Chapter 10 2004
I told myself the tooth fairy did not come because I did not have a window, though it did not lessen my disappointment. Night after night, for a week, the tooth remained under my pillow unchanged into a silver elephant coin.
I asked Profe about it during our first Sunday call, and he said, “Fairies are fickle creatures. There could be many reasons for the delay. The good news is, teeth don’t expire. Take good care of it, and I’m sure, when you are home, your fairy will find you.”
It made me feel a little better, especially since the day after the call, I lost a second tooth, leaving a whistling gap in my bottom teeth.
Two teeth, two wishes, and my thoughts were fully preoccupied with the important decision of what to ask for with my second wish. Which was why I didn’t realize what was happening until it was too late.
I was walking back to my room alone because I’d stayed in the library after the bell to finish the chapter I was reading in the new Harry Potter, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
I’d made a habit of avoiding the other students as much as possible.
So during free time and study time, I went to the library, where it was usually just me and the librarian, Mr. Jeffries, who I liked very much.
It was very cold, and I walked with my hands in my pockets and my chin tucked into the collar of my coat.
I was heading around the building to the back stairs, which were closer to my room and which allowed me to get to it without being seen by Ms. Michaels, who would have scolded me for being late.
I was nearly to the door when the boys leaped out from between two parked cars in the staff parking lot. There were three of them, Bart and identical twin boys from Bart’s class, Tim and Tom, tall and bland as cornstalks.
Bart seized hold of my arm, and I tried to scream, but his other hand clamped over my mouth.
The twins each grabbed one of my boots, and the three of them carried me across the parking lot as I writhed and squirmed against them.
Bart held me across my chest with incredible strength, his arm wrapped so tight it was difficult to breathe as his other hand continued to muffle my mouth.
Tears streamed from my eyes, and I started to blubber and sob.
One of the twins asked, “Why was the chicken carried across the road?”
The other answered, “To get her to the other side.”
The three busted up like it was the funniest joke in the world as fear consumed me, certain wherever they were taking me it was so they could kill me.
They carried me into the trees, the canopy of snow-laden pine boughs and bare birch limbs passing above.
After a few minutes, Bart said, “This is far enough,” his breath heaving.
The twins let go of my legs, and Bart released his arm from around my chest, and I fell hard to the ground.
I bit my tongue as I landed, and the tang of blood filled my mouth.
We were too far from the school for anyone to hear me if I screamed, which I was far too terrified to do regardless, my bloody tongue lodged hard against the back of my throat as my pulse whooshed loudly between my ears.
One twin knelt above me and pinned my hands over my head while the other clamped down on my feet.
The icy cold of the frozen ground seeped through my clothes, sending a chill deep into my bones.
Through the branches above, I could see patches of blue sky.
A bird flew past half a second before Bart stepped over me, blocking out the light.
He stood with a boot on either side of my hips, his eyes narrowed tight on my nevus.
“Sinner before us—” he boomed, his arms spread wide.
Eventually he would grow up to be a preacher, but even at nine, his voice bellowed, and he spoke with deep conviction as if driven by some greater purpose.
“—the fires of hell await, a wide and bottomless pit of flames. For all who have sinned fall short of God’s glory and shall not be let into his holy kingdom. ”
My eyes were swollen from crying, and snot ran down my face and froze to my skin.
“Christ our Lord died for the ungodly!”
He pointed at me, and stupidly I nodded, causing his lips to twitch with a smile.
“You must repent!”
I nodded again.
“And take God into your heart!”
I squeezed my eyes tight and prayed fervently in my head, hoping God was listening as I vowed to be good and loyal and promised to pray regularly from that moment on.
“For the wages of sin is death!”
Death. The word reverberated. I was right. They’d brought me there to kill me.
At the age of six, I didn’t know much about death.
My only reference for it was what I’d seen in movies or read in books and what I understood about food.
I knew the hamburger I ate had once been a living, mooing thing, and that it went to a slaughterhouse where it was killed and butchered into pieces and then ground and cooked so we could eat it.
As if knowing my thoughts, Bart said, “I’m not going to kill you. At least not today. But in the name of the Lord, we must carry out his will and cleanse you of your sins.”
I opened my eyes to see him looking down with a grin that held no humor, only cold, dark hate. Which was why, when he bent toward me, despite his just-made promise not to end my life, I jolted.
He unbuttoned my coat. There were four buttons. One . . . two . . . three . . . four.
The cold rushed in, and my mind went white with fear.
I don’t remember much after that.
Except that fear tastes like rust, bitter and sharp. And the sound of their laughter. Great peals of it. And that there’s a place you can go outside yourself, where you can exist without feeling anything at all.
Only when it was over did I realize what he’d done, when I felt the sickly warm wetness seeping through my pants and smelled the bitter steam rising as the frigid wind turned the piss to ice.
“In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, I baptize you,” he said.
“Amen!” the twins responded in unison.
Bart bent forward again, this time kneeling on one knee and craning his neck so his lips were so close to my ear his words vibrated against my skin. “That was for my dad,” he rumbled. Then he sat up, spit on my nevus, and said, “And that is for my mom.”
He stepped off me, and the twins released me.
They started to walk away, but after a step, Bart reconsidered and turned back. The toe of his right boot caught me hard in the ribs, causing the air to go out of me. “And that is for me.”
I lay gasping, my face turned sideways on the cold earth as spittle dripped down my cheek and I watched them walk away.
Moments or hours later, that was where Ms. Bamford, the director, found me, lying on the ground, half frozen, staring at the spot where they had been.
“Vivien?” she said, squatting down beside me. She wore a fur hat and a long wool coat the color of blueberries. “What are you doing out here? Ms. Michaels is terribly worried.”
She sniffed the air, and her eyes moved down my body to my pants.
“Oh. I see. Well, we all have accidents. Let’s get you inside and cleaned up.”
Her tight skirt and fancy heeled boots made it awkward, but she managed to help me up.
“Is this something you have an issue with?”
Eyes on the ground, I shook my head.
“Okay. Good. Then I see no reason to call your mother.”
I heard the nervousness in her voice. Even at six, I understood that people feared Mother.
She walked me to the dorm. I knew by how empty the building was that it was dinnertime. Even Ms. Michaels was gone.
“Do you have a clean uniform?” Ms. Bamford asked when we got to my room.
I opened my mouth to answer, but when I tried to say that I did, nothing came out. I tried again, but it was as if my voice had been scared clean out of me.