Light as a Feather

by Zoe Aarsen

When the bell rang and I was gathering up my books, Mr. Dean said, “Miss Brady? Can I have a word with you?”

  Violet raised her eyebrows at me on her way out of class, wondering why I had been singled out by Mr. Dean for a one-on-one.

  I approached Mr. Dean as he erased his notes from our class on the chalkboard. Our homework assignment over the weekend had been to write an essay on Thomas Paine’s pamphlet Common Sense, and I hadn’t done a fantastic job, since I’d been so preoccupied with thoughts of Trey, Henry, and the strangeness of Olivia’s party.

  “Yes, Mr. Dean?” I asked.

  “I wanted to ask if you’d given any thought to running for the role of junior class treasurer,” Mr. Dean said. “I think you’d be a natural.”

  I was confused as to why he’d think I’d be a natural at anything. The only class in which I really ever stood out as exceptional at all was art, and I didn’t have any reason to think that elderly Mr. Dean with his suspenders and bow ties was swapping stories with Miss Kirkovic, the far younger and cooler art teacher. Besides, I had already overheard that Jason Arkadian, who was one-half of our high school’s measly debate team, had turned in a nomination form with five signatures in order to run for the office. Jason was hardly as popular as guys like Pete and Isaac, but still, people knew who he was. He’d never been called a cow, hadn’t lost a twin in a horrific tragedy that everyone in town had heard about. Basically, I had a hunch that a victory over him would require a lot of work.

  “I am terrible at math,” I assured him. “I don’t think I’d do a very good job of managing class finances.”

  “But you’re well-liked. You’re friendly with everyone in your class,” the old man countered me. “The junior class treasurer is a very important role. You’d be in charge of raising funds for the junior class trip.”

  Every year, during the first week of May, the junior class went on an overnight trip, usually to either Chicago or Minneapolis. The previous year, the junior class Student Government had organized a daffodil sale and a chocolate sale, both of which had underwhelmed, and the funds raised had fallen so short of the goal that kids each had to contribute two hundred dollars to partake in the trip. I didn’t want to entertain the idea of running in the election, but Mr. Dean’s suggestion that I try already had me thinking about all those leaves I’d seen on the ground on my walk to school that morning. I could organize a student service to rake leaves and shovel snow, the two tasks that everyone in Willow needed help with most urgently. “I’ll think about it,” I assured him, and rushed off to gym class.

  In the hallway outside the history classroom, Cheryl was waiting for me patiently. I was disgusted with myself for the way in which I had been treating her since the beginning of the school year. Cheryl was so mild-mannered, so genuinely sweet. She was the kind of girl I was sure would come into her own away at college; she’d find an intellectual boyfriend and finally be recognized for her academic potential. But in high school she was a girl with big, clunky glasses and the wrong style of jeans.

  “Hey,” she said shyly. Poor Cheryl. I hadn’t officially put the brakes on our friendship but she knew the score. I sat with my new friends at lunch and had partnered with Mischa in chem lab instead of with her, at the time insisting that Mischa really needed my help whereas Cheryl would get a good grade in chem lab on her own. “I was wondering what you’re doing on Friday. My mom got tickets to the Lamb and Owl show in Madison, and I was thinking maybe you might want to go.”

  My heart sank. Cheryl knew that I loved the folksy duo Lamb and Owl from New Zealand. I’d had no idea that they were doing a US tour and I was suddenly both jealous that she had tickets and enraged with her for buying them in what was obviously an attempt to rekindle our friendship. Cheryl didn’t like them nearly as much as I did. Ditching the first away football game of the year to venture downstate with Cheryl and presumably her mom or dad to a hipster folk concert would definitely not go unpunished by Olivia and Candace.

  “I would love to,” I lied wistfully, “but I might have to be here late after classes on Friday for a meeting that Mr. Dean was just telling me about. And then I usually stay home on Fridays. With my mom. You know, this time of year.”

  I hated myself for using Jennie’s death as a way to get out of having to go to the concert, but the excuse rolled off my tongue with such ease. Immediately Cheryl’s face fell, a mixture of disappointment that I was rebuffing her offer, and shame that I had called her out on forgetting that it was the most emotionally trying time of year for my family. As soon as I saw her reaction, I regretted my choice in excuses, but it was too late to rescind my lie. I wasn’t sure what I’d say if she found out I had gone to the game with my new circle of friends, but I knew I’d feel guilty if she did.

  “Oh my God, McKenna, I’m so sorry,” she apologized. She looked as if she might start crying. “I completely forgot. I just miss hanging out, you know? I thought it would be fun to go to the concert together.”

  My heart was kind of breaking. I didn’t have much experience in ending friendships, and I wished there were a way that I could invite Cheryl into Olivia’s circle too, but high school just didn’t work that way. I was disappointed in myself. But I wanted to belong. I wanted to go to the Fall Fling on Henry’s arm and not have to ever worry about being called “cow” by any of the idiots in the junior class ever again. I wanted memories of being popular to look back on by the time I left Willow for college. In an odd way, after the grief-saturated childhood I had endured, I felt like I was owed two years of popularity.

  “It’s okay, Cheryl. Maybe we can hang out next weekend,” I offered, knowing in my heart that I’d make excuses the following weekend too.

  * * *

  Outside on the track, with all of us dressed like clones in our red-and-black gym suits, Olivia and Mischa blazed past us, taking their laps far more seriously than me, Candace, and Violet. Candace tuned both me and Violet out by adjusting her phone endlessly, skipping songs that didn’t suit her that afternoon and singing along off-key to those that did. I wished I’d brought my phone outside too, to relieve me of having to make conversation with Violet. We walked casually to the annoyance of Coach Stirling, our shadows stretched out on the gravel before us.

  “About Friday,” Violet said softly. She appeared to be nervous, and was fiddling with her locket. “I think I owe you an apology for what I said. I didn’t know about your family. I felt really awful all weekend, but I didn’t want to text you or anything because that would have made it weirder.”

  “It’s okay,” I replied, not especially wanting to talk about Jennie outside on the track on such a beautiful fall day, with a crisp breeze blowing. “You’re new in town. How would you have known?”

  She bit her lower lip nervously, as she often did, and I thought judgmentally that if she weren’t so pretty, it would have been easy to categorize Violet among the anxious nerds and self-conscious dweebs of our school. “I don’t want to sound like a total freak, but sometimes I see things. I mean, I don’t talk about it with people, like, ever. But like I said, I feel really bad about saying I saw a fire.”

  I felt the day slowing down around me like a special effect in a movie. I wasn’t sure if I had heard her correctly. Was she implying that she had some kind of psychic abilities? Perhaps my suspicion hadn’t been so off base.

  “Um, could you elaborate on that?” I asked. “You can’t just say something like that and not explain.”

  Violet shrugged as if what she had just said wasn’t a big deal. “You know, like, stuff. About people. Not, like, X-ray vision or anything. But I just get sort of a vague impression of something that happened to them, or is about to happen, and I never really know what it means. When I touched your forehead, I smelled fire and I saw smoke. I didn’t know that you’d already survived a house fire,” she said apologetically. “Please don’t tell anyone else. I know I sound like a nut.” My walk had slowed down to a snail’s pace. I couldn’t really believe what Violet was telling me,
but at the same time, I had to believe her.

  “So . . . Olivia’s car?” I dared to ask. “You mentioned in your story about Olivia that her parents were going to give her a red car for her birthday. Did you know that when you said that, the red Prius was already parked in the Richmonds’ driveway?”

  Violet wrinkled her nose, obviously stressed that I was grilling her. It wasn’t my intention to be tough with her, but I naturally had a lot of questions. “No, I didn’t know it was already up there. She’d said she wanted a Prius, so I just made that part up. Lucky guess.”

  “That is really, really weird,” I told her. On one hand, I was grateful that Violet had opened up to me. On the other hand, she was completely freaking me out. “What else do you know . . . about me?”

  She only dared to look me in the eye for a second before her eyes darted up at the sky to avoid my stare. “Nothing, really. That’s it. Just the fire. And . . . you have a dog? Something slow and spotted and furry.”

  Moxie was a Brittany spaniel, and those days she was somewhat slow, hobbling around on her arthritic legs. I nodded to acknowledge that I did indeed have a dog, but I didn’t believe Violet for a second.

  Violet knew more, much more. But if I were to tell my friends, they would think I was crazy.

  And somehow she knew enough about me to confide in me, I guessed because she probably already sensed that I was onto her.

  What I was wondering more than anything—but didn’t dare ask—was, if Violet had been able to sense the fire that had killed my sister, then were the stories that she’d told about Olivia, Candace, and Mischa also somehow based in reality?

  * * *

  “Mr. Dean thinks I should run for class treasurer,” I told my mom as I was stirring noodles around on my plate at dinnertime. I was being abnormally quiet at the dinner table as I thought about Violet and everything she had admitted to me out on the track. It wasn’t like me to be reserved at mealtimes, but I definitely didn’t want to confide to my mom that I suspected a friend of having supernatural powers. She would have been on the phone with my dad, asking him to evaluate me, in a heartbeat.

  “Treasurer? Why treasurer? You’d make a better class secretary,” my mother said, never one to encourage me to pursue anything I didn’t really have my heart set on. Save your energy for the challenges that count, she liked to say.

  “I can’t run for class secretary, I won’t win. Tracy Hartford always runs for class secretary and wins every year. I can only run for treasurer because that’s the position I’d have a shot at,” I elaborated.

  My mother poured a little more cold spaghetti sauce out of the jar and onto her pasta. “That’s not the attitude of a winner,” she chided me. “I didn’t even know you were interested in Student Government. Who else is running?”

  “Jason Arkadian,” I said, swirling my spaghetti around even more.

  Explaining to my mother that there was no possible way my fellow students would vote for me over Tracy, and that if I chose to challenge her for her role of class secretary I would suffer certain public humiliation, was futile.

  “Well, does Jason Arkadian really want to be the junior class treasurer? Wouldn’t you feel bad if you denied him that opportunity just because it seemed like fun for a few days?” my mother asked me critically. She just didn’t get high school.

  “No, because I’m interested in it too,” I admitted. Now that Mr. Dean had suggested it, all of the planning and possibilities associated with the election offered my brain a safe haven from more disturbing thoughts of Violet and her strange visions. I could lead a successful fund-raiser; I was pretty sure of it. I had never known Emily well, but had gotten the sense that she’d run for office just because Olivia had. I wouldn’t even have to try very hard to do a better job than she’d done. “I would have to organize a fund-raiser to pay for the class trip in May. I already have some ideas.”

  My mother stared at me across the table as if an alien were sitting in my chair instead of me. “You’re serious about this.”

  “I am,” I told her.

  “Well. If you’re into it, then I’m into it. It’ll look really great on your college applications. What do you have to do?”

  I told her I’d have to formally announce my nomination on Friday at a meeting after school. As soon as the words left my mouth, I realized that attending that meeting might actually complicate my trip to Kenosha to see the game. I felt a little better about declining Cheryl’s offer to go to Madison. I hadn’t been completely lying to her after all about having an obligation on Friday after school that would prevent me from going to the concert.

  “I’ll pick up some poster board at Walgreens tomorrow. But I really wish you’d consider running against Tracy Hartford. Her mother has the biggest mouth,” my mother complained.

  * * *

  That night as I did my homework, I left my blinds raised intentionally because I could see that Trey’s were still open over the fence. I couldn’t see him stirring in his room, but his lights were on, suggesting that he was still awake. It had bothered me all day that he’d ghosted me in the hallway, although considering what Violet had told me during gym class, I suspected I had bigger things to worry about. Henry texted me, making my heart rate speed up to a thud-thud-thud when I read his message asking me what color my dress for the dance was. He was renting a tux and wanted to make sure the cummerbund matched, so that we would look like a real couple. I wondered if he’d buy a corsage. My mother would be absolutely floored if a boy showed up at our house with a corsage to slide onto my wrist.

  Finally, around one in the morning, I was too tired to even keep my eyes open any longer, and got up to lower my blinds. The moment I stood up, I looked through my window and saw Trey looking right back at me. This time, I stopped myself before I waved. I wouldn’t be made to feel like an overeager fool twice in one day.

  For a moment, neither of us looked away. Trey finally nodded at me, acknowledging me. I looked away first, and closed my blinds. I shamefully wondered what might have happened if I’d left them open while I changed into my pajamas. Would Trey have watched? Would he have wanted me to know that he was watching? Even just imagining the possibilities made my cheeks burn and my heart race. Why was I even thinking about flirting with Trey Emory?

  That night, I was kept awake by thoughts about Violet and who she was, if she was as innocent as she seemed, and if she knew as little about me as she claimed. And then even more thoughts about Trey, and if he hated me, and if so, why. I shouldn’t have been thinking about any of these things, I knew. I should have been smiling to myself in the dark because I had an election campaign to plan, and Henry Richmond was thinking about me. He had my phone number, and I’d be seeing him on Saturday night.

  * * *

  “Check it out, guys. I think this is it.”

  Olivia stepped out of the dressing room modeling the dress she had found on the rack at Tart, one of two cool boutiques at the small mall in Ortonville, the next town over from Willow to the west. That mall was nowhere near as big as the one in Green Bay, but we had decided to drive over on Wednesday after school to see if perhaps Olivia’s dream dress could be found there. Candace’s mother owned a nail salon inside the Ortonville mall, and Candace insisted that we avoid that hall of stores so that her mother wouldn’t know she was shopping instead of doing homework.

  “Whoa. I think that’s the one, dude,” Candace said, slurping on her frozen chocolate latte through a straw.

  The dress—strapless and cream-colored in a shade that was just dark enough not to be too summery for September—fit Olivia perfectly. It was covered in a layer of delicate eyelet, and when Olivia spun in front of the mirror, the full skirt swung around her knees as if she were a princess in a Disney cartoon.

  “I kind of love it,” Olivia announced. “It’s not really what I was picturing, but it might even be better.”

  “It’s hot,” Violet assured Olivia. “You should buy it just in case it’s not here later this wee
k.”

  The numbers I saw on the price tag made me gasp when I saw them in a flash before Olivia returned to the dressing room to change back into her jeans and silk blouse. I wondered if Violet recognized the dress that Olivia would carry home in a bright pink bag from Tart that afternoon. Did it look exactly the same as she’d envisioned it in her prediction of Olivia’s death? Violet had been uncharacteristically lively and talkative on the drive over from Willow, and I suspected that she was intentionally avoiding eye contact with me.

  Once back within town borders, Olivia dropped Mischa off first, because she had to go to gymnastics class with Amanda. Violet insisted on being left at the library, where her mom would pick her up after work. I was surprised to be the last one remaining in the car other than Candace, who rode shotgun in the red Prius. Being the last one to get dropped off was sort of like being the last one who Olivia hoped to get rid of.

  I decided it was as good a time as any to test my plan to run for class treasurer against Olivia. I announced it casually, as if I were still kind of kicking the idea around.

  “Are you sure you want to do that? I mean, Student Government is so boring. It’s the worst. I only ran for president because my dad really wants me to try to get a scholarship to the University of Wisconsin.” After stewing over the possibility of winning the election, by Wednesday I was sure I wanted to run. More important, I was sure I wanted to win. It was odd that in the two days since Mr. Dean had encouraged me to run for office, I’d gone from not caring about Student Government to feeling like my life couldn’t go on if I didn’t win.

  “Totally,” I said. “It wouldn’t be boring for me. Don’t think I’m a freak, but the more I think about it, the more I’m into it.”

  Olive exclaimed, “You are definitely psycho! But meetings will suck less if you’re there. We should run together, like running mates!” Having not only Olivia’s approval, but her enthusiasm as well, solidified my resolve to run. Participation in the election went from being a high-risk gamble of my social standing to a necessary step in my certain victory with just a few words from Olivia.