He stared at me, his eyes cold and dark. He was furious, I was sure now. “You should have made her leave.”
“I didn’t know what to do, sir. I didn’t know Ridley was going to destroy the gym. And Lena had never been to a dance.” It sounded stupid even as I was saying it.
Macon just stared back at me, swirling the scotch in his glass. “Interesting to note, you didn’t even dance. Not a single dance.”
“How do you know that?” Lena put down her mug.
Macon paced. “That’s not important.”
“Actually, it’s important to me.”
Macon shrugged. “It’s Boo. He is, for lack of a better word, my eyes.”
“What?”
“He sees what I see. I see what he sees. He’s a Caster dog, you know.”
“Uncle Macon! You’ve been spying on me!”
“Not on you, in particular. How do you think I manage as the town shut-in? I wouldn’t get far without man’s best friend. Boo here sees everything, so I see everything.” I looked at Boo. I could see the eyes, human eyes. I should have known, maybe I had always known. He had Macon’s eyes.
And something else, something he was chewing. He had a ball of something in his mouth. I bent down to take it from him. It was a crumpled, soggy Polaroid. He had carried it all the way from the gym.
Our picture from the formal. I was standing there, with Lena, in the middle of the fake snow. Emily was wrong. Lena’s kind did show up on film, only she was shimmering, transparent, as if from the waist down she had already begun to dissolve into some kind of ghostly apparition. Like she really was melting, before the snow had even hit her.
I patted Boo’s head and pocketed the photo. This wasn’t something Lena needed to see, not right now. Two months until her birthday. I didn’t need the picture to know we were running out of time.
12.16
When the Saints Go Marching In
Lena was sitting on the porch when I pulled up. I insisted on driving because Link wanted to ride with us, and he couldn’t risk being seen in the hearse. And I didn’t want Lena to have to walk in alone. I didn’t even want her to go, but there was no talking her out of it. She looked like she was ready for battle. She was wearing a black turtleneck sweater, black jeans, and a black vest with a fur-trimmed hood. She was about to face the firing squad, and she knew it.
It had only been three days since the dance, and the DAR hadn’t wasted any time. The Jackson Disciplinary Committee meeting this afternoon wasn’t going to be much different than a witch trial, and you didn’t have to be a Caster to know that. Emily was limping around in a cast, the winter formal disaster had become the talk of the town, and Mrs. Lincoln finally had all the support she needed. Witnesses had come forward. And if you twisted everything everyone claimed they saw, heard, or remembered far enough, you could squint, slant your head just right, and try to see the logic: that Lena Duchannes was responsible.
Everything was fine until she came to town.
Link jumped out and opened the door for Lena. He was so riddled with guilt, he looked like he was going to puke. “Hey, Lena. How ya doin’?”
“I’m okay.”
Liar.
I don’t want him to feel bad. It’s not his fault.
Link cleared his throat. “I’m real sorry about this. I’ve been fightin’ with my mom all weekend. She’s always been crazy, but this time it’s different.”
“It’s not your fault, but I appreciate you trying to talk to her.”
“It might have made a difference if all those hags from the DAR weren’t talkin’ her other ear off. Mrs. Snow and Mrs. Asher must’ve called my house a hundred times in the last two days.”
We drove past the Stop & Steal. Even Fatty wasn’t there. The roads were deserted, like we were driving through a ghost town. The Disciplinary Committee meeting was scheduled for five o’clock sharp, and we were going to be right on time. The meeting was in the gym because it was the only place at Jackson big enough to accommodate the number of people that were likely to show up. That was another thing about Gatlin, everything that went on involved everyone. There were no closed proceedings around here. From the look of the streets, the whole town had all but shut down, which meant just about everyone was going to be at the meeting.
“I just don’t get how your mom pulled this off so quickly. This is fast even for her.”
“From what I overheard, Doc Asher got involved. He hunts with Principal Harper and some bigwig on the School Board.” Doc Asher was Emily’s dad and the only real doctor in town.
“Great.”
“You guys know I’m probably going to get kicked out, right? I’ll bet it’s already been decided. This meeting is just for show.”
Link looked confused. “They can’t kick you out without hearin’ your side a the story. You didn’t even do anything.”
“None of that matters. These things are decided behind closed doors. Nothing I say is going to matter.”
She was right, and we both knew it. So I didn’t say anything. Instead, I pulled her hand up to my mouth and kissed it, wishing for the hundredth time that it was me going up against the whole School Board, instead of Lena.
But the thing was, it would never have been me. No matter what I did, no matter what I said, I would always be one of them. Lena never would. And I think that was the thing that made me the angriest, and the most embarrassed. I hated them even more because deep down, they still claimed me as one of their own, even when I dated Old Man Ravenwood’s niece and took on Mrs. Lincoln and wasn’t invited to Savannah Snow’s parties. I was one of them. I belonged to them, and there was nothing I could do to change that. And if the opposite were true, and in some way they belonged to me, then what Lena was up against wasn’t just them. It was me.
The truth was killing me. Maybe Lena was going to be Claimed on her sixteenth birthday, but I had been claimed since birth. I had no more control over my fate than she did. Maybe none of us did.
I pulled the car into the parking lot. It was full. There was a crowd of people lined up at the main entrance, waiting to get in. I hadn’t seen this many people in one place since the opening of Gods and Generals, the longest and most boring Civil War movie ever made and one that half my relatives starred in as extras, because they owned their own uniforms.
Link ducked down in the backseat. “I’m gonna slide out here. I’ll see y’all in there.” He pushed open the door and crawled out between the cars. “Good luck.”
Lena’s hands were in her lap, shaking. It killed me to see her this nervous. “You don’t have to go in there. We can turn around and I can drive you right back to your house.”
“No. I’m going in.”
“Why do you want to subject yourself to this? You said it yourself, this is probably just for show.”
“I’m not going to let them think I’m scared to face them. I left my last school, but I’m not going to run away this time.” She took a deep breath.
“It’s not running away.”
“It is to me.”
“Is your uncle coming at least?”
“He can’t.”
“Why the hell not?” She was all alone in this, even though I was standing right next to her.
“It’s too early. I didn’t even tell him.”
“Too early? What is that about, anyway? Is he locked up in his crypt or something?”
“More like, or something.”
It wasn’t worth trying to talk about now. She was going to have enough to deal with in a few minutes.
We walked toward the building. It started to rain. I looked at her.
Believe me, I’m trying. If I let go, it would be a tornado.
People were staring, even pointing, not that I was surprised. So much for common decency. I looked around, half expecting to see Boo Radley sitting by the door, but tonight, he was nowhere in sight.
We entered the gym from the side, coincidentally—the Visitor’s entrance, Link’s idea, which turned out to be a
good one. Because once we got inside, I realized people weren’t standing out front waiting to get in, they were just hoping to hear the meeting. Inside, it was standing room only.
It looked like a pathetic version of a grand jury hearing from an episode of one of those courtroom dramas on TV. There was a big plastic folding table in the front of the room, and a few teachers—Mr. Lee of course, sporting a red bow tie and his own backwoods brand of pre-judice; Principal Harper; and a couple of people who must have been members of the School Board—sitting in a row at the tables. They all looked old and annoyed, like they wished they could be at home watching QVC or religious programming.
The bleachers were filled with Gatlin’s finest. Mrs. Lincoln and her DAR lynch mob were taking up the first three rows, with the members of the Sisters of the Confederacy, the First Methodist Choir, and the Historical Society taking up the next few. Right behind them were the Jackson Angels—also known as, the girls who wanted to be Emily and Savannah, and the guys who wanted to get into Emily’s and Savannah’s pants—sporting their freshly screened Guardian tees. The front of the shirts had a picture of an angel that looked suspiciously like Emily Asher, with her huge white angel wings spread wide open, wearing what else—a Jackson High Wildcats T-shirt. On the back, there was simply a pair of white wings designed to look like they were sprouting right out of the person’s back, and the Angels’ battle cry, “We’ll Be Watching You.”
Emily was sitting next to Mrs. Asher, her leg and its huge cast propped up on one of the orange cafeteria chairs. Mrs. Lincoln narrowed her eyes when she saw us, and Mrs. Asher put her arm around Emily protectively, as if one of us might run over there and beat her with a club like a defenseless baby seal pup. I saw Emily slip her phone out of her tiny silver bag, text-ready. Soon, her fingers would be flying. Our school gym was probably the epicenter of local gossip for four counties tonight.
Amma was sitting a few rows back, fiddling with the charm around her neck. Hopefully, it would make Mrs. Lincoln grow the horns she’d been so artfully hiding all these years. Of course, my dad wasn’t there, but the Sisters were sitting next to Thelma, across the aisle from Amma. Things must have been worse than I thought. The Sisters hadn’t been out of the house this late since 1980, when Aunt Grace ate too much spicy Hoppin’ John and thought she was having a heart attack. Aunt Mercy caught my eye and waved her handkerchief.
I walked Lena to the seat in the front of the room obviously reserved for her. It was right in front of the firing squad, dead center.
It’s going to be okay.
Promise?
I could hear the rain pounding on the roof outside.
I promise this doesn’t matter. I promise these people are idiots. I promise nothing they say will ever change the way I feel about you.
I’ll take that as a no.
The rain beat down harder on the roof, not a good sign. I took her hand and pressed something into it. The little silver button from Lena’s vest, that I’d found in the Beater’s cracked upholstery, the night we met in the rain. It looked like a piece of junk, but I had carried it in my jeans pocket ever since.
Here. It’s sort of a good luck charm. At least it brought something good to me.
I could see how hard she was trying not to crack. Without a word, Lena took off her chain and added it to her own collection of valuable junk.
Thanks. If she could have smiled, she would have.
I made my way back toward the row where the Sisters and Amma were sitting. Aunt Grace stood up, resting on her cane. “Ethan, over here. We saved you a seat, darlin’.”
“Why don’t you sit down, Grace Statham,” an old blue-haired woman sitting behind the Sisters hissed.
Aunt Prue turned around. “Why don’t you mind your own business, Sadie Honeycutt, or I will mind it for you.”
Aunt Grace turned to Mrs. Honeycutt and smiled. “Now you come right on over here, Ethan.”
I squeezed in between Aunt Mercy and Aunt Grace. “How you holdin’ up, Sweet Meat?” Thelma smiled and pinched my arm.
Thunder crashed outside, and the lights flickered. A few old women gasped.
An uptight-looking guy sitting in the middle of the big folding table cleared his throat. “Just a little hiccup in the power is all. Why doesn’t everyone kindly take their seats so we can get started. My name is Bertrand Hollingsworth, and I’m Head a the School Board. This meeting’s been called to respond to the petition requestin’ the expulsion of a Jackson student, a Miss Lena Duchannes, is that right?”
Principal Harper addressed Mr. Hollingsworth from his seat at the table, the Prosecution, or more accurately, Mrs. Lincoln’s hangman. “Yes, sir. The petition was brought to my attention by several concerned parents, and it was signed by over two hundred a Gatlin’s most respected parents and citizens, and a number of Jackson students.” Of course it was.
“What are the grounds for expulsion?”
Mr. Harper flipped some pages on his yellow legal pad like he was reading a rap sheet. “Assault. Destruction a school property. And Miss Duchannes was already on probation.”
Assault? I didn’t assault anyone.
It’s just an accusation. They can’t prove anything.
I was on my feet before he even finished. “None of that’s true!”
Another jumpy-looking guy at the other end of the table raised his voice to be heard over the rain, and the twenty or thirty old women whispering about my bad manners. “Young man, have a seat. This is not a free-for-all.”
Mr. Hollingsworth pressed on over the din. “Do we have any witnesses to substantiate these accusations?” Now there were more than a few people whispering to each other to see if anyone knew what “substantiate” meant.
Principal Harper cleared his throat awkwardly. “Yes. And recently, I received information that indicates Miss Duchannes had similar problems at the school she previously attended.”
What is he talking about? How do they know anything about my old school?
I don’t know. What happened at your old school?
Nothing.
A woman from the School Board flipped through some papers in front of her. “I think we’d like to hear from Jackson’s Parent Partnership President, Mrs. Lincoln, first.”
Link’s mom stood up dramatically and walked down the aisle toward the Gatlin Grand Jury. She had seen a few courtroom dramas on TV, herself. “Good evenin’, ladies and gentlemen.”
“Mrs. Lincoln, can you tell us what you know about this situation, since you are one of the original petitioners?”
“Of course. Miss Ravenwood, I mean, Miss Duchannes, moved here several months ago, and since then there have been all sorts a problems at Jackson. First, she broke a window in the English class—”
“That came close to cuttin’ my baby to shreds,” Mrs. Snow called out.
“It came close to seriously injurin’ several children, and many a them suffered cuts from the broken glass.”
“No one except Lena was injured and that was an accident!” Link yelled from where he was standing in the back of the room.
“Wesley Jefferson Lincoln, you better go home right now if you know what’s good for you!” Mrs. Lincoln hissed.
She regained her composure, smoothing her skirt, and turned to face the Disciplinary Committee. “Miss Duchannes’ charms seem to work quite well on the weaker sex,” Mrs. Lincoln said with a smile. “As I was sayin’, she broke a window in the English classroom, which frightened the students so much that a number of civically minded young ladies took it upon themselves to form the Jackson Guardian Angels—a group whose sole purpose is to protect the students at Jackson. Like a Neighborhood Watch.”
The Fallen Angels nodded in unison from their seats on the bleachers like someone was pulling invisible strings attached to their heads, which, in a way, someone was.
Mr. Hollingsworth was scribbling on a yellow legal pad. “Was this the only incident involvin’ Miss Duchannes?”
Mrs. Lincoln tried to look shoc
ked. “Heavens, no! At the winter formal, she pulled the fire alarm, ruinin’ the dance and destroyin’ four thousand dollars worth a audio equipment. As if that weren’t enough, she pushed Miss Asher off a the stage, causin’ her to break her leg, which I’ve been told, on good authority, will take months to heal.”
Lena stared straight ahead, refusing to look at anyone.
“Thank you, Mrs. Lincoln.” Link’s mom turned and smiled at Lena. Not a genuine smile or even a sarcastic smile, but an I’m-going-to-ruin-your-life-and-enjoy-doing-it smile.
Mrs. Lincoln walked back to her seat. Then she stopped and looked right at Lena. “I almost forgot. There is one last thing.” She pulled some loose papers from her purse. “I have records from Miss Duchannes’ previous school in Virginia. Although it might be more accurate to call it an institution.”
I wasn’t in an institution. It was a private school.
“As Principal Harper mentioned, this is not the first time Miss Duchannes has had violent episodes.”
Lena’s voice in my head was bordering on hysterical. I tried to reassure her.
Don’t worry.
But I was worried. Mrs. Lincoln wouldn’t be saying this here if she couldn’t prove it somehow.
“Miss Duchannes is a very disturbed girl. She suffers from a mental illness. Let me see…” Mrs. Lincoln ran her finger down the page as if she was looking for something. I waited to hear the diagnosis for the mental illness Mrs. Lincoln thought Lena suffered from—the state of being different. “Ah, yes, here it is. It appears Miss Duchannes suffers from bipolar disorder, which Doctor Asher can tell you is a very serious mental condition. These people who suffer from this affliction are prone to violence and unpredictable behavior. These things run in families; her mother was afflicted as well.”
This can’t be happening.
The rain hammered down on the roof. The wind picked up, lashing the door of the gym.
“In fact, her mother murdered her father fourteen years ago.” The entire room gasped.
Game. Set. Match.
Everyone started talking at once.