Wicked Sense (9 page)

After I’m done
,
I reach for my clothes. S
uddenly my face gets hot and prickly, and my eyes start to water. I blink a few times, but
my vision blurs, and the burning sensation spreads to my eyes.
I rub them
with my shirt. With m
y vision going away, I feel my way to the sink, open the
faucet, and splash cold water over
my face.

I hear someone’s footsteps.
“I can’t see!
” I say.
“
Can you hel
p me?” My voice is high, panicky
.
Everything is dark
now.

“What happened?” I can’t place the feminine
, young
voice.

“I don’t know. T
he cream. I can’t see.” The burning is unbearable.

“What do I do?” The voice
’s owner
is
nervous too.

“
Nurse
!
Take me to the nurse
,”
I say
.
I force my eyes shut as if I’m trying to keep the pain outside.

A
warm hand
lands
on
mine
,
and another o
n my
elbow, guiding me.
M
y other hand is
still
rubbing my eyes.
I feel like scratching them out to
make the
sting go away
.

The
girl who owns the
voice leads me gently but quickly across the room. I feel the chilly air against my warm skin
when we leave the locker room: we’re outside.
I’m still weari
ng o
nly a towel, but the thought gets lost in
my mind
; I just want to get rid of this
excruc
i
ating
pain
. We walk a few steps more. I can he
a
r other
people
in the distance.

The hands leave my arm and I
stumble
: the towel that wraps my body is yanked
off
, and
I almost fall to the ground,
exposed
.

Someone yells
from a distance
, “Naked chick!”

I’m in hell, my eyes torturing me, and I don’t know if I should cover
my nakedness or just keep rubbing my eyes. I turn and try to walk inside, anywhere, but my shoulder hits something hard, an open door maybe. I
stagger and take a step
back.

Around me,
I can hear shouts and catcalls, whistles and taunts, but I don’t care. I just want to leave.
Hunched,
I try to feel my way
, but I trip on something
and fall sidewa
ys,
cold
mud hitting my butt
, my
back, my
si
des.

I don’t get up, caring nothing for my privacy anymore, just
begging
for
the pain
to
go
away
. While I p
ress my hands against my eyes
, curled up in the mud,
someone shout
s
,
“Skye!”
It’s
Priscilla’s voice
,
close to me.

Warmness
envelops me, maybe
a
coat
covering me
, but that’s no comfort.

“My eyes!” I shout. “I can’t see!”

I hear other people close now, more voices
, words like “nurse
” and
“water” b
andied about, but I can’t think anymore.

I’m a puppet, a d
oll
with no will, shaking and screaming
, while many hands carry me awa
y.

It’s always unsettling when the whole school sees your prospective girlfriend naked. Especially when it’s before you do.

“What a day to miss school, man!”
is
Sean’s opening salvo.
He
tell
s
me
Boulder and he
were going to class
when
somebody
yelled,
and they saw Skye naked, flailing about, screaming, bumping on doors, completely
bonkers
. She fell down
,
and Priscilla
rushed to cover
her
with a
jacket
, followed by Ms.
Capshaw
and the nurse. They created a
human
wall
and
carried her away, Boulder
tells me, disappointed. I ask
the guys
many questions,
but they’re even more clueless than usual
and give me only speculation.
And anatomic details.
They praise my taste.

“She’s got a
hip
tat
, you know?” Sean says.

“A what?”

Boulder
explains. “A tattoo on her
hip.
Fancy one, too. Never seen a silver
tat
before.”

I can get nothing useful out of them.

That’s why I’m
at
her
Aunt
Gemma’s
, waiting for Skye.
The house is one of the oldest lots of our neighborhood, and it shows. Aunt Gemma
looks young for her age
, but her knick-knacks
and furniture
sure
ly
do
n’t
.
Add to that the dated wallpaper, the brown-framed single-paneled windows, and the dusty smell, and you’ve got the typical Grandma’s house.

Aunt Gemma comes down the stars, saying, “She asked you to come up.”
Her
frown
is
so intense it
feels like an extra presence in the room
. I stand up, and she looks me in the eye
as if I’m a criminal
, but
says nothing.
Okay, message received.

I walk up the stairs
.
All the doors are closed but one
, and I glimpse a
queen
-size
bed with flowery bed sheets in that room. I knoc
k on the open door.

“Hey
,” comes the
hoarse
voice from the inside. “Come on in.”

I push
the door wide open and see
Skye
o
n a
tattered
love
seat, wearing
a robe. Her face is puffy, pink with red spots,
and
her eyes
are
swollen
. She looks like a wreck, but still
attractive. How is
that
possible?

I’m shocked
,
but I smile to reassure her. She
gives me a faint nod
.

Her bedroom is bare, except for her dresser. On top of it, I see a small wooden bowl and a few unmarked glass vials, like small perfume containers.

Otherwise, it looks like a guest room, showing no signs of a personal touch.
I wonder if it means she has no plans of staying long.

“Hey,
you,
” I say back. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m better now. T
he swell
ing
and the redness will go away in a couple of days.” She waves weakly to a f
ew plastic orange containers on the
side table
next to her
. I’m guessing
they’re
anti-histamines. 

“Good,” I say. “But I mean, how do you feel?” I mean the shame, and she knows it, judging by the way she looks at me.

She straightens up on the
love
seat
, a
weary
look on her face. She makes a helpless gesture. “Well, I guess I’m not the
mysterious
new girl anymore,” she says
without
smil
ing
.

“What they did to you was horrible,” I say. I know it’s obvious, but I want to say it, and I want her to hear it. “I’m sorry.”

“Thanks.” She pauses for a while. “You’d tell me if you knew who did it
,
right?”

It upsets me, but it’s her right to ask. She’s known me for, what, a
few days? “Of course.”
A secon
d
pass
es
, then I add, “When I heard about it, I immediately th
ought it was Jane, but Sean
told me
he
saw her in
the crowd. There’s no w
ay it
she did it
.”

She shakes her head. “A girl led me out and took away my towel. I didn’t know her voice.” She sounds like she could kill someone. I don’t blame her.

“What now?” I ask, shrugging. Since she didn’t ask me to sit down, I’m guessing it’s going to be a short visit.

Her shoulders sag. “I go back to school. What can I do? It’s not like
I’ve got
much more to hide.”

“I notice
you and I are using all kinds of excuse
s
to miss school,” I say.

“And get attention
.” S
he looks at me.

“Especially medical
attention.”

She smiles. I did it! Mission
accomplis
hed.

I point t
o the door. “I’ll let you rest.”

She nods. “Thanks for coming.”

I just smile
all the way home.

I ring a bell to ward off any evil. Then I light
my candle. I select one of the incense sticks from my stash and light it up
too
. A bowl already contain
s
my offering
:
small chrysanthemums
, recently picked
from Aunt
Gemma’s
backyard.

I
begin
my cleansing, the gestures
and words
unique to my ritual. Each Sister is supposed to com
e up with her own ritual. T
he energy flow,
the prayers,
the meaning, they
are all personal
.

Today I pray
to make a speedy recovery and
to
be protected
from
any
other attacks.

I miss
Judi’s estate outside London.
Our dear
Judi would host Mum and
me
every summer
. There
I could go outdoor
s
at night and dance
, alone, unafraid,
familiar with the forest
. That’s my place. M
y home. I used to do it a lot when I was younger, but
in the last two years
I’ve been
travel
ing with Mum more often, an
d my connection to the place h
as weakened.

These thoughts interrupt my meditation. My desire is to be outside. My personal rituals are much stronger when in
I’m in
touch with
n
ature
. Gemma told me Seattle has many parks, but I didn’t have time to check them out yet.

It’s okay. I don’t need a paradisiacal meadow a hundred miles from civilization
;
any patch
of nature with some privacy would
do. Maybe a trail. Maybe the trail where Drake had his unfortunate encounter with the falling tree—I don’t remember anyone interrupting us when I was saving his life.

But for now I push these thoughts aside and try to connect with the
Goddess.

***

T
he principal
issued a blanket warning and
assured me that if any
cell phone
pictures
showed up
o
nline
, he’d call the FBI guys and sic them on the students.
A
few angry parents complained, but most of them
understood
my predicament,
and
the protests died down.
Still,
the
pics
are probably being
passed from ce
ll to cell for private viewing right now.