Hollow

by Rhonda Parrish

  He ruffles up his feathers but stays where he is, standing on the shit-speckled shelf in front of the camera. I’m reminded of Aric. He’d sometimes been as stubborn as this bird is being. The key with Aric was that he was so young it was easy to distract him with something new, and then he’d forget about whatever it was he’d wanted in favour of the new, shiny thing.

  Shiny thing.

  Don’t magpies like shiny things?

  I dig through my pockets. My cell phone, house key, and a pack of gum. That isn’t—wait.

  I open the gum and pop a piece into my mouth while the magpie scrutinizes me. While I chew, I straighten out the little piece of tin foil the gum had been wrapped in, making sure the magpie can see me do it. He can. His head keeps bobbing up and down as he looks from the shiny foil in my hand up to my face then back to my hand again. I’m certain I have his attention so I crumple the foil up, careful not to compress it too much because I need the ball to be big enough for him to see when I toss it.

  Finally, I carefully lob the foil over to the far corner of the room and am rewarded by the magpie swooping down from his perch after it. As I snatch the camera up he does the same for the foil. He looks up and, seeing the camera in my hands, does a cartoon-like double take and lets the shiny foil slip from his gaping beak. “Sorry, dude,” I say and step back out of the room. “But you really can’t use it and think of all the fun I can have with it.”

  He flies up, toward me, kek-kekking, and lands sideways on the door jamb, holding onto it with his clawed feet. Kek-kek-kek he says, and again I am reminded of Aric having a temper tantrum when he realised he’d been tricked. “If you’re not careful,” I say, “I’m going to start calling you Aric.”

  If Mom ever heard me say that she’d be crushed, but she can’t hear me here so I figure it’s okay.

  I look away from the magpie and down at the camera. The spot where it had been sitting on the shelf is now a weirdly clean, empty space. A hollow in the bird shit and feathers. The case is not clean, however. It’s not shit-covered, thankfully, but the dust on it is oily and thick and balls up beneath my thumb when I stroke it over the surface.

  I turn it over in my hands, looking at it, and suddenly the magpie launches itself toward me. Its feet latch onto the camera’s neck strap and it seems to be trying to pull it out of my grasp. Startled by his sudden lunge and flailing wings flapping in my face, I very nearly do lose my grip on the camera, but not quite. Ducking away from the wings and stepping back, I jerk hard on the camera, pulling it out of the bird’s grasp.

  “Wow,” I say, lifting a hand to my chest where I can feel my heart thumping like I’ve run a lap of the track. “You’re not a well bird, are you?”

  He sits on the ground between me and the room I’d found him in, looking at me and tilting his head from one side to the other. And then he begins to sing.

  The song of a magpie had always felt magical and surreal to me. They seem to sing in more than one voice at a time, the sound like something sung underwater by a choir, but coming from only one beak. When I’d been younger I’d thought maybe if I concentrated hard enough I’d be able to make out the words in the song, or better yet, in the song under the song. I’d never been successful. Unsurprising, I think, since birds don’t speak English.

  This magpie’s song is like those of the birds from my childhood. I feel like if I could listen hard enough, for long enough, maybe I’d be able to hear what it’s trying to say. Or maybe the atmosphere of the hospital is starting to get to me.

  My cell pings, breaking the spell of the bird’s song, so I hang the camera around my neck by its strap and fish it out. It’s Sevren telling me to meet him in fifteen. As I put the phone back in my pocket, I look around for the magpie, but it’s gone.

  The sunlight is blinding as I climb out into it, but I don’t need to see well to make it to the hole in the fence. Thankfully, by the time I slip through it and start jogging home, my eyes have adjusted enough that I can pick out fine detail again and don’t see weird purple blobs floating around anymore.

  I haven’t time for a shower or even to play with the camera. I leave it in the middle of my dresser, throw on clean clothes, grab a granola bar, and dash out the door toward Sevren’s. There, I give Boris a good belly rub, the kind that gets his back leg going, while Sevren gets his shoes on and then we’re off.

  “You’ll never guess,” I say around a mouthful of granola bar, “what I did this morning.”

  “Went in the haunted hospital?” Sevren says, his voice void of emotion.

  “I—” I stop and stare at him, looking, I’m sure, oh so glamorous with my jaw hanging open and granola still stuck on my tongue. “How did you know that?”

  Sevren flips his head, tossing the hair from his eyes and setting the zippers on his leather jacket to jingling. “You smell like a forest fire.” He starts walking again and I follow his example. “And also I saw you duck the fence when I was letting Boris out this morning.”

  “Oh,” I laugh, a little uneasily. If he saw me going in, did he see why I went in? I’d rather not have to explain . . . “Well, you’ll never guess what I found in there.”

  “Jimmy Hoffa.” His voice is still expressionless. I wonder if he’s mad at me for something.

  “Jimmy who?” I don’t bother to wait for an explanation. “Never mind. I found a camera. And a weird bird. Only brought the camera home though.”

  “Same weird bird as before?”

  Trust Sevren to grasp onto the least important bit of information. I’ve always wanted a real camera. Sure, I’d dreamed of a DSLR, not an old-fashioned one, but still, it was a camera! Why isn’t he happy for me? “And a camera,” I repeat. “An old one. Where you don’t have to develop the film.”

  “Where?”

  “In the hospital.”

  “I mean,” Sevren says like he’s talking to a three-year-old, “where is it?”

  “At home. I’ll show you Sunday.” Movie night.

  “Does it work?”

  “Dunno, haven’t had a chance to try it out yet.”

  “Huh.” He goes quiet again. He must be upset about something. The silence between us is never this heavy otherwise.

  “Marcus going to walk you home again today?”

  “Tomorrow,” I say, feeling my face grow warm.

  “K,” he says.

  “You can come too—” I say.

  “No thanks.” Sev’s voice is dry. “Fun as that would be—”

  I can’t take this any longer. I don’t know what he’s pissed about but whatever it is— “Look, Sev—” I start but he interrupts me, or starts talking at the same time. Whatever.

  “I can’t believe you went into the haunted hospital without me!”

  Oh. Ooh! That explains so much. Of course he’s upset. We grew up in the hospital’s shadow, talked about it, made up stories, wondered . . . No wonder he’s pissed at me. I don’t blame him. If things were reversed I’d be choked too.

  “Oh, Sevren. I’m sorry.”

  He looks at me, his eyes guarded, chin set in a firm line.

  “I didn’t even—I don’t know if it helps but I didn’t plan it.”

  He shrugs and I can tell he’s still upset. “Whatever.”

  “I didn’t. I was out on a run and saw Keith drive around the corner. I—” I pause. How much to share? “I didn’t want to have to deal with him so I ducked into the hospital grounds. I hadn’t even meant to go in—” but I felt drawn to it. I keep that part to myself, and not because Sevren’s talking, but because it sounds ridiculous even to me.

  “But you did.”

  “I did. I did and I’m sorry. Uh, let me make it up to you? We can go back this weekend? Saturday. The two of us.”

  “Sure you don’t want to invite Marcus?”

  You screwed up, I remind myself as a bitchy reply jumps to my tongue in the face of his attitude, and I swallow it back. He has a right to be angry. “Just the two of us.”

  “K,” he says
. He might have said more but the bell rings and we’re still a block from school.

  “K,” I say and start running for school, but Sevren’s pace doesn’t change so I stop. “We’re not running?”

  “I only run if something is chasing me,” Sevren says. I shrug and match my pace to his. Maybe he’ll forgive me faster if I show him I’m willing to risk detention with him. For him.

  The second bell rings and I see Mr. Pannu standing in front of the main doors. As detention shifts from a possibility to a certainty, Sevren half-smiles. “Now you’re in trouble.”

  “Me? I think you mean we.”

  “I’m used to it.”

  I hip check him and nod as Mr. Pannu tells us both to report for detention at lunch. It’s worth it. I can see the ice melting from Sevren’s attitude with each word.

  Chapter Ten

  SCHOOL DRAGS. THE usual tedious combination of classwork, classmates, whispers, and gossip. The only blessing is that no one engages with me directly, which makes them easier to ignore. Detention is long and boring. I’d forgotten to pack a lunch but Sevren shares his, and as we silently munch on bologna and cheese under Mr. Pannu’s hawk-like gaze, I can tell he’s nearly forgiven me.

  Thankfully, he’s never been good about holding a grudge. The longest he’s managed was way back when he got mad at me for spoiling the ending of The Deathly Hallows. He didn’t speak to me for a week. In my defence, I really did think he’d read it already—he usually reads almost as quickly as me and I’d been done for days by then. Apparently, though, he’d been deliberately taking his time, savouring the story. Until I’d ruined it.

  Oops.

  As we’re leaving detention, I feel something bounce off the end of my foot and look down to see a crumpled-up lunch bag that I’ve just kicked into the hallway. It bounces off some seventh grader’s foot, then a locker, and finally comes to rest in a corner near the water fountain. Sevren looks at the bag, sitting all rumpled and forlorn in the corner, then at me pulling my phone out of my pocket. He laughs. He knows the signs that I’m shifting into photographer mode.

  “I’m going to class. Have fun!” and then he’s off down the hallway before I even reply. Which is good, because really, I’m focused on the bag, turning it over and over in my mind’s eye, to try and figure out which angle to shoot it from. Where do I need to stand so as not to block the light? How can I compose the photograph to really isolate the bag in the corner?

  I sidestep a little clique of girls standing in the middle of the hallway and squat down beside the water fountain to take the shot. My first attempt doesn’t have enough negative space, but I nail it with the second.

  Standing up, I lean my hip against the wall and do a quick edit on the photo—stripping it of colour and adding a heavy vignette. I’ve just uploaded it with the title “Forsaken” when Marcus interrupts my focus.

  “Did you just immortalise that garbage?” he asks. He’s standing close enough that I can smell the scent of his body spray combined with the one that is his alone. My tummy flitters and I feel a blush start to stain my cheeks. I will the blush away, unsuccessfully, and nod, faking calmness.

  “I did indeed.” The tremor I feel in my belly doesn’t reach my voice. “It will forever represent the feeling of being discarded.”

  “Do you feel—” he begins and then, blessedly, interrupts himself. “Can I see?”

  I hand over my phone and he clicks to view the image full screen. “That’s really good.” He has the grace not to sound surprised.

  “Thank you. I love photography.”

  “Can I?” he gestures, and I nod and watch as he scrolls through all my recent photographs. He nods and makes little noncommittal sounds at each photo until he comes to a candid shot I’d taken of him.

  Oh, there are other people in the shot but he is very obviously the main subject. He’s smack in the middle of the frame, surrounded by all his friends who are just slightly out of focus. He’s laughing, his mouth open, head tilted back, and the autumn light makes the golden undertones on his skin really stand out. Basically, he’s gorgeous.

  “Oh,” he says. “Did you take this at the track last week?”

  I nod. I don’t quite trust myself to talk. If I do I’m going to start babbling, start trying to minimize his photograph on my phone. The photograph that advertises my crush more obviously than a neon sign.

  “It’s really good,” he says, and keeps scrolling.

  “Thanks,” I manage, just as the warning bell for class sounds. I jump guiltily, even though I’ve done nothing to be ashamed of, and Marcus laughs.

  “See you tomorrow,” he says, handing me back my phone. Our fingers brush against each other when I take it and that spot on my hand flares into awareness, suddenly feeling super warm even after his hand has moved on.

  “Tomorrow,” I mutter, but by then he’s already gone, vanished into the fast-moving river of students that are our hallways right before class.

  My happiness at the interaction with Marcus only lasts one period because my last class of the day is Math.

  Marcus should have been there, but he’s not—there’s some sort of track event this afternoon. Before the accident, I would have been involved in that, but I had to give up track after the accident to help take care of Amy. I suppose now I could go back, but it sort of feels like something from my life before. Like it doesn’t fit anymore.

  Anyway, Marcus isn’t in class, but Keith is.

  He’s rocking a black eye that looks fresh. He doesn’t say or do anything overt toward me, but he doesn’t have to. Just him being there, in the same room as me, makes me anxious and uncomfortable. As does the way Mr. Johnston keeps looking at me, with the same concerned look all the teachers had in the early days after the accident. The one that makes it obvious they want to say something, but they don’t know what to say. At least then they all had the good sense not to single me out in front of the class, but I’m worried Mr. Johnston might break that unwritten rule today, and that makes me even more on edge.

  I know I ran out of his classroom and all, but I waited until after the bell rang so really he shouldn’t say anything.

  Please, I think, over and over as the clock ticks by at the speed of sludge, please don’t say anything.

  He doesn’t, but I still feel like I’ve aged a decade over the hour. When the bell rings I’m careful to match my exiting pace to the rest of the class, but also keep a good-sized buffer of people between me and Keith. I’m so close to having escaped his notice today, I definitely do not want to do anything to attract his attention now. When I’m so close to freedom.

  I make it back to my locker without his notice, and Sevren meets me there before I’ve finished putting all my books away.

  “You got homework?” he asks.

  “Finished in class.”

  He shrugs then flips the hair out of his eyes. “Cool. Netflix?”

  “Netflix,” I nod.

  Amy joins us on our way back to Sevren’s—his family has a subscription to Netflix, mine does not—and decides to come along even though she has no interest in any of the series Sevren and I are currently watching. But she happily sits on the floor with Boris, petting him and playing The Creeps on my phone while Sevren and I watch TV from the couch.

  It’s comfortable. Familiar.

  Sunlight streams through the sheer curtains in Sev’s living room, and Boris’ hair floats in the sunbeams. It’s pretty, and if Amy didn’t have my phone I’d take a photo. The furniture is all light colours, the television is big and new, and the bowl of popcorn settled between Sevren and I is over-sized and has extra butter.

  For a little while, I forget all the bad things going on in my life and lose myself in the troubles plaguing Riverdale and the salty greasiness of popcorn, but as the time to go home draws nearer, I feel the shadows draw around me once again.

  By the time Amy and I head out the door, I feel almost as crappy as I did this morning.

  DINNER IS, AS usual, mostly
one long uncomfortable silence punctuated by the sounds of our eating. Each clink of silverware against a plate, or the thud of Amy setting her glass down after taking a drink, seems unnaturally loud, and every movement I make feels like I’m moving through transparent Jell-O.

  Still, at least it gives me a chance to bring up counselling for Amy.

  “Mom, remember that counsellor your doctor suggested?” I say, hesitantly, looking over at Amy to try and gauge her reaction. It’s her I’m worried about upsetting, not Mom.

  “What about them?” she asks.

  Amy’s fork has stalled halfway to her mouth, and the French fry impaled on it drips ketchup onto her plate. Drip. Drip.

  I look back at Mom.

  “Maybe we should call them?”

  “Do you need to talk to someone?” she asks.

  I think about the accident. About Keith. And I wonder, for just a second, if maybe I should talk to someone. But then I try to imagine how that conversation would go—telling a stranger things I can’t even tell Sevren, my best friend, and I dismiss the idea completely. Instead, I glance over at Amy. She shakes her head almost imperceptibly, and I turn my attention back to Mom, hoping she would notice the direction my gaze had shifted so I wouldn’t have to say the words. Wouldn’t have to call Amy out directly when she obviously didn’t want me to. “No, not me.”

  Mom frowns, and in that moment, she looks almost like her old self. Almost. But this new mom is paler, more drawn. The lines around her mouth are deeper. Her hair more grey. Then some sort of realisation comes to her and I can see the shields drop down over her eyes. Her jaw tenses, her lips purse. “I’m doing the best I can, Morgan,” she says. Her voice is not angry. It’s not sad. It’s completely empty of emotion.

  Oh my god. I don’t mean her, but Amy is shooting daggers at me from across the table, and I know pursuing this conversation any further isn’t going to have a happy ending for anyone. Especially me. Instead, I roll my eyes so hard they hurt, and then, gritting my teeth to bite back words I know I will regret, I stand and start clearing the table. If, perhaps, I’m a bit rougher than I need to be when I open the dishwasher door and pull out the rack, no one says anything. I think we all know this is a powder keg and no one wants to play the role of the match.