Natural Selection (10 page)

The room was a vision out of a
nightmare. There were crimson smears on the wall, as if a
blood-covered hand had pressed against it for support. The table
was upended and lying against the back door, the chairs were broken
shambles. I was afraid to look at Crystal, but at the same time, I
knew I had to. The moment it took me to turn my head was a surreal
slow motion I thought could only happen in a movie. A million happy
moments in this kitchen over the years flashed through my
mind.

When I laid eyes on her, I felt
something in me snap. I fell to my knees and stared. She lay
sprawled on the floor, her right leg bent unnaturally at the knee.
Lying slightly on her right side, her arms were together in an
awkward position. I realized her wrists were zip-tied together. But
what sent the biggest chill through me was the foot long piece of
wood sticking out of her chest. The pool of blood nearly obscured
it, but I saw some sort of symbol beneath her. I wondered if it was
like the one the police had showed me. I might not have noticed it
if it weren’t for the black candles, which were still burning. They
were the pillar kind you can’t quite wrap your hand around, and
they were less than half-burnt. I wondered how long it took one of
them to burn entirely.

I became aware of a shrill sound and
wished it would stop. It was only when I felt scratchiness in my
throat that it occurred to me the sound was my own scream. I choked
it back where it turned into a sob. Part of it was shock, I know,
and part of it was grief. But I also knew I was crying for the
strain in Evelyn’s and my relationship, my hurt feelings with Nate,
my pain and confusion about what I was, what my family was. I tried
to be strong and take everything with grace, but in the face of
this trauma the weight was more than I could bear. I don’t know how
long I sobbed on the kitchen floor before I was able to pull myself
to my feet. I didn’t have a cell phone, and there was no way I
could make myself go into the kitchen to get Crystal’s. Instead, I
went to her neighbor’s house. The sweet, middle aged woman had
lived there for a few years and was familiar to me, but I honestly
didn’t even know her name. She brought me a cup of tea while we
waited for the police, but it rattled so badly from my shaking I
just set it down and stared numbly at my hands in my
lap.

Time must have passed as I sat there
in a haze, but I didn’t notice it. At some point my dad came,
though I never told anyone to call him. He sat next to me on the
couch and pulled me onto his lap like he had when I was a little
girl, tucking my head under his chin. All of a sudden the tears
were back, and I sobbed into my father’s shirt as he petted my hair
and rocked me. Eventually, I got control of myself and became aware
of voices. I looked around at the neighbor lady’s now bustling
living room. There were several policemen standing around, one
talking to my mom, one to the neighbor lady and a couple to each
other. I pulled away from my father a little, craning my neck to
see what was going on. I recognized Officer Simms talking to my
mother, and I looked around for Detective Laurent but couldn’t see
him. Maybe he was over at the other house. I couldn’t refer to it
as the crime scene or think that Crystal was gone. I felt guilty
again for not visiting her more. I couldn’t remember thinking about
her in a long time, and it made me feel horrible.

“
Are you ready to talk to
the police, baby?” My father asked very quietly. I nodded and he
helped me get to my feet. I went and stood by my mom, who wrapped
her arms around me and pressed a kiss into my ponytailed hair.
“Okay, girly?” she asked. I nodded again, and she hugged me a
little tighter before moving away slightly, though she kept an arm
around my shoulder. We turned towards Officer Simms, ready for her
questions. She was polite and curt, but the way she eyed me made me
nervous. I wondered if the police were going to be more interested
in me now that I knew two of the people who had been murdered. I
knew the two had to be linked, and I’m sure they did too. Trying to
keep as calm as possible, I told her about finding
Crystal.

I REALLY DON’T remember the rest of
the weekend. It was a blur of police talking to me, reporters
stopping me whenever I stepped out of my house, and lots of fussing
from Mega Mom. She followed me around the house offering blankets,
tea, and snacks. She kept giving me doe-eyed looks that said she
wished there was a way to ease my pain. I spent much of Sunday in a
plain room at the police station. They knew from the candles that
Crystal had been killed while I was grinding on the dance floor
with half the boys in my school. I had no idea it took candles so
long to burn. But it meant there was no way I could have had
anything to do with her death, and they knew it. Detective Laurent
informed me that while I might not be the perpetrator, they
couldn’t ignore my connection to two victims. Especially since
there was no other connection between any of them. He showed me
pictures, a head and shoulders shot of a burly boy from Springfield
with shaggy eyebrows and intense yellow eyes. Apparently, the boy
had been murdered before Mariah, along with a girl I recognized as
Carol Stanton. She graduated last year, but we’d lived in the same
small town all our lives. I knew of several people, but that didn’t
mean I knew them. The detective looked disappointed that I couldn’t
figure it out for him, but by then I’d been sitting in a hard metal
chair for too long. My mom finally had enough and started to make a
fuss, so they let me go.

Reporters were camped out on the lawn,
but Mom pulled into the garage so they couldn’t get near me. The
phone rang so many times Dad unplugged it. All the important people
had his cell phone number anyway. They followed me to school Monday
morning, but the school was anticipating them. Mrs. Soberlo had
security set up to let students make it safely into the building. I
noticed several students wandering over, and I sneered at the
things they were probably saying about how well they knew all the
victims. I don’t know why the reporters were so fascinated with me
anyway. All I did was find the body. Did they hound everyone
associated with the case? Maybe it was the bulk of time I had spent
with the police over the last two days. Whatever it was, I just
wished they’d go away.

My siblings rarely left my side at
school, walking me to classes and both of them sitting with me at
lunch. One of the football players made a snide comment about me
being a murderer, and Xander bloodied his nose without even slowing
his step. After that, everyone was afraid to meet my eyes, and
everyone shifted away from me in all of my classes. I felt like the
center of attention, since everyone was pointedly not watching me.
The room fell silent when I entered, and as soon as I left the
whispering started. I felt like I was living in a glass bowl, and
the whole world was watching.

The one good thing about the horrible
experience was it helped Evelyn and me move past the weirdness
between us. She knew I wasn’t ready to talk about what happened and
promised to wait until I was. In the meantime, she moved along in
the silent bubble with me chattering as if everything was normal.
And eventually, I began to feel it was. The reporters wandered away
after only a couple of days, realizing there was no story
here.

I thought the shock to my system
caused me to catch something because I was running fevers, had
frequent headaches and my entire body ached. I felt ill, faint, and
feverish, but I dismissed it. It’s not every day you find the body
of a friend murdered in some sort of horrific witchcraft
ceremony.

I often sat out on the roof
at night, which actually made me feel better. In fact, I noticed I
felt better any time I was outside, so I started spending most of
my time in the tree or just sitting cross legged in the grass. I’d
finished
Secrets
and since the next book wasn’t out yet I moved on to another
book,
Legion of Bats
by Michelle Ferguson. I can’t believe I’d ignored the genre
for so long! I really was enjoying it and could definitely handle
the hunky heroes. Don’t get me wrong, you won’t see me reading
about sparkly vampires, but I shouldn’t have judged the entire
genre by one freakish success. I’m sorry, but vampires only sparkle
in the sun because they are about to ignite.

Friday came with its typical load of
homework from teachers who felt teenagers didn’t need any time for
a social life or sleep—or anything silly like that. Evelyn was
waiting by my locker when I got out of creative writing, her
backpack on one shoulder and her duffel bag on the other. Our
football team had floundered as usual, and basketball hadn’t
started yet, so she was spending her first free weekend with me. I
was glad she’d decided to stick it out with cheerleading, though it
too seemed to be driving us apart. Why do high schoolers constantly
divide themselves based on the activities? What relevance does
being in the science club—not that I was in the science club, you
have to like science for that—have when it comes to my ability to
form a meaningful connection to another human being?

I realized my mind had wandered off
again. It was dangerous for it to be wandering on its own, but it
had gotten tough to keep it from doing so. I snapped it back inside
of my skull where it was safe. A mind is a terrible thing to lose.
I frowned at the random A.D.D. thoughts, and wondered if I was
cracking up. Maybe I really had cracked up, and all the weirdness
since the beginning of school was one big delusional fantasy. But
didn’t they say if you thought you were crazy then you had to be
sane because the insane never worry they were crazy?

Someone bumped into my shoulder, and I
realized I’d stopped in the middle of the hall. I tucked my hair
behind my ear and made a beeline for my locker where Evelyn stood
staring at me like she was also worrying about my sanity. I choked
back a nearly maniacal laugh and quickly gathered my things for the
weekend. I managed to grumble about the fact that the only book in
my locker as I closed it was my Spanish book, because I always had
time to do the simple assignments in the time before class started.
Evelyn let my odd behavior slide, but I knew I’d hear about it
later.

Xander had plans with Nate, so we rode
home with Sariah. We kept the conversation light, and by the time
we got to the house I had forgotten about my morbid musings and was
in a fairly decent mood for the first time that week. As soon as we
got in the door, we tossed our stuff on the landing and headed for
the kitchen. I fixed us each a peanut butter and banana sandwich,
one of our favorite snacks, and we sat at the counter laughing and
talking like we always had. I loved that all the tension was gone
between us. I couldn’t remember why I was keeping secrets from her,
and I wasn’t going to let them come between us anymore. I decided
it was time to confess everything.

We finished our snack and headed up to
my room, grabbing our bags in passing. She tossed her duffel on my
bed, and we sat cross-legged in the middle of my floor working on
the algebra problems Mr. Olson had assigned. We weren’t in the
class at the same time, but we were in the same class so we often
did our homework together. Evelyn is good at math, like adding
three digit numbers in her head and getting the right answer every
time good at math. And she was pretty good with science. So she
helped me with those, and I helped her with English and History, my
best subjects and her worst.

Come to think of it, Evelyn and I were
opposites in a lot of ways. I was the quiet one, always hanging on
the outskirts and praying no one noticed me. Evelyn was more
social, preferring to be in the spotlight and the center of
attention. But she was never conceited or cocky. She liked cheering
and had been dancing since she could walk. Her voice was beautiful,
and she wasn’t ashamed to belt out her favorite song in the middle
of the grocery store. Did you know there really are no good
displays for hiding at a grocery store? Now at the mall, I could
climb into a clothes rack and pretend I didn’t know her, but at the
grocery store I just had to stand there, turning various shades of
red while staring at the bland floor tiles. Not that it ever
actually happened or anything.

Evelyn gathered her hair and pulled it
over her shoulder as she sat up to grab another book. Why did doing
algebra with her go so fast when it took me forever if I did it by
myself? We quickly got through the history, since we could skip the
reading. Thankfully we were studying the period of exploration of
the New World, a subject I’d always loved. I dreamed of being an
explorer, discovering places, and meeting people who seemed so
different from me. Slowly the pile of books grew smaller and
smaller, I tossed my Creative Writing exercise on top of the mound
of finished assignments with a grin. Evelyn was sitting at my
vanity painting her nails with slow, sure strokes. I silently
watched her for a long moment, fascinated for no particular
reason.