“Me-ghan!” Logan called out once more. “You’ll be late again and Tulip won’t want to take you to school anymore!”
Furrowing my brow and pushing the dark thoughts from my past aside, I returned my focus to more normal, everyday problems. I tried to tell if my hair was staying put. I had wet it and combed it out while I was in the bathroom, but it hadn’t dried yet. Like I mentioned earlier, my hair was often at war with me. I liked to keep it long and if I treated it just right, I could get it to curl fetchingly and not frizz. Right now, I was happy with the waves that would form after it dried.
I climbed my spiral stairs and pushed the trapdoor open. I loved that the door to my room was set in the floor and opened up into a corner of our living room. A railing of sorts surrounded it so that my brothers couldn’t sit on top and keep me trapped beneath. That didn’t mean they’d given up trying, though.
I padded into the kitchen, carrying my shoes in one hand and my socks in another. I yawned, inhaling the smell of bacon, eggs and toast.
“Morning,” my mom said, tossing her head so she could look at me over her shoulder.
She kept her dark hair short, and at the moment she had a dish towel draped over her shoulder. I grinned. I towered over my mother. I was only an inch or two away from six feet, and my mom was nearly a foot shorter than me. Where my features were exaggerated, hers were proportionate and well placed. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to know that we weren’t blood related.
My father sat at the table, reading the newspaper as my three-year-old twin brothers, Jack and Joey, sat in their high chairs, throwing scrambled eggs at each other.
“Peter, could you?” my mother said in exasperation, turning to gesture a spatula at the twins.
Folding the paper with a quick flick of his hands, my father sighed and began speaking to my younger brothers, who only giggled at his chastisement.
Logan was standing on the other side of the kitchen island, packing his own lunch. He was a picky eater, so he learned early on that having such high standards in this family was a curse. He fended for himself most of the time.
Bradley, who was two years younger than Logan and seven years older than the twins, looked most like my father with his sandy hair and blue eyes. At the moment he was tormenting Aiden, my fifth brother. I never let my brothers know I had a favorite among them, and in truth, I loved them all dearly. But Aiden held a special place in my heart. Maybe it was because, of all my brothers, he was the only one with dark hair like me. I know it was silly; after all, it’s not like we shared the same genes for it or anything, but it made me feel more like part of the family I guess. Or maybe it was because my seven-year-old little brother was autistic. We were both set apart from everyone else in our own way.
I dropped my backpack near the front door and walked over to scoop Aiden up in my arms. With me holding him, Bradley would have to make a real effort to get to him, and that would only draw Mom’s attention. Scowling, Bradley made a face and skipped off to occupy his time elsewhere.
“Good morning Aiden,” I said quietly.
He glanced up at me with his big blue-green eyes. My heart ached for him. He hardly ever spoke, but sometimes I could get him to talk to me. My brothers teased him for speaking gibberish, but I always understood what he meant to say. Sometimes you didn’t need words in order to communicate with someone.
Setting Aiden down but keeping him close to me, I maneuvered my way around the kitchen and quickly packed a lunch. Somehow, I managed to avoid Bradley and Logan as they played a game of keep away with a cinnamon roll before Dad diffused the situation by threatening to make them all stay home Friday night and watch some Halloween special on TV, instead of going trick-or-treating.
Five minutes before seven, I was heading for the door, Aiden clinging to my leg the entire way. Mom rescued me and came to scoop him up, planting a kiss on my cheek before I escaped.
The autumn morning was cool and damp, a thick fog clinging to the treetops and making the world seem gray. I didn’t mind. I liked the fog. Taking a lungful of air, I traipsed down the driveway and started walking up the street, hoping that perhaps this day would be different than all the rest.
Vagrant
I slowly made my way down the street, knowing Tully would probably be outside waiting for me. By some stroke of fate, we both went to the same high school. Both our parents were of the mindset that the larger, public high school in town had too many gang problems and not enough resources for so many students, so they were more than willing to pay the extra money for our education. Mom taught at the public high school, so maybe she knew what she was talking about, but in my opinion, they were merely paying for peace of mind. It didn’t matter what high school you attended, there would always be someone there to make your experience borderline miserable.
I sighed and kicked a pinecone across the surface of the asphalt, watching it bounce off the curb and skitter into the middle of the road. I couldn’t blame my mom for sending me to the private school, not really. After struggling through middle school and junior high, she knew that high school would be even worse for me. I didn’t get bad grades; that wasn’t it. Like I was saying before, I was odd, different from all the other kids and I always would be. I was tested for every childhood psychological disorder known to man, but I never quite fit the profile for any of them. I heard voices and I saw things, more often than the average child, and sometimes I would get into fits of shaking or screaming and I would get terrible headaches.
My parents tried everything: medication, therapy, a restricted diet. Nothing helped. In fact, they were so desperate that they nearly took me to see an exorcist. I had been eight at the time, and they had the whole appointment set up and everything. Before we went, however, someone suggested a child psychologist to my mother. She was located in Los Angeles, my city of origin, and something about her description must have convinced my parents because by now they had had their fair share of doctors.
I don’t remember much about the woman, only that she had a kind smile and long blond hair. After a few visits with her the voices quieted. I no longer saw monsters under my bed and the headaches eventually went away. Yet I still hear voices whispering in the trees every now and again, whenever the wind picks up and their leaves and branches rustle together. But I learned after those sessions with Dr. Morgan that to carry on about my unique experiences often frightened those around me more than anything else. Now when I hear or see anything, I keep it to myself and this has worked for the past nine years.
The sharp caw of a crow jerked my thoughts from my past. I glanced up, only to find something that was way too large to be a crow watching me from a pine tree in a neighbor’s yard. Maybe it was a raven but it almost seemed too big to even be a raven. But what else could it be? I shrugged and continued down the road.
Three houses later, I spotted the giant black bird again. Was it following me? I sped up, passing four more houses before I bothered to look over my shoulder. Yes, it was definitely following me. I swallowed and felt beads of sweat break out on my forehead.
Please don’t let this be another delusion,
I begged. The raven hopped to the top of a dead eucalyptus tree, arched its neck, and let out a strange, low garbling sound. It sent shivers down my arms. It turned its head to eye me once, then flapped its wings and disappeared into the foggy woods.
“Meghan!”
The sound of Tully’s voice nearly made me scream. I looked up and smiled once my heart rate returned to normal.
Tulip Rose Gordon was my best friend and had been since her family moved into the blue, two-storey house that stood on the corner of our long, winding street only a year after my own family joined the neighborhood.
I took a deep breath and hurried over to give her a hug, already forgetting about the weird bird.
“So, how was your weekend?”
She made a face, her freckles getting bunched into the creases her frown created. Like almost everybody I knew, Tully was shorter than me and not nearly as thin. Where I’m tall and lanky, she is short and compact.
“I spent all Saturday trying to get through just a few chapters of that boring book Mrs. Swanson assigned, only to realize I had been procrastinating all day. So yesterday I had to make up for it.”
I laughed. Tully wasn’t a big fan of the classics, but she was determined to keep her grades up.
“I didn’t do much either,” I admitted.
For a few minutes we were quiet, standing on Tully’s driveway and waiting for our friend Thomas to pick us up. He lived in Nipomo, east of our neighborhood on the outskirts of Arroyo Grande but still on the Mesa, a great tall, flat-topped stretch of land that took up several square miles of our part of the Central Coast. Thomas’s mother ran a daycare out of her home so Thomas could usually borrow the family minivan several times during the week.
Tully and I decided to play a round of rock, paper, scissors while we waited. Finally, after defeating my friend for the fifth time in a row, the gold van came rolling around the corner.
“Sorry I’m late!” Thomas called from the driver’s side window.
“You’re not late,” Tully piped up.
We climbed in and buckled our seat belts. The Lagarsos were a very traditional Mexican Catholic family, so the van was decked out with the usual memorabilia: Rosary beads hanging from the rear-view mirror and a postcard featuring the Our Lady of Guadalupe tucked into the visor. Thomas quickly pushed the preset button on the stereo and the faint, upbeat sound of Mariachi music was replaced by the newest teen sensation’s latest song.
Tully and I rolled our eyes at one another, but our grins were wide. Thomas loved pop music but he was forbidden to listen to it at home. We laughed as he started singing along, and then against our better judgment, we joined in.
It was a whopping three to five minute drive to school from Tully’s house. We took the few side streets that meandered through the expansive, wooded neighborhoods that branched out from our own neighborhood, and then pulled out onto the highway with the rest of the early morning commuters.
Black Lake High was situated directly off the highway in the middle of the great eucalyptus forest that covered much of the Mesa. On the other side of the highway the trees continued until they met up with the miles of dunes and farmland that comprised most of Arroyo Grande and the surrounding towns. The open space was only interrupted by the occasional farmhouse, and of course the railroad tracks that were just on the other side of Highway One. There were other neighborhoods spread throughout the trees on the eastern side of the tracks, but the people who lived out here were even more scattered than my own neighbors.
Thomas chose a parking spot and turned the key in the ignition, cutting off some voice enhanced teen diva in mid-chorus. I zipped my sweatshirt up tight and arranged my backpack comfortably on my shoulders. School had never been my favorite place to be. I liked learning; I just didn’t like being around other high school kids. They didn’t get me, and they weren’t mature enough yet to be polite about ignoring me. It was much more fun to point out my awkward height or make some comment about my unknown parentage. Luckily, I had my small group of friends who were just as odd as me. As long as we stuck together, I could bear it.
As we crossed the parking lot I spotted our two other friends, Robyn Dunbarre and Will Abukara. Robyn was decked out in her usual Goth attire: black cargo pants, a T-shirt featuring a pentagram and black eyeliner plied on thick enough to make her look like some heavy metal groupie. Will was a contradiction next to her, what with his neat outfit of khaki pants, polo shirt and thick glasses. He was a walking stereotype, and being half Japanese only added to his geek appeal. All he needed was a knit Argyle vest and an overbite. Luckily, he didn’t have either.
“Hey, did you see the homeless guy this morning?” Robyn sauntered up to us, the neon pink stripe in her hair falling into her eyes. She brushed it back with a ring-encrusted hand.
“Is he back?” Thomas asked.
I looked past them to see the object of their discussion. A week or so ago, this tall old man just spontaneously showed up on the outskirts of our campus. He was dressed in an old army issued trench coat, tattered and stained from years of use. He had been shuffling around one of the trashcans just in front of the school’s office building, muttering and grumbling to himself.
Everyone had stayed away from him, not sure what he was doing at a high school. Right away, some of our more obnoxious schoolmates had gifted him with a nickname. “Hobo Bob” had not resisted when the cops finally showed up, escorting him off campus and taking him to some unknown location. Two days later, he was back, this time perched on the weathered bench that stood on the sidewalk in front of the public bus stop.
The police were called again but by the time they arrived, he was gone. He had been making special appearances on and off ever since, never really coming onto campus but never moving on. I had no idea what he could want at our school. Most of us ignored him and I never even saw him approach someone asking for money.
“See for yourself,” Robyn said, answering Thomas’s earlier question.