In the Forest of Light and Dark (15 page)

.
     Great! Just what I needed a whole room full of Keri Mahans
, I thought.
     The rest of my classes leading up to lunch seemed to go about the same way too. But, at least, at lunch I already knew I would be sitting alone.
     As I sat down at my table. I noticed that the squirrels were also absent from the area just outside the window. I had found myself missing them dearly. It was like they were my only friends in the world between 10:30 and 11:15, and now even they didn’t seem like they wanted much to do with me any longer.
     The bitches, then came in a few minutes after the bell with their meatheads in tow. Then, after they took up residency at their table Laurie Altman got up from her seat and started making her way over to my side of the room. At first, I thought she was making her way over to me, but then, thank God, she didn’t. I didn’t want her to catch me looking at her. So, I pretended as if I was busy reading while keeping a wary eye on her with my peripheral vision. She ended up sitting down at the table next to mine and started talking to the kids who occupied that table and were already busy eating their lunches.
     At first, I couldn’t make out just what it was she was saying. But after a while I thought I heard her distinctly say, “Yeah, I told you this would happen. It’s because of
her
.” and then everyone at the table simultaneously glanced my way. I then sank down into my chair when that had happened and I felt myself become completely abject and wanting to disappear even more than usual. After a few more whispers of gossip. Laurie then went back to her table, but not before she stole a hurried look my way wearing a smug smile of satisfaction on her face.
     Later, when I had gotten up to throw the rest of my lunch away. What I didn’t feel like eating that is, which was most of it. I had come back to my table to find a note sitting on my unattended books that I had mistakenly left unguarded on the table. It said,
GO HOME WITCH!!!
and had been written in thick, black marker. When I had read it, I felt a whole ambivalence of emotions begin coursing through me. Part of me wanted to cry and just run away, never to come back to Mount Harrison ever again. Another part of me wanted to kick ass like a proud Southern girl should. I just wished I had the courage to do something like what that Goth girl,
Katelyn,
did to Donnie Reese yesterday. Walk right up to them at their table and just spit in their faces.
     I folded up the note and had stuffed it inside the pages of my book as quickly as I could. Then, I took to staring out the windows pretending as if nothing had happened. I had no idea as to who had actually done it, really. But I had figured it was either the bitches or possibly someone from the table next to me, the table Laurie had been at conspiring.
     After a few minutes had passed. I began looking around as nonchalantly as I could to try to gauge who might still be watching me. And,
without any doubt,
half the room was, of course, and still whispering amongst themselves.
    As I looked out over the cafeteria. Knowing that I was everyone’s center of attention. I started getting this weird feeling. It would only happen when I would focus in on just one particular person out of the crowd at a time. It was as if I could tell what they were thinking. They were thinking about me, of course, is what they were thinking. But, somehow I felt as if they were afraid of me. Others, I could feel an abhorrent contempt for me coming from them. Like they wanted to grab me and burn me at the stake. It was strange what I was feeling. Whatever it was. It draped over me in a malaise. Making me feel like I had a hidden power that lay dormant inside of me that would allow me to do something loathsome to them if I really wanted. Like I had this ability buried within me that I knew was there, but just couldn’t let out.
     Just then I thought of that guy from that
Kids in the Hall
sketch. How he would look at people and say, “I’m crushing your heads.” as he would pinch his index finger and thumb closed while looking at them through his closing fingers. Which would then give off the illusion that he was actually squishing their heads. Thinking of that kind of made me feel better, and I felt laughter begin to build up inside of me the more I thought about it. Then, I even cracked a smile. Just a little one, but it was there. The more I thought about it. The more I began to laugh out loud uncontrollably. I just couldn’t help myself. It was coming out whether I liked it or not. And soon, I found myself in full-blown hysterics.
     I knew everyone in the cafeteria was now definitely watching me. I didn’t have to look at them to know that. I just knew. I could feel it. Quickly, I tried to calm myself hoping to regain my composure, but to no avail. Tears were now streaming from my eyes and I could feel my blood pressure rising as it warmed my face. I could also hear my heart beating in my ears like a bass drum as I tried covering my face with my hands so that nobody could see me, and I them. As I went on with my fit I bent myself over facing the floor, After a while of being head down. After I had thought I was going to pop with laughter. I slowly began to regain my composure.
     “Wow! That’s some good laughing. Is that some form of Tourette’s, or are you just laughing at how fucking retarded all these assholes around here are?” A voice suddenly said to me from across my table.
     I looked up and saw that it was her. The Goth girl—Katelyn. She was sitting at the opposite end of my table looking straight at me. I couldn’t believe that in my fit I hadn’t seen her come into the cafeteria or even had noticed her sit down in front of me for that matter.
     “Excuse me.” I said finally getting a hold of myself. “Hello.”
     “Hi, there,” she said, giving me the tiniest of a little coy smile. “You’re the new girl in the village, aren’t you?”
     “Y-Yeah,” I said a bit more tentative than I would’ve liked. “I just moved here from Alabama last month. My name is, Cera… Cera Singer.”
     “It’s nice to meet you, Cera.” She then said, sounding sincere, and it was the first time since I’d arrived in Mt. Harrison that anybody had said that to me and had actually meant it. “I’ve noticed that it has taken you only about a day or two to piss off half of the entire school and get yourself alienated from the rest of the robots. Very well-done,”
     “Yeah,
well,
I’m not really sure how I did that myself. But it seems like I’ve done a pretty good job of it.” I told her baring a little sense of pride from her wayward compliment, but at the same time feeling a little embarrassed.
     “Well, you shouldn’t feel bad about it.” Katelyn then said jokingly as she looked around the cafeteria. “You should be proud of it. ALL THESE PEOPLE ARE FUCKING PATHETIC AND IGNORANT!” She then shouted out raising her voice to a crescendo and I caught the bitches’ table start to look our way. Accompanied by the gawking glares of all the other students at the surrounding tables.
     “I’m Katelyn Partin, but my friends call me Kat.” She then said.
     “It’s nice to meet you Katelyn. I—”
     “Call me Kat.” she said. Suddenly cutting me off mid-sentence.
     “Oh, okay,” I replied. “Kat, I happened to have seen what you did to that boy Erik Myers yesterday. And let me just say that I was thoroughly impressed with your work.”
     “Oh, yeah,” Katelyn said, giving me that smile of hers again before turning to look Erik’s way. “It got me three days worth of detention, but it was worth it. I can’t stand those jerks over there.” She then nodded towards the bitches and their meatheads. “I would take detention every day for the rest of my life if I could just spit in their faces daily.”
     “Why are they like that?” I asked her beseechingly. “I mean, do they automatically hate you because you dress somewhat differently or something? Kinda like how they hate me for being from the South?”
     “No.” Katelyn then said flippantly while letting out a little giggle. “They hate me because I’m a witch, and that’s a big no-no in Mount Harrison.”
    
“What?”
I asked flabbergasted. “What do you mean, you’re a witch?”
     “Just what I said. I’m a witch.”
     “There are no such things as witches.” I responded back to her dismissively.
     “Sure there are.” She said, and then she pulled out a pentagram medallion that she wore under her shirt as a necklace. It appeared as if made from silver and at its center and on each point it had weird symbols that I couldn’t quite make out. It had instantly made me think of the pentagram I’d seen done up in white paint and salt on the basement floor of my grandmother’s house. My house.
     “Cool.” I said acting like I wasn’t the least bit freaked out. “So, what do you like worship the Devil and sacrifice animals and stuff?”
    
“No,”
she laughed. “We don’t do anything of the sort. In fact, I’m a vegetarian.”
     “Are you like one of those people who practice Wi... Wic...”
     “Wicca,” she answered, finishing my thought. “Yes. I’m a Dianic Wiccan to be precise.”
     “What’s that?” I asked.
     “It’s just like any other religion you could say. But in ours, we get to cast spells, make potions, and we pray to our gods like, Lady Hecate, the mother of all of us witches. And, as a Dianic Wiccan. I’m also allowed to place curses on people, unlike some other Wiccans.”
     “Is that what you did to Erik Myers yesterday?” I asked her while feeling a thrill of excitement begin to billow up from within me.
     “Yeah, just a little one.”
She said.
     “What was it?” I asked, but then I thought that it mightn’t be something I had the right to inquire about.
     Katelyn peered back over her shoulder at Erik and I caught him looking our way briefly before quickly averting his eyes. Which suggested to me that we were making him feel uncomfortable. Katelyn then turned back to me, leaned forward, stretching herself across the table so she could come close and said, “I put a curse on him that his dick would shrivel up and fall off.”
     “WHAT?”
I said almost shouting with laughter before covering my mouth. “No, you didn’t.”
     “Yes, I did.”
     “Will it work?” I then asked her sounding like I was five-years-old again and believing that such things were real. I mean... C’mon, Cera, what’s next? Are you going to ask her if she’s got a spell that will make Santa bring me that pony I’d wished for when I was eight?
     “We’ll see.” Katelyn slowly whispered and then looked back at Erik again. “It might be hard to tell if the hex has worked given how small his pecker was in the first place.”
     With that I found myself laughing uncontrollably again for the second time that period. And for the first time since having moved to Mt. Harrison, I actually felt like I had a friend other than whatever stray had decided to walk with me to school that day or show up in my yard looking for a free meal. But before I realized just how late in the period it had gotten the bell rang out with its series of dull bongs.
     “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow then?” Katelyn said to me as we both got up from our seats. But then, remembering that I had made plans to play hooky tomorrow I told her, “
Well, actually... I may be absent tomorrow.”
     Katelyn then gave me a queer look as if I was pulling her chain and asked, “So, what… You got a doctor’s appointment or something?”
   At that point we were both beginning to make our way out of the cafeteria so I just went ahead and told her my plans. “No, actually. I was planning on ditchin’ school tomorrow.”
     “
Whoa...
Cera, your kind of a bad ass, aren’t you?” she then said to me, and I actually kind of felt a little like a bad ass at that moment. “Is this something you just do alone, or do you mind if I tag along?” she then asked.
    
HOLLY SHIT!
I thought.
She wants to hang out with me?
     “N-N-No,” I said, stammering a little. “Sure... If, you want to hang out that’d be great. I was just plannin’ on spendin’ the day doin’ a little hiking in the forest.”
     Katelyn then told me, “Cool, I’m in.” and before we parted ways she gave me her cell number, and I then entered it into my phone. She then said, “Call me tonight.” to which I responded with just, “Okay.” before we went our separate ways.
     For a minute or so I continued to just stand there outside of the cafeteria completely frozen in time and thinking about how wild and strange my day had been so far. And, as I watched Katelyn make her way down the hall. I saw as the other kids whom were still in the corridor began turning their heads, one after another to gawk at her as she passed them by. It had made me think that there might be a little truth to this witch thing around here after all. Not that witches were real of course, but in the mere fact that there were still people out there who seemed to believe in them and even believed that she was one of them. This belief
seemed to have given her a power over them that for the lack of a better word might be considered
advantageous
.
     That night I had called Katelyn informing her of my plan on getting away with ditching school the next day scot-free. She had told me that it would work out just fine with her if I wanted to stop back at home for a bit in the morning. Saying it would give her a little extra time to sleep in. Then, as long as I had her on the phone I had thought about asking her what it was she was planning on telling her parents when they would surely ask her why she wasn’t at school. But I didn’t bother asking though. Electing to just leave that up to being her business. Besides, Katelyn seemed like the type of girl who did what she wanted, when she wanted, and people be damned if they didn’t like it, even her parents. And who knows? Maybe,