Out of Salem

by Hal Schrieve

  “I see.” Mr. Weber looked politely at Z.

  “Yeah, uh. I don’t feel like a girl, so I shortened it.”

  “That’s a cool nickname. Sort of skater punk, huh.”

  “Not really.”

  “What brings you here?”

  “Could you ask that girl to go out in the hallway? I need help with something personal.”

  Mr. Weber frowned. “Are you sure I’m the best person to talk to about it?”

  “I don’t want to talk to the counselors about it.”

  Mr. Weber looked over at the girl in the corner, who was watching them now. “Would you mind moving the desk into the hall, Aysel?” he asked her. She shook her head, and rose with a great creak and squeaking of metal desk legs against linoleum, the cry of sad birds. She pushed the desk with some difficulty through the door, and Z and Mr. Weber could hear her settling back into her chair in the hall. The door stood open, still, and Z moved to close it. Mr. Weber held a hand up for them to stop. “I have to have the door open. School policy,” he said. “Obvious concerns.”

  “I understand,” Z said, though they wished the door could be closed.

  “What did you want to talk to me about, Z?” Mr. Weber asked. He kept his voice low and confidential, and Z wondered if he was patronizing them.

  “Well, I know you know a lot about animation of inanimate beings,” Z began. They wondered if this was the right way to phrase it.

  Mr. Weber shifted in his chair. “Relatively speaking, yes. I’m no expert.” Mr. Weber pushed up his large glasses and smiled as if he was sharing a joke with Z.

  “I was wondering if you could give me . . . um, well, some references or something on the undead.”

  Mr. Weber looked surprised—or pretended to look surprised. He scrunched up his nose to keep his glasses from slipping. He was motionless, his position in the chair casual and open but frozen. “I see,” he said.

  “You know what has happened with me, right?” Z glanced back at where the girl had been sitting, wondering if she was eavesdropping. “The teachers all seem to know.”

  “I do. We were told.” Mr. Weber paused. “I personally think it was a breach of your privacy, but school policies, you know.” He sighed. Z glanced again around the room nervously, their eyes lighting upon a purple toad stuck to the side of its tank. It glistened unnervingly in the fluorescent lights.

  “And I know you know about that kind of thing. I don’t know any other adults who have any grounding in that who would want to help. So maybe you could give me some books to read. I haven’t been like this very long, and I’m not even sure what I can eat, or how much, or whether I’m going to . . .” Z lowered their voice. “Whether I am going to fall apart and turn into a skeleton or just disintegrate into black goo with no warning.”

  “I’m curious as to why you think I know any more than you do about this,” Mr. Weber said.

  “I don’t. I was just hoping.” Z gnawed at the inside of their cheek.

  Mr. Weber breathed in deeply. “I really don’t have much information to offer.” He seemed nervous, and glanced anxiously at the door and ran a hand over his hair. Z looked at the door. Nobody was there.

  “That’s all right.” Z pulled up a chair and sat stiffly in it. They wondered if they should lower their voice. “Just tell me what you know. I want to know more about why—or how— my body is staying alive. Mrs. Dunnigan . . . the woman I live with has some books, but it doesn’t go into the technical rules of necromancy, since that’s illegal and all.”

  “It is. Z,” Mr. Weber said, sticking his gum in the inside of his cheek with his tongue, “I have to tell you that I could get in trouble with the school board for sharing any information with you on school grounds.”

  “Oh.” Z sat, uncomfortable.

  “Don’t misunderstand me, Z,” Mr. Weber said quickly. He glanced again at the door. “I want to help you, but I want you to know beforehand the professional problem that presents for me and the danger it puts you in.”

  Z studied him. “What do I do, then?”

  Mr. Weber sucked in his cheeks and furrowed his eyebrows. “How about this,” he said, slowly and quietly. He got up and grabbed a pad and pencil on his desk, and stood by his desk as he began to draw. “The Willamette library has detailed information on this sort of thing, in the Censored Materials Division. Behind a spell barrier. I have tried to get in a few times, for personal research reasons, and one time I had an old friend who worked there show me how to get past the barrier. This was back when all the restrictions were new and I thought I might still be able to pursue some of the stuff I studied in college as a career someday. I can draw you the rune. I don’t think they’ll have changed it. They don’t have funding for that. There are tons of books in there. I don’t know what about, you get me? I have no idea what you’re looking at in there, and you did not hear this from me.” He tore off the sheet of paper and handed it to Z. There was a complicated rune on the paper.

  Z raised their eyebrows and felt the skin crack. “How do I use this?” they asked.

  “Set it on fire,” Mr. Weber said. “Blue fire, not too hot. You’ve already learned that, in eighth grade, right?”

  “Yeah,” Z said. “Though my magic’s been hit-and-miss lately.” Nonexistent, really, they thought, except for the time with the electricity and Uncle Hugh. Which hadn’t even felt like their own magic.

  Mr. Weber nodded. “You have a guardian, right? Ask them to go with you.”

  Z shook their head. “She can’t go. She’s sick. And old. This weekend she stayed in bed for two days. She’s back at the bookstore today, but she gets tired really easily.”

  “Oh,” Mr. Weber said.

  “That’s part of why I want to know this stuff. In case she doesn’t get better and is declared incompetent. I have to know how to survive alone.”

  “Oh,” Mr. Weber said, looking more unsettled.

  “But I can go alone,” Z added quickly. “What bus route do I take to get to the campus? I can go like, this Friday or Saturday. I can like, take a cigarette lighter in case my magic doesn’t work.”

  Mr. Weber frowned again, and bit his lip. “That won’t work,” he said. “Nonmagical fire is just going to set off the smoke alarm. If you get caught, police are going to be involved.” His brow furrowed further.

  Z nodded. “Okay,” they said. “Well, then I’ll try to use magic. Thank you,” they added. They stood and turned to go, but at that moment their foot turned numb and they fell over. They knocked over a chair and sprawled onto the ground.

  “Are you okay?” Mr. Weber asked, leaning over to help them up with a look of concern.

  “I’m fine,” Z hacked. One of their eyelids was sort of turned inside out. “Sorry.” They rose unsteadily, balancing on the edge of the desk. They shoved the rune into their pocket. “Thank you for all your help. I’ll let you know how it goes.” They tried to put weight on their foot, to see if it would hold. “I’ll let you know next week.”

  “No, no no no.” Mr. Weber shook his head. “I was stupid. I don’t know what I was thinking. You’re fourteen. You’re . . . You can’t . . . I’ll go for you.”

  “You said it was dangerous for you. I can do it,” Z said.

  “I’m sorry for being so cold at first,” Mr. Weber said. “I really didn’t mean to imply that I don’t care about your safety. I do care.”

  Z looked at Mr. Weber. He still had bubble gum in his mouth.

  “Well, thank you,” Z said. “But that’s okay. I’ll manage somehow. If I’m going to stick around I have to learn how to take care of myself sometime.”

  Mr. Weber scowled at a lizard in the corner, snapping his bubble gum. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “Look, I don’t want to talk to you too much in school, but I’ll give you my number in the parking lot when I leave. We’ll work something out. But not here.”

  Z nodded, tried to smile, and prepared to walk out the door into the hall.

  “So, you’re really undea
d?” The voice startled them both. The girl who had been out in the hall was back, and was now craning her neck staring over at Mr. Weber and Z. A necklace with a blue glass bead that looked like an eye hung down over her black sweater. Her dark, frizzy hair hung down her back. Two eyes glinted fiercely through bottle-thick glasses. “Like, really undead?”

  Horror flooded Z’s body. “None of your business,” they said, their voice catching on the words.

  Z and the girl stared at each other for a long second.

  “Aysel,” Mr. Weber said. “Have you met Z before?” Mr. Weber looked at Z. “It’s okay, she’s a friend of mine. Fellow nerd.”

  “We have a class together, I think.”

  “Z was just asking me some questions. Come in, though, we’re done now.” Mr. Weber was pretending he hadn’t heard Aysel’s question.

  Aysel stood up and walked across the room over to the desk. Z felt her radiating sweaty heat as she approached, her rubber-soled sneakers squeaking on the bright linoleum.

  “I’m sorry for eavesdropping, Mr. Weber,” Aysel said. Her voice was low. “That was rude to ask. I can leave. I won’t tell anyone.”

  “No need to leave. I’d really actually like for you to meet Z,” Mr. Weber said, seeming not to notice that Z was trembling with discomfort. “Z, this is Aysel Tahir. She’s the president of the science club here. We’re trying to recruit more members. There’s a pretty cool paper airplane contest we have planned that’s coming up.”

  “Hi,” Z said quietly, making eye contact with Aysel’s stomach.

  “Hi,” Aysel answered grimly, looking at the newt tank on the opposite wall over Z’s head.

  “Aysel is taking a test she missed last week in my class.”

  “I’m actually done with that,” Aysel said. She thrust a paper forward at Mr. Weber. “I really can leave right now. I’m sorry.”

  “If you’ve got a minute, stick around. Z was going to leave in a minute, I believe, and I am almost done. I think I should give Z my contact information. We can all leave when I lock up and you could both help me carry Leo to the car. He’s sick.”

  “Who’s Leo?” Z asked. The discomfort had not disappeared, and they imagined that they felt Aysel’s returning malicious energy in the air around her.

  “The big bearded lizard,” Aysel said, and pointed to a fat gray scaly creature skulking in a large sunlit tank behind Mr. Weber’s desk. His legs were splayed unhappily on the rocky floor of his tiny glass room.

  “I think he doesn’t like my sixth period and is trying to make himself ill on purpose,” Mr. Weber said. “I’ll make him a remedy tonight and maybe let him take a break from the academic world awhile. But I can’t carry his tank on my own. My Transportation Spell jostles him and makes him drool.” Mr. Weber stood up and, slipping Z’s paper into his pocket, set about stuffing various items into his large canvas bag and his coat. Aysel and Z meanwhile struggled to look each other over without actually making eye contact. Z noticed that Aysel’s heart rate had increased: they heard it pumping loudly, far noisier than Mr. Weber’s or any of the lizards, frogs, newts, or fish.

  “Aysel, can you get the door?” Mr. Weber asked. He clapped his hands and the lizard’s tank shook and rose a few inches off the floor. Leo the bearded dragon looked distressed and began to paw the glass with a petulant tapping.

  “Z, grab the far end of the terrarium,” Mr. Weber said. Z walked over and stooped down, feeling the skin of their back stretch uncomfortably with the stooping. The muscles in their arms seemed very weak, and were numb as they tried to heft the tank upward. They tried to focus on lifting, flexing, but the lack of feeling continued, as if there were a great distance between Z’s arms and their brain. Z felt frustrated. The light on Mr. Weber’s desk went off abruptly. He looked from the lamp to Z as they walked carefully, slowly toward the door that Aysel held open.

  Aysel and Z shuffled awkwardly across the parking lot carrying the lizard in its dry, sandy terrarium. Mr. Weber followed behind, whistling, despite his heavy load of bags and papers. Mr. Weber’s car was small and old and indestructible-looking. The terrarium barely fit into its trunk. As soon as the car door had shut, Z looked at Aysel with a glare meant to communicate to her that she should go. Aysel seemed to understand at least part of Z’s intent, and moved away. She hesitated about fifteen feet away from the car as Mr. Weber gave his contact information to Z on a small sheet of yellow paper and Z, in turn, wrote down Mrs. Dunnigan’s phone number and the name of her bookshop.

  “I’ll call you before Saturday,” Mr. Weber said. “I need to think about what the best plan is. I do want to try to help you with this.” He got into his car and started it. It clunked and came to life, and he drove down the street.

  Z looked at Aysel suspiciously. They turned on their heel and began to walk away. It was almost a minute later when they realized Aysel was following them. Z hoped that she would go away if Z seemed entirely uninterested. Aysel’s confidence did seem to falter as she approached.

  “Hey,” she said nevertheless. “Hey, uh, Susan. I mean Z. What name do you want me to call you?”

  “Please call me Z,” they said, mustering a firm tone of voice.

  “Okay. And uh, while I’m at it, sorry, actually, what does it mean that you’re not a girl? I heard you telling Mr. Weber.”

  “I’m just not a girl,” Z said.

  “Yes you are,” Aysel said, though she sounded hesitant.

  “Maybe I was born looking like one, but I’m not. I’m like in between a boy and a girl. An androgyne. I’m transgender. I’m genderqueer.” The word felt funny in their mouth, not pretty like when it was on the screen of the library computer.

  “Oh,” Aysel said. Z was not sure Aysel understood at all. Her face was scrunched up.

  “Do you know what that is? It’s someone who’s outside of men and women. Something else.”

  “Yes,” Aysel said defensively. “I mean, I know about people who are transsexual.”

  “Right,” Z said. “I’m not quite transsexual. Transgender.”

  “Like gay.” Aysel looked hopeful.

  “It’s neurological. I did a test online. I’m almost transsexual but I’m not. I’m right in the middle. There’s a lot of people like it.”

  “Oh. Well, I know about that. I know there are lesbians who dress like boys.” Aysel shrugged. “And gay men who dress like women. I relate to that.”

  “It’s this whole thing where you’re not a boy or a girl. Even if you dress like a boy or a girl. Lots of societies in history had them.”

  “Yeah. Okay. Yeah.”

  “There have always been people like that. Like”—and here Z paused to remember—“Claude Cahun.” That was from a website called DragKingForum. Or Sphere. They couldn’t remember. “Who go by new names and live weird lives.”

  “Yeah, totally.”

  “I want people to call me they. Instead of her, or she. That’s something people do. In other places. A neutral pronoun.” Aysel was the first person to let them talk long enough to even mention the concept.

  “They?”

  “English only has neutral pronouns when it’s plural. And I want to be neutral.” Z paused. “Nobody calls me they, though. I guess you could also switch back and forth between he and she.”

  “I can say they,” Aysel said.

  “Don’t do me any favors.”

  “Turkish has gender-neutral pronouns for everyone. It’s just o, no matter whether you’re a boy or a girl. It’s not so weird to add the same thing to English.”

  “Oh.” Z was a little taken aback. “Thanks.” They felt that they were smiling, even though they had been determined not to smile at Aysel. Then Z remembered they were meant to be on high alert. “Why are you following me?”

  “I’m not following you,” Aysel said. “I just wanted to, uh. I think you should know that, uh.” Aysel paused, scrunching her eyes up. Her voice sounded much more hesitant than it had in the science classroom.

  “I should k
now what?”

  “I think you were worried about me telling people that you were a zombie. So, uh, I thought you should know. I heard Ginger talking about you.” Aysel stopped again. She seemed frustrated with herself. “Anyway, I think people know.”

  “Who knows?”

  “Most people by now, probably. Though,” Aysel added, “you don’t look alive, honestly, so it might not be hard to guess.”

  Z set their chin and walked faster. They felt conscious of the stitches on their neck and pulled their collar up.

  “Look, I don’t know if you care,” Aysel continued, “but I figured I would let you know, as Ginger is a . . . well. She pushed that kid off the roof last year just because people said he’s descended from a shapeshifter or a troll and because he’s sort of girly. Who knows what they’d do to you, you know. And the teachers aren’t very friendly either. You know that. So I guess . . . just be on your guard. I’m on your side,” Aysel finished loudly, trying to make eye contact. She continued to walk alongside Z.

  “I know you don’t really know me, or anything. But I feel like we’re sort of the same.”

  “I don’t think we’re the same,” Z said.

  “You’re right. I mean, whatever. If you want me to watch your back, though, I can.”

  “I don’t see what it has to do with you,” Z said.

  “It doesn’t have to do with me,” Aysel said quite calmly, though she seemed a little disgruntled at Z’s rudeness. “You’re right. If you want me to watch your back, though, I can.”

  Z turned and looked at Aysel with trepidation. The fat girl looked depressingly earnest for some reason.

  “If you want to watch my back, you can,” Z said finally.

  The bus arrived, splashing both of them as it pulled in.

  The rain continued. The blank trees and earth soaked in the downpour and grew soggy. The windows of Mrs. Dunnigan’s apartment all faced the road, and from their room Z could see cars driving by, their wheels spinning through mud and throwing up arcs of water along the sidewalks.