Conversion

by Katherine Howe

  But Deena wasn’t buying it. “I’m sorry, Colleen, but that’s a load, and you know it. Look around.” She gestured to the plastic sheeting, which had turned the upper school hallway into a tunnel from outer space. “Does this look like things are getting better to you?”

  I didn’t know what to say, because the truth was, it looked worse. Much, much worse.

  Deena stared at me, waiting for me to say something. Then she turned on her heel and stalked off.

  I stood alone in the upper school hallway, my books clutched to my chest. There were thirty minutes to go before last period. I leaned my head on Deena’s locker and stared down the vacant expanse of the upper school hall for what seemed like forever. The hall telescoped in a sickening way. My headache was getting worse. All I wanted was to go home and lie on the couch and hear Mikey arguing with Wheez about whose turn it was to hold the remote. All I wanted was not to have to deal with this anymore.

  “Colleen?”

  “Huh?”

  Father Molloy had a hand resting on my shoulder, and was looking down at me with concern.

  “Are you feeling all right?”

  I blinked and shook myself alert. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

  “Are you okay? Do you need to go see Nurse Hocking?”

  “No, no. I’m fine. Thanks.”

  Father Molloy didn’t believe me.

  “Why don’t you go into the student center and take a break.”

  “I’ve got AP French now.”

  “That’s all right. I’ll have a word with Mme. Fletcher.”

  “But . . . Fabiana . . .” I closed my eyes. The words felt thick in my mouth.

  “One French class won’t make any difference. Not with two-thirds of the school missing. Please. Go sit down. Cut yourself some slack.”

  I pried my eyelids open again and found the priest looking down at me kindly. He nodded, encouraging, and squeezed my shoulder.

  “Go on. It’s okay.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  I started to move off down the hallway to the student center, and Father Molloy called, “Tell Anjali she’s in my prayers.”

  I looked over my shoulder at him. He gave me a resigned smile and turned away.

  The student center at St. Joan’s was usually empty, and that day was no exception. I didn’t know why, but nobody ever hung out in there. Back when the school was a convent, the room was used as a kind of community room. But because the nuns liked to have pretty decorations only when they were praying, the room was a bare plaster cell, with leaded lozenge-shaped windows that never got any light. One wooden crucifix stood bolted to the wall in the center, the kind with a grotesque plaster Jesus nailed to it, his eyes rolling back in his head and blood trickling down his face. A faux-old tapestry depicting Joan of Arc leading her forces into battle in pigtails (that’s how we could tell it was a 1960s pretend-old tapestry) hung on one wall, behind a couple of stained and sagging sofas. Institutional wood coffee tables and some tall brass lamps, and that’s it. The room smelled damp and sad. They used to let students smoke in here as late as the 1990s if we had a note from our parents, and sometimes on rainy days it still smelled smoky and stale, haunted by the ghosts of St. Joan’s girls past.

  I collapsed on one of the couches with a long sigh, sliding down until my head was propped on the back of the seat, my chin on my chest. I pulled out my phone.

  Wish u were in town today

  I tapped.

  I stared at the screen, waiting. Spence was usually wicked fast. A good trait to have in a guy. He didn’t make me wait. When he did, it was because he had a reason. He wasn’t just messing with my head.

  My missive was received. The phone vibrated with a text returned.

  Awwwww. Will be soon. Fri. You ok?

  A delicious zing of electricity rocketed around in my chest, and I smiled.

  I’m ok. Just tired. Dept. Public Health is coming.

  Another minute passed, and then his answer.

  Weird . . . don’t freak out tho, it could be nothing.

  The zing came again, but this time it felt more tender. For a second I was worried I might cry. But then it passed.

  Yeah you’re prob right. Can’t wait to see you Friday

  I heard the door open softly behind me and lifted my chin to look up over the couch to see who’d come in. It was Jennifer Crawford, her back to me, rummaging in her bag. She hadn’t noticed that I was there. She pulled out a pack of cigarettes, shook one out, and lit it. She took a long drag and then exhaled the smoke up to the ceiling with a relieved sigh.

  “No wonder it still smells smoky in here,” I said, sliding my phone back into my bag, and she jumped.

  “Oh my God,” she said, laughing uncomfortably. “You scared the crap out of me.”

  “Sorry,” I said, smiling. I didn’t get up.

  Jennifer Crawford wandered over and flopped onto the couch across from mine.

  “You want?” she asked, offering me the pack.

  I hesitated. I didn’t smoke.

  “Screw it,” I said, taking one.

  She passed me the lighter and watched, smiling, while I tried and failed to light one. When I gave up, swearing under my breath, she laughed and said, “It’s okay. You don’t want to start.”

  “Probably not,” I agreed, rolling my head on the back of the couch.

  “You get the note from the Department of Public Health?”

  “I saw it.” I hadn’t actually been back to my locker yet.

  “Turns out they don’t think it’s PANDAS after all,” Jennifer Crawford said.

  “How do you know?”

  She shrugged. “I heard.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Anjali’s mom already told me.”

  “She’s, like, super-important at Mass General, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “She say what it really is?”

  I shook my head slowly from side to side. “She’s trying to figure it out. She just told us not to worry.”

  “Not to worry,” Jennifer Crawford said around another plume of smoke. “They always say that, don’t they.”

  “They do,” I agreed. “They lie and they lie, and they tell us not to worry.”

  “Well,” Jennifer Crawford said, grinding out the nub of her cigarette on the sole of her shoe and then tucking it into her sock, “guess we’ll find out on Wednesday.”

  “I thought the assembly was Friday.”

  “It is.” She got up, sliding her hands into the kangaroo pockets of the hoodie she was wearing over her uniform. The dress code had gotten, shall we say, a little lax over the past few weeks. I had even seen one of the sophomores wearing pajama pants under her plaid skirt. “But Clara Rutherford and them are going on Good Day, USA on Wednesday.”

  “Shut up. It’s really happening?” That was enough to get me to sit up.

  “Mmm-hmm. They’re meeting the nation. I heard she and her mom left today to go down to New York. They’re putting them up in a sweet hotel. Driver and everything.”

  “Really?”

  “Mmm-hmm. Leigh Carruthers, too.”

  “They’re all going?”

  “That’s what I heard. And I heard that what they’ve got to say will blow your mind.”

  Chapter 20

  DANVERS, MASSACHUSETTS

  WEDNESDAY, MARCH 7, 2012

  I feel like we should make popcorn,” Dad said as we arrayed ourselves around the TV.

  Wheez was up first and had staked a claim on the good recliner, and no amount of wheedling from me, or threatening from Michael, would get her to budge.

  “Oh, Mike, shut up,” Mom said as she shuffled in from the kitchen, a mug of cold coffee clutched in her hand.

  My brother and I exchanged a look. It wasn’t often that we saw our parents s
nipe at each other.

  “Shut up, the lady commands,” my father said to no one in particular, and he turned up the television.

  I settled on the floor in front of the recliner, and Wheez dangled her feet over my shoulders so that she could thread her toes through my curls.

  “Quit it, Wheez,” I said, swatting her feet away.

  “Yeesh,” Wheez said, giving me a kick in the back of the head to register her displeasure.

  “Louisa,” my mother warned.

  It was a cranky morning in the Rowley house.

  The familiar music began. Good Day, USA cycled through the introductions that we have all memorized in the thirty years it’s been on the air.

  “Nigel Roberts, with weather! And America’s most trusted newswoman, Bebe Appleton, bringing you the news you need to get your day going. It’s a Good Day, USA!”

  “I’ve never understood how people can watch TV in the morning like this,” my mother muttered into her coffee mug. “That much chipperness first thing just makes me want to punch someone in the face.”

  My father caught my eye, rolled his eyes, and pantomimed inching away from my mother on the couch.

  “Good day, USA! We’re all so pleased you could join us today. This morning, in our first hour, we’re going to spend some time with some very special teenage girls. In January, a Mystery Illness descended on the sleepy suburban town of Danvers, Massachusetts—an illness that no one was quite able to explain. Well, we think we have the answer that’s going to help these girls get better, and we can’t wait to share it with them. Then in our second hour, the Houston Youth Symphony will be stopping by to celebrate the coming of spring with some Vivaldi. You love the Houston Youth Symphony, don’t you, Nigel?”

  “She just doesn’t age,” my mother marveled. “It’s like they dipped her face in wax and replace it with a new one every couple of years.”

  My father snorted.

  “Ha ha ha! I sure do, Bebe,” the long-suffering weatherman answered, laughing.

  “So do I. We’ll also pay a visit to Chef Al’s kitchen to learn how to make a fresh turnip risotto, and discover the best upstate New York wines to pair with watercress salad. All that and more, ’cause it’s a good day, USA! Join us, won’t you?”

  Everyone in the audience chanted along when Bebe said, “Good day, USA.”

  “How do they know when she’s going to say it?” I asked the room at large.

  “There’s probably a teleprompter that tells them,” Michael mused.

  “I can’t believe they’re putting Clara and them on Good Day, USA,” I said for probably the twentieth time that morning.

  “I can’t believe Charlaine agreed to let Clara go on,” my mother grumbled. “I’d never subject any of you kids to that kind of attention. No way.”

  “They’re probably getting paid,” Michael said. “Cream, yo! Cash rules everything around me!” My brother had started getting into rap lately.

  We all looked at him in surprise.

  “Well, sure,” he said. “They do that. Pay for interviews and stuff. She’s probably making bank.” He paused. “Nobody likes Wu-Tang?”

  “I like nothing and no one at this hour,” said my mother.

  “Well, if they’re making bank,” my father joked, and my mother swatted him on the thigh.

  “And welcome back,” Bebe said, smiling. She was sitting in a plush polyester armchair. It looked just like the armchair TJ Wadsworth sat in on This Is Danvers. I wondered if there was, like, an armchair supply store that only provided furniture to morning talk shows.

  “Our guests this first hour are the brave girls from the exclusive private school St. Joan’s Academy in beautiful Danvers, Massachusetts. They’re here with their parents and the school nurse who first identified this terrible, mysterious disease. We’re going to talk to them about their experiences, and then we have a special guest who we think is going to shed some surprising light on the infamous Danvers Mystery Illness of 2012. Girls, welcome.”

  The shot widened to encompass a very long, very plush couch full of my classmates. Clara was sitting nearest Bebe Appleton—of course—flanked by her mother. Then Leigh Carruthers, which was weird, because it’s not like Leigh was part of their core clique. Her mom, Kathy, was next to her, looking ready to disco. Then there was the Other Jennifer, still wearing her Elizabeth Taylor turban, and a nondescript woman who must’ve been her mom. Then Elizabeth’s reedy twinsetted mother, with Elizabeth parked on the end in a wheelchair.

  Clara looked amazing. She was the perfect picture of a well-groomed and well-behaved girl. That always was the weirdest part about Clara—she embodied her Claraness in an utterly unironic way. Not unaware, though. She knew what she was doing. But knowing what she was doing was part of the ineffable being of Clara.

  That was why when Bebe Appleton said, “Girls, welcome,” it was Clara who responded, “Thank you, Bebe. We’re all so happy to be here,” and she said it like it was the most normal thing in the world and they were just two people talking about whatever, instead of a high school girl and the most famous morning show host in the country having a conversation in front of a huge picture window that faced Times Square in New York City and was being beamed live to millions of people all over the world.

  “How does she do that?” I whispered. My palms were sweaty just thinking about having to go on TV like that.

  “That’s a good question, Collie,” my mother said. She brought a nail to her mouth and gave it a tentative chew. “Also, why can’t she control it that well at school?”

  “What?” I said. My mom thought I meant how was Clara able to speak so clearly. Not how could she go on TV without freaking out.

  “Maybe they drugged her,” Michael wondered.

  It was true. They all seemed pretty normal-acting, except for Jennifer’s turban.

  “So, Clara,” Bebe was saying, her hands folded on her knee in that concerned talk show host posture. “Why don’t you tell us how it started.”

  “It was a few weeks ago,” Kathy Carruthers trampled over Clara before she could get a word out. “A Wednesday. We think the school’s just been terribly irresponsible.”

  “We’ll come to that in a moment,” said Bebe, not about to let a rube like Kathy Carruthers take over her big interview. “I’d like to hear from Clara first. Clara, you were the first of the girls to experience something unusual, am I right? Would you like to tell our viewers a little about your experience?”

  Clara fluttered her eyelashes in a fetching way and nodded.

  “It was a Wednesday, like Mrs. Carruthers said. I had just gotten to school and was talking with my friends Jennifer and Elizabeth.” She gestured to them, and they both lifted their chins for ease of identification. Of course, so did Leigh Carruthers, so it didn’t make much of a difference.

  “When did you first realize something was wrong?” Bebe asked.

  “I started feeling funny right after we got to advisory,” Clara said.

  “Advisory, that’s another word for homeroom. I see. Feeling funny how, exactly?”

  “It was the strangest feeling,” Clara said. “As soon as I walked into the room, I almost felt like there was some other thing inside me. Almost like a force field. Like it came into me when I entered the classroom and started moving around inside me, taking me over. It started to change the shape of my face.”

  “What!” my mother exclaimed, and Michael started to laugh but thought better of it.

  Bebe Appleton was clearly not expecting this genteel girl in her ribboned ponytail to start insinuating that she was possessed when she showed up at her respectable Catholic day school. I was kind of impressed, actually, that this reporter who had interviewed philandering presidents and embezzling CEOs would be thrown for a loop by Clara Rutherford from Beverly, Massachusetts.

  “That’s . . .” Bebe Appleton wa
s groping for a follow-up question that wouldn’t send this entire interview into the X-Files. “That sounds like a really worrisome thing to have happen.”

  “It was,” Clara said with gravity. “The force field inside me pulled my mouth to the side, and then I started to shake, and I fell out of my chair and onto the floor. Everyone thought I was having a seizure.”

  “My goodness. How terrifying. And your friends also started experiencing the strange illness shortly afterward?”

  “Good transition,” I said aloud. “Otherwise Clara sounds like crazytown.”

  “Maybe Clara is crazytown,” my father remarked.

  But I wasn’t so sure.

  “Have you noticed she hasn’t had any trouble talking so far?” I asked.

  “Yes,” my mother said. “I have.”

  “Yes,” the Other Jennifer was saying. “I was in bio lab the next period, and all of a sudden my hair all fell out.”

  “It fell out, all at once?” Bebe sounded incredulous. “Just like that? Foomp?”

  “Yes,” the Other Jennifer said. “It fell out all at once, and then I started shaking and fell down, too. They took me away in an ambulance. It was really scary.”

  “It sounds terrible,” Bebe agreed. “And what about you girls?” she asked Leigh and Elizabeth.

  “I was at field hockey practice after school,” Elizabeth said from her wheelchair. “I was running down the field doing a wind sprint when it suddenly felt like my legs had turned to water. Like some force field had come into my body—like Clara said—and pulled the bones right out of my legs. I fell down and started shaking, and I couldn’t get up.”

  Leigh looked like she was about to chime in, but Bebe talked over her. “How devastating. Because your mother tells us that you’re quite the athlete, Elizabeth, isn’t that right?”

  “I was,” Elizabeth said, looking down at her lap.

  “Now, the school offered several different explanations, didn’t they. Nurse Hocking, why don’t we hear from you?”

  The school nurse wasn’t looking quite as sleek as she had the last time I’d seen her, a couple of days before. Her cheeks looked hollowed out, like she hadn’t been getting much sleep.