As Letha passed the bush, she fished her books out of it. Several teenagers gave her weird looks, so she smiled back, laughing when they grimaced and turned away. She stepped into the garden bed, squeezing behind the bush. The prickly leaves grabbed at her jeans, but she managed to sit, hidden from view by the flora. Pulling her iPod from her pocket, she buried the buds in her ears.
After a few minutes, a figure blocked out the sun. Squinting up, Letha was greeted by Mickey.
“Hello,” he said, “Letha.”
He seemed extremely proud that he knew her name.
“I had to ask around for someone willing enough to talk to me about you.”
Letha shut her eyes, drifting back into her music, “Good work Sherlock.”
Mickey sunk to his knees, cringing at the dirt, he bit into his sandwich. When the inside of her eyelids brightened, Letha peeked out and was outraged to find him still there. She pulled her earphones out angrily.
“What do you want?” she exclaimed, glaring at him.
He chewed slowly, swallowing, and then grinned, “Why’d you give me the finger when we met?”
“We didn’t meet,” Letha corrected in a growl, “You stared.”
Mickey laughed, “You started it.”
Neither of them spoke.
“I’m waiting,” Mickey cocked his head, still smiling.
“Keep waiting,” Letha snapped, closing her eyes again.
“Are you always this…” Mickey took another bite of his sandwich, “aggressive?”
Letha ignored him, replacing the buds. He tugged on the cord, pulling them out.
“What?”
He shrugged, “What’s your problem?”
Scowling, Letha cocked her head, “How long do you have?”
“Ok,” he smiled again, “what’s your problem with me?”
Letha cackled slightly, trailing off into a sigh, “You know, the world learned too little from Salem.”
Mickey’s mouth fell open, “Did you just make a reference to the Salem Witch trials?”
Letha added the bushes to 'places that had been ruined by this jerk'. She clambered to her feet, stepping over him to leave. As she left, Mickey jumped up, following her out. Their peers stared at them , whispering to each other. A boy grabbed his arm.
“Mickey,” he said, jerking his thumb at Letha, “She’s not the type of person you hang out with.”
“Who is ‘you’?” Mickey asked.
Letha had stopped, crossing her arms and smiling in satisfaction at the pair.
“Everyone, dude,” the boy was frowning, obviously confused, “I mean, she’s a bitch. I heard she pulverised a kid at her last school.”
Mickey shook his head, “If everybody knows not to hang out with her, then how does someone know what happened at her last school?”
Letha took a step forward, “Don’t worry,” she smiled, “it’s true.”
“You,” Mickey said, pointing to her face, “need to do that more often. Though perhaps for a different reason.”
Throwing her hands in the air, she stormed off. Letha navigated the crowds, though everyone parted before her, so the only thing she had to do was stomp. Mickey thanked the boy, but clattered down the corridors in her wake. She turned into the science section of the school, sweeping past the labs.
“Wait up, Letha,” Mickey called, running.
Letha stopped, spinning. Her eyes were sharp with anger, her cheeks red and her jaw taunt,
“Why are you following me? Can’t you just leave me alone!”
He raised his hands in surrender, “You’re intriguing. I’ve never heard so many warnings to stay away from someone in one day. I think I can help you.”
“Intriguing? I am not intriguing! You should have listened to those warnings! I’m dangerous, scary, rebellious, and every synonym of angry,” Letha stopped, drawing quiet, “Why on earth would you want to help me?”
Mickey’s hand flew to his neck. He pulled a chord out from under his collar. The thick silver cross glinted under the fluorescent lights.
Letha laughed, backing away with her hands raised, “Well, I didn’t see that coming.”
“God helps all, he saved me.” Mickey shrugged, “True I wasn’t you, but still…”
Letha raked her hair back, “No.”
“It doesn’t matter if you don’t believe in Him,” Mickey said, stepping forward.
Letha held up her hand, making him stop, “I believe in God, don’t fear, I just have no faith in Him. And it’s really best if He doesn’t believe in me.”
Letha twirled on her heel, leaving the boy standing in the corridor, his patch of blue hair a tear from above. Letha kicked out the emergency door, open, streaming into the sunlight. She tossed her books into the bin, cranking her iPod up as loud as she could and shoving the buds in her ears. She slammed a hand against the chain-link fence, swinging out into the road. Striding down the middle of the road, Letha dragged her gloves off with her teeth, shoving the cuffs in the back pocket of her jeans.
Her hands were pale, flushed at the fingertips due to the cold and the bandages cutting off circulation. The white cotton was clammy, and Letha unwound them with savage determination. Her palms were red and blistered, and flexing her fingers pulled at the flesh. Grinding her teeth in determination, Letha clenched them into fists, striding out.
Taking a left, her boots carried her across the asphalt. She passed several stores, a dozen people, but she entered none and was spoken to by no one. She took another left once she passed the Chinese take-out place, sticking to the tarmac even when a car drew up behind her. It honked loudly, travelling along behind her at a crawl. Letha stopped, turning, and glared at the driver with her hands on her hips.
The man in the driver’s seat was in his early twenties, with ashen hair and a goatee. His brow was furrowed, his expression pinched, and he tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. His passenger was a woman. With the same sharp features and hair, she must have been his sister, but her disposition was obviously different. She was slouched in her seat, one knee raised and supporting her elbow. Her nose was pierced and several silver hoops fell from each ear. Her smirk irritated Letha.
A wicked smile on her face, Letha crossed her arms, raising her chin and bracing her legs shoulder-width apart. One eyebrow raised, she began a game of Chicken with the driver, daring him to look or drive away. He shifted his grip on the wheel, pressing his bony shoulders back into the seat, and waited. A car pulled up behind him, honking, but they soon gave up and drove around.
The woman in the passenger seat fiddled with her nose-ring, muttering something to her brother. She gestured to the other lane, tapping his watch with a black fingernail. She appraised Letha with a sneer, saying something which caused her driver to snap at her. Her argument must have had substance though, because the man turned wearily onto the other lane, overtaking Letha. He fixed a brooding frown on her as he drove past, engulfing her in a wave of dust.
When the haze cleared, Letha’s smile was victorious.
After all the effort though, she opted for the short-cut. Jumping the curb, Letha forged a path through the long grass. The picket fence was hidden from view until she was practically on top of it, but Letha swung a leg over it quickly, landing on a well-tended lawn on the other side.
Teeth littered the ground, row upon row of stone slabs. Letha had always considered the cemetery the mouth of hell, and she’d never met with any-thing or –one to dispute that. The entire place was a museum of death, misery, grief and pain.
Gliding between the headstones, Letha read the familiar names and dates, letting them offer comfort by their constancy. The epitaphs were worn with age, flowers, old and new, lying at their bases. She passed into the more recent graves, trailing a hand across the tops of their gravestones.
“What a surprise,” a man says from behind her, “Letha Antitheus in a cemetery.”
Looking over her shoulder, Letha appraised the gentlemen, tugging her earphones out of her ears. In a dusty tuxedo, his pale skin is wrinkled and his back slightly bent. He grins at her, his bushy eyebrows at his hairline.
“Hello Jack.”
Jack wandered up to her, placing a hand on her shoulder for support, and they carry on together, strolling through the graves.
“How was your weekend, Letha?” Jack asked, moving at a slow shuffle.
Letha peeked at him in her peripheral, raising a brow, “fine. Yours?”
Jack chuckled, shaking her shoulder, “Very funny.”
“I’m serious. I’m genuinely curious about how you spent your weekend.” Letha’s tone was flat, hardly curious, but Jack smiled and nodded.
“The beauty from the 1800’s was wailing all weekend,” he said, shaking his head, “and boy, does she have a set of lungs on her. The Willow-woman spent most of Saturday evening pacing around me, singing her little ditties. I’ll tell you, I was humming all Sunday.”
The pair paused by a headstone made of marble, with two names carved into it; Betty and James Jackson. Jack let go of Letha’s shoulder, sitting on the stone, with one hand tracing the names. Letha crossed her arms, straing at the grave.
“James Jackson,” she said, shaking her head, “Only the British would call you Jack.”
The old man’s mouth fell open and he pointed an arthritic finger at Letha, “Hey now, I haven’t been back to the Mother Country in 50 years.”
Letha shrugged, “It’s rude to point.”
Muttering under his breath, Jack lowered his arm. He paled suddenly as a breeze picked up, sweeping leaves through his torso. When it died down, he scratched the area absently.
Letha raised an eyebrow again, “That is always an extremely disconcerting thing to see.”
Jack laughed. He closed his eyes, absently turning his face to the sun.
“I miss the sun,” he commented suddenly.
Letha rolled her eyes, stepping back and sinking to the ground, leaning against the back of a headstone. She crossed her legs, pulling her gloves out of her back pocket and tossing them in her lap. She grabbed her bandages too, making a mini mountain, before resting the back of her hands on, studying her palms. Jack sniffed and opened his eyes.
“What happened to your hands?”
“Well,” Letha shrugged, “they say ‘reach for the stars’ and ‘grasp your dreams with both hands’, but it turns out they don’t mean at the same time.”
Jack frowned, “your father.” It wasn’t a question.
He raked his grey hair out of his face, taking a deep breath, “Well come on then; ask me.”
“Jack,” she said with false cheer, “would you like to go to hell and spend eternity burning for your sins?”
“You know, you just don’t sound like you mean it anymore.”
“I gave up on ‘converting’ you,” Letha used bunny-ears, “when I met you, Jack. If the Devil hasn’t come to terms with that, then it’s his problem.”
“Now, now,” Jack sighed, “Your father wouldn’t like to hear you say that.”
“Well he can go to Hell,” Letha smiled, “Again.”
Jack stood, looking lovingly at his grave, “My Betty is waiting for me in Heaven, Letha, and I’ll be joining her as soon as I’m able,” he sighed, “in answer to your question.”
Letha tilted back her head, exposing her neck, and resting her skull against the limestone. She was in the shadow of a tree, a soft wind blowing across her face.
“Why are you still here, Jack?” she asked.
“Sick of me already?”
She snorted, “I was talking more… more universally, less specifically.”
Jack was beginning to fade, his soul growing tired, “You spoke of my sins, Letha, and spending my immortal life in agony. I have chosen instead to accept my sins, and repent. That is why I remain on earth, stuck in this purgatory.”
Letha frowned at the grass, “See you later, Jack.”
But the ghost had already faded.