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Celestial Souls , Book I: Christine
Chapter Four: It’s Been A Long Time

“Are you okay?” was pretty much the first thing out of his mouth.

“Yeah, fine. The scrape’s healing up okay. What about you?”

“I’m completely fine,” he said, but the tone of his voice suggested otherwise.

“You don’t sound fine.”

“Oh, I – er – I called Shelby’s place before to see how she was doing. Her parents don’t seem happy with me. They seem to think I might have done this – or that I’m a bad influence, or something.”

He sounded especially guilt-stricken on that last note. “They’re just panicked about these kidnappings,” I said. “You don’t seem the type to hurt girls.”

“I’m not!” he said, sounding horrified at the thought. “Trust me, I’m – I’m feeling god awful about this, you have no idea—”

He cut himself off, and in the background I could hear someone else talking. Eric’s responses were muffled:

“I am calm—don’t tell me how I’m...yes, I know that but...Pop, I’m on the phone, can it wait?” There were the sounds of the receiver being moved. “Sorry. That was just my grandpa.”

“S’okay,” I muttered. “Trust me, I’m sure it’ll blow over. And I know Shelby knows you didn’t do anything.”

“Still doesn’t make it any better,” he said, sounding dismayed.

The conversation was quick; on the other end I could hear his grandfather telling him to “get off the bloody phone”, and so finally, defeated, Eric wished me well and hung up. I listened to the silence on the end for a moment, followed shortly by the dial tone. No point in just holding the phone there, I decided. Standing, I moved to head to the living room, to place it back on the right cradle. My mother was there, sprawled out on the couch as she flipped aimlessly through channels. She looked up as I stepped in, setting the phone down, but didn’t say anything until I was on my way back to my room.

“I talked with him,” she said – I had guessed as much, as she had been the one to pass me the receiver.

“And?” I said, hoping she wasn’t about to verbally crucify him like the Summers apparently did. He had attempted to protect us, however fruitless his attempt was. He didn’t need to be looked down upon by my mother too.

She set down the remote before saying anything further. “He insisted he had no control over the situation, and you said he didn’t try and hurt you.” There was a pause. “I believe you. From what I saw, he didn’t strike me as the abusing type. Nervous, but not abusing.”

“Why would people think that?” I said, my voice rising in pitch, “He was perfectly nice! Everything was going great until that happened, and he was the one who—”

“Calm down, Chris. I’m taking your side here. Laura Summers called here this morning—”

She had? Oh no. What had she said? “I didn’t hear the phone ring?”

“No, you were still asleep; she called around eight-thirty,” my mother said, sounding annoyed herself, “Woke me up too; I practically knocked the phone off its’ stand...but she called here, not happy. Wanted to know if you’d been hurt too. I said no, you were fine aside from a scrape or two, and she insisted I should keep an eye on you. She likes you, I think; that Shelby seems to be the one who brings home a lot of dumb airheads for friends, so she’s probably relieved that she’s friends with someone intelligent, for once.”

I tried not to roll my eyes. My mother, finally fed up with the television, picked up the remote and turned it off; the screen crackled with static for a moment before fading into silence. Feeling this was going to be a little while, I moved and sat myself down on the nearest chair. The silence was a little jarring after the noises of the television acting as white noise in the background.

“Anyway, she wanted me to make sure that you had someone watching you. I said I had given you a strict curfew, no going out after six on any night, and she seemed to like that idea.”

“But...?”

“But she can be a bit of a busy-body. Asked if you would like to stay at her place for a little bit, saying Shelby would like the company. We got into a bit of an argument, or as much of one as I could muster at eight-thirty in the morning.”

“About what?”

“None of your business,” my mother said primly. “I don’t need you worrying over my problems. Let it be known that words were said, and she probably won’t want to come over for dinner any time soon.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because I took your side,” she said. I felt happy at this; my mother could be harsh sometimes, but I knew she would stand behind me. “And when he called earlier, all apologetic...well, it reminded me a little of your father. He was like that too. But he – this Eric – seemed sincere enough. I don’t see any reason yet we should be wary. But if anything happens,” her voice had taken on a warning tone, “anything that you don’t want, you tell me. Then I’ll hurt him.”

“I don’t think he’d do anything bad,” I said. If that was all my mother had to say, that had been better than I expected.

“You don’t want to think so,” she said. “He said it himself; he’s only been here two weeks. There’s plenty of reason to be wary.”

“No one was wary of us when we showed up,” I pointed out.

“Not us, no – people are more inclined to trust women, but I saw your brother get a few suspicious looks. Of course we were all depressed at the time, so people probably just thought we were weird – and it doesn’t help he’s turned into a little bastard now,” she said with a scowl. “But people seem to be much more nosy here.”

“No kidding,” I said. There wasn’t much else to say.

With Shelby out of commission for a while, there wasn’t much to do, and I spent the weekend moping about the house. When Mama was at work, and Thom would go out – to get away from me, he claimed, I was weirding him out – I was alone. The house, although very small, seemed so much lonelier with the absence of people. Of course, they would come back eventually, but the times where it was just me were rather depressing.

Sunday’s news included the tidbit that Elizabeth Quinn had been found, alive and well, wandering up the main street. Her condition was reported as stable, and there was much blubbering on television from her family. The news only showed Elizabeth once, hugging her mother, which struck me as looking somewhat staged. That same clip replayed itself at least four or five times. I watched the broadcast quietly, not entirely sure how to feel. Yes, she was back and that was good, but why was everyone being so secretive about it? Her, and the other girls before her – none of them granted any interviews, made any statements to the press...I couldn’t be the only one wondering how they were doing.

When Monday came, I found myself at the centre of something very odd: popularity. I had not been considered popular in, literally, months – when I had first arrived, I had been snatched up by Carly, likely because she assumed I had been somewhat popular due to my disdain at moving. I had spent some time with her little clique, trying to forget my own personal problems as I listened to her shallower ones (I had lost my father not too long before and had to deal with the consequences, her father was refusing to buy her a new car for her sixteenth birthday). And then I think I said something along the lines of Shelby not seeming so bad as Carly portrayed her and I was dumped before I even realised it.

So it was very, very strange to suddenly find myself at the centre of a small crowd not long after stepping off the bus. Emily and Claire, who were just behind me, seemed just as baffled as I cautiously made my way through the crowd, or tried to, to get inside and to my locker.

I felt a weight on my shoulder, and I jerked, turning to see a girl who I knew was in my Religion class – Brianna was the name that came to mind, as she was the one who tended to wear crazy earrings, and the large gaudy things dangling from her earlobes certainly counted.

“Uh, hi?” I said. I must have looked like a deer in headlights.

“Hi,” she said, quickly getting to the reason for the crowd, “I heard what happened on Friday! Are you okay, ‘cause I saw Shelby with crutches earlier...”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said, moving towards the building; Brianna and several others followed, while the rest of the crowd seemed to dissipate, “She fell on her ankle wrong and sprained it.”

“But you nearly got kidnapped!” Brianna’s face was pale. “You were this close to winding up like the other girls! How did you do it?”

It was then I stopped (we had reached the doors by this point, I had paused to hold one open) and got a good look at the crowd: all girls, mostly younger than me, all of them looking frightened. I was overwhelmed.

“I was in a parking lot at nine at night,” I stammered, “there were lots of people around. All I did was scream really loud and people came running.”

“Yeah, but all those other girls – they had to have tried screaming too, and no one heard them,” a mousey-looking girl said.

“But they were all walking alone,” Brianna pointed out. “Shelby was there with her; she said so herself.”

“Who’s to say he couldn’t start kidnapping more than one at a time?” another demanded.

They were clearly all so desperate to hear some sort of secret trick, some way to avoid winding up like all the other girls, that they had crowded themselves around me. I had escaped by sheer luck, really. They all looked so frightened – a part of me felt badly for them, very much so, but mostly I was dumbfounded by the attention.

“We had Eric with us too,” I pointed out lamely as the group trickled inside. “He tried to protect us.”

“Shelby didn’t say that,” Brianna said, which was a surprise to me.

Sure enough, Shelby was still at the locker, leaning on a pair of crutches, her backpack still on her back. She looked unconcerned – not even surprised – by the fact that several more people were trailing me than usual.

“Hey Chris,” she said, her usual greeting. “Heard your mom’s grounding you. That sucks. She mentioned it to my mom and I think she’ll actually go for it. That sucks too.”

Throwing the locker door open, I eyed her warily. “You must have been really bored on the weekend, weren’t you?”

She glanced behind me to the group. “Yeah.”

“You guys were with Eric?” Brianna said; Shelby nodded.

“Was it a date?” the mousey-looking girl said. She received odd looks in return.

“What kind of a date involves a guy and two girls?” Brianna said. “He tried to protect you? How sweet! ...maybe that’s why you weren’t taken.”

“You really shouldn’t be coming to us for advice,” I said. “We got away by luck.”

“Yeah, and you’re the only ones to have gotten away. What did he look like?” Brianna demanded.

“I couldn’t see his face. It was all shadowed,” I admitted.

“He was tall,” Shelby said. “Taller than Eric, and he’s got to be six-even. White hair—”

“No, Shelby, it was clearly gray.”

“Whatever, it was still really light. He was kind of fat too. Must have been some creepy older guy.”

“Figures,” Brianna said. “Some old perv.”

The bell rang shortly after, and people scrambled to get to their classes; Shelby adjusted her backpack and started walking away as fast as she could.

“You need help?” I asked her, trailing.

“No, I’m good,” she said.

I barely made it to Religion on time; O’Reilly was literally right behind me, and locked the door immediately after I’d stepped inside. I shuffled over to my seat, sitting down. It was only then I noticed the stares. How many people had Shelby told? I knew gossip could spread like disease, but this was ridiculous.

There was a general quiet in the room, as O’Reilly prepared her things for the day; no one actually said anything, but there were still some odd looks. Good God, what had they been told? It probably had gotten distorted along the way, like a large game of telephone; I decided I should not show surprise if someone asked me something ridiculous. I focused on the front of the classroom, not out of interest, but because it meant I didn’t have to make eye contact with anyone.

Even O’Reilly noticed something: “The lesson is being taught here, not at the back of the classroom,” she said briskly. “Pay attention or there’ll be another test in the future.”

Thankfully, the threat of another surprise test seemed to draw the remainder’s attention away from me for the time being, and she began the lesson with her usual prayer. To my relief, I was not mentioned once; perhaps she hadn’t heard. She didn’t seem the type to keep up with gossip. At least, that was what I hoped, throughout the duration of the lesson she seemed normal as she went on and on about Buddhism and its’ relationship to Hinduism. The woman knew entirely too much about foreign religions, and yet she always made it seem so...boring.

Class ended with little fuss – only as I was filing out, did I notice a tap on my shoulder; it was O’Reilly. I stayed as people shuffled out around me.

“Yes?” I said.

“I’m working on the assumption that, being here, you’re evidently doing all right,” she said, with no more emotion than she had given her lecture, “And I won’t pretend I know what happened...but if you need someone to talk to...”

I didn’t know if she was attempting to come off as caring or motherly, but she really came off as awkward despite her best intentions. I glanced at the clock; even now, people from the next class were straggling in.

“I assure you,” I said, “I’m perfectly fine. But I...”

“Oh, yes – don’t let me keep you.”

As I sped out of the classroom to make a quick stop at my locker, I found it odd that she had even bothered to offer. Usually the school’s chaplain handled those sorts of things.

The hallways were thinning out as I bolted outside and made it to the portable just as the bell rang. Everyone was already there, aside from the few stragglers still left, and I took my usual seat, taking great pains not to tip over the crutches leaning against the wall.

“My mom’s a bitch, did you know that?” Shelby said, twirling a lock of hair around her finger.

“I didn’t.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Called me on the way over here asking me if I wanted to go home ‘cause of my foot.” She snorted, looking displeased. “It’s not ‘cause of my foot.”

She glanced over towards the area near the door, and I followed her gaze: Eric was sitting there, and Carly was all but in his lap. I couldn’t make out his expression.

“I hope my mom calls up hers and tells her what she told me,” Shelby said, and it took me a moment to figure out exactly what she meant. “That might get her off him for five minutes.”

I was curious to know exactly what Shelby’s mother had said; I had only heard it from Eric, who seemed to take it personally. I had known Shelby for about a year, and not once had I ever seen her mother this angry.

“What did your mother say?” I said, dropping my voice to a mutter. “He called me on Saturday all upset over it.”

“He didn’t tell you?”

“I got the gist, but not the exact words.”

“I’ll tell you after class,” she said as Rourke walked in.

I did not get a chance to talk with Eric during the period, and only a passing glance on the way to lunch. Shelby limped along, and I slowed down to keep pace with her as we headed back to the school, adjusting my grip on our books.

“You saw how he apologised at the hospital, didn’t you?” she demanded.

“Yeah. I was there.”

“And so was she! Right! There!” Shelby smacked the end of a crutch against the ground for emphasis. “But after we’d dropped you off – she wouldn’t even let you drive home with him – after that, we get home, and she talks to Dad for a bit, okay?”

I nodded, crushing the books against my chest in order to free my arms enough to open the door; it squeaked.

“And then both Mom and Dad come into my room – I’m trying to rest here – and I swear to God they all but called me a goddamn liar,” she snarled; her voice was somewhat drowned out by other, pleasanter, conversations. “Said it was okay, and that I could tell them what really happened. They were this close to pressing charges until I goddamn told them to shove off!”

I could feel my face blanch. “No way. How could they think that?”

“How the hell do I know? I even told them he wasn’t even touching me at the time and I tripped. They finally said they believed I’d tripped, but wouldn’t believe it was because I was trying to run away from creepy old dude!”

“Who else was there to run away from?!”

“Exactly!” Shelby snarled, unlocking and opening our locker with more force than necessary; the door slammed loudly against the adjoining one. “Never mind we all gave statements to the cops and everything! I wouldn’t be so mad if she doesn’t think I can’t handle two stupid classes with him!”

I set the books haphazardly in the locker, and shut it as we headed for the cafeteria. A small crowd had gathered by a table set out in the lobby, selling tickets for the Halloween dance in a few weeks. We manoeuvred around it.

“She was saying some nasty things about you too – well, not nasty, but she was definitely implying something.”

Although the incident was, by now, behind us, I felt my heart sink. Great. If I lost Mrs. Summers’ support, that pretty much ended my friendship with Shelby, and then where would I be? I found even one weekend mind-numbing; what would the rest of the school year be like?

“What was she implying?”

“Mostly that you were too stupid to realise a guy hitting a girl is wrong,” Shelby said bitterly. “I don’t get the impression that she hates you, just that she thinks you’re a little dense and need protecting.”

“Protection from her, maybe.” Shelby managed a weak smile.

“Anyway, my dad called up his grandpa and they spoke for a bit. I dunno what they said; Mom was still in the room and I wasn’t about to grab the upstairs receiver to listen in with her around. No yelling or anything. I just wish he’d picked up the day after; Mom picked it up and I swear to God she was all but screaming at him until Dad jumped in. No wonder the guy was upset when he called you.”

“Did you talk to him?”

“Yeah, but only by picking up the upstairs receiver,” she said. “Poor guy just called to know how I was doing, for God’s sake.”

“Good God,” I said, as nothing more appropriate came to mind. It seemed to sum up the situation nicely.

It was a relief when the day ended, and I headed home – not necessarily because I wanted to go home, but because between school and home, it was obviously the better option. My mother was there when I arrived home, and – as if that would do anything – proceeded to lock the door at six sharp.

“I think you’re being a little over the top,” I said to her.

“Better safe than sorry,” she said.

The week passed by slowly, even more so as after six at night, I was essentially on house arrest. School was no more exciting than usual, and by the end of the week, it seemed that the interest around me about the creepy man had completely vanished, people moving onto new things. I did not see much of Eric during that time; he was in class, we talked, but not extensively. He still seemed upset about the incident; I almost wanted to tell him to just ignore it, that that was the safer route to go than dwelling on it.

Of course, I was one to talk. I noticed the calendar dates just as much as my mother did, and as October eleventh rolled around, I was getting increasingly depressed. It reminded me, all too harshly, that it had only been one year, one very long year. Maybe I had consciously tried to forget the date – it had bad memories associated with it. Maybe I thought I could just move on, and go about my day as normal. Whatever the reason, I awoke with a start on the eleventh, after a bad nightmare. I couldn’t remember what it was about, exactly; it had something to do with explosion, and fire, and the futile attempt to outrun them. But I couldn’t get to sleep after; my heart was beating too much.

The date didn’t quite hit me until well after classes had begun – it was written on the chalkboard in O’Reilly’s classroom. I felt my heart sink, slouching down in my seat as if that would miraculously change everything. God, no. It had to be on a school day; I couldn’t even get the luxury of feeling upset in my own home. One year – I had been coming along fine until then, but now, everything came crashing back. The notice. My mother crying. Condolences from people I didn’t even know. The funeral – God, I didn’t want to remember the funeral. It had been a closed-casket service, which made it even worse; I just wanted to see my father’s face one last time before it was gone, and I had been denied even that because the explosive—

“What’s your problem, Schumacher?” Carly said lightly as I passed her walking to my seat in History. I ignored her.

“I asked you a question. It’s rude not to answer,” she continued. I felt my anger raise. She was trying to provoke me, I knew. I had to ignore her, it would be best for both of us.

Her little lackeys – the more devoted ones, at least – laughed.

“Is it ‘cause you don’t have a date for the dance?” one asked, as if I would be feeling this bad over something so trivial.

“I thought you’d get used to that sort of thing after a while,” a second said.

“’parently not.”

“Will you two jackasses just knock it off?” I said. It came out more forcefully than intended, and only seemed to add fuel to the fire. They laughed, as though it was funny.

“You still didn’t answer my question,” Carly said sweetly. The two jackasses chimed in with their agreement.

“My problem is with you and your dumbass servants who are too”—

They laughed even harder at that. Through my anger, my desire to make them shut up, I wondered what was taking Rourke so long to get there. Usually he was quicker, and it would have temporarily silenced them, but he was nowhere in sight.

“Leave her alone,” Eric said sharply. Still grinning, they glanced towards him, their eyebrows furrowed. “I mean it.”

“We’re just talking to her,” Carly said.

“No, you’re being a spiteful bitch. There’s a difference. Knock it off. It’s not funny.”

“Why Eric!” she said, shocked. The focus then abruptly shifted from me to him. He didn’t look fazed. “How can you say that?”

“I can say it because I’m tired of seeing people get verbally ripped a new hole, okay? It’s getting on my nerves...”

Rourke chose that moment to walk in. I breathed a sigh of relief.

Shelby ducked away at lunch, claiming her mother had called her cell, and she needed to yell at her, but I think it was likely because Eric came up while I was eating. Evidently she was still under the delusion that he and I would be good together because I was not Carly, or whatever logic she used to justify it.

“Hey,” he said. “You okay?”

I was poking my food around on the plate rather than eating it. “Hey. I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine,” he admitted, gingerly taking a seat beside me. “You looked – look – upset.” When I said nothing, he added: “You should have seen yourself in History; you looked like you wanted to rip them a new hole.”

“You said it yourself,” I said, spearing a bit of food on my fork, “They were being spiteful bitches.”

“Does this have anything to do with...well, that thing at the movies?” he said, looking a little resigned at that. “Because – I swear, I’ve tried to make it up to Shelby’s mother but she won’t hear of it, and I don’t know if your”—

“This doesn’t have anything to do with that,” I said. “This is personal – bad memories.”

He seemed confused. I wanted to be nice, but at the same time I wanted to be left alone. I decided to spell it out, hoping he might catch the hint: “Year ago today my father died, okay?”

“I’m sorry,” he said; he automatically began twirling his finger around the ball chain.

“Don’t be. It’s been a year. I should be over it by now.” I scowled.

There was a long pause. I lifted the fork to my mouth. It didn’t look appetizing.

“Where was he?”

“Afghanistan.”

“Mine was in Croatia,” he said. There was another long pause. “No one says you have to get over it right away.”

He, much to my relief, excused himself just then. A minute later, Carly and her posse walked by.

The rest of the day was quiet – very subdued. Even Thom was quiet, which was probably a miracle. None of us really seemed to want to talk, or to do much. Some people would likely say we were repressing the memories, but I knew that wasn’t it – I preferred dealing with these sorts of things internally, sorting out my thoughts on my own, and right now it seemed like my mother and Thom were the same way.

I went to bed that night feeling very...well, sombre. One year ago we’d been living in another house, in another city entirely, waiting patiently for my father to finish his tour and come home, and now...well, he came home. Parts of him, at least. Not in the way any of us would have liked. But now we were living in a little house in a little city...

...and as I went to sleep I realised it was not so bad. It could have been so much worse.

*

Saturday was quickly proving to be the best day of the week so far; with the curfew still on, it was difficult to actually go somewhere with school in the way. Sundays were only okay, as most things closed early, but Saturdays were just fine. Thank God it was Saturday.

It was cool outside, and the leaves crunched underneath my feet, brittle and dried. So the wind was unpleasant? The sky was blue, the sun was shining, and I had on my army jacket. I was fine. I was also bored as hell, but I would have rather been outside than stuck inside.

I had walked for God only knew how long when I came across the mall, which looked about as lively as a dead fish. It didn’t help that it was really small to begin with. I checked my watch – a quarter past one. Lunch would have been nice. Walking across the lot, I made my way to the nearest door and opened it – by sheer luck, the food court was right there.

“Hey there,” came a voice from my left. I glanced over to see Eric by the pay phones, the hood of a hoodie peeking out from underneath his jacket. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Same here,” I said. Now that I had stopped walking, the ache in my legs was becoming apparent. “Funny how that works out.”

“Yeah. What brings you here?”

“I was really bored. I don’t live that far from here, so I just started walking.”

“Yeah, I think I remembered passing by this area to get to your place.”

“And you?”

“Pop kicked me out. Said I was staying at home too much and needed to go out and do stuff.”

“Do what?”

“I dunno, but I’ll tell you if I figure it out.”

I needed to sit down. “I’m going in here – I need to sit. My legs are killing me.”

“Mind if I follow?”

“Sure.”

“I don’t want to come off as weird or anything,’ he rambled as we made our way inside. “But there’s literally no one around, and I’m bored...”

“Didn’t you hang around Carly’s friends on weekends?”

“Used to, but they’re all pissed I called her a ‘spiteful bitch’ so they – she – put me on probation. On probation!”

I finally sat down for a minute, scanning the available choices. Chinese was not appealing. Neither was just coffee.

“Yeah, they do stupid shit like that. You’re pretty much one step away from being shunned. Trust me, I know.”

“Do I want to ask how?”

“You can – just give me a sec.”

Fishing through my purse – it was small, there was not much to fish through, I pulled out my wallet. Fast-food it was. A few minutes later, I sat back down again, food in front of me.

“So how exactly do you know the workings so well?” he asked with a grin.

I only answered after swallowing a mouthful of scalding-hot fries, wincing. “For some reason, Carly thought I was popular when I moved here. Don’t ask me why, but she did, so I hung out with them like you did. I was pretty down at the time, okay? Just happy to be around people again; they distracted me. Well, that lasted three weeks, a month tops, when I said something nice about Shelby. They put me on ‘probation’, which meant—” I scarfed down another handful; they were piping hot, but good, “—‘keeping an eye on me’ to ensure I wasn’t around Shelby.”

“How’d you get kicked out?”

“Went to her place for something not strictly school-related,” I said with a grin.

“Huh. That’s crazy,” he said. “They should’ve kicked me out already.”

“They’re more forgiving towards guys, I think. Then again, most guys generally want to stay with their clique anyway. The guys tend to date the girls.”

“That...sounds kind of creepy.”

“It is, but it’s a great judge of character.”

I felt like a pig as I ate – I offered Eric some fries, he declined – but I felt better once I was finished. Almost like I could walk the distance back home without my legs giving out on me.

“Is there anything to this mall?”

“Not really, just these few stores.”

“We could walk more,” Eric suggested. “I was going to go home but I’d rather hang out.”

“Same here,” I said. “It’s boring at home.”

We wound up taking the bus more than we walked – “he only let me use his car for the one night,” he explained – and after a while, we wound up by the school. I arched an eyebrow.

“We should be avoiding this place.”

“All we have to do is keep walking.”

So we did, around the track field towards the back parking lot. We walked by the portables, looking very dark with no one in them, through the parking lot, and out onto a residential street I hadn’t been on before. The houses were, on the whole, small. I glanced at him.

“Want to keep going?”

“Why not?” he said. “I’ve got nothing else to do.”

The street name, as the sign at the corner pointed out, was Windermere Drive, and it intersected with Queen’s Avenue, a street I did recognise. I passed by it on my way to the Salucci house, although the street was long. I had never been down this end before.

“I just realised I live closer to the school than I thought,” I said as we walked.

“How so?”

“My singing instructor lives near this road...and I can walk to their place no sweat, and I can walk to school from here no sweat, so obviously it’s not that long from my house to the school.”

“Huh,” he said. We kept walking.

Two more corners later (Fairview Street and Chapel Street) we came across a house, slightly bigger than the rest, and closer to the commercial area of town. It was obviously a converted house, for the exterior looked old fashioned, but there was a hand-painted wooden sign out front, hanging from a post.

I squinted. “What’s that say?”

Eric did not squint. “’I Dream of Selene – metaphysical book store and gift shop’.”

“Never heard of it.”

“Sounds like it’ll be a bunch of candles and some weird books,” Eric said as we drew nearer to it. A truck was parked by the road, and two men were carrying boxes to the house. We finally came level, moving to pass by the house – we had no interest, or at least I didn’t, and if Eric did he wasn’t showing it – when he stumbled, and then I stumbled, grabbing onto the signpost for support as he landed hard – there was a crash, and it seemed the delivery man had walked into Eric and dropped his box – or possibly we had walked into them, but I hadn’t noticed anything off. Eric stood quickly, brushing dead leaves off him.

“Hey, sorry about that,” he said, trying to patch things up. “Here, let me help you with that.”

“No point now,” the man snapped, snatching the box from him and peering inside. He groaned. “Glass baubles – broken.”

There was a small commotion then; the door to the house banged shut, and a woman strode out, wearing only a sweater and some jeans. Her hair was as red as Shelby’s, the sun making coppery highlights in it...all of it, for it reached very nearly to her waist, and was worn mostly down, falling free around her.

“What’s going on here, hon?” She had a thick Southern drawl. And, by some horrible law of the universe, she reached me first.

“One of the men walked into us by accident,” I said, glancing at her. The look on her face was similar to the one my mother got when she was unhappy with me, so I knew, instinctively, that this wasn’t going to be good.

“We’re sorry,” Eric added. This did nothing.

“’Sorry’ ain’t gonna replace that shipment of ornaments, hon,” she drawled, her nostrils flaring. “You two should watch where you’re going.”

One of the men said something to her in a language I didn’t understand. She replied back in the same tongue before glancing back at me.

“I ain’t gonna get mad at them over an accident,” she said, seemingly to the man. “I am gonna get mad if they’re just gonna stand there. I’ve had ‘nuff of those little bastards coming here and puttin’ rocks through my windows. I take it you go to the school just ‘round the corner?”

“Yeah,” Eric said, seeming confused. “Listen, we’re sorry – if there’s anything we can do”—

“I s’pose you can help carry the rest of it inside,” the woman sighed. She still looked angry. “I’m tired of those shit-for-brains kiddies wrecking my store, and they all seem to come from that school. They’re all old enough to know better.”

Normally I would have been a little irked to be volunteered for something without volunteering myself, but I had been with him, and so it was only right...I checked the truck to see a number of similar-looking boxes stacked there. I tugged on the first one – too heavy for my tastes. I went on through the truck until I found one I could carry up to the store, and Eric followed.

“Now you can tell your grandpa you did something,” I joked to Eric as we walked up the sidewalk. “Maybe that’ll get him off your back.”

“I can hope,” he said.

“What’s your names?” the woman asked, calmer now. “I can’t keep mentally callin’ you Romeo and Juliet.”

Romeo and Juliet? I tried not to look surprised; it was a guy and a girl alone together. It was bound to look like something it wasn’t. “Christine Schumacher.”

“Sounds German,” she commented.

“It is.”

“Eric Dessler.”

“Dessler? I’ve heard that name before.”

“It’s very common.”

There was a pause. “Ruth Kendrick. Put the boxes down by the counter; Konnie ‘n the boys’ll take care of ‘em.”

Judging by the sign, I had expected New Age-y type music playing and stuff like tarot cards and crystal balls for sale. But when I entered the living-room-turned-store, what I saw were shelves upon shelves of various knickknacks, ranging from very standard jewellery to clothing to more mystical stuff like crystal balls and odd little figurines. Country music was blaring on the radio, and various pictures adorned the pale yellow walls, none of them especially New Age-y; mostly watercolours. It was like the shop couldn’t decide exactly what it wanted to be.

I also noticed the mirrors; there were more than was strictly necessary, and I saw myself, cheeks flushed from the cold and holding the same cardboard box, over and over. Big ones, small ones, decorative ones...they were all over, positioned randomly on the walls and shelves. Ruth should have just mirrored the walls and be done with it; it would have saved her time and space. Amongst the clutter, there was a counter there, plain and utilitarian, and I set the box down next to it.

“Don’t just stand there gawking at yourself, hon; go and get another box.”

I did so. With four people doing the work, it went by faster, and soon the stack of boxes grew. Ruth oversaw us with no degree of impatience. But finally, it seemed to be done; the two men said something to Ruth in that strange tongue and went to leave, shuffling down the sidewalk to head back to their truck. Eric and I still stood there, awkwardly. I didn’t know if she wanted anything else out of us or if she was willing to let us leave...

A book was on the floor. I didn’t know if it had been dropped while we were moving things in, but I went over there, the floor creaking, and picked it up. It looked very old, the pages yellowed and the leather-bound cover worn; it looked like it was ready to fall apart. I hissed as one of my fingers slid against the paper the wrong way; apparently it was still in good enough condition to give me a paper cut. Pulling my finger away, I saw the tiniest bit of blood trickling out, a reddish smear against my skin.

“Paper cut,” I said to Eric, who was looking at me.

“Don’t you go bleedin’ on my books now, hon,” Ruth muttered, scanning the boxes’ labels, “Only three boxes? Coulda swore I ordered more than that...”

“Hey, where does this go? It fell on the floor.”

She turned to glance at the book in my hand. “Uh...huh. Don’t think I’ve seen that before. Put it up here with the others; I’ll get to it.”

I delicately set the book down on top of the nearest box; there were marks in the dust where my fingers had been.

“I s’pose you two can be headin’ on out now, if you could just get the boys over here before you go...”

“Er, those two men left,” I said. “I don’t see a truck outside anymore.”

Ruth swore. She then looked out the large front window, like I would lie to her, and swore again. I glanced at Eric. What were we to do now?

“Do you...need help?” Eric offered. He glanced at me, seeming to ask my approval. I shrugged in response; it was not what I would usually do, but we were already there. I had nothing better to do, and he seemed to like helping people. Good for him.

Ruth arched an eyebrow at that last one. “When I was your age – Good God – I was goin’ on dates and parties, not helpin’ weird ladies with their inventory.”

“We’re already here,” Eric said.

“Got nothing better to do,” I admitted.

Ruth seemed to weigh the options. “All right, but don’t you try and pocket anything. You said your name was ‘Dessler’? You come on back here and help with the books; Konnie’ll help Juliet there with the lighter items. Konnie!”

As Eric and Ruth disappeared into a second room, carrying boxes of books, there was a creak of wood and another woman came into view. I gaped. If it wasn’t the fact that she was covered head to toe in blue tribal tattoos, then it was the distinctly purple-tinted skin that drew attention. Or maybe it was the fact that, despite a generally billowy shirt, there was no mistaking that she was pregnant – but to think of it, that was just the cherry on the sundae of bizarre. This girl, Konnie – she was attention-getting all by herself.

She also did not look happy, and I quickly averted my gaze. She muttered something in a language I didn’t understand.

“Aw, don’t mind Konnie,” Ruth said from the other room, as if she could sense what I was thinking. “She’s harmless. Konnie, help her put the clothes and jewellery in the right spots.”

She glared at me, her eyes ice-blue, as she walked over.

“Are you new?” she said, her voice heavily accented. I couldn’t recognise it.

“Er, no, we’re just helping out for the day.” It sounded lame. She muttered something to herself in that same unknown language, before promptly picking up the first box and opening it; several small boxes were inside.

“Jewellery go there, there, and there,” she grunted, gesturing to the appropriate shelves. “Ruth like expensive things on high shelves. Harder to steal.”

“This store gets robbed a lot?” I asked delicately.

She grunted, which I took to be a ‘yes’. “Stupid-uniform students come here lots. Take things just to see our reaction.”

I decided it would be best not to tell her I was also one of those ‘stupid-uniform students’; she and Ruth seemed to have a great dislike of them.

We spent most of the time in silence, Konnie only speaking whenever she needed to tell me where to go, and I got the distinct impression she found this a hassle more than anything else. When the entire inventory was gone from the boxes, she seemed relieved, taking a post at the counter and flicking on the small television that rested there. Obviously the place was never really busy if they could get away with that sort of thing.

“Where are the books kept?” I asked her. She glanced up, gestured to the next room, and went back to the television.

“If not there, check room beyond. Has yellow walls like this.”

The next room, although filled with bookshelves and crammed with books and a small couch on which to read them, did not have Ruth or Eric. I glanced at a clock on the wall, nestled between two mirrors – it was a quarter past three, and I’m sure we had long since worn out our welcome. I glanced around for a second doorway, and saw it, barely visible through the line of bookcases. It was oak, and very heavy. I eased it open.

There was no one in that room either, just more of the same – bookcases, but no couch. The room wasn’t big enough for that. There were some boxes there, all of them opened. Where on earth had they disappeared to? This was not a big house, and the floors pretty much creaked with every step. I was getting tired of listening to country music by this point, and I was sure he was too...

Backing out of that room, the door shutting behind me, I went back to the main room.

“Would you know where your boss went?”

“If she not in book room, upstairs. You not allowed upstairs. Living area.”

“I’m just looking for someone I came in with,” I said.

“You not allowed upstairs,” she repeated, an edge to her voice. Maybe it was her appearance, but I felt just a little wary of her – she looked like she could mop the floor with me without even trying, although that wasn’t hard – so I backed off. She was focused on switching channels, so maybe I could just...slip over to the edge of the stairway and see what was up – that seemed like a good plan. Moving slowly, I went to where I had seen her come in, coming across a large wooden door. One end was ajar, and it was there I could see the stairwell. It was odd that it was closed off, but perhaps, I reasoned, it was for privacy.

The door made no sound as I eased it open. The stairwell was generally dim, lit mostly by a single window at the top of the stairs, before it branched off into the second storey of the house. This area of the house – hell, even just the stairs – seemed to be no less different than the rest of the store; mirrors and portraits of people I didn’t know lined the walls, although it was painted a much darker, bolder colour.

Upstairs I heard a loud crash, and Eric’s voice saying “Oh, shit!”

“’Oh shit’ is right, hon!” Ruth’s voice said, clearly angry.

“I swear to God it slipped—”

“You gonna pay me the three-hundred bucks for a new one?”

“I don’t have that kind of money!”

“Then you’d damn better be willing to work it off, ‘cause I ain’t bein’ so forgivin’ with this!”

“Is everything okay up there?” I called. My voice echoed a little in the enclosed space.

“No, everything is not fine,” Ruth said. “Go back to helpin’ Konnie.”

“We’re finished that.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. We finished a little while ago. Do you need help?”

“Grab the first-aid kit under the counter; Romeo here’s bleedin’ pretty bad.”

Konnie seemed surprised as I made a grab for it, but I darted out of her grasp and was up the stairs with it before she got too far. I didn’t see if she was following, but judging by the sounds, she wasn’t.

“In here,” Ruth said somewhere to my left.

It was apparent that, with the downstairs renovated, the upstairs was also renovated to be a living space in itself; to my right was a nice living room, obviously well-used, and to my left was a kitchen and dining area. Amidst the kitschy country decorations, Ruth and Eric were there; his hands looked all cut-up, even with Ruth pressing a dish-towel into his hands. On the floor were the shards of something glassy.

“Set it down on the table and don’t come any further; I don’t need you gettin’ cut too.”

“What happened?”

“She offered me a glass of water, and as I turned I knocked something off the edge of the counter. A little statue or something like that.”

“So why are you bleeding?”

Eric winced as Ruth began applying bandages. “I tried to catch it.”

“And starting now he’s workin’ it off,” Ruth said; I saw Eric wince as she pulled a bandage tight. “I suggest you go on home, hon. He won’t be leavin’ soon, not until I can get a hold of someone.”

“Yeah,” Eric said. “I can take care of myself.”

He tried to put on a mock-brave face, but as it was trying to hide real pain, it wasn’t working out too well. Should I just leave him there?

“I can wait,” I said.

“No, hon. Go home.”

Everything suggested that it was time to leave, and yet I only did so reluctantly, feeling awkward to be leaving while he stayed. Heading back out the corridor, and then down the stairs, I wondered who in their right mind left a three-hundred dollar figurine on the edge of their kitchen counter? An accident like that was bound to happen sooner or later. I tried to push open the heavy door; it wasn’t budging. (But it had opened fine earlier – maybe it was just finicky). With a grunt, I threw my weight into it – the doors at school were tricky like this too, one had to push real hard even to made a wedge large enough to slip through.

I overcompensated. The door swung open too quickly, and I lost my grip on it; it slammed into the adjoining wall with a crunch before swinging back while I desperately grabbed at the handle. Oh God. Had I been so stupid as to break something too? Mama was going to be livid—

There was a second crash as the mirror frame, which had been hanging on the wall above a decorative little table, fell off the wall, struck the glass bowl filled with decorative rocks, and the whole thing fell to the floor, little shards glinting in the light.

How could I have been so insanely stupid? I’ve done stupid things before, yes, but nothing on that scale, and certainly nothing on private property. Mama was going to be beyond livid.

“What the hell is goin’ on down there?” Ruth called. I heard the floor creak, several times, before Ruth came into view, her brow furrowed and nostrils flared, looking too much like my mother for my comfort. And, like I was on the rare occasions when I got into serious trouble with her, I was generally quiet, except for one word that nicely summed up the situation.

“Shit.”

“Damn right, hon.”