“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.
I hugged Mara before bed when nobody was looking. Normally, Mara pulled away first. But that night, she didn’t let go.
“I love you,” I whispered. She was my girlfriend now, and it seemed like the right thing to say.
“I love you too, James.”
* * *
Three hours later, as the castle settled in with its nighttime clicks and groans, I heard it. From the bathroom it came, cold, unfamiliar, foreboding... yet so wistful I had to press my body to the locked door to hear every word.
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“Through many dangers, toils and snares
I have already come.
‘Tis grace that brought me safe thus far–”
The melody was superlative but Mara paused–unsatisfied–and cleared her throat. She hummed a quick scale, coughed again, then finished the verse:
“And grace will lead me home.”
10. OLIVIA
I was six when I overheard Mom and Livy murmuring about race in the adjacent bedroom. Back then, a broken sliding door was the only barrier between the bathroom and my sister’s privacy. I watched them through a crack in the frame. I listened to every word.
“The kids at school call me black,” Livy said. I could see her sitting calmly on the foot of her bed; “calm” being a rare adjective for my seven-year-old sis. Her feet dangled beside Mom’s chunky legs and her hands were folded in her lap.
“Well that’s a silly thing to say,” Mom replied. “Your race is African, and your skin is a beautiful brown color.”
Livy held up her arm and inspected it.
Mom held her arm out beside Livy’s. “And you know what?”
“What?”
“People call me white.” She found a coloring book on the nightstand, opened to a blank page, and placed her arm against the crease. “The paper’s white, not my skin. My skin is beige!”
Livy smiled.
“We’re all different colors, sweetie. And we’re all beautiful in different ways.”
* * *
Punishment: day six.
T-minus five days until the Fairytale premiere.
Mara would always be my paradoxical muse; a wishing-well of inspiration with heads-up pennies to spare. When she stands beside you, your soul lifts and creativity flows. When she’s actually yours–when your arms are wrapped around her neck and your life is no longer dedicated to winning her but to keeping her–the well begins to run dry.
Questions about our editing progress were constant: “When can we see it?” “How far are you?” “Why doesn’t it look like a real movie?” And the questions didn’t just come from family. The panel of judges for the Lakeshore Celebration Art Contest called Mom every two days to request my submission.
I tossed the tennis ball at the wall above Whit’s head–THUNK–and caught it on the return. “I wrote her a note in secret code last night and left it under her pillow.” I threw the ball again. THUNK. “The other day, we snuggled and watched a David the Gnome marathon on Nickelodeon.” Whit’s eyes followed the ball. THUNK. “This morning, I wrote her a poem about Dorothy. She liked it so much she hugged me.” THUNK.
“James!” Livy shouted from the kitchen. “Knock it off!”
I caught the ball, fell backwards on my bed, and tossed it toward the spinning blades of the ceiling fan.
“Glad you’ve been workin’ so hard,” Whit said.
“If I wasn’t grounded, I’d never get anything done!”
He held down the fast-forward button and zipped through the completed Red Room scene. Dad was both terrifying and comical in his red robe and latex mask. Watching him hobble through the room at super-human speed added another layer to the absurdity.
“Did you bring the caffeine?” I asked.
“Crap,” Whit said. “Totally forgot.”
“Darnit. How are we gonna stay awake?” I threw the ball again. The green fuzz came an inch from striking the fan.
Whit reached beneath his chair and tossed me another bag of homemade powder. “This’ll keep us motivated,” he said.
I tossed the candy on my nightstand. “No sugar, beetle-dick. Four pounds left till my goal.”
“Whatever.”
I threw the ball again, too far, and it smacked the ceiling fan, flew across the room, and slammed into a Lego castle on my shelves. CRASH! Bricks flew everywhere.
The bedroom door opened and Mom stood in the frame. “James Parker,” she said, hands on her hips. “Give me the ball.”
“It helps me concentrate!” I said. “Do you know how tedious it is to edit on a thirteen-inch screen?”
She tilted her head and looked to Whit. “Keep an eye on my son tonight, Mr. Whitney. He’s grounded from having fun.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Whit said. “I’ll keep him in line.”
Mom stepped inside and kissed us on the foreheads.
“G’night,” I said.
“’Night Mrs. Parker,” echoed Whit.
“Sleep tight, kiddos.”
The moment the brass latch clicked into place, Whit’s brow tightened and his lips curled.
“What is it?” I asked and sat up.
“Does Ryan Brosh still come around?”
“About every day,” I replied. “Chattin’ up my girlfriend whenever Livy turns her back. Why?”
“Wanna make sure he stays away for good?”
* * *
Mara’s sunburn had already dissolved into a perfect, basted tan. Striped pajama pants covered the gashes on her legs. Her left eye was still crimson. “What is it?” she whispered as I led her through the bathroom by her wrist.
I turned on the shower, jerked the curtain loudly so Livy would hear the rattle, then stepped in my room and closed the door behind us. “I dunno yet,” I said and nodded to Whit. “This butt-mop wouldn’t say a word till you were here.”
Whit watched Mara as she straddled the desk chair backwards. His smooth cheeks and shit-eating grin reflected the static from the TV. “If I had a dime every time I saw somebody as pretty as you,” he said, “I’d have ten cents.”
“Ha!” Mara scoffed. “If I had a dime every time that line worked on a girl, I’d be broke!”
“Knock it off, lover boy,” I said. “Show us the tape before Livy gets suspicious.”
Whit held an eight-millimeter cassette above his head. “If you tell your sister about this, it will destroy her. Promise me... this stays between us.”
“Promise,” we said in unison.
The camera whirred and the tape slid inside. Whit pushed play.
“It’s just a picture of the woods,” Mara said.
“Shh.” Whit said, then turned the volume up a notch. “Listen.”
The shot was canted and still. “Must’ve left the camera on,” I said.
Whit turned up the volume again. Behind the background noise... there were voices.
Mara swiveled in the chair and leaned forward. “I hear ‘em. Is that Ryan?”
“And some of his high-school buddies,” Whit said.
I knelt beside Mara. Through the background hiss, I recognized the silken voice of Ryan Brosh. “Heck no!” said the jock. “–only one girl–”
“–bullshit!” said a friend. “She’s– like a– Am I right?”
“No, dude– not like that at all!”
“Are they talking about me?” Mara asked.
Whit pointed to the screen. “Shh.”
“Did you– Truth or Dare?”
“Heck no! What are–”
The words turned back into gibberish. Whit leaned closer to the screen. “Here it comes...” he said.
“–date her?” asked the friend.
“Psh!” said Ryan.
“But why not?”
And then, as clear as my father’s polished spectacles, “’Cause I don’t date niggers.”
Mara bowed her head against the chair.
Whit stopped the tape and ejected it.
My nails dug themselves into the palm of my hand. “Nobody talks about Livy like that.”
“You can’t say a word to your sister,” Whit said, then stowed the tape beneath his chair for safe keeping.
“I’m going to kill him,” I said.
“We need to let it play out,” he replied. “Mara? Back me up here, hon.”
She peered at me over the back of the chair. “Don’t tell her, James.”
I released a ribbon of air from my lips and nodded. Then I punched the wall as hard as I could.
* * *
It was nighttime and the castle was a
sleep. I studied the footage with Whit at my side, forcing my eyes open, watching the repetition of shots and scenes, staring at the Evil Prince–hating him, damning him–then pausing every few minutes on a closeup of Mara’s face. Together, we added my Folli sound effects and battled the claustrophobia of another summer night locked between the castle walls.
Suddenly, Dad’s voice exploded from Livy’s bedroom. “Son of a–” He howled and withheld the expletive.
“What now?” I muttered.
Whit was already peering through the crack in the door. The parlor light turned on and he winced.
“Egg-sucking dogs!” Dad exclaimed and something crashed.
I pushed Whit out of the way and opened my door. Livy and Mara were standing by the piano. Mom was squeezing her robe at the chest and blinking in the bright light. Before we could address one another or ask what the heck was going on, Dad emerged from Livy’s room like Donkey Kong preparing to throw a barrel. “Boys! Go to your room! Beth, watch the girls.” He stormed to the stairs and growled, “This ends tonight.”
For a split second, I caught Mara’s glance and felt her gloom. Then Mom swept the girls up like a duck with her ducklings, lead them to her room beneath her wing, then shooed me to bed with a swipe of her hand.
I leapt to my bed and dove to the window.
Whit closed the door and rolled to my side. “Whaddya see?”
“Holy mother of Hannah,” I whispered.
“James! What’s out there?”
“Fire,” I said.
Scrawled in forest floor beneath my window was a single word ten feet wide in flaming cursive: “SING.”
The front door opened and slammed. Foliage shook and two shadows hobbled away. They were old. They were women.
“The church ladies,” I said. “They wrote ‘sing’ in the ground with gasoline or something!”
“Holy shnikies...” Whit said.
I watched as Dad rounded the castle corner. He was hunched, searching the clearing like a raptor on the prowl. He froze beneath our windows. (I swear he sniffed the air.)
A metallic glimmer drew my attention to his right hand.
“Shit!” I said. “Dad’s got a–”
The gun fired before I could finish my sentence. The window pane trembled. Whit coiled and covered his ears. A kid fell out of the tree, two feet away from the flaming letters.