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The Short Life of Carly Lannigan (Ch 8 11/27)


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This is another story that was posted on another site but never here. 

(1)  New School

I don’t think anyone will try to kill me this time. Not here. I mean, as school entrances go, it really doesn’t even look all that imposing: just a medium sized stairway leading to a white double door under an archway with some sort of Latin inscription. I have no clue what it means; I don’t really care either. As long as it doesn’t mean Carly isn’t welcome here it’s fine by me. And I don’t think it means that. I’m pretty sure there’s no reason for anyone here to hate me. Not for who I am or what I am or what I may bring with me. At least not yet.

Mom let me help pick out this town. I think she felt it would give me some ownership in the move or something. I know that’s what my therapist said, anyway, and it sounded good in theory. You’re taking a teen out of school and moving across the country, uprooting her during high school: a traumatic experience, right? She’ll have to say goodbye to friends, move away from places she feels comfortable and get used to everything all over again. And she’ll be that most awkward of things: the new girl. Truth be told, though, I was ecstatic. I suppose I used to have friends—well, a couple, anyway—but we’ve moved so much that I never really feel settled anywhere. And this move? It couldn’t come fast enough because the very last thing I was back in Elmdale was comfortable. If I had really explained to Dr. Sessions (what a name for a shrink!) what was going on at Elmdale High and why I started skipping school...and why I did what I did, not that I can even recall most of it...I suspect the only move I’d have made would have been into a padded cell.

But Dr. Sessions is behind me now too, like Elmdale High, like Marissa, like… It isn’t good to dwell on this. Picking the new town was interesting. Mom’s new job was going to be in LA, so we had to be in commuting distance, though the fact is that she’d actually be working from home most days. So we sat with a map and a computer and wandered through the towns we had as options. The hundreds of towns we had as options. She suggested we go somewhere near the ocean, and at first I thought that really didn’t matter to me anymore, but she talked me into it. And when it came right down to it, what difference did I really think it would make?

“You’ll regret it if we don’t,” she said, and I had to agree she was probably right. And that’s how we ended up in Corona Bay. It just ended up checking enough of our boxes to pass the test. So now I stand here staring at some Latin writing on the door of Corona Bay High School (Go, Sea Lions!), needing only to walk up the stairs to start my first day, a week after the year began for everyone else here. Joy. I examine the entryway carefully, searching for any sign of anything that might seem odd, but there’s nothing. Kids file past, normal enough looking kids, not even noticing me, many dressed in the school colors of red and grey. I look down at my red skirt and white top: it will do, I think. Raising my head, I notice a teacher at the top of the stairs looking down at me with a helpful look in his eye. Oh God. Please don’t.

“Miss?” he calls to me. Damn. “You look a bit lost. May I help you?” You might have begun by not calling everyone’s attention to it.

But I give him my best smile. “I’m fine. My first day.”

Now he returns the smile. “Ah, I understand. Well, come on up here and I’ll show you where you’ll need to go.”

Nothing for it now but to go with him. He seems all right.

“I’m Mr. Benson,” he says, his smile seemingly stuck to his face. “I’m one of the Deans, but I hang around in the cafeteria and student commons a lot, so you’ll probably see me there.”

“Nice to meet you,” I say. “I’m Carly Lannigan. Just moved here from near Chicago.”

Mr. Benson is around forty, trim, with short hair graying around the temples. He doesn’t look at all severe though; not like a military kind of guy. More just like someone who takes care of himself. I know exactly what I look like to him: a long-haired redhead in that red skirt and white blouse, no makeup which I should have put on to hide the freckles that are already appearing from the sun, and inexpensive sandals. In other words, I look like every other teenage girl, at least up north. In California, if the kids I saw entering the building are any judge, the girls are all fashion models.

My problem, though, is that I’m most definitely not. Either a fashion model or normal.

I can wish for it all I want, but it just ain’t going to happen. Which is why I’m standing here in the main office of a new school thousands of miles across the country from my old one, in a town where I know no one and no one knows me. I’d say I intend to hide in the crowd here, but it isn’t true. No can do, amigos. That’s for some other chiquita.

“But Carly,” Mom said, “it caused you such distress at your last school. We could at least try to keep it to ourselves, couldn’t we? It’s your life, but why does anyone else have to know anyway?”

She was standing in our new kitchen surrounded by unpacked boxes, leaning over the breakfast counter on the opposite side from where I was sitting and eating a sandwich: my incredible “Welcome to California” meals were all pretty much like this before we unpacked enough to do some real grocery shopping. One box was open; there were glasses with random colors swirled on them sitting near the sink.

“Your timing is perfect, Mom, to ask that question, as it happens.”

“What do you mean?”

I shook my head. “Breathe deeply, Mom. You’ll know.”

She took a deep breath and suddenly screwed up her nose. “Oh.”

I nodded. “Right. And that will happen no matter what. And happen and happen and happen. So they’ll know, all right, Mom. But this time, they’ll know on my terms.”

Mr. Benson leaves me with a big, friendly blonde woman. The placard on her desk says her name is Mrs. Girard. She explains how my schedule will work, where I need to go to get books, and some other things. She tells me that if it had been the start of the term there would have been an orientation meeting for new students, but as that was last week I’ll need to start the day with my counselor.

“Are there that many of us?” I ask with a smile.

“You’d be surprised,” she says. “We always seem to have our share.”

She’s laughing so easily with me that I almost hope she doesn’t scan too far down the schedule to see what I know will be there. But of course she does. The look on her face twists into a register of surprise, then almost immediately covers it back up.

“I’m seeing here that you have some...medical issues? Maybe you’ll also need to know where the nurse’s office is?”

My smile doesn’t fade; I hold it steady. Here goes. “That would be very nice, Mrs. Girard. I am in fact completely incontinent, and I’m in need of a diaper change right now. Could you show me the way?”

I watch her eyes as I say that: she’s stunned, to be sure. She’s never heard a high school kid––or anyone, probably––acknowledge her incontinence or her diaper wearing so boldly and publicly before. Well, get used to it, Sister, because I aim to change all of that. I tried the “I’m ashamed so I hide it” route at my last school, but they found out anyway and it was terrible.

“Carly?”

Daria taps me with her pencil and I turn around at my desk, hoping Mrs. Garcia won’t notice. Not that it matters; we’re the two best students in her class.

“What?”

She glances downward, in the direction of my chair. At first I have no clue what she means. Then I do. I can feel the wetness on my outer thighs and along my lower back: places it isn’t supposed to be. Shit! Daria’s a good friend, but she’s staring at me, looking for some explanation for something I have no explanation for. Suddenly I feel something running down my leg: I’m still wetting! And I know instinctively what is happening below me: it’s running down my pants leg and, since I don’t feel it in my sock, that means it’s ending up––

“Did you just wet yourself?” Tricia’s voice, behind me and to the right. She has a great view under my desk, and she really doesn’t like me. I see her pull out her phone, keeping it under her desk so the teacher won’t see.

I’m done for. I don’t need anything weird to get me; I’m going to do a great job doing myself in.

Not this time. I’m calling the shots. And as embarrassing as it is, I’m in diapers and I intend to freaking own it. No one can use against me what I openly admit to. I honestly don’t know how this is going to work out, but heck: it’s worth a try.

And if anything else...any other problems...have followed me here...well at least the diapers won’t be a distraction this time. If that had been the case in Elmdale, maybe Marissa would still be alive.

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Wow this is quite the start. Dark background is worrying but I'm glad to see Carly owning the incontinence thing and not let it get to her.

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I remember reading this on ABDLstoryforums, it was fantastic then and it is fantastic now. Thank-you for posting it here, I am looking forward to becoming reacquainted with Carly and her adventures. 

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(2)  Thus It Begins

Mr. Grayson’s office turns out to be a whole lot bigger than my counselor’s back in Elmdale. He not only has a chair to sit in; he has a freaking couch! And there are potted trees all over the place along with bookshelves full not only of college brochures but actual reading books. Like you could come in here, sit down (or lie down) and read! And don’t even get me started on the windows. Half the room is windows! So much light I can’t believe it. Mrs. Jacobson’s office didn’t even have a window. Sometimes I wasn’t sure they were legal in Elmdale. Seriously: last year I had a whole schedule without a single classroom that had a window. I remember some from freshman year, so I know they are there somewhere, but WTF?

He’s sitting at his desk when I enter: a youngish man with wavy brown hair and oversized ears. He’s looking over a file, probably mine, and the look on his face is inscrutable. If that folder tells the story of my last school, I won’t be off to a good start here. Ah well. He beckons me and I sit on his couch and wait.

Shortly, he puts the folder down on his desk and looks at me for the first time. His eyes are unfathomably blue; I mean it’s really ridiculous. And he’s smiling. Maybe not everything is in the folder. 

“Good morning, Carlotta. Have you been finding everything so far?”

I return his smile, not even wincing at my grandmother’s name. My turn. “I go by Carly. Yes, actually. Mrs. Girard was very nice. She showed me where the nurse is, so I could drop off my diaper change supplies there before coming here.”

If that throws him at all I can’t tell by his expression. Oh, this guy’s good. He probably saw it in my records, but still...no reaction to my frank statement: well done! 

“Mrs. Feathers is very experienced,” he says. “I’m sure she’ll be able to help you just fine.”

Bravo! No trace of irony. No hint of anything. “Yeah, she seemed really nice. I didn’t exactly get the impression I was the first incontinent kid of her career.”

He laughs. “I’m sure you’re not. Most are probably handled in Special Ed, but there must be many others who’ve been in the main population.”

“Not quite like me, though,” I offer.

He nods. “Well, I guess you’re a bit of an unusual case. May I ask why you’ve decided to be so open about what most kids your age wouldn’t talk about to save their lives?”

And here it is. He’s been dying to know, but he waited patiently for the perfect moment for the question to come up naturally. He’s really good. I’m going need to watch out for this guy. He leans back in his chair, as if this is NBD to either of us. Just another conversation with a kid. What is in that file, anyway? It would probably be helpful to know, but I don’t, so I just stay in the moment.

“No big mystery, Mr. Grayson.”

“Call me Mr. G, Carly. Pretty much everyone does.”

One of those teachers. OK. “That’s cool, Mr. G. Well, as I said, it’s no big mystery. I had all sorts of emotional issues at my old school, and I blame a lot of them on the fact that I was constantly worried about people finding out. And when they did, well, it was pretty much every bit as bad as I thought it would be, just the way it was in middle school and elementary school too. So when we moved I made the decision that I’d just own the thing. It’s not as if I can do anything about it anyway.”

He nods, as if I’ve just said the most natural thing in the world. The tone of his voice when he responds is, if I have to categorize it, interested. “That’s a most...unusual decision, Carly.”

I smile. “I’m sort of an unusual girl.”

“Yes,” he says, and he pauses a bit too long. It is in there. He’s trying to figure out whether to bring it up. “You know you’ll still get teased,” he says. 

I’m almost disappointed that he’s decided against it. Wonder where that conversation would go. “Yeah, I know. But this time it will be on my terms. And if I treat it as a matter-of-fact medical issue––which is what it is––I don’t think things will be too bad.”

He pauses, glancing back at my file. “I see you’ve moved around quite a bit.”

I shrug. “Mom keeps changing jobs. She’s good at what she does and lots of opportunities come her way.”

“I see,” he says. Another pause. This time I can see he’s only looking at my schedule. Things are about to get pretty normal.

“You have a very mature attitude for someone in your situation, Carly. Good for you. Now I see you have three AP classes? English, History, and Spanish? And most of the others are Honors level. Tough schedule.”

“It’s actually a little easier than what I was taking back in Chicago,” I tell him. “You don’t offer Chem AP here, so I’m taking it Honors.”

He looks at me and closes the folder. “Well, you’re an ambitious girl,” he says. “I see you were a soccer player at your previous high school. Will you be going out for the team here?”

I think the look on my face is answer enough for him on that one. And he laughs. It’s true I played JV soccer, not that I was ever any good at it. It was something my therapist thought might help alleviate some of my tension, but I was always way too nervous because of the diapers. I had a private place to change, and I was lucky enough never to have a messy accident with the team, but worrying about exposing my secret drove me nuts. I think the coaches thought I just didn’t have the drive. So I never would have made the team this year when it’s either varsity or nothing. Of course, this season everyone would already know. Anyway, last season was when all of the weirdness started, so I’m not even sure you can really say I was a part of the team at the end anyway.`

His smile again, and those eyes… Does he know their effect? “Well,” he continues, “I think you should consider joining something, Carly. ECs look good on college apps, and you need to start thinking about that. It doesn’t have to be sports; there are lots of other options. We’ll talk volunteer work later. Meanwhile, I think you’d better get off to…” He checks my schedule. “...math.”

I shudder involuntarily.

“Not your fav?”

With a small laugh, I reply, “Let’s just say math and I have had our..differences.” I rise and shake his hand across his desk. It’s something strangely electric. For a fraction of a second, my whole arm seems charged; it seems almost separate from me. I don’t know if he notices. There’s no indication of anything in those eyes.

“Um...I guess I’ll talk to you later. Mr. G,” I say, and leave his office.

###

I’m wet, I know, but not so much that I need a change, so I head for math. Class has already begun, so I guess the New Girl gets to make a grand entrance on her first day. Through the window on the door I spy an open seat in the aisle nearest the close wall; I decide to head for it. Opening the door as quietly as I can, I enter the room. The teacher, Mr. Truskin, is at the board. He’s a large man, slightly bald, and he’s...talking in tongues? I freeze in my tracks just inside the door. Oh God, it can’t be. Not so soon. I hoped I’d have some kind of break. But he jabbers on in some crazy cartoonish voice spouting gibberish and I just stare, feeling my diaper getting wetter. Suddenly, though, I realize that his voice isn’t the only sound in the room: the other kids are laughing, their attention so rapt at their teacher’s antics that they haven’t yet even noticed that I’m standing here, open-mouthed, my expression almost certainly one of abject terror. 

He’s doing some kind of bit.

I let out a breath, and I realize I haven’t been breathing since I walked in. It’s at this point that Mr. Truskin notices me. Taking me in, he smiles and walks over.

“They told me I was getting a new student today!” he says in a booming voice nothing at all like whatever he was doing a moment ago. “You must be Carlotta!”

“Carly,” I tell him and the whole class.

“Carly!” he corrects himself with so much enthusiasm that I start to wonder if he’s on something and if I can get hold of it. “Welcome, Carly! You’re from...Illinois, right?”

I nod. “Yes, near Chicago.”

“Well, you escaped just in time. You won’t need to worry about those midwest winters here! OK, I think we have an open seat right over here.” He points to the seat I noticed earlier and I go to sit in it. “Do you have your book yet?”

I shake my head. “No problem,” he says. “Look on with Marina, there, for today.”

He indicates a girl with short styled brown hair, dressed in some kind of designer jeans and a Simpsons cropped t-shirt I think I’ve seen at Hot Topic. She nods as I sit next to her. I haven’t a clue about what they’ve been studying, but Marina promises to meet me at lunch to help me catch up. One class down. English is next. Since I’m on time for this one, I go straight to the teacher, Mrs. Weller, and introduce myself.

“Hi, Mrs. Weller. I’m Carly Lannigan, your new student.”

Mrs. Weller, a young teacher, seemingly fresh out of grad school, smiles in greeting. “Nice to meet you, Carly. They told me you were coming.”

Round three. “Did they also tell you of my medical issues?”

She looks puzzled. Clearly, if they did, she missed the memo. “I don’t think so.”

I give her my best smile. “I’m completely incontinent and rely on diapers to contain my waste. The school knows this. There will be times when I will arrive late because I’m getting changed in the nurse’s office, and there might be other times when I need to leave class urgently so that I don’t expose you and the other students to...well, let’s just say to an olfactory insurgency.”

By the time I finish, a couple of other students have come up to Mrs. Weller’s desk for one reason or another and hear at least the end of my spiel. I finish with the same smile and volume at which I started. I turn and smile at them also. “Hi. Carly Lannigan.” Their eyes are exactly where you’d think they would be, but I’m wearing a skirt so nothing at all shows.

Mrs. Weller’s voice turns me around. “I don’t think that’s...polite, girls.” 

I laugh. “It’s OK, Mrs. Weller. I guess it’s only natural curiosity, don’t you think?”

The other girls return to their seats, and I hear them whispering to others as they go. There are quiet exclamations and giggling and a couple of “What?”s and other responses bouncing around the room.

Mrs. Weller is speaking to me. “That’s pretty gutsy of you,” she says.

I shrug my shoulders. “Tired of the alternative.”

She gives me a long look. “I think,” she says, “I’m going to like having you in this class. If you’re half as interesting as a student as your introduction suggests you can be.”

“Mrs. Weller,” I say, “you have no idea.”

###

By lunchtime, I think the whole school knows. Which is fine. Some kids give me a wide berth in the hallways; others giggle as they pass. But I’ve already met several who just don’t care, and I sit with them at lunch. Mrs. Feathers and I have also already developed a deep bond: I can easily change myself when it’s just wet, but when it’s messy I really need help, and that sort of thing bonds you quickly. That happened in Chem class. Rumors about it probably account for the wide berths. 

Anyway, I’m sitting here with four other girls: Marina from math, who turned out to be cool with the whole thing even though she didn’t know at the time; Sarah and Madison from English, who were both part of a group project we did in class and we sort of bonded; and Janelle, a girl I met in my study hall. I’m exempted from phys ed this year for medical reasons (which isn’t exactly making me cry), so they assigned me to a study hall for that period. Janelle told me that upperclassmen don’t usually have them here; she’s a sophomore but she’s taking a bunch of junior classes. 

“What’s it like?” she wants to know.

“My pizza?” I ask.

She slaps me playfully and Madison and Marina shake their heads at my intentional obtuseness. “No,” Janelle replies. “The diapers.”

“Well, I want to know about the pizza,” Sarah says, and they laugh. “I might get it tomorrow.”

Marina laughs. “Isn’t it the same shitty pizza as last year?”

Madison turns to her. “Didn’t you eat here last week? We have a new food service.”

“A new service? God, I hope they still have the cheesy fries.”

This time Sarah jumps in. “They do. I had them on Friday. I think they’re the same, mostly.”

I laugh along with them. “Well, either way, the pizza sucks. Don’t bother. But I’m spoiled; I’ve been living in Chicago. As to the diapers...I mean it’s hard to say. When you need them, you need them. So they’re just like...thicker underwear, I guess.”

“But why do you need them?” Janelle asks.

“Because I’m incontinent,” I say simply. But that’s not a good enough answer, and I know it. “OK, OK. I’ve been incontinent all of my life because of some birth defect. No one has ever been able to analyze it or point a finger to what it is specifically or what caused it, but somehow my bladder and sphincter muscles just don’t work. When I wasn’t toilet trained by 5, my parents had all kinds of tests done but no luck. So I just stayed in diapers.”

“God,” Marina says, “that must have sucked.”

“What makes it a bit worse is that I have a hard time changing them myself.”

They all seem surprised, which isn’t exactly...surprising. I mean they’ve probably all babysat before and understand that the basic mechanics aren’t that hard. It’s Madison who asks me why.

“I had a bad fall in the playground when I was little. I was on one of those climbing things, at the top, and I somehow fell off.”

There is a collective gasp. I knew there would be. There always has been when I’ve told this part.

“Anyway, I landed on my shoulder and ripped up something called the brachial plexus. It’s a major nerve bundle that controls most of the arm, so things could be worse. But in the end, I don’t have a lot of rotation in my right arm, and my use of my right hand is a little spotty. I can change myself when I’m just wet, but...anything else and I need help.”

Janelle shakes her head. “That’s just unfair. I mean totally unfair.”

Sarah is deep in thought. “I feel so bad for you.”

“It made for a pretty hard childhood. We moved around a lot. There was only one school––the one where I went in grades 1-3––that handled it well. The others were...less than perfectly helpful.”

“Meaning?” asks Sarah.

“Meaning I was teased and ridiculed for still being in diapers ‘at my age.’”

The others are aghast. “By teachers?” a couple say together. 

“By teachers, by my so-called friends when they found out, by their parents… As I said, it wasn’t a lot of fun. We started moving and changing schools so often that my parents ended up fighting all the time.”

“Uh oh,” says Madison.

“Yeah,” I say. “You know how kids whose parents are divorced blame themselves and it’s usually silly, and the parents assure them it isn’t their fault? Well, mine can’t do that. Cause it most definitely was my fault.”

Madison reaches for my hand. “That is not fair. It isn’t your fault that you were born with...with...defects. If anyone is to be blamed, and I don’t think anyone should be, it ought to be them. I mean it was their genes that made you.”

There is a general echo of agreement at the table, and I feel a couple of tears slipping from my eyes. This is new: I don’t even remember the last time I felt compassion from classmates. Not real compassion. I mean, “Sorry we didn’t win today” isn’t very personal, right? And after that mess last year no one even talked to me...though I desperately needed someone to. Only Dr. Sessions talked to me. None of my “friends.” Did I really even have any?

“Carly?”

Marina has been saying something and I’ve been totally spacing. “Sorry. Zoned out there for a moment. What did you say?”

“I just asked if you ever see your dad?”

I sigh. The truth is that, at first, back in 5th grade or so, I did see him quite a lot. It was as if he wanted me to believe it wasn’t me even though there was no way for me to believe that. He picked me up every weekend without fail, and we did all sorts of fun things together: the zoo, museums, movies, even water parks (I have quite a collection of swim diapers) and state parks. But as time went on “every weekend” became twice a month, and that became once a month. By the time Mom and I moved to Elmdale, leaving Dad several moves behind in Ohio, he apparently decided I just wasn’t worth the trip. My whole year in Elmdale he only came out once, in the first semester, when he came to see a play I was in, which frankly surprised me. And then, two months later, he decided to ask me to visit him in Cleveland for Christmas break. 

I was excited, actually. I thought he clearly wanted me back in his life. Looking back, I can see that Mom wasn’t as enthusiastic as I was: she had her suspicions of her ex-husband. But even she could never have guessed what he was about to unleash into our world.

“No,” I say. “He’s...out of the picture.”

Her face falls. “Oh, I’m sorry.”

I look her directly in the eyes. “Don’t be. He was never my father. I’m not sorry he’s gone.” That stops the chatter for a bit. I mean there’s not much you can do to respond, is there? So for a few minutes we all work on our “meals” in silence. It’s Marina who finally speaks.

“I guess I should help you with that math stuff, right?”

And we’re off into more “comfortable” territory. The rest of the day pretty much goes the same way. When I’m done, I Uber home, change, and try to get my homework done before Mom gets home. She’s going to want to know everything, and she always manages to get me to tell. I’ve got about two hours. 

I should be fine.

 

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(3)  Green Eyes

They’re coming. Tricia and her gang: I can hear them coming down the hall toward me. Not now. Bad fricking timing. I can’t let them find me today. I can’t. I’m standing in front of a bathroom, but it’s a boys’ room. No choice. It better be empty.

It is. School’s been out for over an hour. I don’t even know what Tricia’s still doing here, unless she’s just trying to find me. That’s paranoid. Got to change and go, got to find him. I debate changing in here, but the place is filthy; the girls’ room on three is usually much cleaner even at the end of the day. If I can get to it.

I pull the door open slowly, listening. Nothing. Easing into the hall, I don’t see any sign of anyone, so I cross to the stairway and start to climb. I’m on three in no time and across the hall and into the girls’ room. And almost run right into Tricia.

“Diaper Girl, I missed you today,” she says with her usual sneer, as her three friends giggle behind her.

I force myself to look at her. I’m getting better at it; my head went straight to the floor at the beginning. “I don’t have time for your garbage today, Tricia,” I say, but she just laughs in response.

“Elly, do you hear that? She hasn’t got time. Do we feel bad?”

The long-haired blonde in her merry band shakes her head, and Tricia turns her attention back to me. “Sorry, Diaper Girl. We don’t have time to feel bad about that.”

I can’t do this. No time. I try just bursting past her, but her friends block me. I’m stuck, and now I’m surrounded. “What do you want?” I demand.

“Nothing much, Little One,” she says. “Just your skirt.”

They all laugh. I can’t keep up with the ways they try to humiliate me. “I...don’t have anything else to wear.”

She smiles. “Sure you do. I’m sure you came here to change into a nice clean didee, didn’t you?”

I try to break free, to run back into the hall, but I can’t. I’m trapped. “Look, you don’t understand. This is an emergency. I mean it.”

“I’m sure it is,” she says sarcastically. “It always is with you, but then that’s why you wear the diapers, isn’t it?”

I shake my head. “No, no: I mean a real emergency. Life or death.”

She looks as if she’s considering what I’m saying. Maybe my anxiety is convincing her. But then: “Well, then. If it’s that serious, better hand over that skirt and get going.”

Bitch! But there’s no choice. I slip off the skirt, revealing my very wet diaper. At least it isn’t messy. Not like last time. She takes it from my hand.

“That’s a good girl. I’ll leave it for you in your locker tomorrow. Maybe I’ll even leave another present. I know how you loved the last one. Bye now!”

And they all leave, my skirt with them, and I’m sure she’ll leave a “present.” Last time she did that, it was a pacifier. But I don’t have time to worry about her; I’ve lost too much time already, and he’s out there. Somewhere. I need to find him before...something happens. 

“Carly? It’s dinner time. Are you napping again?”

My mom’s voice. I’m in my bed. In my room. In California. Right: I came home after school and tried to get some work done; I must have fallen asleep. I really need to stop listening to Adele in the afternoon. Did I finish anything? A quick check of my computer answers the question: not much. Crap: more evening homework. 

“Carly?”

I call out, “Yeah, Mom, I’m coming.”

Within a few minutes we’re sitting down to dinner: homemade tacos, which I love. She’s set up a little taco bar on the kitchen counter, and now my plate is heaping with three overflowing tortillas. I sip some ice water and eat the tacos and it’s bliss.

“You’re enjoying that,” she says. 

“You know I love these,” I say, smiling. “Thanks for making them.”

“You’re welcome,” she says. “Now are you going to tell me how your grand experiment went today?”

I put the last bite of my first tortilla into my mouth and swallow. “I suppose as well as I could have expected it to,” I say, reaching for the second one. 

“Which means?”

“I haf four new frienfs,” I say, and she rolls her eyes.

“Don’t talk with you mouth full, Honey.”

I swallow. “Sorry. Anyway I did make friends, though there were a few issues late in the day.”

She looks concerned, which isn’t exactly unexpected, so I continue quickly. “The school nurse is great, and I’m using her whenever I have a messy diaper or even just a wet one if her office is convenient. But in the last passing period of the day a couple of kids––seniors, I think––were sort of lying in wait.”

Mom’s eyes are wide, her breathing is actually audible, and I’m sure her pulse is racing. “Hey,” I say, “I clearly survived the encounter, so don’t lose your shit, OK?”

I can see her telling herself to calm down. “OK,” she says. “I’m OK. And watch the language.”

I smile. She’s fine. “Anyway,” I say, “these girls were in the hall just outside the nurse’s office, and they stopped me before I could go in.”

“Carly Lannigan, right?”

The one speaking is the taller one, though not by much. Both girls are wearing school colors. Go, Sea Lions.

“Yes,” I say. “Can I help you?” As if I believe in any way at all that this is going to be something normal.

They move closer. “It’s true, isn’t it?”

Before I can even answer, the shorter one says, “Of course it’s true. You can smell the shit in her diaper.”

Tall Girl sniffs and crinkles up her nose, making an exaggerated “Eww” sound, and Short Girl starts to laugh. They find this hilarious: the single funniest thing that has happened to either of them all day. Me, I just want to get changed so I don’t get a rash. I shake my head. “You know, it’s not really a funny thing,” I say.

I’m about to give them a little lecture on the medical issues that go along with incontinence, but they just don’t care. The taller one interrupts me.

“If it weren’t funny, I wouldn’t be laughing. Don’t tell me what’s funny.” She’s so close it’s menacing. “Got that?”

Discretion is the better part of valor and all that crap. “Yeah. Sure.”

She laughs again. And the smaller one says, “Better go get your diaper changed.” And they laugh more at that as they slink away down the hall.

“So what did you do after that?” Mom asks.

“I did as they suggested: I went in and got my diaper changed.”

She laughs as I finish my final taco. “Want more?” she asks, but I’m pretty full. “So it was basically a pretty good day then?”

I nod. “Yes, I think it was. And I like the new school. I think I’ll have a much better year than last year.”

“Well,” she says, with no hint of irony or sarcasm, “you could hardly have a much worse year than last year, could you? I mean, at least how it ended?”

I shake my head. “No, I guess not. I still have nightmares about it.”

“I’m sure you do. I’m so sorry I didn’t get there faster.”

I reach across the table and take her offered hand. “I know, Mom. I know. But even if you had, what could you have done? Marissa was already dead––that was my fault––and he didn’t want you. He wanted me.”

She squeezes my hand. “No, Honey. He wanted destruction. That’s all.”

“He got that.”

We’re silent for a long time, the subject apparently being exhausted at least for now. I stand and pick up my plate and glass, carrying them into the kitchen, where I start to put leftovers into tupperware. We continue until everything is put away, neither of us saying anything, as if we’ve somehow been put on Mute. When we finish, we both move into the living room. Mom sits on the sofa and absently picks up the book she’s been reading for the last month. I sit across from her with nothing in my hands; I’m not certain why. After a while, I interrupt the stillness.

“Mom?”

She looks up. I’m not sure she’s actually been reading. “Yes, Honey?”

I keep seeing those eyes in my dreams. That’s the hardest part, every time: those unnatural fiery green oval eyes. I know he didn’t always have them. He couldn’t have. But always, in my dreams, when he appears, they do too. Sometimes they simply linger on their own, like the Cheshire Cat’s smile, hanging in the air long after he’s gone. Sometimes they are all I see of him: two fiery lights where such things shouldn’t be. Like some kind of sign. Like the last day. 

“Never mind. I’m just tired, I think. And I still have homework. So I’m going to my room, OK?”

I get up and kiss her goodnight. Daria teased me once for that, but if she only knew what we’d been through… 

After I change my diaper in the bathroom, I head into my room and close the door, then proceed to spend the next hour trying to get through the math homework, but I’m lost. I’ve never liked math much anyway, which is why that’s not one of my AP courses, and starting out a unit behind is just a bitch. Marina’s going to have to go over it again tomorrow. But it doesn’t help my studying any that the image of the eyes keeps superimposing itself over the work. Why am I having these dreams anyway? They’d been terrible at first, but they calmed down over the summer. Now here we go again? 

That’s ridiculous. There’s no way. But even as I tell myself that, my breathing thickens and my vision gets cloudy and I have a desperate need to sit down. The bed is close by and I find it before I collapse as those eyes rise up before me again. And the pillars, those three pillars that stood in front of the school at the open front of the auditorium lobby, weight-bearing pillars designed not just to be beautiful but to support the second floor classroom above the lobby’s outdoor open space. And Marissa. And that horrible laughter.

I’m lying on my bed and it’s dark in the room. I must have fallen asleep after the diaper change. More awful dreams. God, I wish they would stop. Must be anxiety over school, over my decision to be so open.

Yeah: it’s a metaphor. The whole thing could blow up in my face just like Elmdale.

OK. I’m not exactly Sigmund Freud. But from what I’ve read, he wasn’t either. Just a doped-up doc with an obsession with sex. And dreams. And invading other people’s privacy. I’ll bet he got off on it. Still, from that came the whole science of psychology, and provided jobs for people like Dr. Sessions, who otherwise would have had to be, I don’t know, a record producer? So yay. 

The point is that I’m too focused on the dreams to concentrate, and that isn’t a good way to begin a new school year in a new school. Maybe I should ask Mom to find me a new therapist around here. I think I’m losing it.

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Thanks for the update, although I seldom comment on anything on this site, I feel compelled to mention that I really dig how well you write the character of a very mature high-school girl. Her internal monologue is very well done, and I can almost imagine what I am sure are the occasional nervous side glance. Thanks a lot, I am looking forward to the next installment. 

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10 hours ago, Shotgun Diplomat said:

Thanks for the update, although I seldom comment on anything on this site, I feel compelled to mention that I really dig how well you write the character of a very mature high-school girl. Her internal monologue is very well done, and I can almost imagine what I am sure are the occasional nervous side glance. Thanks a lot, I am looking forward to the next installment. 

Thank you for the nice compliment! I've spent a lot of time around high school age kids, since I had some of my own and taught English for nearly four decades. I'm glad to see it paid off!

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Fantastic beginning here Kerry. I really love  Carly’s attitude. I am sure things will go better for her if she takes away the embarrassment of needing to be diapered. It means that others don’t have that to use against her. Now all she has to do is remain strong when someone does try and make an issue of it. I read your comment and was actually very surprised to discover your age. When I read that you had been a teacher for 4decades I had to check our your profile. Heck you are my age even just a bit older. We should talk. 

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49 minutes ago, CDfm said:

Fantastic beginning here Kerry. I really love  Carly’s attitude. I am sure things will go better for her if she takes away the embarrassment of needing to be diapered. It means that others don’t have that to use against her. Now all she has to do is remain strong when someone does try and make an issue of it. I read your comment and was actually very surprised to discover your age. When I read that you had been a teacher for 4decades I had to check our your profile. Heck you are my age even just a bit older. We should talk. 

Let's do that! PM me sometime. ?

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(4)  In Mrs. Feathers’ Office

There are already three students in Mrs. Feathers’ office before school when I walk in, but the second I do, two of them get those “I don’t think I want to be here right now” looks on their faces, pick up their things, and leave.” Can’t blame them, really: this one is a stinker. Crappy way to start the day. Pun intended. The third kid is a freshman boy who looks as if he’s already stoned at 7:45. He’s sitting (more or less) on one of the waiting room chairs, his eyes so glazed over that I’m fairly sure his mind is in another time zone. Mrs. Feathers is in her inner office with someone else; nothing for it but to wait. I don’t really want to sit in this mess, so I just stand by the intake counter thumbing through pamphlets.

“How to Avoid STDs When You Are Sexually Active”

“Your Bulimia and You: a Story of Co-Dependency”

“No Means No, and Yes, We Are Talking To You”

The door opens before I can find one about incontinence, which would undoubtedly be called “Wet and Wild: Diapers Don’t Have to Ruin High School.” The boy who comes through the door takes one whiff of the room and dashes for the hallway. I think this diaper could ruin high school. Mrs. Feathers enters the room behind him; she probably should look for the stoner kid first as he was ahead of me, but she quickly turns her head toward me and, realizing my condition, says, “Why don’t you come right in, Carly?”

“Good plan,” I say, and quickly walk into the back room, where she follows and shuts the door behind us.

Mrs. Feathers shakes her head. “Good Lord, girl, what did you eat last night?”

“Just tacos,” I say, lying down on the changing table/bed. She untapes the diaper, allowing the odor full-force into the room. 

“Maybe,” she says as she works on the change, “you could stick to, I don’t know, soup?”

We both laugh, which makes this easier. God knows how many wipes she’s using; though she has my containers of the adult strength kind, this one will eat into the supply. 

“Sorry,” I say.

“Not your fault,” she says. “There, I think I got it all.”

She rolls everything up into the diaper and puts it aside, then grabs another one from my stash in her cabinet and has me lie back down. I can do this part myself and we both know it, but since I’m already in this position, what the hell? Some rash cream and powder later and I’m all taped up and ready to go. 

“Thanks, Mrs. F,” I say.

Da nada,” she says, wrapping the soiled diaper in a couple of plastic bags before tossing it into the garbage. “See you later.”

The stoner kid is still staring at something random as I exit the inner room, and I almost walk past him without much thought, but then my mind, out of nowhere, finds alarms going off. I stop sharply, looking around. 

“Is something wrong, Carly?” I hear Mrs. Feathers ask, but her voice sounds far away for some reason I can’t fathom. I turn back to her and discover the reason: her greeting station has somehow moved back a hundred feet from the doorway where I’m standing. I watch in shock and horror as it slowly fades from view entirely into a rising darkness. Before me, much closer, he appears.

He’s just as he was before: too large, too frightening, too...impossible. I try to call to him:

“Why are you doing this?”

But there is no answer, not even the grotesque laughter I heard last time. 

“You should be dead!” I cry out. “I thought we killed you!”

This time the laughter comes, an answer that denies my assertion with absolute clarity. He starts moving toward me, looming inconceivably larger with every foot nearer he comes. I can’t seem to take a single step away. He’s not dead; that’s clear, and he’s angry that I’m not either. Why does he hate me so much?

He’s right here, practically on me. He doesn’t look like he ever did back then, but I’m not really surprised at what he looks like now. There are runes on his arms, deep scars on his face. His mottled scarlet skin gives off a stench, this close, like decaying flowers. His elongated fingers end in black, rotten, pointed nails. But it’s always the eyes I focus on the most. I stare at them as he comes in for the kill.

“Carly!” Mrs. Feathers’ voice cuts through once again. “What’s happening?”

The office fades back in, and the demon’s lair—and he himself—disappears. I don’t know the answer to her question. No clue at all.

“Do you feel all right?” she’s asking.

I nod.

“You never lost consciousness, did you?” 

“I don’t think so,” I say..

“But you couldn’t hear me calling to you?”

“No,” I tell her. “You were too far away.”

She places her arms around my shoulders and guides me to one of the chairs and helps me to sit down.

“I’m calling your mother,” she tells me. “She needs to pick you up and take you to a hospital or to your doctor. They’re going to need to run some tests to determine what that was.”

I’m looking a bit stunned, I know. “Is it serious?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. It may have been a small seizure. Or maybe it was just dehydration;  I’ll get you some water after I make the call. You did lose a lot of fluids in that diaper. But I won’t lie to you: it’s strange. Better safe than sorry.”

She retreats into her office to use her phone, leaving me in the waiting area to enjoy the scenery. Other than the counter with pamphlets and the sign-in pad, the room contains a flat screen, about 30 inches, which is currently off; a small fish tank containing about fifteen colorful freshwater fish; a couple of houseplants that are somehow thriving even without any sunlight; and some “inspirational” posters (“Dreams Come a Size Too Big So We Can Grow Into Them,” “Make Today Amazing,” “Life Begins at the End of Your Comfort Zone,” etc.). I wonder how many kids have sat here staring at those posters and felt their lives altered by them? I’m guessing the answer is somewhere between none and nobody. 

The stoner freshman is still high; what on Earth was he smoking? And why did he come to school? I’m sitting across from him, but I can smell it on him; surely they’ve called in the deans. Probably waiting until he shows some sign of being at least partially cogent. But it is odd that he’s been sitting so completely still for so long; I swear, he hasn’t moved even a muscle since I walked into the room. If I didn’t know better…

I get a terrible thought, so I watch him carefully. Yes, he’s breathing. Good. Been there, done that, read the book, the movie sucked. He’s so calm about it that it’s almost imperceptible: a long, slow intake followed by an equally long and slow exhalation. It’s hypnotic, the rhythm. I find, watching it, that it’s drawing me in. Long inhale. Hold. Long exhale. Calm. Long inhale. Hold. Long Exhale. Calm. Again and again. I feel myself drifting.

“Carly.”

I’m being called, but I can’t respond.

“Carly.”

Long inhale. Hold. Long exhale. Calm. Long inhale. Hold. Long Exhale.

I think my response. What?

“I’ve been looking for you.”

Long inhale. Hold. Long exhale. Calm. Long inhale. Hold. Long Exhale.

Again, only in my mind I respond: Who are you?

“You know the answer to that question.”

Long inhale. Hold. Long exhale. Calm. Long inhale. Hold. Long Exhale.

I want to be afraid. I want to scream. I want to do a million things, but I do none of them. All I seem able to do is silently sit here, listening.

“You’re important, Carly. You know that.”

I know I’m dreaming again.

You don’t even believe that right now. And if you didn’t know your importance, why would you have run from me?”

No breath at all. None. Then…

Long inhale. Hold. Long exhale. Calm. Long inhale. Hold. Long Exhale.

“Carly?”

A new voice, cutting through the fog. A woman’s voice. Mrs. Feathers. Everything clears away, and I can move again. She’s returned from her office and is standing on the other side of the counter.

“Did I lose you again, Honey?”

I shake my head, forcing the image and the voice away. “I think...maybe I just nodded off for a second.”

She smiles. “Well, that’s fine. Maybe you should go inside and lie down until your mom can get here? She said it might take an hour.”

If she says an hour, it will be at least that long. “OK,” I say. She comes around the counter to help me into the back room. 

“My goodness,” she says. “You’re shaking. We’ll put a couple of blankets over you as well.”

I doubt I’m shaking because of cold. As I go through the door, I risk one last look at the stoner boy. I’m not even surprised to see his eyes open and staring at me with a glint of unnatural green that I have seen before.

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This is getting very intense. I am dying to know the story behind the dreams and I keep expecting to get at least bits and pieces of it but there just doesn’t seem to be any coming. I was happy I could give this a like today. I will be watching for more. 

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Author's note: there is a memory embedded in a memory in this chapter. In the original, it is simply further indented. (All memory ¶s are indented.) Here, though, I have changed the color to indicate the second-level memory.

 

(5) Test Day

The stoner boy is gone when Mom gets here; that’s the first thing I notice when Mrs. Feathers comes to get me, Mom trailing behind her. I can see the waiting room through the open door, and he isn’t in it. Part of me is glad; I don’t think I’m ready. But another part is desperate to know what is going on, whether it’s really starting again. 

I turn to the nurse as I’m picking up my things. “Mrs. Feathers,” I say, “I know it would probably be a violation of confidence of some sort for you to tell me specifics about that kid who was here before, but maybe his name?”

She looks at me, confused. “What kid? The one I saw before you?”

“No,” I say. “The stoner boy? The freshman who was sitting over there, all zoned out, when I came in?”

Mrs. Feathers shakes her head. “Carly, you were here alone when I came out with the boy ahead of you. Did he go to class?”

I’m confused now, so I try to paint the picture more clearly. “He was sitting in that chair, more or less unconscious, the entire time I was in the waiting room. Even while I...well, whatever it was that happened to me.”

She looks at me as if assessing something, and then opens up and addresses both me and my mother. “I really don’t know what’s going on. There was no boy there. I don’t want to scare you, but I really think you need to have an MRI done, and an EEG. Mrs. Lannigan, my recommendation is that you take her to her doctor straightaway. Something must be causing the hallucinations, and it’s obviously best that we find out what.”

There was no boy. Couple that with...whatever that was...and I don’t know about Mom, but it sure as heck scares me. Two days in a new school and I’m not only the diaper girl but the crazy one as well. Great.

“Thank you so much, Mrs. Feathers.” Mom was talking. 

“Miriam, please.”

“Miriam. And I’m Kelly. We haven’t always had such compassionate health care professionals in Carly’s schools. I called our doctor as soon as you called me; she said she thought an MRI would be a good idea too. We’re heading there right now.”

An MRI. Looking for what? A tumor of some sort. God. 

A hand on my shoulder. Mom’s. “Don’t look so frightened, Honey. It’s most likely nothing.”

I can’t look at her, so I fix my eyes on my things. “Is that better than something bad that’s making me see shit and faint?”

“You didn’t faint,” says Mrs. Feathers.

“No,” I say, finally looking up. “That we could explain.”

I’m hyperventilating, and I know it. Mom puts her arms around me to calm me down. “Breathe,” she says. “Breathe.” 

We’ve been through this before. I mimic her rhythms and bring myself under control. 

“That’s better,” she says. “Now do you need a change before we go to the doctor’s office?”

I shake my head. “I shouldn’t. Mrs. Feathers just changed a massive one an hour ago.” I slip my hand under my skirt, just in case: no, it’s fine; damp, but not wet. I shake my head definitively.

“Good,” Mom says. “Then let’s go. Thanks again, Miriam.”

As we walk out of the office, I can’t stop staring at the chair that the stoner boy was sitting in, looking for some evidence that I’m not insane, but I find nothing. Completely, undeniably loony. In the halls, it’s passing period (probably right after second?) and kids are everywhere. I hear my name from behind us and turn. It’s Madison.

“Hey!” she says as she catches up to us. 

“Hey,” I return. “Madison, this is my mom. Mom, Madison.” Don’t say anything about my lack of friends, Mom. Please...

“Hi, Madison,” my mother says. “I’m happy to meet you. I’m glad to know—”

“How was English today, Madison?” I ask, cutting that off, hopefully forever.

“That’s why I was glad I saw you. Weller assigned some writing, and I wanted to make sure you got it. Where were you, anyway?

I shrug. “Nurse’s office. I’m a physical wreck. Basically, any day I make it through everything is a modern miracle.” My laugh punctuates this, so Madison knows I’m just kidding. At least I think I am.

“Oh,” she says; then putting two and two together, “but you’re leaving?”

“Yeah. Got an appointment. Can you email me the assignment?”

She says she will and Mom and I head on out with no further encounters. We’re quiet until we get into the car, and then she finally asks me to describe what happened.

“I’m not sure how to, Mom,” I say. “It was like I suddenly just wasn’t there. I was somewhere else, I think. And he was there.”

Her eyes widen. “Are you sure?”

“As if I could mistake him for anything else?”

She studies me for a moment, and then asks, “Did he say anything?”

“He said...he said he’s been looking for me, that I’m important.”

“Oh my God.” She reaches for my hands and takes them into hers, pulling me toward her. Looking as deeply at me as she can, directly into my eyes, she says, “It doesn’t mean anything, Carly. We don’t even know if it was real, and even if it was, well, we’ll deal with that. But that’s why we’re going for the tests.”

“To see if I’m cracking up.”

“To see if something is making you have seizures,” she corrects pointedly. “You haven’t met Dr. Eaton yet, but I like her; she’ll be very good to you.”

Moving across the country means changing everything, including doctors. Mom chose this new PCP for both of us, but she’s the only one who’s had an appointment yet. Guess it’s my lucky day.

“She knows about...me?”

“Yes, Honey. She knows about everything...normal.”

I may be the only teenage girl in history for whom the word “normal” includes incontinence and diapers, but there are probably no doctors on earth who would know anything at all about the abnormal things in my life. Maybe witch doctors…

Mom starts the car and we head to the medical center. It turns out to be a newish building just outside of the hospital, which isn’t too far from the school, so the drive takes less than ten minutes. We don’t even get through the first three songs on the “Hamilton” soundtrack. At least we get to “My Shot.” And “The Schuyler Sisters” is coming up on the ride home. I love that song. 

Inside, we let the receptionist know we’re here for Dr. Eaton. There are documents to be filled out, as I’m a new patient, and we sit in the waiting room working on them. I’m halfway through when a nurse calls my name. I stand.

“I’m not quite finished.”

She smiles. “That’s fine. You can finish in the room; there will be time.” She leads us to a small examining room: typical, with a desk, computer, examination table, a couple of chairs, sink, cabinets, etc. Mom and I sit down on the chairs and she sits at the desk, asking some basic intake questions as she types on the computer. When she’s about through, she takes my pulse, temp, and blood pressure and asks me to step on the scale, and then records all of the data. Then she leaves, telling us the doctor will be in soon.

“Well,” Mom says. “She was certainly, um, efficient.”

I laugh. The nurse isn’t going to win personality awards, that’s for sure, but she’s pleasant enough. “Mom?”

“Yes, Honey?”

“How could he have found us already, even if he isn’t dead?”

As she opens her mouth to respond, a quick knock comes on the door and it starts to open, and in walks a woman I assume is Dr. Eaton. She’s much taller than I imagined, about 5’10, and younger too, about Mom’s age. She’s athletic looking. Probably played for the med school basketball team. Go, Fighting Skeletons!

Actually, that sounds more like a school from “Pirates of the Caribbean.”

“Hi, Dr. Eaton,” Mom says.

“Hello, Kelly. This must be Carly. Nice to meet you.”

Like they’re old friends. “Um, yeah,” I manage. “Nice to meet you too.”

“Carly’s had a rough morning,” Mom says, perhaps to explain away my stiffness. 

“Yes, so I hear. Can you tell me about it, Carly?”

So I explain once again what happened in Mrs. Feathers’ office from the moment I walked in until the moment when she told me that the stoner boy was never there. I try to be thorough, but I leave out a few details, like the second hallucinatory conversation. I’m not really sure I want anyone wondering why this voice, real or imagined, seems to think I’m like the center of the universe or something.

When I finish, Dr. Eaton says, “OK, well it sounds as if you had a partial seizure.”

Mom’s breath catches, and the doctor notices. 

“It’s not necessarily anything serious, Kelly. May be nothing at all.”

I’m a little confused. “I’ve never had a seizure before. Have I, Mom?”

She shakes her head and turns to the doctor. “What can bring something like this on?”

Dr. Eaton smiles, her entire face a calming expression. Wow, she makes up for the nurse! “Well, that’s exactly what we need to find out. So we’re going to do a couple of tests. Tell me, have you had anything to eat or drink today?”

“No.”

“And you’re not currently on any meds?”

“No.”

“Perfect! Then we can do them both right in this facility today. We should have you out of here about the same time you would have been out of school. How’s that sound?”

I nod, and Mom does too. 

Dr. Eaton stands up and moves toward the door. “I’m going to have you move to a different room for the EEG. We could do it right here but you have to lie still for a long time and the exam table isn’t all that comfortable.” That smile again. 

We follow her to another room with a hospital-type bed in it, and she tells me to lie down.

“Do I need to take my clothes off or anything”? I ask.

She smiles. “Not unless that beautiful red hair is actually a hat.”

She leaves, and after a few minutes a tech comes in and rolls a machine over toward the bed. He fiddles with it for a bit, then pulls out a set of wires with tapes on the ends. 

“Now, I’m going to be placing these electrodes all over your head,” he says. “I’m telling you that so you’re not freaked out when I start doing it, and so you’ll understand when I ask you to move in order to reach the sides and back.”

I nod, trying to smile, thinking of electricity shooting into my brain, wondering how that could be any worse in there than him.

It seems to take forever, but he finally gets all of the wires attached to his satisfaction. He gives some instructions and information (he’s going to use a strobe at first while I breathe in fast for a few minutes, then after a while he’ll ask me just to sleep). He says he’ll be recording my brain waves for about an hour and a half. 

“I hope you brought a book, Mom,” I say.

She smiles. “When have you ever known me to be without a book?

And my day of brain testing begins. Hours later, it concludes after an MRI (which involves being rolled on a tray into a tunnel barely wider than you in a large machine that then bombards you with loud tapping and thumping noises the whole time you’re inside the tunnel trying not to move or die from claustrophobia). And the verdict?

The EEG was unclear, though it showed abnormalities. But the MRI, according to Dr. Eaton, offered a much clearer diagnosis: mesial temporal sclerosis. I have a thing wrong with me that I can hardly pronounce. 

“It accounts for all of your symptoms,” she says. “The partial seizure is a trademark, and hallucinations are commonplace with it.”

“So she’s epileptic?” Mom asks.

The doctor nods. “MTS is the most common form of epilepsy in teens and early adulthood.”

“But how did she get it?”

Dr. Eaton shrugs. “Could be a lot of things. Could just happen. Have you had any partial suffocation incidents, where your brain might have been cut off from oxygen?”

I shake my head. I think I’d remember that.

“What about trauma? Fallen on your head lately? Or have a head to head collision in sports?”

Head trauma. Oh, there was one… not that I actually remember it. But other people told me about it, over and over. I was raving, they said. So upset. They said I followed someone across the lawn and over to the auditorium stairs. They said Marissa Turner tried to stop me, calm me down. Why? She didn’t even know me that well! They said we were arguing on the landing at the top of the steps when the guy appeared again. He was very large, frightening. And they all saw me turn on him and try to take him on, though he was twice my size, and though Marissa was right behind me, apparently trying to pull me back. And then…

“What everyone saw, Carly, was you chasing down and attacking that man, and Marissa attempting to stop you.”

It was our first...well...session...and she had asked me for my version of what had happened. After the investigation found no reason to blame me for the incident, a judge appointed her to see if I had any psychological scarring. And Dr. Sessions was definitely cutting to the chase.

“Yeah,” I said. “But I don’t think that’s really how it went down.”

She was interested. “Really? I thought you have no memory of that afternoon.”

I shrugged. “I don’t. But I know who I am. I’m not aggressive. I don’t go around chasing people and attacking them for no reason.”

She was silent for a few minutes, consulting her file. “The report on you says that no drugs or anything were found in your blood.”

“Of course not!”

“Don’t be upset,” she said. “It’s just that there are some drugs, like PCP, that cause aggression and amnesia. It would have explained a lot.”

I was a bit indignant. “Yeah well not today. I don’t do drugs.”

“Apparently not,” she said. “But you do attack large men you have no chance against?”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t recall attacking him, or anything about the incident, but I had no doubt I had done it. If I had half a chance, any chance, I’d always choose to do it. And it seemed to have worked: he couldn’t have survived being buried under all of that rubble. Then again, I had.

No one saw what caused the pillars to buckle. All anyone saw was the entire second story overhang falling, crashing down as they crumbled below it. And two students and the large man buried in the rubble. But the thing was: no one ever found the body of the man. And when they removed the huge pile of bricks and debris, one of the students was still very much alive, her body scraped up, her clothing torn, and her diaper overflowing, but not seriously injured in any apparent new way.

Head trauma…for that matter maybe even oxygen deprivation; who knows?

“No,” I say. “Unless it gave me amnesia too.” 

Both adults laugh. Dr. Eaton explains that there are medications that can keep MTS in check, and I shouldn’t have any more seizures as long as I take them regularly. She gives me a prescription. Mom makes an appointment for six weeks from now for a follow-up and we head out to the car.

Clear at last of the building, I say, “Long day.”

She smiles. “Yes.”

I turn my head toward her as we walk. “You were thinking the same thing I was, right?”

“The head trauma?” she asks.

“Yeah,” I say. “And Elmdale. I mean I must have had some.”

“Seems likely,” she agrees.

“And that would mean that I got MTS from head trauma brought on by fighting a demon that we just determined was only a hallucination brought on by MTS. Right? Or am I missing something?”

She looks at me and smiles. “I think that about sums it up,” she says, and we walk on quietly until we get into the car, climb in, start it up, and listen to Angelica sing about how lucky we are to be alive as we drive home.

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On 10/20/2018 at 6:30 PM, kerry said:

(2)  Thus It Begins

Liking Carly as a character. Wondering if that thing with guidance counselor is foreshadowing

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4 minutes ago, YourFNF said:

Liking Carly as a character. Wondering if that thing with guidance counselor is foreshadowing

Could well be. Only the Shadow knows...

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On 10/21/2018 at 11:16 PM, kerry said:

d they all leave, my skirt with them, and I’m sure she’ll leave a “present.” Last time she did that, it was a pacifier. But I don’t have time to worry about her; I’ve lost too much time already, and he’s out there. Somewhere. I need to find him before...something happens. 

If I was Carly's Mom those kids would be toast

 

So carly's dad is some kind of big bad?

And I thought I had issues... :lol:

@kerry

On 10/24/2018 at 7:11 PM, kerry said:

(4)  In Mrs. Feathers’ Office

I doubt I’m shaking because of cold. As I go through the door, I risk one last look at the stoner boy. I’m not even surprised to see his eyes open and staring at me with a glint of unnatural green that I have seen before.

Possesion? Or some kind of projection?

 

16 hours ago, kerry said:

There was no boy. Couple that with...whatever that was...and I don’t know about Mom, but it sure as heck scares me. Two days in a new school and I’m not only the diaper girl but the crazy one as well. Great.

 

So projection

Wow this is quite the set up

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There is a lot to unpack in these early chapters, and the author (darn her!) isn't giving the store away yet, so I hope the slow reveals make for good reading. ?

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5 minutes ago, kerry said:

There is a lot to unpack in these early chapters, and the author (darn her!) isn't giving the store away yet, so I hope the slow reveals make for good reading. ?

Honestly in five I couldn't follow the convo with the doctor at the end that well not sure why. But it's diffently looking interesting. :)

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Yes, I didn't know what to do about that. In the original the embedded memory (within the memory) is further indented, but this format doesn't allow for that. Maybe I'll go back in and change the color or something.

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6. New Determinations

“Yeah, so it turns out I have this form of epilepsy.”

We’re at lunch again, and my friends are desperate to know what happened yesterday. I fill them on on the fun I had in the nurse’s office and then on the tests, and the fact that now I’m on this medication for the MTS. 

“Jesus,” says Sarah. “That sucks.”

“Yeah it does,” says Janelle. “My cousin is epileptic. He has these grand mal seizures where he suddenly falls to the floor and shakes and is unaware of anything. You have to help him so he doesn’t swallow his tongue or something. I saw it happen once; it scared the shit out of me.”

“That’s not what I have,” I say. “MTS is pretty mild. The seizure I had is called a partial one; I just sort of zoned out.”

“But you hallucinated?” It’s Madison this time.

I nod. “That’s what they tell me. Unless the demon was real, then yes I had a hallucination.”

She shudders. “Scary.”

Marina agrees. “No duh.”

“Well, I wouldn’t trade places with me,” I say.

Sarah looks really upset. “How is this at all fair? I mean you’ve already got to deal with the divorce and the diaper thing, and now this? Who are you anyway, Job?”

Madison and Janelle both look puzzled. She explains. “Job, from the Bible?” Still blank. “God made a bet with Satan that his most devoted subject would still love him no matter what, so he took away everything Job had, caused everyone he loved to die, and caused him to suffer from great illnesses and poverty. But Job stayed true.”

Marina shakes her head. “Every time I hear that story I can’t help thinking that God comes off as a real shit.”

Sarah laughs. “Well, whatever, it just seems like maybe he could spread the dark stuff around a bit better, you know?”

“You won’t hear any arguments from me,” I say. “So who wants what?”

They laugh, but a bit uneasily, I think.

“So does the medicine work?” Janelle asks.

I shrug. “Well, I haven’t seen anything weird yet today. But it’s still early; there’s plenty of time for the jello to start oozing off my plate.”

Madison laughs. “That’s not weird. That’s Tuesday.”

We all join her. 

“But seriously, Carly,” Sarah asks, “the doctor says you’ll be fine with these meds?”

“Yeah,” I say. “She said it’s really common, actually. So I guess in a way I’m lucky.”

Marina sort of snorts. “Right. With your kind of fucked-up luck, don’t ever go to Vegas.”

Everyone at the table is laughing again, and I almost fail to notice the two girls walking by who are also laughing. But it’s hard not to pick up on the fact that they are staring in my direction as they walk, and when I look back I see that they are in fact Tall Girl and Short Girl from outside Mrs. Feathers’ office. When they catch my eye, instead of hastening away like any decent person might do, they stop in their tracks.

“Hey, hey, Carly,” says Tall Girl. “I assume from the fact that these girls can stand to be at the same table as you that you aren’t quite as stinky as yesterday?”

“Beat it, Melody,” Janelle says. “We really don’t need your brand of ‘humor’ here.”

“Aw, that’s sad,” says Melody. “McKenna and I happen to quite enjoy it. Don’t we?”

Short girl giggles her response.

“Yeah,” says Janelle, “but McKenna still laughs at knock-knock jokes.”

“Only the really good ones,” McKenna says, and the girls start to walk away. As they leave, though, we hear Melody say, “Knock knock.”

McKenna asks who’s there, and Melody responds “Carly.”

“Carly who?” says McKenna, and just before they are out of earshot, where Melody clearly intended this final line to be spoken, she says, “Carly needs a diaper change!” And both of them crack up.

“Ignore them,” Madison says. “They’re assholes.”

“I am,” I say, and it’s as true as I can make it. They are nasty, but not anywhere as bad as Tricia. “Melody and McKenna, eh?”

“We call them M&M,” says Sarah.

“They’re always together,” adds Marina. “It’s basically ridiculous.”

“Well,” I say, “I infinitely prefer my own M&M.”

“What?” asks Sarah.

“Madison and Marina! And I could add you and we’d have M&Ms!”

“Not fair!” says Janelle. “What about me?”

Marina comes up with the solution: “Combine with Carly! We can be CJM&Ms!”

Everyone agrees that works fine, even though it’s the world’s most meaningless and cumbersome acronym, and our group name is official. Now all that remains is to figure out how to keep them all alive if he comes. If he even exists.

###

We’re sitting in the living room of our new apartment. It’s actually a pretty comfortable room, larger than the one we had in Illinois, and Mom bought us a 60” TV when we got here—keeping the promise she made to me in exchange for taking me across the country (along with letting me help pick the town). And I do have to admit that I’m finding it pretty cool that we have a view of palm trees out the window; we didn’t even have trees out the window in Elmdale, and if we did they’d have been oaks or something. Palms are so much cooler.

Mom is working on her second glass of white wine. She rarely has more than two glasses, in fact I have standing permission to comment if she does, but I’ve noticed that, since all of this started, she also rarely goes a night without at least one. I don’t know if that’s good or not. I don’t think she drank regularly when Dad still lived with us, but I can’t be sure: so much has happened since then that it’s all jumbling together in my mind. And besides, I was pretty young. As for me, I’m nursing a Diet Coke. The caffeine never bothers me, so it doesn’t really matter that I’m drinking it after dinner as far as that’s concerned; I just try to limit my fluids in the evening so I’m less likely to overflow at night. Even if it did keep me up it wouldn’t be a problem since it’s Friday and I get to sleep in tomorrow, so whatever.

It’s been a crazy couple of days with the seizure and the doctor visit and all. And now we can’t even be sure if any of this has been real. Do I actually have any objective proof?

“I guess I’m just not sure anymore, Mom,” I say. “I don’t know what to think.”

She places her glass carefully onto a coaster on the table in front of us and reaches across the couch to take my hand. She folds one hand over and the other under mine and looks directly into my eyes, which is always a little bit disconcerting. “Honey,” she asks me, “would it worry you more if the demon is real or if he isn’t?”

I shake my head. “That’s just it: I don’t know. We’ve both been assuming he is for so long now. And it was before Elmdale, wasn’t it? Or is that all in my mind too?”

“You know it was before Elmdale, Honey. Portents, anyway. For a lot of years.”

I find myself silent for a minute or two, trying to puzzle this through. Yes, there were portents for a long time. We noticed the first of them when I was maybe twelve or thirteen, but it was only later that we started thinking that the odd runic graffiti was anything more than gang tags. Then in Indiana, in eighth grade, I started seeing the eyes: dark figures in my dreams would have these frightening green eyes that often scared me awake. Later, I began seeing them during the day as well, momentarily appearing on the faces of classmates and even teachers. The first time that happened, I was in the lunch line and the lady who was serving the pasta suddenly was staring at me with those eyes. I shrieked and leapt back so swiftly that I not only spilled my own tray but those of two kids in back of me. I won’t say I ever got used to it, but I learned how to see it without being shocked by its sudden appearance.

There were other portents too: storms that seemed to be centered where we lived while other places enjoyed sunny afternoons were my favorites. How can that be natural? But he only started appearing when we got to Elmdale, right after school started back up in January.

“Is that why you believe, Mom?”

She smiles. “We ran across three states because I believed, Carly. You know that. Once we realized that the first runes were your name and the next meant death my most important job in the world became keeping you alive.”

“Good thing you’re good at your job.”

“Yes, well, you’d be surprised how few really strong and creative IT people are out there, given the overabundance of folks working in the field. I always come with glowing recommendations. And I’m a woman, so that makes me a diversity hire.”

“I meant the keeping me alive job, Mom. Still, the lack of diversity thing sucks.”

“Oh, sorry,” she says with a small blushing smile, “but anyway, yeah, you do take the good with the bad. About employment I mean. Besides, I can always design websites on my own if I need to. Now, about him: I haven’t needed to see the demon myself to believe it’s been stalking us. And I’m not convinced just because you have this epilepsy thing that you imagined him in Elmdale. Or in your nurse’s office this week.”

“But I might have,” I protest.

She nods. “Sure. And I might win the lottery. Honey, you were chasing someone across that campus. Someone was with you and Melissa when the pillars came down and everything collapsed. And no one was there when it all was cleared. Given everything else about all of this, I’d say Occam’s Razor points to demon.”

My turn to smile. “Might be the only time in history that’s ever happened,” I say. “So where does all of this leave us?”

“I think,” she says,” we need to keep on assuming he, or it, is coming. Or is already here. And we need to figure out what to do.”

###

The wine bottle is empty. I didn’t say anything when she poured her third glass; it’s been a really hard week for her too. I thought about commenting on glass #4, but when I saw how little was left in the bottle (it only partially filled the glass) I didn’t bother. She’s entitled. And the conversation we’ve been having hasn’t been particularly helpful on her emotions either, since it’s pretty much revealed how utterly helpless we are against him (or it, as she keeps trying to make me say). She doesn’t want to acknowledge him. Doesn’t want to know, I think: one layer too far to believe. There have been times I know she has, but then she’s pulled back again, and the epilepsy totally helps her denial.

In the end, though, I think we both know that, if he is real, this thing will come down to him and me. God, that sounds egocentric. But isn’t it where he wants it?

“What do you really think you can do, Carly?”

Mom’s voice is ragged. We’ve talked about this entirely too much. We’ve talked about it all night. We’ve talked about it again and again for years. We talked about it before the attack on Elmdale. I didn’t really know then and I don’t know now. 

“All I know is I have to try to do something. Especially if he thinks I’m important.”

Her eyes are tired, bloodshot. The wine isn’t helping, and I don’t think she’s sleeping any more than I am. Is she having the dreams too? “Maybe you’re important because he needs you in order to succeed. Isn’t that just as likely? Why would he tell you how important you are if you were destined to be able to stop him?”

I’ve wondered the same thing ever since the vision, or hallucination, or whatever it was. “I was there in Elmdale and he didn’t succeed.”

She nods. “I know. I’m operating in the dark here as much as you are.”

We sit in silence for a long time. It’s a frightening, familiar silence flavored by exhaustion. He...it...whatever….chased us through at least three moves before finally catching up to us and eventually revealing himself—if that’s what happened—in Elmdale. Before that final day, though, when we knew we’d been found, we might have run again, but we just couldn’t. I couldn’t.

 

“Mom, we can’t just keep running away.”

She takes my hands in hers. “What choice do we have, Carly? It’s powerful. And it wants us.”

I don’t understand. I’ve never understood. Why does it want us? What is it? All I ever glimpse are those terrifying green eyes, which are enough to tell me I don’t want to see the rest, but I don’t even know what the rest is. Yet it’s followed us at least since Columbus. And that means through two towns in Indiana and now two in Illinois. What does it want?

All I say is, “It can’t have us.”

Mom agrees. “No, Honey. It can’t. Not if we’re careful.”

“That’s just it, Mom. I think being so careful is exactly what it wants from us. I think it’s growing from our fear.”

“You watch too much Buffy.”

“I’m serious,” I protest, “and the fact that I may have gotten the idea from Buffy doesn’t make it any less worthwhile. Think about it: doesn’t it seem stronger in every town? Isn’t it finding us faster each time?”

She only needs to consider for a moment. She knows I’m right. “But we aren’t going to stop being afraid of it. How can we?”

I smile, maybe for the first time ever while talking about the demon. “We kill it.”

 

Mom looks at me sadly. “If it’s here,” she says, “then clearly you didn’t succeed in killing it in Elmdale, and you ended up dropping several tons of bricks on it and were damn lucky to have walked away.”

I shrug. “So?”

“So maybe it just can’t be killed.”

I feel a warm pressure in the rear of my diaper and realize that some remarkable (or perhaps ironic) Fate has caused my bowels to release just as Mom made that dramatic statement, perfectly punctuating the depressing thought. As much as I hate messy diapers, I have to admit that there are times when they at least make comments on life that are as powerful as their smell.

“That can’t be the case,” I tell her. “It just can’t. I refuse to believe it. I think he’s frightened of me for some reason and wants me to be frightened too. He knows I wasn’t in Elmdale and he’s trying to make me now.”

Mom looks at me so intensely that I can read the question on her face before she even asks it.

“Yes,” I tell her. “It’s working. But I have to fight it. As much as I believed it before, I’m even more convinced now that I’m the key to killing him and stopping whatever he wants to do.”

She pauses for a moment, taking it all in. She sighs.

“You’re going to need a magic tutor then,” she says. 

I smile. “Exactly what I’ve been thinking. Do you have any clue where to find one?”

“I’ll bet we could get a clue on the Venice Beach Boardwalk. There are some very...interesting...people down there if you know where to look for them.”

“And you do?”

She nods. “We’ll find you what you need to face a demon, if there’s a demon to be faced. But right now, you have a more pressing need: a diaper change.”

I shake my head, smiling. 

“Way to ruin a great heroic moment, Mom.”

Both of us laugh, and we head off to my room to get me out of the horrible mess I’m in so I can spend more time thinking about the horrible mess I’m in.

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You just keep feeding us little nibbles of information. Just enough to keep our appetites raging for a larger feeding. The picture is starting to fill in some though. Definitely still cloudy enough to be able to see but getting better.  No more likes for the day. I did like it and want to like more soon. 

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@kerry

On 10/30/2018 at 9:11 PM, kerry said:

Both of us laugh, and we head off to my room to get me out of the horrible mess I’m in so I can spend more time thinking about the horrible mess I’m in.

Love that line :lol::D

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On 10/30/2018 at 6:11 PM, kerry said:

The wine bottle is empty. I didn’t say anything when she poured her third glass; it’s been a really hard week for her too. I thought about commenting on glass #4, but when I saw how little was left in the bottle (it only partially filled the glass) I didn’t bother.

Growing up with a parent who "[Didn't] have a drinking problem" I really like that line. 

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7. Things Discussed At Night

My life used to be so much simpler.

I mean there were always the diapers—they were a given and a complication that at times made life a hell—but compared to now, things were almost idyllic. Before Mom and Dad started fighting. Before it all got to be too much for him. Back when I was little, like in Branch Crossing Elementary, the only school (at least until now) that really treated me well. Sometimes when I think about those days, as long ago as they were, it strikes me that I must be sugar-coating them, but Mom tells me I’m not, that they really were what I seem to remember, that Dad really was what I seem to remember, back then…

In first grade, I had Miss Winters for a teacher. She was young and pretty; in retrospect it’s clear she was someone recently out of grad school, like Ms. Weller. I loved Miss Winters: she was full of laughter and made all of the learning fun, even the harder stuff. I remember how she spent extra time with anyone who needed it even though she had so many little kids in her class, and somehow no one misbehaved. I think maybe everyone loved her as much as I did and wanted to be good for her. 

I was one of two kids in that class who had potty problems, but the only one in diapers. The other, Jimmy Kassell, just wet his pants sometimes. Kids tended to steer clear of me (the baby in diapers) but make fun of Jimmy when he had accidents. I was pretty used to things by now and, though it bothered me, I tried to live in my own world and learn and enjoy my art, which I really loved. (Mom says I was drawing with middle school skill when I was about three, working on shading and perspective and techniques I shouldn’t have known to think about. Art is still my one relaxing class of the day, and I’m considering going into graphic design as a major.) It kept me busy and away from the nasty remarks. Poor Jimmy, though, heard every one of them like a blow.

Miss Winter tried her best; she really did. We had in-classroom bathrooms at that school, and for me they were really useful. The teacher’s aide, Ingrid, would come in with me and change my diaper whenever it was necessary on the low side table that was built in just for that purpose. But for Jimmy: his accidents were unpredictable, so he never had anything to change into. Miss Winters could only ask Ingrid to take him down to the Principal’s Office to call home. And the kids laughed, and she hushed them, but she couldn’t stop them from giggling as he walked out. They had become oblivious to me, but Jimmy was apparently fair game even with me in the room.

Jimmy became my first real friend that year. Before that, I had always been afraid to comment to anyone because of my issues. But when I talked to Mom and Dad about Jimmy, they both told me that I should reach out to him, so I did. And it turned out that he was just as lonely as I was. It also turned out that Jimmy was kind of fun. He was a geeky kind of boy; he liked science fiction and monster stories, for instance, but he had a great time telling me all of them and somehow they started influencing my drawing. Mom noticed the spaceships and evil looking creatures and asked me if I was OK; I told her I was fine, that Jimmy and I were playing make-believe. 

And for three years, it was me and Jimmy. We played in the schoolyard and we played after school. By being with me, he became sort of insulated from the taunting: I was, after all, immune. I was known to be in diapers, not that I wanted to be known. And Miss Winters in first grade, Mrs. Neumann in second grade, and Mr. Kenning in third grade all protected me from the other kids to the extent that no one bothered to bother me, and by extension no one bothered Jimmy even though he still occasionally wet himself even in third grade. It was sort of weird: hanging out with the school pariah actually helped him. And though I was the school pariah, I was happy: I liked my teachers, I had a friend, I loved drawing, I was learning things, no one was bothering me about my diapers. For at least a little while, it seemed as if things were OK. 

And at home things were perfect: Mom and Dad took me on outings to museums, to the amusement park, to the beach. We went to movies and parks. We played games and watched TV together. We laughed a lot. Jimmy told me he was jealous of all the stuff my parents and I did together, and when I asked him why he just said he never did that kind of stuff with his Mom and Dad. I was surprised; I thought everyone did. Of course, I was wrong. But being so young I could hardly know that not only was this not the norm, but that my own personal joy and harmony was not guaranteed.

It was a gradual thing; that much I remember. At first it was just a matter of Dad not being with us for some of our outings. Mom took me and Jimmy one day to a movie and Chuck E Cheese’s. 

“Where’s Daddy?” I asked her.

“He can’t make it today, Honey,” she said.

“What about Jimmy’s mommy? Can’t she come?”

Mom smiled. “No, Honey,” she said. “Jimmy’s mommy isn’t feeling well so she said it would be great if you both came with me. Don’t you think it’s great?”

I did. Jimmy didn’t seem, at first anyway, quite as enthusiastic. But he ended up having a great time anyway, at least until it was time to go home. When we were about to drop him off, he suddenly asked if he could maybe stay over at our house for the night.

I can still see my mother’s precise reaction: the heaviness of her eyelids, the far-off gaze, the fingers, slightly quivering, unconsciously lifting to the side of her lips, and then the sigh, in all of its unfathomable depth, as her head started shaking slowly side to side. “I’m sorry, Sweetie, but we...can’t do that tonight. Maybe...some other time.”

Jimmy looked down, and his own sigh matched hers. “OK,” he said simply, and he got out of the car. “Thanks for the movie and Chuck E Cheese. It was fun. See you tomorrow, Carly.” He turned and walked toward his door. He had not been smiling. I turned to ask my mom about it, but when I did I saw moisture in her eyes and decided not to.

Dad slowly started fading from our lives after that. He missed more and more outings, and even game nights and TV nights. And when he was there, he spent a lot of time arguing with Mom. I wasn’t supposed to hear; I know that. But I did hear. The house really wasn’t that big: even hushed arguments late at night couldn’t stop a little kid whose curiosity had been piqued from discovering what was going on. And after a couple of months, the arguments became torrential.

“It’s not her fault, Adam.”

“Don’t you think I know that?” His voice, coming through a vent, was harsh, though he was clearly trying to keep it low. “Hell, it’s more likely mine...or yours. Some genetic thing. But that doesn’t change the fact of it, does it?”

She matched his tone now. “So how the hell can you be so cold then? She has only one father. She needs you.”

He raised his voice, nearly allowing it to break the semi-controlled “whisper” they were using so I wouldn’t wake up. “Jesus fuck, Kelly, don’t give me that stuff. It’s hard enough!”

“It should be hard, Adam. It should be damn hard!”

“Well it is! But I just can’t do it any more. You know I’ve tried.”

“Tried?” There was a sudden coldness to her voice. “You don’t try with a child, Adam. Being a father is not a game or a test. It’s a career. It’s a lifetime. It’s not a thing to try and, oh well, can’t do this, so I guess I’ll just move on and do something else.”

“You know that isn’t what I meant.”

“No? Then tell me what the hell you did mean.”

“Come on, Kel! She isn’t like other kids! You know she isn’t! And it’s not just the diapers either, though, sure, that’s some of it: I never signed up to spend a lifetime changing my kid’s shitty diapers.”

“Neither did I, Adam. But she is our kid, and that’s what she needs, so we do it. Gladly!”

You do. I can’t.” He sounded almost desperate, and I was crying; my daddy was clearly saying he didn’t want me anymore. “But even if I could, there’s the other thing.”

“She needs you even more because of that! Hell I need you because of that!”

“I know, I know. I get that. But I’m not that guy, Kel. I can’t...I can’t...handle it.”

I had no idea what they were talking about. What “other thing”? Why can’t Daddy handle it? I sat there beneath the vent, next to the changing table in my bedroom—the one he built when I outgrew the baby one in my nursery—trying to make any of this make sense. Was Daddy...leaving?

They weren’t talking, and I didn’t know why. If he had left, I thought I would have heard him in the hall; he’d have walked right past my room. But there was nothing. And then:

“So you’d really do this? You’d leave us alone?”

“How the fuck can I not? It’s my fault! All of it. Even the diapers might be, for Christ’s sake. I’m like a walking curse for my child.”

What?

“That’s ridiculous, Adam. It’s all an excuse and you know it. We have no idea why Carly’s incontinent. And as to the rest: you’re just afraid, like me. But you’re running away.”

I could hear the sneering in Mom’s voice, even in whispers. I’d never heard her talk to my father that way. It was scary.

“You’d run away faster than me if you had any intelligence,” he said.

I heard a sound I knew was my mother slapping my father in the face. He clearly didn’t respond to it, at least physically.

“Go ahead, then,” she said. “Get out. We’ll figure this out without you. Save your own skin while you can.”

There was a pause. And then: “I’m sorry, Kel.”

“And don’t you dare even look in on her before you go! You don’t have the right!” She shouted this last part. It might have been enough to awaken me if I’d been asleep, but I thought I’d better get back to bed in case he looked in anyway.

He didn’t.

Five minutes later, she did. She came in and sat down on my bed, stroking my hair. “It’ll be all right, Carly,” she said softly. “We’ll get through this together, whatever is coming.”

###

Marina rolls over and looks at me for the first time since I started talking. The whole time, she’s been facing away, comfortable in her sleeping bag. Earlier in the evening, she was enjoying herself, making fun of Melody and McKenna and generally entertaining us all. Once things got a bit serious, though, she went into listening mode. This is the first time I’ve seen her eyes in twenty minutes.

Janelle and Madison, on the other hand, have seemed riveted. Janelle is lying down, like Marina, but facing me. Maddy is sitting up inside of her bag. Both have just been listening, as if they have never heard anything like this; I can easily imagine that to be true. Sarah wasn’t able to come tonight, so it’s just the four of us. But it’s OK: I mean it’s only the first sleepover. I’m sure there will be more. 

Mom was so happy when I asked if I could have friends overnight. 

“Seriously?” she asked, her face a mixture of delight and surprise.

“Oh come on, Mom,” I said. “It’s just a sleepover.”

She smiled. “Carly, I don’t think you’ve ever had one before.”

I was going to protest that I must have, but when I thought about it I realized that I couldn’t come up with a single memory of one. I’d been to a couple—awkward with diapers, but it worked out—but she might be right: this might be the very first one I’ve ever hosted. Good God: seventeen and a sleepover virgin!

Marina’s eyes meet mine. “So how old were you when all of this happened?”

“My dad left when I was in 4th grade,” I say. “Well, the summer after. It was a crap year. I had a new school, and they really didn’t handle my incontinence well, and that may have contributed to his issues, I don’t know.”

“What did they do?” Janelle asks.

“Mostly bitch and moan, I guess. Fourth graders shouldn’t be in diapers and all that. Lots of letters home, lots of parent conferences, lots of doctor’s notes, etc. At one point they wanted to move me to a special ed room where several kids were in diapers.”

“Bastards!” Marina says.

“Yeah,” I laugh. “Well, Mom gave it to them for that. Nothing like a little legal threat to bring people in line, and Mom’s best friend in the world is a lawyer. Always on call. I guess that helped in the divorce too.”

“Jeez,” says Maddy, “she talks to you about stuff like that?”

“We have a pretty close relationship.”

“I guess. I can’t talk to my mom about...anything. I wish I could.”

Marina brings us back to the original topic. “So he left because of your incontinence, but also because of something else?”

I nod. “Yeah.”

“The demon thing?” she asks.

“He blamed himself.”

“Wait,” Janelle says. “So this demon thing has been around that long? I thought you said you weren’t even sure it was real?”

I shrug. “It’s...complicated. And a really long story.”

Madison settles back in her bag. “We’ve got all night,” she says.

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  • 4 weeks later...

8. Allies in Demon Fighting

This part is so important that I decide we need to loop in Sarah; I grab my computer and Facetime her. It takes a couple tries to get a solid connection, but we finally have everyone “together” at least for a little while. It takes about an hour for me to fill my friends in on even the short version of the story of my recent life, especially with all of the questions creating tangential paths in my narrative, but we pretty much get to now. 

“Fuck,” Marina says succinctly. “If that thing is real, what the hell are you supposed to do about it?

“Good question,” I answer.

Maddy has been pretty quiet for a long time, ever since the part of the story where the second floor of Elmdale High came down and buried us alive. Now, she needs to say something. Her face is blanched. 

“But...it can’t be real, can it?” It comes across as a kind of plea. “This kind of thing just doesn’t happen.”

Marina beats me to a response. She’s usually so blunt, but I think she has a soft spot for Madison. I’ve started thinking maybe they’re more than just friends, but I don’t know how to ask things like that. 

“Hey, Maddy,” she says, “it’s OK. Don’t get all worried about it. Probably it’s something caused by the epilepsy, right?”

This last is addressed to me, and I nod my head.

“See?” Marina continues. “And even if it’s...something else, we’ll just deal with it. Like we do.”

Marina’s words seem to have had the desired effect: Madison seems calmer. I’m not exactly persuaded, though: exactly how does Marina think we can “deal” with him? She doesn’t understand; she doesn’t know what he is. She can’t know, can’t realize what he is capable of.  But with Maddy barely able to handle the possibility of a demon, I know this isn’t the time to talk about it. Maybe we’ll find time later. So instead I just go along.

“Marina’s right, Maddy. No need to worry now about what might not even be.”

Janelle, who clearly isn’t playing by the “deference to Maddy” rules, interjects, “But you believe it’s a demon, don’t you, Carly?”

Sarah, mostly listening quietly online, adds, “Can it be a real demon? Like something actually from hell?”

The last thing I want here is to lie. Not to my friends. But I need to be careful for the time being. “Well, I believe it,” I say, then quickly add, “but I’m the epileptic mental case who may have imagined the whole thing in the first place.”

I laugh, and they join me. Diffused. 

Good timing, too: Mom knocks on my door to let us know the pizza is here. So we say goodnight to Sarah and out we pile and down to the kitchen. Well, they do; I stay behind to change before following them, calling out for them not to eat all of the pepperoni.

This pizza is infinitely better than the cafeteria stuff,” Janelle is saying as I enter the room and grab a slice. “Is it Dino’s?”

“Yep,” I mumble through my full mouth, bringing glares from Mom. “We found Dino’s like the week we moved in. First, we couldn’t believe someone out here made good deep dish. Then we discovered that the thin crust is to die for too.”

“Dino’s is the best,” says Maddy, stuffing half a slice of sausage into her mouth.

Marina smiles at her and then turns to me. “You probably thought you’d have to eat pizzas with like goat cheese and endive when you came to California.”

I laugh. “Not far from the truth, I admit. We actually had a farewell dinner at Lou Malnatti’s. But it turned out to be unnecessary.”

Mom smiles, admiring a slice with veggies. “I actually like the Cali pizza too—maybe not goat cheese and endive—but nothing beats the real stuff.”

No one answers, but the fact that we’re all stuffing our faces is probably answer enough.

###

Madison, by some stroke of fortune, is the first one to fall asleep, and I quietly invite the others to join me in the living room.

“She was so nervous,” I say, “that I didn’t want to talk about this before, but I think we do need to proceed on the possibility that it’s real.”

Both Janelle and Marina nod in agreement. Marina says, “Actually I think that’s more likely than the other.”

“Why?” Janelle asks.

She shakes her head. “A feeling, maybe? And the fact that it’s been going on in one way or another so long? I mean you could have had the epilepsy long before you were injured by those bricks, I guess, but still…”

“Yeah, I know,” I tell her. “My mom and I both feel that way too. It would be wonderful if we discover that it’s all in my head. I think I’d rejoice. But it just...feels real. And if it wants to target me, well, that makes me afraid for you guys.”

Marina seems pensive, but Janelle’s eyes flare black. “Fuck that!” she says. “You’re our friend, and we’re not letting you take this thing on alone.”

“You don’t know what it can do. Hell, I don’t know what it can do.”

Marina interrupts me. “We know this much: it can infest your mind; it can knock over a school; it can manifest itself; it is vile and hateful and evil; it must be destroyed.”

“Amen,” says Janelle. “I’m saying that for Sarah, ‘cause she’s not here.”

I feel tears running down my cheeks. I’ve never had friends before. Not like this. Not friends who would fight a demon for me. “I don’t even know how to defeat it,” I tell them.

“We’ll think of something,” comes a voice from the stairs, and we all turn to see Maddy standing there.

Marina rushes to her. “Maddy! I’m sorry! We thought you were asleep.”

“I know,” she says. “And it’s fine. I get it. You wanted to protect me. But I can’t let my fear control me: Carly’s the one who needs protection.”

Now all of us are with her; it’s a group hug. I don’t know who says it first, but in seconds we all are: CJM&Ms. We all know what a horrible acronym it is, but it’s like a bond: we’re together in some deeper way than a normal friendship. We’ve only taken a few weeks to reach this point; I have no clue how it’s happened. In my life, anyway, it’s unprecedented.

###

The Venice Beach boardwalk is one of the strangest places I have ever been, not that growing up in the midwest has exposed me to a whole lot of world-class weirdness. But still. It’s maybe a mile and a half long and, on a sunny Saturday, so crowded with tourists and crazy vendors and people who just seem to be here to drink in the “vibe” that I’m not quite sure even what to make of it except that half an hour here and I already know that there is probably nowhere on earth like it and probably nothing on earth that you can’t buy here.

It took all of ten minutes before a rasta-hat wearing, deeply Island-accented man stopped me and asked, “You like music, girl?” He pronounced it as if the vowel were German: “Goel” as in “Goethe.” Not knowing better, I said I did and was immediately trapped: he was one of dozens of such people, as it turns out, wandering the Walk selling copies of CDs of music they claim is their own (but who knows?). $10 and a CD in hand later, I had learned a valuable lesson: I already knew to be far more careful here. And I have been: it’s been two hours since, and the only money I’ve spent has been on drinks to cut the heat. I’m wearing a hat, but God it’s hot today, even with an ocean breeze.

Mom is Somewhere doing Something. She told me when she dropped me off (so rare that she does things like that these days, but so appreciated) where I should meet her at noon for lunch. Meanwhile, I’ve been hunting. My goal, of course, isn’t something I can find in any straightforward way. I need a magic tutor, someone to teach me to wield Magic against the demon. Serious Magic. The kind you might stick an extraneous “k” onto the end of. And it’s not as if I can just wander into a shop and find someone: even here there are things that keep to the shadows.

So it’s been a morning of reconnaissance. And people watching. To be honest, maybe a bit more of the latter than the former, but maybe that’s to be expected for my first time here? Seriously: people here are so intensely unusual. Forget the various unnatural colors of their hair; that isn’t even a good starting point for this place. Maybe modes of transportation? Most walk, of course, but I saw some skateboarders, some people on those stupid rolling “hoverboards,” adults wearing heelies, a segway, someone pulling someone else in a wagon, even a unicycle. (I have no clue how much of this is allowed; it is just here.) And there are the physiques: this is California, the land of beautiful people. And of course there are loads of those: the chiseled boys and the actress/model girls. But there are also the others. Take all of the bodies you might find scattered on a fairly crowded beach on a hot day and then jam them onto a wide sidewalk: that’s the Boardwalk. See, they come for both the nearby beach and the Boardwalk, and many of them don’t really differentiate sartorially between the two, if you catch my drift. So it’s not always a pretty sight.

But beyond the badly attired tourists, there are the entertainers: fire-breathers, musicians, people making jewelry, a couple of men breaking into some street theatre as I walk past them, a dude with some Beatles puppets performing: all sorts of people! And the musicians too are so varied: folky guitarists, a Jim Morrison clone, someone who might actually be Jewel for all I know (my Mom loves her and this woman is a dead ringer), a guy who actually brought a freaking piano here with him, a rapper, the aforementioned rasta reggae bunch, and others. Small crowds gather around most of them; I feel genuinely sorry for the ones who don’t draw. 

I’m caught up in all of the madness, but I don’t completely lose track of my goal; I keep my eyes open for any sign of anyone who might help me. All morning long, though, there has been nothing. A handful of head shops I think might take me somewhere turn out that the only place they could take me was for a long, crazy ride into zonerland. Places that make dreamcatchers don’t seem to do much more in terms of understanding even Native American magic, let alone what I’m looking for. And the many shops and carts with skulls and other Day of the Dead type paraphernalia that I think look so promising turn out to be so commercial that they’re probably all owned by one nerdy guy in San Diego. Bottom Line: as noon gets closer, I’m no closer to finding anyone.

Mom will be at the little restaurant soon, and it will take a good fifteen minutes to get there, so I decide to give up for now and start walking back, but something catches my eye. It’s a little orange cart tucked so tightly between more ostentatious carts that I almost miss it. I swear there was nothing here when I passed by before; the little black woman running it must have just arrived. She sits behind her wares twisting something into braids while I look at the fairly eclectic set of artifacts atop her display, trying not to give away too clearly what caught my attention, which were three things: some dried flowers, among which I recognized hensbane and wolfsbane, various crystals, and some medallions featuring runic images. All of these are strong Wiccan symbols, but that doesn’t necessarily mean she is a practitioner or that she actually knows the kind of magic I need to learn.

Tentatively, I lift one of the medallions, one I had never seen before. It has the rune algiz, the elk—which looks sort of like a fairly stark coat tree with only two arms—in the center, and is surrounded by concentric circles in which are written many other runic letters. The woman behind the cart stops what she is doing. I examine the medallion, which doesn’t seem to have been made recently, unless she gives it that “ancient” look to enhance its value. She’s looking at me now, her expression inscrutable but maybe...concerned?

“Dat one is very pohrful,” she says.

I look up. Feigning ignorance, I say, “This? Just looked...pretty.”

She shakes her head. “No. You know better.” And she fixes me with deep eyes and adds, “You’ve seen.”

Then she returns to her braiding.

I have no idea how to react to this. How does she know? What does she know? Still holding the medallion, I lean a bit inward, toward where she sits. 

With speed she had not betrayed before, she puts her braiding down, grabs the dried flowers I noticed when I arrived, and says, “You need dese too.”

I just stare. “What...what do you mean?” I ask.

“You know,” she says. “When it come again, you be ready. You need be ready.”

The whole encounter is starting to feel surreal, but I sense a dismissal coming so I go for broke. “I need a tutor,” I tell her. “Can you—”

“No,” she says as she bags the things she is selling me. “But you dohn’t need one. What you need is the knowledge of your haht.” She taps her chest, then hands me the bag. “Dohn’t seek a teacher here. You’ll find none.”

I’m shaking my head. “Who are you?”

She smiles. “I tink your mudder is waiting.”

I look down to pull out my phone and check the time, and when I look up again...she and her cart are both gone.

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