by A. W. Jantha
“Poppy!” calls Isabella, jogging to catch up to us. She squeezes through a group of jocks, smiling and waving at them as she does, and affectionately pinches the shoulder of her bio lab partner as she passes her. Even in damage control mode, Isabella can’t help fulfilling the peppy, friendly image everyone has of her.
I groan, shutting my eyes for one brief moment and wishing I were anywhere but here.
I never dreamed I’d be trying to avoid Isabella Richards.
She finally reaches us, and notices my arms are crossed and my mouth is set in a hard line. She studies my face. “Did I do something wrong?” she asks me, reaching out to touch my arm. I recoil automatically and then kick myself for the hurt look that passes over her face. I didn’t mean to, but I also can’t deny that I am a little mad at her. Why did she go after my dad like that anyway? Wasn’t it obvious that he didn’t want to talk about the Sandersons? I guess not.
“Poppy?” she prompts, worried.
“I...” I shake my head. “It’s a long story. Don’t worry about it.”
Isabella chews her lip, then nods. “Well, can I buy you pizza to make up for it?”
Pizza? My one weakness. “Travis and I brought,” I say.
“No, I didn’t,” says Travis, shrugging and giving me a put-on pout.
I narrow my eyes at him. Traitor.
He shrugs as if to say I cannot possibly compare to pepperoni, but I catch the sneaky look in his eye as he glances between me and Isabella. He’s been trying to get us to spend more time together so I’ll make a move—but seriously? Now?
Travis and I have an entire conversation with our eyes, but I’m having a separate one internally. Isabella’s been hanging out with us every day since the school year started, and I have no idea why. She has friends from half a dozen clubs and teams, and can bounce from cafeteria table to cafeteria table with ease. Our friendship so far has been light and fun and cruising along evenly, but if I take her up on lunch today, I know I’ll have to tell her about my biggest secret. Bigger, even, than having a crush on her.
Travis leans over. “She’s our friend,” he whispers. “It’s time.”
“No,” I say tightly. “I don’t want to.”
“Free mozzarella, Pops,” he whispers. “Can’t say no.”
I glare at him, then turn back to Isabella, who is looking at us both like we’ve lost it.
“Sure,” I tell her. “But I have opinions about mushrooms.”
We’re allowed to go off campus for lunch as long as we stay within a five-block radius of school. Most people skip Allegra’s because it’s on the edge of said radius, but that’s exactly why Isabella likes it. It gives her a chance to get away from everyone else, she says, when she just wants to read a book or not think about Homecoming Committee or her zillion other commitments.
None of us owns a car, so it’s not like we could have an off-campus lunch much farther away. As we push through the school doors and into the last October afternoon, we find a clear, sunny sky with crisp air that gives my lungs just the slightest icy tingle. It’s a day for apple picking or pumpkin carving or mulling cider with whole spices. It’s so pretty, in fact, that confessing my family’s deepest, darkest secret shouldn’t even be on the table.
We make it a few blocks from school before any of us says anything—though Travis keeps giving me meaningful looks that I keep willfully ignoring.
Finally, he clears his throat. “So, I found this summer course at Stanford for physics.”
“Oh?” says Isabella, no doubt eager to fill the silence.
That’s all the encouragement Travis needs, and he’s off and running, telling her all about the kinds of experiments they do and the qualifications of the teachers. And then Isabella tells us how much she loved Stanford when she took a campus tour there last summer.
Finally, I step between them and decide to make a peace offering. “I went to San Francisco a few years ago,” I say, “with my family.”
“Yeah?” Isabella looks really interested to hear more, but she also looks apologetic. She’s still trying to make up for making class noticeably awkward for me.
“Yeah,” I say. “We drove up to Muir Woods. The redwoods were amazing. I bet I shot fifteen rolls of film on that trip.”
“You’re in photo class?” Isabella asks, slowing her pace ever so slightly to stare at me.
I hesitate, but then I continue walking, and she keeps up. I’d kind of hoped she’d noticed my pictures in The Chusetts, our monthly student paper, but the photo credits are smaller than the bylines. Anyway, part of the draw to visual art was the chance to be behind the lens.
“Yeah,” I tell her. “I love it.”
“What do you take pictures of?”
I shrug and take a second to think. Football games. Science fairs. But those things are to show schools that I’m versatile, not to feed some deep artistic need. “I like to find small details that are really beautiful, but that most people would walk right past and not even notice,” I finally say. When she looks confused, I add, “Like, peeling paint? That’s my jam. Or the way shadows slant off driftwood. Or the veins in leaves when sunlight passes through them. My teacher says I need more range, though, so art schools will look at me. Portraits and self-portraits and landscapes and stuff. I’m working on it.”
“And you develop them yourself, in a real darkroom?” she asks.
We hang a right at the corner and walk under a row of nearly naked trees.
I nod. “I’ll show you how sometime. Watching the developer work on the paper—knowing it’s this thin layer of silver that’s making the image appear—it’s like magic.”
I meet Isabella’s gaze, and something in her expression makes me blush.
“I’d like that,” she says. She’s watching me—studying me—like there’s something about my face she’s never noticed before.
I realize Travis has purposely fallen back. Sly devil.
We arrive at Allegra’s. The tiny restaurant with its roof of curved sheet metal looks like it’s seen better days. The last time the place was renovated was just after my parents graduated. I’ve only ever been here a handful of times, but it’s usually not this busy. I hold open the flimsy door and let Isabella and Travis file through and into the warm space covered with cobwebs and fuzzy fake spiders. At the counter, people dig into pizza pies and loudly chatter. Lucky for us, there’s an empty booth in the back that we quickly occupy.
As Isabella slides onto the worn red leather next to me, her expression shifts and she seems to come out of her thoughts. “So, when are you finally going to get on Insta?”
I shake my head. “It’s not really my thing,” I say. “When you use film, you only get a few chances to get the image right, you know? You have to work for it. Being able to take a thousand shots of the same thing and use filters without really understanding how contrast or composition works—it seems like cheating.” Isabella’s smirking a little, and I realize that she’s probably on Instagram herself, because why else would she ask? My stomach sinks. “But not actually cheating, obviously,” I add. “I mean, it’s cool. It’s just...different.”
I glance at Travis, but he’s too busy sketching a thumbnail of Iron Man on his tablet to rescue me.
When I look back at Isabella, she’s tapping a finger against her bottom lip absently. Her lipstick is lilac matte and somehow hasn’t smudged.
“Isabella! It’s so good to see you!” cries someone with a thick Italian accent. Allegra herself hurries up to give Isabella a hug and a kiss on each cheek. She’s a slight elderly woman with wispy white hair and a stained red apron. Isabella really is friends with everyone. Allegra waves to Travis and me, wishes us a happy Halloween, and calls a waitress over to take our order.
Then, before I know it, my mouth is full of tomato sauce and toppings—extra mushrooms. Travis practically inhales a slice of pepperoni pizza.
“So, I’m sorry about today in class,” Isabella says, finally redirecting the conversation t
o the sensitive topic at hand. I knew she wouldn’t let me off that easily.
“Oh...yeah...” I sigh. “Well, it’s just—my family has a lot of history with the Sandersons. It’s complicated.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I’m just genuinely interested in the Sanderson sisters. And I just thought, your dad being a history teacher and all, he might know more about them. But I guess it was kind of...touchy?”
“The city owns the house,” I say, “but my nana used to be the museum manager, back when there was still a budget for running the place. After the museum closed down, she held on to the keys.”
“Your grandma used to work at the Sanderson house?” Isabella lights up. “No way! Poppy, why didn’t you ever mention this before?” She examines my face for a second. “But I’m guessing that’s not the complicated part.”
I look to Travis for courage, and he nods.
It’s time Isabella goes from new friend to ride-or-die friend.
Before I know it, I’m spilling my family’s secret to my school’s class president, homecoming queen, and debate team captain. Isabella listens, nodding and looking sympathetic, as I start to tell her about my aunt and parents, and their weird story about a Halloween night twenty-five years ago. I also can’t help looking over my shoulder in paranoia as I share their tale.
“So, I guess my dad wants to impress my mom—they weren’t dating yet, remember—and he lights the candle.”
Isabella gasps. “No!”
“Yeah.” I hesitate and check to make sure Allegra and her staff are otherwise occupied. I drop my voice to a whisper: “And the Sanderson sisters reappeared.”
“Which ones?” Isabella asks.
I think it’s an odd question, because everyone knows the three Sanderson sisters, but then I remember her asking about Elizabeth. As with everything, it seems like Isabella really has done her homework.
“Winifred and Sarah and Mary,” I say.
“And apparently Sarah’s real thirsty,” says Travis, still sketching.
It’s weird to talk about the Sanderson witches as if they’re distant relations. I study Isabella, wondering whether she thinks I’m making all of this up—or worse, if she thinks my family is insane and is going to go back and tell her mom to oppose my mom’s promotion.
Isabella looks sincerely interested. “So then what happened?” she asks.
“My parents and my aunt tried to get my grandparents to help, but they didn’t believe them, so instead my dad lured the witches into the arts annex and trapped them in the kiln.”
Isabella puts a hand to her mouth. “No!”
“Yeah, and my mom turned it on.” I roll my eyes.
“Because she’s a BAMF,” chimes in Travis.
Isabella laughs.
I can’t help smiling. I admit that even if I don’t believe the story myself, that part about my mom always makes me a little proud. I glance around the restaurant again, just to quadruple-check no one heard one bit of my family’s story. A mom and her two small boys are seated on the other side of the room, arguing about who’ll be getting the last slice of pizza. Others seated around us are too engrossed with each other to notice us. I ease up and turn my attention back to my friends.
“Anyway, the witches survived,” I say in a low voice, “and they busted down the door. Then they kidnapped my aunt Dani and made a potion so they could steal her youth or something, but my dad drank it instead and rescued her. And then the sun came up and the witches went up in smoke and dust. I think they turned to stone before or something. But that’s the story. My dad promised me that he wouldn’t talk about it in front of other people, for my own sake. And that’s why in class when you brought it up, I was quick to shut it down. Sorry.”
There’s a long pause and I inwardly cringe. Isabella has been patiently listening the whole time, but how could she possibly look at me the same way after a story like this?
“It’s ridiculous, right?” I ask, trying to make it clear as possible that I don’t share my family’s delusions.
“Three of your family members would disagree,” says Travis, still not looking up from his tablet.
Isabella just stares at me. “So that’s why the kiln is broken?” she finally asks.
I relax. She hasn’t blatantly made fun of me yet, which I appreciate. She’s even giving me the chance to change the subject and calm my nerves for a little while.
“That’s what my parents and aunt say,” I reply. “I guess the school used to offer classes for ceramics and sculpture and stuff. You can blame the Dennisons for the lack of pottery in your life.”
Isabella smirks. “I’ll let my dad know.” She doesn’t usually talk about her dad, the first black mayor of Salem, because he’s the only thing plenty of people want to talk to her about. She takes another bite of pizza and another sip of soda, then says, “Well, thank you for sharing that with me, Poppy.” The air seems to crackle between us. I don’t realize how close she leaned in until she scoots back in the booth. “So. Do you believe them? Your parents and your aunt?”
“I mean, they’re my family.” I sigh. “I feel like I have to believe them, but also...like, really?”
Isabella laughs. “Yeah. I know how that feels. I like that you try to see everything from all sides.” She looks like she’s going to say something else, but then she turns to Travis. “You’ve been awfully quiet, Trav. What do you think?”
He adjusts his glasses and keeps his eyes on his tablet. “There’s no scientific basis for any of it,” he says. “Except maybe drugs. The candy could’ve been laced with LSD. Or maybe they made up the story and told it so many times, they started to believe it was real.” He glances up at me. “No offense, Pops.”
I wave it off. “None taken.” I turn to Isabella. “Anyway, you coming tonight?”
“How is your mom okay with inviting our entire class to your house for a Halloween party this year?” Travis cuts in. “I thought, you know, she’s spooked by the holiday.”
I turn to him. “She insists she’s just happy it’s been a whole twenty-five years since the ‘Sanderson incident,’” I say, putting the phrase in air quotes. What I don’t tell him is that I know there’s something else up my mom’s sleeve. I can just feel it.
“Well, I wouldn’t miss it.” Isabella gives me a smile that makes my stomach flip a little. “There’s no way I’d leave you hanging.”
“It’s not fair that you’re so nice.” I take another slice of pizza. “People aren’t supposed to be smart, popular, and nice. What’s your weakness, Isabella Richards?”
Her smile flags a little, and for a second she looks mystified—but then it’s gone. “Halloween candy,” she says matter-of-factly, then grins and takes another sip of soda.
“Dudes, hate to break it to you, but we need to wrap it up,” says Travis, “or we are going to be late for class.”
I look for the waitress, craning my head this way and that, as Travis and Isabella quickly finish off what’s left of the pizza and their sodas. If I recall correctly, I think we can just pay at the register. Isabella digs in her pocket for her wallet, and I remember she’s treating us.
“It’s all good,” I say, reaching for my own wallet.
“No! I insist,” she says, laughing. “It’s the least I could do.”
That’s when Katie Taylor’s perky face emerges from the top of the neighboring booth. She’s recently dyed the bottom layer of her long blond hair with streaks of blue and turquoise, and when she ties it up—as she has today in a fishtail braid—she looks like a mermaid. The kind that lures people out to sea and viciously drowns them. “I’m coming to your mom’s Halloween house party tonight, too, Poppy,” she says. The smile she flashes me is toothache sweet, and I feel like all the air in the restaurant has evacuated the premises. “Wouldn’t miss it,” she adds.
Katie steps out of the booth, along with Jenny Liu, her best friend and soccer team co-captain. “Aw, how cute,” Katie sneers, looking at Isabella. “It’s goo
d to see the loser inner circle widening.” She regards me for a second. “One more witch, and it’s a coven!”
She and Jenny turn on their heels and go to the register to pay, whispering and giggling the whole time. Jenny tosses her silky ombré hair as she follows Katie through the front door of the restaurant, where five other members of the soccer team, all in the same fur-lined shoes and oversize cashmere sweaters, have just arrived with steaming coffees. I’d wager pumpkin spice lattes. Neither Katie nor Jenny bothers to look back at us, which somehow feels worse than if they had.
I think of my family and how hard I’ve worked to hide this different piece of their lives. And now I’ve gone and told Katie “Tattletale” Taylor. It’s never long before Katie finds new ways to make someone’s life a complete nightmare. What have I done?
“Poppy?” Isabella watches me, worried. “Who cares what Katie thinks? She couldn’t hold a candle to you on her best day.”
“A Black Flame Candle!” Travis chimes in.
We both shoot him a look.
I glance over again at Katie and her minions as they pile into Katie’s car. “Do you think they heard us?”
“Well, this is a dumpster fire,” says Travis.
I groan and drop my forehead to the table.
“I’m not going,” I tell the table.
Travis touches my shoulder. “Pops, you can’t miss your own party.”
“You mean my mom’s party,” I correct him. “This whole thing was her idea, which I totally don’t get, since she never even talks about Halloween except to warn me about waking dead witches. And now our whole class has been invited, and my dad invited all the teachers and school staff, and Katie is going to be there with my family secret up her sleeve, ready to perform a terrible magic trick in front of everyone I know!”
“Pops, breathe,” says Travis.
“I mean, if she really doesn’t want to go, maybe we can do something else,” suggests Isabella.
“Nah,” says Travis. “She’ll come around.”
I sigh and pick myself up. “You’re right. I’m going to pull it together, and I’m going to this party, and I’m going to ignore Katie for the rest of my life,” I say.
