The Accidental Siren (26 page)

“That’s awful...”

“Then came the school musical. It was called
‘Fifty Nifty States’ and I got to be Michigan. Aunty... I mean Ms.
Grisham... she made my costume. I carried a bucket of cherries on
stage for my solo. Trevor was dressed like a cowboy ‘cause he was
supposed to be Texas. Before the show, he gave all the kids bubble
gum to chew, then just before the curtain went up, he collected
everybody’s wet gum into a big wad and stuck it in my hair.”

“What did you do?”

“In my heart I was crying. But I pretended to
be happy for the rest of the show.”

“No... what did you do to Trevor?”

“If I tell you... I’ll be pure again?”

“Yes, child.”

A surge of wind lifted our awning and huffed
out the candles. “Several weeks passed, but I didn’t forget. I
waited until he went to the bathroom alone. I followed him inside–”
She stopped.

“And?”

“I went in the boy’s bathroom and...”

“Mara? What did you do?”

Her feet splashed. Her mouth spat gibberish
as if she was speaking in tongues.

“Mara?”

“Don’t turn around!” she said. Her breathing
quickened; rapid sucks of air, in-out, in-out, in-out as she paced
tiny circles in our fort. “I–”

I resumed my Priestly manner. “Young girl,
tell me what happened in the bathroom.”

“I... I was boiling. I...” Her frustration
erupted in a barrage of made-up curse words. “I went in the
bathroom... because I was mad. But... he wasn’t even a bad
kid!”

“Mara,
what did you do?
”

“I–” she stammered again.
“I can’t say
it!”

An epiphany accompanied those four honest
words; a revelation so profound that it still affects every aspect
of my adult life: proof of the impossible; proof of magic or God or
the missing link in our evolutionary chain; the singularity of the
human race
if only people knew
. Mara Lynn was the embodiment
of the phrase, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” Her allure
didn’t just fit every man’s impossible ideal, she was a
shapeshifter, an accidental mind-fuck, forced–by whatever “It”
bestowed her power–to say things or do things or look a certain
way, targeting the specific desires of every single human being.
Her first confessions were silly. They were adorable. I felt
empathetic; drawn to her words as she listed the minutia of her
dirty deeds. But this new sin–this thing she did to poor Trevor
Tooth Fairy–it was so disturbing that she couldn’t even say it
because saying it might taint my perception of the perfect
girl.

Mara wasn’t just beautiful, she was
supernatural.

And if she was supernatural, then maybe her
dream was true. Maybe there
was
a spaceship waiting for her
on that hill. Maybe Mara Lynn was some divine experiment gone awry;
an alien weapon perhaps; a demon.

I could hear her wringing her tongue behind
me; fighting her curse to complete her confession. If she couldn’t
shed the sin, she wouldn’t be accepted.

“Child,” I said.

“I can’t say it.”

“You don’t need to say it. I know what’s in
your heart. In the name of God and Jesus and wholly ghosts, you’re
forgiven.” I bowed my head and crossed my chest (spectacles,
testicles, wallet, watch... just like she taught me). When I turned
around, I was James again.

Mara was silent, but I sensed something new.
The way her eyes settled on mine for the first time today; the way
her brow appeared tender, accepting; the way her hair had unbound
itself from the braids but still hung perfectly straight. If she
was crying, the rain covered her tears.

Then she hugged me. She wrapped her arms
around my neck and pulled herself up and against my chest. “You’re
a good friend,” she whispered.

I cringed. “Wait. I have something to say
before you go on that hill.”

She released my neck and backed away.
“James–”

“I won’t let you leave till you hear me
out.”

Mara turned away, but she didn’t leave.

“I think you’re pretty,” I said.

“I know.”

“I want to kiss you.”

“I know.”

“I want to look handsome for you, lose weight
for you. I want to call you names like ‘sweetheart’ and ‘darling.’
I want to hold you and buy you things–”

“Just like everybody else.”

“Exactly. That’s the whole problem. I try to
be different so you’ll want to kiss me too. It’s all I think about.
‘Should I tell her these things? Or should I keep them to myself?’
Because if I tell you how I really feel, it means that I’m the same
as the zombies outside your window.” I touched her ear lobe. “I
don’t think you’re weird ‘cause you’re pretty.” I touched the
pin-point scars on the back of her neck. “I don’t think you’re evil
‘cause you’re mad.” I took her shoulder and turned her around.
“Those things you told me? They’re not your fault. The saints
aren’t gonna hate you ‘cause you stole some matches or slept in a
boy’s bed when you were scared. If that priest was telling you
somethin’ different, he’s full of crap.”

“But Danny–”

“Danny B’s a psycho. He was a psycho before
he knew you. He deserves to die for what he did.”

“Don’t say that.”

“No, I will say it. Danny deserves to die.
And you didn’t make him kill your cat.”

She nodded.

“I don’t know what your dream means, but if
there really is something on that hill waiting to judge you, you’ve
got
nothing
to worry about.”

Another burst of wind. Mara’s hair whipped
and twirled behind her head. The candles fell from the branch with
quiet plunks in the rising sea.

“You wanna go out with me?” she asked.

“Only if you like me.”

She smiled and nodded. “I do.”

A thunderclap shook the ground as her lips
touched my cheek. The terror from the bolt entwined with the
elation from the peck and my heart rose and thumped with tangible,
unquenchable, delicious pain.

Despite my previous epiphany, I knew Mara
didn’t kiss my cheek because she had to, she did it because she
loved me...
because I won.

Her cool fingertips brushed the hair on my
neck. “It’s time to go,” she said.

“What?” I asked, shaking my head. “You
can’t!”

“I don’t have a choice.”

“But you’re my girlfriend now. Let’s go home
and–”

“James,” she said. “If I stay, bad things
will happen to us. If I go,” she kissed her index finger and
pressed it to my lips, “I’ll be your girlfriend forever.”

* * *

The water tower loomed dark and terrible
above our heads. Brambles tugged at our skin and branches hunted
our vulnerable eyes. The storm was on top of us now, wailing like a
hundred dying cats, splitting the sky with silver streaks and
threatening to finish us off.

Mara led me south, along the base of the hill
instead of up. Minutes later we were out of the woods and hiking
the naked side of the dune.

Our shoes filled with sand in seconds. Mara
kicked hers off without stopping. I had to kneel, untie my laces,
heave them from my sticky feet, and run to catch up.

I was ten steps away from a heart attack when
we finally reached the mesa. Dots of blood formed a neat row along
my thigh. Somehow, sand was crusted between my underwear band and
skin.

Mara battled the tempest and circled the
water tower. A fence surrounded the perimeter but seemed useless
considering the graffiti encasing the lower half of the monolith. I
scanned the spray-painted inscriptions and knew where I was. This
was a skater hangout. A concrete path (it couldn’t be called a
road) descended the back side of the hill and skateboarders used it
to show off their skills. Rumor was, the metal tower was
electrified. If you threw rocks at it, they’d explode.

But Mara didn’t care about the water tower.
She kicked around wet pebbles, squished mud through her bare toes,
searching for the patch of holy ground where a miracle would
happen.

She found her spot in a shuddering patch of
Purple Loosetrife; weeds as tall as she was, red and violet flowers
in symmetrical clumps, holding fast despite the wind.

Mara bent her neck and searched the sky.

I ran to her side but she held up her hand.
“Stay back, James!” she shouted over the gale.

Sand pummeled my arms and stung my cheeks.
“Is it here?” I yelled.

Her eyes twitched in the blistering sand, but
she didn’t blink. “Make the best movie you can!” she said.

“Is it time?” I screamed.

“Tell Whitney he’s a good kid! Tell him that
someday, he’ll find his soul mate!”

Lightning struck the tip of the tower and
surged like a ball of tinfoil in my chest. I dropped to the mud. I
closed my eyes but could still see the bolt.

Mara stretched her arms to the clouds. I
scrambled backward as the tempest overtook my girlfriend.

Her fists clenched. Her heels lifted. The
veins in her neck tightened like the roots of a tree.

The storm climaxed with Mara Lynn at its
center.

And then we waited.

* * *

For nine hours, Mara stood.

I recalled the drawings of the stick-figure
girl, sometimes alone, sometimes with a companion, but
never
sitting down.

The storm tapered minutes after the lightning
hit the tower. It rained on and off for the remainder of the day,
but never achieved the morning’s ferocity.

I tried to persuade Mara to follow me home,
but she wouldn’t budge. After the tenth time, I stopped trying.

Graffiti; I memorized it all. “DANCE, LOVE,
SING, LIVE,” it said between a cartoon skull and a drawing of a
penis with balls the size of beanbags. Near the top, so high it
probably required a ladder to paint:
“I heart Richard Dean
Anderson.”

I half expected a run-in with skateboard
punks, but Mara and I were the only kids foolish enough to brave a
dune in a thunderstorm.

For nine hours, we were alone. And nothing
came to take her away.

She gave up at five PM. We didn’t speak.
There was nothing to say. But as she trudged beside me on the way
to the woods, I noticed blood in her left eye. Not
around
her eye,
in
her eye, blossoming from her iris like the
center of a crushed rose.

* * *

Several months ago I took a trip to the
castle to prepare for this book. It was the same trip that I dug up
my old screenplay from the secret passage.

I ventured up the spiral staircase to the
tower and ran my finger along the iron rail. By the time I reached
the top, I had accumulated a sizable dust bunny on the tip. I
flicked it to the ground and stepped inside the miniature room.

I remembered my father’s six-month obsession.
I remembered the eagles. I remembered the day Mara played
dress-up.

The lake glistened before me like a landscape
of cobalt gemstones. I turned slowly to view
three-hundred-and-sixty degrees of panoramic nostalgia, and stopped
short when I faced the woods.

I noticed something new.

No... it wasn’t new...

But something had
changed
.

In the distance–just over the pine-tree rim–I
could see the top of the water tower.

On a hunch, I stooped down to the height of a
twelve-year-old boy and watched as the tower sunk beneath the
trees. The world didn’t change.
I
did.

I recalled the day Mara danced on the
dress-up chest. It was that morning that an image was planted in
her subconscious; an image that would work its way through her
desperate imagination; an image that would merge with her secret
desires and manifest itself again and again in her midnight
terrors. It wasn’t God or aliens that called Mara to the tower. It
was hope.

* * *

There were no adventures as we walked home.
No fairytale war. No Red Room begging for exploration. Just thorns,
weeds, and puddles of rain saturating the forest floor.

We climbed the second hill with lackadaisical
strides, crossing–for the second time today–Dorothy’s tomb. When we
finally reached the brick wall of the castle, the evening sky
shimmered above the watchtower with rolling, angry lights:
red,
blue, red, blue, red, blue.

* * *

Mom cried when she saw us. Her mouth formed a
terrible O, but she smothered us with hugs anyway. Dad looked at
the ground, shook his head, and apologized to the sheriff. Livy
punched me in the chest and scowled at Mara.

The sheriff’s name was Beeder. He was a
redwood of a man, nine feet tall and a chest that strained the
buttons on his uniform. He examined Mara’s eye. “Looks like you
popped a blood vessel, little lady,” then turned to Mom. “It’s
harmless. Give it a week or two and it’ll fade on its own.”

“Thank you, officer,” Dad said. He was like a
papery birch beside Sheriff Beeder.

“If those kids build another fort in your
tree, you give me a holler.”

Dad raised his hand and gave a half-salute of
appreciation. “I’ve got it handled. Take care, officer.”

Mom and Dad demanded an explanation. Mara and
I both tried to take the blame, claiming we needed to “get away
from it all” despite the other’s attempt to stop us.

Of course, they believed my version of the
story so I received the brunt of the punishment. I could edit my
movie, I could attend the premiere, but I was confined to my room
for the rest of the summer.

As Mom scolded me, she lavished Mara with
apologies. “More dessert?” she asked after dinner.

“No thanks, Mrs. Parker,” Mara replied, her
face pink with sunburn despite the day’s cloudy sky.

I didn’t tell my family that Mara and I were
officially “together”; it seemed like the sort of secret that
should stay a secret. Besides, they hardly approved of Livy and
Ryan dating at such an early age... and who knows what the
foster-parent rule book had to say about that kind of
relationship.