Darynda Jones - First Grave on the Right

No, that was a lie. I did know the precise moment I began my long and illustrious career as an utter and complete fuckup who should never have been allowed to walk and chew gum at the same time, much less be set loose on the streets of Albuquerque. I’d been in the habit of leaving death and destruction in my wake since the day I was born. Even my own mother wasn’t immune to my poison. I was the very reason she died. Every life I touched, I tainted in some irreversible way.

My stepmother knew. She tried to warn me. I just didn’t listen.

We were at the park — my stepmom, Denise, Gemma, and I. Mrs. Johnson was there, like she’d been every day for two months, staring into the tree line, hoping for a glimpse of her missing daughter. She wore her signature gray sweater, kept it wrapped tightly about her shoulders, as though afraid if it opened, her soul would fly out and she’d never be able to catch it. Her dingy brown hair was pulled back in a messy bun with strays flying out of her head in every direction. Denise, in one of her more unselfish moments, sat beside her, tried to strike up a conversation, to little accord.

Denise had warned me not to talk about the departed in public. She said my imagination upset people, and on several occasions, she’d tried to talk Dad into putting me in therapy. But by that time, Dad was beginning to believe in my abilities.

So, it wasn’t like I didn’t know not to talk about it. But Mrs. Johnson was so sad. Her eyes were glazed over with it, and she was turning almost as gray as her sweater. I just thought she’d want to know, was all.

I ran up to her with a wide smile on my face. After all, I was about to give her the best news she’d had in a long time. After a quick tug on her sweater, I pointed to the field where her daughter was playing, and said, “There she is, Mrs. Johnson. Bianca’s right there. She’s waving at you. Hey, Bianca!”

As I waved back, Mrs. Johnson gasped and jumped to her feet. Her hands shot to her throat as she searched frantically for her daughter.

“Bianca!” she screamed, running forward and stumbling through the park. I was going to lead her to where Bianca was playing, but Denise grabbed me, her face frozen in mortification as she watched Mrs. Johnson run through the field, howling her daughter’s name. She screamed to a little boy to call the police and rushed into the forest.

Denise was in a state of shock when the police arrived. My dad had answered the call as well. They found Mrs. Johnson and brought her back to see what was going on. But my dad already knew. His head was bowed in something disturbingly similar to shame. And then everyone was yelling at me. All I could see were legs and fingers and teeth screaming my name. How could I? What was I thinking? Didn’t I understand what Mrs. Johnson was going through?

And Denise stood on the front line, crying and shaking and cursing the day she became my stepmother. Her fingernails dug into my arms as she shook me to attention, the disappointment on her face palpable.

I was so confused, so hurt and betrayed, that I withdrew into myself. “But, Mom,” I whispered through my pathetic tears that meant nothing to anyone there, least of all my stepmother, “she’s right there.”

She slapped me before my eyes even registered movement. There was no sting at first, just a baffling force and then a moment of blackness when my mind processed the sharp crack as my stepmother’s hand clapping against my face. Then I was back, nose to nose with Denise, her mouth moving in an exaggerated, angry fashion. I could barely focus on her through the flood of tears distorting my vision. I glanced through the blur at the faces of fury, the outraged expressions on each and every person surrounding me.

Then Bad was there, Reyes, his anger even more distinct than those around me. But he wasn’t angry at me. If I had let him, he would have sliced my stepmother in two. I knew this like I knew the sun would continue to rise. I begged him underneath my breath not to hurt her. I tried to make him understand that what was happening was my fault. That I deserved the wrath of the people around me. Denise had warned me not to talk about the others. But I hadn’t listened. He hesitated. Then, with an earth-shattering roar, he disappeared, leaving in his wake his essence, his earthy smell and rich, exotic taste.

My dad stepped forward then and took Denise by the shoulders. She shook with sobs as he led her away to his squad car. The cops questioned me for what seemed like hours, but I refused to speak about it any longer. Not really understanding what I’d done wrong, I closed my mouth and said no more. And I never called Denise Mom again.

It was a hard lesson, but one I’d never forgotten.

Two weeks later, I’d sneaked off to the park alone. I sat on the bench, watching Bianca play. She motioned for me to join her, but I was still too sad.

“Please, tell me,” Mrs. Johnson said from behind me, “is Bianca still there?”

She’d scared me, and I jumped off the bench, watching her with wary concern. She looked over to where Bianca was playing in her homemade sandbox near the tree line.

“No, Mrs. Johnson,” I said, edging back. “I didn’t see anything.”

“Please,” she begged. “Please tell me.” Tears streamed down her face.

“I can’t.” My voice was nothing more than a frightened whisper. “I’ll get in trouble.”

“Charlotte, sweetheart, I just want to know if she’s happy.” She stepped forward and knelt beside me, her breath catching in her throat.

I whirled and ran away, hiding behind a trash bin as Mrs. Johnson crawled onto the park bench and cried. Bianca appeared beside her and ran a tiny hand over her hair.

I knew better. I knew not to say anything, knew the consequences, but I did it anyway. I sneaked up and hid in the bushes behind the bench. “She’s happy, Mrs. Johnson.”

The woman turned to me, bobbed and weaved her head, trying to see me through the leaves. “Charley?”

“Um, no. My name is Captain Kirk.” I wasn’t the most imaginative being on the worldly plane. “Bianca asked me to tell you not to forget to feed Rodney and that she is sorry for breaking your grandmother’s china cup. She had assumed Rodney would have had better table manners.”

Mrs. Johnson’s hands flew to her mouth. She stood and circled the bench, but I was not about to be slapped again. I tore out of there and headed for home, swearing never again to talk about the departed. But she chased me! She ran me down and jerked me off the ground like an eagle snatching his dinner from a lake.

I’d thought about screaming, but Mrs. Johnson hugged me to her. For, like, a really long time. Uncontrollable sobs racked her body as we sank to the ground. Bianca stood beside us, smiling and petting her mother’s hair again before she drifted into me. I figured she’d told her mom what she needed her to know — apparently it had been a really important cup — and she felt she could leave. She smelled like grape Kool-Aid and corn chips as she passed.

Mrs. Johnson continued to rock me for some time before my father came in his patrol car. She stopped and looked at me. “Where is she, darling? Did she tell you?”

I lowered my head. I didn’t want to say, but she seemed to need to know. “She’s by the windmill past the trees. The search party was looking in the wrong place.”

She cried some more, then discussed what’d happened with my dad as I watched Bad in the distance, his black robe undulating like a sail in the wind, spanning the width of three massive trees. He was magnificent, and he was the only thing I’d ever truly been afraid of my whole life. He dissipated before my eyes when Mrs. Johnson came to give me another hug, and Bianca’s body was found that afternoon. The next day, I received a huge bouquet of balloons and a new bike, which Denise wouldn’t let me keep. But every year on Bianca’s birthday, I got a bright bouquet of balloons with a card that simply read, Thank you.