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Celestial Souls , Book I: Christine
Chapter Six: Halloween

“What the hell was that?” I demanded on the phone that evening.

“I’ve no idea! One minute they’re all yelling at each other in that weird language and next they say they’re going to fu—hang on...”

There was a pause, and after a long moment Eric came back on the phone.

“Sorry, Nana was in the room. I don’t want to worry her,” he said, his voice much calmer than before, “Yeah, they said they were going to arrest me. For what? I don’t know. This was extreme, even for them.”

“And I got locked upstairs,” I said.

“Yeah, there’s no way that was accidental,” he said. “That lock only locks with a key, and she had it. She didn’t want you seeing anything.”

“I could hear damn well.”

“Yeah, I know. I think you saved me back there; if you hadn’t shown up I don’t want to know what they were going to do.”

“You should call the police,” I suggested. I didn’t like talking that way about Ruth, but considering what he had apparently gone through it seemed like the only reasonable option. I didn’t know what the cops could do, precisely, but they could probably do much more than either of us could.

“I don’t know what I’d say,” he said. “That these three people cornered me in a back room and said they were going to arrest me for some crime I never committed?”

(“What’s that?” I heard a man in the background say. “Who’s arresting you?”

“Nothing. Pop, it’s nothing!”

“Doesn’t sound like nothing.”)

“They threatened you; I’m sure that could do something for your case—”

“Hang on, there’s two people talking at once—”

After a moment he seemed to finish debating with his grandfather. “Pop’s getting all angry, so I’d better go.”

“Okay,” I said. “Just...try and be careful.”

“Yeah,” he said, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

The last thing I heard, though, was not his ‘bye’, but his grandfather talking in the background: “You get off that phone and tell me what’s—”

There was a click, and then silence.

Everyone was becoming very excited at school, for the Halloween dance was that coming Friday. Tickets were still on sale, five dollars apiece, and every day at lunch the table was crowded with people still trying to get one.

“I’m going to go,” Shelby announced.

“You’ll be waiting there all period.”

“Nah, it’s okay. Shawn’s cousin is on the council, remember? I can just swipe a ticket and give him the five in exchange. Do you want one while I’m at it?”

I had agreed to go if she had. Fishing a crumpled five-dollar bill out of my wallet, I passed it to her.

“Sure, why not?”

“Great!” she said. “I’ll try and slip you your ticket after school. Oh, by the way – did you ask Eric yet?”

“Yeah. He’s going with Carly. ‘Parently she asked him the day it was announced.”

Several expressions flitted across her face, from shock to anger, and finally to utmost sympathy.

“You poor thing,” she said melodramatically. “We’ll have to get ice cream for this.”

“In October?”

“Yeah, I know cookies would be more appropriate, but when was the last time you ever saw my mom bake anything? Exactly.”

As she limped off to swipe her tickets, I sat there on the bench, waiting. Too focused on the mob at the student council table to notice anything else (how did Shelby get around it without falling? I really couldn’t understand how; people were practically tripping over each other just to get a stupid little piece of paper), I jumped when I heard a voice next to me.

“Hey,” Eric said. “Listen, my Pop...well, he managed to find out part of what happened. He’s furious.”

“What’s he going to do?”

“Don’t know. All he said was that he was gonna go down there and given them a piece of his mind.”

Considering how they had talked to Eric, I wasn’t sure this was going to do what Mr. Dessler hoped – it could make it worse. But what did I know? I had never met Mr. Dessler, and what little I knew of him was from Eric and the snatches of conversations heard over the phone. He could be a very persuasive man for all I knew.

“You think that’ll do anything?”

“I don’t know. Really, I don’t.”

“I just wish I knew why.”

I frowned at that last statement. Things were going fine until that incident had happened, and now I was frantically re-evaluating everything I knew about Ruth, which wasn’t much. She liked country music, the colour yellow, and her decorative preferences were mirrors and a country-kitsch. Normal enough. She, her husband, and Konstancja all spoke some weird language that I had never heard before, and did so frequently.

“I mean, it makes no sense,” I continued. “They treat me just fine – even nicely – but you might as well be Hitler reborn by the sounds of it. And then yesterday, I was locked upstairs while you were...”

“Cornered in a back room,” Eric said. “I think that’s where she holds pottery lessons; there was a kiln there and a bunch of little painted pots were on shelves. It’s a big enough room, but they’d blocked me into a corner, literally.”

“And they’re all yelling at each other in some language I can’t understand – do you know what it is?”

He snorted. “Which one? I’ve heard them speak at least two.”

“Two? I only ever heard one – lots of rolled rs and it kinda sounds like they’re speaking in sing-song.”

“No idea,” he said unhelpfully. “She and the weird girl talk another language sometimes when they think I can’t hear – I get the idea she doesn’t speak it as well because she stumbles over her words a lot, but the tattoo girl must be fluent – she keeps correcting her. It’s a bit harder-sounding than the other one; more ‘k’ and ‘g’ sounds, but kinda similar.”

I blinked. I had never heard a language that sounded like sing-song, but I was sort of familiar with languages that sounded harsh.

“Did it sound anything like this?” I said. I didn’t quite know what to say in German, and just rattled off the first thing that came to mind – ‘All this for a dance. And you! I can’t believe you’d agree to go with her after the way she’s treated you.’ (That last part was part purposeful, part accidental, but as I never mentioned a name, and he didn’t know German, I could get away with it.)

He shook his head. “It doesn’t sound anything like that. Is that German?”

“Yeah. I just thought it could be something I knew.”

“Nah, it seems like we’re both in the dark. Maybe Pop’ll be able to do something, but I doubt it.”

“And I have to work tonight,” I groaned. Ruth was not stupid; she was bound to figure out that I had probably heard more than she intended – after all, she was the one who had kept shushing them. I didn’t want to be subject to the same scrutiny as Eric, and I more than likely would be.

“You shouldn’t go,” Eric said seriously. “Call in sick or whatever you have to do. They’ll probably watch you like a hawk at best, and no one should have to go through that just because someone else hates me.”

“Try and explain that to my mother,” I said dryly. “I don’t go and she’ll get mad. I tell her why I don’t go and it’ll be even worse. You might be able to put up with your grandfather getting pissed, but my mother getting pissed is a state I want to avoid.”

“I can imagine,” he said; judging by the look on his face it had slipped out without thinking. “I mean, er...”

“That’s okay. She’s kinda harsh even when she’s happy.”

Eric shook his head. “Man. Not even here a month and already things are messed up. Well, I’d better go – Carly’s looking for me, and you probably know how she’d get if she couldn’t find me. Carly being mad is a state I want to avoid,” he said with a weak grin. “See you later.”

The bell rang just as Shelby limped back to where I was, two small pieces of bright orange paper in her hands. She shoved one into my hand as I rushed to my locker for Gym; I pocketed it without a second thought as we said our goodbyes.

We were still in the classroom for Gym, so even though we were forced to get up and change, it was all for nothing as we headed to the nearest free classroom – one of the Science rooms, as the room was lined with sinks and cabinets containing various equipment. The next hour was spent scribbling notes, and I could have swore I felt eyes on the back of my head more than once. I knew, by sheer unfortunate luck, that it was Carly behind me – for some reason, Sarge Burns insisted upon seating us by height, with the shortest ones in front row and the taller ones in back – but what was she so pissed about? She hadn’t known Eric and I had talked at lunch; she hadn’t known of the other times we’d talked, so why was she getting so mad?

I chanced a glance back towards her only once, when Sarge had turned to scrawl something on the blackboard; she gave me a sweetly insincere smile before I turned back to my work. Who knew with her? I could be anything to set her off.

While Music went by as it usually did – play all at once, then separate sections; the flutes warbled through the music and for some reason I couldn’t get my notes to flow smoothly into one another, they were being pounded out in a very staccato fashion – I felt a sort of anxiety coming over me. It had mostly disappeared in Gym, but now was coming back full force as the lesson ticked onward, distracting me. It was only when the bell rang that I felt a feeling of resignation wash over me – I was going to go whether I liked it or not, and hopefully it wasn’t going to be that bad.

Hopefully.

I noticed the dance ticket as soon as I’d locked myself in a washroom stall to change; slightly crumpled from the haphazard way I’d crammed it in there. Harvest Moon Dance, it read. Friday, October twenty-ninth, seven to eleven at night. Wear a costume!!! This last bit had a footnote of no masks or any other facial covering allowed. You could be sure I wasn’t wearing a costume. Trick or treating had definitely died out the minute we moved here.

It was unusually cold that day, and even though I was bundled up in my usual camouflage jacket, I still shivered. The store came into view quicker than I had expected, the bright colours of the sign acting as a kind of beacon. It was only three hours, I tried to reassure myself. They couldn’t do that much in only three hours.

The bells jingled as I opened the door and stepped inside, feeling the house’s warmth immediately. Konstancja was at the counter, as was usual, crocheting a lacy collar to a tiny pinkish sweater. She glanced up as I entered, offered me a ‘hello’, and then went back to her work. I didn’t see Ruth anywhere.

“What’re you making?” I said, trying to be pleasant. I slipped off my coat.

“Sweater,” she said, not taking her eyes off her work. “Going to have baby in winter; it needs warmth.” (From that vantage I could see there was lace not only on the collar but at the sleeves too; it was rather elaborate for a sweater.)

“Do you know what you’re gonna have?” I said. This was more conversation than we usually had; I figured maybe if I sucked up to them, they might not be as harsh as I thought they’d be. I could have been wrong, but considering yesterday’s frantic conversations, I wasn’t willing to take chances.

“No,” she said, and her tone suggested this was a stupid question. “No one knows until baby is born.” She paused. “I did try reading my fortune. It said girl.”

That explained the pink.

“I’m sure if you went for an ultrasound they could tell you,” I said. She snorted.

“Definitely not. I do not want baby to be deaf.”

“You don’t actually hear anything.”

“Maybe not, but what does child hear? Besides,” she said, working the hook, “you never know what those big machines do to you.”

It was best if I gave up on that train of thought.

“Have you picked a name yet?”

She shook her head. “No. You pick name when baby is born.”

I had no idea where she was getting these ideas, but it was probably from the same place where she learned these bizarre languages, so I decided to let it slide for the time being.

“That’s a nice colour. I’m sure it’ll look pretty on a little girl.”

She made a noise that sounded like ‘huh’. “More suited for boy, really – red is strong colour. But I am fine with raising a boyish girl. Good for women to learn manly things. It helps when men are few.”

“Did you ever learn stuff like that?”

“Yes,” she said simply, and didn’t appear to want to talk much further. “Listen, if you are looking for Ruth, she is in back with customer. You can put coat behind counter until she comes. She said you were to help her stock more items today.”

It didn’t take long for her to come back, accompanied by a dark-skinned woman, her black hair done up very fancily. They were chatting pleasantly, and I struggled to listen. Maybe this was the ‘harsh’ language Eric had mentioned.

To say I could make no sense of it was an understatement. There was maybe one word which I guessed was a name, but the rest was gibberish. It was very staccato and harsh sounding, but Ruth seemed to display fluency in it; she didn’t sound like she was having difficulty pronouncing things at all. Konstancja glanced up and half rolled her eyes.

“Show off,” she muttered, setting the sweater aside and gesturing I should move.

“Do...you know what she’s saying?”

“No,” she said simply. “She speaks awful foreign tongue. I do not know it.”

(So, assuming she was not lying, that brought the bizarre language count to three. If I counted English amongst these languages, that meant she was trilingual, and working on becoming fluent in four languages. Good God. I could handle German because my mother spoke it constantly, and English because everyone else spoke it constantly, but that was it. There was a reason my French marks were always barely passable.)

Ruth caught my eye. Her smile faltered for a moment. But then she, and her companion, switched to the sing-song language so Konstancja could ring up her purchase. It appeared to be one of the older books.

As she moved for the door, the woman said something offhand in that sing-songy language, seemingly directed at me, and (judging only by tone) was meant to be polite.

“I’m sorry?” I said, “I didn’t catch that.”

“Oh, you don’t speak...” the woman said, her voice heavily accented – it sounded different from Theophanes’, “I’m sorry. I thought you did.”

“I don’t. Sorry,” I said, feeling sorry that I didn’t know what everyone was saying. Even my mother had enough courtesy to speak in English whenever I had someone over; I was feeling alienated by all the gibberish.

“Well – good day!” she said, the wind catching the bells as she opened the door, causing them to jangle loudly before the door slammed shut. I was left alone with the two of them.

“We’re stocking more inventory today, hon,” Ruth said pleasantly. “I’ve got it tucked away in the back.”

And so, against my better judgement, I followed Ruth into the back – which, as Eric had noted, had to have been the place where she let little kids make malformed bits of pottery every Saturday. A large kiln was near the back of the room, which went out to the backyard; brightly-painted wooden shelves were everywhere, housing small ceramic containers, painted in a variety of colours. Several tables and chairs were also there for people to sit at, and it was on those tables and chairs that the boxes were placed, carefully labelled, and thankfully in English.

“Now you don’t look like you can lift anything heavier than a cup of coffee so I’ll let you take the lighter ones,” she said, pointing them out. “Those three there have clothing in ‘em; they’re not that heavy. That box on your right has glass, so I’ll get that.”

Things seemed to be going fairly smoothly as I carried the lighter boxes out front to the appropriate sections, and began to unload them – perhaps I was being stupid after all. The situation with Eric was worrisome, but that was something I couldn’t deal with. Besides, as much as I wanted to confront Ruth about the day before, where would that lead to?

“Konnie, help her with the clothes,” Ruth said. “I’ve got someone over, hon, and I’d better go check on ‘em.”

“Shirts go on shelf to your left,” Konnie said, looking up only briefly. “Long-sleeves to right of those, and skirts below.”

It was while I was trying to fold the billowy, lightweight skirts into a decent shape did Ruth come down again, accompanied by Serena, who looked unusually pale in the light. It didn’t help that she was wearing a cream-coloured shirt; it just seemed to make her look ever more ghostly. Ruth was pale too, but her bright clothing made her look healthy in comparison.

“This is Serena Reine – oh, what am I introducin’ you two for? You’ve met already,” Ruth said. After a pause, which struck me as her wanting to say something, she added, “She’s a friend of ours.”

“Hello,” I said, still holding a paisley-patterned skirt in my hands. She offered her own greeting. I turned to go back to folding, but the creak of the floorboards alerted me to Ruth coming over. At the counter, Konstancja watched the scene with apparent disinterest, her hands rhythmically moving about the crochet hook as she worked.

Ruth was suddenly looming over me, gesturing I should stand. I did, slowly, setting the skirt aside. Ruth did not seem to mind; she was looking at me with some degree of...wariness? Here it was, I thought, here was the tongue-lashing – or worse – I’d been dreading.

“We’d like to talk to you ‘bout yesterday,” Ruth said, her voice very calm despite her look. “Never mind those; I’ll get to ‘em.”

I didn’t quite know what to say – what I should say, to be fair; what I wanted to say probably wouldn’t help the situation. I’d suffered backlash before from saying what I wanted to say, and I didn’t want any more backlash. Thankfully, Serena piped up before I could even open my mouth and possibly embarrass myself:

“That man that was here yesterday,” Serena said calmly, “do you know him?”

It took a moment for my brain to process what she had said: “Eric?”

“Yes, him.”

The question seemed innocent enough: “Yeah, a little bit. He came to my school little over a month ago.”

But I must have subconsciously made a face, because she looked more than a little displeased; her mouth was pressed into a line. It was a moment before she recomposed herself and spoke again.

“Do you know where he lives?”

“Nope,” I said. “Never been to his place.”

“Do you even know what street he’s on?”

Sure enough, my mouth worked faster than my brain telling me to keep quiet: “I don’t see why that’s any of your business.”

“It certainly is my business,” she said. Behind her, Ruth was eyeing me. Instinct would have told me to be evasive, pretend I didn’t know much of anything, and hopefully they would leave me alone. But all the worries and bizarre things that were in my head seemed to be coming back full-force now. I didn’t want to be short with Ruth, as she had been incredibly nice so far – and in reality, this wasn’t any of my business. But then she had apparently locked me upstairs and said some very serious things, and for some reason I felt like I was involved now – not in the way Eric was involved, directly, but involved simply because I’d overheard a few things, and that was a few things too many.

“How so?” I said.

Instinct was taking a back seat right now.

“How is nothing you need to concern yourself with. My superiors have instructed me to find him, so that’s what I am going to do.”

“The last I checked, you were a student nurse,” I said. “I can’t see why doctors would need to find Eric.”

“I have more than one job,” she said, not sounding annoyed in the slightest. “The nursing thing is meant to pay the bills right now, and doesn’t have anything to do with this.”

“Okay, fine,” I said. “I still don’t see why you need to know – and if you need it so badly, why not ask Ms. Kendrick? She’s called his house; I’m sure she knows where he lives.”

“I don’t know his address – and before you even say it, no, they ain’t in the phone book yet.”

“I don’t know either,” I said.

“The r—” Serena started, but was quickly cut off by Ruth:

“You ain’t in trouble, hon,” Ruth said, “We just need to know so we can ask him a few questions. Best if they’re asked in person.”

A mental dam burst in my mind all of a sudden, and I found myself blurting out: “Listen, I don’t know what kinda questions you’re planning on asking him, but holy shit, I think you’re taking things a shit-ton too far. I won’t pretend to know exactly what happened yesterday, but I did hear the word ‘arrest’ tossed out a couple of times, and I don’t know what you’re planning, but I think it’s stupid and dangerous and cruel. What’s he done to you to make him deserve that?”

“If you don’t know what you’re talking about, then maybe, just maybe, you shouldn’t be talking about it,” Serena said coolly.

“Was I talking to you?” I said, in a tone that was often reserved for my brother. “I don’t know why everyone in this place seems to be demonising him, but I think it’s ridiculous. I didn’t want to believe him, but whatever happened yesterday makes me think he might just be right.”

At the counter, Konstancja started chuckling; a low, throaty laugh that she made no attempt to hide.

“‘Whatever happened yesterday’ ain’t none of your business, hon, and I ain’t about to involve you, either,” Ruth said.

“I’m already kinda involved,” I said. “I heard what happened.”

“Unless you’re fluent in several difficult languages, I don’t think you did,” Ruth said calmly. “All right then. Serena, lay off. She ain’t telling us nothing right now.”

“I don’t know what you think is going on,” Serena said, even with a warning glare from Ruth, “but I’m trying to help you.”

Konstancja was still chuckling; Serena shot her a nasty look, which only made her laugh even harder. She said something in one of the many odd languages floating around; Serena frowned – my guess was that she didn’t understand what was being said – but quickly turned into a very irritated look. The implications were clear.

“What I think is going on is that you’re harassing someone for absolutely no reason, and doing it so much I’d be surprised if the cops weren’t involved.”

“All right,” Ruth said sharply. “Enough. We’ll drop it for now.”

It seemed wrong to drop it just like that, as I still had a lot in my head wanting to get out – but Ruth would have none of it, briskly whisking Serena back upstairs before coming back down again, taking my place at the shelf to fold the skirts. For the rest of the time I was shunted over to arranging the jewellery the next shelf over. Ruth did not talk much during this whole task; she folded the skirts quickly before heading back upstairs.

Some time later – I glanced at the clock; it read a quarter to five – I heard a car pull into the driveway. Konstancja glanced up, waiting to see the customer. It took the both of us a moment to realise they weren’t coming in, or if they were, they weren’t using the front door. There were some noises upstairs, though, so perhaps this person was using the side-door. I suddenly remembered what Eric had said earlier – his grandfather was going to give them a piece of his mind. Straining to hear what was happening a floor above, I was frustrated when all I heard were low mumbles. Couldn’t even make out a word. There was no raising of voices, or foot stomping, or anything angry, and about fifteen minutes later the same car pulled out of the driveway.

I felt disappointed, somehow.

Theophanes came in around half-past five, greeted me lightly – obviously he hadn’t been told about what had happened earlier, which I considered a bit of a relief for now. He paused, his eyes lingering on the small candy bowl by the counter, then, with the distinctive crinkling noise, he swiped a little chocolate bar. He passed me on the way to the back, and I saw him discreetly slip it in his pocket.

Not long after that I could hear them talking – all of them, at once, in that same sing-song language. It sounded like people trying to sing in a round and failing horribly; when spoken in a group it sounded much less melodious. They were all going at it rather loudly, and judging by Ruth’s voice getting louder, she was either coming down the stairs or getting really mad. Konstancja, glanced towards the door, looking irked. She wasn’t the only one feeling irked; I was getting pretty damn sick of being in the dark like this.

“Do you have any idea what they’re saying?” I said, almost desperate.

“Only if they slow down. I barely understand,” she grunted.

They did not seem to show any signs of slowing down; Ruth burst in a second later and said something to Konstancja, who gladly left her post. Ruth took up the counter.

“Bit of a fight?” I said, trying to keep my voice pleasant. Maybe I could ply it out of her.

“Just a bit,” she said. “Nothin’ concerning you.”

For some reason I didn’t believe her.

“You seem to speak a lot of languages,” I said.

“My Mam drilled it into me as a kid,” she said lightly.

“What is it?”

She waved a hand, as if dismissing my question. “Nothin’ you’ve probably heard of. Esperanto. She was big into those universal languages when I was a kid.”

She was right in that fact; I had never heard of Esperanto, but I made a mental note of the name. I would have to look it up later, after dinner. Maybe I could pick up some vocabulary – I didn’t expect fluency, but even the gist of what was going on would be better than complete ignorance.

“What’s wrong?” Mama said as I slid into the passenger seat.

“Nothing.”

“It doesn’t look like nothing.”

I tried to wave my concerns away like Ruth did. It didn’t work. “Just...stuff going on at work. She’s cracking down.”

“On what?”

“Dunno,” I lied. I felt bad about lying, but better to lie and keep her happy than to tell the truth and open up far more questions than answers. It was bad, I knew. A part of me even thought that if I did tell her, she’d be able to pry answers out of them far better than I could. But there was the other part that said she didn’t need to get wrapped up in this.

She glanced at me, but didn’t press the subject. Hopefully my lie had worked.

She had given me too much food for dinner, again. I tried scarfing it down as quickly as I could, intent on getting to the computer before Thom.

“Are you trying to make yourself choke?” Mama said. “Slow down!”

In the end I did get to the computer before him, but he wasn’t interested in using it anyway, so I had bought myself some time. I tried to recall the name – Esperanto. Feeling hesitant, I typed the name out, guessing on the spelling, into the search box. I hit ‘enter’. Several sites popped up, so apparently my spelling was correct; the first one was the most informative, it being a site dedicated to teaching yourself Esperanto and a history of the language.

Stumbling around the site, I eventually came across pronunciation guides, texts written in the language, and a dictionary. Good. This was objective stuff, stuff that clearly existed long before Ruth had been around, stuff she obviously wasn’t making up. Maybe she hadn’t been lying – evasive, but not lying.

I continued thinking such optimistic thoughts until I clicked on a sample sentence to hear how it was pronounced – it came out to nothing more complicated than ‘the small brown dog jumped over the furry fox’, but I was more interested in the sound of the piece, whether or not it had that lyrical, sing-song quality that Ruth’s language did. I popped in my headphones into the jack before it loaded. I even closed my eyes so I could properly process it without distraction, like I did with music.

It didn’t sound remotely the same. I swore out loud. I clicked on another sample, and another, until I had exhausted their list. None of them were the same, none had that distinctive trill to the r, none had that odd inflection. The words sounded different. For some reason, some inexplicable reason, I was angry at this. What was so god-damned important that everyone in that store had to continually lie?

I went to bed angry, too. Wednesday came all too soon.

Shelby had brought a thick tube of pre-packaged cookie dough for me, saying that cookie dough was just as good as cookies for rejection, and I must have still been seething over the whole messed-up affair because she looked very sympathetic, patting my hand in a motherly way and saying I could have the whole tube of dough if I wanted. It took me a moment to realise she was talking about Eric and Carly and the dance, and not Ruth and Serena and their witch hunt.

Religion whirled by. As I stepped into History, I was greeted with Carly talking to Eric, suggesting last-minute costumes to wear for the dance. She was going as a vampire – probably one of those stupid, cheap ‘sexy fill-in-the-blank’ costumes – and I overheard her suggesting he go as a vampire too.

He shrugged. “I s’pose I can get some of those cheap plastic fangs.”

“What about the rest of the costume?”

“What’s wrong with just the fangs?”

Carly laughed. “When was the last time you saw a vampire in regular clothing? You should wear all black or something; that’d be good.”

He seemed to stiffen a little at the thought of wearing all black. For a brief moment my mind went back to the ‘parking lot incident’ – creepy guy in all black? Yeah, not a good idea to wear as a costume. At least not for me, and he seemed to be the same way.

“Are you going to wear a costume?” Shelby asked, apparently attempting to distract me. “I was gonna go as a fairy but I couldn’t find a good pair of wings; all the ones were way too small. I could always re-use last year’s costume but that would be stupid wearing the same thing two years running.”

“Nah, no costume,” I said. “I stopped doing that since we moved here.”

“Your family sounds like no fun,” Shelby said. “I mean, if I were in your place, I’d want to do fun stuff like that even more because I’d probably still be sad and doing stuff like that makes me happy. It’s too bad you’re so small; I could lend you that costume. You’re like the size I was when I was twelve, and I don’t have that costume anymore. I think I was a witch that year...?”

During lunch she offered me the cookie dough and a spoon. Although I wasn’t really that hungry, I did take it, and we wound up splitting the tube between us. It didn’t get my mind off the situation, and it didn’t really make me feel better, but Shelby was trying, and I couldn’t fault her for that. Shelby gave Carly a horribly nasty look as she walked by.

“It’s not your fault,” she said. “I should have guessed she would’ve snapped him up first chance she got.”

When I got home that day, Mama was there, raking leaves in the front yard. As soon as she saw he approaching, she quickly finished up, even though there were still some leaves left. Thom passed by to get into the house, looking unconcerned, but the way she was looking at me said I had something to worry about. Great. What now?

“How was school?” she said, making small talk as we headed for the house.

“It was school,” I said. “It was okay.”

Once we got inside, I quickly learned why she had been giving me that sharp look – it should have been obvious, what with Eric telling me what his grandfather was going to do and hearing someone the day before, but somehow it had slipped my mind in favour of other things.

“An Alexander Dessler called here earlier today,” she said calmly. “Said he was your friend’s grandfather? He had some very interesting things to say, and I don’t mean that in a good way.”

“What did he say?”

“He said his grandson was being unduly harassed at work and wanted to know if you were too. I told him no, but agreed to talk to you about it. Well, Chris? Are you?”

“No,” I said quickly. “Well – yesterday was a little tough, but it was nothing, I swear.”

My mother didn’t look convinced. I couldn’t blame her; I didn’t sound convinced myself. But, to be fair, what could I say that wouldn’t involve everything snowballing into something way out of proportion?

“And what happened yesterday?”

“Oh,” I said, trying to stall, “Ms. Kendrick wanted to know where Eric lived. I said I didn’t know. She was a little pushy about it but then she gave up on it.”

My mother was silent for a moment; I didn’t know what she was thinking but was willing to guess it was something along the lines of ‘and this is harassment how?’ After a moment she seemed to mentally come to a decision – she glanced back at me, rather than off in space as she usually did when thinking.

“And has she done anything to you specifically?”

“Well...”

“Don’t ‘well’ me, Chris. Did she or didn’t she?”

I uttered a little sigh. My mother frowned. “You know how I came home late on Monday? Eric asked if I would stop by the store for a minute, just so I could see how they were treating him. She took me upstairs – that’s where they live – because I thought I’d left something there on the weekend, and while I was up there, the door to downstairs was locked.”

“She locked you in there?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “It might just have been stuck. It’s a heavy door.”

“If someone harasses you, you tell someone. You don’t just shrug it off.”

“And if I were being harassed, I would. I don’t know what to do for Eric.”

“I’m sure his family can deal with that on their own; you should be worried about yourself.”

Her tone was strict, cool; the kind she used when she was trying to beat a lesson into my head. It usually worked; she didn’t need to yell or even raise her voice to get the point across. And right then and there, it was working just as she’d intended. I felt a twinge of guilt. Did I tell her about the odd languages, the glances here and there, or my own personal research that proved Ruth was lying?

No, I decided. That didn’t count as harassment – not if I didn’t understand what they were saying. Strange, for sure, suspicious – but not harassment.

“I am,” I said. “Really. Do you think I wouldn’t tell you if something were wrong?”

“I’d like to believe you would, but I can never be sure. You seem willing to take more crap than I would be.”

“I have limits,” I tried to assure her, “Trust me, the second anyone crosses the line, I will be furious.”

“You’d damn well better be. I can see you’re not going to tell me anything, so I’m not going to push further, but I will be keeping an eye out.”

“For what?” I said; it just seemed to slip out.

“For anything suspicious,” she said, “In case you were wondering, you don’t hide things well.”

Damn! She was right on the mark there. What kind of expression had I made that had given something away? Mama moved to head to the kitchen, the conversation essentially over at this point, but not without getting the last word:

“You know, I can always teach you to shoot,” she said half-jokingly, “Ideally I’d sign you up for self-defence classes,” her tone was serious there, “but teaching you myself is cheaper.”

“And what do you think is gonna happen?” I said, but I don’t think she heard me over the running water.

The next day at work, Serena was there again, talking to a very disdainful Konstancja at the counter. I couldn’t hear what they were saying; their voices were low and the language was not English. For once since I had been working there, Konstancja looked relieved to see me, the hints of a smile on her face. I felt wary. It didn’t look like a genuine one. It looked like an ‘oh, thank God you’re here, I can fob her off on you now’ smile.

Sure enough—

“There you are, Christine!” she said, sounding relieved. (Serena looked irked). “Ruth says you work the counter today. I will be back in hour – doctor appointment.”

And so, almost eagerly passing me the lanyard of keys on her neck, saying I would rarely need them, and breezily pointing out the ins and outs of the cash register, she shuffled off far too quickly, calling Ruth as she did. That left me standing half-behind the counter with a blue lanyard dangling from my hand, a dinged-looking cash register in front of me, and one rather annoyed Serena standing by.

“I was just asking her how her baby was,” Serena said, sounding disgruntled. “Does she hate everyone, or is it just me?”

“She hates everyone, hon,” Ruth said breezily as she walked into the main room. “Most she’s ever displayed is tolerance. Oh, there you are, Christine. I see she’s already told you. Gimme that lanyard; that’s some dangerous stuff locked up back there.”

I tried to glance back at the locked cabinet, but the glass was slightly tinted. Little bottles could be seen here and there, as well as a few other miscellaneous items, and I vaguely wondered what was so dangerous about the stuff.

“I’ll be in the other room,” Ruth said, moving to head just there when Serena spoke:

“Listen, about Tuesday,” she said; Ruth lingered, “I didn’t mean to come off as pushy, okay? It’s just – this is very important and I’m just trying to help. That’s all.”

“Help what?”

“Help everyone! Everyone who’s been kidnapped and released, all right? It’s very worrying. My bosses aren’t happy.”

“Sorry to hear, but that’s not my problem,” I said, propping myself on the counter.

“I know. And I know you probably think we’re harassing someone for no reason, but I would never do that; there’s a reason behind—”

“Serena,” Ruth cut in sharply.

“—everything. I wish I could explain.”

If she hadn’t mentioned anything, I might not have said anything, but everything about this place seemed to irk me now: “Yeah, I wish you’d explain too. I’m getting tired of being in the dark about everything.”

“There’re some things you don’t need to know about, hon,” Ruth said.

“Yeah, I can get that you don’t have to tell me everything,” I said. “I don’t get why you had to lie to me about something as trivial as what language you keep speaking.”

“I told you, hon, it’s Esperanto—”

“I’ve heard Esperanto, and whatever that language is is not Esperanto.”

Uh-oh. I seemed to have touched a really big nerve there; suddenly I was facing down two stony-faced women. Serena did not seem very threatening, but Ruth certainly did, her mouth pressed into a thin line and her nostrils slightly flared. Maybe I should have kept my mouth shut again, because Ruth had taken a step forward and—

“’Whatever that language is’ is none of your concern,” she said, with a calm and steadiness to her voice that did not match her expression; the contrast was bizarre and more than a little terrifying; my mother’s kind of anger taken to the logical extreme. And if I didn’t like seeing my mother angry, this was somehow worse. I couldn’t explain why.

“Ruth,” Serena said quietly. “Ruth, I think she needs to—”

“Those ain’t your decisions to make,” she snapped at Serena. Serena responded, just as sharply, in that sing-song language, and off they went, taking their argument into another room. Once I was sure they wouldn’t hear me, I sighed, slumping onto the counter. Well. It was hard to feel righteously angry and upset now; I just felt drained. It was just as well that, for the hour and a half I was in there, no one came in. Thursday afternoons obviously weren’t busy hours.

Konstancja came back, looking relieved at something, even while Ruth and Serena were still arguing.

“Good news?” I said, weariness in my voice.

“Yes,” she said. “Baby is fine.”

“Good to hear.”

She paused as she took my spot again, craning her head towards the book rooms. “How long was argument?”

“It started ‘round five minutes after you left, and it hasn’t stopped.”

Konstancja outright frowned. “They had better shush, or else I will get mad.”

“You want to tell them that, be my guest,” I said.

“Perhaps it will stop,” she said. “You go to other room. Needs cleaning.”

The ‘other room’ was the room where the bathroom and storage closets were near, but the majority of the room itself housed a bunch of weird crap. That was the best word I could use; we went beyond the usual crystal balls and tarot cards to weird little altars and mirrors (not on the walls, mind; some of these were for sale) and small wooden or metal sticks that I wanted to say were supposed to be wands of some sort. The room was divided into two portions; that one, and another one, which was divided from it by strings of beads hanging from the doorway. Not that it was necessary; I could see a door in between the beads.

There was stuff everywhere; it would take ages to clean.

“Oy!” Konstancja snapped from the main room. “Will you two stop it?!”

It reminded me all too much of my mother. Ruth snapped right back at her, and then went right back to her argument with Serena. I sighed, deciding to fish some stuff out from the closet and see what I could do.

Theophanes came in at his usual time. I heard him swipe a candy bar as he came in. Within minutes he, too, had joined the argument. Konstancja snapped, but it did nothing. In the middle of cleaning one of the mirrors for sale, Serena popped her head in, looking very frazzled.

“There you are!” she said. “Listen...”

She dropped her voice considerably. “I shouldn’t be telling you this, and Ruth and I went back and forth for hours over why and why not, but I’ve decided I should. You want to know why I need to know where your friend lives?”

“Obviously.”

She ignored the exasperation in my voice. “I know it’s going to sound crazy, but by God, stick with me here. You know girls are going missing, right? And I know they’re being found, but still – they’re going missing for a few days and it’s because someone is searching for information. Now I don’t know where this information is any more than they do, but if I can prevent them from kidnapping someone else, I’ll be satisfied.

“The reason I need to know where Eric lives is because I believe he knows where these girls might be found, or possibly why they’re being kidnapped.”

This was more information than I’d ever gotten before, but I was still suspicious: “So you need to know where he is...because he can help you? That’s totally why you cornered him and said you were going to arrest him. I don’t believe it.”

“Hey, he might have run off,” she said. “All I know is he didn’t show up yesterday. He didn’t want to say so we had to be a little coercive.”

“They’re in on it too?”

“Keep your voice down!”

“Serena?” Theophanes said. “Where’d she run off to?”

“Yes,” she said, “they’re helping me, to a degree. I’ve no intention of hurting him or anything like that – I just need to find him and convince him to help me.”

“Good luck with that,” I said. “I don’t believe a word. If you really wanted him to help you you’d treat him like a person, not a criminal. You’re not going to get anything out of me.”

All this fuss over one guy. It was ridiculous. And here I was swept up in it.

Serena swore. “Damn it, Christine! People are being kidnapped; is wanting to prevent that such a bad thing?”

“Ah, there you are!” Theophanes said, appearing at the doorway. Serena glanced at him, then to me, and left the room, looking upset. He glanced at me, arching an eyebrow.

“What was that about?” he said lightly, popping a little candy bar into his mouth.

“I don’t know,” I said honestly.

That night, and all through school the next day, I was even more of a mental flurry than before – Serena hadn’t helped; she’d just brought up more questions. I had no doubt she was lying to me, though I couldn’t tell which part was the lie and where the truth was. Ruth was obviously lying, knew that I knew she was lying, and didn’t care. Konstancja...I didn’t know if she was lying, but she was obviously in on it too. She didn’t give a crap for me or anyone else, really, so she was out of the picture as far as I was concerned. Why? That was the dominant thought – not just in the kidnappings, but everything. Why?

After music lessons that night, I ate early – leftovers from the night before. (“There’s not enough food there for you,” my mother had commented). After that, I showered and attempted to change into something a little nicer than the holey old jeans I’d thrown on for the lesson. It might have been a run of the mill dance, but I wasn’t going to show up looking like a total slob. It was actually rather soothing to just take a nice long shower and style my hair. I could forget all the worries in my head for a little bit.

By the time Shelby pulled me into the driveway to pick me up, I was ready, throwing on a coat and stepping outside. She and Shawn were in the car, leaving me to sit in the back as she babbled the whole ride to school. She was dressed as (what I assumed was) a gypsy, with a peasant blouse and big fake coins everywhere. Shawn was...well, I didn’t quite know what Shawn was supposed to be, but the impression I got was ‘Jedi on a shoe-string budget’.

“Oh, I almost forgot!” she said as she shut off the car, the lights of the school ahead. Shawn stepped out of the car, the burlap sack he was using as a Jedi robe fluttering in the breeze. Fiddling with something in the glove compartment, she pulled out a thick, dark headband and plopped it unceremoniously on my head. It was uncomfortable; as I moved to adjust it, I felt fake fur.

“Now you’re a cat-girl! Er, with no tail,” Shelby said, and apparently going as a cat-girl with no tail was better than not going on costume at all. And, while we were walked towards the school, she instructed me to look at her, then promptly attacked me with eyeliner. I couldn’t see what she had done until we reached the front doors, and I caught my faint reflection on the windows: she had scribbled on a little cat nose on the tip of mine and a few whiskers on my cheeks.

The dance, like almost every dance except for the Christmas semi-formal and prom, was held in the cafeteria, and was about as exciting as you would expect for a cafeteria dance. Granted it was dark, and there were some coloured lights, but you could still tell it was the cafeteria. I was not the only one to not be wearing a costume (well, I hadn’t originally been wearing a costume, but now I was a tail-less cat-girl); more people than not were simply wearing street clothes. It was hard to see who was who; people were dancing to the music, chatting, and it was a big, anonymous mass.

The songs were peppy and upbeat right now, nothing good for slow dancing – that wouldn’t come until much later – so Shelby and I danced. Of course, ‘dancing’ for me meant more swaying my hips and moving my arms a little bit; Shelby’s foot was still in the brace, so she wasn’t very mobile either. Shawn joined us a minute later, clutching a pop, and he moved to dance with Shelby, her skirt swishing around her as she moved.

We had stationed ourselves near the back, far away from the mass of people at the DJ table up front and with a little more room. By the time the first slow song came up, I left Shelby and Shawn alone, ducking out of the place by a side door, feeling very warm and sweaty. Something to drink would be nice. The hallway was cooler, and there were quite a few people out there too; some clustered by the drink table and others clustered by the doorways, talking while the bass of the music continued to rumble from the cafeteria.

I tossed a loonie onto the table. “Just give me whatever you grab first,” I told the girl manning the counter.

“Sure,” she said; I mentally pegged her as one of Carly’s groupies, one of the quieter ones, but I couldn’t be sure. “You look really cute!”

“Thanks,” I said automatically, cracking open the pop – diet something-or-other. I was surprised the eyeliner was still on my face and not dripping down in little streaks; that was how warm I felt. Stepping aside so someone else could get a drink, I settled myself on a bench, around the spot I usually sat for lunch, and tried to relax.

Carly and her groupies passed me, but for once they were too wrapped up in the dance and their costumes to notice me, which was fine. True to form, Carly was dressed as a sexy vampire, with a cleavage-showing little mini-dress that was supposed to look vaguely Victorian with a poofy skirt, her hair done up in an odd little up-do, and her skin painted chalk-white with blood red lips. It was just as slutty-looking at it sounded, and the lacy thigh-highs didn’t help in the slightest. Beside her was Eric, and he struck me less as ‘suave, debonair vampire’, which is what Carly had hoped for to complement her ‘slutty vampire’, and more as ‘hobo vampire’. Or maybe he was a zombie. I couldn’t tell.

They were surrounded by some of her lackeys, all in costume – one was definitely a zombie, and a sexy one to boot; one was a fairy; one of the guys had wrapped himself in toilet paper and masking tape; and the other guy had to have lost a bet or something, because he was dressed as a girl. Yes, it was every bit as disturbing as it sounded.

They disappeared into the cafeteria while I slowly nursed my drink. Finally, when it was gone and I had cooled off, I slipped back into the cafeteria by the same side door, coming across Shelby and Shawn sitting off to the side for the moment, both looking happy but tired.

“Hey Chris,” Shelby said; I could barely hear her, “where were you?”

“Needed a drink,” I said.

“I think I need one ‘bout now,” she said; no sooner had she said that did Shawn get up and leave the way I came in. I sat in his empty spot for the time being. She looked tired.

“I feel bad,” she admitted. “I’ve already had two slow dances by now with my bum ankle and you’ve had none.”

“Don’t you worry about me,” I said. “Just worry about yourself.”

There was a pause. “Did you see someone out there? You were gone for a while.”

“Saw Eric. Didn’t talk to him. He didn’t see me, and I wasn’t about to show myself.”

“Oh,” she said, picking up on my insinuation. Thankfully, she didn’t take the subject further.

“Maybe I should let Shawn dance with you the next song,” she offered.

“I’m fine sitting out some songs, you know. You were the one who asked him, not me.”

“Just one dance,” she said. It was about then that Shawn came back, holding two cans of pop. “Hey Shawn! Dance with Chris the next slow dance; she didn’t get a date.”

“Sure,” he said, not seeming surprised. I let him have his seat back.

The next slow dance came about ten minutes after that, and while I sucked at any kind of dancing, it was really hard to suck at slow dancing; it was just swaying on the spot. Shawn very graciously did was Shelby asked and danced with me; it was apparent by the gap between us that there wasn’t any interest, but that was good. He seemed like an okay guy, even if I hadn’t talked with him too much. When the song was done, he said something to me – I couldn’t hear what – and went back to Shelby. He then spontaneously disappeared, leaving Shelby and I to dance.

“Where the hell he’d run off to?” Shelby asked, seeming surprised. “He can’t be that thirsty.”

Wherever he was, he didn’t come back for at least ten to fifteen more minutes, and when he finally did there was a large hole in his burlap Jedi robe. Shelby glanced at him quizzically.

“Where’d you go?” she said.

“Just went to meet someone,” he said, nonchalantly. “Hey, you guys want to head outside for a bit? It’s getting crowded in here.”

We headed out the side door back to the cafeteria entrance, and already the temperature dropped a few degrees – but that wasn’t the reason Shawn had wanted to leave for a minute. I had never known Shawn too well, but he was an average, nice kind of guy. I hadn’t realised he was also the male equivalent of Shelby when it came to meddling in other people’s relationships, because there, sitting on the bench, was Eric, plastered in cheap white make-up that showed every streak of application, dark purplish rings under his eyes and some fake blood smeared on his neck. He still looked like a hobo vampire-zombie.

“Hey man,” Shawn greeted him; he responded back and they bantered for a bit about stuff I didn’t care about. Beside me, I think Shelby was this close to having a spontaneous heart attack; she looked half-amused, half-gleeful that Shawn was apparently setting me up, and by the look on her face, she hadn’t had anything to do with it.

“You need to get away from Carly, man,” Shawn said, “she’s a psycho bitch. Don’t worry, I’ll cover for you.”

Eric laughed. “I owe you one, man.”

“Hey, no problem,” he said. “Hey, Shelby.”

She supposedly said ‘hello’, but it came out more like a squeal. His eyes settled on me next; he didn’t look quite as surprised as I would have expected. Maybe people weren’t just trying to hook me up with him too. It really was stupid, in a sense; the world did not revolve around him or I getting together yet now Shawn was acting that way.

“Hey Chris,” he said.

“Hey,” I said right back. “That’s...uh, a cool costume.”

“Yeah, she was pretty much dead set on me going as a vampire so I slapped a bunch of shit on my face,” he said nonchalantly.

“You look like a really, really tired murder victim.”

He laughed. “Yeah, I thought it’d look cool. Want to go back inside? It’s boring out here.”

That seemed to be a good idea, so the four of us headed back inside, heading towards the back as usual, where it was darker and less crowded. The song on was a fast one, electronic sounding, and we danced for a bit. None of us could really dance, but we moved around and pretended we could. Eric and I didn’t talk much, and I couldn’t see much of his face during the songs. It was only when a slow song came up, and Eric politely offered me his hand – I took it; might as well dance with him than take another dance away from Shelby – did I realise we’d drifted away from Shelby and Shawn, and now were on the other side of the cafeteria, surrounded by other couples I didn’t know.

Placing his hands delicately on my waist, I tried to reach up and put my hands on his shoulders, but he was tall, very tall, so they wound up more on his upper arms than anything else. Swaying back and forth for a bit, a bit of a gap between us, I tried to relax. This was kind of nice. Peaceful. I glanced up at Eric – way up, it seemed – and we made eye contact for a moment before he broke away. I followed suit. Kind of nice, but also kind of awkward. I hadn’t danced with a guy in what felt like forever – the last time had been a spring-time dance at my old high school. When had that been? When I had just turned sixteen? He hadn’t even been my boyfriend; it was like with Shawn, a pity dance.

He seemed to be the same kind of awkward, ‘yeah, it’s been a while since I’ve done this’ way. Even as the music continued to wash over us, even as we continued to sway with it, there was still a gap, an awkwardness to it. When the song finally ended, we broke apart slowly. It was promptly followed by a second slow song, so we resumed the position we’d been in.

“Hey,” he said, so quiet I could barely hear him, “Er, how are you doing? Is everything okay?”

I thought he was talking about the dance: “Yeah, everything’s cool.”

“I meant...” he said, his words being drowned out.

“What?”

“Nothing,” he said. “Now’s not the time to think about stuff like that.”

I had an idea that he might be talking about work, and I felt a bit of pity. It must have been really eating him up inside if he wouldn’t stop thinking about it. Then again, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

“Yeah...maybe later...”

“D’you want to come to my place Sunday?” he said. “Pop’s interested in meeting you.”

“Why’s that?”

“Dunno. Probably ‘cause I’ve mentioned you here and there. Or probably because you’re not Carly or Mike.”

“Sure,” I said, already guessing why he wanted to meet me specifically – but we weren’t going to talk about that just now. That was off-limits. I was here to relax. “That’s great.”

“Great,” he said. “I can come around two or so.”

“That’s fine,” I said, and we lapsed into silence again. Still swaying, still feeling rather awkward, and still trying to relax, I closed my eyes and tried to enjoy the moment while it lasted. It had been a while since I had experienced anything like this.