Once Upon a Witch's Moon

Once Upon a Witch's Moon: Part 1 - Ch 3

Her mom was looking for any and all reactions to the suggestion of a birthday party, wanting to see happiness, afraid of what it meant if she didn't. Sometimes Twist wondered whether it was more exhausting to have to interpret words and gestures, or to be waylaid by random true thoughts and feelings just because you weren't careful about where you sat or what you touched.

She pulled away from the wall and tried to stop the party idea before it took root and grew into reality. "We agreed, after no one came to my last party. Halloween and birthdays don't mix." She'd been twelve. One kid had shown up. Karla Perry. But only because Karla's mom had made her come - something Twist hadn't needed to read thought dust to find out, because Karla just told her straight out, while Sylvia had been in the kitchen getting the cake. Karla had not bothered to hide the fact that she thought it was Twist's fault.

Twist could see the thought dust turning dark under her mom's fingers. She didn't have to eavesdip into it to know why. Sylvia Rhodes deeply regretted choosing Halloween as a birthday for the girl the tornado had given her.

Her mom didn't voice her regrets, just argued gently, "Surely your classmates are too old to go trick or treating now."

"True." The only problem was, no one had come to her party, not because it was Halloween, but because Twist was considered a freak.

First it had been the dyslexia that had made the other kids look at her funny. But now - despite the fact she'd kept her secret as best she could - it was as if they sensed that she could do something they couldn't, and they didn't like it.

Her mom handed her the small basket of fresh eggs and a thermos of milk for Karla's mother, the price of Twist's ride to school. "Still, sixteen only comes once."

"I'll think about it." Twist couldn't bear another moment so close to her mother's mixture of regret and longing. She grabbed her backpack and sailed out the door on that little silver lie.

"Have a great day!" her mother called after her.

Twist closed the door behind her. Survive, she reminded herself. That's all she had to do.

Finish high school. Go to college. Be as close to normal as she'd ever be. Skirt around the edges of life until she died, as her shrink had aptly said.

The psychologist had thought it was a bad thing to do. But Twist had liked the idea so much that she'd remembered it, even though she'd managed to get out of any more sessions by pretending the nightmare had stopped.

She reached into her pocket and touched the marble figure. This one thing was all she had left of her past. Maybe getting rid of it would get rid of her nightmares, too.

It was time to make the lie she'd told in her dream come true. To throw away the last bit of her past and move forward with life. She didn't need to remember her past. It was over and done. Nothing that had happened then could possibly matter now.

This afternoon she would throw the marble figure, and the last connection to her pre-tornado self, in the bay.

Before that, though, she had to get through another first day of the school year.

Ms. Perry pulled her SUV into the driveway and Twist climbed in, careful not to touch the fading palm-shaped patch of dusty charcoal Karla had left on the middle of the seat. Karla was hunched over her math book, frowning, her dark curls falling free around her face instead of in her usual French braid.

"Hi." Twist gave her best normal girl smile as she wondered if she should take her own braid out. "Haven't you given up on math, yet?"

Karla's frown shifted to a glare. "I will when you give up on awkward small talk."

Twist raised her hands in apology as she quickly backtracked, "Sorry. I admire your determination." The field hockey star was worried about the math placement test all the kids took at the beginning of the year, no doubt.

"Then do me a favor and don't make determination sound like desperation, okay?" Karla was always one math test away from team suspension, but she would die before taking an "easy" class. It didn't do for the perfect future leader of the world to have any weaknesses.

Twist tucked the basket of eggs and thermos into the protected area between the front seats, careful not to snag the rough edge of the basket against Ms. Perry's impeccable cream silk suit jacket.

Karla's mom turned her head and smiled vaguely in Twist's direction. "Your mother is a wonder. Keeping a cow and chickens in this day and age." Translation: Ms. Perry couldn't understand why any woman would not go mad performing such mundane domestic tasks.

"She loves it." Twist shared her mom's enjoyment of caring for Bossy II and the chickens, and the satisfaction of fresh eggs and milk from her efforts. To her, Ms. Perry's insane desire to work 24/7 to keep a top real estate agent reputation was the maddening pursuit.

Not that Ms. Perry cared about the opinion of anyone who believed she should slow down, of course. "Can you believe you two are juniors? The teachers will challenge you to be your best this year, are you ready for that? Work hard and you'll never have to sit back and let someone else take the laurels you could have earned, right?"

Twist had been riding to school with the Perrys since fourth grade, so she knew an answer was not necessary. Ms. Perry liked to talk in bursts of sentences with question marks, but she rarely paused for reply. Like when she turned around and said, "Karla is determined to make the Honor Roll every semester this year. Right, sweetie? I hope you both remember to concentrate on your studies and don't go boy crazy this year. A good education is better for your future than the best boyfriend, I always say. Twist, I hope you kept up with your reading this summer, I know it can be a challenge for you-"

She would have gone on like that for a while, if she hadn't gotten a call on her BlueTooth. "Ocean's Edge Realty. Mariah! I found it. I promise. The sweetest little cottage anyone could want." Mrs. Perry's switch from mom-lecture to real estate sales was so immediate that Twist wanted to laugh.

Karla glanced up from her textbook to the front seat where her mother was busily engaged making appointments. Quietly, she slid her cell phone out of her purse and read a text. Twist could see a picture. Smiling girls in uniform. Karla laughed softly, and beneath her fingers, the dread of the upcoming math placement test changed slowly to the anticipation of seeing her friends.

Friends. School. Twist wished she could see it that way, too.