Ariel Gore - Santa Fe Noir

“I think I’m going to faint,” she said.

And he hoped she would. Then the nurse would know. But she didn’t.

They went to his house after school. But there was nothing to do. His mom was home, so no closed door. Ava wouldn’t eat, so no snacks. Usually he loved that she played video games and Dungeons & Dragons, but neither of them was in the mood.

“Let’s go,” he said. It was starting to feel like spring, but the sun was still going down pretty early.

“Be back by nine, it’s a school night,” his mom called. “And are you kids going to get something for dinner?”

“Yes, yes. Bye, Mom.”

He hopped on his bike, and she on the bar. Was she lighter than yesterday? Was she going to die? He wished he could ask his brother, but his brother had gone to State and this seemed like an in-person question.

He turned off the suburban streets and onto the dirt track. It was overgrown with dry weeds. Some dead cottonwood leaves drifted down. In the distance, at the far edge of the houses, they could hear a weird howling sound.

“Is that a weredog or something?” Ava asked.

“Pit bulls?”

“It doesn’t sound... normal... I bet it’s a weredog with slobbering mouth and burning red eyes...”

“It’s creepy,” he agreed.

They climbed over the chain-link fence, left the bike, and walked the rest of the rutted path. The sun seemed to be sinking quickly, and it was colder.

The ruin of St. Catherine Indian School loomed up before them, familiar and yet foreboding.

“My mom always calls it St. Kate’s,” Ava said. “But we never do. We always use its full name.”

“Out of respect, I guess,” Trevor said.

“Respect for the ghosts?”

“Or, like, the past... It was a school, after all...”

“Full of oppressive nuns. They made the students get up at dawn and do all the chores. That’s how they saved money. They made the students scrub the nun’s floors. On their knees. With wax.” Ava’s expression suggested even the meanest nuns couldn’t get her to do that.

“I’m gong to climb a little, boulder up the wall,” he told her. “Want to come?”

“I’m feeling kinda weak,” Ava said. “I’m going to sit and smoke.”

“Watch out for the ghosts,” Trevor said. Everyone always said that.

“Wretched students snatched from their culture to die of homesickness...” Ava said.

“No one has ever seen them. The ghost is a nun. The Gray Nun.”

“Whatever. I think the ghosts are students. They cut their hair and took little kids away from their families... They hit them if they spoke their own language.” Ava’s eyes filled with tears that might have been due to low blood sugar. She sat on the wall. She clicked her lighter, lit a cigarette, watched the smoke curl in the dying sunset. Kicked her sneakers against the masonry. “You don’t care about what happened,” she said. “How would you like it if the government had taken you and your brother away from your mom?”

“I think St. Catherine’s was private,” he said. “Maybe people wanted to come here?”

“I totally doubt it,” Ava said.

Trevor started climbing freehand. He knew the wall well, some grooves and curves familiar to his hands. It was lonely, though. He wished his friends were there — Mateo and Dylan and Jade, who was the best climber of the girls. He could hardly see Ava in the dim light, just the tip of her cigarette.

“Ava!” he shouted.

“What?”

“If you don’t eat, I’m going to let go. Just let go, fall, and die.” Well, maybe not die, but break an ankle. “There is a granola bar in my pack. Eat it. Now.” He wanted to say — Ava, I love you. I’ve loved you since fourth grade . But it sounded too sappy. And besides, he’d hardly noticed her in fourth grade.

“Fuck that,” she said. “I’m going inside.”

They’d all been inside, but rarely, because it was boarded up pretty securely — trespassing was one thing; taking out a piece of a school something else.

But this evening the board wasn’t there, just a gaping hole, and Ava walked in the gloom of the inner courtyard. Some taggers had written WEST SIDE over the door, but other than that it was undisturbed. People said a tagger had died out here, or maybe that was at the electrical transfer station.

The courtyard was open to the sky, and light from the east showed a full moon coming up. Ava clicked her lighter again a few times, but she couldn’t see much, just the arches and masonry and an empty space.

And then the space was no longer empty.

The air felt cold and clammy, and then a young woman stood opposite Ava. She had long black hair down her back, and she was wrapped in a shawl. She was taller than Ava, and a few years older.

“Hello,” she said. “I’m here to help you.”

“Are you, like, a ghost? Of a student?”

The young woman shook her head. “No, I am not like a ghost . I am a spirit. The spirit of the earth. Well, not THE earth. This earth.”

Ava stared at her. The spirit flickered a bit. She seemed to be wearing a necklace of large chunky turquoise stones, then a cross on a chain, and then... impossibly, a Hello Kitty sticker pasted to the base of her throat.

“Okay,” said Ava.

“You need to eat.” The spirit extended both hands toward Ava. She was carrying what looked like a bowl of blue corn posole. It smelled delicious.

“No thank you,” Ava said politely.

“You need to eat. To live.”

“Why live?”

“What would your grandmother say?” the spirit asked.

“She’d tell me, Ava, we don’t know why we were born, but it’s our job to find out. Maybe it’s to do someone else a favor... or to find out what we’re good at. So, choose life, because... ”

“Because why?”

Ava shrugged.

“Because it’s difficult,” said the spirit. “Don’t be a coward.”

“I’m not...”

“Then eat. Maybe you’ll live to do me a favor. Save this place from developers and being turned into condos. Make it a park or a garden.”

“Nuh-uh,” said Ava. “You know eating food from the spirit world could be a trap. I’m not in that world, how do I know the food won’t enchant me, take me away, and... like, you know, have you ever seen the Japanese anime Spirited Away? Where the parents turn into pigs from greed? And the girl eats just a tiny bit of spirit food to keep up her strength?”

“I actually don’t go to the movies,” the spirit said. “But that seems like a good idea. Just take a tiny taste.”

Ava leaned forward, stuck her pinky finger into the corn mush, and stuck it in her mouth. It didn’t taste like much but she felt warmth flood her body, starting from her navel. She was hungry, ravenously hungry.

When she looked up, the spirit was gone.

“Trevor!” she shouted, and bolted back toward the opening. She dashed out. Suddenly, a shadow loomed over her and she screamed.

“Ava!” It was Trevor.

She kept screaming.

“Stop screaming. It’s me. Ava, what the fuck? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Trev, I’m just really... really hungry. Can I have that granola bar?”

She wolfed it down, and drained half his water bottle.

“I’m starving,” she said. “Let’s go back. It’s getting creepy out here. Hey, let’s go to Boxcar. They’re still open. I’m going to order green-chile cheese fries and... a ginger ale? Nutella milkshake? Something. Come on. I gotta eat. I’m hypoglycemic.”

Trevor restrained himself from suggesting a healthier choice. She was going to eat! And then... suddenly his heart constricted. One day they’d break up. She’d go to college, and he’d fall for someone else, and this moment that seemed perfect would be gone... gone like the nuns and the sad students and the bones rotting in the little graveyard out back.