Authors: Susan Palwick
“Well,” I said, “you
are
pretty. Nobody lied about that.”
“Was,” she said, her chin set; when she was being stubborn she looked like our father. “I was pretty, when I was alive.”
I looked away uneasily. “Oh, come on, Ginny. You’re the one who told me you’re real, right?”
“I’m real,” she said, “That doesn’t mean I’m alive. You’re alive, remember? Don’t you have to go to classes or something?”
“No! This is my lunch period!”
“Then you’d better eat.”
“Do I
look
like I need to eat? I’d rather look like you.”
“No, you wouldn’t. Nobody should want to look like me. You need to eat. Everybody needs to eat,”
“Ginny—”
“Go eat your lunch,” she said firmly, and brought back the clouds again. “Anyway, somebody’s calling you. Can’t you hear it?”
“No,” I said, but Ginny was gone and the lake was too cold again, and when I got back into my body the librarian was standing next to my chair and calling my name.
“Emma? Emma, dear?”
“Yes?”
“Why, there you are. I thought we’d lost you for a minute there. Don’t you like that book? You haven’t turned a page for the past half hour.”
“It’s fine,” I said. “Thank you. I have to go to French class now.”
“Not yet, dear. It’s another twenty minutes until the bell. There’s someone here who wants to talk to you.”
It was Myrna. My stomach contracted when I saw her. Mom hadn’t let her come to the house, so she’d hunted me down at school. “I heard that you hadn’t been eating lunch lately,” she said, sitting down in the chair next to me, “so I thought I should find out why.”
“Who told you that?” I asked, looking away. The librarian cleared her throat, returned to her desk, and began filing index cards.
“Jane told me. You always used to eat with her, remember? Now you don’t even show up in the cafeteria.”
“I can’t eat lunch with her,” I said. “She hates me.”
Myrna rubbed her eyes; she didn’t look like she’d gotten much sleep lately either. “Emma, nobody hates you. Please tell me what’s wrong.”
“Nothing’s wrong!” I couldn’t tell Myrna that Jane had spent math class throwing spitballs at me, or I’d be tattling again.
“You’re not eating lunch. You’re not doing your school-work. It’s seventy-five degrees out and you’re dressed for late October—”
“I’m fine! Leave me alone! Mind your own business!”
“I am minding my business. If I think something’s wrong with you, I have to try to find out what it is. That’s my job. I’m the school nurse.”
“I’ll make a deal with you,” I said. “If you leave me alone I’ll eat salami sandwiches every day and start doing my homework, okay? Are you happy now?”
“No, because I don’t think you are.”
I turned to face her. “I’m not even supposed to talk to you!” I said, yelling now. The librarian looked up sharply, and then studiously returned to her filing. “If my mother knew I was talking to you she’d kill me! Didn’t you hear what she told you on the phone last night? Go away!”
“I didn’t talk to her on the phone last night,” Myrna said, frowning. “Did she say I did?”
I blinked at her. Had Mom said so? My father had, but only after I’d asked him. But I’d heard Mom say “Myrna,” hadn’t I? Maybe I really was going crazy. “That wasn’t you who called?”
“No,” She made a face and said, “Maybe it was my doppelganger. The one who’s been attending black masses and plotting to overthrow the Girl Scouts.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. Emma, I don’t think your mother’s happy either. And I can’t make you tell me something you don’t want to tell. But if you change your mind, I’m here. Now answer one more question for me, please: whatever it is that’s troubling you, does it have anything to do with your father?”
I opened my mouth, but I couldn’t say anything. My nipples tightened and my throat constricted, clenched with the same fear that had paralyzed me before Jane went out in the rowboat. Don’t talk about it, don’t say anything, don’t tell anyone. I couldn’t have told now even if I’d wanted to. My body wouldn’t let me.
Myrna, watching me, sighed and nodded. “That’s what I was afraid of. We have an extra bedroom, you know. Tom Jr.’s old room from before he went away to school.”
“I’m not allowed to go to your house,” I said, finding my voice. “My mother hates you. She thinks you’re fat and your daughter’s a slut and your husband’s stupid and ugly, and she doesn’t know why you ever married him.”
“Your mother,” Myrna said, and then stopped and took a breath. “Never mind your mother. The door locks from the inside, Emma, You can stay there anytime you want to.”
“My mother thinks—”
Myrna reached out to squeeze my hand. I could tell she was trying not to get angry. “Emma, everyone knows what your mother thinks. I don’t care about that.”
“She’s my mother!” I said, terror coiling in my stomach. I was sweating lakes in my heavy sweatshirt. Myrna was going to call the police or something: I knew it. And then Mom would die and it would be my fault and I’d be alone with my father. People like that go to jail, Tom had told Mr. Ewmet—but my father would never go to jail, because he’d fixed the judge’s prostate. The judge would give him oranges instead, and my father would come home and punish me. “I have to care about what she thinks! I have to do what she says.”
“Oh, honey,” Myrna said. “I know you do. I know. Don’t worry. I’ll talk to her, too.”
“No! You can’t! You don’t understand anything.” If you tell her she’ll die, she’ll die, she’ll die. “You don’t know what you’re talking about! The bruises are from gym and my father—he yells at me for being clumsy but that’s okay—”
“Emma,” Myrna said, very gently, “It’s all right. You didn’t tell me anything. I just figured it out. That’s my job.” She squeezed my hand again, and then she got up and left.
I sat there, staring at the book in my lap.
Podkayne of Mars
, which was about where I wanted to be. And then I realized that it didn’t matter. Myrna could talk to Mom all she wanted to; Mom would never believe her, any more than she’d known what the blood was. She’d think Myrna was getting back at her for assigning
The Scarlet Letter
. And if Myrna called the police I’d just lie to them. That way Mom wouldn’t die and nothing would change, except that I’d get into trouble for talking to Myrna. It wasn’t fair. I didn’t want Mom to die, but all my ways of keeping her safe meant that I got hurt.
After another minute or two I left the library and went by my mother’s classroom. Mom had a planning period when I had lunch, so I figured Myrna would be in there with her, and I was right. The door was closed, but Mom and Myrna were both so used to talking to lots of people that they projected even when they didn’t want to.
“I appreciate your concern,” Mom said icily, “but it’s completely unnecessary. Emma’s fine.”
“Emma is most decidedly
not
fine. Pam, forget politics for a minute and open your eyes. You’re not a stupid woman. I can’t believe that you can’t see what’s happening.”
“She’s having a difficult time adjusting to adolescence. Most youngsters this age do. I’m not in the least worried about her.”
“Then you’re the only one who isn’t. Have you talked to any of her teachers lately? Her grades have fallen off, she isn’t paying attention in class, and half the time she looks like she’s sleepwalking. She’s afraid of physical contact and she’s wearing entirely too much clothing—”
“As opposed to Jane, who isn’t wearing enough. Maybe you should stop paying so much attention to my daughter and start paying more to yours.”
“I could say the same about you, but this conversation would degenerate into something entirely unprofessional. Pam, I like Emma. She’s a good kid. And something pretty damn serious is eating at her, and if you can’t see that you’ve got your head in the sand.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, and I’d be extremely grateful if you’d leave my classroom. Now.”
“Then I will, because if that’s your attitude you’ll never listen to what I have to say. But if you decide you want to listen, will you come talk to me? Better yet, will you talk to Emma?”
“Oh,” my mother said, her tones as chilly as ever, “I’ll talk to Emma.”
“I’m not sure I like the sound of that.”
“I’m very sure that it’s none of your business.”
There was a pause, and Myrna’s heavy footsteps moved towards the door. Then they stopped for a moment. “When you talk to her,” Myrna said, “Tell her you love her, please. If you do, that is. She needs to hear it.”
Dream on, I thought, ducking into the girls’ room as Myrna left my mother’s classroom. The stench of cigarette smoke and urine made me long unbearably for the dream-lake, but the bell rang, and I headed off to French class instead.
I never got there, because the intercom came on with a hiss of static. “Emma Gray, please report to the English office.”
English office? Didn’t she have class now? No, she didn’t, because it was Friday and her honors kids were in with Mr. McClellan’s kids watching a filmstrip about Hawthorne. Great. So she had a free period to heckle me, and if I didn’t show up at the English office she’d show up at the door of my French class.
No way. I headed straight for an exit sign, out the door into hot hazy sunshine, and up the road to the lake, the real lake. There probably wouldn’t be too many kids there; everybody was being more careful these days because of the Jane and Tad incident. If somebody followed me to the dock and tried to touch me, let him. Maybe I’d be lucky and he’d have a knife and I’d get killed. Maybe it would be a really sharp knife and I’d get killed really quickly, before I even felt anything. That way Mom would have another angel to love and I’d be able to get away from my father. Whoever else found me at the lake, at least my parents probably wouldn’t.
When I got there I lay down on the worn wood. The lapping of the water and the warmth of the sun lulled away my worries, and gradually the real lake faded into the dream-lake, the true lake, the infinitely beautiful lake of which I never wearied. So what if Ginny was being a pill? I didn’t need her. I could come here by myself.
I flew and flew and flew, without getting tired or hungry or bored. I could fly forever, here where it was safe, and nothing could ever hurt me. And at last I noticed that Ginny had joined me after all, and was sitting on a branch overhanging the water. Had she been sitting there the whole time? I didn’t even know.
“Ginny?” I called. She sat watching me; I couldn’t read her expression, I waved. “Hey, Ginny, come on!”
She stayed there. Exasperated, I flew back to join her. “What’s the matter? Don’t you want to have fun? Let’s play tag.”
“I never should have brought you here,” she said, and another cloud passed over the beautiful scenery. “This isn’t—”
“Isn’t what? This is perfect, when you let the sun stay out! Come on, play tag with me.”
“Dad used to play tag with me,” she said, “but it wasn’t fair because he always won. I don’t like that game. If all you want to do is fly, I might as well not have come back at all. Emma, this isn’t
Peter Pan
.”
Yes it is, and Captain Hook’s my father and Tinkerbell’s my flighty mother, shooting me down every chance she gets, “Yes it is,” I said, “because I don’t want to grow up, and you never did. We’re the lost girls. Come on—you’re the one who
liked
the stupid book. Do you think we can find some animals in the woods? Foxes or something? Show me a fox.”
“I can’t, unless you’ve already seen it,” she said. She was shaking. “Emma, there’s only one way not to grow up.”
“But—”
“Go home. Go home now, and never come back here again.”
“What?” I had to blink back tears, and suddenly I hated her again. Nothing was supposed to hurt here. How could she do this to me? “You’re telling me to go away? After all that work? What was the work for, then?”
“So we’d talk,” Ginny said. “So we’d share things, so you’d get to know me. But all you want is the pretty stuff. You’re just like Mom.”
“I’m
what
? Like
Mom
? You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Yes! You’re like Mom! Looking for the pretty stuff and not thinking about what anything means! Emma, this isn’t a real world. It’s just a place where we can talk.”
It’s just a place to talk
, I’d told Jane.
It’s not the secret
. But I was scared again, because I didn’t want to know Ginny’s secret. “And fly. It’s the only place I can fly.”
“There were a lot of things I wanted to do,” Ginny said. “I never got to do them.”
“Yeah, so, you never got to go to Disneyland. Lots of people go to Disneyland. How many people get to fly? I’ve always wanted to fly, and now I can. Come on!”
I dropped from the branch and plummeted towards the water, only to pull myself into a stall at the last minute. It was gloriously easy. But behind me Ginny, still stuck on the branch like a cat stranded in a tree, had begun to moan. It was the noise ghosts are supposed to make.
I swung back around, the hair on the back of my neck rising. Improbably swift storm clouds had gathered again, and Ginny was clinging to the tree branch, sobbing and howling.
“Ginny? What’s wrong with you—”
“I’m dead! That’s what’s wrong with me! Dead people fly, Emma! I brought you here so I could talk to you, and all you want to do is pretend you’re dead!”
“Yeah?” I remembered my fantasy about the knife. “So what if I do? Try being alive again! It hasn’t been too much fun lately.”
She shook her head wildly. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Now go back. Go back! You’ve spent too much time here.”
“If I go will I be able to come here again?”
“If you don’t go you’ll never be able to leave. You’re trapping both of us here. Go home!”
She’d started growing thinner before my eyes, hollower, like something out of a horror movie. “Stop it,” I said. “Ginny, cut it out! Stop trying to scare me and be pretty again.”
“I didn’t stay pretty in the world and I can’t here, either. Those are the rules.” In the increasing darkness of the clouds she looked gaunt, terror-stricken. “Go,” she said, her voice a wail, and I turned and fled just before she melted to bone.