The Accidental Siren (25 page)

She groaned, took my wrist, and hauled me
back to my room.

“What?”

“You’re gonna wake Livy.”

“Tell me where you’re going.”

Mara’s body responded with a series of
micro-spasms in her knees and neck. “I had the dream again.”

“The one with the hill?”

“James... it’s time.”

I blinked. Mara still looked like a kid, but
her voice carried a somber undertone; a tone usually earned after
years upon years of life experience. “Time?” I asked.

“Today’s the day, James. And I need to go
alone.”

“No!”

She covered my mouth with her palm.

I lowered my voice and blurted through her
fingers. “You’re not really going up there–”

Her eyes were frantic; scanning my room as if
chasing an invisible fly. “Please don’t tell your parents,” she
said.

“It’s five in the morning!”

“I need to go.”

“It was just a dream!”

Mara didn’t respond, but looked at me as if I
was crazy.

“It’s sunny in all your pictures,” I
said.

“In my dream last night... it was
raining.”

“You can’t go in the woods by yourself.”

“I’m not afraid of bullies.”

“Mom’ll kill you when you get back.”

“James,” she said and squeezed my shoulder.
“I’m not coming back.”

There was a madness in Mara’s gaze that
suggested I shouldn’t doubt her. Whether or not her dreams were
prophetic, all that mattered was that she believed them.

“I’m going with you,” I said, then burrowed
through my laundry basket for a pair of shorts.

“James, you can’t–”

“There were
two
stick figures in your
drawings. If something’s really gonna happen on that hill, maybe
the other person is me.”

* * *

“Watch for worms,” Mara said as we made our
way across the paver-brick drive. “They sneak from the cracks when
it rains.”

The storm was on hiatus, though gusts of wind
rustled the leaves, sending showers of oversized droplets on our
heads. We took the steps behind the retaining wall. At the top, I
paused and scanned the horizon. The sky was dark above us, but
there was a clear distinction between the murkiness of “five AM”
and the obsidian clouds hanging above the lake. A silver bolt
struck the sea and I began to count under my breath,
“One-Mississippi. Two-Mississippi. Three–”

“James!” Mara said, already twenty steps
ahead. “If you’re coming–”

The thunder cut her short.

* * *

Mara held her flashlight to her temple and
followed the beam through the trees. The ground was soggy and
slurped our shoes as we climbed the brink of The Great Divide. At
the top, Mara peered over the edge and aimed the flashlight into
the dark. Like the black hole in Whit’s astronomy book, the abyss
swallowed our meager cone of light and, the longer we stared,
threatened to swallow us too.

I wanted to tell Mara that it wasn’t too late
to turn back, that we could still be in bed before Mom or Livy woke
up, that she could sleep in my room until dawn...

She clicked off the flashlight and wiggled it
in her knapsack, then grabbed a sapling to stabilize her first step
into the pit. The darkness engulfed her in seconds, though I could
still hear her clumsy footfalls over the wind.

“Wait for me!” I said. I closed my eyes; they
were useless anyway. I found comfort in the heightened awareness
that comes with a lack of sight. I tested the slope with my toes,
feeling my way from tree to tree with arms like an insect’s
antennae, relying on my sense of balance to keep me upright,
following the patter of Mara’s shoes on the wet earth.

The ground became level for several steps,
and I knew I was on the path where Dorothy was buried. I paused,
fully aware that my next step would bring me deeper than I had ever
dared to venture before. Mara had crossed the make-believe border
with ease, never stopping to ponder the cat she buried only three
days before.

* * *

We reached the basin as the clouds pinked
from the rising sun. Clusters of moss turned bright green in the
meager light, creating a visible grid on the forest floor to help
us keep our bearing. The storm had created puddles in the dirt like
oblong mirrors among the stumps. There were no fish in these ponds,
only drowning ferns, swimming ants, and spiders that wished they
had gils. I stared down at my reflection as I rounded the largest
puddle. I appeared upside-down in a backwards land; a land of
treetop silhouettes, rippled skies, and inverted beauty; a land
where Mara is mediocre and the rest of us are gorgeous. (Even
there, Mara is unique.)

Twenty feet in front of me, she checked her
watch and picked up the pace. I felt fat again as I lumbered after
her. “Wait up!” I said.

Mara stopped as if she didn’t have a choice.
Her right leg was riddled from her knee to her sock with tiny
lacerations. But she looked at me, grinned, and gestured playfully,
“hurry up!”

Days ago, I would have fallen for Mara’s
ruse. But now I saw past her joyful mask–past her genuine smile and
infectious gait–all the way to an anxious little girl willing to
risk our lives to meet a phantom on a hill.

* * *

It began to rain and Mara walked faster. Her
shoes were mud pies, her left braid was frayed after snagging
itself on a low-slung branch, and her tank-top clung to her back
from a rousing crescent of sweat.

We passed a tractor beneath a blue tarp.
Raindrops created a comforting patter on the plastic. An axe laid
against the exposed wheel. We saw a salt lick a minute later, but
no deer.

The walls of the basin were ginormous,
dark-grey, covered in ominous trees that seemed to bow toward us as
if we were the center of the forest. Thunder didn’t just shake the
sky, but echoed and multiplied throughout the entire valley.

We heard it before we felt it; a whoosh and
surge through the canopy like the sound of a tilting rainstick.

Mara looked up.

“Here it comes,” I said.

* * *

We were soaked within seconds. Our clothes
stuck to our bodies like a second layer of flesh, exposing every
crease of fat on my body while accentuating Mara’s perfect
form.

I ran to catch up.

“How much farther, ya think?” she asked, her
lashes flitting rain from her eyes.

“We’ll be halfway there at the top of this
hill... I think.”

“Cool.”

I used her question as an opening. “Whaddya
think it’ll be? The flying saucer?”

“Your sister’s mad at me.”

Mara’s disregard for my question forced my
brain to shift gears. “Huh? Did Livy say something?”

“She was probably spying on me the night Ryan
was over. Prolly heard everything he said, just like you did.”

“Ryan’s not all that, you know.”

“I like it when women wear earrings.”

“Then get your ears pierced. You’re old
enough.”

“Your mom can’t let me. Part of the
foster-parent rules.”

“Oh.”

The ground began to slope upward this time.
We took turns bracing ourselves on tree limbs, holding the other’s
hand to help them up, rotating, then repeating the motion to
rhythmically repel each other up the hill.

I had to shout over the rain. “What should I
do with your stuff when you’re gone?” It was supposed to be a
rhetorical question.

“Give my candles to Mrs. Greenfield,” she
replied. “My clothes, make-up and jewelry goes to Livy.”

Was she serious?

“I have twenty-three dollars in a piggybank
in my bottom nightstand drawer. Give it to your Mom to pay her back
for her help. My Saint Michael statue, give it to Whitney. He needs
protection.”

“What about me? How am I going to remember
you?”

“You have our movie. It’s the most fun I’ve
ever had.”

It sounded like a copout, but she was right,
our best memories had been captured on tape: bouts of goofiness,
applause, adorable bloopers, and priceless moments between every
take.

At the top of the incline we saw it: Mara’s
hill and tower, bleak in the thickening mist, framed by clouds that
stifled the rising sun. Behind us, the castle tower stood tall
above the trees. Above it, lightning tore a web across the sky,
burning my retinas so–when I looked at Mara–her face was covered by
the same jagged bolts.

“Almost there,” she said.

* * *

The storm was chasing us. If Mom was awake at
home, she was freaking out.

Streams of water followed us down the second
hill, eroding miniature canyons between the roots, rocks and fallen
bits of bark.

There were no puddles in the second valley,
but a lake. Patches of saturated dirt protruded from the sea like a
herd of giant snapper turtles. The water was not still, but alive
with raindrops–trillions of them–providing the cesspool an eerie,
rippled texture as if it was boiling.

“Come on!” Mara said and grabbed my hand.

I stumbled to keep up, dipping and dodging
limbs and trunks, feet galloping through mud, heart racing like a
ticking time bomb.

“There,” she said and nodded to a distant
pine. Over the next hundred feet, the maples, oaks and sporadic
birch trees gave way to pointed conifers. Clumps of brown needles
created an undulating crust on the water’s surface.

We reached the tree at the base of Mara’s
hill. She ducked beneath the lowest branch and pulled me inside the
sanctuary of the thousand-year-old pine. (I was certain that if we
cut it in half, the rings would prove its age.)

My teeth chattered, not because it was cold,
but because that’s what teeth do when the body is drenched in rain.
We stood in a foot of water but the conifer’s trunk was dry. The
thick awning held back the downpour and muffled the sound of
falling rain.

The droplets on Mara’s face were crystalline,
uniform, and evenly spaced... I looked like I just pulled my head
from a hippo’s butt.

She unstrapped the sack from her shoulder,
removed two candles, rosary beads, and a matchbook stolen from the
top shelf of the buffet. She placed the candles side by side on the
lowest limb.

“What are you doing?”

“I can’t go up there like this.” Her hands
trembled as she struck the match. The flame colored her face with
its initial bold burst and illuminated every raindrop on her cheek
like polished rubies. She crossed herself. “I want you to hear my
confession.”

I wasn’t sure what she meant, but I
nodded.

“Don’t look at me,” she commanded. “Turn
around.”

My feet sloshed in the flood as I faced the
shroud of needles. Through the thunder and pelting rain, I heard
Mara’s soft but rapid breath.

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It
has been sixty-three days since my last confession.”

“What do I do?” I whispered.

“You’re supposed to ask me questions.”

“Like what?”

“Like what I did wrong this week, or
questions about my body.”

My mind leapt headfirst into the
possibilities. I wondered if “confession” meant she had to tell the
truth. I was certain I had seen enough priests in movies to put on
a believable performance.

Before I could think of a question, Mara gave
me one. “Just ask me what sins I’ve committed.”

I cleared my throat. “Tell me, child, what
sins have you committed?”

She sighed. “I sleep in on weekends,” she
said. “Sometimes till noon. I said the word ‘asshole’ twice. I said
‘lesbian’ three times, ‘shit’ four times, and ‘butthead’ six. And I
stole the matchbook from the top of the buffet.”

I grinned, but Mara couldn’t see my face so
it didn’t matter. “Is that all, child?” I asked.

“Lust, father.”

“How so?”

“I slept in bed with a boy that I like.”

“Oh?”

“I told another boy secrets about my
body.”

Ryan.
“What secrets?”

“I covet. I see what Livy has and I want
it.”

My molars ground together like pieces of
chalk. “Tell me more, child.”

“I’m vain. I want to be pretty. I like
wearing makeup. I like when people compliment me. But
sometimes...”

“Yes?”

“...bad things happen.”

“That’s–”

“If I wasn’t vain–if I didn’t like being
pretty–Dorothy might be alive.”

I wanted to comfort her. But the confession
wasn’t over. “Is that all, child?”

“I lied.”

“You lied?”

“To a different priest.”

“What is this lie you speak of?”

Mara hesitated for the first time. “I told
him I confessed all my sins...”

“But you didn’t.”

“No.”

“I can’t forgive you unless you admit all of
your transgressions.”

Water sloshed behind me. Mara was pacing.
“Only Ms. Grisham and Principal Dolman know...”

“You can tell me, child.”

She sighed. “It happened in fourth grade.
Trevor Tooth Fairy sat behind me in math.”

“Trevor Tooth Fairy?”

“They called him that ‘cause he bashed his
front teeth on the teeter-totter when his friend jumped off the
other side. There was blood everywhere ‘cause he had braces and
they cut his lip.”

“Gross.”

“His teeth were just hanging outside his
mouth by the wires. I just called him Trev.” Mara picked bark from
the tree. “Anyways, he sat behind me in math. He poked me in the
back of my neck every day with a ruler. Hard. He called me names.
He called me Luscious Mara Lynn even though I never called him
Tooth Fairy. Every time he said ‘Luscious’ and ‘Lynn,’ his tongue
would squeeze through the hole of his missing front teeth. I never
tattled. I just laughed and played along because he wasn’t that
different from the other kids. But when we were learning to draw
circles in math, he started snapping the pointy end of his compass
into my neck instead of a ruler. He made it bleed, but nobody knew
because my hair covered the scars.”