2

 

I’d just been kicked out of my second foster home, so that would make it the third time I was escorted to Tyson County’s most outdated civic structure: the Home for Wayward Girls. It was a tall, grey-stoned, Gothic monstrosity of a building that used to be a convent until the Catholic Church sold it off and social services took it over. The place had about as much warmth and charm as the sour-faced matron who was its warden—excuse me, I mean its headmistress, since that’s how Miss Hallworth insisted on being addressed. The Home wasn’t quite juvie, but it wasn’t a happy place by any stretch of the imagination.

I’d just turned thirteen when I was marched into the long dormitory that was to be my new home until some other family could be found to foster me. Or should I say, cash the cheques they got for taking in kids that they’d then use as slave labour, or worse. I’m not saying all foster parents are like that, but the ones I got sure were.

The dorms in the Home had ten beds to a room, five along either wall with a small combination dresser/night table between each, in which we could store our clothing and meager possessions. No one kept anything of value in them—anything not nailed down in that place was immediately stolen.

There was one other girl in the dorm when I was being shown my bed and where to store my stuff, and that was Donna. She already had her bangs back then, but her black hair was longer and pulled back into a ponytail. She was dressed all in black—T-shirt, jeans, big clunky shoes—and this was back before the whole Goth thing had ever started.

I don’t know why we hit it off the way we did. I wasn’t exactly what you’d call a people person in those days, and I found out later that Donna had walls between herself and the world that were as tall and thick as mine. But as soon as the social worker left the dorm, Donna came over and sat on the end of my bed. I stiffened immediately. Like I said, I’d been here twice before. I knew from experience that the girls in this place could be divided into two groups: those who just wanted to be left alone, and those who were out to take advantage of anyone and anything they could.

“Hey,” she said.

I turned to her, schooling my features to be impassive. I didn’t want to look like a victim, but I sure didn’t want to look like I was hoping to be her friend, either. I’d seen too many girls in here thinking they’d found a friend, only to end up getting screwed over one way or another. You might have to do the other girl’s chores—make her bed, do her laundry, do her homework—or you could end up turning tricks in the exercise yard, blowing guys through the chain link fence while your “friend” collects the money.

“Look,” I said. “I don’t have any smokes, candy, or makeup, and I sure as hell don’t have any jewellery.”

She smiled. “And your point is?”

“I don’t have anything you might want.”

“How do you know what I want?”

“This isn’t my first time here.”

“Donna,” she said.

“What?”

“My name’s Donna Birch.”

She held out her hand, and reluctantly, I reached over to shake.

“I’m Jillian Carter.”

She nodded. “Yeah, I know. My brother told me to look for you today. He said you’d be the only person I could trust in here.”

“Your…brother…”

She nodded again. “Tommy, yeah. I doubt you know him.”

“If we’ve never met, why would he tell you that?”

“Oh well…you know how it is.”

“Actually, I don’t,” I said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

But instead of explaining herself, she changed the subject.

“Do you ever wonder what happens after you die?” she asked.

“Sure. I guess.”

“Not everybody goes on. Some of the dead hang around to look after their loved ones. Problem is, most people can’t hear or see them, so that makes it a little hard on the dead.”

Now she was starting to creep me out. I didn’t know what her game was, but I thought I could see where this conversation was going.

“And you’re one of those people,” I said, “who can see the ghosts of dead people.”

“Bingo.”

“And I suppose your brother’s dead.”

“A year ago,” she said, “the old man came home from a night of binge drinking and shot us all—Mom, Tommy and me—before he turned the gun on himself.”

She lifted her shirt and I saw the puckered scar in the middle of her chest, just below her bra.

“The dying part,” she said, “it didn’t really take with me. Oh, I saw the white light and everything, but something—Tommy says it was him—kept pushing me back. And then I woke up in a hospital bed to find myself a ward of the state.”

“God…”

“Oh, I don’t think God was much involved in any of it.”

“No, I mean…”

“Yeah, I know. It’s freaky weird, isn’t it?”

“I was going to say I’m sorry.”

She gave me a slow nod. “See, Tommy was right. I didn’t want to tell you any of this—it’s not something I particularly want broadcast around—but he said you’d be cool. He said you’d understand.”

“Yeah, well, I understand weird-ass families, that’s for sure.”

She smiled. “And when I tell you about how I talk to the dead, you don’t even blink an eye.”

“I…”

As soon as she said it, I realized that I hadn’t. She’d told me about her dead brother talking to her and I didn’t even think to call her on it.

Now, I’ve always had an active imagination. When I was a kid, I talked to trees and liked to pretend that the characters in my fairy tale books were real. In my head, they had all sorts of adventures outside of the pages of their storybooks. But it was all just that: imagination. The trees never talked back to me. The fairy tale characters stayed in my head.

While I wasn’t that little kid any more, I still liked to daydream about all sorts of improbable, magical things. But I hadn’t actually experienced anything. I’d never met anybody who had—or who would at least admit to it. And why would they? The real world didn’t have magic and ghosts and fairies wandering about in it.

I knew that. Everybody knew that.

So it was weird that I hadn’t called her on it. And I still had no urge to do so now.

Worse, I found myself liking her. Trusting her, even.

In this place, that was a sure recipe for disaster.

“Why didn’t I?” I said.

It wasn’t until Donna answered that I realized I’d spoken aloud.

“Why didn’t you what?” she asked. “Blink an eye?”

I nodded.

“Maybe it’s because you’ve got a generous heart and you know that I need your support in this place as much as you need mine.”

“I told you. This isn’t my first time in here. I got through it.”

“Yeah, but were you ever happy?”

“I’m never happy,” I said.

She grinned. “So maybe that’s going to change now.”

She digs in her pocket and comes up with a packet of gum.

“You want a piece?” she asked.

 

* * *

 

There hadn’t been many changes since my last stint in the Home for Wayward Girls. Miss Hallworth was still in charge, her employees were as dour-faced and unpleasant as they ever were, and the place was still a gloomy mausoleum. The big difference was that the older girls who’d been running the show the last time I was here had been replaced by ones a year or so younger than Connie Hayes and her gang. The new queen bee was Shannon Pierce—a redhead where Connie had been blond, but otherwise they were cut from the same cloth.

I managed to stay out of her way, if not off her radar, for most of the day. But just before bedtime, she and a couple of her girls caught me alone in the communal bathroom. My heart sank when I looked up from the sink to see Shannon reflected in my mirror. She was standing right behind me. A black girl named Linda lounged against the wall by the paper dispenser. The third of the threesome was Anna Louise, a brunette wearing lipstick the colour of fresh blood and way too much eye shadow.

Shannon lit a cigarette—a big no-no, so far as the staff were concerned, but I wasn’t about to say anything about it.

“So,” she said. “You’re the new girl.”

I turned from the sink and nodded.

“Though not so new,” I said. “This is my third time in here.”

Shannon arched her brows and blew out a stream of smoke. “Is that supposed to impress me?”

I shook my head. It didn’t matter what I said or did, I knew how this was going to end. I just hoped they’d be satisfied with a few punches and kicks, and that no bones would be broken. I could have mouthed off. I could be less passive. But outnumbered three-to-one, that would only make it worse.

I hated being the victim, but I was coming to understand that that’s what I was. In my own family. In the foster homes I’d been put in. Out on the street, in this place, or anywhere at all. I was always small, never strong, and people tended to take advantage of me just because they could. That was the way the world worked. The Bible might say that the meek would inherit the earth, but if we ever did, we’d be so bruised and battered by that time, we wouldn’t be able to do anything with it.

“We checked your night table,” Shannon went on, “and it was empty except for some stupid book.”

I didn’t say anything.

“So where’s your stash, new girl? What’ve you got? Smokes? Dope? Some cash?”

I was about to answer when I saw Donna appear in the doorway.

Shannon hadn’t noticed her yet, but Linda straightened from the wall where she’d been lounging.

“Hey, a party!” Donna said in a bright voice. “And no one thought to invite me.”

“Piss off, Birch,” Anna Louise told her.

But Donna ignored her.

“You guys ever hear of razor-bombs?” she asked. “They’re the coolest things. You just chew up a big wad of gum, stick it full of blades, then slip it into somebody’s bed while they’re sleeping. First move they make and there’s blood everywhere.”

Shannon turned to look at her. “What the hell are you on about?”

“It works best if you throw two or three of them into the bed, and then pull the fire alarm.”

I couldn’t see Shannon’s face, but I knew she was scowling.

“Are you threatening us?” she said, her voice grim.

“Now why would I do that?”

Oh, please just go away, I thought. Don’t try to rescue me. That’s just going to make it worse for both of us.

But it wasn’t as though Donna could read my mind. She wasn’t even looking at me.

“Just stay out of this, twerp,” Shannon told her. “Unless you want your head kicked in, too.”

“Well, you’d better make sure you kill me,” Donna said, “because you and your little friends need to sleep sometime, and like I said, those razor-bombs, they’ll make a mess of a pretty girl like you. Or maybe you’ll wake up to find someone sticking a hypodermic needle into your neck—send you on a trip that you’ll never come back from.”

Shannon shook her head. “See, now you’re just pissing me off. Somebody grab her.”

When Linda and Anna Louise moved forward, Donna stretched out her arms like she was ready for her cross.

“Yeah, that’s right,” she said. “Come on and grab me. Get on my list.”

The other two girls hesitated, looking to Shannon.

“You ever wonder what I’m doing in here?” Donna asked. “You should ask my family—oh wait. You can’t. Because they’re all dead.”

“You never killed them,” Shannon said.

But I could hear the uncertainty in her voice.

“So you know that for a fact?” Donna asked. She lowered her arms. “Here’s the deal,” she added, “and I’m only going to make this offer once. You leave us alone, we’ll leave you alone. It’s as simple as that. No one has to know what went down in here. So far as the other girls are concerned, we’ll be living in your shadow, just as they are. But I swear, if you or anybody comes after us, you’d damn well better make sure you kill me because I never forget, and I sure don’t forgive.”

“Yeah?” Shannon said. “And what do we get out of this?”

Donna smiled and I felt a shiver go up my spine at the weird light in her eyes. It was like she wanted them to start something.

“You get to live,” she said.

It was so quiet in there that all I could hear was our breathing.

The drip from one of the showerheads. A gurgle from the holding tank of one of the toilets. Then Shannon shrugged.

“Screw this,” she said. “But this isn’t over, Birch.”

Donna stayed in the doorway, blocking their exit.

“No,” she said. “You’re misunderstanding me. This is totally over. Or you start it right now, and if you don’t kill me, I finish it.”

The two of them faced each other until Shannon nodded.

“Okay,” she said. “It’s over.”

Donna studied her face for a long moment, then finally stepped aside.

I sank to the floor as Shannon and her friends left the bathroom.

I had to hold my arms across my chest and lean my head against one of the pipes under the sink. I had the shakes and all I could do was repeat, “Oh my god, oh my god,” over and over again. When Donna knelt in front of me and reached out a hand, I couldn’t help it. I flinched.

“It’s just me,” she said, her voice soft, the weird light gone from her eyes.

“You…you said your father…”

“He did. That was just talk. I needed to freak them out.”

“Yeah, well…you…you sure freaked me out.”

“I’m sorry, J.C., but I had to do something. They were really going to hurt you—I heard them talking.”

“So you’d never…”

Something went hard in her eyes.

“Oh, that part was true,” she said, her voice flat. “Nobody’s ever going to scare me again. They can hurt me. They can beat me black and blue, or even kill me. But they can’t scare me.”

“How…how did you get so brave?”

Her eyes softened, went sad.

“I’m not brave,” she said. “I just don’t care anymore.”

 

* * *

 

I really didn’t think Shannon and her friends would leave it at that, but they must have seen what I saw in Donna’s eyes, and they just ignored us from that night on. So the rest of my stay at the Home was pretty uneventful this time out. I went to classes and hung out with Donna. Some of the girls thought we were lesbians, but we didn’t care. Others called us the Psycho Twins, and Donna liked that. I just thought, let them think whatever they want, so long as they leave us alone.

This was all so new for me. Not the girls making snarky comments—I’d been there way too many times before. No, I’d just never had a friend before—I mean, a real friend. Someone I could actually count on. It was a novel, exhilarating experience for me.

We talked about everything, and all the walls between us and the world came down when it was just the two of us.

And there was something else. When Donna was with me, I didn’t feel so much like a victim anymore. I felt like I actually had some worth, in and of myself. I’d never known before how much difference it could make having even just one person believe in me.

The only weird thing was how sometimes I’d see Donna sitting up in her bed, or standing in the corner of the exercise yard, talking to herself. She looked just as though she was having a conversation, pausing as though listening to some invisible person, then nodding, or interjecting a comment.

I didn’t ask her about it for the longest time—probably because I already knew how she’d answer and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that answer. When finally I did, she just smiled at me.

“I was wondering how long it’d take you,” she said.

“I don’t mean to pry.”

She shook her head. “You can ask me anything you want, J.C. You know that. We don’t have secrets, right?”

“I guess.”

“But this thing you’re asking me, you already know who I’m talking to.”

“Your brother.”

There. I’d said the impossible words.

“I guess you think it’s weird, or scary,” she said, “but it’s cool. Really. I know you came from a crap family, but brothers aren’t all like your brother Del. You’d have liked Tommy. And let me tell you, if we’d known you while Tommy was still alive, your Del’d be walking around on crutches…if he was walking around at all.”

“So you can really talk to him.”

She nodded.

“And…are there others you can, you know, talk to?”

“I guess there must be, but it’s only Tommy who comes to me. And I know what you’re thinking: Maybe this is all just in my head. Maybe I’m just making him up because I miss him so much.”

“I wasn’t thinking that.”

“Bull, you weren’t.”

“Okay, maybe a little.”

“Well, I don’t blame you,” she said. “If, before this, anyone had come up to me and told me that they can talk to dead people, I’d recommend we get the padded cell ready. But Tommy does talk to me. He told me you were coming and that we’d make a family of our own, here where nobody else wants us. And we have, haven’t we?”

I nod.

“So you don’t need to worry, J.C. I’m not crazy, and he won’t hurt you. I can’t promise you much, but I can promise you that.”