Flannery Read online

  It’s just a joke, Am, I say. That’s the whole point of our project. All about the packaging.

  I know, you already told me, she says. Like canned fog.

  Or pet rocks.

  Or mood rings, she says.

  What are you talking about? I say. Mood rings actually work. I jab her in the ribs with my elbow.

  This is the Wiccan’s house, she says. We are standing in front of a long gravel driveway curving up toward a giant four-story house with turrets and a widow’s walk.

  Amber opens the wrought-iron gate and it screeches on its hinges. Squares of yellow light from the giant windows lie flat on the white lawn.

  The brick walkway leading to the front door has been shoveled so clean it looks like someone might have taken a toothbrush to the grooves between each brick. It is sprinkled with little crystals of salt that glitter under the streetlight.

  We press the bell and hear a deep rippling bong ring inside. The door flies open and there is Ms. Rideout.

  Shhh, she whispers. I just got the baby to sleep.

  We step inside and I whisper our names and we shake hands and remove our boots. I step in a puddle of icy water melting from Amber’s boot and my sock gets sopping wet.

  Ms. Rideout is wearing a blazing white blouse tucked into a black pencil skirt. Black jacket, high-heeled shoes. There’s a gold chain on her neck with a tiny gold pentangle, a five-point star in a circle of gold, studded with diamonds. Her hair has been straightened and sprayed stiff so it moves all in one piece. Her nylons whisper as she kicks a cat toy, a little stuffed sparrow, out of our path.

  Is it still convenient for you to see us, Ms. Rideout? I ask.

  Very convenient, my goodness, says Ms. Rideout. I don’t mind a little company, she says. Not at all. A school project. I’d love to help if I can.

  We enter the wide hallway and she leads us through the living room where a fire blazes, spitting and crackling, throwing leaping shadows all over the walls. There’s a near-empty glass of white wine on the coffee table that Ms. Rideout picks up as she sashays through. An oil painting of a nude woman sprawled out on a red velvet chaise longue hangs over the fireplace. I am very much afraid it is a painting of Ms. Rideout. The woman is holding a human skull in one hand and looks as though she’s speaking to it. The sockets of the skull stare emptily out at the room.

  This way, girls, Ms. Rideout says. We duck past the painting and walk into the dark dining room. There’s the flash of two glowing green embers floating in the velvet darkness. Amber grips my arm.

  There’s something there, she squeaks.

  Where, says Ms. Rideout.

  There, says Amber, a creature. I saw it.

  Ms. Rideout flicks the light. It’s a black cat. A big fat cat lying on the back of an armchair.

  Oh, that’s Merlin, says Ms. Rideout.

  What a charming kitty, says Amber.

  Don’t look Merlin in the eye, Ms. Rideout says, or he’ll fly through the air and land on your back. If you make eye contact, he thinks it’s an invitation to play. I am fostering him from Heavenly Creatures. He was on the streets for most of his young life, can you imagine? Of course, he has attachment issues.

  Amber and I edge past the sideboard with our backs to the wall and our eyes on the floor.

  Have a seat, girls, says Ms. Rideout. Neither of you has had an accident recently, have you? Slipped on some ice coming out of a store? Anything like that?

  Amber and I both say no.

  Okay, Ms. Rideout says. Just checking.

  I have taken the voice recorder out of my knapsack and placed it on the table.

  Can I get you girls anything? Tea? Pop?

  We’re good, thank you, I say. Ms. Rideout sits down at the head of the table and pours herself more wine. There’s a chair in the corner upholstered in cream satin. The cat has leapt onto the chair and is plucking at the fabric with his claws. First one paw, then the other. Pulling out little loops of thread with each pluck.

  Ms. Rideout picks up her glass and swivels the wine around and gulps it back and then tops up her glass.

  I turn on the voice recorder.

  First, we’d like to thank you so much for your time, Ms. Rideout. Our school project requires that we interview a prominent businessperson about promotion and sales.

  Ms. Rideout hiccups.

  What about your parents? she says.

  Pardon? says Amber.

  Have they had any accidents lately? Hit a moose on the highway? Food poisoning? I can even work with a sprained ankle if I have to. Any cosmetic surgery gone wrong? Stress in the workplace?

  Nothing like that, Amber says.

  Ssshh, Ms. Rideout whispers. She points at the ceiling. Remember the baby.

  Then she pulls a little Fisher-Price speaker out of a wooden centerpiece full of warty-looking gourds and miniature pumpkins. Ms. Rideout flicks on the speaker and turns the volume on bust.

  Out crackles the noise of something breathing deeply. It sounds like Darth Vader — if Darth Vader were at the back of a dark, wet cave and suffering from a sinus infection.

  Is that your baby? asks Amber.

  I guess so, says Ms. Rideout, seeming truly puzzled. She props the little speaker up against a dark green gourd. She puts her elbows on the table and rests her cheeks on the heels of her hands, staring at the little speaker.

  Amber flicks a glance at the nearly empty wine bottle and raises one eyebrow at me.

  That baby is three months old now and I’ve never really heard her sleep before, says Ms. Rideout. Normally she’s screaming her head off. But listen to that. Isn’t that beautiful? she asks.

  Isn’t what beautiful? says Amber.

  The sound of a baby sleeping.

  As soon as she says it the baby starts screaming. It is a weltering wail that seems to fill the whole room.

  She’s awake, says Amber. Ms. Rideout snatches up the speaker and turns it off. The room is dead quiet again.

  Ms. Rideout puts the speaker back in the bowl and piles the gourds on top of it. One of them falls off the pile and she balances it very carefully on top of the others. It rocks a little and then settles into place. The speaker is buried in a pyramid of gourds. Ms. Rideout drinks all the wine in her glass in three gulps and pours again, emptying the bottle.

  You have to let them cry a little bit, she says. Otherwise you spoil them. Now, you’re here for a reading?

  We’re not actually here for a reading, I say. We’re here about promotion and sales.

  But Ms. Rideout is removing her jewelry. Her gold rings, her pearl earrings, the gold necklace with the little pentangle. She lays it all in a pile beside her on the dark mahogany table.

  I’ve been able to see things since I was a kid, she says. She closes her eyes and rubs her temples.

  Amber and I look at each other. I’ll admit that I’m pretty tempted. If there was ever a person in need of a little occult help figuring out her future love life, especially re a certain brown-eyed boy. But I know there’s less than an hour until Gary’s game is over.

  We were just hoping for a little professional mentoring, I say. An interview, that’s all.

  I feel the cat press hard against my leg, and it slithers through the rungs of the chair I’m sitting on. It nudges its forehead against my shin and I lift it gently on my foot and sort of kick it away. It meows. It slinks off and soundlessly leaps up onto the sideboard, daintily stepping through the objects on the silver tea service and leaps down the other side, disappearing into the shadows.

  We’re here about advertising, I say, for a love potion.

  A love potion, says Ms. Rideout. That’s very dangerous territory.

  It’s just a gag, Amber and I say in unison. Ms. Rideout sits up straight and suddenly appears very sober.

  It may start out that way, she says. But the power of suggestion is a funny thing. People begin to hear about your potion and they want it to work. How lonely people are, sometimes for their whole lives. They just want someone to
notice their worth.

  Ms. Rideout reaches back into the gourd bowl and finds the speaker and turns it on and the baby is still screeching and she flicks it off.

  Pretty much everybody believes in some kind of magic, she says. They toss a little salt over their shoulder. They don’t walk under ladders. Tell them your potion contains a drop of nectar from deep inside an exotic flower or some other nonsense like that, and they start to believe it works. And because they believe, it really does work. But what if a couple gets together because of your potion and they’re all wrong for each other? That’s playing with fate.

  I think I’d like a reading, says Amber.

  But Amber, we’re in a hurry, remember? I say. I don’t know why, but I want to get out of here.

  Amber ignores me.

  I’d really like a reading, Ms. Rideout, if you don’t mind, she says. Amber reaches into her knapsack and pulls out a twenty-dollar bill. Ms. Rideout finds a box of matches and lights a thick white candle, which she brings to the table.

  We’ll hold hands, please, says Ms. Rideout.

  And here we are, the three of us, holding hands.

  I have to stretch a little to take Amber’s hand because she’s on the other side of the table. Several minutes pass. Somewhere a clock is ticking. I try to catch Amber’s eye, but her eyes are closed. Ms. Rideout’s eyes are closed too. We’re waiting so long I wonder if Ms. Rideout has fallen asleep. I give Amber’s hand a little squeeze but she doesn’t respond.

  Okay, says Ms. Rideout. She lets go of our hands. She blows out the candle.

  What, says Amber. You didn’t see anything?

  Not much, says Ms. Rideout. Keep your twenty dollars. Sometimes I see things, sometimes I don’t.

  But you saw something?

  Good luck with your schoolwork, girls. I’d stay away from love potions. You might be in over your heads.

  What did you see? Amber says.

  Does your friend want to hear this? Ms. Rideout asks me.

  No, I say. Amber, you have a game to get back to. I’m already putting away the voice recorder.

  Tell me, says Amber. What did you see?

  I saw a man, Ms. Rideout says. A young man.

  It’s Gary, Amber says. And there’s the Amber thousand-watt smile.

  He was cloaked in a shroud of darkness, Ms. Rideout says.

  Amber turns white, then red. She’s picking up her knapsack. The smile is gone.

  That’s it? says Amber. A “shroud of darkness”? What’s that supposed to mean? Her tone is incredibly rude. I’ve never heard her speak to an adult like this.

  I’m thanking Ms. Rideout for her help, but I’m thinking of the beating heart of the basketball pounding toward the door of the gym while I waited out there, locked out in the cold, because Gary doesn’t want me hanging around Amber, and how distant Amber has been over the past month, how I can never get her to answer my texts, and how last week I saw Gary joking with Mercy Hanrahan, being flirty by the lockers.

  He had his arm out straight, resting his hand against the lockers, and Mercy had just got her books and he was leaning over her and she was looking up at him, and she put her hand on his chest as if to push him away but not really pushing. I shot him a look of disgust, and he just looked back, daring me to do something.

  I haven’t told Amber. In fact, it’s the first time I have kept something from Amber and it makes me feel sick whenever I think of it, but I also know I can’t tell her. I’m afraid she’ll call me a liar.

  And there’s been an older guy with tattoos on his neck hanging around the school parking lot in a beat-up Sunbird and everybody says he’s a coke dealer, and I’ve seen Gary leaning into his car, talking to the guy. And Mercy Hanrahan is often in the guy’s car with her sneakers on the dash, blowing smoke at the windshield.

  I feel the hairs stand up on my arms and I have goosebumps. I stand up suddenly and my chair tips over.

  It’s then that a snarling ball of hiss and claws leaps from the bookshelf behind me onto the back of my neck. I reach up and fling him off. He lands on all fours and stalks away, stiff with the indignity of having to attack a lowly creature like myself. I just thank God I’d already put on my coat.

  Oh dear, says Ms. Rideout. You’ll have to forgive poor, dear Merlin. And girls, I’m going to have to take care of my baby now, please show yourselves out.

  Amber is already in the porch, yanking hard on the laces of her boots, tying them up very tight. I am right behind her, but Ms. Rideout grabs my elbow.

  Keep an eye on your friend, she says.

  Outside Amber is striding through the falling snow, and I’m trotting to keep up. Her head is bent down against the wind, her fists driven deep into the pockets of her jacket.

  Amber, wait, I call to her. She keeps going.

  Wait! I say again.

  Why should I, she yells over her shoulder. What’s there to wait for?

  Hey, I say, why are you so mad at me? You’re the one who insisted on a reading! Amber wheels around to face me.

  Because you’re the one who believes her, she says.

  Amber, come on! That lady was drunk. And probably sleep-deprived because of the baby. She’s obviously a fake. There’s no such thing as seeing into the future.

  Right. But still you believe her! She knew you were on her side. That’s why she said, “Does your friend want to hear this?” to you. I was right there, Flannery.

  Amber, that’s crazy.

  Tell me, then, Flannery. Tell me you don’t believe Gary’s a bad person. She says it like a dare, but there’s real yearning in her eyes.

  I don’t believe “he’s shrouded in darkness” or any stupid thing like that, I say. I mean, it’s a total cliché. It doesn’t even make any sense.

  Tell me, she says again. Tell me you don’t agree with that witch. That you don’t think he’s bad for me.

  We look into each other’s eyes for a moment and that moment feels like a year, longer, as long as we’ve known each other, “kindred since kindergarten,” and then it still feels longer than that.

  Finally, I say, I don’t think you should trust him, Amber. That’s all. But I really don’t.

  For a minute I think she is going to break down in front of me, and that Gary is history. I think everything will go back to the way it was between us.

  But then, the smirk.

  You know, Flannery, we’ve been talking about how naive you can be, she says. Like, don’t you think it’s a bit much, doing all of the work on your stupid potion project by yourself? I mean, where’s Tyrone?

  We again.

  She keeps going. You’re so desperate to get his attention you’re willing to do all his homework for him. You’re willing to make a fool out of yourself and follow him all over the place. Anybody can see he’s interested in other girls. You know what people are saying, right?

  No, I don’t, Amber. Why don’t you enlighten me?

  They’re saying you’re making a love potion because you want to use it on Tyrone. She laughs.

  Anyway, she says. Good luck with that.

  And she leaves me standing there in the snow.

  15

  This is the way it was when Amber and I were twelve. I’d started my period at Amber’s house on a very hot, sunny summer afternoon when time had pretty much stopped.

  There was a major stoppage in the universe.

  There was nobody home except Amber and me and all the windows were open and there was a breeze blowing the sheers out like big beer bellies.

  We had nothing to do that day. Everybody we knew was gone to the country or they were working at Tim Hortons or their cell phones had died. Amber had already been to swim practice that morning, leaving in the dark before I’d even woken up, and Sean had dropped her off at home before he went to work and she’d come back to bed.

  We’d slept half the day away and woke feeling groggy and sour. The bed sheets were twisted up at the foot of the bed in knots.

  I’d gone to the bathro
om and there was a brown stain on my underwear.

  I knew what it was, of course.

  On top of that terrifying non-talk on the edge of the bathtub with Miranda about sex and the reproductive system, we’d done the menstrual cycle in the sex-ed unit of our biology class in grade six.

  The boys had been asked to leave the room and it was just girls. The boys would be doing the same lesson next week.

  We felt sisterly and abandoned without the boys.

  The boys were out in the sunshine having a game of basketball. We could hear them running and jerking to a stop, and running back the other way, yelling, but yelling in a subdued sportsmanlike way completely foreign to them. We heard when a foul was called, and the coach’s whistle, and some mild expressions of concern about whether it had actually been a foul.

  They knew why they were outside. They hadn’t done the class yet, but they were going to do it, and maybe they were afraid.

  We girls were sitting in the dark, watching an animated film of a gazillion sperms with dark crooked eyebrows and grimaces of effort and strain, snarled lips with teeth showing, all of them in a race of wiggling tails, trying to get to the egg, who was batting her long eyelashes, awaiting the lucky dude’s arrival.

  Is that all they could have the egg do? Sit there and wait? Why wasn’t she charging around too, gnashing her teeth?

  So, I knew what the stain on my underwear meant that day at Amber’s.

  But I also didn’t know.

  Because how can anybody really understand that blood? I looked in the toilet and in the cloud of pee there was a ribbon of blood sinking toward the bottom of the white toilet bowl.

  I thought, What is happening to me? Even though I knew.

  I wadded up some toilet paper and put it in my underwear until I got home and could ask Miranda for some pads or tampons or whatever.

  Amber hadn’t started her period yet. And wouldn’t really start for a while, maybe because of swimming. Exercise was probably messing with her cycle, her doctor had said.

  I told her about the blood, but we didn’t talk about it. We didn’t really talk much that summer, about anything. We were telepathic.