Spells Like Teen Spirit Read online

  “It’s complicated,” I answered before opening my door just enough to squeeze in, which was hard to do without spilling. I set one glass down on my desk, and handed the other one to Adrian.

  “Thanks,” he said, and then drank it down in just a few gulps.

  I sat on my bed, leaving my own water untouched. “So, have you been eating bugs and stuff?”

  He laughed a little and shook his head. “No way,” he said. “I have a Taco Bell gift card. But I only go there once a day, because I don’t want anyone to see me.”

  “Who would see you?” I asked. He swallowed the last of his water and looked down, nudging a worn spot on my rug with the toe of his dirty sneaker.

  “You,” he said.

  “Me?” I asked, surprised. “Why would you worry about me seeing you?”

  “I thought maybe you’d turn me in,” he said.

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Because out of everyone in the Sitterhood, you have the most reason to hate me,” he said. “I mean, even if I didn’t know what I was doing, I still helped Wanda, and Wanda…” His voice trailed off.

  “Killed my dog,” I supplied for him.

  He nodded. “I’m really sorry, Esme,” he said. “If I’d known what Wanda was planning, I never would have…” He trailed off again. “I understand if you hate me.”

  “Adrian, why would I hate you?” I said. “You…” There was a lot I could say, but I settled on “Made me a mix CD.”

  “Did you listen?” he asked, and I nodded. “Did you like it?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’m a scrooge no more. At least when it comes to music. But how did you make a mix CD if you were a bird living in trees?”

  He looked kinda sheepish. “I actually made it for you when we were still at the Summit,” he said. “When I still had a room to sleep in and stuff.”

  “You had a CD burner in your room?” I asked, incredulous.

  “It was Wanda’s,” he said. “She kept trying to pawn it, but no one wants CDs anymore.”

  “So, why are you here?” I asked. “Not in Spring River but here, in my room?”

  “I need help. I mean, I can’t be a bird forever. I need a place to stay. I need a shower. I need to get out of these clothes.” Hearing him say that statement made my cheeks start to get hot, and I looked away right as he realized what he’d just said. “Wait, I mean, I’m not suggesting that I do that here, or now. But I need you to help me. I was hoping that maybe you could ask around, find out what’s going on, and see if the Synod do want to take my powers away.”

  So, that was it, huh? He’d gone from being worried that I hated him to asking me for help. Of course. But then he kept going. “And, if I’m being honest, I wanted to see you again. I mean, not just see you, because I’ve seen you, a lot, these past couple of months. I know that sounds creepy, but I didn’t have a lot else to do during the day. I mean, you can only circle parking lots and look for dropped burger wrappers for so many hours before you start to crave a little more stimulation. I guess I just wanted to talk to you. I know we only knew each other for two days, and there was a lot going on, but I’ve missed you.” He paused, and tried to drink the last drops of water from his glass. “It’s a weird feeling, to miss someone before you even get to know them.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “You do?” he asked. I nodded, and he smiled. “If I had cleaner clothes,” he said, “I would really like to come and sit closer to you.” I looked at him and smiled back, thinking about what I wanted to say to that. It was crazy to think that all this time that I’d been thinking about him, he’d been thinking about me, and that the connection I’d felt at the Summit wasn’t just in my head. It was real.

  “Esme! Esme!” I jumped up off my bed. Dad was screaming my name. I looked at Adrian, whose eyes were wide. As quick as a blink, he was a crow again, those same wide eyes now round and as black as his feathers. We were both still as I waited for the sound of Dad’s footsteps in the hall, and the inevitable pounding on the door.

  But instead he just kept yelling my name, and Mom’s. “Esme! Theresa! Come here, quick!”

  “Stay here!” I whispered to bird-Adrian. “I don’t think this is about you. I’ll be right back.” Then I let myself out of my room and went running down the hall. I passed Mom’s room, where she was standing next to the bed, looking out the door but not moving. In the living room, Dad’s blankets were spread out on the couch, and a cold blast of air from the open front door drew me into the entryway.

  As soon as I saw Dad, my breath stopped cold and I couldn’t move. “Oh my God,” I said.

  He was in his pajamas, kneeling down on the floor, tears streaming down his face as a wiggling, white mass with a ferociously wagging tail tried to lick them off.

  “It’s her. It’s really her,” Dad said, grabbing the sides of her face and mashing it from all directions. “She came back.”

  Suddenly I was aware of someone standing behind me, and I turned to see Mom. A tiny smile fought its way onto her lips. “Pig?” she said.

  “Yeah, Momma, Pig,” I said, and burst into tears.

  At the sound of my voice, Pig bounded toward me, her tail wagging so fast, it was a blur. I dropped to my knees, and she was on me instantly, covering my face with kisses and almost knocking me over as she tried to get into my lap.

  She was filthy and skinny, just like Adrian, but she was undoubtedly Pig, with the same tan spots and the same big, brown couldn’t-hurt-a-caterpillar eyes. I was crying, but then I started to giggle, and I couldn’t stop. I swear Pig’s tail moved faster.

  “Dad, where’d you find her? Where was she?” I asked.

  “I have no idea,” he said, wiping his own eyes with the back of his hand. “I was getting ready for bed, and I heard something at the door. I went to check on it, and there she was, sitting on the doormat like she’d just gone out to do her business and I’d forgotten to let her back in.”

  I stood up, and the three of us looked down at her. Like a good girl, she sat, and then cocked her head to one side, looking pleased with herself, like she always did whenever she knew she was the center of attention.

  “I don’t think she’s hurt,” Dad said, and he took a few steps, motioning for her to follow him. “Come on, girl,” he said, and she trotted in his direction. There was a little bit of a limp in her back left leg, but nothing else different that would suggest it had been just two months since she’d taken a flying leap off a six-story building.

  Dad knelt down and started to scratch her ears again, but she looked confused and let out a low whine. “Dad,” I said, laughing, “she’s disappointed. She thought you were heading toward the kitchen.”

  “Oh, Piggy,” he said. “We don’t have any dog food.”

  “That’s okay,” I said, pushing past him to the fridge. “She’ll eat anything, because I bet you are a very hungry Pig right now.” She whined in affirmation. I opened the fridge and pulled out the dinner leftovers. “Sorry, Dad,” I said, opening up a Tupperware of boneless chicken breast. “I hope you weren’t saving this for lunch.” I put it down on the ground, and Pig ate it in two bites, then looked up at me for more. I opened the fridge again. There was no way I was giving her broccoli, even if she was starving, but I found some lunch meat of dubious origin, some half-wilted celery, and some baby carrots. I dumped them into her bowl, and then motioned for her to go ahead. Again, it was gone in two gulps.

  “She’s been eating,” Dad said. “She’s skinny but not emaciated. I’ll go to the store first thing in the morning. Where could she have possibly been?” he asked, shaking his head as he stared at her in wonder. “And how did she get back here?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, not able to take my eyes off her.

  Dad was staring too. “Well,” he said finally, “wherever she was, I’m happy she’s home. I assum
e she’ll sleep with you?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, I’ll be glad to have her back.” Dad leaned down to give her ears a final scratch for the night. When he turned and headed back to bed, I gestured at Pig and patted my leg for her to follow me down the hall. Mom followed us too, and I couldn’t help but notice that the look on her face was weirder than normal. Mom had met Pig twice. Once, we had tried to take Pig to the facility because I’d thought it would cheer us all up, but that had backfired and Pig had totally freaked out. The second time had been on Halloween, during the brief period of time when Mom’s curse had been lifted. For those few moments, though, they’d gotten along swimmingly, and I wondered if that was what Mom was thinking about now. She kept squinting, her eyebrows furrowing together and then her forehead smoothing back out, like she was trying to solve a difficult equation.

  “I’ll be right back,” I said to Mom, then walked quickly down the hall. I opened the door to my room and slid in, but of course, I needn’t have worried about Dad, Mom, or even Pig discovering that there was someone in my room.

  Because there wasn’t. It was empty. He was gone. I wasn’t surprised. It made sense that when you were a guy who had just snuck in a girl’s window, the last thing you wanted to hear was her dad screaming. But just because I wasn’t surprised didn’t mean that I couldn’t be disappointed.

  When I got back, Pig and Mom were still in the hall, staring at each other, and I motioned for Pig to come with me. Before she did, she went over and pressed her big head against Mom’s thigh. Mom was still slightly smiling, and gave Pig a nuzzle.

  In my room, Pig sat down in the middle of the rug, almost exactly where crow-Adrian had landed just an hour before, and I could see her nostrils twitch with a sniff. I sat down on my bed and patted the pillows, trying to get her to come join me, but she didn’t move. I fluffed the comforter and repeated my invitation, but she still just sat there. Finally I stood and gathered up all of my clothes that had been strewn across the floor, and dropped them into a pile. Pig got up, ambled over, nosed a sweatshirt around until the pile was just to her liking, and then plopped down. Within seconds, her snores were reverberating off the walls.

  I slept better than I had in months.

  When my alarm went off on Friday morning, Pig was still snoring like a garbage truck, and she didn’t even budge when I got out of bed. It had probably been a long time since she’d had a good night’s sleep. Pig’s return had given me a buoyancy that I hadn’t felt in a long time. I was no longer made of sand and cement, but bubble gum and feathers.

  Amirah, Ji-A, Mallory, and Ruby, an hour ahead of us, were already bombing the group chat with updates on their travel. I snapped a pic of Pig, then sent it with a text that said happening now. Almost immediately, six ellipses popped up on my screen. Then the texts came in a deluge.

  WKERWEIHFHGSHG WTFF!!!!

  SHE’S BACKKKKKKK???

  WHERE WAS SHE? HOW’D YOU FIND HER. I CANNOT WAIT TO SQUISH THAT FACE.

  [Inexplicable Shania Twain driving a race car GIF]

  She just showed up! Last night!

  How is she?

  OK? I think. Hungry? More later!

  I got dressed, and then, no doubt sensing that breakfast was imminent, Pig woke up as I was about to leave the room, and she followed me to the kitchen. Dad had made coffee and was, as usual, sitting at the table working on his crossword puzzle, but I saw that he’d barely made any progress. He put his pencil down and came over and hugged Pig, tight and long. Dogs hated hugs, but Pig did a good job of tolerating this one, and she even licked his face in return.

  I opened the fridge and pulled out some eggs, then some breakfast sausage from the freezer. “Breakfast today?” Dad asked, since I usually only drank coffee and ate doughnuts in the morning.

  “Not for me,” I said. “For her.”

  “I have to be in early today,” Dad said, “but I’ll stop and get some dog food on the way home.”

  “Get the kind that’s cheeseburger flavored,” I told him. “That’s her favorite.” Pig licked her lips as though she knew what we were talking about and watched me eagerly as I scrambled the eggs in the pan, and popped the sausage into the microwave.

  “Where’s Mom?” I asked as I scooped the eggs onto a plate and set them on the floor. They were gone in literally two seconds, so I picked the plate right back up and put it in the dishwasher.

  “Her door’s still closed,” he said, looking over at it. “She must be sleeping late.”

  The microwave dinged. I pulled out the sausages, which were only partly warm, and tossed them across the kitchen so that Pig could catch them in midair.

  “Does she usually get up before you?” I asked Dad as he was putting on his coat.

  “Yeah.” He nodded. “She’s usually sitting at the kitchen table when I walk in. But last night was a big night, so it would make sense if she was tired.”

  Suddenly I felt the back of my neck prickle, and in two steps, I was at Mom’s bedroom door. I knocked and called out to her; then I tried the knob. It was locked. Then I pounded on the door, louder than before, and when I was met with nothing, I raised my hand and unlocked the door with my kinesis, and pushed it open so hard that it hit the wall with a thud and bounced back. The room was empty. Mom was gone.

  Dad was right behind me. “Okay, I’m calling in,” he said, with his phone out and already dialing. “She couldn’t have gone far.”

  “Dad,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm and steady, “we have no idea how long she’s been gone. She could be anywhere.” Beside me, Pig let out a whine, and then a pounding on the front door made me jump and run for it. I threw it open with a crash, and there was Janis, rubber duck earrings shaking with excitement.

  “Where is she?!” Janis screamed. “Where is my stinky, squishy best friend?” Pig came bounding out of Mom’s room and nearly knocked me over to get to Janis. Normally I would have raised a stink about the fact that Janis—who had once referred to Pig as a “vacuum bag of farts”—was now claiming my dog as her best friend, but right now I was freaking out. Janis picked up on it immediately. “Wait, Esme, what’s wrong?”

  “My mom,” I said. “She’s gone. She snuck out at some point last night.” She’d probably unlocked the very window that I’d locked with my kinesis.

  “Oh my God,” Janis said. Dad came running to the porch, his car keys in his hand.

  “I’m going to start circling,” he said. “You stay here in case she comes back.” I knew that was standard protocol for looking for a normie, but Mom wasn’t a normie and neither was I, so we were going to pull out all the stops to find her. I stepped out into the yard and looked up at the trees.

  “Hey!” I yelled. “If you’re still here, don’t just sit there. Help me.” Dad, Janis, and Pig were all looking at me like I was seeing ghosts. “No one here is going to turn you in,” I added. Across the yard, in the pear tree, there were three crows, and all of them eyed me warily. Then two flapped their wings and flew away. “Come on,” I said to the one that remained. “You can change in the living room.” Then it sailed down from the branch and flew through the open front door, sending Janis and Dad scrambling to get out of the way. Pig let out a little yelp.

  “What the heck?” Janis said, flattening herself against the wall. Then her mouth fell open and her words stopped as the crow settled on the back of the couch, and turned into Adrian.

  “It’s you…,” Janis said, her words like the air slowly escaping from an inner tube.

  “Adrian,” I said, “this is Janis, who you already met, but I don’t think you were formerly introduced. And this is my dad, Dave.”

  “Hi, uh, Mr. Pearl,” Adrian said, sticking his hand out. Dad, still slightly in shock, just stood there and didn’t take the offering. Then suddenly he realized his rudeness, and held out his hand.

  “Esme,” Dad s
aid, “your mother…”

  I turned back to Adrian. “My mom’s missing,” I said. “It looks like she snuck out her window. You didn’t see anything, did you?”

  His eyes got wider, and he shook his head. “I slept in a pine tree over by the Panda Sub,” he said. “I just came back over here because I wanted to see if I could catch you on your way to school.” I bit my lip and nodded. It sucked that he hadn’t seen anything, but in a way it was a relief, as it would have been unforgivable if he’d seen Mom leave and just let it happen.

  “Janis, looks like we’re skipping school for the second time this week,” I said to her, “because I need you to look too.”

  “Of course,” Janis said.

  “Wait,” Dad said. “When was the first time you skipped school this week?”

  “Dad,” I said, “go.” He jogged out to his car, and I turned to Adrian. “Can you look too?” I asked. “She’s got dark hair, and the last time I saw her, she was wearing cloud pajamas and a pink robe.”

  “Of course,” he said, and then immediately changed back into a bird. I walked over and opened the door for him, and he flew away. Then I stood there, looking at Janis and Pig while I tried to weigh my options. Just sitting there and waiting for Mom to come back wasn’t really an option. If she stayed gone, then I’d call the police, but as always, that was my last resort. I grabbed my phone to call Brian.

  Just as I was starting to dial, Adrian came back, a bird tapping furiously on a window at the front of the house. I opened the door and let him in, half-annoyed that he was wasting time, and wondering why he hadn’t left yet, but as soon as he changed into himself, he said, “I found her.”

  “What?” I gasped. “Already?”

  “She’s in the backyard,” he said, nodding. Instantly Janis and I turned and ran through the kitchen, Pig at our heels. I threw open the back door to an empty yard.

  “She’s back behind that tree,” he said. I started toward it, and when Janis started after me, Adrian put out his arm. “Wait! Esme, I think maybe you should go alone.” My stomach dropped as Janis stepped back. Still, I didn’t hesitate for a second, and Pig hung back as well as I raced toward the tree where Adrian had pointed.