storm was on hiatus, though gusts of wind rustled the leaves, sending showers of oversized droplets on our heads. We took the steps behind the retaining wall. At the top, I paused and scanned the horizon. The sky was dark above us, but there was a clear distinction between the murkiness of “five AM” and the obsidian clouds hanging above the lake. A silver bolt struck the sea and I began to count under my breath, “One-Mississippi. Two-Mississippi. Three–”
“James!” Mara said, already twenty steps ahead. “If you’re coming–”
The thunder cut her short.
* * *
Mara held her flashlight to her temple and followed the beam through the trees. The ground was soggy and slurped our shoes as we climbed the brink of The Great Divide. At the top, Mara peered over the edge and aimed the flashlight into the dark. Like the black hole in Whit’s astronomy book, the abyss swallowed our meager cone of light and, the longer we stared, threatened to swallow us too.
I wanted to tell Mara that it wasn’t too late to turn back, that we could still be in bed before Mom or Livy woke up, that she could sleep in my room until dawn...
She clicked off the flashlight and wiggled it in her knapsack, then grabbed a sapling to stabilize her first step into the pit. The darkness engulfed her in seconds, though I could still hear her clumsy footfalls over the wind.
“Wait for me!” I said. I closed my eyes; they were useless anyway. I found comfort in the heightened awareness that comes with a lack of sight. I tested the slope with my toes, feeling my way from tree to tree with arms like an insect’s antennae, relying on my sense of balance to keep me upright, following the patter of Mara’s shoes on the wet earth.
The ground became level for several steps, and I knew I was on the path where Dorothy was buried. I paused, fully aware that my next step would bring me deeper than I had ever dared to venture before. Mara had crossed the make-believe border with ease, never stopping to ponder the cat she buried only three days before.
* * *
We reached the basin as the clouds pinked from the rising sun. Clusters of moss turned bright green in the meager light, creating a visible grid on the forest floor to help us keep our bearing. The storm had created puddles in the dirt like oblong mirrors among the stumps. There were no fish in these ponds, only drowning ferns, swimming ants, and spiders that wished they had gils. I stared down at my reflection as I rounded the largest puddle. I appeared upside-down in a backwards land; a land of treetop silhouettes, rippled skies, and inverted beauty; a land where Mara is mediocre and the rest of us are gorgeous. (Even there, Mara is unique.)
Twenty feet in front of me, she checked her watch and picked up the pace. I felt fat again as I lumbered after her. “Wait up!” I said.
Mara stopped as if she didn’t have a choice. Her right leg was riddled from her knee to her sock with tiny lacerations. But she looked at me, grinned, and gestured playfully, “hurry up!”
Days ago, I would have fallen for Mara’s ruse. But now I saw past her joyful mask–past her genuine smile and infectious gait–all the way to an anxious little girl willing to risk our lives to meet a phantom on a hill.
* * *
It began to rain and Mara walked faster. Her shoes were mud pies, her left braid was frayed after snagging itself on a low-slung branch, and her tank-top clung to her back from a rousing crescent of sweat.
We passed a tractor beneath a blue tarp. Raindrops created a comforting patter on the plastic. An axe laid against the exposed wheel. We saw a salt lick a minute later, but no deer.
The walls of the basin were ginormous, dark-grey, covered in ominous trees that seemed to bow toward us as if we were the center of the forest. Thunder didn’t just shake the sky, but echoed and multiplied throughout the entire valley.
We heard it before we felt it; a whoosh and surge through the canopy like the sound of a tilting rainstick.
Mara looked up.
“Here it comes,” I said.
* * *
We were soaked within seconds. Our clothes stuck to our bodies like a second layer of flesh, exposing every crease of fat on my body while accentuating Mara’s perfect form.
I ran to catch up.
“How much farther, ya think?” she asked, her lashes flitting rain from her eyes.
“We’ll be halfway there at the top of this hill... I think.”
“Cool.”
I used her question as an opening. “Whaddya think it’ll be? The flying saucer?”
“Your sister’s mad at me.”
Mara’s disregard for my question forced my brain to shift gears. “Huh? Did Livy say something?”
“She was probably spying on me the night Ryan was over. Prolly heard everything he said, just like you did.”
“Ryan’s not all that, you know.”
“I like it when women wear earrings.”
“Then get your ears pierced. You’re old enough.”
“Your mom can’t let me. Part of the foster-parent rules.”
“Oh.”
The ground began to slope upward this time. We took turns bracing ourselves on tree limbs, holding the other’s hand to help them up, rotating, then repeating the motion to rhythmically repel each other up the hill.
I had to shout over the rain. “What should I do with your stuff when you’re gone?” It was supposed to be a rhetorical question.
“Give my candles to Mrs. Greenfield,” she replied. “My clothes, make-up and jewelry goes to Livy.”
Was she serious?
“I have twenty-three dollars in a piggybank in my bottom nightstand drawer. Give it to your Mom to pay her back for her help. My Saint Michael statue, give it to Whitney. He needs protection.”
“What about me? How am I going to remember you?”
“You have our movie. It’s the most fun I’ve ever had.”
It sounded like a copout, but she was right, our best memories had been captured on tape: bouts of goofiness, applause, adorable bloopers, and priceless moments between every take.
At the top of the incline we saw it: Mara’s hill and tower, bleak in the thickening mist, framed by clouds that stifled the rising sun. Behind us, the castle tower stood tall above the trees. Above it, lightning tore a web across the sky, burning my retinas so–when I looked at Mara–her face was covered by the same jagged bolts.
“Almost there,” she said.
* * *
The storm was chasing us. If Mom was awake at home, she was freaking out.
Streams of water followed us down the second hill, eroding miniature canyons between the roots, rocks and fallen bits of bark.
There were no puddles in the second valley, but a lake. Patches of saturated dirt protruded from the sea like a herd of giant snapper turtles. The water was not still, but alive with raindrops–trillions of them–providing the cesspool an eerie, rippled texture as if it was boiling.
“Come on!” Mara said and grabbed my hand.
I stumbled to keep up, dipping and dodging limbs and trunks, feet galloping through mud, heart racing like a ticking time bomb.
“There,” she said and nodded to a distant pine. Over the next hundred feet, the maples, oaks and sporadic birch trees gave way to pointed conifers. Clumps of brown needles created an undulating crust on the water’s surface.
We reached the tree at the base of Mara’s hill. She ducked beneath the lowest branch and pulled me inside the sanctuary of the thousand-year-old pine. (I was certain that if we cut it in half, the rings would prove its age.)
My teeth chattered, not because it was cold, but because that’s what teeth do when the body is drenched in rain. We stood in a foot of water but the conifer’s trunk was dry. The thick awning held back the downpour and muffled the sound of falling rain.
The droplets on Mara’s face were crystalline, uniform, and evenly spaced... I looked like I just pulled my head from a hippo’s butt.
She unstrapped the sack from her shoulder, removed two candles, rosary beads, and a matc
hbook stolen from the top shelf of the buffet. She placed the candles side by side on the lowest limb.
“What are you doing?”
“I can’t go up there like this.” Her hands trembled as she struck the match. The flame colored her face with its initial bold burst and illuminated every raindrop on her cheek like polished rubies. She crossed herself. “I want you to hear my confession.”
I wasn’t sure what she meant, but I nodded.
“Don’t look at me,” she commanded. “Turn around.”
My feet sloshed in the flood as I faced the shroud of needles. Through the thunder and pelting rain, I heard Mara’s soft but rapid breath.
“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been sixty-three days since my last confession.”
“What do I do?” I whispered.
“You’re supposed to ask me questions.”
“Like what?”
“Like what I did wrong this week, or questions about my body.”
My mind leapt headfirst into the possibilities. I wondered if “confession” meant she had to tell the truth. I was certain I had seen enough priests in movies to put on a believable performance.
Before I could think of a question, Mara gave me one. “Just ask me what sins I’ve committed.”
I cleared my throat. “Tell me, child, what sins have you committed?”
She sighed. “I sleep in on weekends,” she said. “Sometimes till noon. I said the word ‘asshole’ twice. I said ‘lesbian’ three times, ‘shit’ four times, and ‘butthead’ six. And I stole the matchbook from the top of the buffet.”
I grinned, but Mara couldn’t see my face so it didn’t matter. “Is that all, child?” I asked.
“Lust, father.”
“How so?”
“I slept in bed with a boy that I like.”
“Oh?”
“I told another boy secrets about my body.”
Ryan. “What secrets?”
“I covet. I see what Livy has and I want it.”
My molars ground together like pieces of chalk. “Tell me more, child.”
“I’m vain. I want to be pretty. I like wearing makeup. I like when people compliment me. But sometimes...”
“Yes?”
“...bad things happen.”
“That’s–”
“If I wasn’t vain–if I didn’t like being pretty–Dorothy might be alive.”
I wanted to comfort her. But the confession wasn’t over. “Is that all, child?”
“I lied.”
“You lied?”
“To a different priest.”
“What is this lie you speak of?”
Mara hesitated for the first time. “I told him I confessed all my sins...”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.”
“I can’t forgive you unless you admit all of your transgressions.”
Water sloshed behind me. Mara was pacing. “Only Ms. Grisham and Principal Dolman know...”
“You can tell me, child.”
She sighed. “It happened in fourth grade. Trevor Tooth Fairy sat behind me in math.”
“Trevor Tooth Fairy?”
“They called him that ‘cause he bashed his front teeth on the teeter-totter when his friend jumped off the other side. There was blood everywhere ‘cause he had braces and they cut his lip.”
“Gross.”
“His teeth were just hanging outside his mouth by the wires. I just called him Trev.” Mara picked bark from the tree. “Anyways, he sat behind me in math. He poked me in the back of my neck every day with a ruler. Hard. He called me names. He called me Luscious Mara Lynn even though I never called him Tooth Fairy. Every time he said ‘Luscious’ and ‘Lynn,’ his tongue would squeeze through the hole of his missing front teeth. I never tattled. I just laughed and played along because he wasn’t that different from the other kids. But when we were learning to draw circles in math, he started snapping the pointy end of his compass into my neck instead of a ruler. He made it bleed, but nobody knew because my hair covered the scars.”
“That’s awful...”
“Then came the school musical. It was called ‘Fifty Nifty States’ and I got to be Michigan. Aunty... I mean Ms. Grisham... she made my costume. I carried a bucket of cherries on stage for my solo. Trevor was dressed like a cowboy ‘cause he was supposed to be Texas. Before the show, he gave all the kids bubble gum to chew, then just before the curtain went up, he collected everybody’s wet gum into a big wad and stuck it in my hair.”
“What did you do?”
“In my heart I was crying. But I pretended to be happy for the rest of the show.”
“No... what did you do to Trevor?”
“If I tell you... I’ll be pure again?”
“Yes, child.”
A surge of wind lifted our awning and huffed out the candles. “Several weeks passed, but I didn’t forget. I waited until he went to the bathroom alone. I followed him inside–” She stopped.
“And?”
“I went in the boy’s bathroom and...”
“Mara? What did you do?”
Her feet splashed. Her mouth spat gibberish as if she was speaking in tongues.
“Mara?”
“Don’t turn around!” she said. Her breathing quickened; rapid sucks of air, in-out, in-out, in-out as she paced tiny circles in our fort. “I–”
I resumed my Priestly manner. “Young girl, tell me what happened in the bathroom.”
“I... I was boiling. I...” Her frustration erupted in a barrage of made-up curse words. “I went in the bathroom... because I was mad. But... he wasn’t even a bad kid!”
“Mara, what did you do?”
“I–” she stammered again. “I can’t say it!”
An epiphany accompanied those four honest words; a revelation so profound that it still affects every aspect of my adult life: proof of the impossible; proof of magic or God or the missing link in our evolutionary chain; the singularity of the human race if only people knew. Mara Lynn was the embodiment of the phrase, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” Her allure didn’t just fit every man’s impossible ideal, she was a shapeshifter, an accidental mind-fuck, forced–by whatever “It” bestowed her power–to say things or do things or look a certain way, targeting the specific desires of every single human being. Her first confessions were silly. They were adorable. I felt empathetic; drawn to her words as she listed the minutia of her dirty deeds. But this new sin–this thing she did to poor Trevor Tooth Fairy–it was so disturbing that she couldn’t even say it because saying it might taint my perception of the perfect girl.
Mara wasn’t just beautiful, she was supernatural.
And if she was supernatural, then maybe her dream was true. Maybe there was a spaceship waiting for her on that hill. Maybe Mara Lynn was some divine experiment gone awry; an alien weapon perhaps; a demon.
I could hear her wringing her tongue behind me; fighting her curse to complete her confession. If she couldn’t shed the sin, she wouldn’t be accepted.
“Child,” I said.
“I can’t say it.”
“You don’t need to say it. I know what’s in your heart. In the name of God and Jesus and wholly ghosts, you’re forgiven.” I bowed my head and crossed my chest (spectacles, testicles, wallet, watch... just like she taught me). When I turned around, I was James again.
Mara was silent, but I sensed something new. The way her eyes settled on mine for the first time today; the way her brow appeared tender, accepting; the way her hair had unbound itself from the braids but still hung perfectly straight. If she was crying, the rain covered her tears.
Then she hugged me. She wrapped her arms around my neck and pulled herself up and against my chest. “You’re a good friend,” she whispered.
I cringed. “Wait. I have something to say before you go on that hill.”
She released my neck and backed away. “James–”
“I won’t let you leave till you hear me ou
t.”
Mara turned away, but she didn’t leave.
“I think you’re pretty,” I said.
“I know.”
“I want to kiss you.”
“I know.”
“I want to look handsome for you, lose weight for you. I want to call you names like ‘sweetheart’ and ‘darling.’ I want to hold you and buy you things–”
“Just like everybody else.”
“Exactly. That’s the whole problem. I try to be different so you’ll want to kiss me too. It’s all I think about. ‘Should I tell her these things? Or should I keep them to myself?’ Because if I tell you how I really feel, it means that I’m the same as the zombies outside your window.” I touched her ear lobe. “I don’t think you’re weird ‘cause you’re pretty.” I touched the pin-point scars on the back of her neck. “I don’t think you’re evil ‘cause you’re mad.” I took her shoulder and turned her around. “Those things you told me? They’re not your fault. The saints aren’t gonna hate you ‘cause you stole some matches or slept in a boy’s bed when you were scared. If that priest was telling you somethin’ different, he’s full of crap.”
“But Danny–”
“Danny B’s a psycho. He was a psycho before he knew you. He deserves to die for what he did.”
“Don’t say that.”
“No, I will say it. Danny deserves to die. And you didn’t make him kill your cat.”
She nodded.
“I don’t know what your dream means, but if there really is something on that hill waiting to judge you, you’ve got nothing to worry about.”
Another burst of wind. Mara’s hair whipped and twirled behind her head. The candles fell from the branch with quiet plunks in the rising sea.
“You wanna go out with me?” she asked.
“Only if you like me.”
She smiled and nodded. “I do.”
A thunderclap shook the ground as her lips touched my cheek. The terror from the bolt entwined with the elation from the peck and my heart rose and thumped with tangible, unquenchable, delicious pain.
Despite my previous epiphany, I knew Mara didn’t kiss my cheek because she had to, she did it because she loved me... because I won.
Her cool fingertips brushed the hair on my neck. “It’s time to go,” she said.
“What?” I asked, shaking my head. “You can’t!”
The Accidental Siren Page 19