by Kevin Lawler
That was the other thing that had changed. Winter’s mother had given up on issuing punishments. Her mother went past her to the counter to spray it and wipe it down.
“Yeah, Winter,” said her little sister Kayla, coming up to the table, “don’t stay out without telling anybody.”
“You hush,” her mom said. She grabbed for Kayla and picked her up, barely. “Oh, soon I won’t be able to do this any more,” she said, straining. Kayla made herself long and stiff which didn’t help.
Oatmeal walked closer into the circle, the nails of his paws tapping on the tile. He tried to lay on Winter’s feet.
“I’ve been thinking, about next year,” Winter said.
“Is this about dropping out again?” her mom asked. She put Kayla down.
“It’s not ‘dropping out,’” Winter said, “The recruiter said they would take a GED. The Coast Guard doesn’t need diplomas. I’d just be leaving early.”
“And then what, Winter? So you can save a year of school? The best year? So you can work? You’re rushing your life away. This is the best time, Winter. You better enjoy it, because it never comes back.”
“Enjoy what? What’s to enjoy? I hate it here. So what am I doing?”
“I’m making sacrifices so you don’t have to do this. I don’t want you losing out on the childhood I didn’t have. Is this about your father?”
“That has nothing to do with it,” Winter said, “This is a good plan. I can pass the test now, and then when I’m seventeen I can submit my application.”
“It’s a fantasy, Winter. You say this every time something bad happens to you. And then you’re over it in a day. Whatever it is will pass. Don’t bug me. What happened to costuming?”
“I’m serious. All you have to do is sign the release. There’s nothing special about me sticking around for a piece of paper. What am I going to do with it? People don’t even hang them on their walls.”
“I need your help here, with your brother and sister. I can’t pay for the daycare right now. I can barely even pay for the house.”
“I can send money back,” said Winter.
Her mom was stuck. “I’m not signing it,” she said, leaving the room. “Go and get your father to sign it. If you can find him.”
“Aaaaagh,” Winter said.
Chapter 2
“I don’t think it’s going to hold,” the dam worker said.
“What?” said the manager. Water roared out of the sluices, making it hard to hear.
“I think this is the one,” the dam worker said, yelling over the noise.
“It’s always ‘the one,’” the manager yelled back, “Every few years. The big one is coming. The whole county’s going to be under a wall of water. And every time I wake up the next morning in my own bed, dry as a Utah Saint.”
The dam worker shook his head. “The water level’s too high this time. The storm is going to push it over. Have you seen the forecast? It isn’t the usual precipitation,” he said.
“Usual, no. Within acceptable parameters, yes. The water level isn’t too high. Tropical storm, hurricane, doesn’t matter. Model says it’s fine. We’ve got the main spillway and then the emergency spillway if need be.”
“That’s what I’m worried about. The failover spillway is too old and damaged. Under the surface, it’s got to be eroded. It needed to be repaired.”
“That’s not what the last inspection said.”
“Does the inspection crew get paid to tell them they need a massive new reassembly project? They get paid to tell them everything’s OK.”
Winter looked around for Grant. The classes were all standing around outside on the grass, freshman, sophomores, juniors, seniors. Winter couldn’t be sure whether it was a scheduled drill or whether some prankster had pulled the alarm. She wanted Grant to see her.
“Do you think there’s a real fire?” Samantha asked.
The dew from the grass was getting her shoes wet. “We’d see smoke, right?” Winter said. Plus the teachers were too calm. If there was a real fire they’d be more serious. “It’s definitely a drill.”
The strict teachers had their students form lines of two or three columns. Winter felt bad for them. Mr. Whitfield was letting her class do whatever. He probably couldn’t have got them into a line if he tried. Some of the boys in Winter’s class were running about, sliding and falling, so there was that trade-off. Overall she enjoyed the arm room.
Samantha kept talking about the fire. Winter stood on her tiptoes and tried to find Grant’s class. The classrooms were all mixed up, and so she couldn’t count on all the juniors’ classes to be beside one another.
“Are you looking for Grant?” Samantha asked.
“No,” Winter said, coming down from her tiptoes. She stood back on her tiptoes. “Yes.”
“Seriously? You make it too obvious. You’re going to ruin a good friendship.”
The word made Winter catch her breath. That’s what she liked about it. She wanted to turn her friendship into a romance.
“You...” Samantha trailed off.
“What?” said Winter, “You’ve been dating Sean since before theater company. Let me do my thing.” Winter looked at Sam for a reaction. She looked exasperated but pitying. She was too friendly looking to ever look mean. Was that what boys liked about her?
“Are you coming to help with the sets on Thursday?” Sam asked.
“Maybe, said Winter, “I already finished the gowns. Wardrobe’s nearly done except for a few extras.”
One of the playing boys, a skinny one with baggy clothes, ran in front of Samantha and began dancing and calling her “Firestarter.”
“Did you start this one? You can tell me,” he said.
Samantha pushed him away playfully. He acted like his hair was on fire and then moved on to harass his next victim.
Winter looked back at the students. It was then that she saw them. A few classes over. Grant and Nessie. Nessie was holding his waist, and he was absentmindedly talking to one of his friends. It seemed a little too comfortable and awkward at the same time. He put his arm around her. It upset Winter’s stomach. She felt a lump in her throat. Seeing them was making her physically ill. Grant caught her looking. He must have felt the eyes on him. Winter waved nervously and tried to smile. Grant waved at her stupidly.
It was getting to Winter. She tried talking to Samantha again to get past it.
“So, anyway, I’ve got a lot of parties coming up. Well, not that many, but you know, a lot. Referrals and all. Business is heating up. Some of the parties, it’s all the same girls ‘cause they’re in the same class and want Leonie for their birthday, too. There are some really popular characters right now.”
“Are you OK?” Sam asked.
“No, I’m not really,” Winter said.
“What is it?” Sam asked.
Winter pointed.
“Ohhhh,” Sam said, “Ohhhh. Nessie? Nooo.”
Winter nodded.
“She’s known him longer than you!” Sam said.
Winter swallowed.
“Oh, you guys,” said Sam, “Wow. I’m sorry, Winter.”
“Yeah, it’s bothering me,” she managed. Winter looked away in the direction where Nessie and Grant had been and saw Grant walking over holding her yearbook. A yearbook.
“Shh, don’t say anything,” Winter said. Sam nodded.
“Hey, Winter, I wanted to get your yearbook back to you. I know I’ve been sitting on it for a while.” Grant handed the yearbook back to Winter. “Also, I have some news. Some good news I think. I’m seeing Nessie now. Since the other day before we went to the beach. Wow, sounds weird to say it, especially about someone I’ve known so long. I know we’ve all been friends since we were kids, so I wanted to tell you first before it had a chance to get weird.”
“Oh, for sure,” Winter said, nodding matter of factly. I think it’s great. You and Nessie get along great, so, I’m sure you’ll make a good couple. I’m all for it. I think it’s great.�
��
Grant squinted and nodded as if he had heard a really good idea. “Great,” he said, “We haven’t seen very much of each other lately. Let’s do something sometime.” And he walked back to his class.
“Wow,” Samantha said to Winter.
Winter wondered what he had left in her yearbook. A page long declaration of his love, what could have been? An apology for dating their friend? Winter flipped through the pages looking. They were mostly blank where her other friends had not gotten the chance to sign it. Grant’s message was in the back near the end, written on a crease.
“Stay cool, Winter! -Grant,” the crease read.
Winter closed the book in disbelief.
“Let me see,” Samantha said. Winter handed her the book as if it were a piece of garbage. Samantha flipped through to the end.
“Unbelievable,” Sam said.
Winter was disgusted, and then she was angry. She could feel it in her face. Anger and embarrassment. Now she didn’t have enough time to get all of her other friends to sign her book before school ended, and now the ones who did sign it would see the lame message at the end.
Winter heard the roar of the students. She looked around to see what was going on and was knocked to the side. She looked back up and two boys were wildly throwing fists at each other, one of them Reid. She had dropped her bag and Reid had stepped on it, probably breaking her sunglasses. The boys were taking turns throwing wild punches at each other, moving back and forth and the crowd moving to make space around them. Winter could see the other boy had his lip split. When he bared his teeth the bottom row was tinged red.
The fight kept on. Winter was not in the mood to put up with Reid. Nobody was paying attention to her.
The words and hand motions came instinctively. Another new one. Winter didn’t care. She felt her words melting into the noise from the crowd. Whatever it was, she knew it wasn’t going to be good. Reid was punching into the other boy’s head, and the other boy had his arms over his head, blocking his ears and huddling in defense. The spell was almost finished. Winter felt it about to go. Then Winter saw him watching behind the huddled boy: Grant. She felt the spell slip from her hands.
She tried to focus her attention back on Reid. She drilled into him with her eyes and repeated the final hand motion. This was not going to work, was it.
As the fight pushed away to another corner of the crowd Winter watched Grant for signs of change. She had no idea what was going to happen. The guilt was beginning to set in. The fun of having done something wrong was over and now was the drawn out part of suffering the consequences. Winter hated this part. It went on for so long.
Winter was so fixated on Grant that she didn’t see Nessie standing to the left of him. Nessie stared back at her, puzzled. Winter had been caught looking. She looked away briefly but then looked back anyway. She had to know what was going to happen.
The boys looked tired. Instead of punching they were calling each other names. Their friends easily separated them. A male teacher and the discipline officer came to break it up officially. The boy with the split lip tried to kick out of the hold before being dragged away.
Students left the crowd to return to their lines. It would almost be time to go in. Winter looked for Grant. He was off on his own, walking backwards up the grass towards where the road was. Winter could see the distress on Grant’s face. She also saw Nessie calling after him.
“That’s weird...” he mouthed.
Mr. Hawkins,” a teacher in a deep purple dress and glasses shouted after him, “Please come back from the road.”
He didn’t seem like he was doing it on purpose. He stopped, and after a moment started returning to the class as he was told, only he was doing it by walking backwards.
Very funny, Mr. Hawkins,” the teacher said.
“I’m not doing it on purpose,” Grant said.
His class giggled. They thought he was doing it on purpose.
Grant leaned over and said something to Nessie that Winter could not hear. Nessie smiled and hit him in the ribs, ignoring whatever it was. Winter looked away so as not to be seen.
When Winter looked back Grant’s teacher was finishing taking roll. She started back towards her classroom and the line followed her. Grant was at the middle of the line, following backwards and off to the side.
Mr. Whitfield had been catching up with another teacher and forgot to take roll. Mr. Whitfield started in his slow way. The other classes had left and even Winter’s class was beginning to get impatient. Mr. Whitfield called out the first name and continued down the list. “Thomson. Ms. Winter Thomson,” he said.
“Here,” said Winter.
As she said her name she was grabbed by the arm. The woman who grabbed her was pretty young to be a teacher. She had two-toned green hair and a jean jacket with the sleeves rolled up. On her wrist was a gold bracelet with a BMX charm. Winter didn’t think she was a teacher but then they had seen some pretty weird trainees straight from college.
“This one was involved in the fight. We need her in the office for questioning,” the green-haired teacher said, still holding Winter by the arm.
“Ooooooooooo,” the class said.
Mr. Whitfield looked over his clipboard at her for a moment. Then he waved her on.
“Hey, wait,” said Winter. The green-haired teacher force-stepped Winter towards the school.
Winter tried to figure out what it was that made them think she was involved. There was no way they could know, right?
The way the green-haired teacher was holding her arm hurt. Winter jerked against it a few times to test her grip. The teacher pulled against her harder. She was taller than Winter, and Winter stumbled over the grass as they went, trying to keep up.
“Quit yanking, you jamoke. You’re not in trouble. Well, you are in trouble, it’s just not as bad as you think. In some ways, it’s worse actually.”
Winter chewed her McNugget. A muffled scream came through the glass from the ballpit next door. The door opened behind her and a pair of screaming kids ran a lap around the restaurant.
“We need your help with the seal. It takes six. We lost one. So we need your help. Otherwise we’re all exposed. Seals only last a little while,” Ipsy said.
“I don’t know how to do a ‘seal.’ I only just learned how to shoot color at parties when the adults aren’t looking. Other than that the only things I know how to do are fling objects and shout really loud, it’s useless, I don’t see how that’s going to help you,” Winter said.
“It doesn’t matter. We’ll teach you. Look, how do you think I found you?”
“You were stalking me?”
“Stalking is only part of it. How do you think I found you to stalk you? They’re going to do the same thing as long as you’re unsealed. You need to come with us.”
“Yeah, but why would they kill me? What if they just want me to go to McDonald’s and join their witch multi-level marketing squad?”
Ipsy exhaled.
“I dunno,” Winter said, looking around, “I just met you. This sounds like a stupid idea. I can’t leave. I still have finals.”
Ipsy sucked a vanilla milkshake. “Fine. Whatever. Let’s go fix your friend.”
Ipsy stood up from the table. She stopped at the waste bins on the way out. She took handfuls of creamers and stuffed them into her purse. “You’re not the first to try to make it solo, you know,” she said, looking into her purse with her green hair in her face. When she finished turned towards the door and then turned back to grab handfuls of sugar packets and red swizzles.
They were in the cafeteria looking for Grant.
“Which one is he, again?” Ipsy asked.
“I don’t see him. He’s usually there, about three tables from the left. He’s tall, and his hair is slightly curly and he wears it a little long,” Winter said.
“Ah, there he is,” Ipsy said.
Grant shuffled backwards through the far right side of the cafeteria.
“Kind of
scrawny, isn’t he?” Ipsy said.
“He’s not ‘scrawny,’” Winter said.
“You know, in a cute way,” Ipsy said.
Grant was about to pass them. Winter turned away towards Ipsy so she couldn’t be seen.
“Here, block me,” Ipsy said. She grabbed Winter and slid her in front of her. “Put your arms out. We’ll go through your jacket.”
Winter still couldn’t see anything. She grit her teeth. She knew she looked stupid with her jacket out. Ipsy did the hand motion in reverse and said the words.
Winter turned. The spell was broken. Grant turned and walked normally towards his seat.
“Hey, quitters don’t make the Guinness Book,” one of his friends shouted.
“He would’ve walked for weeks like that. It would’ve been better for you to practice fixing it,” Ipsy said, “But I’m still sealed and you have a signature now. So, I’ll take the headache on this one. We’re done here, walk me out.”
Outside in the hallway Ipsy started into her pitch again.
“This is really giving you the wrong impression,” she said, “You don’t understand how lucky you are that we showed up first.”
“I just won’t cast any more spells,” Winter said.
“That’s not going to work forever,” Ipsy said, “There are seeresses out there with crazy strong ranges. Way stronger than Cal’s. And at least one of them are gunning for young witches. If they’re already onto you, like we are, you’re screwed. You should leave now.”
“I can’t,” Winter said. These people seemed desperate. If Winter waited, maybe the next group would be better. Ipsy had said so herself that they roamed like this in groups.
“Listen, then come refresh our seal before we go. It’s only going to take a couple days out of your schedule.”
Winter shook her head.
Chapter 3
The thunderclap was so loud that Winter dropped her knitting. Kayla hadn’t been making any noise in the back room, and so Winter was so focused on the commission from her Etsy shop that she forgot about the outside world. Guess that meant the storm was here.
