A Not So Special Episode
When Anna came downstairs on Monday morning, freshly primped, Geneva was at the kitchen table studying the list of portals that Saul had scribbled out yesterday. Geneva had insisted on spending the night on the couch in the unlivable living room, too unnerved to sleep in her bedroom back at the office.
“Your dad’s upstairs funneling holy water,” Geneva said, giving Anna an appreciative once-over.
Anna had put extra effort into her eye makeup that morning, following tips from a beauty magazine: Curl your lashes and open up those smoky eyes—be mysterious and approachable! She was wearing her sexiest skinny jeans and a pale pink sweater with a low scoop neck. She couldn’t wait to see Craig.
“There's a boy,” Geneva said.
Anna blushed as she poured herself a glass of water. Was it that obvious? She rummaged through the cabinet above the sink, trying to find something, anything, that wasn’t expired. She came upon a dusty box of granola bars that were only a month past due. Good enough. She joined Geneva at the table.
Geneva rested her chin in her palms and leaned forward. “Freddy?”
“No!”
“He seems like one of the good ones.”
Anna bristled. After last night, the last person she wanted to talk about was Freddy. And there it was again, the pounding in her head followed by a dull rage. How would Geneva know anything about “the good ones?” She’d married a cheating jerk. Anna didn’t need Geneva telling her about Freddy. The woman was a turf invader.
Anna worked to suppress her cynicism, attributing it to the last vestiges of electromagnetic mist in the air. Once the rest of the portals got a proper holy water dousing, Bloomtown should return to its usual boring, uneventful state. But she would still be Goblin Girl, of course, Daughter of a Freak.
Geneva was peering at her, eyebrows raised, wanting to hear more. Why was she so interested? Did Geneva want Freddy to be her little protégé or something? Anna bit down on her cheek. She was being ridiculous. The woman was only being friendly.
“May I?” Anna asked, and picked up the portal list from the table. Neither Freddy nor Dor’s address were noted on it, which was both a relief and disappointment. Freddy’s hatefulness toward her last night was likely genuine. She recognized a couple names, but they were no one she was close to. But then again, who was she close to besides Freddy and Dor? Correction, besides Dor.
“Speaking of goodies,” Anna said. “What happened when you found—what’s-his-name, the jerk—hooking up with his student?”
Geneva’s mouth tightened.
“I’m sorry,” Anna said. “It’s none of my business.” She dug a nail into her thigh to keep herself under control.
“Don’t be silly.” Geneva waved her hand, brushing away any need for an apology. “We didn’t break it off right away. I gave him a second chance, which, in retrospect, was pretty dumb.” Geneva took her elbows off the table and placed them on her lap, out of sight. “He promised that it was over, but it wasn’t.”
“Well, you’re not in jail, so I take it you didn’t kill them.”
Geneva’s laughter fell flat when she saw that Anna was serious.
“I got—” Geneva paused. “I'm getting through it. It took some time. My meditation practice helps a lot.”
“Is that what you were doing when Freddy and I busted into your room?” An image surfaced in Anna’s mind of Geneva meditating on her bed, the air around her somehow brighter than the rest of the room.
Geneva nodded. “It takes a little time to settle into a meditation, but you can start by slowing your breath and observing your thoughts instead of identifying with them. In other words, the thoughts are not you. You are what’s observing them. Does that make sense?”
“Kind of. But is that all there is to it?”
“That’s it,” Geneva said. “Focus on your breath and let your thoughts move on down the road. A little moon bathing is always good as well, to help you go deeper.”
“Moon bathing?” Anna’s tone was a bit on the obnoxious side, but she couldn’t help it.
“Moon. Bathing.” Geneva said each word slowly, as if growing wary of Anna’s attitude. “Moonlight is crucial for us girls. It renews our spiritual power, always has.”
“How come I didn’t know about it, then?”
Geneva laughed dryly. “They won’t teach it to you in school,” she said, “but it’s still there, hidden in the rosebushes, as my mother used to say.”
“I’m listening.”
“I’ll try and summarize it for you,” Geneva said. “Once religion and the idea of God became more male-focused and controlled, knowledge of moon bathing, or really anything alluding to the feminine divine, was violently repressed. Nature and female-based religions were considered a threat to the church’s authority and vilified. The wise old holy woman that the village revered became the hideous old hag, the evil witch stirring her cauldron. I’ll give you some books if you’re interested.”
Anna was. It ticked her off that divine women, healers, were persecuted for their power. As Goblin Girl, she could relate. Not that Goblin Girl had any power.
“How does it work, moon bathing?”
“We don’t know,” Geneva said. “Or maybe we did once and then forgot.” She shrugged. “It affects every woman differently, I suppose. For me, it helped calm my mind during meditation, very peaceful, but rejuvenating, too. You should give it a try and find out for yourself. All you need to do is let the light of the moon touch your skin.”
They heard Jack trundling down the steps and Anna felt a twinge of disappointment. Geneva had good vibes, and Anna needed some of that mojo right about now. But she’s only being nice to you because she has the hots for your dad, the evil, pulsating voice of her headache said. Are you that desperate for a mommy?
Jack emerged from the path and into the kitchen. He was clean-shaven and wearing his “special occasion” khakis. Anna cringed and looked down at the cleavage peeking through her scoop neck sweater. The two of them were like some kind of sitcom with a fake laugh track spitting out canned hysterics every seven seconds. This was the very special episode of Harry the Hoarder where father and daughter both have a crush, but they don’t want each other to know, and it creates a big and riotous misunderstanding!
Jack placed the jug of holy water he held on the table. “This should be good for about six portals. Do you have Saul's list?”
Geneva took the list back from Anna. “Got it,” she said.
“We're going to make a run to a few churches,” he said to Anna, “see if we can score more holy water. I want to cover all twelve portals today, so it’ll be a late night. Call my cell if you need me. Keep trying if you don’t get through right away. The solar storms are supposed to be going out with quite a bang over the next few days—strongest flares yet by far—so reception will be spotty.”
A part of Anna wanted to tag along and help them decimate the portals, but the pull of Craig Shine was more powerful. Besides, maybe with Geneva around, she wouldn’t need to babysit her dad anymore.
As soon as Geneva and Jack left, a silence filled the ever-shrinking nooks and crannies in the Fagan house. Anna put her backpack on and maneuvered her way to the entranceway, peering through the Mountain of Mail to the street outside. No Major Tom. Freddy wasn’t coming, not after what she’d said to him, or what he’d said to her. He and Dor were probably on their way to school already. Outside, a spattering of freshmen walked by on their way to the bus stop. Anna sighed. She had no choice but to follow them there.
The moment she climbed the steps onto the idling yellow behemoth, she was overcome with the bus smell that she’d managed to avoid since Freddy got his driver’s license: body odor, stale lunch meat and hot vinyl. At least there were plenty of open seats. Anna chose one in the back.
Alone now and bouncing over Old Bloomtown potholes, she was hit with a stabbing sense of loss. Anna bit her lip to keep the tears at bay. Damned if she’d mess up her eye makeup after all the effort she put into it. This perma-PMS was exhausting. She and Freddy would get past their blowup. It’s not like he was dead, for frig’s sake. As for Doreen, things would work themselves out between her and her mom. Soon, the air in Bloomtown would clear of any trace of the brain-altering mist, and everyone would revert back to their saner selves.
But why was it so freakin’ quiet on the bus? Anna looked down the aisle. There were a lot of vacant seats. Half the bus was empty. Weirder still, none of the kids were yelling or even chatting with each other. It was silent except for a hushed murmuring from a nearby row. At least someone was making noise. Anna pulled herself up to get a better look. The murmuring was coming from two seats in front of her, on the opposite side of the bus. A red-haired sophomore—Anna didn’t know her name—was hugging her knees to her chest and whispering furiously to herself. Behind the sophomore, a sweat-drenched freshman was pulling out his eyebrows, carefully examining each one before placing them on his tongue.
Nauseated, Anna slid back down in her seat, massaging her temples as a fresh pressure thundered in her skull. The stale granola bar in her stomach threatened to make an appearance.
The bus arrived at Bloomtown High, and the urge to hurl became a whisper once she stepped into the fresh air. But once she entered the school, her hackles went up. Neither Freddy nor Doreen were waiting by her locker. Although she told herself that it was no big deal, she’d been hoping to tell Dor about the portals, to make a big joke about it so Dor wouldn’t get scared. Instead, Anna grabbed her first-period books, feeling exposed and vulnerable without her friends.
But when she spotted Craig across the hall, thoughts of anyone else vaporized, and a thrill bloomed in the base of her spine. Craig was leaning against the wall by the boy’s bathroom, looking down at his phone. His dark hair was tousled in perfect disarray, and his free hand was tinkering with a large chain hanging from a belt loop on his black skinny jeans. There weren’t that many kids around and the commons was quiet. He had to know she was looking at him, had to feel it. And then he did look up, his gaze unfocused. She smiled at him, but before she could wave he was already striding away. Had he purposefully ignored her? No. Why would he? She was being paranoid again. Anna walked to first period on shaky legs.
As the day dragged on, she realized that Freddy and Dor weren’t avoiding her: they had never shown up at school in the first place. And it wasn’t just them. There were too many absentees to play soccer in gym class, so the handful of kids that did come were forced to sit through a gruesome video about drunk driving. The sickest part was that Amanda Chessfield, a normally reserved junior, kept laughing at all the gory parts. Laughing hysterically, as in doubled over, couldn’t catch her breath, tears running down her face kind of laughing. Amanda didn’t stop until the frazzled substitute sent her to Steuben’s office.
During lunch Anna sat by herself in the maintenance stairwell behind the girls locker room. She called Doreen and got her voicemail. She texted Craig, sorry I had to leave our chat the other night. experiencing parental difficulties. how was ur wkend?
It was hard to focus later in Algebra II. She kept her phone tucked under her sleeve, checking it constantly until the bell finally rang. One more class to go and she could go back home, peel off her ridiculously tight jeans and wash her face. If Craig didn’t respond she would text him from the privacy of her room and find out why. Plus, she wanted to be there when Jack and Geneva returned; hearing that every last one of the portals had been spritzed into oblivion might help her relax.
On the way to her locker to grab a biology book, she passed by Sydney and two of her cronies in the commons. The orange-skinned one, Lyric Danner (Queen of the Cheap Fake Tanner), pretended to cough while saying something under her breath directed at Anna. Sydney’s throaty laugh rang out, causing heads to turn in their direction.
Anna stopped in her tracks, not turning around but waiting to see if they had the guts to say anything that she could actually hear. It wasn’t fair how they got away with bullying whoever they wanted, and she was sick of being a target. Anna had never done a single thing to Lyric Danner. She hadn’t even laughed when Mackenzie threw a fit in the parking lot last year after Lyric left a body-shaped, orange splotch on her precious car seat. And Sydney—Anna hadn’t wronged her either. She had only tried to help.
When they were in the fifth grade, Anna, Dor and Sydney had accepted a ride home from the swim coach. They rode in the backseat with Danny Pickens, who was a high school senior then, an assistant coach in training and a chaperone for the team during out-of-town meets. Pickens already had a reputation for dating younger girls on the sly—eighth graders when he was a junior, freshmen now that he was a senior—but they didn’t yet know what a dirtbag he was.
Anna and Dor shrank back from Pickens when he asked if one of them could sit on his lap to make more room. But when Pickens pulled Sydney on his lap, she smiled at him, conditioned as she was to be a good girl and not hurt anyone's feelings. The smile remained, even as Anna saw the fear in Sydney’s eyes. Danny Pickens was looking out of the car window, as if fascinated by the passing scenery, but his hands were moving under the towel he’d thrown over Sydney’s lap.
“Syd, come over here!” Anna said, and Sydney scrambled off Pickens’s lap and sat in between Dor and Anna. “We should tell,” Anna said after the three of them were dropped off at Sydney’s house, and they all agreed. They’d gone into the garage where Sydney’s dad was cleaning a leaf blower. Sydney told him what Pickens did to her, and Doreen and Anna had backed her up.
They were sure that Pickens would get in big trouble, but that wasn’t what happened at all. “You sat on his lap?” Sydney’s father said. His baseball cap was on backward and sweat dotted his forehead. “Why’dya go and do a thing like that?” He wiped his brow and a fat drop of sweat splattered on the leaf blower. “I told your mother not to let you wear those little shorts.” He looked at his daughter with hard eyes. “Boys will be boys,” he said, then looked down at Dor and Anna. “Now you girls go on home.”
Sydney had watched them as they left the garage, looking confused, hurt and ashamed all at once. Things changed after that. Sydney changed. She grew distant, hard. Anna and Dor never said a word to anyone about what happened, not even to each other, feeling that they’d somehow failed Sydney, too. But their presence in that garage that day, in that car, seemed to fester in Sydney, and she’d looked at them ever since with cold, accusing eyes. Anna was sick of it.
“Something on your pea brain?” Anna said, turning around in the hallway to face her once-friend, feeling the rage river flowing.
Sydney stalked over to Anna, her beautiful face a mask of snide fury. “Look at Goblin Girl getting gangsta.”
Lyric started cackling, stepping to Sydney’s side. “Yeah, as in Scarface.”
“Want a new nick name?” Sydney asked. “How ‘bout Frankenskank?”
Damn. Anna had spent so much time on her eye makeup that morning that she forgot to cover her scar. Her fists clenched. She was microseconds away from smacking Sydney right in her perfect face. Her palm actually tingled in anticipation of the after-slap burn.
“All dressed up and no place to go,” Lyric sneered, indicating the cleavage exposed by Anna’s scoop neck.
“Except maybe a whorehouse!” Sydney yelled, attracting the attention of everyone in the commons who wasn’t already watching.
One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi. Breathe. Anna restrained herself, knowing that in her current state of mind one slap wouldn’t be enough. In fact, while the river raged, she might also decide to go ahead and slam Sydney’s head into one of the metal lockers, perhaps several times. Nausea rolled in Anna’s gut. She was disgusted by the burst of pleasure the violent fantasy brought her. She took her eyes off of Sydney’s smug face and scanned the commons. Was there a portal here, too? There must be, but Bloomtown High wasn’t on Saul’s list.
Anna forced herself to walk away from Sydney and Lyric, ignoring their parting sneers. Was she being paranoid or was everyone in the hallway gawking at her? Anna picked up her pace, her heart dropping into her churning stomach as she passed a blur of scornful faces. Everyone was looking at her, and the worst part—she thought about Craig’s snub that morning—was that she might know why.