The Accidental Siren (11 page)

Mara sat in a swatch of grass among tall
purple flowers that smelled like onions. She recited her lines to a
raggedy Cabbage Patch Doll as I followed along in the screenplay.
The distant hum of the plow never left my consciousness.

“Dorothy, you look horrible,” Mara said to
the doll. “Your hair is all messed up, your dress is wrinkled, and
your arm is about to fall off!” She pulled Dorothy to her ear and
pretended to listen. “I’m sorry I was rude. You actually look nice.
We’ve just been havin’ a bad week, haven’t we?”

My dialogue never sounded so good.

Mara dropped Dorothy and looked at me. “Why
am I talking to a doll?”

“Well,” I began, “this is the first scene in
the movie and I want to show that The Girl is just a little kid. So
many things are gonna happen on her journey and by the end, she’s
gonna be all grown up. I wanted to find a way to show that she
changes. If the audience doesn’t see somethin’ change, the movie’ll
be boring.”

“Where’d ya learn all this stuff?”

“Parents got me a screenwriting book last
Christmas.”

Mara pressed her elbow on her knee and her
chin on her fist. “Maybe I should wear pretty makeup for this
scene.”

“Yeah?” I patted my jeans for a pen.

“Pigtails too. That way, as the movie goes
along, the makeup can come off and my hair can get messy and I’ll
look really different by the end.”

“Darnit!” I said. “Whit’s got the notebook.
You have a pen?”

Mara pulled a naked red crayon from her
pocket. “The twins keep leaving me gifts,” she said. “Yesterday it
was a baseball card and a rolled up tube of toothpaste.” She tossed
me the crayon.

“The makeup thing... it’s a really good
idea.”

“Don’t you think the doll is a little
boring?”

I looked up. “Boring?”

“Maybe we could get something real. Maybe the
girl has a pet! I see kittens in the newspaper all the time.
Sometimes they’re free.”

“Real animals...” I muttered. “Holy
production value!”

“I always wanted a kitten,” Mara said. “Ms.
Grisham never let me have a pet.”

“I’ll talk to Mom. Betcha she’ll go for it.”
I scribbled the new ideas in the margins of my script and said,
“Boy oh boy, Whit’s gonna love this!”

“You’re always talkin’ about Whit,” Mara
said. “When do I get to meet him?”

I shrugged. “Maybe someday.”

In the valley, a man yelled and the plow
sputtered to a halt.

“Wanna run it again?” I asked.

Mara nodded and picked up the doll. “I’ll
pretend it’s a kitten.” A robin’s whistle punctuated her smile.

“Ready?”

“Mmm hmm!”

“Annnd,
action!
”

“Good morning, Dorothy the Cat! Isn’t it a
beautiful day? Maybe the most beautiful day I’ve ever–”

“
Eeeeoww!”
The scream quivered with
violent elation. My head jerked like a startled prairie dog and I
recalled A.J.’s shriek when I rammed my knee into his back.

Mara looked at me, confused, then A.J., Danny
and Trent emerged from the brush behind her like a trio of
post-apocalyptic cannibals.

“I told ya!” said A.J., shaking a can of Pam
cooking spray. “Gosh-damnit I
knew
I recognized that
voice!”

Mara scrambled toward me leaving Dorothy
alone among the purple onions.

“What. Do we. Have here?” Danny stepped to
the head of the pack with my camera slung across his shoulder.

“I told you it was her,” A.J. said again.
“Didn’t I tell ya, T? Huh?”

T (or “Trent” as he was known before turning
to the Dark Side) was a girthy man-child who smelled like B.O.
since the day he was born. Patches of razor burn littered four of
his chins. He carried a sword he assembled from discarded
two-by-fours; a row of nails protruded from the face of the blade.
As he trampled the grass with his buddies, his enormous foot landed
directly on Dorothy’s head. “Lookit that piece of ass,” he said,
his sagging eyes set on Mara.

Danny narrowed his brow. “Fancy meetin’ you
here,
Fatty
. Where’s the cripple?”

I helped Mara from the leaves and brushed her
off.

The bullies stepped closer; Danny in front.
“We were cuttin’ tracks for the four-wheelers, but thought we’d
take a break to burn some lego men for my new camera.” He rubbed
the case as if he was polishing a brick of gold. “Didja know
cooking spray is flammable?”

A.J. twirled the can and hopped like a
leprechaun. “I knew it,” he said.
“I knew it!
I told you it
was her!”

“We need to go,” I whispered.

Mara nodded and backed away.

“You can’t escape,” said Danny.

I tugged Mara’s shirt. “Run,” I said.
“Now!”

“Get ‘em!” A.J. shouted and Danny bounded
three giant strides before we could turn around. He grappled Mara’s
forearm, twirled her, slammed her back against a tree, and pressed
his wrist bone against her throat.

“Let her go!” I yelled.

“It’s her!” A.J. said. “It’s her!”

“Who?” Danny asked.

“
Mara.”

Danny shot his friend a confused look and I
made my move, planting my feet in the dirt and charging–elbow
first–toward the bully who had my girl.
“I told you to let
her–!”

But T cut me off like a cannonball to my gut.
His girth outweighed mine and his barreling momentum carried me
into the trunk of another tree. My stomach lurched and my lungs
popped and when Trent pulled away, I fell to the ground with tears
in my eyes.

“Sit there, faggot,” he said and pointed the
sword at my neck, “and don’t mess with a football player
again.”

I heaved for air. I could only see the back
of Mara’s shoulder behind the trunk to which she was pinned... and
Danny’s lupine eyes.

“Age,” Danny said. “Who. Is. She?”

A.J. meandered toward Mara, but his eyes were
locked on mine (he remembered that night as well as I did). The can
of cooking spray tilted back and forth in his hand; the marble
inside ticked like a methodical time bomb. He snapped his head to
Mara and hissed,
“Sssing.”

Mara squirmed but Danny tightened his grip.
“A.J., if you don’t tell me what the hell is going on–”

“Sing for them,
Maaaraaa.
”

“Cut it out, Age!” I shouted and T’s sword
pressed deeper into my neck.

“If you sing for us...” A.J. dropped the
spray, reached into the neck of his shirt, and pulled out a gold
chain.
“I’ll give you back your necklace.”
He dangled the
charm in front of her face.

Mara tilted her head to study the jewelry and
I could see her profile. “Where’d you get that...” she asked. Her
eyes were wet.

A.J. slipped the chain back in his shirt. “We
figured out you moved,” he said. “Three nights ago. One of dem boys
brought a ladder.”

Trent lowered his mouth to my ear.
“I’m
gonna eat your girlfriend,”
he said. The threat barely
registered in my brain; I was too focused on A.J.’s story.

“I was number five up the ladder,” he said.
“The first boys already got to yer bedroom and closet, but I’m a
quick thinker so I went straight to yer bathroom. Found some
headbands in a drawer and a green washrag in the shower. I keep it
under my bed at night and sniff it.” His lips thinned and curled.
“Got yer necklace too,” he tapped his chest, “but that ain’t my
biggest find.” A.J. cupped his hand around her ear and whispered a
secret.

Mara slouched. She pressed her cheek into the
bark and found my eyes with a melancholy gaze.

T spoke more to himself than to me, but I
could still smell the rot on his breath and the peroxide on his
chin.
“I’m gonna start with her toes,”
he said.
“I’m
gonna suck ‘em one at a time. Then I’m gonna eat ‘em.”

Danny ran his fingertips across Mara’s cheek.
“Think she’s hotter than Roslyn?” He looked at me. “What do you
think,
Fatty?
Sexier than Ros?”

“
I’m gonna eat her legs,”
T whispered.
All that pretty skin–I’m gonna gobble it right up...”

Danny looked at A.J. “Why didn’t you tell me
about this? I’m you’re fricken leader.” (Age didn’t tell Danny
about Mara for the same reason I was avoiding Whit.)

A.J. ignored the question. “Make ‘er sing,
Dan.”

“Why?”

“Just do it. You’ll see.”

“
I’m gonna cut off her hair and I’m gonna
smell her breath, then I’m gonna eat her face, piece by
piece.”

Again–slowly–Danny ran his fingers down
Mara’s cheek. His eyes burned with new intensity as the dark magic
took hold of his thoughts.
“Sing,”
he said.

* * *

My anger reached its peak and my veins were
primed with adrenaline–

“What the hells goin’ on up here?” The man
was skinnier than a sapling with a pickaxe in one hand and
sweat-rag in the other.

Trent hid the sword behind his back and A.J.
slipped behind a tree.

Danny released Mara to the ground and said,
“None of your beeswax, Hank.”

The man took ten strides with legs like a
spider. He clenched the back of Danny’s neck and held the boy’s
face to his. “You know that man’s payin’ me a hundred bucks to help
dig his trench? I brought you here to help, boy, not to play with
yer friends. And you call me
Uncle
Hank, you hear me?” He
let go of Danny’s neck and smacked the back of his head.

Then he noticed Mara. He wiped his forearm
across his lips and stepped forward. “Did you hurt dem kids,
Danny?”

“No, sir,” Danny replied.

Hank’s eyes were hooked on the girl. “Age,”
he said, “yer dad’s lookin’ for ya.” He glanced at T. “Whoever the
hell you are, go home an’ leave dem kids alone.” He smacked Danny
again. “And you... get yer mangled head back down that hill and
help pull some weeds.”

Danny looked at me. His final glance said
what his lips couldn’t:
we’ll finish this later.

T whacked a branch with his sword and plodded
away. A.J. and Danny crossed the patch of grass, then disappeared
into the brush from whence they came.

Hank nodded to Mara, tipped the rim of an
invisible hat, lingered for a moment too long... then followed the
boys into the forest.

I clutched the tree to pull myself up, then
limped to Mara. I sat beside her and held my stomach. I hoped she
would crawl to my lap–I could comfort her there–but she remained in
the dirt and rolled to face me.

“You okay?” she asked. Her cheek still held
the imprint of jagged bark.

“Got the wind knocked outta me. Otherwise,
I’m fine. How about you?”

“Feel a little sick, but no scratches.”

“What did A.J. whisper to you?” I asked.
“Unless you don’t wanna tell me...”

“He found the tape of me singing... the one I
played to keep Aunty asleep.”

That scrawny little hillbilly had a
recording of Mara’s voice!
I was jealous–
furious
–but I
also felt sad for her... and that was the side that Mara needed to
see. “I’m sorry those jerks stole your stuff. If I could get it
back–”

“Not jerks. They’re assholes.”

I smiled at the dirty word. Mara smiled
back.

Inside, I was terrified. Danny and the boys
wouldn’t stay away for long. Today it was threats and hateful
words; tonight, Mara would visit them in their dreams. Tomorrow,
the lust would blossom into plans and strategies. Eventually,
they’d come back for more.

“Guess what,” she said.

“What?”

“My washcloth was purple... Ms. Grisham used
green.”

We laughed. I picked a leaf from her
hair.

“Mara?” I said.

“Yeah?”

“I won’t ever make you sing.”

The girl didn’t respond, but closed her eyes
and wound my shoelace around her finger.

* * *

Midnight.

The scream belonged to Mara. It’s terrifying
vibrato echoed through my subconscious and strangled my dream until
I woke up thrashing. I sat up in bed, froze in absolute silence,
and wondered if I had imagined the cry.

Then it happened again–the word “fuck” in
Mara’s precious voice–splitting the stillness with such ferocity
that it rattled my windows and sang for days in the back of my
mind.

* * *

“You actually think I have superpowers?”
Mara’s face glowed amber in the light of a dying prayer candle. The
cavern’s pipes fell to the blackness of my peripherals; for all I
knew, we were the lone survivors of the apocalypse.

“Think about it,” I said. “How do you explain
all those boys outside your window? You saw them, right?”

“Duh. Every time I looked out my window there
were more.”

“They even went back to steal your stuff! And
what about that psycho woman? She took you out of school and never
let you out of the house. That’s not normal.”

“Yeah...”

“Plus, I’ve known those bullies since
preschool and they’ve always been jerks–’specially Danny–but I’ve
never seen them like that. They were totally nuts.”

“You think I made them like that?”

“Not on purpose. I just think that boys
really,
really
like you when they see you. And when you
sing...”

“When I sing... what?”

I shrugged. I didn’t intend to finish the
thought. “It’s different somehow. Special. Did you see the way that
Danny’s uncle looked at you? Who does that?”

“Lots of guys do that.”

“Maybe to you. But not to other girls.”

Mara’s pupils had consumed all but a sliver
of her irises. She truly didn’t understand.

“I think we should do some experiments,” I
said.

“To test my superpowers?”

“But only if you want to.”

Mara considered the idea. “Kinda like a comic
book.”

“Totally.”

She nodded and grinned. “Let’s do it.”