by Clay Chapman
“Who is it?”
“Telemarketer,” I lie as I hang up.
Tamara’s hand finds mine across the table. “What’d he say?”
“The salesman?”
“Elijah.”
“Oh. He…” My throat hitches. “He said yes.”
“I knew he would. Here…” Tamara lifts her glass. “To making it official.”
“To making it official,” I echo, clinking her glass with mine.
“Welcome to the family.” Tamara leaves her chair and slips into my lap. Her arms wrap around my neck, embracing me. When we kiss, she tilts her head down until her hair falls over my face.
She bites my bottom lip.
“Ow…Be careful.”
“Almost forgot.” She leaps off my lap and runs to the counter to open the cupboard. She glances back at me. “Turn off the lights.”
“Why?” I run my tongue over my bottom lip, tasting the slightest hint of blood.
“Just do it! Hurry! It’s almost midnight and then it’ll be too late.”
I do as I’m instructed, turning off the switch. The kitchen is swallowed in darkness.
I hear a scrape—the strike of a wooden match—and slowly, the outline of Tamara’s body begins to glow.
It’s a candle.
Tamara slowly turns toward me. One hand cups the flame so that it won’t extinguish.
“Happy birthday to you,” Tamara sings.
She holds a single red velvet cupcake in the palm of her hand. The candle casts its low glow across her skin, as red as the icing itself, leaving her looking bathed in blood.
My entire body feels as if it’s about to unravel. Everything that had been clenched suddenly releases itself.
“What? You think I’d forget?”
“Tam. We talked about this.”
“I know, I know…I couldn’t let it slip by. Not without celebrating just a little bit. Just between us, nobody else. You and me, I promise. It’s bad luck to not celebrate your birthday.”
“Says who?”
“Me.” She straddles me again, holding the cupcake between us. The flame flickers.
“I don’t even remember how old I am anymore.”
“Old,” she says. “Now make a wish.”
The flame vanishes. Darkness sweeps over the room. The dimensions of the kitchen are undefined in the absence of light. The space feels larger somehow. Endless.
I don’t feel like I’m here anymore.
“What’d you wish for?” Tamara’s voice whispers in the dark.
“I’ll never tell.”
“Take a bite.” Tamara guides the cake to my mouth. The icing is sweet, but just underneath that frosting, I can taste my blood. “How is it?”
“I bit my lip.”
“Poor baby. Here.” She presses her lips against mine, searching for blood, licking away the icing. “You know, witches were asked to bake a cake during menstruation. Sometimes…they’d even put a drop of their own blood into the batter. To hypnotize whoever ate it.”
“Is that what this is?” Tamara’s mind always goes to the weirdest places. It’s part of her charm, but I can’t help wondering how her thoughts led her there. “You casting a spell on me?”
“You tell me…Is it working?” I can see her smile as the moonlight coming through the kitchen window hits her face. Her snake tattoo.
I remember when I first saw Tamara’s scars. As she described it, her mother had been frying chicken cutlets when the phone rang, leaving a pan full of oil simmering on the stove. Little Tamara, just six years old, wandered into the kitchen and reached for the handle…
I had three skin grafts before I turned eight, she’d told me. The scars never went away. At some point, I decided to turn all that scar tissue into something powerful.
Tamara’s serpent slithers along my fingertips. I feel the scar, the scales of the snake’s body gliding up, winding around my neck, finally reaching my chin, my lips, forcing itself through.
DAMNED IF YOU DO
SEAN: 1982
It began with a game of telephone.
Mr. Woodhouse called it something else to his kindergarteners. Whisper down the lane. That made him sound old, like some kind of fuddy-duddy. Then again, Mr. Woodhouse always had a funny way of talking. He made stuff sound more important than it was. He found poetry in the little things nobody else seemed to care about. You just had to look deeper. Look closely and see the potential for more.
The rules were simple: During circle time, everyone in class sat in a ring. One student whispered a phrase—Sean only eats the marshmallows in his Lucky Charms, for instance—into the ear of the student sitting next to them. That student then whispered what they heard into the ear of the next person. Then onto the next, and the next, a daisy chain of whispers, until the last student in the circle said the sentence to the student who initiated it. That first student then said the sentence out loud for the whole class to hear—Sean eats marsh men on the farm. Then the kids would all laugh and laugh at how a sentence could become something new. A fresh start.
These kids didn’t know that there had been a letter campaign against Lucky Charms. Some of their mothers had complained to the local Safeway that the marshmallows included symbols mixed in among the horseshoes and clovers. What kind of supermarket sells a breakfast cereal that peddles pagan propaganda? It’s right there on the shelves, next to the more wholesome cereals—like Frosted Flakes. These motivated mothers demanded that Safeway pull this satanic brand of breakfast food. They spent their Sunday afternoons after church in the parking lot, passing out flyers.
how safe are your children at safeway?
safeway is not the only way.
safeway is not safe.
There was a different game of telephone going on with the parents of Greenfield, spread through actual telephones. And the sentence had consequences.
Mr. Woodhouse bad-touched Matthew Saperstein.
When Matthew complained to his mother that Mr. Woodhouse had been mean to him in class, she sat her son down and insisted he explain. Matthew—Matty, as his mom always called him—was irritated at first. He had assumed he could gripe about Mr. Woodhouse and his stupid way of talking at the dinner table. She asked him if Mr. Woodhouse had yelled at him. Matty said no. She asked if he had been unfair. Matty said no. She asked if he had touched him. At that point, Matty asked if they could talk about something else, but Mrs. Saperstein was on high alert. She had been watching the news lately.
Matty’s best friend, Tommy, was also in Mr. Woodhouse’s class. Mrs. Saperstein and Mrs. Dennings were relatively close acquaintances, tied together by the occasional Saturday afternoon playdate. Mrs. Dennings’s phone number was written on their refrigerator door, along with several other mothers from the PTA. After The A-Team was over and Mrs. Saperstein had put Matty to bed, she picked up the phone and called straightaway.
Mrs. Saperstein and Mrs. Dennings talked for close to an hour. Tommy had wet his bed a few nights ago, which was so unlike him, and now Mrs. Dennings wondered out loud if Tommy might be anxious about something.
“Has anything changed at home?” Mrs. Saperstein asked.
“Not a thing,” Mrs. Dennings said. But as soon as the words left her mouth, she changed her mind. “You don’t think…” She couldn’t finish the sentence, the words curdling.
Mrs. Dennings knew two other mothers in their class, thanks to their tennis socials. She spoke to both Mrs. Cardiff and Mrs. Gilmore after she’d dropped Tommy off at his bus stop the following morning.
Mrs. Dennings’s conversation with Mrs. Cardiff didn’t last longer than twenty minutes. She mentioned Mr. Woodhouse, then asked if Mrs. Cardiff had noticed anything peculiar in her daughter’s behavior. Mrs. Cardiff thought it was strange and rather coincidental that Mrs. Dennings would mention it because, yes, as a mat
ter of fact, she had noticed the slightest shift in Jenny’s behavior lately. She had begun waking up in the middle of the night from terrible dreams. Two nights in a row now. Never mind that Jenny had just watched Michael Jackson’s Thriller on MTV in the basement of her friend’s house while her parents were upstairs. The girls had asked if it was all right to watch it together. And why shouldn’t they? It was one of the Jackson 5. Wasn’t he that talented boy who sang “ABC” and “I’ll Be There”? Completely harmless.
Mrs. Dennings waited until after lunch to call Mrs. Gilmore, but Mrs. Cardiff got right on the phone with her husband at work. She pulled Mr. Cardiff out of a meeting in a complete panic. Mr. Cardiff did his best to calm his wife down, cooing soothing words into the receiver, but she was adamant that he call the headmaster immediately. No, she wouldn’t take it easy. She wanted Mr. Cardiff to fix this! This was their daughter’s safety they were talking about!
Mr. Cardiff had never been a fan of Mr. Woodhouse. He considered his daughter’s kindergarten teacher to be, as he explained to his golf buddies…well, a bit swishy. He griped on the green about what the headmaster should do about it. This fruity fella in their children’s midst. Teaching them lord knows what. Was he just going to let some faggot manhandle their kids?
By the time Mr. Cardiff had put in a call to the headmaster at Greenfield Academy, Mrs. Gilmore had personally phoned Mrs. Dellacort, Mrs. Blackmer, and Mrs. Evans.
By the time Mrs. Dellacort had gotten on the phone with Mrs. Kelly, Mrs. Blackmer had called Mrs. Cook, while Mrs. Henry and Mrs. Evans had phoned the school three times, demanding the headmaster reach out to them at once with answers about Mr. Woodhouse.
By the time Sunday services were underway, there wasn’t much else for these mothers to discuss. The pews simmered with whispers about Mr. Woodhouse and his class.
Well, yes, Gloria couldn’t keep her meal down just the other night…
Now that you mention it, I’ve noticed Craig has been acting rather remote…
Who’d blame Michael Jackson for Jenny’s nightmares? This has to be something else…
I noticed a few bruises on Alice’s leg. I thought it was just horseplay, but now that I think about it, they were a little too far up her thigh for my comfort…
There were twenty-one students in Mr. Woodhouse’s class.
The number twenty-one represents the Union of the Trinity. The number twenty-one appears in the Bible seven times.
Seven multiplied by three is twenty-one. The number twenty-one is a symbol that represents the union of unknown superiors—or the great spiritual masters of humanity.
Tommy Dennings’s favorite after-school cartoon was Masters of the Universe. His mother hadn’t realized the show’s main character was a boy—a prince, just like her Tommy—whose secret identity would be conjured up after he lifted his mystic sword and recited an incantation:
I haaave the poooooooower.
Several mothers had written to the local television channel to encourage programmers that they should no longer air Master of the Universe due to its, as they claimed, “pagan undertones.” Their letter campaign had little sway over the channel, so Mrs. Dennings merely switched the television off during that particular half hour after school, no matter how loud Tommy griped.
There was power in unifying their voices, these mothers learned. A combined strength.
Unity.
They could harness their concerns and make it one voice. One loud, determined voice. These mothers were legion—and they demanded to be heard. Reckoned with. They were not going to simply sit by as their community corroded—downright decayed—underneath them. Certainly not when it was their children at risk. Their little angels.
Their one voice spoke louder. More forceful. It gained strength as their numbers grew.
They would be heard.
By Monday, more phone calls were pouring into the school. It wasn’t parents anymore. Concerned citizens were picking up the phone. What exactly is happening in Mr. Woodhouse’s class? What’s he doing behind closed doors? What the hell’s going on in your school?
Local authorities logged ten official complaints. The headmaster assured detectives there was nothing untoward happening in their classrooms. Mr. Woodhouse was happily married. They had a child of their own, a lovely daughter. She was enrolled at Greenfield Academy as well. Mr. Woodhouse was one of the school’s most prized teachers. Just last year, he’d received a regional award commemorating his commitment to academic excellence. He inspired his students. He was a shining example for all teachers to follow. The school was lucky to have him.
Greenfield stood by Mr. Woodhouse, the headmaster told detectives.
That was last week.
This week, the escalation in complaints was too steep to be written off. There was something foul happening at Greenfield, something rotten, even if no one could quite say exactly what. All anyone knew for certain was it had to do with Mr. Woodhouse. His name was consistently whispered among the parents, and their voices were growing louder.
The calls were coming into the school at an even clip. The administration couldn’t answer them all. They needed to bring in an additional secretary just to log all the complaints.
Now other members of the faculty were being accused of following in Mr. Woodhouse’s footsteps. The school had to act. Had to get out in front of this story before it was too late. This wasn’t stopping. If anything, the whispers were only getting worse. Parents were organizing now. A phone tree was distributed. Parents met in the evenings to discuss and compare notes.
I heard he keeps a bag of candy in his desk to give kids who do special “favors” for him…
My daughter told me he likes to massage the students’ backs…
My son says he has them play “touchy” games in class…
By Tuesday, only eighteen students were in attendance in Mr. Woodhouse’s class. On Wednesday, it was fifteen. Ten the next. Then six…
Six…
Six.
Greenfield was hemorrhaging students. Their parents were keeping them at home. And it wasn’t just Mr. Woodhouse’s class anymore. It was all of them now. A letter had been hastily written by the headmaster to quell the rising tide of concerns. It was dictated, typed, and mimeographed, then sent home with each student. Not just Mr. Woodhouse’s class. This was schoolwide. An epidemic. Everyone knew what was happening in Mr. Woodhouse’s room.
Everyone except Susan Crenshaw.
Sean remained in Mr. Woodhouse’s class even as his classmates began to vanish. Mr. Woodhouse was the first to sense there was promise in Sean. The depth of the boy’s developing imagination was on full display from the beginning, even at age five. His capacity to create worlds. His questions. He was, as far as Mr. Woodhouse was concerned, a star pupil.
A bright boy, Mr. Woodhouse called him at the first parent-teacher night. A shining child.
When Miss Crenshaw received a note from school informing parents about an ongoing investigation regarding one of their teachers—Sean’s teacher—she was utterly paralyzed. She was working herself to the bone, losing sleep just to keep her family under one roof. Now this?
Where were the warning signs? Had she missed something? How blind could she be? she imagined the other mothers whispering behind her back. Sean told her he’d had a tummy ache the other day, but she thought he was just trying to get out of eating his broccoli.
Now, during bath time, she noticed the berry patch of black-and-blue skin on his thigh.
Where did these bruises come from? Such a simple question. Who did this to you? Was it your teacher? Sean nodded. So slowly it was imperceptible at first. Yes, the nod said. And just like that, their precariously balanced life, constantly teetering upon collapse, came crashing down around her. Miss Crenshaw—Susan, a single mom—had let this happen to her own son.
How? It was a strange way to phra
se the question, she realized later. Mainly because when she asked it, it could have meant so many things. Could be interpreted so many ways.
How could it happen? How did he hurt you? How did I let it happen? How can I stop it? How could the school let this happen? How can I protect my son? How? How? HOW?
Sean decoded the question the best way a five-year-old could. He told her the first thing that popped into his mind, a blend of both fib and truth.
Mr. Woodhouse had taught them how to play horsey.
December 2, 1982
Dear Parent:
As some of you may already know, the Chesterfield County Police Department is currently conducting a potential criminal investigation involving an employee of our school. This undoubtedly raises some concern and serious questions regarding the safety and well-being of your children.
In respect of the police department, and those involved in this investigation, the school administration has agreed to allow the authorities to proceed with their inquiry with our complete support.
Our school records indicate that your child has been or is currently enrolled as a student at Greenfield. If you believe you have any information regarding this investigation that you would like to offer, please contact our office.
If you believe your child may have witnessed any wrongdoing relating to their teachers or on-campus activities, please contact our office as soon as possible. We only ask that you please keep any information regarding this investigation under the strictest confidence. Please do not discuss the details or any potentially incriminating aspects of this investigation with anyone else other than your immediate family.
Please bear in mind that there is no evidence to indicate that any other employee at our school is under investigation.
Your cooperation in these matters is greatly appreciated. If you have any further questions or concerns, please contact our office.
With regards,
Jim Cunningham
Principal
