Chapter Thirteen Kami
Chapter Thirteen
Kami
A text message coming through woke me up. I opened one eye and felt around for my iPhone. But since I couldn’t find it, I sat up and turned on the light.
“Fuck!” I threw aside the covers, looked under the pillows. “Where are you?”
When I looked under the bed, I saw it had fallen through the crack between the bed and the wall while I was asleep, meaning I’d have to get on my hands and knees and reach under the bed as far as I could through the accumulated dust to grab it.
Once I was up again, I started coughing.
Now that Prue no longer came to clean, the house had become a disaster.
Between work and school, I barely had time for anything else, and domestic duties were the last thing my mother cared about.
Did she think dirt and grime just magically disappeared?
I grunted and sat on the bed. The message was from Mrs. Mill.
Honey, I need you here at eight. We’ve got to prepare for the Bonfire Fest. I’ll pay you overtime.
No surprises there.
Before tossing my phone on the bed and hopping into the shower, I had to open my Instagram one more time. I wished I could resist, but it’s just a fact of life for anyone born after 2000. Ever since my account was hacked, I had changed all my passwords: email, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok…
In my friends’ stories, I was surprised to find out there had been a party at Kate’s house the night before. Her parents were usually insanely strict, but what hurt the most was how everyone I knew, almost our entire class, had been at that spontaneous party. And I hadn’t heard a word about it.
I saw Ellie in the crowd, dancing and drinking. Of course it broke my heart. Still worse, Julian had to have known about it because he lived there too. But he’d kept the whole thing from me. As I flicked through the images, there was a knock at my door.
“Kami, can I come in?” my brother asked.
When I opened the door, he was standing there very still, clutching his iguana. His eyes were teary, and he threw himself into my arms.
“Kami, I don’t want her to die,” he said, squeezing the poor lizard so tightly, I was worried he’d kill it himself.
“Cam, Juana’s not going to die,” I said, pulling him inside and shutting the door.
“But she is…” he said, wiping away his tears and trembling.
“Buddy, I promise you Juana’s going to be fine.
Take a deep breath, OK? Come here.” I picked him up and set him down on the bed, then put the giant lizard next to us, trying to keep my mind off the fact that Juana was splayed out across the very sheets where I slept.
My brother now broke into sobs. “What makes you think she’s going to die? ” I asked.
“She said she was going to kill him,” he whispered, almost as if he were afraid someone would hear him. A shiver ran down my spine.
“Who, Cam? Who said that?” I grabbed him and shook him.
He looked around—I couldn’t imagine why he was so paranoid. “She’ll hurt me if I tell you.” He was trying as hard as he could to be brave, but he just couldn’t handle it. I could see pure panic in his eyes.
I grabbed his face and held it and looked him straight in the eye as calmly as I could. “Listen to me, OK? No one, and I mean no one, is ever going to hurt you. Not you, and not your iguana.”
“But she said…”
“She? Who is she?” I asked, thinking maybe at last I’d learn who was bullying my brother.
Cameron leaned in toward my ear and whispered so softly I could barely hear him, making clear to me at last that what had been happening to me at school was related to everything my little brother had been going through.
“Momo,” he said, hugging me as if even uttering that name aloud made him want to run away and hide.
I shivered and visualized that terrifying face, but I kept my cool. This was ridiculous, after all.
“Cameron, Momo isn’t real.”
“She is real, Kami. She exists. She said that Mom and Dad would get divorced if I didn’t do what she said. But I don’t want to do what she says. I don’t want to hurt anyone!”
Jesus. “Cameron, what did she ask you to do?”
He shook his head and started crying again. “I can’t tell you.”
“Cam, at school, Thiago and your teacher told me George Walker was bothering you…”
He nodded. “Yeah, but it’s not his fault. Momo’s making him do it.”
“Did he tell you that?”
“He told me Momo would come for all of us if we didn’t do what she said. And Momo doesn’t like you. Momo wants bad things to happen to you. Momo’s the one who told me to take your phone… And Momo made me give away your photos…”
“What?” I stood. “What photos, Cameron?” As I interrogated him, I walked over to my desk, looking for the box where I kept all my old photos—photos of myself with friends, private photos. And it wasn’t there. “Who did you give the box to?”
I could tell my brother felt terrible about what he’d done, but he was so scared. “George,” he said.
Unbelievable. So the little brother of my ex-boyfriend was behind this: the same ex-boyfriend who had sworn to ruin my life if I wouldn’t get back together with him.
“Cameron, this Momo bullshit is over as of tonight. I promise you that. No one is going to threaten you or scare you again. All right?”
He didn’t seem very convinced.
How the hell could Danny stoop so low that he’d bring a six-year-old kid into this?
He knew where the box of photos was, of course.
There were lots of photos of us in there.
He must have been having a ball watching me suffer, the jerk.
Fucking with me, that was one thing. But my little brother? He had no idea who he was messing with.
***
I spent the morning in the café baking cakes and brownies, making sandwiches, blending batter for the muffins. By two in the afternoon, I was exhausted.
Mrs. Mill told me to take a break for half an hour, and she gave me a tuna sandwich and pointed to the door.
I didn’t need her to say it twice. I threw on my coat, grabbed my sandwich, and walked outside, ready to soak up the good cheer of the Bonfire Fest. Posters and lights had been strung up all over.
The entire town did its part; everyone wanted the night to be magical.
It was supposed to snow until midafternoon, leaving the night calm but chilly, with a beautiful blanket of white snow atop it.
For the first snow to hit so early, in November, was unusual, but you never knew what to expect anymore in this crazy world.
I walked through Carsville and remembered years past: gathering beside a bonfire, even building one; toasting marshmallows; making s’mores…
Kate loved the Bonfire Fest. She used to say that the sight of fire took her back in time and she could just stare into the flames for hours.
I got that; bonfires had a similar effect on me.
I don’t know what it was, but gathering around the fire with your best friends was just special somehow.
I remember with Danny we used to stay until everyone else had left.
He was sweet and attentive back then; he’d let me lie back with my head in his lap and comb his fingers through my hair until I’d nearly fallen asleep.
Once, I remember him picking me up and carrying me to his car to drive me home.
He had to shake me awake and tell me to go to my room before my parents had a heart attack.
Danny had always struggled to keep a grip on himself. That wasn’t news to anybody, but treating me this way? It was weird. He was always impulsive, rash, but he had never been the type to deliberately manipulate a little kid so people would hate me.
I walked around as I ate the sandwich Mrs. Mill had given me. Thankfully, she’d let me off the hook that evening—she and her husband would watch the stall, the way they always had, and I could have fun.
I crossed the square to buy a Coke from the corner store. Julian was coming out with Kate, but they were arguing heatedly and didn’t notice me.
“It’s over, Julian,” she said.
“Kate, you can’t do this to me,” he whined.
Kate frowned, seemingly disgusted by what he was saying. Then she saw me. Her face and Julian’s both changed. Julian smiled softly and said, “Hey, Kam. Out for a walk?”
Did he honestly think I hadn’t seen those videos of him and everyone else having the time of their lives at a party I hadn’t been invited to? I realized the rest of them had written me off by that point, but Julian was supposed to be my friend.
“I’m just on break from the café,” I said, noticing Kate was doing everything she could not to look at me.
“I’m outta here,” she announced, jerking away from Julian, who hadn’t seemed to notice that he was still gripping her arm.
The look he shot her made it clear that the conversation they’d been having wasn’t over, but he turned back and devoted all his attention to me. “We fight a lot. I guess it’s normal between brothers and sisters.”
I couldn’t stop staring at Kate. She seemed like a different person all of a sudden.
She had everything she wanted: she was the captain of the cheerleading squad now, the most popular girl in school.
But she looked anxious, depressed even. She’d lost weight, she had dark circles under her eyes, and no amount of makeup could cover them.
Being on top was hard work—especially at a school like ours—and I guess she was learning that.
“I’ve got to go back to Mill’s,” I said, turning around. I’d grab a lemonade there instead—I wasn’t in the mood to hang out with Julian.
But he took my arm and pulled me closer. “Is something wrong?”
“No,” I said simply, shaking him off.
“Come on, Kam. We know each other…”
Did we, though? “Did you have fun at the party at your house?” I asked.
Julian was surprised at first but then tried to shrug it off. “I didn’t organize it, Kam, my sister did.”
“Yeah, but you sure looked like you were having fun with all those people you like to call assholes.”
“There was alcohol there and music; what do you expect? I mean, your boyfriend was there too!”