Mystify

by Artist Arthur

  I frown. “I’m not running from you. I’m not. That’s just silly. I’m here, aren’t I?” Even though I still don’t know how that came to be. Suddenly, now that I’m standing still and not swaying to the beat with Antoine, my knees are feeling a little shaky again. I’m looking at Antoine, but I’m seeing the yellow walls of my room. And in the distance I can hear my mother calling my name.

  This is not good. Even though I don’t know what’s going on, I know these images and voices are not in sync with standing in this club with Antoine.

  “You know what? I have to go to the bathroom.”

  Antoine nods like he knows what I’m saying is a lie. Right about now I don’t care. My mother’s voice is growing louder in my head, and joining her is Casietta, our housekeeper, who practically raised me. They’re calling me like they can’t find me or I won’t answer, one or the other, or maybe both.

  The weakness in my legs is getting worse, so I pull away from Antoine’s grasp, quickly pushing through the crowd. All I can think of is getting into the bathroom in time. Something tells me I need to hurry before whatever is going on becomes public.

  Pushing frantically through the bathroom door, I walk down the narrow walkway bending over to see if I can find an empty stall, my heart pounding. Bingo! The handicapped stall is empty. Just like in school, nobody ever goes into the bigger stall. Tonight, however, I think this is probably just the place for me.

  Slamming the door and clicking the latch to lock it, I lean against the wall. My breath is coming quicker, like I’ve been running for miles. Closing my eyes and trying to steady my breathing, I can see more of my room—my white desk, the yellow-and-white satin valance at my window.

  Then I’m in the dark. In the cool again, floating. I’m moving fast, a breeze tickling my cheeks. I can’t see a thing, but I know I’m somewhere else, somewhere in between.

  I jerk, my body shaking abruptly. I sit up, then fall right back down onto the softness.

  “Sasha? Sasha?”

  That’s my mom’s voice.

  “Son usted bien, la princesa?”

  Casietta is asking if I’m all right in Spanish and calling me by the nickname she always uses. She says I was born the princess of the Carrington household. When I was younger I used to love to pretend I was just that—la princesa. I pretended to live in a castle and had lots of pretty things. But I’ve long since grown out of the name, long since gotten over all the pretty things in my big, pretty house. I don’t have the heart to tell Casietta that.

  Slowly my eyes open again, although I’m not sure if I’m gonna see the club and Antoine’s smiling face again or that eerie darkness. It’s blurry at first. Then I see two faces and almost scream. Not because of the faces—no. Casietta has the same olive-toned skin with raven black hair tinged with gray pulled back into a neat bun. My mom’s face is the same too. Her skin is just a shade lighter than Casietta’s—probably because of her makeup—with her long, dark, shiny hair that hangs past her shoulders. She’s wearing her diamond studs. The Ladies Auxiliary, that’s where she has been. She always wears her diamond stud earrings to the meetings.

  I want to scream because I’m right back in my room. Just two minutes ago I was dancing at Trends with Antoine.

  “When did you two come in?” is the first thing that comes out of my mouth.

  Lidia Carrington and Casietta exchange curious looks. Then Casietta, with her hand already plastered across my forehead, asks, “Are you feeling okay?”

  “She looks a little pale,” my mom adds.

  “No fever,” Casietta says as I move out of her reach.

  “I’m not sick,” I say, sitting up straight in the bed. The movement makes the room shift right in front of me, and I feel like I just stepped off a Ferris wheel. I’m rethinking my declaration of not being sick because my stomach does feel a bit queasy.

  “Was I lying here when you came in?” I’m more comfort able talking to Casietta than I am to my own mother, so my question is directed to her.

  “Of course you were, princesa. What is wrong with you? You sleep like the dead.”

  Closing my eyes, my throat clenches as I try to swallow her words. Sleeping like the dead, that’s what she’d said. That meant I hadn’t left this room. But I had been in the club.

  Maybe I was sick or sleeping so soundly that I really dreamt the whole scene at Trends.

  Yeah, that makes sense.

  “Well, get up and get yourself together,” my mother says, already moving from my side and smoothing out the knee-length linen skirt she’s wearing. “Your father’s waiting for us in the den.”

  “Us?” I’m asking because my father, Marvin Carrington, never waits for me. He’s up every morning before I get up for school and doesn’t usually come home at night until I’m in bed. Weekends are no different. I don’t see him at breakfast or dinner or anything in between. I know his comings and goings only because his black Jaguar is either in the garage or not. My mother isn’t much better. As a member of one of Lincoln’s wealthiest families, she has important stuff to do during the day. Not like a paying job—that would be so beneath her. No, Lidia holds the position of either chairperson or cochair of every social club in town. If it’s a high-class or high-minded cause, Lidia is on it. From the Ladies Auxiliary to the Women’s Society, even to the despicable Mothers of Debutantes Committee, Lidia’s a key member. All these causes and committees keep her away from the house and me, her only child, more often than not.

  “Yes, dear—us. Now, get up and wash your face. And what are you wearing?”

  Casietta is already helping me out of the bed, biting her tongue as she often does when my mother is around. Sometimes I get the feeling Casietta doesn’t approve of the things my mother does or doesn’t do. But she’s never spoken a bad word about her, probably because my mother brought Casietta with her from Buenos Aires when she left. I guess that means Casietta owes my mother some kind of debt. But I assume that raising her daughter and managing the Carrington household staff for the last sixteen years should be payment enough. I could be wrong though.

  “I’m wearing clothes, Mom,” I say, knowing it sounds like I’ve got attitude, but I don’t care.

  Nothing I do is ever good enough for my mother. I mean, on the rare occasion that she remembers I’m alive and still living in this house, she usually doles out more criticism than compliments.

  “I don’t know why you insist on wearing those jeans all the time. You’re a young lady, you should dress like one.”

  “I’m a teenager. Jeans and a T-shirt are the staple of my daily wardrobe,” I quip, standing on wobbly legs but nodding Casietta away.

  I still think something weird is going on. But I want to check my laptop to see if I’ve gotten an email. Halfway across the room, my mother interrupts me by clearing her throat loudly.

  “The bathroom is that way, Sasha.”

  I feel like shouting I know where the bathroom is, but Casietta doesn’t stand for backtalk, so I try to keep it to a minimum—when I can.

  “I just need to check my email real quick.”

  “No. We don’t have a lot of time. I didn’t think we’d have to spend so much time trying to wake you. We’ve kept your father waiting long enough. Now I’m going down. I expect to see you in five minutes.”

  She’s already walking toward the door. Not giving me a chance to respond as usual. Sighing at the things that will never change, I’m already moving across the room to my desk, quickly flipping open my laptop.

  Once my mother leaves the room, Casietta speaks up. “Your papa will be steaming mad if you do not hurry up.”

  I shrug. “That would be the first emotional reaction I’ve ever seen from him. Might be interesting.”

  “Watch your mouth, princesa. They are still your parents.” Casietta mumbles something as she smoothes the comforter on my bed.

  I’m curious what else she has to say but more concerned with an answer to my email.

  To: princesssasha@lincol
nmail.ing

  From: wiccangoddess@cnettrix.ing

  Re: Witch Trials

  Hold your letter up to the light. Email me back with what you see.

  Cryptic.

  Then again, nothing dealing with these powers or this so-called Darkness is easy to explain. Still, at least she responded to me. Now all I need to do is get the letter from Jake’s great grandmother’s journal, the one that was written by Mary Burroughs who was accused of being a witch and burned during the Salem Witch Trials. Mary wasn’t a witch, I’m convinced of that. She was a Mystyx just like me, and I’m going to prove it and find out just how many more of us there are out there and why we exist.

  Krystal and Jake think the origin of the Mystyx is steeped in Greek mythology. Like the Olympians and the Titans, Zeus and Aphrodite. Personally, I think our power comes more from the Wiccan beliefs. I came to that conclusion after we found Jake’s grandmother’s journal. Mary Burroughs also had a power, one that was misunderstood. Me, Krystal and Jake decided to keep our powers a secret. But I don’t leave anything to chance if I can help it. So I’m thinking ahead, protecting us and our powers before others find out and reenact a modern-day witch hunt.

  But first I have to deal with my parents. I’m sure whatever they want is just as superficial and materialistic as their lifestyle. But since I’ve got to live here another two years until I’m eighteen, I’ll have to go with the flow.

  three

  “The Oaks Center will be an exclusive club for only the elite members of Lincoln’s society.”

  My father is talking—the Marvin Carrington, with his tall broad shoulders and silver-gray hair. He’s forty-five years old, three years older than my mother. He was born in Houston and inherited some of his father’s oil money. Using his inheritance, he started his own company, Carrington Investments. From what I can tell, people pay him money to invest their money. If all goes well, they both get richer. I guess that’s the name of the game for everybody these days.

  Anyway, he’s been talking for the last fifteen minutes. I made it downstairs in about seven minutes, which had my mother shooting daggers at me with her eyes. If there’s one thing she hates, it’s making my father angry. Me, I don’t care how they feel about me at this point. Still, I guess any show of emotion from them is better than nothing.

  “So I’d like to have my girls behind me in this venture,” my father says, finishing up.

  I’m barely paying attention.

  “Of course, Marvin. Sasha and I will do whatever we have to. This venture will be a success just like everything else the Carrington name is behind.”

  Blah, blah, blah. I hear the sound of their voices, but my mind keeps going back to the email, the letter, the strange trip to the club. And of course, Antoine.

  “Sasha?”

  My father’s heavy voice pulls me out of the other world I usually live in—the one where parents aren’t allowed or tolerated, I should say.

  “Yes, sir?” I stumble over the words and clasp my hands in front of me. He’s staring at me. That makes me uncomfortable since I’m not used to being in the same room with him.

  “You’ll have a special assignment in this venture.”

  “Me? What do you want me to do?”

  “I’ll need you to help recruit young people. I want the Oaks Center to include the affluent younger generation and pave the way for the future. We won’t exclude them this time, but rather teach our values.”

  Our values, like we’re a separate species or something. The confused and more than slightly irritated expression on my face must be evident, because my mother clears her throat.

  “Sasha can do that. There are a lot of students in her school, even in her class, that she can help recruit. Right, Sasha?”

  Recruit? What am I, some type of employee? “Ah, I don’t know.”

  One of my father’s bushy eyebrows arches. I guess this is his intimidating look. I can see some of the people who work for him becoming nervous, but I don’t see this look often, so I’m not sure how to react.

  My mother, as diplomatically as she possibly can, moves quickly across the room and is at my side before I can say another word. Wrapping her arm around me, she digs her fingers into my shoulder. I try not to cringe. “She’ll do just fine, Marvin. I’ll work with her personally.”

  His one eyebrow lowers, and his lips thin into a straight line. He nods, then turns toward the bar and picks up a glass. “Very good. We’re having a cocktail party. Everyone who is anyone in Lincoln will be here. We want them all on board with this venture.”

  He’s still talking. Since I’m clearly not interested in what he’s saying, I look toward the window. My mother is still standing next to me holding me close like she thinks that’s going to make a difference, like her firm grip can make me listen or obey.

  She doesn’t have a clue.

  Astrology is my thing. Not many people know that. Well, okay, nobody knows that. It’s my secret, even though I really don’t know why I keep it a secret. It’s not like I’m a nerd or anything. I just like the stars. When I was seven, my father hired someone to paint my ceiling like the night sky with the stars in the shape of my favorite constellation, Orion. When I turned fourteen I figured I was too old for that and repainted my room a pale yellow. It suited my mood at the time. Right now, even though it’s morning, my mood is like the night sky, dark and starry, drifting, yet clearly a part of something.

  “Something” meaning whatever is going on with the Mystyx. And there is definitely something going on. Fatima, that’s the follower of Wicca who I researched online and contacted, and who had responded to my message. But I need to get to Jake’s house and the journal to figure out what her message means.

  What I know right now, as I’m sitting in the back of the car while Mouse—my larger-than-life driver—takes me to school is that we’ve pinpointed the origin of our powers to cataclysmic weather events and the mythical Greek river, Styx. But I feel like there’s so much more we’re missing—like how is the weather connected to the River Styx? And the power, it comes from powerful energy emitted during major storms. It just isn’t adding up.

  My mind flashes back to the stars and how I sometimes feel just as distant from my family as they are from the earth. I know enough about astrology to know that the Greeks believed in the power of the moon and the sun. They believed the sun to be the manifestation of the god Apollo, and the moon, with its three distinct phases—full, quarter and half—was linked to three goddesses—the maiden Artemis, the motherly Selene and Hecate, the goddess of the Underworld. Somehow, it all fits together with the idea that the sun dominates the sky during the day, thus representing vitality and life, while the moon comes into its power at night, bringing fertility, nurturing and the perpetuation of the cycle of life and death. The knowledge that the moon really has eight lunar phases probably wasn’t known to the Greeks at the time.

  Still, I think there’s a correlation. I feel like the moon might explain a significant part of our power—or at the very least, my power.

  Arriving in front of the school, I figure I should probably shift my mind to the classroom. Good grades aren’t hard for me. But with all this going on, I don’t want to take anything for granted.

  Just as I step out of the car, I see Krystal and Franklin getting off the school bus. They instantly hold hands and walk side by side into the school building. I wonder how that feels. To be a part of a couple, I mean. I can do that, I’m sure, be a girlfriend to some guy. Question is, do I want that guy to be Antoine?

  four

  The next two days are spent keeping an eye out for Antoine, who I finally decide I don’t want to see. Being with him in that club was surely a dream, one I hadn’t revisited since that night, thankfully.

  I resigned myself to forget how real or how right it felt to be with Antoine. Both were totally unbelievable.

  Now I’m anxious to go to lunch to see Jake and Krystal. While I have no intention of telling them about my goofy Antoi
ne dream, I’ve been impatiently waiting to see the journal again. When I’d called Jake on Saturday morning to tell him that I was coming over to look at the journal, he must have had some stuff going on because he kind of stuttered and gave me like five different reasons why that wasn’t possible.

  Jake’s home life is anything but smooth sailing. His grand father is really cool, if you don’t count the days he doesn’t know his name and forgets to put on his pants. His father, on the other hand, always seems angry, on the days that he stays home long enough for me or Jake to see him. It’s for that reason alone that I decide to just send Jake a text this morning asking him to bring the journal to school.

  Heading to the cafeteria I look around one more time just to make sure Antoine and his crew aren’t around. I can’t believe how lucky I’ve been not to run into him for this long. Still, I don’t want to tempt fate, so I hurry into the cafeteria and sit at the table Jake, Krystal and I usually occupy.

  “So I was thinking we should meet tonight, at the library,” Jake says while chewing the biggest bite of a hotdog I’d ever seen. His cheek looks like he stuck a golf ball inside his mouth, and I sigh in disgust.

  Krystal, who just started eating like a normal teenager a couple of weeks ago, shakes her head in agreement. I think Krystal is going through a lot with her mom. In the first few weeks we’d known each other, I figured she just had the regular teenage woes that all of us have. But turns out hers are a little different. Krystal’s real father is a real idiot. He cheated on Krystal’s mother with the nanny—how clichéd. Then he got the nanny pregnant and moved to the West Coast to be with her. Krystal was stuck here in Lincoln, a small, behind-the-times town, with her mother and her stepfather. I don’t think either one of them is that bad, but then I don’t have to live with them.

  From the outside looking in, people probably think Lidia and Marvin Carrington are the best parents a girl could have—they work all the time and give me about as much attention as they do the other furniture in the house. They make sure I’m always dusted and shined to perfection when guests come to the house. Otherwise, I’m sort of just there.