by C. B. Day
My unease deepened as I strode forward. The road was curvy here, swallowed at every bend by spindly pines that swayed in the stiff wind. My pace became more cautious. It was starting to hurt to breathe in the cold air, and my side was aching. I didn’t want to stop. I wanted to get home and out of this cold, but my body was not cooperating. I dragged myself over to the curb and bent over, wheezing while I tried to work the knot out of my side.
Everything around me was silent. I couldn’t even hear any approaching cars. Everyone else seemed tucked away inside their warm houses. I was alone, in the woods.
But I still felt that I wasn’t quite alone. The feeling grew stronger and stronger, and even as I regained my breath I could feel my heart thumping faster and faster.
Don’t look up, the little voice in my head whispered.
And suddenly there was a rush of a thousand wings all about me. I grabbed my head, covering my ears against the shrieking and cawing that seemed everywhere. All I could see was a wall of black – I was spinning and turning and everywhere black shapes darted in and out until I lost my balance and fell against the curb.
I huddled in a ball, pulling my hat tighter and squeezing my eyes shut against the confusion. Then, just as suddenly, everything went quiet once again. All I could hear was my ragged breath until a voice rang out.
“Hope, is that you?”
I opened one eye to peek. A flood of relief washed over me, quickly chased by irritation. “Michael!” I called out, my voice shaky. “What are you doing here?”
He was dressed a white hooded sweatshirt and running tights. I felt my heart rate slow as he made his way toward me, a look of concern clouded his face. My feeling of irritation grew – I didn’t need anybody’s help. Couldn’t my own body cooperate instead of acting like it was glad to see him?
“Did you see that?” he asked, gesturing behind him toward the horizon.
“What?”
“That murder of crows. It just swarmed out of nowhere, like an enormous black cloud,” he continued, his suspicious eyes scanning the sky as he searched for them.
“Murder? Crows?” I repeated him, still not sure what had happened. “Oh.”
He was directly over me. I looked up to see him reaching one gloved hand down to me. I paused before letting him pull me up, trying not to think too much about the way the tights highlighted every muscle in his legs.
“I must have scared them,” I said, dusting off my legs and letting my fingers probe the sensitive spot where I’d landed on the curb. I winced. I was going to get a big bruise, for sure.
“You were in that?” he asked, his eyes narrowing. In the waning light the blue of them seemed to fade into a steely gray.
I shrugged. “I guess. No big deal.” I tried to be nonchalant about it. I didn’t want him to know how freaked out I’d been. I stepped forward, gingerly. “Though it was kind of weird. I didn’t hear anything at all and then, boom, they were everywhere.”
He looked up at the sky, speculating.
“I’m walking you home,” he said, his chin set.
“Suit yourself,” I harrumphed, pretending not to care, but annoyed at him for his unexplained about-face. We set out, him slowing his pace to match me as I hobbled along. We walked in silence, my resentment hanging around us like heavy air of a Georgia summer.
“What are you even doing here?” I asked when I couldn’t take the silence any longer, my voice accusing. “This isn’t even close to your house. And I thought you had things to do.”
He didn’t rise to the bait, his eyes steadfastly focused on the road ahead. “I took care of them for now.” There was a long pause. “And I needed a run to clear my head. I didn’t plan to find you.”
“Well, don’t put yourself out, then.” His words stung. The retort flew out of my mouth before I had time to think.
He sighed as we trudged up the last hill, the silence resettling uncomfortably around us. At the top of my cul de sac, he pulled up short. The sun had fully set, now, and under the light shed by the corner street lamp his blonde hair seemed to shine with a halo.
He took a step, reaching out as if to touch me, but then dropped his hand as if he thought better of it.
“It must be hard running with all that hair in your face,” he said softly. I refused to answer him, but couldn’t stop my hands from sneaking up to wrap my hair safely round my neck.
He stood there awkwardly, waiting for me for what seemed like forever. Finally, he sighed.
“I guess I’ll see you around,” he said, turning away.
I stood in the little puddle of light, watching him run away until he was just a little speck of white, gliding away in the dark. As I turned toward my house, I noticed something under my shoe.
A feather. It shone dark as coal under the glow of the street light.
I picked it up, surprised I hadn’t it noticed it before, stuck to my shoe. I twirled it around in my fingers. It spanned the length of my hand and was stiffer than I imagined a feather should be. And the odor it gave off was odd – like sulfur, or the smell of electricity building up before a storm.
You shouldn’t touch it. It’s not clean.
Shrugging at the nagging voice, I threw the feather into the gutter and went in to nurse my wounds along with my hurt pride.
Chapter 3 – Peaks and Valleys
Michael didn’t show up for school on Monday. Or Tuesday. Or Wednesday. By the time Thursday rolled around, I was in a seriously bad mood and more than a little hurt. He’d disappeared without even telling me. I had a weird case of road rash around my wrist – apparently from my fall during the bird swarm -- that wouldn’t seem to heal. Everywhere I turned, that boy, Lucas, seemed to be, leering at me with a crazy look in his eyes. And meanwhile, my afternoons had turned into sheer torture as Bus Boy had decided to single me out for special attention, now that I was forced to ride the bus again.
But none of that was why I was so upset. I was lonely. It was one thing to be the odd girl out in Alabama, where I’d always been left to my own devices. It was entirely another thing here, now that I’d gotten used to Michael being constantly at my side. I was painfully aware of the empty desk right next to mine in virtually every class. And the girls who’d been so slighted by Michael’s refusal to be smitten now jeered at me and talked behind my back, which made me feel even more alone.
I slid into my Contemporary Issues class, thinking of all the ways I was going to blow Michael off when he finally dared to show his face.
“OK, class, today we are going to start working on your research papers. As a reminder this will comprise fifty percent of your grade. Remember,” Mr. Bennett paced around our desks, enjoying one of the few precious moments of rapt attention he would get, “this will be about a current issue that is challenging our society, your views on it and your recommendations for addressing it.
And, to introduce some ‘real world’ dynamics, you must work in pairs or small groups.”
The room broke into the chaos of sliding chairs and people shouting across the room to claim a partner. Mr. Bennett struggled to regain his command of the class amid the squeals of delight and fist bumping.
“Your first task,” he bellowed over the cacophony as he began walking through the aisles. “Your first task is to review this list of suggested topics and choose one. By the end of this period you and your partner must submit your choice and outline a preliminary set of research questions.”
I tuned out the rest of his instructions as he dealt the worksheets out. My classmates fell upon the lists, laughing, happy for the excuse to chat the hour away. It only made me feel Michael’s absence more acutely, which made me angry all over again.
Around the room, people were paired off, heads together. I looked around, hoping to see a friendly face – anyone who was also looking for a partner.
Just one other person remained. Tabitha.
She skewered me with a look of wry amusement, one heavily penciled brow arching high in a question as she swept h
er long bangs out of her deep mocha face. “I guess since lover boy split, it’s you and me, huh?”
I felt my cheeks turning red. “He’s not my boyfriend,” I protested.
“Whatever,” she snorted, grabbing her notebook up in her shiny black fingertips. The chains dangling from her belt rattled as she hopped off her desk toward me. “What d’ya say, partner?”
She was intimidating. She had all the trappings of a Goth – shockingly spiked hair, kohl-rimmed eyes, piercings all over her ears and face, and black boots so high she probably could have looked Michael in the eye. Truth was, she scared me more than a little. I’d noticed that while most of the black kids in school kept to themselves in pretty tight cliques, they all steered clear of her – as did everyone else.
She cleared her throat and tapped her thick-soled toes on the floor, reminding me she was waiting for my answer.
“I guess so.”
“I hope you’ve got more in you than ‘guess so,’ because this paper has got to kick ass,” she smirked, stomping over to take the seat next to me. “I already know what we should write about,” she asserted, flopping the list of topics down in front of me. “Look.”
I followed her pointed finger to the topic she had circled. Child slavery.
“Atlanta has become a hub for human trafficking,” she enthused, leaning in to convince me. “Just like it is for drugs and illegal immigration. Kids get kidnapped and end up in all sorts of bad situations. Lots of organizations are trying to intervene, churches and nonprofits and even the FBI, and there are shelters for kids that get rescued. We could even interview them. I heard all about it at church last Sunday.”
She was moving too fast for me and I blurted out the first thing that popped into my head.
“You go to church?”
She drew herself up in her seat, staring coldly at me. “Don’t you judge me by how I look, little miss. I happen to be a PK.”
“PK?” I was bewildered.
“Preacher’s kid,” she said smugly. “We’re expected to rebel,” she pronounced, gesturing elaborately around her clothes and face. “But in the end, we all come around. Or so I’ve been told,” she smirked. “And I’m no dummy, either. I’m making a 4.0. You could do a lot worse than to have me as your research partner.” She crossed her arms, dark tattoos peeking out from under her cuffs, and wiggled her foot impatiently.
I nibbled the eraser on the tip of my pencil, reappraising the situation.
“What about this topic,” I said lamely, pointing to Recycling. “Or this one?”
She snorted again. “Really? You want to write about video games and Facebook?” She started gathering up her things. “You and everyone else in here, probably. If you want to make a difference in something real, research these kids. It’s my one condition for being your partner.”
She was standing now, looming over me with one hand on her hip. I had the sinking feeling of being bulldozed. Somewhere deep inside me something was shifting. Old fears – fears I didn’t even know I had – were coming to the surface. Could I face my own history and all these feelings that I might not be able to keep locked away?
You’ll regret it, a little voice said.
“I don’t think I have any choice,” I muttered, looking up from my chair feeling all the world like a child being browbeaten by a baby sitter.
She beamed at me. “I knew you’d do it. Why don’t we meet after school to work out our research plan?”
*****
Tabitha turned out to be right – the topic was fascinating, and Atlanta really did have a problem. I tried to block out my unease by focusing on the facts.
“Look at this,” I said, pointing out the results of my latest web search. “This article says the Georgia Bureau of Investigation has started making more human trafficking raids than raids on marijuana or cocaine shipments.”
“Hmmm,” she mumbled, reading over my shoulder. In the quiet of the Media Center she had slipped on a pair of thick cat’s eye glasses, giving her an odd, middle-aged-lady look. “Only thing outpacing it is meth lab raids.”
She shoved a piece of paper at me. “Here’s the list of organizations I was able to find. They’re all downtown. Do you think your parents will let you go?”
“To do what?” I said, swiveling in my chair to face her, unsure of where the conversation was headed.
“To meet some of the girls,” she said, never skipping a beat. “We’ll be sure to get an ‘A’ if we do original research and not just regurgitate all this stuff on the Internet.”
I paused. I was sure my mother wouldn’t care, would probably in fact encourage me to go. But I wasn’t sure I could do it. Even though I couldn’t remember it, my own abduction had shaped my life so much. The idea of talking to someone who had experienced it too – and so recently – made me think twice.
Tabitha’s eyebrow arched above the rim of her glasses – a skeptical look I was beginning to recognize.
“You can’t possibly be scared of going to talk to them,” she demanded, hands on hips.
“No!” I protested, perhaps a little too strongly.
“Then it’s settled,” she said smugly. “I’ll call around and see what we can set up.” She stared down at her boots, reaching down to rub out an imaginary scuff while she tried to hide her self-satisfied smile. “You just clear it with your parents, I’ll take care of the rest.”
“Do you always get your way?” I asked, somewhat in awe.
“Only when I’m right,” she smiled with a wink, sweeping up her books and heading out the door.
I looked at the books and papers strewn about our study carrel and sighed. It seemed I might have to get used to being the one to clean up after Tabitha’s big ideas – and the mess that followed. I began tidying up, separating the books and magazines into piles for reshelving.
I looked at the clock. I still had time to kill before I could catch the extra-curricular bus home. Idly, I typed my homepage into the browser and scanned the news. Celebrity gossip, another big company merger – nothing of interest until at the bottom of the page, I spied a link labeled “Miracle in Africa.” I clicked through and read how some Ethiopian refugees were claiming that some miraculous light from Heaven had suddenly appeared and rescued them from the middle of a firefight between two warlords. The locals said it was the 7th or 8th time they’d seen the light.
As I was reading, the slow prickle of someone’s eyes on me worked its way up the back of my neck. I turned, half hoping it was Michael coming to see me, and my heart fell. There in the stacks stood Lucas, eyeing me speculatively. I flushed, and he grinned, one eyebrow arching as if he knew exactly what I had been thinking. Hurriedly, I grabbed my things and abandoned the carrel, my fingers drifting up to touch my Mark and ward off his gaze.
*****
After a week of work, we’d learned it wasn’t going to be as easy as we’d thought to set up the interviews with the human trafficking victims. Tabitha was persistent, but every place she called protested in the name of client privacy. We sat around my kitchen table, staring at the big red circle Tabitha had made on our research plan.
“We’re already behind,” she moaned. “If we can’t get any one to talk to us, I don’t know what we’ll do.”
Mom muted her phone. She had an uncanny ability to follow a conference call and keep up with our conversation. Without turning from the presentation up on her computer screen, she interjected, “I have a client on the Board of ‘Street Grace.’ Do you want me to call her and ask her for help?”
Tabitha squealed with delight, clapping her hands like a child. “Oh, Mrs. Carmichael, could you? That would be so awesome.”
“I’d be happy to, Tabitha. It sounds like a good cause, at any rate,” she said, carefully eyeing me.
Tabitha didn’t notice the look as she bounded across the kitchen to give me a hug. “Your Mom is the best. I’m going to make you dinner as a thank you, Mrs. C. Is that okay?”
Mom looked surprised. “Sure, Tabith
a, as long as you clear it with your parents. And don’t forget about the technology risk; it is the biggest challenge facing this venture.”
Now it was Tabitha’s turn to look confused.
“Conference call,” I mouthed to her, pointing at the phone as I headed into the pantry. Tabitha followed behind me and began rummaging through the shelves.
“Your mom seems pretty cool,” she said, turning packages this way and that. “What about your dad?”
“He’s not here. They’ve been apart for a long time,” I said, paying an inordinate amount of attention to the nutrition label on a box of spaghetti.
She plucked some olives and capers from a corner and blew the dust off the jars. “This will do. You ever cook?” she asked me, pulling the spaghetti out of my hands.
“I’m more of the take-out type,” I shrugged.
She flipped her long bangs – today, streaked neon green -- back as she turned and left the pantry. “My father taught me to cook when I was little. I do dinner for the whole family every Friday. You should come over this Friday. We can go out after. A bunch of us were talking about going to Stone Mountain after dark. It’ll be fun. And you can sleep over.”
“Isn’t Stone Mountain closed at night?” The doubt in my voice hung in the air but Tabitha ploughed right through it.
“Live a little,” she said. “Besides, don’t you want to meet the people responsible for this?” She laughed, twirling around the kitchen with her arms full of the dinner groceries, and I had to smile.
****
All Friday my stomach was in knots. Sneaking into Stone Mountain Park, in and of itself, would have been enough to put me on edge. Tabitha had met all my queries about who was going and what we would do with a vague, “You’ll see.” And now, I found myself seated at the Franklin family dinner table at the start of my first ever sleep-over.
I made a mental note not to call it “sleep-over” – it sounded so babyish – and refocused my attention on the five pairs of eager brown eyes staring at me.
