Falling Under

by Gwen Hayes

  Donny’s family was the kind I used to dream about. They lived in a much smaller house, but it was a lively, almost-tooloud house. Someone was always laughing . . . or yelling. It was never quite clean, but there were always good things to eat and someone to listen to how your day was. I even envied her for her little brother, as mischievous and destructive as he was, and for her parents, who didn’t put up with much but did it with a sense of humor.

  Also, I envied how comfortable she was in her body. A couple inches taller than me, mostly due to her legs, Donny exuded this aura of confidence about her appearance that I would never have. Everything she wore was chosen carefully, as if to exhibit her assets. Her brown hair was layered around her face to draw attention to high cheekbones, and the part was on the side, accentuating her proud forehead. She always wore earrings that peeked out when her hair moved—a whisper that there was more to see if you took the time to look.

  “Why is it so important that I go to this club with you?” I asked. Donny was very social, whereas I was not. She often had her own plans on the weekend that didn’t include me, and I was more than okay with that.

  “Because you need to get out more. I swear to God, you are going to explode one day if you don’t vent a little wickedness now and then. Does your father know what happens to daughters of overly uptight and strict parents when they get their first taste of freedom at college?”

  “No, what?”

  “Girls Gone Wild, that’s what.”

  The thought of me flashing my breasts to a camera in exchange for a trucker hat made us laugh so hard we couldn’t breathe. The funniest part was that we both knew Donny would do it for a stick of gum.

  Our third musketeer, Amelia, joined us as the giggling subsided. As usual, she was dressed in what Donny liked to call “rebellious goth.” Ame liked the alternative styles of the emo/goth kids—but she hated black and dark colors. Instead, she looked like a rainbow with skull and spider accessories. “What’s the laughing about, or do I want to know?”

  “You don’t. Trust me.” Donny patted the bench next to her. “Ame, help me convince Theia that she needs to cut loose with us this weekend.” She bit the tip of her pizza, the cheese stretching a mile before breaking. Only Donny could make that sexy. When I ate pizza, I cut it into bite-size pieces.

  Ame unpacked her lunch from the reusable tie-dyed sack she brought every day—she was very conscious of her carbon footprint. “Theia, if you don’t cut loose with us this weekend, I will have to listen to Donny bitch about you all night and it won’t be any fun at all. And I won’t have anyone to talk to when she ditches me for the first pretty boy who comes along. You have to come.”

  Amelia wasn’t joking. Donny really enjoyed her pretty boys. Amelia, on the other hand, had pined hopelessly for the same bloke since he’d moved to our school in seventh grade, the same year I did. She’d been stuck in “just a chum” purgatory for four years, but refused to tell him how she felt or give any other boy the time of day.

  Ame carried herself differently from Donny. Donny was catlike and slinky, while Ame was more like a happy puppy. She bounced a lot and used her whole body when she spoke. She was also beautiful, but you couldn’t tell her that.

  Now that Amelia had let her hair grow back to the shiny black-brown it was naturally, and not the brittle blond she’d been trying to keep it, Donny and I both felt like she was the prettiest of all three of us. Amelia, however, saw only flaws with the features we thought made her exotic and outstanding.

  Ame was born in Korea and adopted by a family perhaps even whiter than my own. Most of the time, I think she handled the diversity well. Sometimes she acted like we didn’t see her wishing away her heritage. Other times, though, she talked about going to Korea someday, not so much to find her birth parents but just to walk where her roots had once been.

  But when it was just the three of us together, roots were never an issue.

  Donny put her hands together as if in prayer. “Pwetty please, say you’ll come with us on Friday. You will love this club. It’s the only under-eighteen club I’ve ever been to that didn’t make me worry about our generation. It’s actually fun. And not lame.”

  “I have nothing to wear to a dance club.” And I didn’t. Father’s personal shopper chose my wardrobe according to a strict outline of recommendations—none of which included anything that would be suitable for dance clubs.

  “I have your outfit all picked out,” Donny answered a little too gleefully. “Oh, yeah, and Sandra Dee called; she’d like her sweater sets back.”

  That was low, but not wrong. Father’s shopper believed thinking outside of the box meant three-quarter sleeves in place of long ones. And I have bottoms in every shade of khaki ever made. You know, for my wacky, carefree days.

  All the same, Donny was not to be trusted as a replacement for the shopper. “Your clothes won’t fit me, Donny. Your legs are a mile longer than mine.”

  “All the better to wrap around a boy with. Speaking of—” She paused so Amelia and I could groan.

  Donny really was certifiably boy crazy. I had no such aspirations. Aside from my accent and “strange” English ways, my real boy problem had less to do with my looks and more to do with my upbringing. As in: Father says no. I’d been segregated from boys my whole life, not allowed to have coed parties even as a child. And dating was out of the question.

  I was untouchable.

  He just wanted me to be safe, and he worried that boys would make me reckless and distract me from my music studies—which were far more important to him than they were to me.

  I love the violin, truly I do, but I’ll admit to sometimes being bored by all the work involved in maintaining my skill level. However, musical proficiency is important.

  To Father.

  It didn’t matter to him that I was beginning to feel less joy in the music. The more he pushed, the less I cared. In fact, I preferred playing modern music but could do so only when he wasn’t home. Because modern music wasn’t respectable. It didn’t pay tribute to the deep roots of my family tree.

  Aldersons were to be the best at whatever they did. Father proved that daily at his workplace, or so I heard from his colleagues at the picnics every summer. His company had transferred him twice to the States to fix its sorrier offices—once the year he met my mother, and again when I was thirteen. He was also unbeatable at racquetball and sailing. I was to follow in the grand tradition of all the Aldersons before me and excel.

  Whether I wished to or not.

  Donny continued, ignoring our groans. “My sources in the admin office tell me we are getting fresh meat tomorrow. All the way from New York City. God, I hope he’s cute. We need new cute at this school.”

  Amelia picked at her salad. She hated salad but was on what Donny dubbed a foreverdiet. “We only need new cute because you have exhausted the population of already-here cute. Take it easy on the new guy, will you?”

  “He’s probably a sneetch anyway,” Donny said.

  “Sneetches” was what we called the in-crowd at school, the haves as opposed to the have-nots. We named them from a Dr. Seuss story in which the Star-Belly Sneetches, who were born with a green star on their bellies, thought they were better than all those who had no green star—or in this case green money.

  By current standards, I possessed all the right accoutrements to be a sneetch, except the ones that would have made me want to be one. Much to my father’s dismay, the children of his business associates and fellow golf club members were not the chosen brethren of his daughter. Of course, he never helped me get accepted, since he resolutely shielded me from their activities and social situations, but try telling him that.

  Donny pulled out her compact, checking for nonexistent damage before fourth period. “Amelia, if you tell me you want the new guy, sneetch or not, I’ll stay away from him. But you have to promise to actually talk to him. Not just pine from afar. Reruns are boring.”

  “I’m not even remotely interested in the n
ew guy, but thanks for the offer. I know how hard that must have been for you.”

  Donny started on me next, but I held up my hand. “Halt. I am not remotely interested in the new bloke we haven’t seen yet either.” On a whim, I asked them both, “Did either of you hear anything about a plane crash last night? Or maybe a meteorite?”

  “Did you have dreams about aliens probing your secret places, Thei?” Donny asked, again much too gleefully.

  “No, I—Never mind.”

  The bell rang, reminding me that my fourth-period class was on the other side of campus, but at least it smelled better than the cafeteria. We had to wait for a pack of sneetches, several of them in cheerleader uniforms, to file past our table. As per their social custom, they made no eye contact with those of us without stars upon thars.

  When one of the varsity basketball players tried to pass without even seeing us, Donny drew the line. “Hey, Bill, did I ever tell you how much it meant to me that you made sure my needs were still met that one time you couldn’t get it up? That makes you a real gentleman.”

  Of course, Bill did no such thing. Oh, he really did have a problem—but he left Donny to finish things for herself when he didn’t bring his A-game.

  He grunted, someone muttered, “Bitch,” and all was right in our world.

  By the end of the evening, I was wiped out. I practiced for two hours after school with my new tutor, who knew within ten minutes that I was better than he was. So, like anyone with an overinflated sense of self, he punished me with futile exercises and extra practice time.

  Dinner was a somber affair, as usual. Muriel, our housekeeper and cook, tried to sneak in a cakelike dessert to appease her own guilt at my lack of birthday celebration, and Father read his paper throughout the meal, stopping to tell me to “Sit up straight” and “Stop fidgeting so much.”

  “Father,” I began cautiously, “I’d like to spend the weekend at Donny’s.”

  “We’ll see,” he answered. And that was the end of the discussion.

  I’m not sure how my mother could have fallen in love with him. He was so cold. And worse, I think he was trying to make sure I turned out as icily perfect as he was. Sometimes I felt the crystals forming inside, etching a pattern of frost on my heart, and I thought it would be easier to follow his path than diverge from it. If I was careful and cautious, dutiful and obedient, perhaps I could stop the wayward longings I had. The ones where I thought, There has to be more. More than this uncomfortable silence at a table too large for the two people who ate here every night.

  But if there was more, Father wanted none of it. He retired to his study and I retired to my fancy decorated cell, finished my homework, looked at my violin and considered playing it for an hour, and then put myself to bed with no hope of falling asleep.

  But fall asleep I did. I think. And that was when everything got worse.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I awoke in the dark yard, kneeling in the dewy grass near the site of the burning man without any recollection of leaving the house.

  Father would be irate to find me outside in only my nightgown in the middle of the night. This impulsive behavior was what he’d been guarding me against all my life. He’d bellow and grumble and tell me I would end up just like my mother. And then, as soon as the harsh words escaped his mouth, he would regret them and walk away. A new necklace or tickets to the ballet would appear on my vanity table the next day.

  Father was nothing if not predictable.

  A fog had rolled in, displacing the sense of familiarity of my own backyard. Though it was the dead of night, the moon glow dappled the trees, creating longer shadows than I remembered.

  And there was music.

  The muted strains of orchestral music captured my interest because they weren’t coming from the house, but from deeper on the grounds. My father’s yard was vast, and his only in that he directed the workers to its upkeep. Father didn’t sully his hands with the soil, yet spent much of his time inspecting the lawn for flaws.

  The grass and I had a lot in common.

  Though we lived in the Bay Area, the grounds looked distinctly British, just as my father liked it. The lawn surrounding our stark white home was a passion—the only one he’d allowed himself. The hedgerow alone took hours of shaping by his workers. Interspersed like hidden Easter eggs were special English roses he’d had cultivated. They weren’t very hardy and didn’t often make it, but some were still there—you just had to look hard to find them.

  I kept walking. The closer I got to the music, the stranger the surroundings became. They may have been the same plants and shrubs I’d grown up with, but the shadows distorted their shapes and made them ominous. I’d never noticed how many thorns the garden had—or how the vines twisted and held the lattice in a stranglehold.

  I began taking shallower breaths and my heart beat faster and faster.

  No matter how far I went towards the music, I got no closer. It always seemed “just over here” a little more, and I carried on farther and farther until I realized I was in a maze of shrubbery. A labyrinth.

  Only there shouldn’t have been one on the grounds.

  Turn back. But it was too late. I tried, but the path changed as I walked and I had the sensation that I was walking towards the middle of the maze instead of back to my house no matter what I did.

  The haunting strains of an unfamiliar melody filtered through the branches. My trained ear picked the musicians out to be a quartet. The tune captured a gothic mood and was rising to a crescendo when I arrived at a gazebo alight in candles.

  I should be panicking. Yet the pull was so strong that like a moth to flame I carried on.

  Cautiously, I made my way up the steps. The candles were tied to thorny branches, eerie yet beautiful. I rubbed my arms, but the shivers continued. A nightgown was little protection.

  “I’d always hoped you’d come, but I didn’t dare expect you.”

  My breath hitched at the masculine voice. I whirled towards it instead of away, like a smart girl would have done.

  The young man bowed deeply. “Theia.”

  He wore an old-fashioned gray suit, with tails on the jacket and a black cravat pinned with a symbol I didn’t recognize. His dark hair was thick and looked so soft I had to resist the urge to touch it. Looking into his dark eyes was like falling into the stars, making me feel weightless and disoriented.

  “Who are you?” I asked, at odds and embarrassed that he was dressed so formally while I was dressed for bed.

  “I’m so happy you’ve come,” he answered. “Now the celebration can commence.”

  I stole another look at him. He was taller than me and the cut of his jacket could have distorted his figure, but I didn’t think it did. Broad shoulders and a tapered waist, like that of an athlete. His face was perfect . . . but not. Unearthly, yet beautiful.

  He clapped his hands twice, and the spans of green grass surrounding the gazebo ignited instantly with candelabras and torches, illuminating what appeared to be a party in progress.

  A jeweled pewter goblet was thrust into my hand, and I surveyed the scene in wonder. Tables sheeted in red and black cloths were laden with food and drink. The revelers, costumed in silk and lace, smiled garishly at one another and carried on muted conversations without moving their lips, their faces made up like those of lurid clowns.

  The orchestral quartet drew my gaze as they started a haunting new song similar to the one that had led me to the gazebo. But it wasn’t the song that held my attention. It was their appearance. Much like the man standing next to me, they were dressed formally—black tuxedos and top hats. But where their faces should have been, instead they bore only flesh with no features.

  I gasped in horror. “What is happening?”

  I turned to my host, and his face clouded briefly with what looked like regret. Quickly, he returned his debonair mask over his features. “You look lovely.”

  I wanted to scream or cry with frustration. I was frightened by what I was seei
ng, what I was feeling, but instead I answered, “Thank you.”

  He smiled and it was beautiful and horrible what I saw in it. Hope that should not be born and desire that could never bear fruit. Whether they were my feelings or his, I did not know.

  My fingers relaxed on the stem of the goblet and it slipped through my hands. In slow motion, the cup fell to the ground, spilling bloodred liquid throughout its descent.

  I awoke in my bed, my nightgown stained red.

  I leaned against the lockers waiting for Amelia to fetch her binder. I was so tired they needed to make a new word for tired. Every time I blinked, I swore the backs of my eyelids were made of sandpaper.

  Being friends with Donny, who worked in the admin office and knew things, also meant Ame and I got lockers in the Main instead of over the hill and dale where other juniors floundered between classes. It was auspicious considering that usually only seniors and sneetches were able to snag the coveted location.

  The Main was really the old high school—a two-story brick monster. Several decades ago, they expanded the campus, adding buildings that made it really hard to get to class on time because they were spaced so far apart. The closer you were to your senior year, the more classes you had in the Main. Also housed in the Main were the library, admin services, the student store, and the student lounge—aka Sneetch Central—in the corridor outside the library.

  “I have play practice after school tomorrow if you want to come over after,” Ame said, then stopped. “You’re really pale. Are you sure you’re okay?”

  Nodding, I pushed off the bank of lockers. “I just haven’t slept well the last two nights.”

  She dug in her pocket and handed me a quartz crystal. “This one restores energy. If you can keep it on your skin, it will work better.”