by Dia Reeves
“For the last time…” but instead of finishing the sentence, Jimi growled and moved to the side of the road away from the dark park, away from the girl in white, who followed him. Coatless, for once, which made her look different. Airy, like something that might blow away on a high wind. Her white summer dress would have long since been retired in a colder part of the country, but was reasonable attire in Texas, despite the lateness of the year.
She sat next to Jimi, folding her legs to the side in that dainty way certain girls could pull off. Sat like she didn’t care that her driver had to wait on her. So spoiled, this girl.
“Why’d you step out here?” he asked, shaking the rocks from his shoes. “You waiting for another dead person to fall out of the sky?”
“You waiting for flying men to fall out of the sky?”
“I had an errand to run. In the dark park.”
She looked gratifyingly awed.
“I had to get something for my mom.”
“To kill her?” The girl in white seemed more interested than he’d ever seen her.
“I don’t hate her that much. Not as much as she hates me. Especially now that I’m this.” He thought about pulling Paul’s lunch bag over his head, over his eyes, but it was only the girl in white. “People keep asking, ‘what are you,’ and I don’t know what to tell them.”
“Do what humans do; backpack across Europe and find yourself.”
“I used to live in Europe. It didn’t help.”
“When did you live there?”
“When I was seven. Mom finally got fed up with dad cheating and kidnapped me to France.”
“Sounds brutal.”
Jimi snorted. “What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. Which is why I’m forged in iron. Not even horned demon men in the dark park are a match for me. Whatever I am, I’m unstoppable.”
The girl in white pinched his leg.
“Unstoppable, not insensitive to pain! Don’t mess with me or I’ll sic Dez on you, and she’ll pluck your eyes out.”
“Oh?”
Like that, he was crying. Such a waste to bawl on a pretty day, in the sunlight. It would be more satisfying to wait for rain, to ghost through the soggy streets, wailing and tearing his clothes. How could a person have a good cry to the sound of birds singing?
But Jimi did the best he could.
“It was all in my head, and I’m not even that neurotic. Just delusional. I should have known a girl as nice as Dez would never haunt someone. That’s what I would do. If I had died first, I would have slithered right the hell out of my grave and terrorized her with my love.”
“Don’t feel bad,” she said, as he wiped his eyes. “It’s bigger than you and Dez. The dead don’t care about who they leave behind. They aren’t made to care. They’re made to move on.”
“Wish I could move on. Look what I’ve become without her.”
“Whiny, pathetic, obsessive.”
“I’ve always been obsessive, and I’m not whining. I’m sharing my troubles with you.”
“Oversharing. All I ever hear about is how miserable you are.”
Miserable? Is that what she thought? Jimi was the happiest son of a bitch he knew. Sure his life sucked worse than anyone else’s on the planet—unless there was a tribe of insect men in Borneo or somewhere—but Jimi always looked on the bright side. He tried to, although he hadn’t looked very hard for a bright side to the troll girl. He didn’t know her name, didn’t know a thing about her, and Jimi had the goods on everyone. Even Dan the transy, who wasn’t one third as interesting or relevant.
Or a troll, but post-wing Jimi didn’t have the luxury of being a bigot.
Jimi said, “How was your day?”
“What?”
“How was your day? Did you get to watch people kill themselves?”
“A kid way downsquare. Very clean and peaceful.”
“That’s terrific! Where are you on your way to now?”
“Home, I guess. I’m not in a hurry. It’s my turn to do laundry. I hate doing laundry.”
She drove around in a Rolls but had to do laundry?
“What school do you go to?”
“I don’t.” She seemed appalled by the idea.
“Don’t you want to?”
“Do you want to build a hive and produce honey? I’m not of this world. School has nothing to do with me.”
Jimi took her hand, checked it for claws. “Do you turn into something? A wolf or a leprechaun?”
She laughed.
“I’m serious. You told me you live on the darkside of El Pasillo. That’s real close to the Mortmaine. Don’t you ever get worried they’ll come for someone like you?”
“No. You don’t have to worry either,” she said in this soothing voice, like he was having a panic attack. “Only you can decide where you fit in and how. Act like a slobbering critter, you get treated like one. Act like a rational person, you get treated like one. You’ll be all right. You think, you talk, you’re cute—all that makes a difference.”
“So you do think I’m cute,” Jimi said, mollified. “Are you hungry?”
“No.” She was picking at the strap on her shoe so she wouldn’t have to look at him.
“I owe you a meal. We can try to find Taquería Ria’s again. She posts the schedule online.”
“It’s fine.”
“What do you like to eat? I’ll cook it for you. As long as it’s steak.” He tried to give her The Look but it was impossible; she had a tendency to shift in and out of focus.
“You don’t have to.”
“Don’t be like that. Let me be nice to you.”
“Why?” she asked, with an amount of suspicion he didn’t think was called for.
“I don’t need a reason to be nice. Tell me your name. Tell me,” he insisted, because she was acting like she didn’t want to.
“Ophelia Jones. Quote any part of Hamlet to me, and I’ll never speak to you again.”
“The hell with Hamlet. If I raged the way he did every time one of my parents got remarried, I’d be in jail. But Hamlet gets to kill everyone and still be this tragic hero? I hate that play.” He took some wet wipes from Paul’s lunch bag and cleaned his scrapes as best he could. “Let’s go to your house.”
“Why? What? I mean…I don’t think I’m allowed to have humans over.”
“Are you a troll?”
“Jesus, Jimi.”
“You were under that bridge.”
“I go places. Bridges, houses. I go where I go.”
“You didn’t answer the question.”
“I’m not a troll.”
“Or a ghoul?”
“I’m not a ghoul!”
“But you’re something.”
“If you call me a thing one more time I’ll…”
“What? Drown me in the river? Make me eat poisoned scones or jump off a building?”
“I don’t make people do anything.”
“Well, I do.”
Jimi pulled her to her feet—such a lightweight—and marched her to the back of the car. “Let’s go to your house. Assuming it is a house and not a crypt full of mummies.”
This time, she was the one who growled, but she popped open the suicide door, appropriately enough, and slid across the backseat to give him room to climb into the Rolls.
The inside was white and fluffy like a padded cell. Perfect because Jimi felt insane as the car motored down the street.
“No one’s driving.”
She pulled a white fur blanket from the storage compartment at her feet. “Don’t be such a three-dimensionalist. Just because you can’t see somebody doesn’t mean she’s not there.”
“Where am I supposed to have studied up on your weird ass life in the Twilight Zone?”
“If it’s so weird, why do you keep inviting yourself into it?”
“I only answer philosophical questions after three o’clock.”
“You like The Twilight Zone?”
“Yeah. Binge-watch
ed it last summer on Netflix.”
“Me too. Aliens one day. Ghosts the next. Or talking dolls. So random. Like home.”
She’d pulled the blanket to her chin as though she was cold. Her hair was braided and wrapped like a tiara around her head.
“What are you?”
“I’m a cog in a machine.”
“A cog in a magic Rolls-Royce.”
“There’s no such thing as magic. Everybody knows that.”
The car rode smoothly, as if on tracks, and Jimi’s stomach felt peculiar, like it was being inappropriately touched from the inside. With invisible fingers? From an invisible driver? He looked up through the moon roof, sure that a Phantom V shouldn’t have one. Even surer that a squid shouldn’t have been staring at him through the dark glass. Jimi blinked and the squid and the bubbly water disappeared, replaced with a snowy conifer forest looming overhead. A constellation shaped like the World Trade Center.
Jimi made himself stop. Put on his shirt, warm from Paul’s lunch bag. Wondered what Ophelia would do if he tried to share the blanket with her.
Ophelia. A princess name, but one with baggage. In Hamlet, Ophelia killed herself, so maybe this Ophelia was into that, which was why she always accused Jimi of it—she was projecting.
“Are you suicidal?”
She shrugged. “Sometimes I wish I was dead, but I can’t tell if it’s because I really want to die or if it’s because I’m sixteen. How old are you?”
“Seventeen. Nearly eighteen.”
“But you’re a boy, so I have to subtract five years.”
Jimi tried to enjoy being in a Rolls, but no one was out on the street that he knew. Not in this part of town. Even strangers watching him cruise around in a Phantom V would be dope, as soon as he figured out how to roll down the tinted windows.
He started flicking switches on the wooden panel to the right of his head rest.
“Stop that. Stop touching everything.”
Her tone made him put his hands in his lap.
Avispa met up with El Pasillo, the only barrier that separated Portero Park from the dark park. Porterenes who lived downsquare grouped themselves according to what side of El Pasillo they were born on, mostly because those who lived parkside liked to look down their noses at darksiders, about whom a multitude of grim theories had sprung.
As they turned onto El Pasillo, Jimi saw no visible difference between either side of the street. Similarly styled houses, mostly plain facades with the occasional painted arch or fancy window of stained glass. Similar lawns, except for Ophelia’s. She’d said her lawn was dead, so Jimi had expected the typical yellowed winter grass that her neighbors had, but her lawn was white, as though the grass had grown as old as someone’s grandpa. A tall tree grew near her house with white fronds that blew in the wind like human hair. Her house was more ornate than the others, with steep gables and trim along the eaves that reminded Jimi of fangs.
They left the car in the driveway, and Jimi followed Ophelia up the path to the house. A wispy frond flew free of the white tree and drifted toward him like a cobweb. He ducked to avoid it.
“Wait here,” Ophelia said, after they’d reached the porch. “I have to get permission.” She closed the door in his face, a door that wouldn’t have been out of place on a gingerbread house, whipped cream white with inset glass panels the color of butterscotch.
Her porch was aggressively inhospitable. No rockers or swings to sit on, no little round tables to hold sweet tea or lemonade, no screen to keep out mosquitoes and flies.
The tree had left a litter of purple berries that stained the white wood with nearly black juice. Deadly juice, judging by the dead mockingbirds lining the steps. The berries smelled sweet though, sweet as the girl in white.
A few moments later, the door opened again.
The boy standing there was older than Jimi, but not by much. He was dressed in white the same as Ophelia, a hoodie pulled over his head, shadowing his face, but although he was black, his skin was albino white. As white as the squirrel monkey perched on his shoulder. Jimi felt an immediate liking for the monkey, because the monkey was smiling at him. Jimi smiled back.
“You Ophelia’s friend?” said the boy, who didn’t seem to think much of Jimi.
“Yeah.”
“Follow me.”
“Is she—”
“Don’t touch anything and don’t look at anything. If you do see anything, forget you saw it or we’ll make you forget. Got it?”
Jimi chased after the boy and despite his threats, the house wasn’t anything special, just the usual house things, tables and rugs and like that. A bowl of purple berries from that white tree outside was set out in a crystal dish, like candy, like Jimi was that stupid. Except the boy fed one to his monkey. Ate one himself. The same berries that had killed all the birds on the porch. Jimi was willing to bet a year’s allowance that anyone who licked the boy’s skin would drop dead.
Did Ophelia have poisonous skin too?
On the second floor, one of the doors was ajar, and inside the room, a circle of children in white were chanting and ringing bells, but they froze at the sight of Jimi, the sudden silence like a scream. He hurried on, remembering he wasn’t meant to see anything.
The boy opened a door farther down the hall, and there was Ophelia stuffing something frilly into a nearby bureau drawer.
“Don’t take all day,” said the boy. “I have work to do.” He settled with his monkey into a chair near the door. Like a guard.
Or a chaperone.
“Pallid Jon has to stay. Do you mind?”
“Impromptu afternoon parties are one of my specialties.” A chaperone? Really? “The more the merrier.”
The ceiling was angled like an attic room; he had to mind his head the nearer he went to the walls. Frost blue wallpaper with silver foil stripes, silver alarm clock on the night table. Silver mirror on the wall. He winced when he saw his reflection, still not used to his eyes.
“Why’d you bring me up here anyway? Into your bedroom. I asked to see the crypt.”
“Asked?”
“This doesn’t look like a crypt.”
She had lots of plastic tubs and storage boxes. A white vanity with lipsticks lined in a row: Snow White, Love Bitten. Jimi wondered which she was wearing. He could imagine her sitting there on her little stool braiding her long hair. Instead of glaring at him.
“Well?” he said.
“What?”
“I’m a guest. You can’t sit there ignoring me. Who brought you up? Wolves?”
“Would you like a drink?” All sugary now, despite the gritted teeth.
“I’d love one.”
She removed a can of ginger ale from her pocket and hurled it at him.
Ice cold, glorious against the burns on his arms and his cheek where that horned man slapped him.
“What happened to you?” she said, finally noticing his injuries.
“I told you I had an errand to run in the dark park. I’ll tell you about it, but not while he’s here, listening in.” Jimi whispered, “Let’s ditch him.”
“But how—”
Jimi clapped a hand over her mouth. “No one taught you how to whisper either? Even wolves know how to whisper.”
She smacked his hand away, scowling like she didn’t want to play anymore. But she did. She whispered, “Where do you want to go? I still have to do laundry.”
“To your place. That bubble. We can hide there like outlaws.”
After a long hesitation, Ophelia grabbed Jimi’s hand and twirled away like she was dancing. She twirled and he slid.
It was different from when he’d last seen it. He couldn’t tell if it was a bubble. There were no curved walls, no view of Portero, of anything. He felt like he was on the stage of an avant garde theater production, white mist swirling at his feet, obscuring the floor.
She had two chairs now instead of one, big and cushioned. Life-sized statues of marble and bronze decorated the space. Some had wings. A tall
bookcase of books instead of a laundry basket. A mini fridge between the chairs. He opened it. Nothing but ginger ale.
“Where’s the show girls?”
“In your dreams.” Ophelia sat in one of the chairs and Jimi squeezed in next to her. It was a huge chair, more than big enough for two. Not really, but Ophelia seemed comfortable enough, with his arm over her shoulder.
“See how much better this is? Now we can talk without that bastard cousin of yours eavesdropping. He is your cousin, isn’t he? Or do you have more than one with pink eyes?” Not that Pallid Jon’s eyes had seemed especially pink; only at times, when the light was right.
Ophelia shook her head.
She had a stereo by one of the winged statues. One that looked old fashioned but wasn’t. How had he missed that? Jimi popped up to investigate, ready to judge Ophelia’s taste in music severely. He picked through a scatter of CDs.
“Josephine Baker?” he said, surprised. “You know French?”
“I taught myself enough to understand what she was saying.”
“Sing me a song. In French. Unless you can’t sing. Can you?”
“She can.” Miss Rictus sat on the arm of Ophelia’s chair, ignoring the shock on their faces. Sing ‘Donnez-Moi la Main’. I like that one.”
A disembodied hand grabbed Ophelia’s wrist just as Jimi felt a similar grip. After a powerful yank, both of them were back in Ophelia’s room standing before Pallid Jon, like convicts before a judge.
Pallid Jon released them reluctantly, like he didn’t trust them. He told Ophelia, “You’d have to travel a lot farther than that.”
She looked resigned, like people invading her privacy was business as usual. It sure as hell was the case for Jimi with his folks. He liked that they had stuff in common other than being freaks.
Ophelia pulled another ginger ale out of her dress pocket. Or the same one he’d left unopened by the stereo. “Here. Or I can make tea?”
“No. Stay.” He made her sit next to him on the bed between himself and the nosy entourage in the corner. “Help me drink this.” He popped open the can. “So that’s how you do that. The things from your pocket really come from that bubble.”
“I have more than one.” She said it to Pallid Jon. A challenge.
She had a ton of photos on her walls. Of this one couple. The man rakish, only smiling with his eyes. The woman never smiled, always looking away from the camera. Both in white. Except for the wedding picture where they’d worn black. Clearly enrapt. Clearly Ophelia’s parents. She had the woman’s height, the man’s large eyes.
