The First Conception: Rise of Eris (The Conception Series Book 1)

by Nesly Clerge

  Five minutes till three, if the clock’s right. Last class of the day. At three the bell will ring. I’m already shaking.

  Every kid in my class is ready for that loud jangle to split the silence or still the teacher’s voice. I’m so tired from working as hard as I did to act as normal as I could all day. But, I don’t want to go home.

  My teacher’s talking but I’m not listening. Couldn’t hear much more than the ache all day long, inside and out. Ms. Antoine stopped talking mid-sentence. Classmates’ heads turned to look at the door, so I turned mine too. Ms. Green was standing inside the room, to the left of the door.

  She held up a hand. “Sorry to disturb.”

  “You need me for something?” Ms. Antoine asked her.

  “Waiting to see Katherine Barnes.”

  All heads swiveled to look at me. I nearly choked on my saliva from swallowing so hard. I folded my hands together and stared at my fingers. Last thing I want is more tests. Don’t even want compliments.

  Don’t want attention.

  From anyone.

  Just let me disappear.

  I flinched when the bell screamed.

  Ms. Green walked to my desk. “Let’s get your books and go to my classroom.”

  She took half, the heavier ones.

  I needed to go to the bathroom, but I’d wait till she’d said whatever.

  In her classroom, Ms. Green motioned for me to sit at a desk. I did. She closed the door and sat in the desk next to me. Almost made me smile to see her do that. There’s something funny about an adult squeezing into a child-size desk. But the corners of my lips have forgotten how to tilt up.

  “Mr. Sanchez said you weren’t feeling well today.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Did you see the school nurse?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “She’s still here. Would you like me to go with you?”

  “No, ma’am. I need to go on home.”

  “I understand. You’d rather let your mother take care of you.”

  My chin nearly touched my chest. I nodded once. Liar, liar. Pants on fire.

  “Did your mother tell you I spoke with her?”

  Nod.

  “Did she say anything about what we discussed?”

  I gave a shrug followed by a nod.

  “Let’s go. I’m taking you home.”

  I jerked my head up. “No. I mean, you don’t need to do that.”

  “Need and want are two different things, Katherine. I’ll help you carry your books to my car. I’m not letting you walk home while you don’t feel well.”

  If you imagine I was silent all the way, you’re right. So was Ms. Green. I peeked at her once. Wished I could read her thoughts. Because her expression was like a blank mask with a whole lot of something going on under it.

  She also must have looked up where I lived. She didn’t ask for directions even once.

  Ms. Green eased her car into a slot and turned off the engine. I thought she wanted to talk to me some more, but she didn’t. Instead, she grabbed half my books and started to get out.

  “I can go the rest of the way by myself,” I said.

  “I want to talk to your mother.”

  “I don’t think she’s home.”

  “Let’s find out.”

  The tremors started deep inside me and worked their way to my muscles and skin. Sweat sprouted all over my body. One look at her face told me there was no point in trying to change her mind.

  At least the elevator worked. Subtract at least that much from my humiliation. Nothing could subtract anything from my fear.

  Ms. Green knocked on the door. Like a visitor. No one came to the door, but we could hear voices from the other side. Ms. Green knocked harder and longer.

  He flung the door open. Half. Naked. His flagpole pressed against the fabric of his too-tight, not-so-white underwear.

  Just let me die. Right here. Right now.

  At the dead silence that lingered several seconds, my mother got up from the sofa. One arm tried and failed to cover her breasts, while, with her other hand, she adjusted her panties. “What goin’ on, Buster?”

  “Little Katie brought me a present.” He looked Ms. Green up and down, licked his lips. “Unh-huh. You a fine piece.” He licked his lips again and cackled in that disgusting way of his.

  I gagged.

  Ms. Green snapped her spine straight and her chin out. “I’d like to speak to Mrs. Barnes.”

  “Ask me real nice.”

  Ms. Green stared him down and said, “Mrs. Barnes? May I speak with you? Please.”

  Mama said, “Just let me get my robe.”

  He looked back over his shoulder and said, “Stay where you at.” Returning his ugly face to Ms. Green he said, “She busy now. Takin’ care of me.”

  “Katherine isn’t feeling well. She needs her mother to look after her.”

  He finally looked at me. “Well, now. Maybe Little Katie got a fever or something. Maybe I need to use my special thermometer and check it.”

  I ducked behind Ms. Green.

  Ms. Green reached around and held onto my arm. “Maybe the best thing, since you and her mother are otherwise occupied, is for Katherine to come home with me tonight.”

  He stepped out and grabbed me. Most of my books fell from my arms. Holding onto me, he kicked my books into the apartment. “She ain’t goin’ nowhere but where I tell her.”

  “Mister—whoever you are, it’s inappropriate for Katherine to go in there with the two of you doing what you’re doing right out in the open.”

  He shoved me inside. I fell over my books and onto the filthy linoleum. “Not like she ain’t used to it.” He sneered and stroked his sweaty bare chest. “Girl gotta learn sometime, even one young as her.”

  “This is unacceptable behavior.”

  He slammed the door in Ms. Green’s face. I bolted for my room.

  CHAPTER 8

  “Knock, knock.”

  “Who’s there?”

  “Gettin.”

  “Gettin’ who?”

  “Gettin’ you outta here.”

  A social worker, accompanied by Ms. Green and an armed policeman, showed up at the apartment. I was both terrified and relieved to see them, having been kept prisoner in my room for a week.

  During those seven days, when he passed out after doing my mother—his words for it—or after inhaling a lot of beers, or both, my mother would sneak a sandwich and a cola or water to me. She’d also stand watch while I ran to the bathroom to do my business. And that was only when he was snoring loud enough to rattle window panes.

  What I don’t know is what she did when he came to my room each night. Nor do I ever, EVER, want to tell anyone what he did to me during that time. Or what he made me do to him.

  Ms. Green found me in my room, curled in a ball on my bed, covers pulled over my head.

  “Katherine, get your things together. You’re leaving this hellhole.”

  She started gathering my books scattered across the floor, scattered when he’d flung them off my bed when he came in the prior night for one of his, what he called, playtimes.

  “Do you have a suitcase?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  Ms. Green looked around my room. “We need something to put your things in.”

  Mr. Johnston was right. Those giant plastic trash bags are good for something besides keeping everything but your feet dry in the rain.

  I shoved clothes and stuff into that bag faster than I’d ever moved before, not that I had much to shove. Ms. Green stayed to help me, both of us cringing from time to time, at the raised voices and vulgar things being said by him in the other room.

  “The items you placed on your bed, is that everything?” Ms. Green asked.

  “Everything I want to take with me.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “It’s not my intention to be rude, but your room smells like someone’s been sick in it. More than once.”

  I stuffed a shirt into the plas
tic bag. “Sorry. That was me. But I stopped noticing the odor. Read once that’s called olfactory desensitization.”

  She stared at me with an unreadable expression for about two heartbeats then said, “You continually surprise me.”

  I tried to smile, failed, and looked around to see if I’d missed anything.

  “Not a day passed,” Ms. Green said, “that I wasn’t worried out of my mind about you. Even though I pushed heaven and h—everyone—to get the paperwork done, it felt like forever. Everything had to be legal, you understand.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Thank you.”

  Ms. Green tried to hug me. Much as I wanted her to, I’d been touched too much lately.

  She pulled her arms back. Her eyes watered up. “Katherine, do you need to see a doctor?”

  “No, ma’am. I’ll be okay. I just need some sleep.”

  “And food, if how you look is … Well, nevermind that for now.” She hefted my bag into her arms and went out of my room ahead of me.

  I loaded my books into my arms and left my room without a glance back. What was there for me to look at? No gazing back longingly for me, like in some of the novels I’d read. They could set my room on fire, as far as I cared, starting with the bed.

  As soon as I entered the living room, my mother started wailing and reaching for me. “Not my baby. Don’t take my baby.”

  He was sitting in his filthy underwear, cross-armed on the sofa, with the policeman standing no more than two feet away. The policeman wore a scowl that would’ve made me pee my pants, had it been aimed at me.

  Ms. Green put herself in front of me. “Katherine cannot stay here.”

  Hands fisted on her hips, my mama said, “Katherine Eris Barnes. You tell this Ms. Thing that you don’t wanna leave yo’ mama.”

  “Try to take care of yourself, Mama.” Against my will, my eyes slid to where he was. The look he gave me. Made me shiver through and through.

  Ms. Green gently propelled me toward the door.

  “Katherine Eris Barnes,” Mama screamed, “you get yo’ damn scrawny ass back here.”

  Mama shouted other things, but they’re not fit to repeat. My face burned at the names she called Ms. Green, who kept her head high and proud.

  I waited for tears to come when I heard the door close behind me, but I was dry as the packed, grass-less ground in front of the building.

  Our single-file parade headed for the elevator—social worker, me, Ms. Green, policeman.

  I kept my eyes open as the elevator door slid shut. Didn’t know where I was going, but it had to be better than where I’d been.

  CHAPTER 9

  Mama stood, arms folded, outside the school entrance the following Wednesday. One side of her face was swollen. There were scratches on her hands and arms. I was pretty sure her legs were scratched, but they were covered by pants I’d never seen before.

  “Mama, you look beat up.”

  “I’m fine. You look okay, baby. You been treated okay?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She grabbed my shoulder and walked me, fast, to the right, past the buses. A taxi waited at the exit end of the curved driveway. I peeked inside. The meter was running.

  “You came in a taxi?”

  “And we leavin’ in it.”

  “Are you taking me to my foster home?”

  “Get in, Katherine. We talk about it later.” She took hold of my arms, put her face close to mine and said in a lowered voice, “Probably best you don’t say nothin’ ‘bout nothin’ till we get where we goin’. You follow me?” She tilted her head toward the driver.

  “I understand. Where’re we going, Mama?”

  “Someplace better.”

  Mama opened the back door and I slid in, struggling to keep my books from falling. A small somewhat battered suitcase filled the space on the floorboard, where my feet should have gone. I started to ask her about it, but she shook her head. I clamped my mouth shut and wondered what was going on.

  What seemed forever later, the taxi pulled up in front of the bus station. Mama got out so I could. Then she reached over and got the suitcase. The driver got out, opened the trunk, and pulled out a larger suitcase. Mama handed him a ten-dollar bill and told him to keep the change.

  Once he was back in the taxi, I asked, “Mama, where’d you get that money?”

  “There’s a toilet on the bus, but let’s go here, while we can.”

  “Where’re you taking me?”

  “Just tol’ you. The bathroom.”

  I shifted my books to my left side. Mama sighed and took half of them as I took the smaller suitcase she handed to me, before following her inside. After the bathroom, we got something to eat and drink for right then, and a lot more somethings for on the bus.

  As I finished off a ham sandwich, I asked, “Are you ever going to tell me where we’re going?”

  “Far enough so’s no one can find us. Not that anybody gonna look.”

  “Don’t we need tickets?”

  Mama clutched her new used purse to her chest and said, “Already got ‘em.”

  We’d picked plastic seats in a corner far from the front door. Mama’s eyes watched every entrance. I caught her tension like a contagion. We sat there, looking like escapees from prison, until our bus was called.

  We stood in line to hand over our suitcases. My heart thumped a little faster at the smell of the fuel and the rumble of the bus engine. Eagerness to follow other passengers into the open door at the front washed over me. I wondered where they were going. Wondered how many of them were also running away. And from what.

  We settled into the last seat, near the toilet. My nose crinkled at the odor. I wanted to ask Mama if we could sit closer to the front, but she’d shrunk down in her seat by the window, eyes fixed just above the rim, watching everyone and everything. I don’t think she took a real breath until the bus driver closed the door and pulled onto the street.

  “Gonna be a long ride, Katherine. Might as well settle in.”

  “Can I sit by the window?”

  Mama lifted me onto her lap, wrapped her arms around me, and rested her head against the back of mine. It took probably five minutes for me to relax into that alien position. I tried to remember the last time she’d shown me any affection but gave it up.

  We stayed just as we were, and quiet, until we crossed out of Illinois into Wisconsin. I didn’t want to break the spell we both seemed to be under, but I had a question inside me ready to burst like an over-stretched balloon.

  “What happened, Mama?” She stiffened a moment, and I was sorry I’d asked.

  “Nobody gonna steal my child from me. Enough been taken from both of us. Enough been given away. Enough.” She rested back against the seat, arms tight around me.

  I relaxed against her, my head tucked under her chin, and patted her hand. “Thank you, Mama.”

  “Happy birthday, baby.”

  I’d forgotten.

  Her silent tears spilled onto my hair and scalp.

  I didn’t mind at all.

  CHAPTER 10

  At first I pointed and jabbered about what all I saw, but Mama wasn’t as excited as I was, so I kept my thoughts to myself. Then a different thought came to me. “I don’t have any clothes but what I have on.”

  “What you think is in them suitcases?”

  “You went to my foster home to get them?”

  “Didn’t want to take nothin’ from what was. Went to Goodwill and got us all new clothes and shoes.”

  Mouth hanging open, I looked at her, but she wouldn’t look at me. “Where’d you get the money? You already cashed your check for this month.”

  She snickered. “Acted like I didn’t know where Buster keep his cash. Acted like I didn’t care. That gold chain he wear? Real gold. He stole it off someone. I stole it off him.” She grinned at me. “Got a lot for it too.”

  I smiled back. “He’s going to be mad as heck.”

  Her smile disappeared. “He owe me.” She looked away. “He owe
you too.”

  I went back to watching the world grow bigger outside our window. Watched the light change, the sunset blaze its rainbow pallet over fields, and the first stars come into view. Fell asleep in Mama’s arms, but found myself in the seat next to her when the sun poked me awake.

  We were on that bus nearly two days, and Mama still wouldn’t tell me exactly where we were going. It wasn’t that I minded traveling, especially as it was my first time, but I looked forward to getting off the bus.

  Mama sat up straight. “We here.”

  I pressed my nose to the glass as we passed a large stone with words etched deep into it—Welcome to Independence Point. That wasn’t the name of the town, though the thought of independence made me giddy. We’d landed at a place called Coeur d’Alene. That’s in Idaho. The panhandle part, judging by the map inside the bus station.

  I traced my finger around the outline of the state. “How’d you pick this place?”

  “You ever play Pin the Tail on the Donkey?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Hunh. Anyways, I shut my eyes, turned in a circle, stuck out my finger.” She touched the town’s name on the map. “That’s where my finger went.”

  “We don’t—didn’t—have any maps at home.”

  “What’s it matter where I found one?”

  “What did he say when you told him you were leaving?”

  “I told him nothin’. Child, yo’ mama might not act like she got much sense, but I wasn’t always like I been. Day they took you from me, I knew if I didn’t do somethin’, I’d lose you for good.”

  My chin quivered. “You wanted me?”

  Mama leaned down and cupped my chin in her hand.

  “Didn’t know how much, till you was gone and I didn’t know when I’d ever see you again.” She stood up straight. “Buster backhanded me for cryin’ like I did. Told me if I wanted somethin’ to cry ‘bout, he give it to me. Sonabitch did. I couldn’t give him nothin’ like what he give me, but I figured a way.”

  “What are we going to do here?”

  “First, we find us a place to live. Even if we have to stay in a motel, we have enough to last awhile, till we get you into a school and me a job.”

  My eyebrows raised nearly to my hairline. “What can you do, Mama?”