First We Were IV

by Alexandra Sirowy

  Graham stood springily, bottle swinging at his side. My cheeks were still burning, but it wasn’t from shame or embarrassment. Graham extended a hand for Viv and pulled her up beside him.

  “Gimme,” Viv said, hand opening and closing for the bottle’s neck. Graham held it just beyond her reach and grinned.

  “Come and get it, Vivy,” he said, sliding the door open and escaping into the night. She ran after him. Then I was up, light-headed, room orbiting. Harry and I turned at the same time and there was this recklessness between us, his eyes darkening, his mouth open like he was a second away from laughing. We leaped into the night and caught the white flutter of Viv’s blouse disappearing between apple trees.

  Graham was calling, “Over here. Over here, come and—” The wind stole the rest away, and Viv’s breathless laughter was the far-off cry of an exotic bird.

  “This way,” Harry yelled, and we swerved right. We ran doubled over, weaving in and out of a line of trees. We shifted directions again. The branches were weighted low with nearly ripe apples that shone like little silver moons. Shouts and laughter were ripping up through my chest. The orchard felt as endless as it used to when we were little.

  We heard two yells, one triumphant and the other frustrated. Harry and I sprinted for a hundred yards more, following the sounds. We shot out of the trees. I stopped short, digging into the dirt, sending a spray of soil at the rock ballooning up from Earth. The breath felt knocked from my lungs.

  I hadn’t been to the rock for a long time. Only for an afternoon or two since I found the girl. The trees seemed to push me closer, shouldering at my back. My knees locked. Harry’s calloused hand closed around my elbow, his thumb hot on my inner arm. “Look,” he whispered.

  Two figures on top of the rock: one with his arms raised toward the immensity of the night sky and the other, hair whipping, hips swaying in figure eights, dancing with the wooden doll as an extension of her arms. Harry went soundlessly up, and after a beat, I followed. Tugged by that invisible string between us all.

  The meteorite was glowing in the moonlight, a stage set ablaze like the shooting star it once was. It didn’t look like a dangerous place. Not the sort I needed to avoid; Harry, Viv, and Graham exchanging knowing looks when I refused their suggestions to bonfire, sunbathe, or stargaze there. Perhaps it could be ours again.

  Graham and Viv turned as we joined them. Viv floated to my side, her arm wrapping around my waist, the idol trapped between our torsos. We spun as a tornado of loose hair, fabric, and the honeyed scent of nearly ripe apples. The world turned to streaks of dark and light. Viv’s laughter gave way to humming a moody little snippet from a song she’d learned for a musical about witches.

  When we were too dizzy to keep on our feet, we joined the boys, lying on our backs, the four of our heads touching. There were no cracks between us then. We outshone the star-choked sky. We stared into space and didn’t wonder what was there because we were the universe. All wormholes led to us.

  Retrieved from the cellular phone of Isadora Anne Pendleton

  Transcript and notes prepared by Badge #821891

  Shared Media Folder Titled: IV, Mon., Sept. 16, 12:35 a.m.

  Video start.

  A quarter segment of I. Pendleton’s face takes up the screen. She laughs nervously and moves the phone farther back to reveal lavender walls behind her. White bookshelves with white-framed photographs to her left. Purple quartz bookends and rows of books organized by color—red, orange, yellow, white, blue, and green spines.

  “How should I begin?” Her eyes go around the room until they land on the cell she holds unsteadily. “Graham said it was fair play that we go before Viv and Harry. The Order was my brainchild.” Rolls her eyes. “And Graham thinks that all my good ideas are his. So here goes. Hi. Hey.” She waves at the lens. “I’m Isadora Anne Pendleton—Izzie. I think that our secrets were the most important part of last night.” She pauses. “I have a real whopper of a history with secrets. Dad keeps secrets from Mom.” Her voice is low and she looks sharply to the right (likely to the door). “I’ve heard Mom tell Dad that she senses the gaps. She knows he isn’t honest. But last night, we told secrets and wore them like those badges Viv and I used to collect when we were Brownies in the third grade. I earned almost every single one our troop could. And the secrets didn’t only make us closer. They made us better, too. Does that make sense?”

  Her mouth screws up as she thinks. “Graham looked older and more serious. He wasn’t trying to impress us with bullshit or stories. Viv was more alive like how she gets when she has a lead part and is about to go on stage and every little movement is on purpose and graceful and her eyes spark. And Harry, he got carefree after he shared and I never even noticed that he wasn’t to begin with. So anyway, secrets did that.” Her eyes are downcast. She looks up after several seconds and smiles. “The end.”

  Video stop.

  Retrieved from the cellular phone of Graham H. Averbach III

  Transcript and notes prepared by Badge #82827

  Shared Media Folder Titled: IV, Mon., Sept. 16, 1:02 a.m.

  Video start.

  G. Averbach appears with gold and emerald paisley wallpaper behind him. Shelves to his right and left are laden with books and antique trinkets. He nods at the camera. “I am not going to be sentimental—looking at you, Isadora—or perform this like it’s an audition—Vivian—nor am I going to film this like it’s some sort of news documentary—Harry. I don’t think that Izzie can take all the credit for the Order. I have been saying for ages that we weren’t being enterprising enough with our free time, and if it wasn’t for all our competitions, I don’t think Izzie would have the guts for the Order.” He thumbs his chin. “Then again, neither would I.

  “The definition of a secret society is a club or organization whose inner workings, rituals, beliefs, activities, history, and membership are concealed from nonmembers.” Brief stop. “Way back in the sixth grade, right when Stepdad Number Two bailed, I got into researching the Bohemian Club.” He massages his brow. “Maybe it was my wanting a father figure that made me curious about a bunch of old dudes. The Bohemian Club is basically a Masters of the Universe club, full of white, powerful, rich men.” Disdainful smirk. “They meet in the redwoods north of San Francisco and spend weeks colluding to rule the world and, since most already do rule it, scheme about how to get even more power.” His fingers tent and move for emphasis. “Their opening ceremony is called the Cremation of Care. It’s part dramatic production, part occult ritual where they burn stuff at the foot of a gigantic owl statue that represented human sacrifice to the Phoenicians. The ceremony symbolizes the shedding of empathy.”

  He slides his desk chair closer, its wheels whistling. His face takes up the whole shot. “My point is: Secret societies delve into dark shit. They have iconographies, saints, insignias, druid rituals, pseudo-pagan practices, sacrifices, and ancient ceremonies. And since I don’t believe in half-assing it, I am going to make sure that the Order of IV has it all.”

  He stares into the lens as he reaches toward the tripod or mount.

  Video stop.

  8

  We arrived to our palm tree–dotted school parking lot the following morning. My legs juddered with nerves. I wanted to run for the halls to see if the flyers were still posted. “Everybody act normal,” Graham said through his teeth.

  The morning sun zapped the moisture from the air. Summer dogging fall, as if it wanted to last along with our fun. Viv clung to my arm. Harry kept veering off, craning to see I-didn’t-know-what deeper into the parking lot.

  Finally I followed his frown to Conner and his buddies around his red BMW. I grimaced. Poor Harry, there was no escaping Conner. Seven Hills radiated out from the town square, the knoll, with ten or twelve long residential streets that reached like palm fronds on either side. Some of them climbed into the hills, others bowed close to the ocean. Our street, Driftwood, was home to a lot of our classmates, including Conner.

  Conner�
�s engine announced itself whenever he drove by, going way above the limit, to his family’s driveway. Neighbors had complained. A petition circulated for speed bumps. Conner’s dad silenced the uproar with gift baskets of wine and cheese. It wasn’t like the speed bumps were ever going to happen without Sebastian Welsh’s permission anyway. He was the biggest developer in Seven Hills and sat on the city council.

  Viv left sweaty handprints on my sleeves as she drifted ahead to a crowd pressed against the bougainvillea that grew around each bank of lockers. I tightened my hairband and faked a yawn. This was Monday, casual as flip-flops. If I hadn’t been so good at being invisible, my darting eyes might have given me away.

  A few of our flyers had slipped from the walls and were kicked up in eddies from hurried legs. Others were passed down lines of students who released blasts of surprised laughter as they read. Kids ruminated over the details.

  “Someone finally called out pervy Bedford.”

  “It’s signed ‘I-V,’ like an IV drip?”

  “Nah, that’s the Roman numeral four.”

  “Who’s IV?”

  “My personal fucking hero.”

  “Let me see,” Graham said easily to a redheaded freshman. The boy obliged and the four of us circled the flyer, playing our part. I shuffled through the appropriate facial expressions: curious, surprised, amused. Our eyes clicked on one another’s.

  Graham said, “Someone’s got a serious set of—”

  “Boobs,” I said automatically. He smiled.

  “Have any teachers seen this?” Harry asked a group snapping a picture of the flyer. That’s right, it would be all over social media, spit in a thousand different directions in milliseconds like one of those confetti party poppers or a bomb with shrapnel, depending on your perspective. How didn’t we imagine that some classmate’s German cousin would be liking our flyer on their feed within the hour?

  One of the kids shrugged at Harry, another said, “Hells yes. The principal and Mrs. Wu were in another hall tearing them down and Ms. Hendricks showed up and got in their faces.” Ms. Hendricks was the school’s news blog adviser and Harry’s favorite teacher. “And she was all, ‘You better leave those up. It’s news.’ ”

  Twenty minutes into first period, Principal Harper made an announcement over the intercom. I was trying to keep up with Ms. Ives’s lecture on the precolonial history of medicine in Africa when the two-note tone sounded. Principal Harper spoke too near his mic, so that the saliva netting the corners of his mouth was audible.

  “Good morning, student body. Many of you will have noticed the outrageous accusations plastering our school halls this morning. There’s no cause for concern. My administration is taking this act of vandalism very, very seriously and we fully expect to identify the perpetrator shortly.” The heel of my clammy hand smeared the ink of my notes.

  The next news came in third period. The two synthetic musical notes had me twisting around. Viv was four rows behind me, chewing on a lock of hair, seemingly unperturbed that we were probably about to fall from anonymity. Each breath left the invisible laces of a corset cinched tighter around my chest. I was not built for crime. Not then.

  But the principal’s tone had changed to contrite. Pending an official investigation, Vice Principal Bedford would be taking leave. If anyone wanted to speak to the guidance counselor about the very serious allegations leveled against Bedford, sign-ups were on the school’s web portal. The corset released my ribs and I slumped in my chair, too full of relief during the rest of class to really grasp the enormity of the events we’d set in motion.

  There was an outburst from Trent in the desk next to mine. “Who scissor-handed the red beast, bro?” he exclaimed loudly toward the end of the period. He was hunched over his cell and his checks reddened when he realized he’d spoken out loud. “Sorry, Mr. Novak,” he mumbled, continuing to text. The red beast was what Conner called his car.

  At lunch, it was all over school that the district’s superintendent had seen the picture of the flyer trending on social media. Journalists began calling for comments. Sexual harassment of students by staff was a newsworthy allegation. The cheerleaders were practicing in the quad when the superintendent’s car came to a screeching halt, and she made a beeline through a dance formation. Amid the details that came in waves, there was also talk that someone keyed Asshole on Conner’s car. The cherry on top of a perfect day.

  Reports reached us of Bedford leaving campus with a cardboard box. Three female students accused Bedford of making harassing remarks and staring at them suggestively. Parents tied up the school’s phone lines, and a local cable channel’s morning show got a copy of the school dress code, their reporter asking the school secretary if she thought the dress code had created an environment of impunity for the sexual harassment of female students. She answered affirmatively. The parents whose daughters were pictured in the flyer arrived to take them home. Graham said they’d lawyer up, slam the district with lawsuits. Lawsuits, lawyers, reporters, parents, consequences.

  It hit me, abrupt and as hard as the water smacks your cannonballing form. We had a say in the world. As us, we were invisible. As the Order of IV, we were powerful. This revelation was as intoxicating as hard apple cider. I wanted to keep having a say.

  On the drive home from school I watched Viv peek under her bandage to stare at the shadow left by the penned IV on her wrist. She felt its power too.

  We listened to one of my playlists at the cell phone’s full volume. Harry punched the horn to the beat as we drove through our neighborhood. Viv chimed in using her high vibrato. Graham was bent over his cell, scrolling through a feed of our flyers tagged in photos. The tip of his tongue went between his teeth in the way it did when he was surprised.

  I was struck with a thought: If you know Graham so well, how did you miss him having crushes on you and Viv? Not crushes. He’d confessed to having been in love. The difference between loving and being in love doesn’t exist until you experience it, so I wasn’t entirely sure what Graham’s secret meant.

  I waved good-bye with both arms as Harry reversed from my driveway. There was a kick in my step as I used the rear door to the kitchen. I ditched my bag next to the table and shouted, “Your favorite daughter’s returned.” My parents ran their architectural firm from home.

  I picked through the Greek yogurts in the fridge drawer. I hummed to myself, blurting occasional lyrics of the hip-hop song we had been playing in Harry’s car. I was too high off the rebellion to care that I was muddling the words. Usually Graham, Viv, and I headed to the barn after school, and then Harry joined us after his shift at Hilltop Market, but that day Graham had a class at USB, Harry was driving the hour to Paso Robles to a vinyl store, and Viv was practicing for our school’s upcoming Antigone auditions. I’d gotten the topic of the first term paper in Post-Colonial History and I was excited to begin.

  I elbowed the fridge door closed and was going for a spoon when susurrant voices reached the kitchen. They were muffled, gradually more audible as I deserted the yogurt on the counter and tiptoed into the hall. Ours was a big, old, creaking house with wood floors that whined and brass door hinges that sang escalating notes like those my cello used to make while I tuned it, before I quit in the fifth grade. I stepped long to avoid an especially squeaky floorboard and went halfway to my parents’ office. Stopped.

  “ . . . you aren’t hearing what I’m telling you . . .” Those words of my mother’s came sharp like a dagger through the closed door.

  “We can’t continue having the same argument, Ellison. You’re either in this or you aren’t. I won’t be cast as a villain for the rest of my life.”

  “And so the blame is on me. God forbid you take any responsibility. . . .”

  I reversed. I should have made more noise in the kitchen; lead with a loud joke rather than a silly hello they must have missed.

  I left the yogurt but took my backpack to my room and shut the door.

  I crawled into my egg chair that hung f
rom a ceiling beam. Its wicker frame was small, left over from when Mom had to boost me up. I opened my laptop to distract myself.

  The paper for Post-Colonial History wasn’t due for six weeks, yet there I was, defining my research goals the day the essay prompt was given. The window was open and the salty air rocked the chair gently. I gradually let go of the sinking sensation in my stomach. My eyes drifted from my laptop to the water on the horizon each time I completed a bullet point and my brain skipped from post-colonial medicine in Africa to the Order of IV.

  Our blood moon ritual was in two Saturdays. Viv would create the ceremony. What would our next rebellion be? I wanted another plan. I wanted to flex the Order of IV’s muscles. Show our school that IV existed, was powerful, and in the shadows. For the flyers not to be a fluke, there needed to be more.

  Slumber Fest wormed into my head. The grown-ups had snapped their fingers and decided that Seven Hills High School’s oldest tradition was canceled. I might have acknowledged that the issue was safety and not adults being tyrannical, but then raised voices from downstairs made it into my egg, reminding me of how at the mercy of adults I was. I pressed my right ear into the cushion. I was sick of listening to what adults had to say, to me, to one another, always with their opinions.

  I clapped the laptop shut. I wouldn’t listen helplessly. Not on the day we took down pervy Bedford and the school’s dress code.

  I set my egg chair swinging as I threw myself from it, opened by bedroom door, and screamed, “I can’t do my homework with all of your shouting!”

  The tight voices went dead. I sensed Mom and Dad a floor below me, listening. I slammed the door. Leaned against it. A long sigh of relief slipped out.

  At last. There was my voice.

  Viv called me when she was through practicing for her audition. I’d set aside my finished research plan an hour before. “Did you go with the Ophelia or Viola monologue?”