The Misadventures of Daria Pigwidgeon (2 page)

If she hurries up that is.

The woman hands over a freshly printed ticket to me, as she says “That’ll be gate 12A in Continental Airlines. They are boarding now, so you’d better skedaddle. Any luggage you need to-”

I don’t let her finish.

I shake my head at her as I rip the ticket from her grasp. This gets me a stern glare, but I just flash my backpack as I rush off. Again, the sense of urgency is like a rush of adrenaline coursing through me and I let my feet to the thinking. They carry me through the crowding bodies as I scan all the signs that will lead me to gate 12A. Everything becomes a blur as I move, but before I know it I’m where I need to be.

Waiting to go through security - at the end of a
very
long line.

Great. This is just what I need, stuck in line waiting to get body searched while my flight takes off. That’s what I get for get for being paranoid enough to want to leave now and not wait. Craning my neck, I peer around all the way to the front of the too still line to see what the holdup is. Snorting, I find that there is no holdup, just people moving too slow for my liking. As if the guys waving those metal detector wands really care about their jobs.

I certainly picked the wrong day to give up my abilities. They would really come in handy right about now. Especially since I highly doubt a plane is going to wait for a single girl to take off. And I just know that if I miss this flight, I’ll never have the chance to leave again. I don’t know exactly why I think this (maybe demon intuition, who knows) but it’s strong enough to make me step out of the line. I’ll be damned before I lay in wait for my family to realize I’m gone and go searching for me.

I need to leave now.

Squaring my shoulders and taking a deep breath, I close my eyes. I’ll need to really concentrate if I want this to work. Honestly, I’ve never done a wide scale memory block before. So it might not work. But here’s hoping it does. In one hand I clench my ticket tight enough to receive numerous paper cuts and in the other I deftly cross my fingers. I can use all the help I can get.

Slowing my breath intake, I do what I’ve been doing since I was a baby. I feel the pull at my feet, almost like the very ground wants to suck me down into oblivion. It’s weaker than me though, and I suck it up into myself, until my head is filled with fog. Its tendrils tickle my thoughts, begging and urging me to ignore its touch. As tempting as it is, I know better. I push it back, but not enough that it leaves altogether. Then I feel the pull all around me, as if the room is suddenly filled with a tornado wanting to sweep me off my feet. That too is weaker than I am, and I yank it into myself. A warm breeze coats the inside of my body, and it fills me with a peace I’ve never felt outside its grasp. Like the fog, it begs and urges me to forget everything except the comfort it offers.

This is always tempting for me, wanting to be the one to forget.

Instead, I push it back a little so that it merges with the fog. Together they dance inside me, giving the illusion that I’m more powerful than I am. And this is the worst kind of temptation. Because right in this moment, all I want is send everyone around me graveling to their feet before me. But the little voice inside that is my soul, tells me this is wrong. And I listen to that voice.

Ignoring the temptation and listening to my instincts, I open my eyes. It’s no surprise that the line hasn’t moved since I’ve been standing here. Unlike the bustle of people at the entrance of the airport, the ones in line are oblivious to me. This unto itself works in my favor. I let the power dancing inside slip out ever so slowly, so that it’s like a cloak draped all around me.

Only then do I take a step toward the front of the line.

No one so much as glances at me as I move. Confidant, I hurry my pace and slip past the metal detector and the men with the wands. I then march right past a group of people removing and replacing their shoes near a conveyer belt that holds items from carry-ons. Once past them, I come to a four way cross with signs indicating what gates are where. That’s when I hear it.

The last call for gate 12A.

Praying that my invisible cloak will stay on, I quickly scan the signs before thrusting myself forward in a full out run. As the crowd picks up in this part of the airport, I’m once again dodging bodies left and right. It’s harder now that she can’t try to get out of my way too. My gate is looming ahead, and I see a single red-haired flight attendant standing near an open door. The sight of it pushes my legs to go faster and before I know it, I’m just about there.

Remembering I’ll need to be seen to board, I slow my steps and do the second thing that’s the easiest for me. Not having enough time to really concentrate, I force the fog back down into the depths it came from. My feet tingle as the tendrils try to linger, but when it’s gone I do the same for the breeze. It blows outward and it still surprises me that nothing moves as it does.

I reach the open door, feeling normal once again, and thrust my crumpled ticket to the startled flight attendant. I’m sure it’s very odd to see a girl appear out of nowhere. But in this moment I don’t care about the after affects. Those being trying to remember something forgotten, while a fog permeates your mind convincing you it’s not important.

Yes, I know about those.

I don’t go invisible under a real invisibility cloak (that’s just for Harry Potter, and a witch I am not) instead it’s what I call a memory block. Just making anyone near me forget that I am in the room. Unfortunately, it’s not a free service. But I can’t feel bad about it right now. No. Later when I am finally free and safe I’ll feel guilty about it. I’ll even allow myself to shed a few tears for being so weak.

Even let the guilt wallow so that I remember why I call this gift my curse.

When the woman hands me the stub of my ticket, I let myself focus on what is ahead of me. And that is the open door that leads to a plane that will carry me far far away. Not knowing if I’m smiling at the woman or at the prospect of freedom, I cross the threshold.

It feels better than stepping through the front door of my house.

***

Almost twenty hours later, finds me hyper and wide awake in a Country Inn a short distance from the Rochester Airport. Since the flight was roughly a sixteen hour haul, the good idea would be to sleep. But as the saying goes, I’ll sleep when I’m dead. That is something I’m trying to avoid of late.

So sleep eludes me.

Not that it’s completely a bad thing. After all, I am currently enjoying the best spaghetti and meatballs I’ve ever tasted. If my mother’s cooking is anything to go by, then this room service stuff is divine. And I haven’t even tried desert yet. Which I’ve been eye balling the last couple of minutes. I don’t even know what it is, all I know its chocolate something or other. Good enough for me.

First night away from home and already I just know I’m putting on the pounds. Finally. Living of scraps from my family isn’t exactly the healthiest of lifestyles. It was basically surviving. Now I get to live my life to the fullest. Or as full as it can get with the slimming amount of money left in my wallet. And after a plane ticket, a cozy room that charges an arm and a leg (not literally of course, only my family do silly stuff like that), and room service, I know this spoiling can’t last. Not if I want to continue surviving that is.

That I do. More so if that’s possible.

This is why across the room on the biggest highest bed I’ve ever seen, is a stack of newspapers and flyers. Me thinks I need a permanent place to squat, er, rent. The question is where and for how much. Given my limited funds and lack of anymore coming my way, I’m probably low on options. I could do what I did last time to get the money, but I can’t. After what I did back at the airport to get through security, I can’t risk it again. I’m done using, and I mean it this time. Honest. Souls honor.

Since I’m against steeling to get ahead, I’m going to need a job. Meaning I’m really going to have to plant roots somewhere. For some reason, the thought of living in another city terrifies me. Rochester is nothing like Bakersfield, but it’s still busy enough to make me uncomfortable. If by chance my family does remember enough to come after me, then a city is the last place I should be. It’ll be the first place they look. Not here per say, but it’ll be one on a long list. And I don’t want to be here waiting if they show up.

So something small then. Off the radar.

Easy enough right? Ha, not even close. After scarfing down my dinner, I carry the plate of chocolate goodness over to the bed and begin rifling through the papers. Turns out this is more work than getting where I am right now. At least there is chocolate though. And that makes everything better. As I swipe a crumb from the corner of my mouth and such it off my finger, I’m reminded of the last time (and first time) I ever had such a yummy desert.

It was my sister Riana’s eighth birthday, and she was having a party with friends from her school. I am a year younger than her and back then I was still trying to get a hang of my abilities. She and her friends tore into her cake quickly and then left the room to rummage through her presents. While everyone was distracted, I snuck out of the basement quiet as a church mouse. I crept into the dining room, and my eyes sought out the cake she had been bragging about for weeks. It was no longer the towering masterpiece. But my ravenous eyes didn’t care.

I raced into the room and climbed onto the table like a child possessed. My hands dug into the cake and dug at the frosting. After the first couple of bites, I didn’t even taste anything anymore. All that mattered was that my stomach was no longer growling. I probably would have eaten the whole thing, if not for the unmistakable chill that crept into the room. It bite tiny pinpricks of cold across my skin, and with hands halfway to my mouth, I saw my mother at the door.

She didn’t have to even glare for me to know she was angry, I could feel it in the slap of her ability. I skittered down from the table, like a kid caught with its hands caught in its sisters birthday cake (oh wait, I was) and dashed out of the room. The chill followed my movements all the way back to the basement.

I stop my train of thought before I get to the worst part of that day. What happened before now is in the past, and I can’t let it stop me from moving on. People take some things for granted, is all I’m trying to say, like sweets. It’s a treat for my taste buds that’s for sure. Focusing fully on the papers before me, I scan through page after page. Only stopping when I finally find what I was searching for. A simple ad for an apartment in the town of Watertown. It’s a one bedroom in-law (whatever that is) and it has everything included. It’s reasonably priced (meaning they don’t want anything down, just rent month to month) and it’s within walking distance to businesses.

I’m not that big on the geographic placement of New York State, but the ad makes it sound nice and cozy. And I could use something like that.

Or at least something that somewhat resembles that.

The following morning, I’m freshly showered, fed, and stuffed in the back of a cab heading to Watertown. It’s two hour drive (and more money down the toilet) and thankfully I slept enough last night to make my hyper-ness fade. The same can’t be said for my excitement though. With good reason too. The little apartment I found hadn’t been rented. After talking to the owner a Mellissa Harris (who was cheerful, even though I called her house at like midnight) agreed to show it to me today.

I can’t stop myself from fidgeting on the plastic seating the closer we (and by we, I mean me and the creepy old cabbie driving) get. And part of the reason is because I’m so gosh darn freezing. And this is coming from the girl with a mother than can make an ice cube feel warm. It’s only late September for goodness sake. Back home it’s still about ninety degrees outside, and here it feels like forty.

If I’d known I was going to be heading for the coldest place in the world, I would have packed better. Well, that’s not true. I only took what I have. But still. My goosebumps have goosebumps. I can only imagine what it’ll be like when it’s actually winter and not the beginnings of autumn. The thought of getting to see actual seasons, and not a constant summer, is pretty refreshing. I’ll have my first white Christmas, or a first that isn’t fabricated by my mother and then melted away by my father.

Again I have to stop myself from thinking about the past. It’s hard though. As much as I hate to even think about my family, they are a part of me. They make up the better (or worse really) part of my memories. And if there is something that I have control and high def. clarity of, are my memories. That could be why I can’t help but to think about things. But whatever the cause, I need to stop.

I resume fidgeting in the seat and suffer the most boring road trip.

But before I know it, we’re crossing into Watertown. I know right away I picked the best place to go to. It’s big enough to pass as a city, but still small enough to not be overwhelming. And for me that’s just right.

I take everything in like I can absorb it all into my memory at first glance. And if that was one of my abilities I would so be taking advantage right now. There are more actual houses and homes here, than where I grew up. And there are trees. Not the palm trees from back home, but tall blooming ones that are full of color. They are everywhere, and wherever they are there is a dusting of fallen leaves making the ground full of color too.

A smile forms on my face, and I feel lighter than I have in a long time. It has nothing to do with my skinny frame either, and all do to with the post card image that is this town. Along with trees and houses, there are people. So many out walking around with what I can only guess to be friends and family. They’re faces are so lighthearted, that it makes me feel the same way. I’ve never seen such happiness, even from a distance.

In short time, the cab is pulling to a stop. Ignoring the cabbie giving me the eye in the rearview mirror, I stare out the window at the house I’ve come to see. It’s bigger than I would have thought for a one bedroom apartment. It sets back from the road, behind a lard yard that is fully dusted with multicolored leaves. The house itself is a two story like my old one back home. But unlike that one, this one is brightly painted yellow with white shutters on each window. It almost seems surreal.