A Girl Called Fearless (7 page)

Sophie sat on one side of me, but the chair on the other stayed empty. Partway through the Headmaster's speech, Ms. A tried to take it away, but I threw my hand down on it. “No, it's Dayla's,” I snapped.

Ms. A looked at me like she wished she could do more than leave me Day's chair. I sank into the emptiness beside me.

Day, I hope someone's taking care of you today.

Dayla was always a mess on Remembrance Day, and I'd spend half my time trying to keep her from drowning in memories of the September when her mom was so desperate, she drove Day's three older sisters to a clinic in Tijuana. Weeks later, Day's mom drove back, hunched over with pain, because Mia, the only one still alive, wanted to die at home.

I remembered Day standing outside our house in her pink shortie pajamas the day after her mom died. Mom plucked Day off the front steps. “My daddy won't come out of his room,” Dayla blubbered as Mom dug glass out of her foot. Mom was so calm. She made tomato sandwiches and sent us out to play under the fig tree, and she went to check on Day's dad. Dayla slept in my bed for weeks while his meds kicked in.

Oh, Day. I miss you.
So much.

Mr. Hope played his cello while men walked in with nine tall brass vases and lined them up along the edge of the stage.

It will be easier if you try and hold it together until the end, Ms. A had warned us. I grabbed a tissue as the box passed from hand to hand and wiped my face.

Ms. A came down the row, passing out the yellow roses for our class. She handed me one for Mom and I saw how they'd given her too many.

“Are those Dayla's?”

Ms. A winced. “Yes.”

“Can I carry them?”

Tears glazed her eyes. “Of course.”

I fingered their petals as they lay on my lap. The florist had cut off their thorns, but it stung to hold them.

“Now it is time to commemorate those we have lost. Each class will come up to the stage in turn and place their roses in their class vase.”

The fourth graders went first in their lacy socks and fancy dresses. They marched, their roses bouncing in their hands like they were at a party and dropping flowers into the vase was some kind of game.

Sophie sniffed. “Happy little bitches,” she muttered. I wrapped my arm around her and let her rest her head on my shoulder.

Remembrance Day is all ceremony and layer cake for little girls who were lucky enough to be babies when their moms died.

The Headmaster read off names of the deceased. “Mrs. Emily Florenz. Miss Amelia Florenz. Mrs. Hannah Ferguson. Mrs. Sonia Pike…”

The fifth graders came up. They stood on tiptoes to drop their roses into the vase and one waved to her dad, then skipped across the stage.

“What does she think this is?” Portia said. “A pageant?”

I tried to look away as the middle schoolers went up. Tried to block out their crying and the relentless recitation of names, but I couldn't escape the vases filling with blossoms, the yellow wall of shattered hearts.

I held it together through the sophomore class, then the Headmaster called up the juniors.

We filed into the aisle. This was the part I hated the most. Now that we were upperclassmen, we recited the names of those we lost ourselves.

Felicity Reveare.

I recited it in my head as I walked up the aisle, feeling the weight of losing Mom sink into me.
Felicity.
It was ironic and cruel that
felicity
means happiness when Mom, with her big open heart, was dead.

My lips trembled as I climbed the stairs. I couldn't say
Felicity,
couldn't force it from my lips when the only name I'd ever called her was Mom.

Luckily, I didn't have to, because Sophie Park took care of that. She was about to drop in her mom's rose when two girls in the front row started to giggle. Sophie went stiff and then, before any of us could reach her, threw out her hands and shoved the vase right at them.

Water shot from the falling vase, dousing the front row. Girls screamed and the vase clanged at their feet. Ms. A swept Sophie off the stage, the choral director cued up a hymn, and the Headmaster declared we'd take a short break before the seniors.

Dad was already on his feet, and when I ran up and said, “Let's get out of here,” he didn't hesitate for a second. We bolted for the car and later Dad squeezed my shoulder as I sobbed in the passenger seat. “Where do you want to go, honey?”

“Someplace where I don't have to feel anything.”

“I wish I knew where that was,” he said, starting the car.

For a moment, it was just Dad and me again, close like we used to be. But then his cell phone rang, a new special ring.
Hawkins.

Today? Really?

“He's probably calling for you,” Dad said. “You feel like talking?”

I shook my head, and listened to Dad apologize, that I was feeling under the weather, but he'd pass on Jessop's condolences. When Dad hung up, he looked at me. “You're going to have to talk to him sometime.”

Not if I could help it.

17

Roik gunned the car though the half-dead streets to St. Mark's Church and I fidgeted with my music player in the backseat. I hadn't been back to St. Mark's since Mom's funeral and I wasn't looking forward to it.

Roik stopped at a red light. On the sidewalk, a man shook a sign with a little girl's photo on it.
HELP US FIND ALMA GONZALEZ.
A boy smacked a flyer to our windshield. “Hey. A man took my sister. Maybe you saw him?”

S
he was only eight. I looked at her chubby, dimpled face and went to roll down the window, but Roik hit the gas. “Roik! Stop! We should help them.”

“How? We don't live around here.”

I shrank against the seat. Maybe that was true, but Mom wouldn't have driven away. She'd have done something.

The closer we got to St. Mark's, the more I wanted to turn around. If I hadn't promised Yates, I would have told Roik to bag it.

Roik pulled up out front and I saw how St. Mark's had changed. The stained-glass windows were now covered with metal screens like they'd locked Christ up in a county jail.

A dozen bodyguards hung out in the courtyard where we used to serve Thanksgiving dinner to the homeless. I took a deep breath, remembering how Mom and Dad dished out turkey and stuffing, and I put a roll on every plate.

I looked away, but a memory of our last Thanksgiving together rolled over me: Mom squeezing my hand extra hard and saying, “We're so
fortunate
. We have a roof and food and each other.”

Not anymore.

Roik opened the car door. “Meet you here after mass?” He eyed the men lounging on the benches.

I nodded. My feet felt too heavy to climb the stairs, but I forced myself.

The smell of incense met me just inside the big wood doors. Half the lights were turned off so the long room was shadowy, except for the spotlight over the altar.

I glanced at Mom's favorite pew, but sitting there now would be too awful. I scanned the room, looking for someplace I belonged.

Seats up front were filled with old ladies and girls leaning their heads on their shoulders. These pews used to be packed with families.

Two bodyguards yakked in front of me, and I saw the game up on their phones. It was Women's Mass, so they weren't even supposed to be in the church.
Jerks.

I slipped into a pew and closed my eyes so I couldn't see the emptiness next to me where Mom should be. But I could feel it.

Dammit, why'd I listen to Yates?

I had to get out of there. I stepped into the aisle, but then I saw a priest limping toward me with his hand outstretched. He was just a few inches taller than me, not the towering, heroic type I'd imagined from the few things I'd heard about him.

“Hello,” he said, his English rolling out like Spanish. “I'm Father Gabriel. Welcome.” His hand swallowed mine. He was as strong as Roik.

“I'm Avie Reveare. I used to come here with my mom.”

“Ah, the prodigal daughter has returned. I wish we had a fatted calf, but perhaps you will stay for doughnuts after the service.”

“Sure. Thank you.” It had been so long since I'd been to confession, I wasn't sure that counted as a lie.

Father Gabriel moved up the aisle. “Go on. Out!” he barked at the bodyguards. “This is Women's Mass.” They hesitated for a second, then pocketed their phones and slunk out.

I sat back down, thinking I could escape once the service started. Father Gabriel returned to the front, and that's when I saw Yates. He was standing in the half-dark between the pillars, wearing robes.

It was weird. Yates had never mentioned being an altar boy again. He'd quit when his mom died, because he was so angry at God.

I watched Yates reach into his robes, and take something out. Then I realized there was a girl standing next to him in the shadows. Her back was to me, but I saw Yates lean in and press whatever it was into her hands.

I sat up straight, trying to see. Their heads were close together like they were whispering, and he held on to her hand before they stepped to the left and disappeared behind the pillar.

The little drama pinned me to my seat. Something that felt uncomfortably like jealousy flip-flopped my stomach, and I remembered when I was twelve and crushing on Yates, and he asked me to go ask another girl on the beach for her name.

Larissa.

The name set off fireworks of humiliation inside me.
I am not going there again.

A murmur swept the room and Father Gabriel began the mass. Yates emerged from behind the pillar, and the girl slipped into the front row.

Sparrow?
Sparrow who last year called the Catholic Church “the biggest oppressor of women in history”?

Talk about bizarre. Now I couldn't leave. Not yet.

I watched Yates do his duties, turn the pages of the prayer book, swing the incense burner, while a voice in my head asked what the hell was going on here.

Father Gabriel launched into his sermon, and everyone shifted in the pews as he came down into the aisle. He crossed his arms like he was cradling a baby. “A man sees his baby daughter for the first time. He is consumed by the love he feels for her and he vows that he will protect her from all harm.

“He is afraid she will be cold, so he swaddles her to keep her warm.

“He is afraid of the evil in the world, so he wraps the blanket over her eyes so she will not see it and be frightened.

“He wraps the blanket over her ears so she will not hear.

“The father wants to keep her safe, but now she is blind. She is ignorant.”

Goose pimples ran up my arms. He was preaching against the Paternalists. I glanced back at the door just to make sure there weren't any bodyguards listening in.

“Still the man believes he is doing the right thing.” Father Gabriel jabbed his finger in the air. “We must not be silent when we see a man so confused. We must teach our daughters to question what they see or hear.

“Truth and knowledge are the sword and shield that protect us. I ask you to carry them.”

Yates stood, facing the room. He hung on Father Gabriel's words like he'd already joined the crusade. But a symbolic sword and shield weren't going to free me from Jessop Hawkins.

And me lecturing Dad on what was morally right and wrong wouldn't make my fifty-million-dollar Contract go away. Yates—of all people—should know that.

After mass, I slid out of the pew. I didn't see the point in staying for doughnuts. Father Gabe couldn't fix my life, no matter how much Yates worshiped him.

I was halfway to the door when an old lady caught my arm. “You dropped this.” She held out a silver phone with a cracked screen.

“Oh, that's not mine,” I said, but she pressed it into my hand.

“It probably broke when it fell out of your bag. These tile floors are so hard.” Her voice was soft, but the insistent look she gave me made me stuff the phone in my bag. “Thank you,” I said.

“You should join us gals for refreshments,” she said. “I made the pumpkin bread.”

I took a step forward and she did, too. “My bodyguard's waiting,” I said.

“I doubt he's in a hurry to leave.” She set her hand on my purse. I'd have to tear it off if I wanted to escape. So I took a deep breath and let her lead me to the rectory.

18

The room was full of women I didn't know. A group of them circled Father Gabe like he was a rock star. I was dying to ask Yates why he brought me here, but I wasn't surprised when I didn't see him. It was borderline acceptable for a teenage guy to help serve mass, but definitely not okay for him to hang out with the girls after.

Sparrow was in the corner, teaching girls to embroider. Her soft blond curls fell around her face like she was an angel out of a Raphael painting. Then she spied me. “Avie!”

I walked over, and she held up her embroidery: balloons rising over little red roofs. I fingered the linen. “Does that say what I think it says? ‘I have a dream'?”

“Yeah, Martin Luther King. This is our little revolution factory. Like it?”

My eyes swept the room for monitors, but I didn't see any. Still, I kept my voice down. “Father Gabe's okay with this?”

“Are you kidding? He suggested it. We're spreading hope one stitch at a time.”

Sparrow was clueless, thinking truth and knowledge were going to get her out of a Contract when it was her turn.

“It would be great if we could change things, but we can't.”

“Yes we can,” she said.

“How? We don't have any real power.”

“Relax, Avie. Have a little faith.”

I spied Yates through the window, handing out cake and coffee to the bodyguards, and I wondered if he was deliberately distracting them.

Father Gabriel appeared by my side. He nodded at Sparrow, then he took my elbow and guided me to a quiet corner. “I am pleased you have come back to the church,” he said. “What brought you here today?”