On my fourth week, the library doors swooshed open and I glanced past the don’t-steal-a-book sensors to see Mr. Silver and get my greeting. Instead, Mrs. Louie, she of terrible cafeteria monitoring, sat behind the reference desk.
“Oh, is Mr. Silver sick?” I asked.
She pursed her lips and looked down her nose. “I’m sure I don’t know.”
I cringed at her tone and moved off to the spot I already thought of as my corner. Designed in the heyday of labyrinthine architecture with no windows, the library spread out from a central room where four hard-plastic sofas sat in a wide square around a low table. Magazines and newspapers lined the first shelves, with books and a few dvds in rows radiating out from there. The actual shape of the library was impossible to determine. I was convinced it must look like a giant octopus from the sky, a bunch of strange little halls curved off to poorly-lit dead ends.
My corner was at the end of one such hall where a single, faded orange chair stood proud and lonely. Begging to be sat in, the poor thing screamed seventies shag carpets and disco balls. Plopping down on squeaking vinyl, I pulled out my sandwich and quietly dug in with Murakami’s ‘The Elephant Vanishes’ in my lap. I was working my way through Murakami’s early work, loving the totally foreign Japanese stuff with some good old fashioned magical realism.
The book was really absorbing, which is why I didn’t hear the crying at first. Like a niggle in the back of my brain, it slowly seeped into my consciousness that there was a person making very upset sounds somewhere not far from me.
I put down my sandwich and book, straining to hear what it was that drew me out of Murakami’s bizarre world. At first there was nothing, just a gentle whir whir from somewhere, an ac unit maybe. But there it was, a faint whimper. So soft I wasn’t sure it really happened. I froze.
Was this how auditory hallucinations began? Maybe I was following in my mom’s footsteps and loosing my mind. But then there was another whimper. My whole body clenched.
I crept out of the chair, trying to figure out where it was coming from.
The voice shuddered, sobbed, then there was a sharp intake of breath that sounded like pain. A small, voice whispered, “No, please no.”
The hair on the back of my neck stood up.
I moved low and quiet, skirting the wall until I came to the next squiggy little hallway. It curved off into darkness, like the light at the end had totally gone out. Hunched down, practically crawling along the floor, I was genuinely terrified of what I might find. Not, oh that was a great scary movie, terrified, but pee leaking out, whole body shaking, adrenaline pumping blind terror.
The voice was crying, low but steady. A forlorn, heart shattering sound that tugged on every piece of my humanity. It was horrible, like accidentally tuning in to a torture session.
As I crept forward, the sound began to echo. One small whisper became a thousand voices, jumbled mutterings of pain and horror. Disoriented, I rocked back as the chaotic noise filled my head. Body quivering like a tuning fork, my vision began to swim and a unnatural warmth spread across my skin. Then, like turning the dial on an old fashioned radio seeking a clear signal, the thousand cries blended into one, single coherent voice.
“She’s listening!” rang in my ears, loud and menacing.
I was royally freaking out when the bell rang just above my head.
“Aaaaa!” My scream was loud enough to call down the valkyries from on high. Once the bell finally stopped, my ears rang so I couldn’t hear much of anything for a few seconds. I was letting my ears adjust when the shadow loomed above me.
Mrs. Louie barked, “What are you doing?”
I screamed again, spinning, arms up in a defensive stance. Losing my footing, I hit a cart loaded with books. The stacks teetered for a second before crashing to the floor in an avalanche of fluttering pages. Mrs. Louie was not amused.
“Harper Dae, it’s sixth period, you should be in class, not skulking around the library.”
“Mrs. Louise,” I was panting with fear, “someone was making these terrible crying sounds. I think someone is really hurt.” The tears came and I felt like a total moron. Especially when Mrs. Louise cocked her head. Silence echoed down the little hall. We waited. And waited. Silence.
“I certainly don’t hear anything.”
“We need to check down this hall. I swear, someone is hurt.” I started down the hall, emboldened by the mere presence of another person.
She reached out and locked an iron fist onto my arm. “What you need to do is listen when a teacher tells you to go to class.”
I yanked my arm from her grasp. “No, I really heard something.” I couldn’t focus on anything but finding the crying girl.
“That’s it. You will come with me to the principal’s office. Right now.” She grabbed my arm again and literally dragged me behind her.
“Mrs. Louie, please, I’ll go to the office with you, but first will you just check and make sure. Please,” I raised my voice which did not go over well.
She grunted with disapproval and yanked me out of the library and all the way to the front office where the secretary recoiled at the look on her face.
“We need to see Mr. Beuterbaugh.”
I let out a little laugh at the Principal’s name. It positively screamed for parody. To be fair, my laughter in that moment was more of an uncomfortable reaction.
Mrs. Louie looked like she was actually going to punch me.
I shut the hell up and went limp, totally giving in to the clearly psychotic woman holding me captive. Was her death-grip was even legal?
The secretary gestured for us to go in.
The Principal’s office was small but the dark wood desk looked fancy. There was a wall of books which surprised me. For some reason I’d pegged him as one of those proud non-readers. Mr. Beuterbaugh gave off Ichabod Crane meets the Munsters vibe. He was gangly and so knock-kneed that his entire upper body swayed back and forth when he walked down the halls. He wore baggy brown suits and a nervous tic that made his left eye twitch whenever he stopped to talk to someone.
Vice-principal Ransom was also there. He was comically opposite Mr. Beuterbaugh in every way. Rotund and ruddy nosed, he had a sort of African-American santa thing going on. Grey beard, perpetual smile, robust laugh that you could hear a mile away.
Mr. Beuterbaugh took in the scene, fuming Mrs. Louie with a death grip on my arm. Me, head bowed, pleading look on my face.
“What’s happened, Irene?” he asked.
“This student refused to follow a direct oder. She was sneaking around the library, clearly up to no good, when I caught her. Then, when I told her to go to class, she outright refused. Fabricated some elaborate lie.”
“Wasn’t a lie,” I piped up. Mrs. Louise flashed a look at me that made me finally understand the saying, if looks could kill. Little, icy dagger would certainly have shot right out of her pupils if she could have.
“I see. Thank you Mrs. Louie. I’ll deal with this. You can go back to the library.”
She reluctantly let go of my arm and stormed out.
“Mr. Beuterbaugh, I swear, I heard someone crying. Someone sounded really hurt and I was checking it out. I wasn’t sneaking.” I was still shaking from adrenaline and he looked closely into my face.
“You’re not on drugs are you Ms. Dae?”
“No sir. Look, you can do whatever you want to me, but please go check out the library.”
Mr. Beuterbaugh steepled his long, boney fingers, thinking. Mr. Ransom gave me an encouraging smile.
“Alright, Harper. You’re new here. I don’t know anything about you and I’ve got no school records to look at. Since this is your first infraction, rather than writing you up, I’ll just send you detention. You will remain there until the last bus at 5 o’clock. In detention, I want you to write down exactly what you heard and turn it into me tomorrow.”
Tears welled.
Mr. Ransom spoke up, “Now Carl, what if she’s telling the truth? Why don’t
we split the difference. She goes to detention for not listening to Mrs. Louie, and I’ll personally go to the library right now and check on things.”
“Fine,” was all the long-faced principal said.
My knees almost buckled with relief. “Thank you,” I said as Mr. Beuterbaugh ushered me out.
Mr. Ransom gave me a wink.
In Trouble
Detention was in a room that smelled like plastic gym socks. Chemical-y stale sweat, yum. Slightly smaller than a normal classrooms, it was the pale green walls and flickering fluorescent light that really made it feel homey. My bag was still in the library but I didn’t think sneaking back there after detention was the wisest move.
To be honest, I was actually kind of scared of Mrs. Louie.
In the detention room sat a single other person who ignored my arrival. He was hunched over his desk, intent on something. He had fading purple hair, thick and a little mussed in the back as though he’d just stumbled out of bed. From head to toe he was a walking bad-boy cliche complete with black leather jacket and combat boots. A rather cute bad-boy cliche.
There was no adult supervision in detention which was surprising.
I scrounged some paper from the recycling bin and sat at the opposite end of the room.
“Hey do you have a pen?” I asked loudly.
He looked up, dark grey eyes, mocha skin, screw you attitude. The sexy bad-boyness practically leaked out his ears.
I gave a small smile. “I just need a pen.”
Something about the way I asked must have disarmed him, because his face shifted from ‘screw off’ to ‘whatever’ and he tossed me a pen from his bag.
I decided to write everything I could remember from the library with such diligence that Mr. Beuterbaugh would see I wasn’t a trouble maker.
I scrawled for almost an hour before I glanced up and noticed that tough-guy was right next to me, looking over my shoulder.
“Man, you zone out. I’ve been standing here for ten minutes.”
I slid my arm over my chicken scratch writing.
“Nah don’t hide it. You’ve got the beginning of a great horror story there.”
“It’s not a story. This just happened in the library an hour ago.”
He rose his eyebrows. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
He let his hand fall to his side and I caught a glimpse of what he’d been doing. It was a sketch. I’d assumed he was drawing a comic book or something. On the page was a picture so beautiful I actually gasped. It was done in exuberant color, pale greens and shimmering blue. An image of a lone woman holding a baby. Clearly an exaltation of motherhood, though tinged with some indefinable sadness.
“Whoa, you did that?”
He self consciously turned it away. “Yeah. Sorry to get in your business.”
Tough-guy went and sat back down. I looked at him for a minute. Brooding-tough-guy was an amazing artist? High school movies had totally lied to me.
***
When I left school, I decided not to take the bus. It was only a few miles to our apartment and I hadn’t walked anywhere in weeks. Walking allowed my mind to wander from one thing to the next. Back home, we walked almost everywhere. There were old, abandoned logging roads that wended through the jungle, overgrown but still passable with just a machete.
From San Pedro, you could make it to the Mennonite village in two hours. You could even walk all the way into San Ignacio, the big city, in about five hours, though I’d only done that once.
Everything just took longer in Belize. The rhythm of life felt different. I woke with the sun. No one had cell phones or computers, just an old boombox that us kids used to bring out to the clearing far enough from the village that we could talk and laugh and, sometimes, drink rotgut rum long into the night.
I tried not to dwell on it, but walking alone along the side of the road, I thought about nothing but home.
Every year, backcountry Belize became lousy with archaeologists. They swarmed the place in the summer months, professors, graduate students, and droves of undergraduates. Every year, there was a project in a remote camp just a few miles from San Pedro. When it was in full swing, I spent most of my days there, watching them excavate the ancient Maya temples that dotted the jungle. Dr. Saul from the Smithsonian even let me help her sometimes. She gave impromptu archaeology lectures while out digging and I never missed a moment.
Even more than the terrible movies we used to watch, the American archaeologists were where I learned about American culture. Turns out I had a pretty skewed image of Americans.
As I neared downtown, the yellow glow of streetlights outshone the stars. I wondered how many people in Waterford knew the current phase of the moon. How many of them had ever spent a night outside of their temperature-controlled boxes. Life felt constrained and shut in. Wake to an alarm, drive somewhere. Follow the bells ringing from one room to the next. Eat when the clock hand ticks over the twelve. Go home and sit in front of some kind of glowing box. Then sleep in your perfectly silent, seventy-two degree bedroom. Repeat.
Bleh. No wonder so many people there seemed miserable. Not that life in Belize was perfect. Just like Virginia, there were angry people. Assholish people. Light and dark. Secrets. But at least I felt alive in Belize. Part of the gentle inhale and exhale of the universe. Tied into something larger than myself — my village, the earth, humanity.
I was lost in thought when every nerve in my body stood at attention. That vibrating sense of impending doom people describe just before being struck by lightening.
Without fully understanding why, I dove to the side. Flinging my entire body off the road, I almost managed to avoided the speeding car. Rather than hit me dead on, the silent sedan caught my leg as it zoomed by.
Pain exploded as I flew into the air. My whole body spun in a circle, arms and legs flailing out of control, then crashed into the ditch. My face plowed into the ground, mouth filling with mud and wet leaves.
Rising to my hands and knees, sputtering, I was trying to process what had just happened when the same tingling sense of impending danger flooded my senses. My inner voice screamed move.
The red flash of taillights raced toward me. The car was backing up, trying to hit me on purpose!
I flung myself to the side but my feet slipped on wet leaves. The car caught both my legs. My head and shoulders swung around, connecting with the side of the dark car. The side of my head slammed into the plastic and I heard crunching. I bounced off the car and hit the ground flat on my back. The impact flattened my lungs, forcing the air out with a solid huh.
Squealing rubber caught as the car accelerated forward right at me for a third time. Body screaming with the premonition of death, I frantically rolled sideways. A whirring tire whooshed by my head, breeze fluffed my hair as it skimmed passed my ear.
Stumbling to my feet I saw nothing but taillights disappearing into the distance.
Dizzy and unable to breathe, I collapsed back to the ground and stared up at the stars.
Rather than think about the fact that someone had just tried to kill me, I spent the next few minutes contemplating the fact that the light pollution was so bad I couldn’t see the milky way. Perhaps there was no milky way in Virginia? No that made no sense.
The ancient Maya called the milky way the sacred white road. They believed that the gods of time traversed the sky during the day, and the underworld at night, carrying time ever forward on their shoulders.
There was no milky way and I had just been run down by a car. Virginia could not have sucked more. Hey, at least the moon was out. She looked beautiful as ever.
“Helloooo moon,” I might have said out loud.
Slowly, I sat up, patting myself down for broken bones. My leg throbbed a slow steady beat, head swam. Tapping my ankle, I almost passed out. Don’t touch it, Harper. In the few minutes I lay there, the whole bottom half of my left leg swelled like a sausage but I could put weight on it.
I limped all the way to th
e apartment muttering to myself, “No milky way, freaking nightmare place, Virginia, freaking Stephen King cars trying to kill me…”
Waiting for me at the apartment, mom was an ashen sentinel at the top of the stairwell. “You’re home. You were supposed to be here hours ago. Oh no! What happened.” She practically fell down the stars to get to me. She swiped fresh blood from my scalp. I hadn’t even noticed the sticky glob hanging from my hair.
“Sorry mom. I got detention today and decided to walk home.”
“Harper, you’re limping and bloody. I don’t care about detention, what happened to you?”
“Oh yeah, car hit me.” I slurred a little and fell forward, collapsing into her arms. Guess I was more hurt than I thought. Little dots swarmed my vision until there was nothing but black.
I woke up in bed. Mom sat in a chair holding my hand, her entire body held so tight she was about to spin right off the earth.
“You’re awake.” She blew out air. Her lip trembled though she tried to hide it.
“I’m fine, mom.” I tried to say, thought it came out more like, “Ith sthine, bob.”
“You are most certainly not fine. I should have left you in Belize.”
“Wha?” I flexed my lips, trying to make them follow commands.
She struggled to keep her emotions in check. Fear, grief, guilt, anger flashed across her face.
“You were going to leave me there?” I managed to say.
She nodded slowly. “I thought about it. But, I thought you’d be safe with me. It was so dumb to bring you here. I just thought,” she trailed off.
My mouth worked a little better. “You would have been here alone. I would have missed you.” I tried to sit up but a wave of nausea forced me back on the pillow.
She looked at me with an intensity I’d never seen. “You listen to me Harper Dae. You keep your head down and never walk alone again. No detention. No walking home from school. Class, home, lock the door. That’s it.”
“Mom!” I sat up again, “That’s like being in prison. I was planning to ride the metro into DC this weekend.” The world swam but I was too upset to lay back down.
Jade Moon (Celestial War Book 1) Page 2
