“My name is Simone Werner,” says the orange-haired girl sitting beside me. She pulls out a binder with a picture of a cat on it. The poor kitty is hanging from a tree, and is being told to just hang in there. Someone should just get the kitten down from the tree. The branch does not look safe.
Paschar is sitting on my desk. “This is Paschar,” I say. I make Paschar salute. He says hello but she can’t hear him.
“Hello, Paschar,” says Simone.
Simone is a new student in Mrs. Carter-Dogbill’s class. She transferred here from Ohio. Her father works as a law clerk and her mother is an accountant. I know this because Paschar told me while Mrs. Carter-Dogbill was having Simone introduce herself to the rest of the class. The rest of the class only learned about Ohio and that Simone likes geography and chocolate chip bagels.
Lewis Broady turns around in his chair. He smiles at Simone. Lewis Broady almost never smiles. It looks unnatural, like if someone drew lips on a church gargoyle. “The last girl who sat where you are was weird. She used to play with fireworks and blew up another girl’s backpack. And her face was all messed up.”
“In what way?” asks Simone.
“Yeah, Lewis, in what way?” I stare at him.
Lewis blushes. “She just… looked–” He stutters something and then turns back around.
“Her name was Meredith, and her face wasn’t messed up. She had scars from being burned in a fire, but she was one of the nicest people,” I tell Simone.
“Scars don’t make people ugly, just unique,” she says. Oh, I like her. Not like Lewis obviously likes her, but I really hope that she doesn’t start hanging out with Lisa Welch and her crew of jerk girls. They’ll probably try to get their claws in her because she’s got a pretty face and has a cool backpack. They might reject her because of her crazy orange hair though. It sticks out all over the place like it’s trying to escape.
“Are you allowed to have your doll out like that?” she asks me.
“Yeah, he helps me with my anxiety. It’s in my five-oh-four.” That’s not true. I don’t even know what a “five-oh-four” is. I just know that when I got Paschar out at the beginning of the year, Mrs. Carter-Dogbill asked me if having him with me was in my five-oh-four to help with anxiety, and I said, “yes.” So now that’s what I say whenever anyone asks.
At lunch, I sit by myself. Mom packed me a salad with little tomatoes, chopped celery, and cucumber slices, but she forgot the lettuce, so it’s just that stuff. And a piece of bread. My thermos is empty. It’s the third day in a row that my thermos has been empty. I told her after the second time that I wanted to pack my own lunch and she said, “No, I can pack your lunch! Just as good as your father does!” so now I’m thirsty and eating rabbit food. I wish Meredith was here with some Oreos.
After the events at the Red Moon Hotel, Meredith moved away with her foster parents. They didn’t say goodbye, and I wasn’t told where they were going. I tried to think of where would be a safe place for her. Maybe someplace wet like an underwater base in the middle of the ocean or down in the Amazon Rainforest. Maybe Alaska or Iceland. Actually, I’ve read that Iceland is very green and it’s Greenland that’s covered with ice. I wonder why they don’t just swap names.
Three days after it all, my dad woke up from his coma. The hospital called my mom and she rushed us over to see him. When we got there, Officer Flowers’s ghost was standing by his hospital bed. She didn’t look quite so burned anymore, just some patchy bits on her face like something teenagers get and buy cream to clear up. We didn’t say anything to each other, mostly because there was a nurse and my mom in the room, but also there was nothing to say. She reached out and plucked Dumah’s badge off my shirt like it was nothing. Then she shook her head, turned away, took a step, and vanished like smoke. I can’t tell you what a relief that was. Dumah does not shut up. Also it’s weird wearing a police badge when you’re taking a bath.
Dad is home now, resting most of the time. They set up a bed in the den so he wouldn’t have to climb the stairs. He sees a physical therapist constantly and sometimes struggles with his words, but we’re not allowed to finish his sentences for him. Paschar does it anyway, because none of them can hear him. When Dad is better, I get to take drum lessons.
Jamal got his bicycle back. He thinks he saved the day. I’m not going to argue with him, his help was important. He’s still determined to get my little, plastic paratrooper out of the tree branches, but I told him that by now the paratrooper has become “climatized” to his new environment. That means he basically lives there and it would be wrong to take him from his home.
“What are you doing?”
I’m sitting on the swings where Meredith and I always hung out. Simone sits down beside me. I look around the playground. Lisa Welch is watching us from over by the four square court. She got a new red backpack that her daddy bought her. I wonder if it’s fire resistant. I wish Meredith was here to test it, but I think she wouldn’t want to hurt anyone anymore, not even Lisa Welch.
“I was just thinking.”
Simone keeps watching me, so I blink a bit and swing to act like normal. “Is it true you can see the future?” she asks.
“Sort of.”
She stands up on her swing. “Am I going to get hurt if I do this?”
“No.”
“That girl over there with the blonde hair and the funny teeth says you’re a witch.” Simone points at Lisa, who’s still watching us. Lisa turns away when she sees Simone point at her. Her crew of jerk girls flock around her as if they’re protecting her from our evil stares. I can’t help but laugh because she thinks Lisa’s teeth are funny, and I know if Lisa heard her say that her head would explode.
I shrug. “Yeah, I know. I wouldn’t listen to Lisa Welch. She’s dumb as they come.” Dumber, maybe.
Simone sits back down on the swing. “Have you ever read Greek mythology?”
“Those are my favorite.” I like the one about Medusa. She was a pretty woman who got cursed to turn people to stone. Her hair was made of snakes. Not just the heads but the whole snakes except for the tails. I guess there’s no telling where a snake’s head really ends. Snakes are all neck.
I think about hopping off the swing, but there’s a grasshopper on the ground. I better not jump off the swing or I might crush it. Grasshoppers are cute. I used to catch them just to hold them and feel them hop around in my hands. Simone jumps off her swing and lands on the grasshopper. I don’t think she saw it. Poor grasshopper.
“Have you ever read about Cassandra?” she asks, “She could see the future too.”
I watch to see if the grasshopper is going to come wiggling its way out from under her sneaker like in a cartoon, but it doesn’t. As if she knows what I’m thinking, Simone swivels around on her heel to look at me, really grinding the grasshopper into the dirt.
“You’re like Cassandra,” she says, “Cassandra Madrid.”
“Madwhip,” I correct her. Except nobody ever believed Cassandra. At least Jamal believes me. And Meredith believed me. I’m sure if I told him something, Felix would believe me, but the only thing I want to tell Felix is to go burn in Hell. That was what I was going to say to him that day at the Red Moon Hotel, “Felix Clay, you’re going to burn in Hell.”
“Well, I believe you can see the future.” she smiles at me. Her teeth are not funny like Lisa Welch’s. Her teeth are nice. “Maybe once my folks have got all our stuff unpacked at home, you can come over some time. I’ve got two older brothers, but they’re cool.”
“Okay.” I wonder if her brothers play the drums.
Simone nods and then turns on her heel again and walks off toward the monkey bars. I’m pretty sure that grasshopper is toast. I think she even took it with her. She didn’t seem to be messing with me, so I guess she’s genuinely keen on being friends. It’d be nice to get out of the house, since my dad is always there and he gets grumpy when he can’t pick stuff up or we can’t understand him when he tries to talk.
After school, I ride the bus home. Mom is sitting with Dad filling out forms from his bed. They make me give hugs and kisses then tell me to go do my homework and let them be for the moment. I go up to my room and get my homework done, then sit with some watercolor paints and decide to paint a picture of Meredith burning Felix alive in an ambulance. Paschar sits with his watercolors and paints nothing, because he never actually paints, he just likes to know he can if he wants to.
I ask him, “What’s going to happen now? Meredith is gone, possibly to Iceland. Felix doesn’t have Raziel anymore, and has disappeared to who knows where. Officer Flowers has moved on and I assume Dumah has been passed on to a new creepy person who I hope I never meet. Are we done?”
For now, he says. Darn cryptic Angel.
“Do I have to worry about Samael?”
Yes, he tells me, you will always have to worry about Samael. Especially now that he knows you.
“What will he do with Raziel?” I ask.
I don’t know.
I feel bad that I handed Raziel over to his scary brother. I never really knew or understood him, but I hope he’s okay.
Ever since that day, I’ve felt like I’m being watched. I look out the window on the bus while Greg annoys me and Jamal smacks him in the back of the head, and I see a man in a white suit standing on the side of the road. It’s Samael. He just watches the bus go by and waves his hand. His fingers are long and pointy. I think he needs to wash them, there’s all sorts of grit and dirt or something on the ends. He grins at me and his mouth is full of pointy teeth. Multiple rows of them, like a shark. It looks like he could flip the top of his head back and have nothing but teeth showing. But then I blink and he’s not there.
A couple times I’ve looked out my bedroom window and he’s been standing in the woods where all the animals died. He’s got half a squirrel in his mouth and he’s chomping on it like it’s bubblegum. A second later, the woods are empty. No animals wander through our backyard anymore. They probably have hazard signs or something. I don’t know what animals do to warn each other that this area might be detrimental to their health. They probably pee on stuff. That’s animals’ answer to everything.
The worst was one night after my parents were both asleep. The moon was full and it was shining in my window, making everything blue. My bedroom closet is always shut tight because there’s tons of old clothes from all the way back to when I was five piled up inside, and if you don’t shut the door until it clicks that stuff can fall over and spill out. Anyway, the room was dark and for some reason I couldn’t sleep. Paschar was telling me to just close my eyes and think about turtles or something nice. Sometimes he starts droning on about stuff that doesn’t matter because he knows the sound of his voice will put me to sleep.
But instead I opened my eyes. When I did, I swear I saw the closet door knob turn and click and the door opened silently. There weren’t any piles of clothes inside, it was pitch black, but I could clearly see Samael standing there in my closet in his white suit and with his white hair and he just smiled and stared at me until I closed my eyes and pulled my head under the covers. I peeked out and the door was shut like it always had been.
I can’t tell if I’m imagining these things or if Samael is messing with my head. Paschar can’t really say either, though he understands that I’m seeing them. He doesn’t know when it comes to Samael just what exactly he’s capable of. Can he drive a little girl like me insane? Maybe, is all I get for an answer.
What I do know is that he’s always going to be there, on the side of the road, in the woods out back, in my closet, even if he’s not really there. He knows of me. He knows me. Maybe I am just imagining him, but Paschar has said the danger is real, and from now on I should always be prepared for him.
So I’ll train. I don’t know how I can use what I’ve got to my advantage, but Officer Flowers called me “the knife that cuts the veil” so I guess that means something. I beat a crazy magician, survived two car crashes, escaped a burning house, and held four totems at once and came out the other side with just a couple broken ribs and a whole lot of material for my next therapist to write a book with.