Wide Awake

by KB Anne

  From my perch, the corner window overlooks the greenhouse and the gardens. The coneflower and ligularia are still in bloom. It looks like the bee balm, rudbeckia, and cilantro are ready for seed collection. This weekend before Gram and I prep the ground for next spring’s crops, I’ll need to clean the layer of pollen off the greenhouse roof. I’d ask Scott to help, but the Steelers play at one o’clock on Sunday. Without fail, I’ll be elbow deep in compost, while he’s elbow deep in a bucket of wings along with Ryan, Uncle Mark, and with any luck, Breas.

  Maybe Scott can persuade his coach to add Breas to his team’s roster. That way there’s no chance of him showing up at the greenhouse or the garden uninvited, and believe me, he won’t be invited.

  I can just avoid him at mealtimes. Eating’s overrated anyway.

  Just thinking about him makes me want to break something.

  Stupid boy.

  I kick the trunk—find very little satisfaction—so I kick the support post.

  Still not enough.

  I slam my fist into the post. Pain spreads through my fingers and down my hands. Pain is good. Pain means I’m alive. Breaking my hand means I can’t take the math test tomorrow, which isn’t a big deal. But I also wouldn’t be able to garden with Gram this weekend, which is a big deal, especially since she says the moon will be at the prime phase for fall planting.

  Ugh. I really can’t stand that bastard. He makes me so mad. I could just …

  I stomp down.

  Clunk.

  That was fun.

  I stomp again. A floorboard flies up and almost smashes me in the face.

  I get it. Stupid karma.

  I kick the loose floorboard to the side. It ricochets off the old steamer trunk and whacks my shin.

  Yep, I never learn.

  As I bend over to nurse my knee, I notice a book shoved between the floorboards. Curious, because as I’ve already told you, I never learn, my fingers grow tingly as I stretch to reach it. A strange, magnetic energy seeps up my fingers into my hands and up my arms. The instant I make contact, an electric charge knocks me backward.

  What the hell?

  Shaking my head like Boo Bear after he smacks his into the pet door, I’m temporarily stunned, but no real impression is made. I wipe off the dust from the bottom of my Docs to ground me to the floor. In my mind, this makes good, practical sense. I pinch my lips together, because in case you didn’t know, pinched lips help ward off creepy paranormal shit. With intense concentration, I grab the book. Energy rushes through me. Before it knocks me over, I collapse back into the chair with it safely in hand.

  And I said I couldn’t learn. Shows you what I know.

  6

  Fractured Stroll Down Memory Lane

  The door at the base of the stairs squeaks open.

  “Everything all right up there?” Uncle Mark calls up to me.

  It might be my imagination, but the book vibrates at the sound of his voice.

  “Everything’s fine. Just needed some time to myself.”

  The stairs creak on his way up. I shove the book into the cushion because I’m not sure if I should be reading it or not, and I’d rather figure that out on my own than be parented by my next-door neighbor again.

  He stops at the top of the landing and smiles at me. “You sure you’re okay?”

  I nod more enthusiastically than the situation warrants. Certainly, more enthusiastically than I’ve ever responded to any question. “Yep, one hundred percent. I skipped breakfast this morning.”

  He raises his eyebrows. “Gram tells me you missed your tea too.”

  I drop my eyes, realize how guilty I look, and quickly lift my chin. “Boo Bear knocked it over. I never refilled it.”

  His forehead bunches. He has the easiest tells. He’d never win at poker.

  “Make sure you eat your breakfast and always drink your tea. You need to keep your strength up.”

  “Yes, Uncle Mark,” I say in the same singsong tone as Gram’s.

  He shakes his head, knowing exactly who I’m pretending to be.

  “Take care, Gi. I’ll see you in the morning,” he says, turning to leave.

  Suddenly, I don’t want him to go. Not before I apologize. “Hey, Uncle Mark?”

  He turns around. “Yes?”

  “I’m sorry for what I said earlier. You’re a lot more than ‘just my next-door neighbor.’”

  His eyes tear up. He’s a sensitive one, isn’t he? That’s where Scott gets it from. Not necessarily a bad thing, just an emotion that freaky orphans like me can’t possess.

  “That means a lot, Gigi,” he says. “I …” He tries again. “I …” He swallows whatever sentiment he’s about to say and starts anew. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Sounds good. Bye!” I wave using all the telepathic telekinetic teleforce ability I can muster to get him down the stairs and out the door.

  He smiles once more before leaving.

  I fall back into the chair, stunned. He bought one of the most bogus performances of my lifetime. Maybe that tele-whatever-you-want-to-call-it really works. Then again, maybe he just wanted to go home and couldn’t wait for the first opportunity to leave. Seems to be my theme song.

  As soon as the attic door closes, I yank out the book and flop it open across my lap. The sucker presses against my thighs like a lazy, overfed beast. It’s older than any book I’ve ever held. To most people that may not sound very impressive, but for me, it’s significant. Uncle Mark studies ancient texts for a living. He travels all over the world just to study them. He and Gram also own extensive collections of ancient books, fairy tales, and dictionaries, which is probably why people give them theirs for safekeeping.

  Scott and I learned at a young age how to handle and care for old books along with a basic knowledge of how to “date” a manuscript. I rub my hand along my jeans to remove any food residue or other oils before handling the paper. Then I carefully lift a sheet between my fingers. The paper’s too thick to be woven fiber. I trail my nail along the length of it. It doesn’t catch on any patterns or dimples, so the book predates laid paper, which started being used around the 1550s. Could be skin. I read somewhere that scholars and priests sometimes used human skin. Horrific, yet fascinating.

  I close the cover and let my palms hover over it. The strange tingling returns, but it’s not the overwhelming electric shock I felt when I first found it. It’s more like static. Static I can handle.

  With my fingertips, I trace the letter impressions with remnants of gold flecks ground deep into the pores of the leather. Whatever the title was is now lost. Something in another language. I recognize the symbol though. That I know well. As well as the tattoo on my left shoulder.

  I finger my Celtic triskele tattoo. Not because I can feel the impression on my skin, but because I need confirmation that it’s still there. Lizzie didn’t want me to get it. She was afraid we’d get caught. Sneaking out of her parents’ home while they slept peacefully with the naïve belief that their little Lizzie was safe and sound in bed was one thing. Never knowing that she lifted their car keys before she even climbed the stairs was another. The realization that their sweet, innocent Lizzie was at a rave in South Side with her best friend, the daughter of a whore, would cause dual cardiac arrests and warrant an exorcism.

  But honestly, it wasn’t my fault I got the tattoo. It was Ink or Die’s fault. I mean, I was an impressionable teen who left a rave to grab some fries and pop from The O when we passed by the twenty-four-hour tattoo parlor. Lizzie begged me not to go in, but I didn’t have a choice. If I didn’t get inked, I’d die. Why risk it? And that triskele called to me. The guidance counselors always advised us to listen to our inner voice. I did what I was told.

  Besides, the symbol on the cover confirms what I already suspected: I was supposed to get the tattoo.

  I should probably get one on my right shoulder. I’d hate to upset the natural rhythms of the universe. And after I show Lizzie this book, she’ll probably want to
get one too. After all, ink or die.

  On the inside cover, someone drew a different Celtic knot. I don’t know the period. I’m not a master like Uncle Mark, but it reminds me of one of the symbols in Gram’s old recipe book that she used to keep in her nightstand. The one I found back when I still romanticized about my mom’s disappearance. (Read: naïve and stupid.) I figured that if I could learn more about her, I might be able to find her and ask her to come back or to take me with her. (Again, read: naïve and stupid.)

  Gram’s room was the obvious place to look. I spent hours in there searching for something—anything—that could give me some hint or clue where my mom was or even what she looked like. I piled boxes on top of one another and climbed to the top shelves of her closet. I banged on walls for secret hiding places. I dug through her dresser drawers.

  I didn’t go up to the attic. Had I known that the most terrifying monsters lurked in the hallways of school and not on our top floor, I could have found this book years ago, but that’s a half dozen therapy sessions I’ll never work out.

  When my search came up empty, I grew frantic. I tore at her sheets. I ripped pillows off her bed. I knocked over a lamp, sending hundreds of shards of shattered light bulb across the floor. Then I panicked. Getting caught terrified me. Disappointing Gram was akin to point-blank execution. I hid the evidence of my tantrum as best as I could. Sweeping broken glass under the rug. Shoving feathers beneath the bed. When I set the lamp with its bent shade back, a calmness washed over me. Like I already knew the answer. Like if only I listened to my heart I’d find what I was searching for. That’s when I found the old recipe book with the picture of my mom tucked in between the pages in the drawer of her nightstand.

  Gram never once mentioned the broken light bulb or the trashed room. In the months that followed, I returned to the photo of my mom hundreds of times, memorizing every line on her face. Each strand of her hair. I searched for hidden messages or some hint as to why she wasn’t with me. I cradled her picture in my hands, like a favorite baby doll as I flipped through the pages of that old recipe book. I prayed that the answer to her disappearance was tucked somewhere within the pages. I discovered the answer three months later when Kensey called my mom a crack whore. A crack whore who’d abandoned her daughter.

  As far as I know, the ripped pieces of that photograph are the only evidence that the crack whore ever existed.

  Well, with the exception of one barely surviving thing.

  My breath catches. Oxygen stops coming in. I try to breath. Still can’t. I try again. The roots of a panic attack want to sprout, but I won’t let it win. Not this time. I take a deep breath and remind myself that the crack whore doesn’t rule here anymore.

  I do.

  I am the master of my own story.

  I turn to the next page. A dedication. A warning. I can’t tell. My fingers hover above the handwritten message. It feels more cautionary than welcoming. Of course I flip to the next page. You already know full well I never learn.

  Page after page the images and the text come to life. Numbers I recognize. Symbols trigger impressions as if I know what the authors are trying to impart to the reader. Dozens of handwritten notes are scrawled in the margins. Equations and words, sometimes entire passages, are crossed out and corrected. Images of animals, Celtic knots, crosses, and people cover every page. There are long lists with ingredients for recipes. But more than recipes.

  “Spells,” a voice inside my head murmurs.

  “Spells,” I whisper back.

  7

  Adventures by Candlelight

  Spell after spell, the meanings become easy to understand, as if I knew the words long before ever finding the book. As if I’ve known this language all along. Like maybe I know this language better than my own. Like maybe it is my own.

  There is light and darkness on every page. I see them in the pictures. I sense them in the words.

  Something cannot be given without something else taken away. That much is clear. Each step of every spell comes with a rhythm. If the rhythm is broken there is great risk involved. The greater the power, the greater the risk.

  The evening fades into night without me even being aware of its passing. When it’s finally too dark to read, I arrange Gram’s candles in a circle around me, lighting the yellow one first, followed by the red, then the blue. The green candle’s crooked, so I reposition it before lighting it. I’m methodical in my process because it feels important. It feels right.

  The candles cast a warm glow around the room. I imagine the spell workers working by the same candlelight, dipping the tips of their pens into the ink, recording the steps of the spell in the precise order and with the exact ingredients down to the very last pinch of mugwort.

  They must have slaved for hours over each spell.

  How many times did they have to cast it until they got it right?

  And from the markings in the margins, they didn’t always get it right.

  How long did it take them to create the artwork on the pages?

  Like the two-page spread of a man and a woman entwined together on a bed of pillows with two female servants standing behind them. One holds a grapevine with lush, fertile fruit attached to it; the other, a tray with wine goblets and a pitcher. The man nuzzles the woman’s neck while his hands explore her body, but the woman holds her body stiff, her gaze far off in the distance. As if she’s reluctant to his advances.

  I recognize the emotion in her face. It is the way I feel every day of my life.

  She’s resigned herself to defeat.

  8

  Daydreams and Nightmares

  I knew he’d be here. He can’t resist the beauty of the sisters even when they are not the prize he seeks.

  His relentless pursuit grows tiresome. His charms, his flirtations, do not fill me with romantic notions of true affection. It is more that he is the hunter and I am the hunted, and sometimes even prey chooses to get caught.

  I drop down beside him on the bed soft as clouds. He plucks a grape off the vine and offers it to me. It is a game he’s played many times before, but never with favorable results. At least not from me. Rather than rebuff his advance, I wrap my lips around the fruit. His gray eyes mirror the lustful thoughts of my own mind.

  We press our bodies against each other, moving in a slow, seductive rhythm. It is as it should be. At least as the stars have aligned it. At least as I have allowed it.

  “Breas,” I breathe into his ear.

  “I knew you’d come,” he whispers, his hot breath heating me to the depths of my core. “You will always come.”

  * * *

  “Coming?” Scott shouts from the front door.

  My eyes spring open as Sphinx claws my lap. It’s the third time this morning I’ve slipped back into my dream from last night, and I’ve only been up for ten minutes.

  Gram places the back of her hand on my forehead. “Are you okay, Gigi? Do you have a fever?”

  I drink more tea to fortify my nerves. “I’m fine. I didn’t sleep well last night.”

  At all actually. I stayed up most of the night reading. When I finally slipped off into sleep, the dream—well, nightmare starring Breas and yours truly—made me restless. Only copious amounts of caffeine will get me through the day. The dregs from the bottom of the Quikmart carafe are the only cure for this lack-of-sleep-over.

  Hangovers too.

  “Could I have a travel mug for school?”

  She hands me my favorite purple mug with the words “F— You” etched on it. “Already made you one. Finish that cup and take this one with you. If you don’t feel well, go to Mrs. Paige and have another.”

  “Thanks, Gram.”

  Scott walks into the kitchen. “Coming anytime today?” He leans over to give Gram a kiss.

  She pats his cheek. “Good morning, dear. Want a muffin?”

  He grabs three off the plate. “I’ll never turn down one of your baked goods.”

  I shove my arms into my backpack. “You
never turn down food period.”

  “Oh, you two,” she laughs. “Get going to school.”

  “I’m trying to get there, Gram. Your granddaughter’s slowing me down.”

  I smack his arm. He jumps away, knowing all too well that I drag my nails across skin for full impact—and the most pain—but he’s not fast enough. My hand just nicks him, and he has the fresh trails of blood to prove it.

  His eyes go wide as he rubs his arm. “Gi, you got me.”

  “You know not to mess with me in the morning. Anytime in fact.” I bend down to kiss Gram. “Bye. Love you.”

  “Love you, Gigi. Love you, Scott.”

  Tucking my thumbs under my backpack straps, I wiggle my fingers at him in warning. “Let’s go, squirrel boy. You can forage for muffins later.”

  He swallows his mouthful and follows me to his truck. I climb in, but he doesn’t close the door behind me. Not that I’m a damsel in distress that needs saving, because I am most definitely not. It’s just that Scott likes to take care of people. It makes him happy, and who am I to deny him. Plus, I’m lazy, so there’s that.

  But does Scott close the door? Noooo, he just walks over to the driver’s side as if there isn’t a major problem with the situation.

  I point to the door. “What’s the big deal?”

  “Well …” he says, “ummm …”

  While he stutters an excuse, Breas slips in beside me, smelling of rain on a hot summer day. An image of the two of us tangled in each other’s arms flashes through my mind. My cheeks flush, but it’s the explosion of sensation that rushes through me the moment he touches my arm that’s the problem. I should have known Breas would go to school with Scott, and by default, me. Comatose-brain me didn’t realize it until I was smashed between the two of them in Scott’s pickup.