The Year of the Beasts (14 page)

He looked as though he wanted to say something else. His eyes glanced at the wrist cuff. He didn’t say anything about it. But she could see his eyes had gotten watery. He looked to the side, avoiding Tessa’s gaze. She knew if he said anything else, he would likely cry. He couldn’t cry. He had let Tessa and her mother be as sad as they wanted to be and when they were done, he would take his turn. But right now, he had to be the strong one. Tessa counted on that.

“Maybe I should be homeschooled,” Tessa said. “Maybe I should stay here for this semester. After all, everyone else has been there for two months already.”

“We talked about this in counseling, Tessa. You’ve got to go back to school,” her dad said. “We all have to get a routine right now.”

Tessa traced the pattern on the 1950s table. She drank the coffee that her father placed in front of her.

“Oh, Tessa,” her mother said, entering the kitchen. “Your hair.”

Her mother came over and tried to smooth the curls, but Tessa knew that it was no good. From weeks of neglect, the hair had curled and dreaded. It would have to be cut off if she ever wanted to comb it again. Right now it was half dreads, and it looked terrible.

“Go get a scarf, and cover it for today,” her mother said. “I can cut it later. Or we could go get our hair done.” She said it as though it would be a fun thing to do but they both knew that it wouldn’t be fun at all.

“No,” Tessa said. “It’s fine.”

Tessa knew where there were cool scarves. They weren’t in her room. They were in Lulu’s.

“It looks terrible,” her mother said. “You look like a mess.”

Tessa wanted to say that she was a mess. That her sister had died. That she couldn’t bear being alive. She couldn’t think about going to school. She didn’t care about her hair.

“A scarf would really help, Tessa,” her dad gently nudged her.

“Can you go get one?” Tessa asked. “Can you go get one for me?”

Her mother sipped her coffee. Her father snapped the Tupperware bowl shut. No one wanted to go.

“You have to go do it yourself.”

Tessa went upstairs. She ran down the hall and went into Lulu’s unchanged, still messy room and grabbed a scarf from the top drawer. She didn’t care what color it was, or what kind. She just needed it to cover her hair. She tried to ignore the bedazzled flip-flops and the dust on the dollhouse.

Tessa flew back down the stairs. She had to leave now or she would never do it. She would never, ever go.

“Goodbye,” she said. “I’m going.”

The door slammed behind her.

She walked to school. She hadn’t missed the bus, but she wanted to postpone seeing anyone until the last possible moment.

The school looked bigger than she remembered it ever being. She could hear conversations stop mid-sentence as she passed. People whispered.

Across the way she could see the parking lot and Celina being taken out of the new car her parents had bought, which had room enough for a wheelchair. Celina shook Charlie off as he tried to push her up the handicap ramp. Celina would do it herself. Tessa watched as people reached out, ready to help if she needed it. Tessa looked away. Celina was back, too.

“Tessa,” Charlie said.

He was standing next to her. Looking sheepish. Or anguished. She couldn’t remember what she ever thought was good looking about him. He was like a brother now.

“I’ll walk you to class,” he said.

“I can’t do this,” Tessa said.

“Sure you can,” he said. “I’ve got a game after school. Promise me you’ll come.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw Jasper across the street, ditching school already. She wanted to talk to him—or something. He was gone when she looked again.

The bell rang.

So many classes, she moved from one to another as though she were asleep. All of the words that everyone said to her, all of them kind, sounded like nonsense. What did “I’m so sorry for your loss” even mean?

How could they be sorry?

What did they know about loss?

Although every once in a while, someone would say it in such a way that made it seem as if they did know a little about it.

She went to Charlie’s football game. When she got there, she saw Celina sitting down with the cheerleaders, who had given her pom-poms that lay in her lap. Celina waved them every once in a while, trying to muster up some spirit. But she was unable to stand up out of her chair to cheer.

Tessa froze. And then, when everyone noticed her just standing there, not coming into the bleachers and not leaving, the eyes on her were unbearable. They burned. She thought she saw Jasper, but it was just wishful thinking.

She ran to the woods. Sat by a tree. Cried. She wanted to be alone, but it was time for therapy.

*   *   *

“You should try to participate,” the doctor said. “Try a little bit every day. One small thing.”

The doctor was stupid. Treatment wasn’t working. Neither were the pills.

She went home to the same darkness. The same sadness. The same mourning.

The phone rang all the time. Someone was always checking in. Tessa never answered the phone anymore. She didn’t want to answer the questions. “How are you holding up?”

Terrible.
She wanted to say.
I am holding up terribly. I will never be the same.

Was her sister, Lulu, the luckier one? On the easier path? Was Tessa taking the harder path of life? Everything hurt. Life hurt.

Her head crawled.

“Tessa.” Her mother knocked on her bedroom door. “It’s Celina.”

“I don’t want to talk to her,” Tessa said.

“Tessa,” her mother said. “Can you try? We’re all trying.”

“I cannot,” Tessa said.

Her mother stepped out of the room. Tessa could hear her murmur some excuse to Celina. Even though she didn’t need an excuse. Grief was excuse enough.

She knocked again.

“What?” Tessa said. She snapped sometimes. Screamed. Or punched. She didn’t know how to behave well anymore. She didn’t care.

“Please don’t yell at me,” her mother asked. She sounded more and more tired all the time. “Celina said that she and Charlie are going to the hayride and corn maze this weekend. They want you to go.”

Tessa flopped down on her bed and pulled the pillow over her head. Why didn’t they just leave her alone? She didn’t want them to keep checking on her or waving at her between classes or trying to get her to sit with them at lunch or be sweet. She wanted Jasper. She wanted Jasper. She wanted Jasper.

No. She wanted
Lulu.

Why had she lost both of them? Couldn’t she have at least kept one of them? And since she couldn’t, why not just lose it all?

The principal called her into his office after a week back to check in.

“We know you’ve had it tough, and we’re here to help you,” the principal said. He was trying to be nice. He knew that she was likely going to fail this term, and he was trying to tell her that they would give her some leeway. But he told her that her hair was unacceptable.

She hadn’t cut it off. Instead she’d dreaded her curls.

“If I cut them off, I’ll die!” she screamed. She banged her fists on the table. Violent. The principal jumped back in his chair. Frightened. White.

Tessa ran out of the office.

She didn’t mean to erupt, but she was unable to stop feeling so much. Too much. She wanted everyone to feel everything as loudly as she did, too.

He was old. Maybe she’d scared him so badly that his heart had stopped.

That is what she felt like. Like her heart had stopped.

Charlie wouldn’t stop trying. He followed her around or found her between every class.

“We’re going to the hayride. Will you meet us?” Charlie asked.

She looked at him and said nothing.

Why did everyone think that she could do normal things? She clearly couldn’t.

He shouted after her as she walked away. They’d already bought her a ticket. If she changed her mind, it would be waiting.

She smelled it as soon as she walked out of the doctor’s office. It was the fall festival. It reminded her of the carnival. Of the movie where Jasper didn’t show up. Of before. She didn’t know why she bothered to go to the shrink. She was an old witch who knew nothing. The only thing soothing about her was the dog that lay at her feet. Tessa would pet and stroke the dog during sessions where she mostly said nothing. Sometimes she would hug that dog and bury her face into his fur and just cry. The doctor would say nothing. Or she would ask Tessa to draw pictures. Or she might make some hot chamomile tea and let Tessa cry for a whole hour.

Tessa felt a pang in her stomach. For the first time in months she was hungry. It wasn’t the corn. It was the idea of butter. She wanted the taste of salt in her mouth. She left the therapist’s and made her way across the mud and stood in line at the corn cart. The vendor wore an orange apron. She bought a corn on the cob. Bit into it. Butter dripped. It was the first delicious thing she’d tasted in months. It was the first thing that had had any flavor at all.

She wandered over to look at the horses and the wagons. Charlie was helping Celina into the first one. Kids were lined up waving their tickets. She turned away, wanting to get out of there, but then she saw him. Jasper. He was in line to get on a wagon.

She tried to wave.

“Do you have a ticket?” the wagon master said. “No ride without a ticket.”

Tessa didn’t have a ticket.

“I don’t have one,” she said, suddenly wanting one more than anything. The wagons started to leave. The last one was almost filled up. One of the organizers had come over to the wagon master and whispered something into his ear.

They both looked at Tessa.

“Young lady,” he said, and waved over to her. “It’s all settled. I’m sorry for the misunderstanding.”

He helped her up into the last wagon.

She didn’t know anyone in the wagon with her. They were all much younger than she was. So they didn’t look at her strangely. They looked at her as though she were a girl. A girl just like anyone else. A girl that nothing had happened to. They sang songs.

Tessa didn’t. She just felt the rhythm of the wheels; the rocking and the rolling and the sweet smell of the hay. She turned her face up to the weakening sun.

The wagon arrived and they all piled out, running into the maze. People were laughing and screaming with joy trying to find their way out again.

Tessa stood at the entrance. She wanted to be excited like she knew she used to be at fall festivals. But her heart would not quicken. She would not let it expand farther than the cage she’d put around it.

“You love this, Tessa,” she said to herself. “You love this.”

She stepped into the maze, but still she felt nothing. And then she caught a glimpse of someone turning a corner in front of her.

Jasper.

She picked up her pace. Her heart thawing in that way that hurts when one goes from cold to warm too quickly. She kept seeing Jasper as he turned corner after corner right in front of her. She’d lost track of where she was. And then she caught up with him in the middle.

“Jasper,” she said. “Jasper.”

“Don’t,” he said and took one step back from her.

“Jasper,” Tessa said. And then she realized she didn’t know what to say. No words came.

“I’m leaving town,” he said. “I guess I should tell you that. I’m going to boarding school next semester.”

She wanted to ask him if he’d meet her down by the woods. If they could lay in each other’s arms and kiss and sigh. She wondered if they could go back to the way it was before.

“Will I ever see you again?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Jasper said.

“I died, too.” Tessa said.

“I know,” Jasper said. He was blinking hard. His cheeks were flushed.

“Will you ever talk to me again?” Tessa asked.

“That look in your eyes,” Jasper said. “That look you gave me when you came back.”

“Yes?” Tessa asked. “Yes?”

“I never want to see that look again.”

Tessa shifted her weight. Heard the laughing strangers. Felt the crisp wind hinting at the coming winter. Tried to calm her hammering heart.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry.” He turned to go.

“What kind of look was it?” she called after him.

“Pure hate,” Jasper said.

He disappeared down the maze. Tessa waited a heartbeat before she moved. She was sorrier than she’d ever been in her life. She was sorry for her hard eyes. For Jasper’s secret heart that she’d mishandled. For ruining all of those shoes.

She swore. She swore again. She swore a third time.

Charlie and Celina were waiting for her when she emerged from the maze. They were there. They were waiting. Tessa knew that she was made up of all kinds of darkness, but Celina and Charlie were the parts inside of her that she could still feel. She would not ever be careless with precious things again.

“Do you want to ride with us?” Celina asked.

“Yes,” Tessa said.

“Are you OK?” Celina asked.

“Maybe,” Tessa said.

There was still sweetness in the air. She had to stand on her tippy toes to feel it. She could do it. She would. But it was a stretch. There was light up there.

Perhaps she would grow a little taller, and in a year or two it would be easier. She wouldn’t have to stretch so far to find the light. It would just be there for her. Waiting. Just like her friends had been.

She took Charlie’s hand as he helped her up into the wagon and then climbed in after them.

Cecil Castellucci
is a two-time MacDowell Colony fellow, the young adult and children’s book editor of the
Los Angeles Review of Books
, and an award-winning author of five books for young adults including
Boy Proof
,
The Plain Janes
, and
Beige
. Her books have been on the ALA Best Books for Young Adults, Quick Picks for Reluctant Readers, Great Graphic Novels for Teens, Amelia Bloomer, and NYPL Books for the Teen Age lists. Cecil lives in Los Angeles, California.