by Ira Bloom
For Isabella, a limitless source of material
Title Page
Dedication
1. Three Sisters and Norm
2. Weirdness Begins at Home
3. Restraint
4. Somewhere in Eastern Europe
5. Da Head Bone Connected to Da Neck Bone
6. Conflict Resolution
7. Invitation and Invocation
8. How to Build a Monster
9. November
10. A Middle-Sized Town in the Middle of Nowhere
11. Parent/Teacher Conference
12. Hormones
13. Research
14. Kid Sister Skill Set
15. Dance: 10; Looks: 3
16. Two’s Company
17. An Unequal and Opposite Reaction
18. Rock, Scissors, Hand Grenade
19. Bio Hazard
20. Quality Time
21. The Curse of the Middle Sister
22. The Deadly and the Dead
23. Turkey Day
24. Friday Noir
25. Kasha’s Story
26. Brain Trust
27. Bird in a Guilted Cage
28. Curses Foiled Again
29. Rolling Thunder
30. Toil and Trouble
31. His Master’s Voice
32. An Ace Up the Sleeve
33. Tracheotomy for Dummies
34. Barry Gets a New Client
35. A Consultation
36. Meanwhile
37. Doubt
38. Clarity
39. Remorse
40. You Say You Want a Revelation
41. The Good Guys
42. Saturday
43. A Delicate Operation
44. Stupid in Love
45. The Dead of Winter
46. Certain Doom
47. Hampstead Manor
48. Vaster than Vampires and More Slow
49. Under
50. Daemon Ex Machina
51. Her Immortal Soul
52. Soul Food
53. Loose Ends
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
“Oh. My. Goddess,” said Katy as all the noise in the cafeteria suddenly died.
Veronica, her younger sister, looked up from her compact, in which she’d been studying her reflection with a great deal of fascination. “Wow,” she affirmed. “That’s just … wow. Did you see him, Esme?”
Esmeralda, the oldest, did not look up from her book. “His name is Norman. He’s in two of my classes so far,” she said. “Don’t gape, Ronnie, you’re being rude.”
Veronica attempted to avert her gaze, but it was like looking away from a wall: He took up most of her line of sight. “That’s the most horrible … I mean, what happened to him? It looks like he got all mangled up in some farm machinery or something.” She tried to appear interested in her salad but her fork shook noticeably as she raised it to her lips.
The three sisters made every effort not to gawk. The other students in the cafeteria weren’t as polite. What started as a hushed, shocked silence at the boy’s appearance and almost comical attempts to look away soon became a low murmur with clandestine glances in his direction, and finally escalated into overt ogling and chatter. Unkind words were heard over the cafeteria cacophony. Some students even brandished cell phones, taking pictures and posting them.
The new boy waded through the tide of ridicule and hostility with remarkable dignity, Esme observed. He was carrying a lunch tray and looking for a place to sit. Students were hunching their shoulders and spreading out, circling the wagons around their tables. Esme tried not to look but was as guilty as anyone else of stealing glances.
It wasn’t the boy’s face that drew so much attention. He had dysmorphic features within a frame of ghastly scars, a bulging brow, and a large, square jaw. But that wasn’t why people were staring. He had one green eye mismatched to a walleyed brown one, and the odd pallor of his skin made him look like a walking corpse, but that was hardly even worth mentioning. He walked with a pained, shuffling gait, a complex contraption of a brace on his left leg, and his left shoe was orthopedic, two inches thicker than the other, his legs entirely asymmetrical. But even that wasn’t his most freakish attribute.
It was the sheer immensity of the boy, the impossible scale of him, which would have earned him top billing at any carnival sideshow in the land. He was easily seven and a half feet tall and probably closer to eight, Esme estimated, because he hunched himself over and drew in his elbows, like he was trying to make himself appear somehow smaller, somehow less visible. As if he could. His hands were enormous, his legs like trees. Esme did a quick calculation and decided there was easily over four hundred pounds to him.
The giant shuffled toward three sophomore girls occupying a table for eight, knapsacks scattered over the empty seats. There was fear in their eyes, that he would ask to sit there, of social ostracism by association, humiliation, cooties, and possible dismemberment by a monster in their own school. He bent low and made a quiet request of one of the girls. She gathered up her knapsack to give him space. He placed his lunch tray down and hoisted one enormous leg over the bench. The table looked like doll furniture under him. Before he could sit down, all three girls had bolted, taking their trays and bags and books with them, as if they’d all suddenly remembered somewhere else they urgently needed to be.
“Disgusting,” Esme declared. “Absolutely revolting.”
“Esmeralda Silver!” Katy said. “You don’t know a thing about him.”
“Not him, Katy. Us. Everyone. But especially us—we should know better. We’re all so judgmental and intolerant. Somebody has to do something.”
The sisters observed the new student in quick glances. He was picking at the food on his tray, a ludicrously small serving for a boy his size. Esme discerned the mortification in his expression despite the false bravado.
“Don’t look at me,” Veronica said. “This is my first week of high school, I can’t be seen … I mean, maybe if we all went … ”
“We’d overwhelm the poor thing,” Katy supposed. “I guess … it should be me, right? I mean, weird is my department.”
Esme stood. “No, I’ll go,” she said. She gathered her book bag. “He’s in my grade.”
“Do you mind if I sit here?” the girl asked.
An attractive girl with horn-rimmed glasses slid onto the bench opposite Norman Stein and proceeded to unpack her lunch. Which was rather unanticipated. Norman hadn’t exactly come into a new school in a new town expecting to be welcomed with open arms. He knew what he looked like.
“Not at all,” he replied. He was self-conscious about the fact that his legs took up the entire space beneath the table and pressed up against the opposite bench, so she was forced to sit kitty-corner from him. He drew his elbows in closer to his sides. “Did you draw the short straw?” he asked, regretting it almost before the words were out of his mouth.
The girl’s lips tightened, then a faint blush of embarrassment came to her cheeks, followed closely by an eyebrow raised in acknowledgment. “Fair enough,” she said. “You saw me with my sisters. You knew we were talking about you. You don’t know me. But the fact is, we all wanted to come and sit with you. We just didn’t want to overwhelm you.”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be so cynical about people’s motivations.”
The girl smiled at him. “I’m Esme Silver. We have AP calculus and biology together. Welcome to Middleton High. Go Timberwolves.”
“Norm,” he replied. He smiled back at her. “Short for ‘normal brain.’ ”
Esme thought he looked a bit less freakish when he smiled, the teeth good,
the asymmetry wry but earnest. “On behalf of the rest of humanity, I’d like to apologize for my fellow students. They’re all jerks, obviously.”
Norman shrugged his immense shoulders in a rolling motion like tectonic plates shifting. “I’m not fussy. As long as they aren’t coming after me with pitchforks and torches.” His scarf slipped a bit as he shrugged, and he was quick to readjust it, but not fast enough.
“Oh,” said Esme, embarrassed for him. “Are those … ?”
“Yeah,” he confessed, a bit bitterly. “As if the rest of this weren’t bad enough, I have bolts in my neck. I’m getting them out in November, though.”
“I-I know, right?” she stammered. “I just got my braces off last summer, and I swear I didn’t smile for two years.”
He nodded. “You must have felt hideous.”
Esme surveyed the remains of her sandwich, alternating between self-loathing and indignation. Was he mocking her? Was that sarcasm? Around them, other students were still discussing him, and she picked up words like “monster,” “Halloween mask,” and “Frankenstein.” Except, now, she heard her own name added to the mix.
“You know,” she said, when she became so self-conscious about her silence she felt awkward, “you’re actually not half bad-looking.”
“Really? Which half?” he asked.
It was somehow reassuring, that he could joke about his condition. “It’s not all in one place. A little bit here, a little bit there, but all put together … not half bad-looking.”
“Good thing you didn’t see me before it was all put together,” he said.
Barry Silver was fishing a ham hock out of a pot of sixteen-bean soup when daughters one and two entered the kitchen and started opening cupboards. “You’d like him, Katy, I promise,” Esme said. “He has this dark, self-deprecating sense of humor, like yours.”
“I don’t know,” Katy hedged. “Everyone’s hating on him. I mean, I’m a big fan of weird, but seriously? Bolts in the neck? Who has bolts in their neck?”
“Think of it as cutting-edge body modification,” Esme said. “By next year, everybody could be wearing them. Just sit with us at lunch tomorrow.”
Barry looked up from the cutting board. “You two are talking about Franklin, aren’t you. Did you meet him? He’s supposed to start at your school this semester.”
“No, Dad,” Katy replied, with a tone of exasperation she’d honed from constantly having to explain stuff to the most clueless father in the universe. “It’s this kid named Norman. You’d know him if you saw him, he’s, like, eight feet tall.”
“Right, Franklin Norman Stein. I guess he goes by ‘Norman.’ His father is Doctor Frederick Stein—he teaches neuroscience at the university in the city. Brilliant man. He hired me on retainer. Heck of a nice boy, Franklin. And very smart.” Barry scooped up the chopped meat and returned it to the pot to boil. He discarded the fat and saved the bones for Katy’s dogs.
“Wait a minute,” Katy said. “Franklin Stein?”
“Frank N. Stein, if you want to be technical,” Esme noted. “Is there anything else we need to know about him, Dad? Like, did his father build him in a lab?”
“That’s not very nice,” Barry said. “I can see why he prefers to use his middle name. He’s just a regular kid who’s had some pretty severe health problems. Be nice to him, okay?”
“Of course, Dad. We don’t care about appearances.” Esme went to the stove and lifted the lid off the pot of bean soup. “This smells good, I think I’ll have some. You didn’t put too much salt in it, did you? With your blood pressure?”
“What kind of health problems?” asked Katy. “How come he looks like that?”
“I can’t tell you much,” Barry said. “Confidentiality.”
“Can you tell us why Dr. Stein hired you?” Esme asked.
“Just as a preemptive measure. He’s afraid his son’s civil rights will be violated. Norman has had to change schools several times in the last two years. Apparently, he’s a magnet for bullying. And he ends up getting suspended or kicked out of school because the administration always stereotypes him as the aggressor because of his appearance and size.”
Katy dropped an armload of salad vegetables onto the center island of the kitchen. “Who in the world would be stupid enough to bully somebody that big?”
“I believe him,” Esme said. “He isn’t the type to instigate stuff. You saw the reaction he got today in the cafeteria.”
“He could totally crush anyone,” Katy insisted. “All he has to do is fall on them.”
Barry shook his head. “He told me he’s a bleeding-heart pacifist. He hates violence. And he has so many ongoing health issues, he’s actually very vulnerable. I hope you girls will go to the principal if you see anyone bullying him.”
“Don’t worry, Dad,” Esme promised. “Nobody’s going to mess with Norman this time. I’ve got his back.”
“No hexing now,” Barry warned.
“Dad. Please. Cogitationis poenam nemo patitur. Thinking about doing it doesn’t make me guilty.”
“Ad avizandum,” he replied.
Esme found her father much easier to deal with, since she’d gone to the trouble of studying some of his old law books and memorizing a few Latin terms.
Esme’s room in the cellar was homey and always ten degrees cooler than the rest of the house, but in late August it was pleasant. There was a cat door at ground level, two feet below the ceiling. There was a monstrous carpet-covered cat structure with hideouts and clawing posts that topped out to a platform just below the cat door, so Esme’s cats could come and go at will, and there was no need for litter boxes and all the associated odors.
Esme put out some dry food for the cats and went to her computer for a half hour, browsing Amazon for new releases. It was the first week of school and there was no homework. She retrieved a volume from the huge freestanding bookshelf, packed with books that seemed to gravitate from every corner of the house to Esme’s room, then relaxed into the comfy chair to read. Murasaki was first on her lap, the prize spot, which annoyed Mandela, who sulked on a platform of the cat structure, glaring at Esme accusingly as if to say You let that lowlife sit on your lap? You’re dead to me. Mandela and Murasaki had territorial issues. Kali sat on the arm of the chair; Charlie took the comfortable spot on the ottoman, curved against her feet; and Esme, in her element, settled in to read a book about the life of Rikyu, the sixteenth-century Japanese tea master.
All was peaceful for an hour until Kasha returned, strutting through the cat door like he owned the place. Kasha jumped onto the ottoman and walked straight onto Esme’s lap, chasing Murasaki away with an angry hiss. Charlie gave up his spot immediately.
“Where have you been all night?” Esme asked Kasha, scratching him behind the ears. He kneaded her lap, digging claws, and purred in response.
“Out by the barn,” he said, his voice raspy. “There’s a female out there, I can smell her.”
“I’ll bet that big earless Tom is keeping her to himself. You better stay away from him, his neck is huge.”
“I’m not afraid of him. I’d eat him, but I don’t care for cat.” Kasha dug his claws in deeper.
“Hey!” Esme protested. “I said no more clawing!” She reached behind her back and pulled out the pillow, which she placed on her lap for protection.
“I love the feel of my claws sinking into your flesh. It’s so soft, like gopher bellies.” Kasha climbed up onto the pillow, advancing up Esme’s chest and putting his front paws on her clavicles, so he could sniff her breath. “You’re eating pig corpses, and you’re feeding us dry food,” he accused.
“Do you want some tuna?” she offered. It was a bit extravagant, but hey … a talking cat. Even in a house full of witches, it wasn’t something you came across every day. Or ever, even. If Katy only knew, she’d shut up about her stupid dogs.
Kasha jumped down off the chair and made toward the cat structure, and outside. “I ate already,” he said dismissively, as
if he were insulted by the notion of eating perfectly good tuna out of a can. Kasha stopped and tensed, as if to poop. He started heaving, throwing his entire body into it as he hacked up something huge onto the kilim rug.
“Not on the rug!” Esme yelled, standing quickly to try to push Kasha onto a bit of bare floor, too late. Something large slid out in mid-heave, mummified in hair and accompanied by some visceral liquid, like a stillborn baby being ejected in a rush of amniotic fluid.
“Gophers,” Kasha said, taking a tentative step away from the mess on the rug. “Can’t lay off ’em, can’t keep ’em down. Clean that up for me, will ya, baby? I’m gonna cut out.” And then he was up the cat structure and out the cat door and into the night.
Esme hadn’t known quite what to expect, though she was not so naïve as to think she could sit with an untouchable at lunch with no repercussions. She never wasted a minute of her time or intellect on social media, so she’d missed all the late-night insinuation and character assassination on Facebook and Instagram. The only warning she had, before her arrival at school that day, had been a cryptic comment from Veronica in the car:
“Watch out,” Ronnie had warned. “The natives are restless.”
First period was AP calculus, the most stimulating course on her schedule, which Esme thought was a bracing way to get her brain charged up for the day.
“Here comes Esme’s boyfriend,” said Lisa Vaughn, when the bulk that was Norman Stein filled the doorway. The students laughed, in the snickering, superior way that smart kids laugh.
Lisa Vaughn: the second-smartest girl in every class she had with Esme, always simmering in resentment. But Esme never took anything off of anyone. It set a bad precedent.
The Silvers adhered to the Rede of the Z Budapest lineage, a handy moral compass and code of conduct for Wiccans, which meant Esme rarely engaged in actual spellwork. The sisters had tried a little hexing in middle school, when Katy had run afoul of a clique of mean-spirited girls over the way she dressed and acted. Whether the spells had worked was the subject of some debate, but one eighth grader who’d gotten scraped up in a bicycle accident went into hysterics and refused to attend school, convinced Esme had put a spell on her. Another girl had, coincidentally, come down with a severe case of meningitis, which she feverishly blamed on Katy. This had caused a ruckus among a loosely organized group of evangelical and fundamentalist parents, who wanted the “Satanists” out of their kids’ school. Barry Silver had to sue the school district to defend his daughters’ civil rights to attend public school regardless of their religion.
