The Suburban Strange

by Nathan Kotecki

  “I can’t figure out how to prove it, short of catching him doing something! He could be casting a spell the night before. I’ve already tried to go to his house, but they have dogs that bark before I get anywhere near. I have no idea anymore. Every guess I’ve made could be wrong. But how many other people do you know right now who are capable of this?”

  “You,” Celia said. “How do I know it’s not you?”

  “Well, I guess you don’t,” Mariette said, looking wounded. “If there were a way for me to prove it to you, I would. But if I were doing all of this, why would I be telling you about it? And why wouldn’t I have succeeded by now?”

  “I don’t know.” Celia’s forehead throbbed. “Even before you told me everything, and I was tempted to suspect you were somehow involved with all these weird things that were happening, I knew it couldn’t be you—you’re too good a person. And I just don’t think Tomasi has anything to do with this, either. He’s not Unkind. He can’t be . . .”

  “Give me his address,” Mariette said.

  “Why?”

  “So I can go find out.”

  “What would you do? You shouldn’t go there. If his parents see you there’s no telling what they might do to you. His father screamed at me like I was a monster trying to prey on his son.”

  “They won’t see me,” Mariette said.

  “What would you do to him?”

  “Nothing, unless he’s Unkind.”

  “But how would you know? I don’t want you to,” Celia said.

  Mr. Sumeletso stopped by their table. “Is everything okay?”

  “We’re fine,” Mariette said. “We’re almost done.” She stared at him until he gave up and walked away, and then she turned back to Celia. “Please, you have to trust me. You know I don’t want to hurt anyone, but I have to try anything possible to stop this, because no one else can. No one else has any idea what’s really happening here. If this guy has the power to write in your sketchbook like that, then I’m sure he’s capable of doing plenty of other things, too. And that doesn’t mean he’s responsible for all of this, but you know I have to find out for sure.”

  “Promise me you won’t do anything unless you’re sure. And promise me you’ll tell me what happens, whatever it is.”

  “I promise.”

  THAT NIGHT CELIA OPENED her sketchbook in her room and watched the clock until it turned nine p.m. At the top of the next blank page she wrote,

  Are you there?

  His response came in a moment, the letters rising to the surface of the page one at a time:

  Hi. Nvr done this bfr.

  How do you do it?

  Hrd to xpln.

  Is it hard? Is that why you’re abbreviating?

  Yes.

  Are you Kind?

  U kno abt tht?

  Yes. My friend Mariette is Kind, too. Someone is hurting girls at our school, and she’s looking for the Unkind who is doing it. You’re not Unkind, are you?

  Im Kind bt nvr use it.

  Why not?

  2 mch trbl. & Im nt hrtng any1!

  I told her that.

  Yr nt frkd out?

  By this? No. You ran away?

  Ys. Srry I lied.

  It’s okay. What happened? Your parents?

  Ys. They thnk Im evl.

  I’m sorry.

  Its OK. Gld U gve ppr 2 mom.

  Is that how you can do this?

  Ys. Beautiful drwngs.

  You can see them? Thank you!

  Whos hrtng grls?

  I don’t know—girls at my school are getting hurt the day before their 16th birthday.

  Weird. Hw bout U?

  My birthday is in April. Mariette says someone’s trying to fulfill an admonition for someone to gain power.

  Lst pg?

  What?

  Last page? U tore out?

  You can see that, too?

  Evrythng in bk. Mrtte snds smrt.

  She is, but she thinks it’s you!

  Its nt.

  I believe you.

  U got P oa Lady?

  I started it. I like it so far.

  Srry—hrd wrk. Nd 2 stp.

  Okay. Talk to you soon?

  Ys. XO

  XO

  Celia reread their conversation and wished she could see him.

  "HE'S NOT THE ONE," MARIETTE said, setting her books down in chemistry.

  “What? Who?”

  “It’s not Tomasi. There’s darkness in his house, but it’s the citizen kind, and it all comes from his parents. He’s a good guy—Kind, not Unkind.”

  “How did you find him?” Celia hadn’t given her the address.

  “It wasn’t that hard,” Mariette said mysteriously. “I wish I could find everyone as easily as I found him.”

  “So, how did you know?”

  Mariette struggled to explain. “It’s like asking someone how their sense of smell works. I went to his house, as quiet as an owl, and just standing in his backyard, I could tell.”

  CELIA NEVER HAD GIVEN MUCH thought to Valentine's Day. This year, though, the storms of February were a good expression of her feelings. She knew she shouldn't expect anything as romantic as a date with Tomasi for Valentine's Day, and while that made her ache a little, the most important thing was that a boy had broken out of his house for the chance to kiss her. That was plenty romantic for Celia. At the bookstore she watched the Troika huddled in the back, but their naïve intrigues didn't interest her. If they only knew, she thought.

  Every time the front door opened Celia gave in to the silent wish for it to be Tomasi again. She had promised herself she would kiss him right there in the bookstore if he came to her. If there weren’t any other customers around. And if Lippa wasn’t watching. But she swore to herself she wouldn’t pass up the opportunity if it came.

  Now she heard the door and played the short film in her mind yet again. She turned from the shelves behind the front desk to greet . . . Mr. Sumeletso.

  “Celia? I didn’t know you worked here!” He was happy to see her.

  “Hi, Mr. Sumeletso! Yes, I work here.” He was dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt. Seeing him outside of school was incredibly disorienting.

  “I don’t make it over to this part of town very often, but I try to stop in whenever I can. The selection is so much better than the big chain stores.” He came over to the desk. “It seems like a place that makes you smarter just by spending time in it.”

  “I’ve learned a thing or two here.” Celia smiled.

  “Can I ask you a question, since I’ve run into you like this?” She nodded. “What do you think of the whole curse thing at school? I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  Celia wasn’t sure of the best answer to give. “Me neither. I mean, everything that’s happened has been a health problem or an accident, but there have been so many incidents . . .”

  “A lot of the girls are just staying home on the day before their birthday now, since the bad things only seem to happen at school. Do you think you’ll do that?”

  “Probably. Mine’s not until April, so it’s still a few months away.”

  “I certainly don’t want anything to happen to you—or Mariette. You’re my star pupils!” His smile was contagious, and she couldn’t help returning it. He looked at his watch. “Well, I was stopping in for a book before I go to the dentist.” He went to the literature section and returned with a Joseph Conrad novel. Celia rang him up. “It was nice to see you!” he said.

  “See you Monday!” Celia replied, and waved as he left. In another moment she was back to wishing Tomasi would be the next person through the door.

  THE ROSARY SAT IN THE restaurant Ivo had chosen. Once again the truth hung in the air, and they all were careful to look elsewhere and steer the conversation away. Ivo had suggested—begged, really—they all spend Valentine's Day together, never admitting he was trying to avoid spending it alone with Regine.

  Celia was sure Brenden and Marco would have preferred t
o be off by themselves. She tried to guess why Brenden looked like he was ready to burst at the seams. A moment later he reached for Marco's hand and pulled it onto the table. Liz noticed first.

  “Is that Brenden’s class ring?” She pointed at Marco’s hand, and he nodded, his eyes shining.

  “I thought Valentine’s Day was the right time to ask Marco to wear it,” Brenden said. He put his hand over Marco’s on the table, and for a moment they seemed to forget that the other four were there.

  “You got engaged?” Regine said.

  “No, but we are going to try the long-distance relationship next year, so it’s a commitment,” Brenden said.

  “That’s really nice! Congratulations, guys!” Liz said.

  “Thank you,” Marco said. He looked over at Brenden and gave him a kiss.

  The wind shook the trees outside. They would be stark and colorless for another month. Celia wished somehow she could have invited Tomasi. She wanted to slip her arms around his shoulders again and feel his arms around her waist. The Rosary were going to Diaboliques later, but she no longer felt a strong connection between the club and Tomasi.

  “Is that who I think it is?” Regine asked. The rest of them followed her gaze to see Skip crossing the dining room toward them. “What’s he doing here?”

  “I don’t know, having dinner?” Liz said. Her face shifted from alarm to defensiveness as Skip approached, his eyes on her.

  “Hi, Liz.”

  Liz managed a reply. “Hi. Hi, Skip.” Once again Celia wondered why this jock threw Liz off her game in a way no one else did. And Celia couldn’t look at him without wondering if Mariette and her suspicions about him were founded.

  “It’s nice to see you outside of school.” Skip looked around the table, allowing them to think he meant all of them, but Celia was sure everyone understood.

  “Is that your date?” Liz had found Skip’s point of origin. They all looked over at a girl sitting by herself at a table for two on the other side of the room. She folded her arms and tried to look occupied.

  “Yeah, I guess I should get back to her. Happy Valentine’s Day.”

  “Is that a strange thing to say when you’re out with another girl?” Liz asked.

  “Should I have asked you?”

  “No! No. No.” The word seemed to mean something different each time Liz said it.

  “Maybe I’ll just come by myself next time?” He was backing away.

  Liz regained her composure. “That’s up to you.” She shrugged.

  “All right.” Skip turned and went back to his date.

  “What’s the deal with you and that guy?” Regine asked. “I can’t tell if you have a hold on him, or if he has a hold on you.”

  “It’s not worth telling,” Liz said sharply. “We were friends a long time ago.”

  “That’s kind of hard to imagine,” Regine said.

  “There’s no need to try,” Liz said.

  “He asked about you,” Celia offered. “Before Christmas, when you had the flu. He asked me if you were okay.”

  Liz turned on her. “What did you tell him?”

  “That you had the flu,” Celia said. “Nothing else.”

  “I can’t believe he would ask you about me.”

  “It was kind of sweet, really,” Celia said. “He was concerned because you’d been out a few days.”

  “You should have told me.”

  “I’m sorry. He said it wouldn’t mean that much to you.”

  “It probably wouldn’t have.” Liz exhaled. “I’m sorry. Let’s just have a nice dinner and then go to Diaboliques. But if Skip is there, too, I will run screaming.” They laughed at the idea of both of those possibilities.

  17. WITHIN THE REALM OF A DYING SUN

  THE NEXT AFTERNOON CELIA couldn’t help herself. She left early for the bookstore and walked directly to Tomasi’s. She wouldn’t knock on the door—she just wanted to feel as close to him as she could get. She stopped on the sidewalk in front of his house and looked up, wondering if one of the windows was Tomasi’s bedroom. A curtain moved, and there he was, looking down at her, one hand pressed against the windowpane. She raised her hand to him, and neither of them moved. She longed to be close enough to see his gray eyes, then wondered if seeing him like this was going to make her feel worse later.

  The front door banged open and Tomasi’s linebacker father rushed down the walk toward her. “What are you doing here?” he barked.

  Celia was mute. It was easy to feel like a bad child under his stern gaze. She hadn’t set foot on the property, so she forced herself to stand her ground there on the sidewalk. He stopped two feet from her, and she had to look up to see his face. “I told you to stay away from him!”

  “Yes, you did, but you never told me why,” Celia heard herself say. Her voice pushed through the nervous catch in her throat and rose to an anger that matched his. “If you’re going to accuse me of something, then do it. What have I done wrong? Tell me!”

  “I don’t need to know who you are to know that you’re no good,” the man said, seeming a little taken aback that she hadn’t retreated. “I will make the decisions about what is best for my family.”

  “And what is that? Lock him up until he turns eighteen, and then kick him out? You’re doing a great job,” Celia said. “Have a nice day.” She turned and walked away toward the bookstore. She wanted to look back at Tomasi in the window one more time, but then his father would see that she was smiling at her triumph.

  "THIS IS BAD," MARIETTE SAID when she found Celia in the hall before school on a Monday in March. "Really bad."

  “What?” Celia closed her locker.

  “The girl who stayed home on Friday, because her birthday was Saturday? Electrocuted. Her family is putting an addition on their house, and there was some kind of live wire touching the metal framing or something.”

  “Oh my god! Did she die?”

  “No. But you know what this means: I was right. If the girls are going to stay away from Suburban, the Unkind one is going to go to them. And I can’t do anything to help them. Unless I start going up to girls and saying, ‘Hey, take this vial and put this lotion on first thing tomorrow morning, okay?’ I don’t think that will go over very well.”

  “You never know,” Celia said. “When people are desperate and superstitious, they’ll try anything. What do you do now?”

  “I don’t think I can do anything. But I almost wish the girls would come to school now. I mean, no one’s been electrocuted here.”

  THE LIBRARY WAS ALMOST EMPTY when Marco sat down across from Celia. "Hey," he said, setting down his backpack but not opening it.

  “Hey.” She looked up from her homework.

  “This is going to be a really weird conversation,” Marco said. “Please just keep in mind the only reason I’m going to say any of this is because I care about you. We all care about you.”

  “Okay . . .” Celia closed her book.

  “I know we promised not to bring it up again until April, but it’s March, and your birthday is a few weeks away, and I know you heard about the girl who stayed home for her curse day yesterday.” A rotting tree in her backyard had fallen on her, breaking a dozen bones. “So it seems like we’re back to the way it was before, and the only girls who are really safe are the ones who’ve had sex,” Marco said.

  “Are you going to try to convince me to lose my virginity?” Celia sighed.

  Marco wouldn’t be deterred. “Yes, I am. But more than that—you shouldn’t pick some random guy.”

  “Well, that’s pretty much what I would have to do.”

  “It should be with someone who cares about you,” Marco said. “Brenden and I talked about it, and we both would be willing to—I mean, either one of us would be willing to do this for you, if you want.”

  “You’re offering to have sex with me?”

  “I am. Or Brenden is.”

  “What about Ivo?”

  “Ivo is probably just as in need of being deflo
wered as you are,” Marco said wryly. “Even if he weren’t, I don’t think he’d be a very good lay.”

  “Oh, and you would be?” Celia laughed.

  “Hell, yeah,” Marco said, and puffed up his chest. “I can give you a reference if you need one.”

  “A girl?”

  “No, haven’t ever done that. But seriously”—and Celia couldn’t help but be touched by his expression—“I would do anything for you, and so would Brenden. Wherever, whenever, however. If it would make you safe.”

  Celia looked at him for a moment. “You’re really sweet.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I will consider your offer.”

  “Who would you pick, Brenden or me?”

  “I’m not going to answer that!” Celia rolled her eyes, and they laughed. But the seriousness of the moment returned. “I guess I really have to think about this. I’ve pretty much been living in denial about the whole thing.” They sat for a moment. “What was it like, your first time?”

  “For me? Pretty hot, actually. You want the gory details?”

  “Well, no, what I meant was, how did it feel? Did you feel any different after you’d done it?”

  “Yes. Definitely. Not in the way I thought I would, like Now I’m an adult or something. But sex is knowledge, in some way. You know yourself differently. And you know the other person differently, even if it’s just for a little while. I’m not doing a very good job of explaining.”

  “I think I understand what you mean,” Celia said.

  “So, on one hand, you should want to wait until it’s the right time, because it is deep, and it does change you, and you get to know someone in a way you never would otherwise. But on the other hand, if you’ve already driven the car around the parking lot a few times, you’re probably going to do better once you get it out on the street.” Marco grinned.

  “Ooh, are you using a car metaphor for sex?”

  “That’s never been done before.”

  “I look at people sometimes and try to imagine them having sex.”

  “Really? Dirty girl!”

  “I can never really get a clear picture, though.”