Crucible Crisis

by Amberley Faith

  As for the shy one, The Shadow had doubled back and followed her to find out if her suspicions were correct. The Shadow discovered that the shy one, too, must have suspected her uncle of being the unwelcome intruder. Why else would she have spent the night holed up in that dank, dark cave? The Shadow had waited patiently, and just before dawn, when it was still too dark for anyone to see her stark nakedness, she saw the shy one leave the cave and make her way back to her uncle's house.

  The shy one's stealth impressed The Shadow; she'd underestimated the shy one's ability to sneak around. The Shadow watched as the shy one crawled in through her bedroom window, threw on a nightshirt, and crawled into bed. About five minutes later, the shy one's uncle opened the door, studied his niece's supposedly sleeping face, and then announced that breakfast was ready.

  The Shadow crept through the home's boxwood hedge until she had a view of the kitchen table. The reverend had laid out a breakfast spread that made The Shadow's empty stomach growl. There were scrambled eggs, cheese grits, biscuits, and white gravy with sausage crumbles. The Shadow watched and waited while the shy one tore into her breakfast with a decidedly unfeminine gusto. She, too, must have been starving.

  When the shy one had drained her glass of milk, the reverend launched his sly attack. He cleared his throat, hnh hmm. "Where were you last night, niece? I checked your room before I went out hunting, and it was empty."

  "Oh," she wiped her mouth with her napkin and finished chewing, stalling. "I was out with a few friends. We went looking for leaf specimens for botany. Mrs. Sarka wants us to bring in original samples for extra credit on our exam today." The shy one rolled her eyes in feigned exasperation. She continued.

  "Somebody had the brilliant idea of going to this old abandoned home site where we'd find the best samples." The shy one continued spinning her tale. "I didn't really care if the leaves were the best. I just wanted to get my homework done, and I didn't want to go by myself." She was gaining momentum. The shy one was enjoying the story she was improvising.

  The Shadow studied the reverend's reaction to the shy one's carefully crafted lie. He closed his eyes briefly and swept a hand through his hair. The look of relief that crossed his face was followed by a quick wrinkling of his brow.

  "Well, that explains it. I think I…" He cleared his throat again. He stood up and walked toward the window, so The Shadow hugged the side of the house to avoid notice. "I think maybe I…hhn hmm, walked up on your group last night and scared everyone. Girls took off running and screaming before I could explain who I was."

  "Oh my God! That was you?" The shy one deftly changed the focus of the conversation. She put her hand to her chest, breathing hard, cleavage heaving. "We were terrified thinking it was the boogey man or some escaped convict or worse. Good God, you nearly scared us to death!" Her country twang was more pronounced with each heave of her bosom.

  The Shadow's respect grew as the shy one manipulated the conversation, putting the focus and blame on her uncle rather than on her group. The reverend interrupted.

  "Do not use the Lord's name in vain in my house, missy!" He turned from the window to face his niece. "Do you think I wasn't shocked at what I saw? I never expected to find a group of girls dancing around a fire in the moonlight! I…" He hesitated. "Hnh Hmm." He took a deep breath and looked right into his niece's eyes. "I thought I saw someone naked." He paused. "I found this lying on the ground." He lifted a brown-hooded cloak with a tear along the side.

  His niece blinked in rapid succession. "No one was naked, uncle. I don't know what you saw, but it wasn't anyone running around undressed. Why would anybody take off their clothes in the middle of the woods?"

  "What about the fire and the dancing, then?" Her uncle began to pace. "I did see that through the trees. The firelight is what got my attention in the first place." Her uncle stopped pacing, narrowing his eyes at her.

  "Well, okay!" She pushed her chair back from the table. "If you must know, we were scared out in the middle of nowhere. The twins built a fire, and we started singing and laughing. We got caught up in the moment and ended up dancing around the fire. Truth be told, we were glad not to be in the dark anymore!" She spat this at him as if it were none of his business and turned her head away from him.

  He sat down again across the table from her. "Look at me." She looked up at him again, arms crossed across her chest.

  "Was there any alcohol at your little party?" Her uncle asked. "Was anyone smoking dope? I see no other reason to carry on in the cover of darkness so far away from town."

  "How dare you!" Her eyes narrowed. "No one was drinking or smoking!"

  Her uncle put his elbows on the table and rested his forehead in his hands. When he looked back up at her he said, "You do know there is a faction against me, right? If they got word of this, they would force me out of town by the end of the week. I cannot afford even the suggestion of impropriety! Now, I ask you again. Were there drugs or alcohol?"

  "No, uncle. Your name is still good." She grimaced. "I haven't done anything to tarnish your sterling reputation. You're the only one who has accused me of anything!"

  "Do you blame me for asking?" He sighed. "Do you think I don't understand temptation? That my position protects me from it?" He looked at her quizzically and changed tactics.

  "I have given you all the freedom a pastor can give a teenager. I have housed, clothed, and fed you these last five years since both your mother and my wife died in that horrible accident." He stopped walking and turned to her. "And this is how you repay me? By inviting scandal into my house? By going out into the woods with your friends and acting like heathen?"

  She immediately turned on him. "Do you begrudge me the room and board? Is that what this is about? Or are you tired of raising a teenager? It's obvious you don't know what you're doing. No wonder you and my aunt never had children!"

  This was too much for the reverend. He jumped up from the table and looked as if he would hit her. At that moment, The Shadow decided to intervene. She ran to the door and pounded on it.

  When the reverend opened it, his face was mostly composed. He had neatly rearranged his features into an early morning half-smile. Perhaps the ability to deceive ran in the family.

  "Yes, dear? What brings you here so early? Is there some emergency?" He asked.

  "I wanted to give your niece these." The Shadow handed over a basket of leaves. She clasped her hands behind her back, twisting at the waist, swinging back and forth and said, "She forgot them in the woods last night, and I knew she'd need them. We get extra credit for each specimen we turn in with our final exam."

  She stopped her girlish swaying and continued before he could reply. "Okay, well, have a good morning." She added quickly. "Sorry to bother you so early!" She winked at the shy one and ran off before either of them could lift their jaws from the ground.

  ◆◆◆

  The Shadow finished rinsing some wild berries. Nearly two months had passed since that night in the forest. Now that school was starting again, she considered her plan. Of all the girls in Stusa, she had chosen the four whose desires best matched her own. Her groupies were driven to succeed at any cost, as was The Shadow.

  After adding the berries to her granola, she tasted it. She added some crumbled bacon and continued thinking, planning her next move. After all, her own mother had spent years trying to find it without any luck. The Shadow felt it was her turn to try. She would succeed where her mom failed.

  Although The Shadow had never gotten an honest answer about who her father was, she did manage to scrape together the story of the missing family heirloom. Her mother rarely talked about it which made The Shadow more eager to discover it her for herself. The Shadow surmised early on that her mother wanted all the glory for herself and was unwilling to turn the quest over to her daughter.

  From what The Shadow could piece together, their family had been searching for it for centuries. The Shadow remembered her grandmother, Grandma Abby or Gabby, who had lived with them
until she died. Gabby had reminisced aloud about the missing heirloom and the riches it would bestow on their family when discovered.

  The memories were seared into The Shadow's heart as if they had been branded there. Gabby's death was what prompted The Shadow to strike out on her own. Her grandmother had been the only good part of her childhood. She cherished the memory of her grandmother sitting by the constant fire, working on pieces of fine, delicate lace and telling stories. When she was very young, The Shadow had only thought of Gabby's stories as fairy tales. But as she grew older, she began to wonder if Gabby had been deliberately guiding her.

  Gabby's most enticing stories always revolved around the heirloom. Gabby spoke of her travels with Lia, The Shadow's mother, and the bitterness of disappointment that consumed Lia after so many years of failing to find the heirloom. It seemed that her family had always traveled around the country looking for it. Legend said it had been stolen from a slave by a relative in the 1600s, and then hidden away; the family had been searching for it ever since.

  At the age of sixteen, The Shadow's mother died in a farming accident, and The Shadow used the opportunity to disappear from public records. She took the cash her mother kept hidden under the floorboards of their old home and headed south. She went by a new last name and found that it wasn't hard to live off the grid. After her family's nearly four hundred years of searching, The Shadow was determined to find the heirloom. It would be hers and hers alone.

  Eventually, The Shadow landed in Stusa. Even after only a few months there, she grew sick of the small town and all its stereotypical residents, but a few clues led her to believe she was closer than ever to locating the missing family heirloom. And if that weren't incentive enough, a new family moved into the community, a family with a disturbing aura. As The Shadow enjoyed her salty-sweet granola, she wondered if that aura would be as easy to manipulate as her groupies were.

  Well, she thought, there was only one way to find out. A few pointed suggestions placed among the right people ought to do the trick. She would also need to silence her groupies. She couldn't risk them blabbing about the ritual they had performed months earlier.

  The shy one would be easy to control after that scene with her uncle. The twins and the cell phone junkie, however, might need a little reminder of why they were nervous around The Shadow in the first place. As her thoughts raced, she bit into a berry that wasn't quite ripe; it was startlingly sour, yet sweetly satisfying at the same time. Just like her plans for Stusa.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CLASSES COMMENCE

  Ellie's pre-planning flew by in a flurry of activity, and before she knew it, the first day of school had arrived. Ellie crossed herself with holy water as stepped out of the front door and onto the front porch where an unwelcome scene greeted her. Her garden had withered in the August heat. The lavender stalks had dropped nearly all their fragrant blossoms, and brown, crispy mint leaves looked as if they'd been set on fire. Her shoulders sagged.

  This was no time for negativity, however. She straightened her shoulders. The first day of school was about making a good impression, and she would be all smiles and silver linings even if it made her cheeks ache and teeth dry out. Her little garden might be floundering, but she would flourish. She aimed a well-practiced, welcome-to-my-class smile at her garden plants and told them, "I know it's been a tough, hot, summer, but we can thrive here!" She blew the plants a kiss. "I'll give you some attention when I get home."

  An hour later found Ellie in the middle of introducing herself to her first period students, giving her spiel about expectations and procedures. She was mid-sentence when a muscular student sauntered up to the front of the classroom.

  Ellie stopped speaking mid-sentence, shocked and distracted by his arrogance. He stood directly in front of her, blocking her view of most of the class and blurted out something unintelligible. Ellie's face reflected her shock. She hesitated for half a second.

  "I beg your pardon?" It was all that occurred to her.

  "I kygo see coh," Muscles repeated. Ellie furrowed her brow, curiosity replacing the shock she'd felt. She asked him to repeat himself.

  "I kygo see coh." Muscles repeated.

  Ellie begged his pardon, again. Muscles was repeating himself for a third time when it began to dawn on Ellie that he was saying he "could go see coach." Ellie repeated the statement aloud and then looked to the class for help with the translation. They stared back at her, waiting.

  Clearly, this was some sort of new-teacher test. Well, she would show them she could handle it. The first challenge to her authority, and it wasn't even second period yet. Ellie knew to tread carefully. She needed to show Muscles that she was in charge without backing him into a corner.

  Ellie decided on honesty. She cleared her throat and said, "I don't understand. Are you asking me to leave class, or are you telling me you're leaving without permission?"

  Muscles wrinkled his brow and lifted one corner of his upper lip. He looked at her like she was from Mars, and they stood there for what felt like an eternity staring blankly at each other. Just as Ellie realized that the stare-down was not going to end well for her, the door to her room opened, and Principal Danvers stepped in.

  "Mornin', students. Jus' checkin' on yore new teacher. Y'all er lucky to have Miss Payluhtay. She's gone help you sail rot through those standardized tests."

  At this point, Muscles stepped over to the principal. "Coach, I kin tawk to you."

  Ha! Finally! She awaited "coach's" reaction. The principal, however, did not share Ellie's confusion and told Muscles to stop by and see him at break.

  Ding! Ding! Comprehension knocked – Ellie was beginning to understand. Muscles thought he'd asked her a question. When he stated he could "see coach," he meant "Can I go see coach?" Whew! Mystery solved!

  Now that she knew what was happening, Ellie could fix the problem. Relieved, she said, "Students, when we ask a question, we switch the subject and the verb. I can go see coach is a statement. If you flip the subject and verb you end up with Can I go see coach. In the future, asking questions this way will make your intentions clear." She smiled.

  She thought to herself that she was not even going to broach the difference between can and may. She was just going to keep it simple. While she was congratulating herself for meeting the students where they were just like the school's vision statement demanded, Muscles gave her a strange look and shook his head.

  "You is duh only one what ain't un'stood me," he muttered, one finger making little circles by his temple as he strutted back to his seat.

  Ellie was floored for the second time in ten minutes. He thought she was crazy? Was he kidding?

  What would happen on Monday when she started trying to teach American Literature? She felt her bright, snappy mood slip and her smile falter as she realized that she was sailing into uncharted water. And from the looks of it, her vessel did not come with life vests aboard.

  CHAPTER SIX

  CRUSHING COMPREHENSION

  Over the next few days, Ellie learned more about her students, their lifestyles, and their home situations. She began to see them in a new light, and it wasn't a bright, sunny one. The murky, burdensome weight of generational poverty hung around the neck of almost every student she taught. She realized that students in Stusa felt forgotten, overlooked, ignored by the rest of the world.

  They watched TV and thought that the "American Dream" was only for rich people, celebrities, people who had parents, people who didn't watch their guardians selling drugs, people who were different from them somehow. The despair and apathy were tangible. They saw no hope for a better future.

  One day when Ellie asked a young girl with loads of potential to stay after class to work on her writing, the student refused. She shrugged her shoulders and said, "My grandma is on welfare. My mom is on welfare. I'll live on welfare. There's no point in improving my writing."

  This response dampened Ellie's spirit. The idea that having an education could improve thei
r lives was completely foreign to most of her students. It was an abstract concept that meant nothing to them.

  Malachi, a smart young man who had fallen into a bad crowd, groaned to his group one morning that he just "had to find his class ring!" For the few who could afford such a luxury, the rings were an important symbol of success. Ellie tried to help him.

  "What does it look like? Did you lose it here at school? Have you checked in lost and found?" She rattled off a few questions. He described the ring in detail.

  "Where is the last place you remember having it?" Ellie asked.

  He responded in his country drawl. "I had it own before ah went to bed. When ah stretched, it fell awff and ah heard it hit the floor." He stretched his long arms out in demonstration.

  "Oh -- that's easy!" Ellie responded, "Have you looked under your bed?"

  "Pff" he grunted. "I ain't getting' under mah bed." He shook his head. "I shore aint getting' under mah bed."

  Ellie stared at him for a minute. She had no words, no advice, no framework to understand his lack of effort.

  With each new background story, Ellie sank deeper into her own sense of despair. She knew her students needed inspiration, so she searched for some success stories to motivate them. She felt a profoundly awesome, but at the same time heavy, responsibility to change their perception of reality and to motivate them to live their lives to the fullest.

  She regained a glimmer of hope when she found out about a writing competition. Each year, the local farmers sponsored a competition. They held a contest for the best 500-word-essay on topics that affected the area such as How to use Technology to Improve Local Farming, or this year's topic Realistic Ways our Community Can Conserve Energy. It was a tri-county competition, and three finalists would be chosen – one from each county.