Sheltered

by Debra Chapoton

  Her hand shot out and pushed the card off the dashboard. “Why did you send her?”

  “Send who?” Ben picked up the card and turned on the dome light. “That lady?”

  Emily’s lip quivered. “You’re getting rid of me?”

  “What? I am totally confused. You’re not making any sense.” The silence stretched. “Look, I cleared off that lady’s car and she gave me this. It says ‘Carla Beridon, Social Worker’. I assume that’s her, but she’s a stranger to me, Emily.”

  Emily loosened up. “She said . . . she said she could discern a bad spirit around me.”

  “Discern? Like see?”

  Emily shrugged. “I thought she was rude.” She talked at the floor, still not meeting Ben’s eyes. “But then she explained that she’s a social worker and helps teen girls all the time. And . . . and has a special support group to deal with, uh, bad stuff.” Emily couldn’t bring herself to say the words.

  Ben flipped the card over. “You mean like what it says here? Eating disorders, self-esteem problems, pregnancy, bullying?”

  “Read the next line.”

  “Addictions, self-mutilation, witchcraft, devil-worship, demon-possession. Yeah, that kind of struck me the first time I read it.” Ben fanned the card, set it back on the dashboard, and reached over to pat Emily’s hand.

  “Take me home, please,” she whispered, tucking her hands under her armpits. He had read that second line so fast she knew he had missed the point.

  “Wait, tell me what she said to you. Honest, Emily, I didn’t send her.”

  A sigh. “She said to call her if I wanted out. She could help me.”

  “If you wanted out of what? Our house?”

  Emily’s voice pitched down in impatience, her tone took on a reedy quality. “Yes,” she lied. Her heart sank; lying was always punished, but lying to Ben would be punished twice.

  ***

  Cori intended to race down two flights of stairs and ransack Chuck’s room, but Jason caught her on the fifth step and yanked her arm.

  “Chill out, woman! What’s your problem?”

  Without a conscious thought she turned, anchored herself with one arm wrapped around the stair banister, and thrust her left hand up into Jason’s face. She mentally pushed him away. He tumbled upwards like an astronaut in a rolling ascent. He screamed at first and then choked to silent terror, the silver bead on his tongue caught between his teeth. He floated between the steps and the ceiling, arms and legs balled in tightly, head jerking back and forth.

  Cori dropped her hand and Jason fell, somersaulting to her feet. He leaped up and drew his fist back, aimed for her jaw. A gush of profanity preceded the violence, but she stopped him again. He could move his mouth, but not his hands.

  “You’re a witch!” Jason yelled. “And you’re fired!”

  She held him there as she descended backwards, dark eyes keeping him still. At the bottom she released him. He ran to the side door, grabbed his coat and fled from the house shirtless. She waved him on and threw her own special oaths at his back.

  She flung more curses after him as he drove away and she remembered the books and jewelry she left in his car.

  Another set of headlights rounded the corner and Ben pulled up to let Emily out. Cori narrowed her eyes and watched the little wretched form try to walk in Jason’s footprints, the snow halfway up her legs.

  She cursed again and went to the stairs. She locked the stairwell door behind her.

  Twenty minutes later the card on the dashboard caught Megan’s attention as she got in Ben’s car.

  “Hey, what’s that? I know that logo.” She didn’t show signs of being annoyed with him anymore. She examined the card.

  Ben twisted toward her and relaxed. “Some lady I helped gave it to me.”

  Megan slapped it back down on the dashboard. “Small world! That’s my social worker, Mrs. B. How did you help her?”

  Ben explained as he waited for her to buckle up.

  “That was nice of you.” A promise of a smile fluttered at her lips.

  “Thanks, but Emily was totally freaked out. The lady, your Mrs. B., gave her a card in the store and told her she could help her get out.”

  “Get out of what?” She smoothed the seatbelt and left her thumb tucked under the strap near the buckle.

  Ben moved into the left turn lane and answered as he checked traffic in both directions. “Get out of the rooming house, I guess.”

  “Why would she say that? How would she even know where she lived? She probably meant she’d help her get out of her behavior problem – that cutting thing she does. Mrs. B. can spot trouble like you wouldn’t believe.” She pulled the card off the dashboard again and tried to read it in the colored light cast from the traffic signal. “Uh, self-mutilation, here it is. Wow, demon-possession, too. I have a little white business card of hers and it doesn’t say any of this stuff. Huh.” Her harrumph echoed the muttering sound Ben made.

  Ben turned, fish-tailed and recovered, and spoke in a penitent’s tone, “You still mad?” He didn’t know her well enough to read her without watching her facial expressions so he kept glancing back and forth from the snowy road to her face.

  “No, I wasn’t mad, I was . . . you know, concerned.” She didn’t look at him, stared instead at the huge flakes that were dissolving on the windshield. “I thought a lot about it at work and . . . you’re right. It shouldn’t be a problem that I live without adult supervision. I am the adult, right?” She laughed.

  “One of us has to be.” Ben focused on the road. “I think we’re gonna have a day off school tomorrow.”

  “Good. I need a snow day.”

  Chapter 15

  Chuck slid down the chute and came out in his closet. He heard Cori’s screams, blanched at the fighting, jumped when Jason slammed the door. Good riddance. Maybe he’d start his mission at the tattoo parlor and then head to the school. Yes, he’d put that place on his list. Maybe he’d need special bullets to kill that ugly rat-faced moron. Silver bullets.

  You don’t have any silver bullets.

  Oh, great, so now you’re back. You got any good ideas, Adam?

  Sure, why don’t you scrape his name into a couple of shells? Or, better yet, put our initials on all the bullets. That’ll show ’em.

  Chuck sat down on the bottom step, his back to the kitchen door above. He didn’t move, not even when, a moment later, Emily came in.

  He didn’t hear her pound on the door to the second floor. He didn’t feel the house shake as she slammed the bathroom door.

  He sat motionless and stared.

  He was still hunched there when Megan and Ben let a blast of cold air and snow blow in with them a half an hour later. Nothing broke his trance.

  ***

  Megan gestured down toward Chuck with her thumb as she stepped out of Ben’s way.

  Ben gave a little groan. “It’s gonna be hard to get my hockey bag past him.”

  “You’re going out tonight?”

  “Yeah, I’ve got a practice, but I think I’ll call first. The last time it snowed this hard it was canceled and I didn’t find out until I got there.”

  Megan flipped her hair around a few times, but the snowflakes had already melted in. She ran her fingers through it and then rubbed her damp hands on her jeans.

  “Are you feeling a strange vibe here tonight?” she asked.

  “Yeah, no TV blaring. That’s strange.”

  “I’m just gonna use the bathroom.” Megan glanced in the dark living room as she turned into the hallway. The bathroom door was closed; a thin light shone along the floor. She tapped on the door. No answer. She touched the knob. Locked. It would fit Cori’s personality not to say anything. She went to run upstairs, but the door to the second floor was latched from the other side. That wasn’t something Emily would do. Again – Cori. But then, who was in the bathroom?

  She heard Ben on his cell phone calling the skating arena. She had a few choices: she could use the metal thing she ha
d put back above the den doorframe to open the bathroom door, she could use it to try to lift the latch on the stairwell door, or she could go downstairs, jump over Chuck, and use the boys’ john.

  She felt along the doorframe right as the bathroom door opened and Emily walked out. She was deathly pale.

  “Emily, are you all right? You look awful.” She helped her to the couch in the living room, turned on a lamp. “Ben, come here. I think Emily is really sick.”

  Ben finished his call and cut through the dining room, setting his phone on the table as he passed it. “Whoa, Em, you could be cast as a zombie.” Wrong thing to say, he thought, as soon as it was out of his mouth. “Uh, sorry. You just really look white.” He sat down next to her and she leaned against him.

  Megan sat across from them on a chair and studied the two. Emily’s body language would have been considered seductive if she were anyone else. But she was simply sick, and sad, too, and lost and lonely and pathetic. Megan’s heart went out to her at the same time as it filled with respect, admiration, and awe for Ben. For the most fleeting of moments she wished that he were Simon’s father. Then Cori unlatched the stairwell door and kicked it open.

  “What’re you lookin’ at?” Cori was ready to stare down all three of them, but Emily didn’t even look her way and the other two turned their attention back to Emily as if the interruption wasn’t the least bit startling. Megan got up and moved to Emily’s other side, forming a protective enclosure together with Ben.

  Cori slowly growled. “What’s wrong with her?” She yearned to levitate the little nobody and smash her face against the ceiling a few times. That should put some color in those cheeks.

  She clenched and unclenched her fists, moving closer by subtle increments. She rarely spoke directly to the little mouse, but since neither Ben nor Megan answered, she had to. “Emily, look at me! What’s wrong? Feeling guilty about something?” That got a reaction.

  She took another couple of steps, stopped three feet away, and asked, “Did you go in my room?” She could just as easily take her anger out on Emily if she had trespassed. Maybe she had misjudged things and the culprit wasn’t crazy Chuck, but sneaky Emily. A certainty filled her; she was sure that she could control them all with her new power, laced as it was with passion and anger.

  What? They had been speaking. But she hadn’t heard a thing. Their voices were low, whispering into Emily’s ears from either side. Ben, then Megan, then Ben again, making reassurances, comforting the little brat. She didn’t hear them. Her heart was pounding fiercely in her chest, in her ears; the drumming thudded an evil tune.

  “Did you go in my room? Did any of you go in my room?”

  She heard their answers this time. Three no’s that sounded true.

  “Is Chuck back? I thought I heard him come in.”

  Megan pointed, but Cori didn’t take the hint. She closed the gap and raised her hands out in the air and tried to push the two aside from Emily, expecting to levitate them away, force them into a fetal position and hang them like suspended disco balls.

  But nothing happened. Her hands trembled inches from their shoulders. She spun around and dropped to her knees, twisting back to face them. Three pairs of eyes widened to see Cori cast her reddening eyes down, large tears streaming to her chin.

  ***

  Ben couldn’t stand all the tears. Maybe they were all getting their period at the same time, maybe there was a full moon, maybe they were . . . possessed. That card was on the counter in the kitchen; he could call that lady.

  He patted Emily and looked out the window. The snow was incredible. Would a social worker make a house call in a blizzard?

  Emily’s body shifted toward him as Megan got up from the couch. He watched her settle next to Cori to try to console her. Megan was amazing. He knew she couldn’t possibly give a crap about Cori and yet she was generously trying to comfort her.

  He kept his head bowed, all the better to listen, but his eyes caught the furtive movements of Emily’s nervous hands. She was rubbing at a red smudge; there was a dark stain spreading on her upper thigh. Was this what the guys in the locker room laughed about, an accident? He didn’t pay attention to all that girl stuff – headaches and periods and tampons. He suddenly wanted to switch places with Megan. Being on the floor with an apparently kinder, gentler Cori was preferable. Time out. He needed a time out.

  He heard the ring tone from his cell phone. If he could have jumped out of his skin, he would have. He moved so quickly that Emily folded over onto the cushion, then drew her legs up to lie completely flat, keeping both hands tightly pressed against her legs.

  Ben read the text: hockey canceled. Too bad, he thought, maybe he should say he had to leave and just go home. Yeah, it probably would be smarter to wake up at his own house tomorrow rather than have to explain to his mom and Ed where he was all night, especially if they called off school. He could come back here—

  Another ring, new text from the same hockey teammate: school already canceled for tomorrow, pick-up game at noon if roads clear. He turned his back to the girls.

  “What is it, Ben?” Megan asked.

  He didn’t try to analyze the sad note in her tone. Split second decisions were coming more easily to him. He kept his voice solemn as he spun around. “I gotta go. I’m late. Can you handle things here?”

  He thought she took too long to answer. He nearly told her there’d be a snow day tomorrow. No, better to let her find out the usual way or she’d be suspicious about hockey.

  “Sure,” she answered, not looking up. “It’s no big deal. Catch ya later.”

  ***

  Megan was two seconds away from calling Mrs. Beridon for help, but then she thought of all the possible consequences. She was still on the floor with Cori. She watched Ben’s headlights sweep across the living room, the lights diffused by the thick swirls of snow, struggling to cast their beams far enough into the darkness.

  Ben had left too quickly, she thought, and he didn’t go downstairs for his hockey bag. Perhaps it was already in his trunk. She pictured Chuck sitting on the bottom step, hoped he wasn’t still there.

  “Are you all right now, Cori? ’Cause we have to get Emily up to her bed. Can you help me?” She spoke with the same lilting, smooth tone she used on Simon – her mothering voice. She encouraged Cori to rise with a mild hand on her arm.

  Cori was placid now and strangely preoccupied, but she gasped and cried out, “Look! Look at the blood!”

  Emily’s hands had fallen forward and thick red stains of blood were seeping through her jeans.

  Megan grabbed Emily’s arms and pulled up the sleeves. There were no new cuts. She looked back at Cori and said, “She’s cutting her legs now. Help me get her pants off.”

  They fought against the awkwardness of undressing a limp and unwilling Emily.

  “Sorry, Emmy, sorry,” Megan crooned as the pants were peeled away, re-opening some of the scabs that had dried to the material. “Oh, no. Look, Cori, do you have any antiseptic and bandages or Band-Aids or anything? Maybe we’ll have to use pads or panty-liners. Oh, sorry, Em, sorry. Oh, why did you do this to yourself?”

  Cori lumbered off to the bathroom without a word, but she returned with supplies and more than a few words to say. “You’re an idiot, Emily. Why would anybody cut themselves like this?”

  Megan shushed her. “You’re one to talk. Why would you tattoo yourself? Pierce your body like that? Are you insane?”

  “Look who’s talking . . . mama.” Cori rolled the word off her tongue with all the snake-like venom of the dark creature that slithered behind her eyes. Then, like a dropped mask, her face changed. She looked at Emily to see if she understood the secret she had just revealed.

  Emily groaned as Megan dabbed her wounds with peroxide. “At least they’re not too deep,” she said. “Emily, you have to promise to never do this again.” She gave her a little shake on the shoulder. “Okay?”

  Emily’s voice was weak. “I just want out.”
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br />   “You don’t think we all want that? Life is hell. We all got problems . . . look around.” Cori handed Megan the Band-Aids and continued, “Why do you think they invented drugs and alcohol?”

  “Cori! Shut up!” Megan glared at her. “Go get her some pajama bottoms before Chuck wanders in here.”

  ***

  “No, I can . . . walk . . . upstairs.” Emily rose to her elbows and looked at her thighs. It was not a pretty sight. Facing this humiliation in front of Cori and Megan was going to require more punishment.

  She felt a little dizzy, heard Megan tell her to lie back down. Heard Cori go upstairs to get her pajamas. Heard Megan say she’d put her bloody jeans in the washing machine.

  She thought about the lady. Wondered if the lady could help her find her mom and brother. Panicked when she thought of the lady’s card in her jeans. Please, Megan, please check the pockets.

  She realized her eyes were closed. So sleepy. Felt something on her toes. Something moving up to her knees. Heard Cori’s raspy voice telling her to lift her hips. Felt a blanket being tucked around her.

  She opened her eyes when Cori lifted her head and stuck a pillow underneath it. Saw the streaky black lines on the face that could be pretty if it smiled. Saw a little smile on that face. She let her eyelids droop, blinked them open again when she heard the gruff question concerning her comfort. That outlandish smile or smirk or whatever made another brief appearance before she groaned a positive response, closed her eyes a final time, and fell asleep.

  ***

  Chuck came out of his stupor on Tuesday night when Ben went out the door. The closing sound, the draft of cool air, and Adam’s echoed voice all reached his inner self and he rose, stiff and confused. He walked into his bedroom and began a methodical cleaning and sorting of all of his possessions.

  He heard Megan come down minutes later and start the washing machine. By the time he heard the machine buzzing after the final rinse cycle he had a reasonably livable space – neat, if not clean. He had a pile of laundry that needed to be washed, but it was an unwritten rule that you did not mess with someone else’s wash. Girls were weird about it. Some of their stuff had to be dried on hot or warm or tumble only or not even put in the dryer but hung up. They used the cotton settings or the delicate or normal wash. Chuck didn’t bother with any of that. He left the machine on whatever cycle they had last used and threw his clothes in. If he remembered, he added detergent.