Be Not Afraid

One
The sinister thing about chaos is how quietly it begins. How slowly. There's no fanfare, no excitement. It trickles its way in like water through a hole, so silently that you might not even notice it's there. Until you realize that you are wet.
Shivering.
Drowning.

The evil leaked into St. Anselm High School silently. But on a Thursday during Lent, the dam broke loose, writhing, furious, demanding to be acknowledged. We'd already been directed to head to the auditorium for Mass. I shuffled along grudgingly with the rest of the herd, tucking my copy of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest inside the back of my skirt. There was a sudden jostling, followed by a shrill voice behind me.
"Excuse me, young lady! Young lady! The one with the book! Excuse me!"
I ducked my head as Sister Paulina's voice followed me, and I pushed my sunglasses up along the bridge of my nose. I knew she was addressing me, but I had no intention of giving her my book, even if she did outweigh me by at least seventy-five pounds, and even if she was the vice principal.
"Excuse me." The nun yanked me out of line, pulling me by the wrist. "Marin." Her prunelike face seemed to tighten even more at the recognition. "I know you heard me calling you." She reached around, snatching the book out of my waistband, and regarded the cover cryptically. "You know very well that you are not allowed to bring anything into services. Especially reading material that hasn't been cleared by the English department."
Even from behind my dark glasses, I could make out the wide orange band that ran the width of the woman's forehead. It pulsed at the ends, just above the temples, where a wiry piece of gray hair poked out beneath her wimple and then grew lighter in the middle. A nasty headache if I'd ever seen one. Maybe even the beginnings of a migraine.
I reached for my book, momentarily sympathetic. "I'm sorry. I'll put it away."
Sister Paulina held it up, just out of reach. "Actually, I think I'll keep it."
"But it's mine."
"I know it's yours." The nun's eyes disappeared into little slits. "And you will get it back. After the service."
"I promise I won't read it." I knew that it was futile to argue with her, that it would just make things worse. But I didn't care. The truth was, I needed the book. I couldn't go inside that auditorium, even with my sunglasses on, without something to distract my eyes from the hundreds, maybe even thousands, of different shapes and colors of pain I would see once I stepped inside.
"I know you won't read it. Because it will be in my possession." Sister Paulina paused for a moment, as if deciding what to say next. "You know, Marin, we've already made quite a few concessions for you here at St. Anselm's. At the very least, you could show a little gratitude by following the basic rules of the school."
Technically, I couldn't argue. She was right. Concessions had been made since I'd started my junior year at the new school this past fall. In exchange for Nan's nightly cleaning services at the school and Dad's assistance in rebuilding the roof on the new gym, my tuition had been reduced to almost nothing. And after Nan had gone to the principal, a short, dark-haired priest named Father Nickolas, and explained the whole "light sensitivity" problem with my eyes, he gave me permission to wear my dark sunglasses all day, in each of my classes. The explanation was a lie, of course; my eyes weren't sensitive to light. But my need to wear dark glasses was very real, since they dulled the sometimes blindingly sharp colors of the pain shapes I saw. I didn't know why I saw blots and orbs inside everyone who crossed my path, or what it meant that I could. The phenomenon had started a little over a year ago, and nobody could make any sense of it, especially me. But the dark glasses did make the overwhelming sight of them more bearable. It was something.
Still, I felt a flare of anger as Sister Paulina spoke. I resented that any allowances had been brought up, as if the nun wanted to make it clear that not only was my family in her debt, but also that it was an obligation that could never be repaid. This woman had no idea about the true depth of any of our sacrifices or what they meant to me. No one did.
"The concessions that Father Nickolas has made for my family," I said, my voice as tight as pulled string, "are between him and us."
Sister Paulina's upper lip twitched. "Us and him," she corrected. "And I don't think I like your tone. In case you need reminding, I work side by side with Father Nickolas. Whatever gratuities he extends to students, I am always consulted about first. If I take issue with something, it rarely goes through." She tapped the book against the heel of her palm to emphasize her words.
I glanced down at the movement and immediately wished I hadn't. Inside the nun's hands, I could make out a string of blue shapes. They wound their way in and around the tops of her knuckles and sped along methodically, like beads on a moving necklace. Arthritis. Nan had the same ones in her hands, although they were much bigger than these, and brighter blue. At night, after she returned from washing the floors at the school, they were so large and vivid that they looked like sapphires. I sat up with her on those nights, watching as she rubbed menthol-scented liniment along the length of her fingers until they faded to a dull turquoise color. It was the only thing that helped.
"Fine," I said. "Can I go now?"
"Yes, I think we're done here," Sister Paulina said. "You may go." There was an air of satisfaction about her, an unspoken sense that she had won the argument.
I stalked off, swallowing the ugly words that knocked against the back of my teeth. I hated adults like her, people who took pains to single someone out and then grind them under their heel for good measure. The old crow. I knew perfectly well that it was inappropriate to read a book during Mass, but I was also pretty sure that God would understand, considering the circumstances. She was lucky I even came to services at all, instead of hiding out in the boiler room like Meredith Wrigley and Olivia Sanders always did. I didn't even go to Mass outside of school anymore. Neither did Dad. Sunday-morning services were just another piece of our old life that we had dropped after moving here last summer from Maine, the meaning behind it lost now, and unimportant.
As I entered the auditorium, the sight before me was staggering, a galaxy of colors in every size and hue. It amazed me just how much pain people carried around every day. Everyone, it seemed, had something inside. The room thrummed under the weight of a thousand different-sized orange bands; yellow eggs; pink and purple and blue dots; and green half-moons, some of them clustered tightly together like grapes, others loose and floating like specks of dust. They swam and hovered and bumped inside bodies in every direction, each one an indication of some type of discomfort: a headache or a stomach virus, a sprain, a broken bone, a cavity, anorexic starvation, tiny cuts hidden under shirt sleeves, bruises, bleeding hangnails, rotting teeth, and eye infections. I could feel the breath catch in the back of my throat as I tried to take it all in, and a vague nausea began to rise from deep within my belly. Without my book, I would have no other choice but to sit there in the middle of it all, with my eyes closed, until Mass ended and we were dismissed.
"Marin! Over here!"
Off to the right, a tiny white arm shot up through the sea of colors like a flag. Relieved, I smiled and headed toward it. Thank God for Lucy Cooper, who, since taking a seat on the bus across from me a few months ago, had attached herself to me in the oddly desperate way I had hoped someone would. We were far from best friends. I held her at arm's length the way I did everyone else, but I liked her. She didn't belong to a clique, which already put her in another league all her own. From what I could tell, flying solo in high school meant one of two things: you were ahead of your time and had already developed the good sense not to get sucked in by all the high school drama, or you had at some point closed yourself off from everyone around you. I was starting to get the feeling that Lucy was more of the second type, which was fine by me, since I always stayed on the edge of everything, never quite bringing myself to attach to anyone or anything, and Lucy seemed like that too. Plus, she was funny. And a little bit weird, in a genuinely nice way. For example, she never went anywhere without some kind of candy, and she always had a tiny dental floss dispenser in her back pocket.
"Over here!" Lucy yelled again. "I got you a seat right on the end."
"Hey." I slid in next to her, glancing at the yellow blob inside her stomach, which, if I didn't know any better, looked like a bit of scrambled egg. It was fairly new, something I'd noticed only a few weeks ago, and seemed to get the slightest bit larger every time I saw it. I still wasn't sure what it was, but it didn't look like anything to worry about. "Thanks. I was just starting to freak out."
Lucy tilted her head to one side. "Marin. I told you on the bus that I'd save you a seat at Mass. And then I reminded you again at lunch. Don't you remember?"
I shook my head, grateful and embarrassed by Lucy's fretting. She had no idea about my ability to see pain, but she had also for some reason decided that I needed regular looking after, something she did with an inordinate attention to detail. Once, after I realized I had forgotten my lunch money, she not only paid for my meal, but also created an emergency lunch fund for future occurrences, keeping the $2.40 in a small ziplock bag inside her backpack. I'd had to use it twice.
"I brought crack," she whispered, dipping a hand inside her bag and withdrawing a package of strawberry Twizzlers. Lucy called all candy crack. "I have Tootsie Rolls, too, if you're not feeling the fruity vibe. Take as much as you want. Just don't make any noise opening it. And definitely don't let anyone see it."
I took a piece of licorice from the bag, taking pains not to crinkle the wrapper. Lucy's weight and shape made her look more like a ten-year-old than a fifteen-year-old, but as if in recompense for her size, she had been blessed with an unusually beautiful face. Her almond-shaped eyes were a deep shade of gray flecked with little bits of blue, and her skin was the color of cream. Offset with dark black hair that she wore in a different style every day, at times she looked more like a porcelain doll than an actual girl.
"Why are you so late getting here, anyway?" she asked. "I've been waiting for you for, like, ten minutes." Her hair was in two braids today, coiled into tight buns behind her ears, and I could see a small red disk in the back of her mouth. Cavity number three.
"Oh, Sister Paulina got ahold of me." I scowled. "She pulled me aside out there and read me the riot act."
"Sister Paulina?" Lucy's eyes got big. "Why? What'd you do?" Lucy had a weird fear of people in authority; people like nuns and priests practically made her hyperventilate. Sometimes I wondered if it had something to do with the fact that everyone looked so big to her.
"I didn't do anything. I was just reading one of my books on the way in, and she saw it and freaked." I bit the end of the Twizzler. "She's so annoying."
Lucy sank down close to me. "Well, you know how they all are about Mass. You gotta keep your eyes fixated on the altar the whole time or they'll wig out. Which reminds me." She pushed my hand with the licorice in it down between the seats. "Keep the crack out of sight."
I stiffened as a shriek of plastic laughter sounded over my left shoulder. The falseness in that voice was unmistakable, like an alarm going off in the middle of the room. My whole body tightened as Cassie Jackson drifted down the aisle, the edge of her skirt inches away from my elbow. I didn't look up, but I could feel her eyes boring into me, two drills in the side of my face. My heart pounded in my chest, the blood rushing to my ears. I'd only been here for a couple of months when she invited me over to her house. I'd gone hesitantly, as I barely knew her, and it hadn't ended well. Now I did everything possible to keep away from her, even taking crazy detours in the cafeteria and staying late after class so that I wouldn't run into her in the hallway. Still, just her presence, even from afar, could make the hair on the back of my neck prickle.
As Cassie drifted down the rest of the aisle, Lucy nodded knowingly and patted my arm. "She's gone," she whispered. "Don't worry."
"Where's she sitting?" I spoke through clenched teeth, not raising my head.
"She's down near the front. Pretty far away, actually." Lucy didn't know the details of what had occurred between me and Cassie, but the fact that Cassie was one of the most popular girls at St. Anselm's, combined with the vicious looks she continued to shoot my way, made things pretty obvious. She'd figured out quickly that, for one reason or another, Cassie Jackson was mortal enemy number one. It was just one more thing for her to worry about when it came to me.
The strains of piano music filled the room as Ms. Mattern, the music teacher, began to bang out a hymn. On cue, the students rose as one and started to sing the opening song.
"You shall cross the barren desert, but you shall not die of thirst; You shall wander far in safety, though you do not know the way."
I took a deep breath and braced myself. Ms. Mattern played this hymn without fail at every Mass, and each time, it threw me off guard. Once, a long time ago, I had loved this song, had let it sweep me up in its strands of golden hopefulness when Mom and Dad had made me go to church. The words themselves had felt like a bridge of some kind, or an invisible barrier holding me up, blocking all the ills of the world, all the bad things I knew were out there.