The Worm in Every Heart (23 page)

But this is just a story.

All naming is already murder.

—Lacan.

Hepzibah
, she called herself, mouthing the syllables whenever she thought no one else was looking.
Hep-zi-bah
. A powerful name, with strength in every note of it; a witch's name. She whispered it in each night's darkness, dreaming of poisons.

Outside, across the great divide between schoolyard and backyard, she knew her garden lay empty, sere and withered, topsoil still bleak with frost. Snow festered, greying, on top of the trumpet-vine's dead tangle. Behind that, the fence; further, a sloping away. Down past graffiti in full seasonal bloom, down into the mud at the base of the bridge, into the shadows under the pass, where the “normal” kids fought and kissed and loudly threatened suicide.

Into the Ravine.

One month more until spring. Then the nightshade bushes on either side of the property line would be green, each leaf bitter with possibilities.

But here she sat in Wang's homeroom class, textbooks laid open on the desktop in front of her: Fifth Grade English like an endless boring string of Happiness-Is-To-Me, When-I-Grow-Up-I, My-Favorite- Whatever Journal exercises, Fifth Grade math like hieroglyphics in Martian. Real reading matter poking out from underneath, just barely visible whenever she squinted hard enough—
Perennials and Parasites, A City Garden Almanac
; roots and shoots, pale green print on pale cream paper, a leftover swatch of glue from where she'd ripped the school library slip off the inside back cover still sticking its back pages together. She sat there scanning entries while Mr. Wang reeled off roll-call behind her, desperately searching for something, anything she could recognize from that all-too-familiar tangle of weeds along the winding path she usually took home, wasting as much time as possible until Ravine finally turned to driveway and the house—

—“her“ house—

—that place where she lived, on Janice and Doug's sufferance, reared itself up against the sky like a tumor, a purse-lipped mouth poised to pop open and swallow her whole.

“Diamond, Jennifer,” Wang droned, meanwhile, back in the world nine people out of ten seemed to agree was real. “Edgecomb, Caroline. Garza, Shelby. Gilford, Darien. Goshawk . . . ”

Daffodil (Narcissus pseudonarcissus); Looks like: Star-shaped bright yellow corona of petals around a bonnet-shaped bell, with long, tulip-like stem and leaves. Toxic part: Bulbs, which are often mistaken for onions. Symptoms: Nausea, gastroenteritis, vomiting, persistent emesis, diarrhoea, and convulsive trembling which may lead to fatality.

“Often mistaken for onions . . . “ like the kind Doug insisted on in his micro-organic salad, maybe. So no one'd be likely to question her having them, even away from the kitchen. Even hidden somewhere in her room . . .

She frowned, tapping the textbook's covering page. “May lead,” though; not good enough. Not nearly good enough, for what she had in mind.

“Herod, Kevin. Hu, Darlanne. Isaak, Stephanie.”

Oleander (Nerium oleander); Looks like: Smallish, wide-spread pansylike blooms on thin, tough stems with floppy leaves; Toxic part: Entire plant, green or dried—when a branch of an oleander plant is used to skewer meat at a barbecue, the poison is transferred to the meat; Symptoms: Nausea, depression, lowered and irregular pulse, bloody diarrhoea, paralysis and possibly death.

Nausea, depression—nothing new there, she thought, with a black little lick of humor. But Jesus, wasn't there anything in here that didn't come naturally (ha, ha) attached to having to roll on the floor and shit yourself to death? Anything that just made you . . . God, she didn't know . . . fall asleep, sink into peaceful darkness, just drift off and never wake up?

Aside from those pills in Janice's cupboard, the ones she'd probably miss before you even could swallow 'em? A little voice asked, at the back of her mind. No, probably not. ‘Cause that'd be
way
too easy.

And if she wanted easy, then why play around with plants and leaves and tubers at all? Why not just straddle the rough stones of the St. Clair East bridge, shut her eyes and let go, like any normal person?

Choose her spot, avoid the trees, and there wouldn't be anything to break her fall but gravity. A mercifully short plunge, brief downward rush of wind and queasy freedom, with maybe one short, sharp shock as her head met the rocks below . . .

“Jenkins, Jason. Jowaczyk, William. Lien, Elvis.”

Deadly Nightshade (Atropa belladonna); Looks like: Drooping white bloom over broad, veiny leaves, berries couched in beds of wispy leaflets; Toxic part: Entire plant, especially bright black berries; Symptoms: Dry mouth and difficulty in swallowing and speaking, flushed dry skin, rapid heartbeat, dilated pupils and blurred vision, neurological disturbances including excitement, giddiness, delirium, headache, confusion and hallucinations. Repeated ingestion can lead to dependency and glaucoma.

Not exactly
deadly,
then, is it? She thought, annoyed—and raised her head right at the same time that Wang raised his voice, all eyes already skittering to check her reaction: “Heather Millstone.”

(You mean
Hepzibah.
Don't you?)

“Present.”

Name after name after name, a whole limping alphabet of them—the roster of her “peers.” She watched Wang's chin wag through the remaining call-and-response, counting freckles: Two faint ones near the corner of his mouth, one closer to the centre—a lopsided, tri-eyed face. From upside-down, it almost looked like he was smiling.

Mr. Wang paused, apparently out of breath; sweat rose off him in every direction—a stinky heat haze, like asphalt in summer. He
wore the same pale blue pin-striped shirts every day, and you could usually mark what time it was by how far the matching yellow circle at either armpit had spread. Whenever he gestured, waves of cologne and old grease spread in the direction of his ire. She was vaguely aware of having spent the last few minutes experimenting with his voice, even as her conscious mind turned lightly to thoughts of suicide—turning it up, turning it down, letting the words stretch sideways like notes of music. Shrinking it to a breath, a hum . . .

“ . . . Heather?”

Aware of his attention, finally, she looked up, met his eyes. And: “Yes,” she replied, reflexively—knowing that usually worked, even though she hadn't been listening well enough to really know what she was agreeing to.

“Yes, what?”

“Yes—Mr. Wang?”

An audible giggle, two desks to the right: Jenny Diamond, self-elected Queen of Normal, Ontario. They'd been friends, once upon a time—or maybe Jenny had just tolerated her, letting her run to keep up with the rest of the clique while simultaneously making sure she stayed pathetically unaware how precarious her status as token Jenny wannabe really was. The last to know, as ever.

“I said, you're up. Yesterday's journal entry?” Another pause. “Sometime this week might be nice, especially for the rest of the class.”

Oh, I'm sure.
Especially
for them.

The particularly funny thing being, of course, that she actually had done the work in question (for once.) Poem, any subject, any length. She could just see the corner of it poking from her binder, if she strained—an uneven totem-pole of assonant paragraphs, neat black pen rows on pale blue-lined sheets, whose first lines went like so:

 

Always a shut door between us

Yet I clung fast

out here on the volcano's rim

For five more years or a hundred,

Whichever came last;

 

How tall this pain has grown.

wavering, taking root

At the split mouth of bone.

Your love like lava, sealing my throat.

Words, piling up like bones . . .

 

“Well, Heather? You know the drill. Stand up . . . ”

. . . and let's get started.

Students normally stood to read, displaying themselves in front of everybody else. The class listened, kept the snickers to a minimum, clapped when you were done. Big flourish. Good mark. Centre of attention, all that—

But. But, but, but.

Staring down at her own lap, caught short like some idiot fish half-hooked through the cornea. Staring at her poem, the binder's edge, one blue-jeaned leg, the other. The edge of her peasant shirt, only barely hiding the area between, where well-worn fabric slid first to blue, then pale, then white along the seam. Normally, that is.

Tomato-red flower blooming at the juncture now, spreading pinky-gross back along the track of her hidden zipper, her crotch's bleached denim ridge. Evidence that she had yet once more left the house at that particular time of the month unsupplied, probably because her mind was frankly elsewhere: Choking on the thought of how unexpectedly soon Doug might return home from his latest “buying trip,” maybe. Spitting it out like an unchewed cud of cereal into her napkin . . .

And: “8:30,” said Janice, grabbing her bowl; the chair, pulled out from under her, shrieked protest. “Up and at 'em, pie.”

Muttered: “Whatever.”

“What's that?”

“Nothing.”

Janice turned, abruptly—a bad move, considering how you didn't ever want her full attention on you, not more than you could help. Best just to stay background noise, an optical illusion: The amazing vanishing kid, briefly glimpsed from room to room. Because backtalk inevitably set Janice thinking of stove burners set on one, or pepper rubbed in the nostrils—enough to hurt, bad, yet too little to leave a (permanent) mark.

“Seems to me there's been a bit too much nothing been said around here lately,” Janice said. “Seems to me, somebody might want to keep that in mind.” Pause. “Well?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

The exchange woke another surf-curl wave of memory, washing her right on back to the moment at hand—homeroom, Mr. Wang, her poem. The impossibility of movement, without flashing her shame to the room at large. Her breakfast placemat's pattern swum briefly before her eyes, just for a second: A laminated rose-garden under improbably blue skies. Here and there, wherever the lines blurred, faces peeped out—pale and wizened features, ginseng death-masks, leering back up at her like tubers left to dry.

Thinking: Yes. Yes, Mr. Wang. Yes . . .

. . . Mom.

Her tiny store of delaying tactics worn through at last, she swallowed hard and felt the vise inside her throat snap shut—tight, and hot, and dry. Jenny's clique were snickering openly now; the rest of the class just leaned forward, mouths slack in anticipation of tears. Nothing quite as amusing as a post-pubertal monster hemmed in by pre-teens, after all: Face stretched and straining, eyes aflutter while a grown man impatiently panned for public apologies.

And: Oh yes, you're so right, I'm so sorry sir.
Like anybody but him really gave a shit.

She stared down at her own feet, the one knee visible through a rip in her jeans, scabby from crouching in the back yard—head bent, intent, waiting for monk's-hood to flourish. Then looked up again to find herself suddenly risen, blood-spotted ass flapping free in the wind, face-to-surprised-face with Wang himself.

“Ask her
,
” she meant to say, giving a pert flip of the head towards Jenny—but the words came out in a scream, and took her desk with them. A general flurry ensued: Much ducking, the desk hitting the nearest window dead centre, with a concussive thump. Cracks rayed.

By the time Wang had uncrouched himself, she was already gone.

* * *

So who knows?

It is well-fed.

And once it has tasted blood,

Who knows

What seeds this thing may sow?

 

But when the door closes this time,

I won't look back. Won't check

To see how little time it took

For me to be erased.

No longer plead my case

Or tear my hair,

That black engine behind your stare

Pulling me away into darkness:

 

I'm nothing now but air.

Not even fit to disappear.

 

Two rats stuck together at the sewer-grate's mouth: Carcinogens sprayed right and left as they thrashed together, squealing. She sat watching on the far bank, her fresh-washed jeans clammy against her thighs, burning with pollution. A stream of waste cut the Ravine's heart in two uneven halves, like a diseased aorta; here it shrank to a mere grey trickle over stones. A doll's face stared up at her from the nearest tangle of weeds—one eye gone, the other washed blind by the current.

God, please, please, God.

Not, of course, that she really put too much faith in that particular fable, any more than she truly “believed” any of the other mildly comforting stories she'd told herself over the years. Or maybe she did—but only at moments like these. Only when the stakes were high, and all other avenues of escape closed.

Make Wang not tell. Make Janice not be home when the school calls.

A bird sang suddenly, somewhere in the gathering dark.

Make Doug not come home. Not yet. Not ever.

It was cold.

Yeah, and why not ask for a smaller rack while you're at it, reality sneered back at her, from every visible angle.

Rustling in the bushes, now, on either side. Snide whispers. Giggling.

“Hey, Hea-ther . . . ”

Just two weeks before, Mrs. Diamond (Jenny's mother, the school nurse and that most contradictory of things, a nice adult), had maintained cheerily that all these girls would be jealous of her in a year—even, improbably enough, Jenny herself. In a year, they'd be desperate to have what she had, to be what they thought she was. The same Jenny who'd already decided it was real good fun to make sure an open box of Tampax somehow snuck onto her desk during Recess, or rifle through her bag at lunch and then leave one of her pads—oh so artistically arranged—where everybody could see it, snicker, make comments. A white-winged hunk of cotton squatting in the homeroom doorway like some flattened mouse:
Ooh, hey, guys. What'cha think THIS is, huh?