In the Forest of Light and Dark (27 page)

     “When can we see him?” my mama then asked the doctor, and I wasn't sure if she was about the cry again because she was still so worried, or if she was about the cry again because she was relieved that my step daddy would be alright.
     “When he comes to.” the doctor then told her as he touched a hand to my mama’s arm. “Right now the most important thing for him is to rest. After a head injury your brain needs time to heal, time to
reset
itself and allow for inflammation to go down. Sleep is the best thing for that. If you ladies would like, you can see him for a few minutes, but that is all. After that you might as well go back home for a while, and we’ll call you when he wakes up.”
     We had thanked the doctor and then slipped quietly into the I.C.U. room to see him. Once inside my mama took my step daddy’s hand in hers and began weeping by his bedside.
     I averted my eyes because I didn’t want to look at him like this, his face all bruised up and swollen, hooked up to beeping machines and IV drips. It made me want to start crying myself, and I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to be the strong one for my mama, so I took to looking out the window at the dwindling storm as a distraction.
     After a moment or two I had heard my mama whispering something to him as I watched the clouds begin to darken once again. Not wanting my mama’s emotions, combined also with mine, to spring forth another powerful storm I suggested to her that we should get going, that Step Daddy Cade needed his rest. My mama acceded and then said to me, “Okay.” She then asked me to wait out in the hall for her, saying that she would be out in only a minute. I did as she had asked, feeling a little relieved to be out of the room, and a little ashamed for feeling that way.
     As I hung out just outside the door, I looked back in on the room and watched as she bent down and kissed my step daddy on his lips. But then before having pulled away from him she started saying something to him. I was too far away at that point to clearly make out just what it was she was mumbling, so I crept back into the room just past the edge of the doorway where the sounds of echoing voices and footsteps from the corridor became muffled. It was then that I could hear her voice a little better and whatever it was that she was saying to my step daddy, it was in that weird tongue that I had heard Katelyn speak in before.
     Upon hearing those words come from my mama, I had become suddenly tense and a little frightened as if I was suddenly catapulted into a new reality. Like a surprised child waking in the middle of the night to find her parents stealing the tooth out from underneath her pillow while replacing it with a dollar. I was in shock. What was reality anymore? I hadn’t any clue. I hadn’t even the faintest idea of what my mama’s words had meant either, but I knew what they were—
witchcraft.
There was no doubt about it.
     My mama, then moved her hands slowly over Step Daddy Cade’s body before raising her arms up to the ceiling in an almost worshiping like gesture. As I watched her work I was in complete awe, but had remained totally silent. My best guess was that she was doing some sort of spell that would help him heal or maybe it was for protection. But I really had no idea as to what it was. The only thing I did now know was that my mama knew a lot more about our family’s history, witchcraft, my Grandmother Lyanna, this village, and Abellona Abbott than she had let on to me.
     When we’d arrived back at home, I went to bed early. My head was abuzz and still foggy, and all I wanted was to just lay down with my kitten and get lost in my bulky comforters.
     I had fallen asleep quickly and then awoken around ten o’clock when my mama had left the house again. I had assumed that she was on her way over to the hospital. That Step Daddy Cade had awoken, and that maybe she just didn’t want to wake me. Either that or things had suddenly taken a turn for the worse, which I didn’t want to think about, but I couldn't help myself from doing so anyway.
     After my mama had left, for a while I’d laid gazing out my balcony door’s windows up at the stars that hovered over the forest. Eventually, I had ended up falling asleep again just past midnight, but my mama still wasn’t back yet. When I had awoken the next morning for school, she still wasn’t home, then either, so I made myself a bowl of cereal and had left for school wondering if I should call her, just to see if Step Daddy Cade was okay. I didn’t though, figuring that she might be busy with doctors and wouldn’t have time to talk to me, and reckoning that she would most likely be back at home by the time I’d gotten home from school anyway.

I Think it’s Time to Find out what’s Really Going On
 

It had completely stopped raining by morning and the sun was giving off a warm, hazy effect as I headed out for school. The ground was still pretty soggy even though the moisture was evaporating fast, and there were plenty of puddles along on the sides of the roadway that spewed out stretching across the street making the landscape look like it’d been dappled with small lakes. As I walked I did my best to avoid getting wet from these puddles even trying to tiptoe my way through the ones I couldn't find a way around.
     Several strays had joined me in my walk once I’d made it to the vacant field not far from my house where they had liked to congregate. One of them happened to be Midnight. To me her thick, black coat appeared shiny, maybe even still a little damp as if she’d been caught out in last night’s storm.
     When I had gotten to school, I found myself desperately hoping that nobody—especially the bitches and their meatheads—was going to try to mess with me today. I just wanted to slip through the day unnoticed. The way I felt, after everything that had happened lately, if anybody tried messing with me today, Step Daddy Cade wouldn't be the only one in the I.C.U.
     Luckily, my locker had remained unmolested when I got to it, which was a good sign. The only thing that was different about it was what appeared as a fresh coat of orange paint that the school’s janitor must have applied to cover up the word WITCH after I had complained about it to the principal’s office the other day.
     Homeroom had also flown by without incident. The only looks that I had received were from a stoner named Cory Slater. At first, I thought he was just trying to be a jerk by staring me down—thinking he was intimidating me somehow. But after a while I noticed that he wasn’t really  intending to be a jerk at all. He was just being a pervert and checking out my breast the whole time, which I found a little amusing. It had been a long time since I’d noticed a boy staring at me because he wanted to get with me, and not because he thought I was an evil witch. I had forgotten what that was like. Back in Saraland, I had taken all the boys’ interests in me for granted, never having thought that the well would dry up one day. Well, at least not as soon as it did anyhow.
     I couldn’t help it, but I had found myself feeling a little flattered by his attention and even enjoying his elongated gazes towards me even though they were mostly aimed at my midsection. I then decided that I would tease Cory a little. So for the rest of homeroom, I sat with my back arched against the back of my chair and with my chest pushed out. All while I occasionally reached my arms back and up towards the ceiling in bombastic yawns as if I were still tired which only helped to accentuate the curvature of my chest even further.
     Since I sat in the back of the room nobody but Cory noticed what I had done which made it even more fun. I was like a puppet master working my marionette, and I was pretty sure all my efforts to tease him had worked. Because after the bell had rung he had walked out of the room holding his books in front of his pecker in an effort to hide his school boner.
     After that I had left homeroom feeling a bit comforted by what had just happened. Even though my world had seemed spinning out of control, the natural order of the universe still seemed to remain. The power that a teenage boy's dong had over him was still greater than any thought his brain may have held about me being a witch. But, then I thought,
what if this was just another form of power I had but hadn’t realized? What if I could make guys do whatever I wanted, like a siren calling them in to do her bidding?
But I let the thought go thinking that was really nothing more than a slut anyhow, and then I headed off to physics.
     When I had gotten to first period, Mr. McLaren was at his desk looking all dainty and delicate in a Dolce and Gabbana shirt while eating a scone. He even had a little napkin tucked into his collar so as not to get any crumbs on himself.
     I took my usual seat in the back near the poster of the periodic table and got the finger from Keri when she came in the room. (So much for the day going by smoothly) She seemed to be looking a little better though—busted nose wise, that is—and had certainly seemed eager to pick things back up where our feud had left off.
     Mr. McLaren got up from his desk after he’d finished eating his breakfast and went immediately into some spiel about how science has come to answer so many of mans great questions. He then started picking out students at random asking each of them to name one question of man's that science has answered? And, if you could have science answer one question, what would it be?
     He first asked the questions to a chubby girl with deep dimples who sat at the front of the room. Her name was Stacy, and I watched her fiddle with her hands as she thought pensively about the questions. After a few moments, she replied back to Mr. McLaren that science has answered that
The earth isn't the center of the universe
, and that if she could have one question be answered it would be,
Why are we here?
Then, for a moment I thought Mr. McLaren might go all liberal-atheists on her like he tried with me, but he didn't. He just said, “Very good answer and question.” to her before moving on to another student.
     The next kid Mr. McLaren called on was this dark-haired goober with large, red-framed glasses named Aaron. He reminded me of Milhouse from
the Simpsons
. His answer to the question was that science had answered that all matter was made up of atoms, and he said that his question he’d like science to answer would be,
Is there life outside of our planet?
Mr. McLaren just looked at him and said, “Okay, good question.” before moving on again.
     Then, he landed on me,
of course
, saying, “Miss. Singer, what has science done for you, and what's yourquestion for it?
”
I had thought about the question for a second and then said, “Science has proven to me that, Darwin's theory of survival of the fittest was untrue. That no matter how ignorant some life forms appear, they very-well may somehow find a way to survive.” After I had said that, Keri Mahan shot daggers at me with her eyes from behind Mr. McLaren's back, and I thought she mimed the word
witch
at me, but it could have just as easily been the word bitch, I really wasn't sure.
     Mr. McLaren then said to me that Darwin's theory does hold true, and that what one finds ignorant might be nothing more than the ignorance in that person coming out and blocking them from understanding another person’s point of view.
     I was pretty sure he was directing that as a slight towards me, like everyone from the South is automatically an ignorant gay-basher or something. But I wasn’t positive, so I let it go thinking it would do him a little good to take his own advice.
     He then asked me what question I wanted to ask of science.
So I asked, “If a chick with breast implants drowns in a swimming pool, does she float tits up?”
     He didn't ask me another question for the rest of the class.
 

*****
 

After getting through the rest of my morning’s classes I showed up at lunch a few minutes after the bell had rung because I needed to search my locker for my misplaced math homework. So, when I did finally enter the cafeteria, I had assumed that Katelyn would’ve already been there, but she wasn’t. The bitches and their goons unfortunately were though.
     As I made my way over to my table I kept them in my mind’s eye as I went since I was going to have my back turned towards them briefly. And, as I ambled along I suddenly got this deep feeling coming from within my core that something was about to happen. Something inside of me said, “Move now!” and I darted to my right just before I’d reached my table. I had moved just in time to watch an orange go whizzing past my head only to burst into pieces after striking the brick wall where the homecoming dance poster hung. The room instantly fell dead-silent and then a moment later some of the other students who had seen it happen began murmuring amongst each other. I then turned around as if nothing had happened and sat down at my table. I then glanced over at Mr. Shaller, the lunchroom monitor, but he’d been looking in the opposite direction and hadn't seen what had just happened. So, I then decided to just stare down the bitches like a wrathful deity. I watched as they seemed to shrink down into their seats as if they had thought that I had somehow known the orange was coming. That I had just proven to them my psychic abilities, powers of E.S.P., precognition, or in my case witchcraft.
     Without even having noticed, Katelyn had come into the lunchroom and had sat down next to me saying, “Given them the stink eye, I see. Nice.” I then told her about how one of the idiots had just thrown a piece of fruit at me. She looked down at the pieces all busted up and scattered on the floor and responded, “Oranges are a good source of vitamin C, you know?”
     “Not in your ear, they’re not.” I replied.
     I then broke off my gaze at Keri and her crew and moved on to telling Katelyn all about what had happened to my step daddy the night before. I also told her about how the storm had seemed to pick up and relinquish with the rise and fall of my mama's emotions. Just like it seemed to have had done with mine that time in the forest when we found Popsicle split open like a banana peel.
     Katelyn told me that she would pray for my Step Daddy Cade, and would do a spell for his protection and health. It wasn't what I really wanted to hear, but it was better than nothing so I just said, “Thanks.”
     I think Katelyn seemed to sense that something other than my step daddy was bothering me though, so she asked me what else I had on my mind. I said, “Nothing.” and she said, “Bullshit!” demanding that I spill-the-beans. Finally caving, I told her how I thought I may have had seen Popsicle while fishing with my step daddy during my suspension. I then watched as Katelyn raised an eyebrow at me in a hoity expression as if to say
I told you so
.
     Confessing, I told her that what I thought I saw was absolutely crazy and that I must have been mistaken. But then I went on telling her that a lot of crazy things had happened to me lately, like what had happened to that little boy named Brandon Kolinski. How his cancer had come back just when my mama and I had arrived here from Alabama. I told her about how I had found Casper that day in the cemetery and it had turned out to be only hours after Brandon Kolinski had died. I also told her about the storm that had suddenly manifested that night when my parents were arguing. How I felt drawn to it, and how it blew out the windows on the back side of my house as if
somehow
I had willed it to do so. I told her about all the strays that liked to follow me around everywhere I went when I’d leave my house, and how they would show up all the time in my yard as if they’re somehow drawn to me. I told her about the power that I had felt coursing through my veins that day I had gotten into the fight with Keri and Hallie in the gym. How a force, an energy, had seemed to manifest and then was somehow drawn into me from the surrounding atmosphere like I was a lightning rod. Then, how it was sent through my body into my fist where I used it to knock Keri unconscious across the room.
     As I rambled on and recited all the strange events that had happened to me recently I felt myself beginning to come apart right there in the lunchroom. I felt myself wanting to weep because I truly had begun to think that I was beginning to go crazy and all I wanted—so desperately—was for all of it to end. I wanted to go home, to Saraland, and be with my friends again where life was normal, and the only thing I had to worry about was getting pregnant.
     Somewhere in my incoherent rant, Katelyn had told me, “Cera, take it easy.” in an effort to calm me down. She then told me that I didn't want to throw another one of my tantrums here, giving the bitches any more ammo against me, which she was right, I didn’t. Katelyn then told me that she believed me—every word of which I had told her, and that made me feel a little better. It made me feel less alone. She then said to me that she thought it was time for me to meet somebody.