by Angel Lawson
I take a deep breath and begin the calming technique Mary insisted I learn on my fingers at my first counseling session. Ten, nine eight... I start, counting down and focusing on a point in the distance, still hearing her voice as she counted with me, the twelve year old no teacher or foster parent could control ...two, one, breathe out, one, two, three, four...
Memory’s bare shoulders come into view when she moves her hair off her face. Her skin glows, smooth and perfect and there’s a loose strand of black against her white neck and I imagine it through my camera lens. I’d use a use a zoom setting, something that pixilated like retro movie film, to go with the plastic cherries hanging from her ears.
“Hey.” The whisper comes from my right. I glance to the side and take in the blond hair and eyes with lashes a mile long, covered in the gunk girls wear so you know that they are inviting you to look. I look. She clicks her tongue against her teeth. “Can you believe he’s assigning the groups?”
I shrug. I wonder what her deal is, what she wants from me, why she’s being chatty at the one hard case in the room, and then I take another deep breath. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six...
The blond smiles, nice. “Maybe we’ll be in the same one together.” She’s acting like I belong there, like I’m one of them.
I can do this. Whatever topic the professor gives, the work should be easy on my part. Five, four, point, shoot and click. The magic of photography, the distance of the camera is my shield and my weapon, perfect digital aim. Mentally, I frame a shot. Three, two, one… smile at the pretty girl. “Maybe so.”
“I’ve left your group assignments in an envelope on the front table,” Dr. Anders says. “Your names are on the front, with the number of your study office. The topic is inside. I’d like to see a list with three to five directions of research by class tomorrow. If you are struggling with this, please see me for suggestions.”
Memory reaches the table first, grabs the stack of envelopes and calls out names.
*
My plan is to follow Anders to his office and beg out of this group thing. I’ll tell him it’s best for everyone if I’m not forced to play with others, but the throng of students hanging around to kiss teacher-butt and ask pay-attention-to-me questions is too thick, and by the time I give up and drop my backpack off in the dorm I’m hauling ass not to be late.
The note Jeremy gave me from Burnett instructs me to go to the side door of the dining hall, and the kitchen racket and blast of steam to my already sweaty face tells me I’m in the right place. I hold up the scrap of paper and read the name again.
Constance Cory, Food Services Manager.
I look around for whoever could be in charge of this zoo, past the women by the ovens and the younger men washing dishes, and my eyes finally land on a small black woman with her hair back in a net and a spotless white apron hanging from her neck, yelling at a boy carrying a huge tub of applesauce out to the hot tables. She’s the commander-in-chief of this army, the way they snap to attention at her voice.
Her eyes narrow at me and she waves me over. I go, taking care not to step in a huge puddle of water on the floor.
“Ethan, is it? You’re late,” she says, waving her hand to the girl at the stove, gesturing to keep stirring a large pot of... something.
I peer into the murky brown substance, stew or gravy or—I decide I’d rather not know.
“Maya! You come mop up this water before someone breaks their neck!” she yells across the room.
“Yeah, sorry,” I mumble. She raises one eyebrow. “Ma’am,” I add.
“Rule number one, be on time.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Mr. Burnett told me your punishment,” she nods to my busted lip. “You can work in here but no trouble. I don’t take to trouble in my kitchen. Everyone gets along and everyone works. Since Matthew broke his wrist, you’ll be taking over his station.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I say, following her across the room to a wide row of sinks. “Dishes?
“Yep. You ever wash dishes before? Like this?”
“Yeah. Er. Yes, ma’am, I have. Not a problem.”
She looks me over. “You’re big. Keep an ear out. I’ll be hollering at you to carry stuff. You can help Eric with the heavy lifting. Mr. Burnett says you’ve got 20 hours to fill. That’s two hours a day for two weeks. Where’s your class schedule?”
“I left it at the dorm. Should I go back?”
She sighs. “Tonight. After dinner, drop it off. I’ll work it around your classes.”
“Thanks.” I don’t know why I’m grateful, but she’s got flowers on her shirt, and there’s no uniform in the corner with a Taser on his belt. We both turn at a loud crash. Eric is on the floor, feet waving in the air, a container turned over on his chest. Carrots roll across the floor. A girl stands behind him with a mop and a guilty look on her face.
“Lord, help me,” Constance says, shaking her head. “Tonight. Don’t be late.”
“No, ma’am.” I bolt from the room as she tears into the kitchen staff.
4.
Missing
“There.” I step back from the oversized calendar month I’ve tacked to the wall, and put an X through yesterday’s square with my pink glitter pen. “We can put all our assignments up here and then there’ll be no question about deadlines.”
I turn and face my teammates. Well, two of them. Two others are missing.
“I’m emailing Dr. Anders, asking what we should do about Sonja. Maybe she’s bailed on the program this year.” Julian says, fingers streaking over his laptop keys.
“She’ll be here,” I say. “She must have had some kind of emergency.”
He shrugs. “Personally, I’m okay taking on her part of the project. I’d rather work alone anyway, but this means you two have to take up for Ethan.”
“Did he get kicked out after all?”
Julian shakes his head. “His stuff is still in our room. I just saw him.”
“So he can’t even be bothered to make it to our first meeting?” I huff.
The door swings open. Speak of the devil, and he shows up in rumpled jeans and a slept-in shirt one size too small, outlining each and every cut of muscle of his chest. Ethan snags a chair with his foot, sets his bag on the table next to my brother, taking up space with his elbows. The yellow-orange envelope bounces across the table.
“Nice of you to make an appearance,” I say, sitting across from the boys.
“Miss me?” Ethan’s smile isn’t nice.
“You were right behind us, where did you go?” Julian asks him.
“None of your business.”
I cross my arms over my chest, pushing my breasts up high to get his attention. “You tried to get out of our group, didn’t you?”
“Did you?” Faye asks, turning her head to the side like a bird.
“I’m here, aren’t I?” His gaze drops to my boobs before he looks down to where he’s rubbing at a mark on the table with his fingernail. “So, what’s our topic?”
“We haven’t looked yet. We were waiting on you to get here. You know, trying not to be rude?” I want to goad him more, but he doesn’t look up. I toss the envelope to Faye. “Here.”
Faye pulls out the paper. She reads it twice, like she’s trying to make sense of a fortune cookie, and then says, tasting the words, “Compare and contrast the significance of crows in the mythology of several cultures.”
Julian leans over and snatches the paper. “What?”
“Crows. You know, Heckle and Jeckle and ‘Quoth the raven, ‘Nevermore?’” Her voice has an acid bite to it, at odds with her baby fawn eyes.
“I know what a crow is, thank you very much.” My brother’s eyes flick to mine. I look away, rubbing my arms, suddenly chilly. Julian clenches his fists. “Kind of a broad subject. We should narrow it down to a specific area, or something.”
Silence fills the little room, then Ethan clears his throat and says, “So, before we go any further, can we all share what we
’re good at? Like why we’re here in the first place? And who can do what? I take it we all have a skill set, besides walking on stilts?”
I ignore the comment, even though it’s a compliment, that he’s admitting to noticing my legs, because I’m too tense and also curious. I can’t imagine what exactly this guy is bringing to the table, besides brooding looks and a Rock of Gibraltar sized chip on his shoulder. I glance at my roommate and suggest, “Okay, Faye, why don’t you start?”
“I specialize in symbols,” she begins, her fingers at her neck, twisting in the chain that disappears into her sweater.
I tune her out, having already heard this, trying to figure out how much I should share. Julian is listening to Faye and taking notes, but the cogs turning in his brain, too. His eyes are down, and I can feel his question in his posture, the way he’s folding in on himself.
Do we tell them the truth? Are we ready to talk about it?
We’re already cheating, like we’ve been given a geography test about the town we grew up in, or a creative writing assignment when we’d spent our childhood spinning scary fairytales, told in secret twin language and pictures, rich with details of flight and feathers, seeing how far we could freak each other out, who would break into tears first, and the winner having to find a happy ending that neither truly believed.
“That’s cool,” Julian says to Faye. “That’ll give us a lot of interesting perspectives for sure—regardless of what direction we chose to take.”
“We can go a lot of different ways on this. Crows have significance in every culture. Ravens, too. They’re both symbols of power and change. And almost all religions see them in some role as messengers to the gods,” she says.
“It may be hard to narrow it down. We’ll have to do some research,” Julian says. He’s bluffing through fairly well, but I can see his nerves stretch thin with every blink of his eyes.
Who knew our secret would out itself at the Scholastic Honors Program? Certainly not our mother, frustrated with our murmurs and whispers and silence, sending us to separate rooms until we “learned to talk like normal children,” and later to summer school, because she didn’t know what else to do with us. Or more likely, me.
“What about you?” Faye asks my brother. “What do you do?”
“I read,” he says, eyes darting to me.
“He speed reads,” I help him out. “In eleven languages.”
“Twelve, actually,” he says. “I finally got my Czech to seventy-five percent retention last week.”
He’s fine. I smile with relief and turn to Ethan. His mouth is no longer swollen, but there’s a reddish-purple bruise over his lip. “And you? Who did you kill to get into this program?”
He laughs, but his smile is still sarcastic. “What, you don’t think I got here on my own talent and merit, just like everyone else?” He opens his bag, retrieves a medium sized album, and slides it across the table.
I open the plain black cover and gasp. Julian said he’d seen Ethan with a camera, but this is not what I’m expecting. The photograph is of a building, but the image is off center and although the structure and its arched doorway are the primary focus, what is most noticeable is a black star just over the wood frame. The coloring is more sepia than normal, giving the odd shaped shadow an unearthly feel.
“You took this?” I ask.
“Should I be flattered or insulted by your surprise?”
“They’re beautiful,” Faye says, her voice matter-of-fact.
I look down from his glare; she’s turned the page. Another building, verdigris and brick, a small plaque worn into nothingness, the bronze letters etched by evening light. I stare, wondering if I would have noticed such detail, to remember it so beautifully.
“It’s unusual to see a doubled heptagram in this architectural period,” my roommate says.
“A what?” Ethan asks.
“A seven pointed star.” She points to the next weather-worn abstract architecture, where a bird perches on a metal point. “You can also call it a septacle, but I never do. It sounds like ‘receptacle tip.’”
“Wha—” my brother’s mouth hangs open.
“Oh, you know,” she says, turning another page. “The wiggle room inside a condom.”
The tension in the room breaks in half. I bite my cheek to keep my hysteria inside, and I want so badly to see Julian’s expression, but if anyone looks at me I know I will lose my dignity in a fit of giggles.
“It’s the Star of Babylon.” Faye looks up at Ethan. He’s rubbing his hand over his mouth, and I wonder what he looks like when he laughs for real, not the snide chuckle he throws around like a weapon. “You study symbols?”
“No, I just take photographs. Most people seem to like them.” The defensive edge is back to his voice. His hands grip the table edge. They’re brown from the sun and the nails are broken and there is a fresh scar pulling at one white knuckle.
Faye flicks her fingers under the next page, but Ethan’s thumb comes down, trapping the sheet closed. She looks at him, but draws away, more polite than I would have been. He snaps the book shut, slides it off the table, and I reach out, wanting nothing more than to see the rest of the images. Julian’s right foot comes down hard on my left toe, and I sit back down, acting nonchalant. I examine my manicure.
Ethan takes the portfolio and stashes it back in his bag. “So, Cherry,” he says, folding his hands on the table. “What about you? What special talent do you have to share with the group?”
Cherry? I remember what shirt I’m wearing, refuse to glance down at my chest and the graphic design. Jerk.
“My memory, of course. I don’t need a camera. It’s all up here.” I wave my hand over my face, watch his eyes move upward. “I’m the group’s personal illustrated encyclopedia. Give me a date and a time, and I can draw what I saw.”
“Really?” Faye asks.
“Eight-thirty this morning,” Ethan challenges.
I grab the pencil from my bag and flip over Faye’s class schedule. On the back, I sketch, searching line until the graphite point lines up with my vision, and the form of a woman, naked, curled in the arms of an octopus, appears on the paper. I layer in rapid detail, blending what blurs out of my focus into shading. “I saw this, among other things,” I say, handing back the paper.
“Oh!” Faye laughs, and reaches into her sweater, pulling out a gold chain. She holds up a carved bone pendant. “The Minoans used an octopus motif in their decorative art. It’s a very harmonious symbol. I thought it might be appropriate for our first group meeting.”
“That only has six tentacles.” Julian is scowling. “Octopi have eight legs. Where are the other t—” He breaks off, eyes wide, face turning an odd shade of peculiar. He flips the paper over.
“Maybe that’s why she’s feeling so much harmony,” Faye says, dropping the necklace back in her shirt.
Ethan’s hand is back over his mouth, and his shoulders shake, eyes bright blue, the color of sky and flight and freedom, and this time I do lose it, giggling so hard I can’t catch my breath, and I lay my head down on the cool tabletop, trying to find some control in all this chaos.
“Can we focus, please?” Julian’s disapproval sets me off again. “Are introductions over? We’re all exceptional, we all can bring stuff to the table.” He glances at me again and takes a deep breath. “Let’s get something down so we don’t have to go running to Dr. Anders, okay? And we need to eat before the cafeteria closes for lunch. Anyone have any ideas they want to throw out?”
*
“You told someone.”
“Don’t be stupid, Memory. Who would I tell?”
I’ve dragged my brother into a dark corner by the library, after ditching Faye on the way to the dining hall. “Don’t you think it’s a little coincidental that our topic is crows?”
He pushes his glasses back. “Of course I do. But I also know that you’re prone to dramatics.” He eyes the tattoo on my wrist.
“This can’t be fair. I feel lik
e we’re cheating.”
“No, you don’t.” He sighs. “It’s probably not too late to ask for a new topic. It’s not like we’ve started yet. I doubt the others will mind.”
“What would I say? ‘Sorry, Dr. A, but my brother and I might have an unfair advantage over the other students, due to our unhealthy interest in our topic since the womb. Or maybe, ‘Can my sketchbooks, filled with nothing but black birds since I could hold a crayon, count as primary material for our project?’”
“Your drawings might actually be useful.”
“Julian! Are you kidding me?”
“Yes, I’m kidding!”
I arch an eyebrow because I know him better. I’m impressed when he manages to hold out for more than five seconds.
“Fine,” he hisses at me. “I’m not kidding! It would be useful and maybe those other two and their skills could help. Maybe Faye can see an angle we’ve missed—” He’s not talking about the project anymore, and I cut off whatever he’s going to say next.
“I bet she could tell us a whole lot about the symbolism of the word freak, and, yeah, maybe Ethan can take a picture of us when we get humiliated in front of the whole program.”
“He probably would.” He ignores my glare. “I’m being serious. Don’t you want to know what it all means?”
“I don’t care anymore,” I lie. “I just want to sleep at night.” He stares me down, knowing full well I slept like a baby on cold medicine last night. “You know I do,” I mutter.
“Well, let’s find out.” He takes my hand, securing my thumb in the middle of his palm like he has since we were little. We walk, swinging hands, ducking under the branch of a low-limbed tree. Students mill around the quad, their pace a slow saunter in the fierce sun. A petite girl in a leotard and leggings slides past us, ballet shoes in her hands, barefoot on the grass. “How old is she, anyway?”
“I have no idea.” I flip through past scenery, scanning faces. “She was here last year. Had the lead in the modern dance routine.”
