“No.” I shake my head, adamant. “No way. Absolutely not. Not here.”
His sad look is gone, replaced by the earlier skepticism.
“No offense, Mr. Porter. But I don’t know you. I don’t know Molly that well, either.” That’s not really true. She’s been hounding me pretty much 24/7 since February. But I don’t know what Molly can hide from me. What she’s not telling me. “I’m not real big on trust, okay? I only let her borrow me before because Deo was there.”
I have no idea what Deo would have done if Molly had somehow kept control and tried to walk off with my body, but at least he would have known she wasn’t me. And he would have cared. I can’t say the same for Porter. He might decide having his granddaughter back, even a pale, skinny version, is better than the alternative.
“So,” he says, his voice rising slightly, “you only do this on your own turf? Where you can set somethin’ up in advance, somethin’ to make me think it’s Molly I’m talkin’ to? Who’s this Deo? He workin’ this little scam with you, Anna? ’Cause I think you’re too young to be in this all on your own.”
Just hearing Porter speak Deo’s name ignites a ball of fear in my stomach. “Deo’s just a kid. You leave him alone. This conversation is over.”
I move toward the exit. Molly’s screaming at me, and she’s strong enough, angry enough, that my feet feel like lead weights as I drag myself toward the door.
You know what Craig did to me, Anna! You know. It could be you next. It could be Deo. He knows people who are in the market for boys, especially boys like Deo. If he does that to someone else, if he kills someone else, it’s your fault, Anna. Your fault, ’cause you can stop it! You can—
No, Molly. I can’t.
I do the only thing I can in these circumstances . . . stack up the bricks in my mental wall. It won’t block her entirely, won’t get rid of her, but it will quiet her down to a dull, wordless roar.
I’m out the door, and Molly’s still with me, still yelling.
She comes with, whether I like it or not.
CHAPTER TWO
I’m late for my shift and Joe is going to explode—it’s the second time this week. I sprinted the mile plus from Glenmont station rather than waiting for the bus, which wasn’t scheduled for twenty minutes. Running has the added benefits of warming me up and keeping Molly’s protests down to a low, back-of-the-mind hum. I don’t know if it’s the endorphins or just the physical exertion, but it’s almost like having my head to myself. Almost.
Deo is leaning against the wall outside Carver’s Deli, munching on a bagel, when I get there. He’s a tall, thin study in deep purple today—jeans, jacket, and shirt, the last two with the collars starched to stand straight up. His boots, his backpack, and his black hair all have a faint purple sheen, and his eyes are rimmed with dark-purple liner. Even his earbuds are purple. A good chunk of his allowance goes toward dyes of various sorts—there are three laundromats in the DC area that will evict him on sight because he’s ignored their rules about dye in the machines. His style is usually a bit over the top, but Deo somehow manages to make Goodwill look good.
“And . . . it didn’t go well,” he says, after one quick glance at my expression. Deo can read my moods better than I can. We had the misfortune of landing the same set of truly horrid foster parents about seven years ago, when Deo was eight and I was nearly eleven. We left a few months later and spent about a month on the streets together before Social Services rounded us back up and spun the Wheel of Foster Misfortune again.
“I hope you at least got your phone back?” he asks around a bite of bagel. For the past year, food of some sort has been a permanent appendage to Deo’s hand. Sometimes both hands at once. At first, I teased that he was going to get fat, but then he shot upward—six full inches since last summer. Now I have to look up at him, not the other way around. This amuses him. I don’t really care as long as he doesn’t call me “Short Stuff.”
I squeeze his shoulder briefly in greeting and keep moving. “We’ll talk after my shift. I’m late.”
“Not true,” he says. “You are, in fact, extremely early. Joe had to switch your shift. Said he left a message on your phone saying he needs you to come in tomorrow, same time, instead.”
“A message I didn’t get because that idiot had my phone.” I sigh. “Oh, well, at least I’m not late again. And yes, I got the phone back, but it’s completely dead.”
“Jerk.” Deo pulls a second bagel out of his jacket pocket—wrapped, thankfully, or it would most likely have been dyed purple on contact. It’s still warm from the oven. Jalapeño cheddar, my favorite. Thank you, Joe. Deo and I would both be ten pounds thinner if my job didn’t include free bagels.
We head north, walking toward the group home where I’ve lived for the past seven months and where Deo has lived for the past five. Back in May, when one of the older kids at Bartholomew House finished high school and shifted into a transitional program, Dr. Kelsey pulled a major bureaucratic miracle and convinced the county to give Deo the open slot, arguing that Deo and I might both be more inclined to stay put and avoid trouble if we were in the same location. The people in charge of Bartholomew House are mostly okay, and they don’t give Deo any grief unless one of the girls complains that he’s borrowing clothes (not true) or makeup (probably true). It’s better than some foster homes we’ve been in, worse than others, but we aren’t complaining. Kelsey is right—the fact that we’re together for a change means that we won’t be leaving Bartholomew House until we have to.
The sun dips below the horizon as we turn onto a smaller street that winds past a few newer apartment buildings and into a subdivision of fifties-era single-family homes. I pick up the pace a bit to keep warm, and we walk for a few minutes in silence, doing proper homage to the bagels.
“So—what went wrong?” Deo asks. “Porter recognized the music, right? I mean, he looked like someone had punched him in the gut when he grabbed your phone yesterday.”
I nod. “He recognized the song and believes that it’s Molly playing it—recorded before she died, of course. Wants to know where we got it, how I knew her, or where I found it. He thinks this is a scam to get money or something.”
“Well,” Deo says, “that would be the most logical explanation. Not the correct one, but definitely more logical.”
We need to go back, Anna. Please . . . give him another chance. Deo’s right, he’s just looking for a logical explan—
Shut up, Molly. I’m talking to Deo.
She’s quieter after that, but there’s still a sense of her grumbling at the back of my mind—the mental equivalent of someone banging pots around in the kitchen to let you know they’re good and angry.
“I don’t blame Porter for questioning what I told him. But he crossed the line. He called Kelsey to check on me.”
“He did what? What did she tell him?”
“She told him to give me back my phone or she’d help me find a lawyer.” I don’t have to explain to Deo how that makes me feel. Yes, Kelsey would have been violating confidentiality if she had talked to Porter, but we’ve both had that happen plenty of times. Maybe even most of the time. Not everyone in the system honors the privacy rights of minors.
“Ha! Go Dr. K. So if he got zip from her—no harm, no foul, then. Right?”
“Well, no. It’s the principle of the thing—and he didn’t stop there. He went digging around in my records and said straight out that he could make problems for me. I’m the one trying to do him a favor, so he can screw off. I’ve had it.”
“And Molly’s okay with this?”
“Does Molly own this body?”
“Nooo. But you know as well as I do that she’s not going to just drop this thing.”
“She’ll go away eventually, D. They all do.” I ball up the bagel wrapper and turn around to shoot it into a trash can near the bus stop we’ve just passed.
And that’s the only reason I see the van.
I tackle Deo with my right shoulder at f
ull speed and knock him sideways. He lands facedown in the grass, about four feet from the sidewalk. I wind up mostly on top of him, except for my right leg, which connects with a large tree branch that’s fallen from the oak a few yards behind us. A sharp stabbing pain runs through my calf.
The van clips the bus stop sign and rips the wastebasket from its pole. Fast-food containers and other assorted crap flies into the air, then rains down around us as the van squeals back onto the road. I squint and get a quick glimpse of the license plate.
Deo lets loose with an impressive stream of cursing as he pushes himself up to his elbows. “What was that?”
“Gray van. Dodge, maybe? Maryland tag, last three digits 27J,” I say.
He brushes the dirt out of his hair as he gets to his feet. “Did you get a look at the driver?”
“Not really. A guy. Tall. I think he was bald.” I grit my teeth and yank a piece of wood nearly as thick as my pinky out of my leg. It’s bleeding like crazy. The jeans were too worn to offer much protection, and the branch ripped straight through.
Deo winces and pulls a couple of napkins out of his pocket. I fold them into a compress and hold it against the wound. Joe buys cheap napkins, so they don’t soak up much, but they’re better than nothing.
“You think he’d at least stop!” Deo fumes. “Make sure we’re not hurt?”
“You’d think. Are you okay?”
“Yeah. But you’re not. Freakin’ jerk.”
“Maybe he’s an illegal or something. Still, he needs to watch where he’s driving. If I hadn’t turned back at just that moment . . .” I shudder and shake my head. “You think we should call the tag number in when we get home?”
“Hell, yeah,” Deo says, then pauses as he catches my expression. “Maybe. I don’t know. How much of a hassle do you think it will be?”
I shrug. “We only have a partial number,” I say as he gives me a hand up. I hobble over and lean against the oak tree, pressing the napkins tight against my leg. “No witnesses, so even if they do find the driver, it all depends on who they believe. And do you really think it will be us?”
He waves his hand at the mess around us. “There’d have to be marks on the van, right? Busted trash can, bent signpost? Come on, even the MoCoPopo aren’t that blind.”
Given that we’re in Montgomery County, it’s generally been the county police that have dragged Deo back to the various foster homes he skipped out on, so I’m quite familiar with the nickname for his least favorite police force.
“I don’t know, D. He collided with a trash can when a couple of dumbass kids jumped out into the street and he had to swerve to avoid hitting them. You know that’s what he’ll say. We could end up in trouble if we call it in. But I can’t think of a downside to keeping our mouths shut.”
Deo kicks a Dr Pepper can hard into the bent signpost and then sighs, picking up his backpack. “You’re right. What’s the point?”
Dinner at Bartholomew House doesn’t happen around a table. Something is on the stove, cooked and more or less hot, at six. It disappears at seven on the dot, and I’ve yet to see any leftovers in the fridge, so I’m not sure where it goes. If you come in after seven, you know where the bread, peanut butter, and jelly can be found, and you might be able to score some fresh fruit or cookies if Deo or one of the other bottomless pits didn’t beat you to it. I’m rarely in by dinnertime when I work, but I’d rather eat at the deli anyway.
We slide in the door with about ten minutes to spare. Tonight, it’s stew of some sort. Deo offers to grab a bowl for me while I limp upstairs to plug in my phone and patch the hole in my leg. When I finish, he’s in the living room with most of the other eight kids who live here, eating as they watch Celebrity Family Feud. Not my first choice, but I know I’ll be voted down, so I just squeeze in next to Deo.
I pick the chunks of meat from my stew and toss them into Deo’s bowl, snagging his mushrooms—one of the few foods he doesn’t like—in exchange. I’m not exactly a vegetarian, but whatever meat is featured in this concoction is gray and unappealing, and he needs the extra protein more than I do anyway. Pauline is the nicest of the four house parents, but she is by far the worst cook. She should really stick to Hamburger Helper, grilled cheese, and other stuff she can’t screw up.
“You okay?” Deo asks between bites.
I shrug, tugging up the leg of my sweatpants to show him the gauze bandage. “Too big for just a Band-Aid, but Pauline said it doesn’t need stitches. Shouldn’t get infected—she poured about half a bottle of hydrogen peroxide on it. My jeans are shot, though.”
He drops his voice a bit. “What did you tell her?”
“The truth, mostly. Fell on the sidewalk, landed on a branch.”
Deo nods. We both learned long ago that the best way not to get caught lying is to tell selective truths. Leave out the stuff that might get you in trouble and tell them the rest. You don’t look nearly as guilty to those in charge, and it makes it a lot easier to remember what you told them later on.
Deo scarfs down the stew in record time. He doesn’t get up in search of seconds, so I’m guessing the pot is now empty.
I hand him my bowl, still about half full.
“You don’t want it?”
I could definitely finish it, but I shake my head. “I just had a bagel. I’m fine. I’ll grab an apple later if I get hungry.”
He shrugs and eats the rest as we watch a couple of the younger kids play a Ratchet & Clank game on the battered PS3, before heading up to Deo’s room. We don’t bother with my room, because I have a roommate, Libra. (No, she’s actually a Capricorn, and yes, she’s tired of people asking.) She’s a year younger than me, but she was here before I arrived and has staked out most of the room as her own. I’m fine with that as long she keeps her stuff off my bed. I stash my phone and anything I don’t want her messing with in Deo’s room. His room is a single—they can never decide who to bunk with the kid who’s clearly questioning his sexual orientation—so we usually hang out and do homework there. That’s also where we keep the ancient Chromebook that we pooled our cash to buy a few years back. It’s buggy and there’s a short in the power unit, but I’m really hoping it holds out awhile longer so that we don’t have to compete for time on the two communal computers downstairs.
I curl up on the tattered plastic beanbag in the corner, planning to scan through my English lit book and pick an author for the essay that’s due on Monday. But first, I’ve promised to help Deo review for his history test.
We’re four questions in, and suddenly Molly’s back.
Anna, just listen to me for a few—
Come ON, Molly! Give it a rest. I’m helping Deo and then I have a paper due. I’m at the deli both days this weekend, so I can’t put it off. I’m sorry it didn’t work out today, but I’ve wasted most of my spare time for the past two weeks on this. It’s not my fault that your grandfather is a jerk.
We can’t give up.
I most absolutely certainly CAN give up. Go haunt him yourself. Maybe you’ll have better luck.
Ha. Funny, Anna.
I’m not trying to be funny. I’m trying to make you go away. I need to focus.
Molly slides to the back of my mind, a sensation that’s hard to describe. You know the feeling when you hit the top of the Ferris wheel and then it dips down? Substitute your head for your stomach and that’s what it’s like. Sort of. It’s not exactly fun, but I’ve gotten used to it.
Deo is watching me, head tilted to one side, waiting. If it was anyone else, I’d be self-conscious about looking like a space case, but it’s Deo. He recorded me once, so I know exactly how I look when I’m engaged in one of these internal dialogues—and that makes me determined to avoid them in public. My eyes go blank, unfocused, like no one’s home—which is ironic if you think about it, since the problem isn’t that nobody’s there, but rather that we’ve exceeded the maximum occupancy of one.
“Go away, Molly,” Deo says with an amiable smile. “Anna has to tell
me why we started the War of 1812.”
“She’s already gone. You want the abridged version or the full MacAlister?”
“Definitely the abridged. We don’t have all night.”
It takes a few seconds, but the info is there, filed away with the rest of the debris that accumulates when your head takes in the occasional extra boarder.
“Okay,” I begin as Deo slides the computer into his lap. “Britain was at war with France and we tried to stay neutral, but then the Brits started grabbing sailors off of our ships to force them to fight their war.” I continue along those lines for a few minutes, pausing every now and then for him to catch up.
When I was nine years old, a good Samaritan delivered a large box of school supplies to my elementary school—just some stuff he found when cleaning out the house after the death of his mother, a retired history professor. That’s how I picked up the last No. 2 pencil that eighty-two-year-old Emily MacAlister used to work her daily New York Times crossword puzzle. That’s also how I picked up Emily, who was with me for nearly two years. She didn’t finish her puzzle before she died, and Emily hated leaving loose ends. Having Emily in my head was like having your grandmother follow you around 24/7—tuck in your shirt, you’ve misspelled the word especially, pull your hair back so everyone can see your pretty eyes, dear, and are you really wearing that to school? She was a sweet old lady, but I was glad when we finally located the unfinished puzzle and she decided it was time to move on. Even now, there are a few swear words I simply cannot say without that tiny, residual ghost inside me shuddering in disgust.
Thanks to the various people like Emily that I’ve hosted, I’ve tested out of a lot of high school subjects. I still have a few gaps that the State of Maryland wants me to fill before they’ll grant me a diploma however, so I’m at JFK High in the mornings, and I’m taking college classes online. That means I’ll have more than two years of college completed when I graduate from JFK at the end of this year. Online is nice—it’s kind of difficult to pick up psychic travelers from our computer keyboard, and if I need to zone out a bit to access the memory banks, no one but Deo is here to see my goofy expression.