There’s Something About You
An ode to all the creepy stories I’ve loved over the years!
***There’s Something About You***
I suppose I could blame myself, but I won’t. It’s all Josie’s fault.
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Memory #1
Josie failed grade nine twice which is how we became friends. Most were too scared to even talk with her. When she sat across from me and asked, “Wanna be friends?” like she couldn’t feel all the eyes on us, or hear how the chatter died in the cafeteria, I felt special. If I had said no, maybe none of this would’ve happened.
Memory #2
It wasn’t like I was in love with her or anything, but I felt drawn to Josie in a peculiar way. Wild and different, she pranced around in smelly old vintage clothes, with a blue mullet to boot. There was something empowering in the way she didn’t give a damn. She had this ugly brocade coat she always wore, rain or shine, spring or winter. It was gold and green, dulled from decades of dirt. She was wearing it that night. That’s how I knew.
Memory #3
She wanted me to wear these heinous bell-bottoms but I said forget it. “C’mon,” she egged, poking my belly. “You want to be like everyone else?” (Everyone else meaning normal people aware of opinion or gossip.) We were in her bedroom and it didn’t have a closet so the entire room became one. Ratty scarves and thrift store finds hung on the wall from plastic stick-on hooks. Bracelets with missing jewels or scuffed surfaces were jammed on the end of a curtain rod and Josie had to stand on a plastic milk crate to get to them. The entire room smelled used and sweaty. I told her the jeans wouldn’t fit but she made me try them on, said anything was better than those god-awful track pants I always wore. The jeans hung loose, like I knew they would, so she dug around in a pile of tangled leather belts and fished out one with a pirate’s head buckle. “There you go, mate,” she said, cinching the belt onto the last hole. “Now we’re talking.” She stood back to admire me for so long, I blushed.
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The police come to school this morning. Talk to every class. Alma Greenwood, Ms. Nosy-pants, jabs me with her fancy pen, and asks if I’ve seen anything strange at Josie’s place. “Define strange,” I say and turn around in my seat, a bloom of sweat spreading under my shirt. After, all the kids walk around in this weird hush, everyone paired up as if to protect themselves.
Memory #4
The rumor? Josie was a witch. Not one of those green faced, Halloween witches with a pointy hat, but someone who cast spells. Could do damage.
Memory #5
So I might’ve become friends with her because of the rumor. I mean, how often would I get the opportunity to be friends with a real witch? The trick was not to ask a million witch questions in the first few weeks…obviously. But Josie’s life was kind of normal. Her dad made polite conversation while he cooked us dinner. (Ok, he microwaved frozen dinners, but they were still good.) She had Netflix. A goldfish. Josie’s mom died when she was born, and the framed photos bunched on the fireplace mantel showed a vibrant woman. No wart on her nose. Eventually, the whole witch thing faded away, like the boundaries between Josie and me.
Memory #6
I was never an experimental person. My mom had a monthly calendar, our meals planned thirty days in advance. Dad was short and precise, like his writing on the architectural drawings draped on the dining room table like a tablecloth. As a gymnast, my every move was calculated, each step exact. One wrong waver or misstep and there went first place. Josie said my stacked body, rippled with muscles, was beautiful, not clunky, how I saw it. She said I should love my body; she could show me how. We spent secret afternoons huddled under her quilt. She whispered my name over and over and I barely noticed because everything else was crashing around me. After, the single pane windows were steamed, greasy finger streaks appearing like ghosts.
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Brady, a plump fourth grader, is still missing. Every night his parents are on the news, crying
Memory #7
I sat across from Mom and Dad and knew right away it was bad. Mom’s fake smile was so tight it threatened to shatter. The sofa still had a stain on it, from when Josie spilled wine a couple weeks ago. It wouldn’t come out, despite my scrubbing, and the tasseled pillow wedged in the corner, behind Mom, was hiding it. After a deep breath Dad shifted uncomfortably and said, “We’ve heard some…things.” Things. Dad’s world was concrete and structures, things he could understand. “There’s a right way and a wrong way Myrna,” he continued and I had a horrible flash of Aunt Faye. This was about a stain. One they wanted to clean up.
Memory #8
Gareth Schuster made kissy noises at us in Starbucks until Josie told him to get his fat ass out of our faces. He screeched “lesbos!” before he ran out the door and my face burned as the other patrons turned to stare at us. Josie downed the rest of her Macchiato, eyes cold. “Why are you embarrassed?” she demanded. When I told her I wasn’t she called me a liar and stomped outside
Memory #9
We made up the next day; or rather, she made me beg for her forgiveness. I was on my knees when Ms. Tomlinson yanked us out of the bathroom stall and called us heathens. Mom had to pick me up from school, my face red and bloated from crying. At dinner, Dad said if they caught me with Josie again, even talking, I’d be sent to live with evil Aunt Faye in Nebraska. She’ll sort you out and then some,” Dad warned and he should know because he lived with his sister after their parents died and hated every minute of it. Faye was older than Dad, a fire and brimstone Catholic. Last time we were there, she accused Dad and Mom, all three of us, of being lapsed. Sinners. When I was nine, she spanked me with a leather strap so hard I could barely sit for two days.
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Josie keeps trying to corner me, to talk, and I ignore her, scuttle away, even though it aches to do so. She leaves poems written by hand tucked in my locker and they’re so tender, it breaks my heart.
Memory #10
But broken hearts don’t mend. They keep bleeding, like a head wound. Is there a term for wanting someone so bad it hurts? For not wanting anyone else to have what you couldn’t? When I saw Josie canoodling with Brenna Doarkson in the park, I cried all night. Brenna got around and didn’t care whom with. She didn’t deserve Josie.
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Sunday is overcast, the air nipped with winter. I bring the police to the clearing by the pond. The rotten leaves are raked away, the dirt underneath black and moist, recently turned. They start to dig with grim expressions. One of the policemen puts his arm around my shoulder and slowly walks me away.
Memory #11
There was a note tucked in the door jam, the stationary creamy and thick. My name was spelled out in long, spidery writing I recognized from the poems she’d written. My heart started to beat unhealthily fast. There was no stamp. Josie was gone by then, gone far away. The sun disappeared behind the clouds as I ripped the note open. Mom found me on the porch. She helped me onto wobbly knees, full of motherly concern. I looked around, dazed, frightened, and not because I had fainted. The letter was gone. Vanished.
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Tonight the moon is full and my windows are locked tight. I don’t sleep very well anymore. My nightmares are of that evening, following her, nothing working right in my mind. The thought of them, her and Brenna, all romantic out by the pond, made me crazy, unhinged, and brambles snagged my clothing as I stumbled closer and closer to the clearing. There, under the light of a full moon, gold and green shimmered. My eyes blinked trying to make sense of what I saw. The stillness of the night cracked. Something cold and black ripped up my spine. Blind with fear, branches whipped my face, the soft bog sucking at my steps as I ran away. I’ll never forget little Brady’s scream, how it muffled and slowly died, like him.
There were only two words on that note left in the door jam. They haunt me like the smell of dark earth, freshly turned, and thrift store finds.
You’re next.
