by Su Williams
I couldn’t help but laugh. “You noticed that, huh?”
“Damn straight! And it won’t happen again. Right?”
I smirked and raised an eyebrow. “Sure thing.” Unless you’re being an ass again.
Molly took my arm and guided me through the maze of hallways and desks, and out to the cruiser, gleaming in the sunlight. “What was that all about?” she asked, once we were alone.
I chuckled quietly. “Apparently, Chief Houser is especially sensitive to people rummaging around in his head.”
“What?”
“Just comes with the territory.”
We both slid into the car and buckled up in silence. “So have you been in my head?” she asked after we’d been on the road for a few minutes.
I placed a hand on her arm. “Of course not. I have better manners than that. Just like you wouldn’t butt into someone else’s private discussion, I wouldn’t butt into your private thoughts. Unless absolutely necessary.”
“Promise?” she pleaded and I almost thought she was going to make me pinky swear.
“I promise. Relax. I don’t believe in voyeurism.”
Her shoulders relaxed a little. But only a little.
The remainder of the trip was shared in randomly broken silence. I wondered if she was hiding something about my girl from me. If maybe she was seeing someone else, or she wasn’t who she claimed to be. Twenty minutes later, she dropped me off at the driveway of my cottage. I waved goodbye from the porch as her tires popped over the gravel.
Inside, I slouched down in front of my computer desk and stared at the screen. Graduation was two days away and I was too chicken to check my test scores to see if I had passed. The computer screen glared back at me, silent and still, blank as a starless sky. With a reluctant sigh, I booted the machine and opened my email. A letter from the home-school administration topped the short list. ‘Test Scores’ was in the subject line. Not ‘Congratulations! You passed!’ or ‘Guess what? You get to walk the graduation ceremony with your class!’ I supposed that would be too much to ask. I sucked in a breath and held it, and clicked the email open:
Dear Miss Sweet,
We are pleased to inform you that you received passing scores on your required testing for graduation. Additionally, we have forwarded your scores to the high school of your choice, Shadle Park in Spokane, Washington, with your request to be included in their commencement this Saturday.
We would like to also advise you, that your scores were well-above the average for home-school students and will gladly forward your transcript to any school of your choosing. Scores of this significance will open many doors to universities that might otherwise be closed to you.
Please accept our congratulations. It has been a pleasure to work with you over the last year and a half. The staff here wishes you all the best for your future.
Sincerely,
S. Garner
Home-school Administration
“Yes!” I hopped to my feet and, like the huge dork I was, I pumped my fist in the air. Eddy’s head cocked to the side in question. “I passed, Eddy! I get to walk graduation with Baby!” His brows arched at me. “Oh forget it. You wouldn’t understand.” But, sensing this was a happy thing, his tail thumped out a happy tune against the floor anyway. I had to tell Ivy. Rummaging my phone from my purse, I flicked through the screens and opened a text box.
Ives! Guess what? Several minutes passed and I paced the floor in anticipation of sharing my news.
On a quick break @ work. What?!
I passed! I knew that’s all I had to say. She’d understand.
Seriously?! U can walk grad w us?
Yup!!! So cool!
Totes. Gotta go. C U soon. Luvs U!
KK. Luvs u 2 bebe.
Then, it was time to tell Nick.
“Emari! That’s awesome!” Nick cheered and ‘hi-fived’ me when he arrived at the cottage a few minutes later.
“Yeah, it’s pretty sweet.” But in my heart, there was someone else, two someone elses, that I wished could share this news with me. Nick didn’t miss the stutter as my heart skipped over the vacant place within it. His warm hands rubbed my bare arms.
“I’m sorry they’re not here for you,” he whispered, chilling and warm at the same time.
“Yeah. Me too.”
Nick pulled me into his arms and we stood, silently gazing out the windows at the sun glinting off the black tulips and irises I’d planted during one of my darker moods last year. My breaths synched with his. As he breathed out, I breathed in. As I breathed out, he breathed in. The rhythm of his heart was a tranquil babbling brook and lulled the sorrow that reared its ugly head once again in hopes of swallowing me.
“You need some time alone.” It was more of a statement than a question. I nodded against his chest, never taking my eyes off the sunshine outside.
“Is that okay?” I asked.
“Emi…” His thumb stroked my cheek and his fingers gently lifted my chin. He searched my eyes, my face for an answer that alluded him. “It will never, ever, not be okay. If you need time to yourself, it’s yours. I only have one small request…” He paused, waited for me to approve. I nodded my head and he continued. “I need…I would feel better if you stayed in contact with me somehow. I can stay close, outside the house. Or you can broadcast a low frequency weave. Just so I know you’re okay.”
With a sigh, I rested my head on his chest. “‘kay.”
He kissed the top of my head, and we stood several more moments just gazing out the window, wrapped in each other’s arms. “Em?”
“Hmm.”
“I’ll stay. If you need me.”
I smiled against his chest. “Did you know, this house was supposed to be my graduation present?” I said in lieu of a response.
“Yes.” He was quiet for several stretched moments, but I could feel his need to say more warring inside him. “Jane was so excited about giving this place to you,” he chuckled. “You’d have thought she was the one getting a gift instead of you.”
“We worked every evening and weekends to get the cottage up to code and restore the built-ins so we could rent it out. Mom and I browsed for hours in all the upholstery shops in town to find the perfect fabric for the curtains. Looking back, I don’t know how I didn’t see what they were planning. Especially when I suggested a grey scale theme in the bedroom.” His arms pressed me more firmly to his chest, and for the briefest of moments, the contour of his muscles distracted me from my inner turmoil. “You can go now. I’ll be okay. I’ll stay in contact.”
Nick’s thumb traced lazy circles on my jaw, but his heart skipped a beat and drummed out an erratic fill. “Okay,” he whispered, but his tumultuous heart nearly drowned out the word. Finally, as though it pained him to separate, he stepped away. “I’ll be here in a moment, if you need me. Okay?”
“Thanks.”
He kissed my forehead and phased from the house. The fingers of his spirit trailed up my arm as he went.
The photographs of my parents on the mantle caught my attention and drew me in.
“I did it Mom and Dad. I’m actually going to graduate.” The excitement boiling in my stomach was bittersweet. “I wish you could be here for the ceremony.” Ari warmed under my shirt and I traced my fingertips over her sprawling legs. Electricity zinged up my arm and exhumed a buried memory.
Mom and Dad sit before the antique oak-framed mirror that now hangs in my hallway. Their faces convolute with feuding emotions.
“Emari, honey…this memory has been hidden somewhere deep within your mind,” Dad chokes out. Mom sniffles and forces a smile. “By now, you already know what that means.”
Mom draws herself up with bravery, and smiles a proud, genuine smile. “It means that we’re not there for some special event in your life. You’ve graduated, or…you’re getting married…you’ve had a child…” her voice breaks and Dad pats her hand.
“We wanted you to know that we’ve always been so so proud of you.”
Tears threaten to choke off his voice, but he clears his throat and continues. “You’ve always been our beautiful Jewel. It’s been such a blessing to be your parents.”
“There’s no way we can express how sorry we are that you’ve been left to face all of this alone. We would never have left you willingly,” Mom says after a moment of composing herself.
“We know all the financial support we left for you can never replace our presence with you. But please always remember, that as long you hold us in your heart, we will always be with you.
“Sabre has been kind enough to help in implanting these memories in your mind. You can reach in any time and find us. And Asa’s spider will help you to find any memories you need.”
Mom visibly squirms. “All of this seems so strange. I know. I’m only recently learning of the magic of our friends. It’s been a bit overwhelming, so I’m sure it’s thrown you for a loop, as well.”
Dad pats her hand again, smiles and kisses her wet cheek. “But we wanted you to at least have these memories of us, so you’d know we were thinking of you and so badly wanted to be with you and share your momentous occasions.” They glance at each other, then back to the mirror and into my eyes. “We pray that each and every year in your future will be twice as rich as the one before. And that all that you put your hand to will be a smashing success. Thank you for always being our precious Emari Jewel. No fortune could replace the treasure that you are to us.”
The stow-away memory faded before my mind’s eye and I stood gazing at my own reflection in the glass of their picture. Tears beat against my eyes but I sucked them back—let it turn—and channeled the grief into something much more useful. Revenge.
Chapter 30 Invisible
Ivy and I dolled up for graduation at her house the afternoon of the ceremony. Then, we said goodbye to her parents and drove downtown to the Opera House. Commencements ran back to back, so Shadle graduates lined up as North Central, our bitter rivals, filed out, diplomas in hand. Ivy’s mom and dad waved as they went in to take their seats. Ivy jittered with excitement like she’d drank a couple of Monsters, but the gaping hole of my parent’s absence darkened my mood. I refused to let it spoil the day for her. The valedictorian scuttled by, tossed a deflated beach ball at us and said, “Tuck this in your robe. Don’t blow it up ‘til we get inside and seated!” Then, she ran away, a dozen more flat balls in her arms.
We sat side by side on the Opera House stage with two hundred sixty-eight of our fellow students. All the compulsory speeches were made, but as the speakers droned on, one by one students took out their beach balls, inflated them and stowed them under the seats. Finally, when we were all about to nod off from boredom, the valedictorian—Katie…something—walked proudly to the mike, turned and winked at the graduating class. She gave a perky, humorous speech about life after high school, then gestured to the orchestra pit to the non-graduating members of the band. The student conductor raised his baton and all instruments rose to attention. The Shadle Park High School fight song blared from the pit and the first beach ball was let loose into the air, followed shortly by three more. Kill-joy staff and teachers came and confiscated the balls and turned to go, but as soon as their backs were turned, four more balls lofted skyward. The balls were volleyed from side to side, until, again, the staff removed them. And the leering staffers were dauntless through the third and fourth round of balls.
“Bring ‘em all out!” hissed the boy behind me. “As soon as they have all of this batch, bring yours out too.”
Ivy tucked the ball under her robes so it looked like a pregnant belly and giggled. Once the last ball was rounded up and the teachers turned away, three dozen more beach balls bounded into the air. The staff threw their hands up and shook their heads. Principal Mohney—Brother Ray, we called him—stood chuckling at the podium. “Are you children ready to become adults, yet?” The entire class roared as one, ‘NO!’ But the balls were tucked back under seats or lobbed out to the audience or into the wings. I’d never felt closer to this group of people in my entire career as a student.
The superintendant of the school district called out the names in alphabetic order. Toward the end of the ‘D’s’, he announced “Bobbi Jo Durbin.” The entire class rose to their feet, and hooted and applauded as Bobbi shambled across the stage, a hunch in her back and her lips just a hint of blue, to receive her diploma. She hadn’t been expected to live through grade school because of a defect in her heart. But there she was on high school graduation day shaking the hand of the Superintendant of Schools. Ivy and I always hated following the crowd, did anything to keep from being a cookie-cutter kid, but Bobbi was a sweetheart to all who met her, despite her physical maladies. She deserved far more than the riotous applause we gave. After she was seated, the guy behind me—Mark…something—handed me a partly-used roll of pennies and said, “Take one and pass it on. Put it in your hand when you go up to get your diploma and leave it in Brother Ray’s hand.” I giggled and conveyed the message to Ives, and so on down the row. I glanced up to the principal, and sure enough, the man’s pants were weighted down with the pennies other students had given. His face was torn between frustration and amusement.
One by one, row by row, the superintendant called our names. Our row stood, as the last of the row behind us crossed the stage with their diplomas.
“Ivy Sunshine Summers…” the school official read. Ives grimaced, and growled at the titters from the class, but her parents and older brother, Toby, leapt to their feet and whooped and hollered as she blew dramatic kisses to them across the audience. I sucked in a breath. Only silence would welcome me into adulthood. Ivy stopped at the far corner of the stage, instead of continuing back to her seat. I quirked a questioning eyebrow at her.
“Emari Jewel Sweet…” The Opera House fell almost silent as my name spilled from his mouth. Then, Nick, Sabre, Adrian, and Celeste rose somewhere in the back and cheered and clapped and whistled for me. Ivy grinned ear to ear. Somehow she’d wrangled tickets for my ‘family’ to be there to support me. I shook hands with the line of school officials and launched myself at Ivy.
“You’re the best friend ever!” I picked her up around her tiny waist and spun us around in circles. When I finally let her down, she gestured to the rest of the class. Oh. My. God. It wasn’t a full standing ovation, but over half of the graduating class—sans jocks and cheerleaders—were standing on their feet, clapping, whistling and shouting my name. I’d never known. I wasn’t just the orphaned, brooding emo/goth girl. I was the girl who faced daunting odds and won. I was the survivor.
*
Ivy and I drove out past Seven Mile Road, across the bridge at Rivermere and out toward Four Mounds. When we were kids, Mom and Dad would take us out there to fish at Long Lake. The grownups did most of the fishing. My friend and I mostly ran through the fields dodging cow pies, played horses and cowgirls, and climbed the old rickety cattle ramps. Always on the way back, we stopped at a spring that trickled from a pipe at the side of the road. The water was crisp and sweet, and bright green moss and tiny yellow flowers crowded the edges of the small stream below. Above the spring rose a towering basalt hill, and at the very top, grew a lone lonesome tree, scraggly and windswept. And it was to that tree that we vowed to climb and leave our mark, a bright yellow flag, on the world—and probably one the stupidest, most reckless things we’d ever done. But, hey, we were grownups now. And we were invincible…well, maybe I was.
Without any climbing gear or protective clothing, we scrabbled up beyond the brush to the loose rock skirting the hill. Then, we made our way, zigzagging back and forth on unsure handholds and crumbling rocks until we reached the prize. After a little whooping and hollering at the world below us, we sat on the edge to catch our breath, then tied the flag to the tree and headed back down. But somehow, the way down felt ten times more precarious than the way up. Time after time, the shale beneath our feet gave way, or the roots of our handholds shredded from the ground.
I’m goin
g to kill your little friend now. Thomas hissed in my ear.
“No!” I gasped and cut a glance below me to where Ivy struggled to keep her feet. “Please, Thomas,” I begged. But what did Thomas owe me? His sole desire in life was to torture and kill me, Nick and Sabre. I wondered what he would do with his time once we were all dead.
What’s the matter, Miss Sweet? Is the fire too hot for your liking?
“Please, Thomas…” But my plea was futile and fell on deaf ears. Her name rasped, strained and quiet, from my throat. Please, please, please.
The roar of Thomas’ energy and his diabolical cackle whorled around me. Suddenly, Ivy began to slide and then to tumble down the face of the hill.
“Ivy!” I screamed and phased to just below her to impede her fall over a crag in the rock. My body was still phasing from ethereal form when her body slid under mine and I dropped my weight on top of her. She flipped over beneath me and flung her arms around my neck. We lay on the hillside wrapped around each other, panting and gasping for breath.
“Holy shit. Holy shit,” Ives whispered in my ear over and over.
“Chill, Babes! I got ya,” I murmured back, but my heart was racing, my lungs convulsing, as much as hers. I brushed her blonde wisps out of her face. “You’re okay, Baby. I got ya,” I whispered, in fear a louder voice would crumble her fragile composure. I flopped over beside her, the sharp rock knifed me in the back but I still clutched her hand. “You okay, now?” I asked, once her breaths calmed a little and her quaking diminished.
“No,” she whimpered.
I pushed myself to my hands and knees. “Tough. We gotta get off this rock sometime.”
“Call Search and Rescue to send the chopper for me when you get down.”
“Nuh uh. On your feet. Let’s get off this stinking rock.” With an exhausted groan, she hauled herself up and we continued down the hill. Strangely enough, not a single rock shifted underfoot as we descended.
Ivy was abnormally quiet on the ride home. Typically, she jabbered on about a favorite show or the next cosplay costume she was designing. The tension around her stretched taut and thin until I felt like I would snap. I wanted to dive into her brain to discover what was bugging her but I couldn’t do that to her, no matter how pained it made me. And I didn’t want to push her. We were almost to the Division Street Y when she finally spoke.
