I took a Post-it and a Sharpie out of my backpack and wrote “Please have Theresa wear this coat for excursions.” I stuck it to the plastic hanger. “So, what do you want to wear tomorrow?” I asked Mom. She was watching me now but still didn’t say anything.
I went back into her closet and pulled out a gray turtleneck sweater, a pair of navy-blue high-waisted pants, and a herringbone tweed blazer. “Lady lawyer who lunches,” I told her, and then hung them on the door. I glanced behind me into the hall to make sure no one happened to be walking by, then held out my palms and kinetically lifted the bed about six feet in the air and spun it around a couple of times. I set it back down and checked Mom’s face for a hint of a reaction, but still nothing.
When she came back on Halloween, Mom said things that let me know she loved me and had my back. She was a guiding star, a bright light I could follow through the darkness. Then, the same night, the same babysitting gig, I’d lost her again. My universe had been turned completely upside down in the past month. It turned out nothing was what I thought it was. I wasn’t who I thought I was. I could move things with my mind. I fought monsters. I was the kind of person movies were made about. I was fulfilling my destiny. But…meh. I’d give it all up if I could bring Mom back for good.
Mom brought one foot up to her mouth and tried to bite her big toenail. I sighed and flopped down in a chair across from her. “Mom, don’t do that. It’s gross,” I said, and then I really started talking. I told her about my day at school, and the Shimmer, and how I was worried about Cassandra. The only thing I didn’t tell her was that I was worried about her too. And about Cassandra’s freezer. I wasn’t sure she’d like those thoughts, and I didn’t want to stress her out because she couldn’t do anything about it.
I kept rambling, and rambling, until there was a knock on the door. I looked up to see the kind face of a nurse smiling at me. “I hope I’m not interrupting,” she said, “but it’s time for her nighttime meds.” She was holding a tiny white cup filled to the brim with pills, probably hundreds of dollars of medication that Mom would swallow in one gulp, a waste of time and money. Powerful Sitter spells couldn’t even remove Mom’s curse, so a pharmaceutical cocktail wasn’t going to do a damn thing. The only thing that would work was Red Magic, but I certainly couldn’t tell her doctors that. I took the nurse’s presence as my cue to go. I stood up, walked over, kissed Mom on the forehead, then slipped out of the room.
“Have a good night,” the nurse called after me, but I just waved, afraid that if I tried to speak, my voice would crack, and the tears would flow. I’d been missing Mom every day for almost my entire life. I thought that wound had scabbed over, but Halloween had ripped it open again, and now it wouldn’t stop bleeding.
* * *
—
I caught the city bus home, the last one of the night, and the same line that had honked at Brian just a few hours earlier. The house was dark when I let myself in, so I figured Dad must have gone to bed early, but I heard grunts and jingles coming from the kitchen. Scritch-scratching on the hardwood floor, and she was swarming me before I’d even taken off my shoes: Pig, my girl. Head like a wrecking ball, heart like pink Starburst. I bent to give her a kiss and gagged.
“Your face smells like sardines,” I said. “I don’t even want to know who or what you’ve been sniffing.” Pig was unoffended by such insults and followed me into my room.
As soon as I saw my bed, exhaustion hit me like a beanbag. My body still wasn’t used to the physical demands of being a Sitter, and I was tired. I dropped down onto my bed and used my powers to close the bedroom door and open the one to my closet.
I pulled out different items of clothing and sent them spinning through the air as I decided what to wear to school the next day. Pig let out a low growl as skirts and shoes swirled over her head. She’d seen my powers in action enough that she’d stopped barking when I used them, but apparently it was still unsettling.
I finally settled on a black, white, and gray patchwork blazer—thrifted, of course—with the shoulder pads still in, a pleated gray knee-length skirt, and blue tights. It was inspired by Heathers, of course, and I dubbed it “Brain Tumor Breakfast” and sent Janis a text.
I was about to fall asleep when I remembered Brian’s binders, still sitting on the floor at Cassandra’s. I’d completely forgotten about them, and I was sure Cassandra hadn’t cracked them either. Our party planning was off to a banger of a start. Maybe we could cash in all our irony points and just go with “tHiS PaRty sUx” as the theme. I drifted off as I was mentally adding songs to the perfect rap-rock playlist.
When my alarm went off, I hauled myself out of bed, put on Brain Tumor Breakfast, dragged myself to the kitchen, and helped myself to what was left of the coffee. Since I hadn’t eaten dinner the night before, the coffee hit my stomach like gasoline on hot asphalt, but at least it woke me up.
Dad had been going to work early and coming home late the last couple of weeks, and he was already gone. I let Pig out, and she drifted around the front yard, looking for the exact right spot to pee, before finally settling on the cement deer in our next-door neighbor’s flower bed. This was the exact wrong spot to pee, of course, because Mrs. Burgelman hated dogs. Oh well.
When Pig came back in, I fed her breakfast, which I couldn’t do for myself, since the contents of our fridge were limited to leftover lo mein and a lone pickle floating in its jar. I was sure it was fine, but there was something sad and creepy about eating the last pickle. Dad must have felt the same way, because that pickle had been there for as long as I could remember.
Janis normally picked me up when Dad couldn’t give me a ride, but she was getting her tires rotated—whatever that meant—before school, so I caught the bus. My stomach was growling by the time I stepped off, and I had just enough time before my first class to grab a weird granola bar (Apple Rain, whatever the heck kind of flavor that is) and some gummy sharks from the vending machine.
Today was going to go by fast, because I actually had something to look forward to at school, thanks to Mrs. Winchester. Mrs. Winchester was our Earth Sciences teacher, and I was pretty sure she taught that subject because she had actually been around when there were dinosaurs. Usually she was responsible for a good number of things I dreaded about school (inanity, stupidity, stab-my-eyes-out boredom), but today the fact that she thought Tumblr was something you used for rocks was working in our benefit. She was letting us leave campus to go to the city library because she had assigned us research papers that were supposed to be researched with books, something called a microfiche (which sounded like a minnow to me), and basically anything that was not the internet. I bet she’d award extra credit to anyone who scratched their essay onto a piece of stone. But, bonus: Earth Sciences was the one class Janis and I had together, so getting to go to the library was pretty much like hanging out, just an hour earlier than usual.
I suffered through gym, which actually wasn’t too bad since we were doing yoga and I could basically just lie on the floor for an hour, then I changed quickly and booked it to the parking lot to meet Janis. She was already in her car, sitting behind the wheel and tapping away at her phone. I tossed a Taco Bell cup and a pair of leggings into the backseat, and climbed in.
Janis, as always, was dressed like a queen. Last week, she’d gotten a new hairstyle, rope-thick braids dusted with various shades of green and silver (“I thought straight-up red and green would be too on the nose,” she’d explained of her holiday lewk), a voluminous forest-green hoodie, which she’d cropped so that the front was way shorter than the back, black leather leggings, vintage Nike Cortezes with a silver swoosh, and a puffer jacket so puffy that I was surprised she fit in the driver’s seat.
“What’s this look?” I asked.
“Off day,” Janis said. “I stayed up late last night making ornaments, so I was super tired this morning.” She pulled up a photo on her phon
e and held it so I could see. “Look! Aren’t they cute?” She had crocheted tiny ugly sweaters, and they were indeed cute. “If I don’t use them for the tree, I might use them for present toppers.”
“What are present toppers?”
“They’re like little presents that you put on presents,” Janis explained, putting her phone down.
“Of course,” I said. She punched a button on the stereo, and the radio came on—“Jingle Bell Rock,” of freaking course. Just a few seconds, though, before she put a playlist on. The soothing sounds of non-holiday music were like a poem whispered in my ear. The first song was Aaliyah’s “Rock the Boat,” one of Janis’s favorites. “What’s this playlist called?” I asked, since Janis got very specific when naming her playlists.
“ ‘Leaving school early to go to Chick-fil-A,’ ” she said as we pulled out of the parking lot.
“I thought we were going to the library?”
“We are,” she said. “After we go to Chick-fil-A.”
“You know they’re homophobes, right?” I asked.
Janis grimaced and nodded. “I know, I know,” she said, “but…”
We finished the sentence together: “Waffle fries.”
* * *
—
By the time we got to the library, my fingers were greasy, and I felt like a hypocrite, but my belly was full. Janis’s car smelled like chicken, but instead of throwing the stained paper bags away, we crumpled them up and shoved them into the cupholder and door pockets.
“This is the dumbest assignment we’ve ever had,” Janis said, looking around the parking lot. “The whole class is supposed to be here, but it’s just us. And we’re here a half hour later than we were supposed to be. But nothing says Spring River High School like research conducted on out-of-date technology.”
I nodded. “This is almost as bad as freshman year, when Mr. Riley made the whole class write raps about Anne Frank,” I said.
Janis grimaced. “I will never forget Todd Spano rhyming ‘boss’ and ‘Holocaust.’ ” She shuddered so hard her braids shook. “I wish I could erase it from my memory.” I shuddered too, but also at her reference to erasing her memory. On Halloween, Janis had helped me get Cassandra and MacKenzie back, and she’d even beaned Dion with a chair. She doesn’t remember any of it, though, because the Synod used a powerful memory-altering spell to make sure the entire town of Spring River thought that Halloween passed with nothing more mischievous than a few smashed pumpkins and stolen Snickers. Janis didn’t know that she’d had her memory erased, which was one of the trillion secrets I was keeping from her and it’s kind of breaking my heart.
“Come on,” Janis said, opening her door. “Let’s go get our technological time warp on.” I followed Janis’s lead and got out of the car. She locked the car behind us, and the beep of the alarm echoed through the parking lot as we started up the library’s concrete steps. I didn’t realize how slowly Janis was walking until I bumped into her, which she barely noticed. Her attention was fixed over her shoulder.
“What are you looking at?” I whispered, because Janis acting suspicious made me think I should probably be acting suspicious too.
“That guy,” she whispered back.
“Ugh,” I said, pulling my coat over my chest. As far as I was concerned we should report all creepos to the library security guard. Unless, of course, the security guard was the creepo, which was a distinct possibility.
“No,” Janis said. “He’s hot, which means he is definitely not from around here.” I relaxed and stood up straighter and followed Janis’s gaze. As soon as I saw him, I sucked in my breath. How did I not notice him as we were walking up? He was sitting on a concrete ledge next to the stairs. He had on black high-top Chucks, skinny black jeans, and a padded black Dickies jacket zipped all the way up. His skin was dark, but his hair was bleached blond, and just a little bit peeked out from underneath a red knit beanie. He wasn’t playing with his phone, vaping, reading, or doing anything but looking like he was in a designer denim ad.
And, he was also staring right at me.
Something about him made my mouth go dry and my stomach feel like it was about to belly flop off the high dive. I spun on my heel and started walking, smashing right into an old lady in a purple knit hat. “Oh dear,” I said, “I am so sorry! Are you okay?” She didn’t answer, just gave me a look and muttered something under her breath that definitely sounded a lot like the c-word. By the time I got myself together and looked again, the guy was gone.
* * *
—
It took us a little while, but Janis and I found the microfiche machine. It looked like a disappointing television set and we’d barely figured out how to use it when Janis got a text reminding her that she had to pick her brother up. “Eff it,” she said, handing her phone to me. “Take a picture of me. I’ll just look everything up when I get home and turn this in as proof we were here.” She draped herself across the front of the machine and I climbed onto a chair so I could get the best angle. I kept snapping because the pictures were as awesome as they were hilarious. We switched places so she could take some of me.
I had my tongue out, pretending like I was about to lick the microfiche, when someone cleared their throat behind me. I jumped up and turned around to see a librarian who did not look pleased at how the youth of today were using this hallowed institution of learning. Janis and I gathered up our stuff and headed out. Janis flicked through the photos as we walked back to her car. “I’m calling this shoot ‘Research, but make it fashion,’ ” she announced. “And I’m going to frame one so that Winchester can keep it on her desk.” She stopped. “Huh, that’s weird.”
“What?”
“I thought I locked my car.”
“You did lock it,” I said. “I remember the noise.”
“Well, it’s not locked now.” She opened the driver’s-side door and tossed her bag into the backseat, which was met with a frantic screech. A black shape flapped out of the car, hitting Janis in the face with a wing. Janis let out a bloodcurdling scream as the shape took off into the sky.
I was next to her in a second, yanking the door fully open and peering into the car. “What the hell was that?” Janis asked, sounding like she was about to scream again any second. My own heart was pounding, and I started to realize what it was. Not a tiny flying demon, but…
“A crow,” I said. “There was a crow in your car.”
“What was it doing in there?”
The panic in her voice inspired me to instill mine with extra calm. I took in the interior of the car again. The passenger seat was covered with shreds of white paper. “Eating trash and looking for fries, I think.”
“How did a crow get into my car?”
I shook my head. “I have no idea,” I said. And honestly, I didn’t, but there was a little something inside of me, about the size of a micro fish, that disagreed and was telling me that that crow had something to do with me.
* * *
—
As Janis drove me home, I could tell she was still pretty shook, and I dug deep to come up with something that would explain the crow away. At least to her.
“Okay,” I said. “So, I bet someone tried to break into your car, and left the door open after they realized there wasn’t…” I paused, trying to think of a nice way to point out that Janis’s car was a mobile dumpster that would intimidate even the messiest petty thief. “Anything they wanted to steal,” I continued. “And a crow flew in, and while it was in there, someone else came along and decided to be a Good Samaritan and shut your door, not realizing there was a bird inside. Eating Chick-fil-A…” I realized it sounded ridiculous, but it was as good as I could do in the moment.
“Okay,” Janis said, sounding unconvinced.
When we pulled up outside my house, Janis was still quiet, but she perked up a bit when I reminded h
er to text me some of the photos. As she drove away, something in me relaxed. I never thought I’d be so nervous around my best friend, but then these days, I was doing a lot of things I never thought I’d do.
At home, I had the house to myself—except for Pig, who was sleeping in a position best described as “melted”—so I made myself some dinner and watched Wheel of Fortune. When the puzzle was revealed to say “Piece of My Heart Attack,” I called a car.
When my ride pulled up to Brian’s, the clock on the dash said 6:55. “Jingle Bell Rock” came on as I was closing the door. Cassandra was already sitting on the front porch.
“There was a crow in Janis’s car,” I said as I sat down next to her. “Is that an omen?”
Cassandra thought for a second, then shook her head. “I wouldn’t think so,” she said. “They’re everywhere, so if it was, it’d be like, ‘Oh, look, there’s an omen freaking out over a hamburger wrapper, and another omen over here, trying to eat a shoe.’ ” She bit at her nail. “Crows are really smart, though. I read once that they remember faces.”
For Better or Cursed Page 4
