Chapter I: memento mori

“Yeah, she killed him.”

“Like, actually killed him?”

“Well, she was there when it happened.”

“That girl, over there? She’s so pretty though!”

“No, the one next to her, with the choppy blonde hair. Like, yikes.”

“Oh. Her.”

Their damning whispers carried across the sullen aisle, across the rows of worn wooden pews, across the huddled shoulders, across the bowed heads, to my scarlet red ears. They burned on either side of my scarlet red face. I blinked back tears. Not sad tears. Tears of humiliation, frustration.

A voice from a pulpit at the front of the chapel was monotone and grating.

“Let us join hands across the aisles in prayer.”

No one grabbed my hand.

“Let us pray.”

I had never prayed.

“Let us join in remembrance over the loss of our own child, so young to be called back home.”

He wasn’t a child. He was an evil clone.

“Let us lift our hearts in song.”

I had never lifted my heart in anything, I don’t think, but I did as the good preacher requested. Or demanded. I raised my head as the mourners stuttered through a hymn. I caught a flash of something sparkly out of the corner of my eye. I turned my head toward where the voices came from. Of course it was them. Of course they were decked out in shimmery, black sequined dresses. What else would they wear to a funeral?

I made the mistake of making eye contact with one of them.

Her beautifully crimsoned lips mouthed one word as her darkly lined eyes stared hard into mine:

“Murderer.”

I didn’t think. I just left. My heartbeat pounded loudly in my ears, drowning out the strained hymnal lyrics and my muttered apologies as I lamely shuffled past tightly packed mourners – stepping on feet and purses – from my accidentally central spot on an impossibly long pew.

“…lead, kindly light, lead thou me on …” the hymn droned loudly as mismatched voices echoed high into the coffers.

“…keep thou my feet, I do not ask to see…”

My vision blurred, but I think I only had three more sets of feet to navigate until I reached the end of the pew.

“Sorry,” I shuffled, “Sorry,” I was almost free! “Sor—”

“Eve?” a familiar female voice stopped me in my tracks.

“Sorry, I – just, sorry.”

My voice caught in my throat. I didn’t expect to see Ms. Neally there. But it made sense a teacher would be at a funeral for a student. Her hand gently caught my shoulder, but over the chorus of forced singing, over my deafening heartbeat, my gasping breath, all I could focus on was that lipsticked word: Murderer.

I shrugged away from Ms. Neally’s kind warmth and pressed on. My knee hit the end of the old wooden pew hard. I don’t know how they heard that, but they must have, for their mocking giggles seemed to rise over the cacophony – the singing in the room and the buzzing in my brain and the pounding of my heart joining in horrid chorus.

That word banged repeatedly in my head.

Murderer.

Tears rolled down my cheeks. I sniffed; my nose was running.

Murderer.

My knee throbbed. My head hurt.

Murderer.

I half-limped, half-galloped down a foreign hall. I hadn’t ever been in a church. And I didn’t understand why I was there now. Not on a moral level, but on a practical one – the family wasn’t Christian. This wasn’t their church. This wasn’t their culture. They had already held their own private memorial, and this whole dumb show, complete with the principal and half the student body and even the mayor and even – my stomach flipped – even Ms. Neally, showed up as some sort of PR stunt.

Murderer.

I found a bathroom just in time. It smelled of talcum powder and peonies and old people. I flung a stall door open and vomited.

Murderer.

My body heaved and my knee screamed as I kneeled and expelled embarrassment and anger and frustration and corn flakes into that holy toilet.

Murderer.

Flush it away.

I pulled myself and stared into the mirror, comforted by the sound of that toilet. Finally, a familiar sound.

Murderer.

No. I am not.

Murderer.

I smoothed my hair. My hand caught in something at the nape of my neck. Gum. Someone had put gum in my hair. At a funeral.

I sighed.

Murderer.

No.

I splashed water on my face and straightened my shoulders.

Murderer.

I am not a murderer.

I am not a murderer.

I AM NOT A MURDERER.

I spit into the sink.

I stared into the mirror. I didn’t particularly care for my reflection just then – short blonde hair unevenly cut that framed my pale face and hid my too-large ears well enough – but it was something all my favorite characters did in books when in crisis. So, I stared.

I am not a murderer.

I am a dragonologist.

 *****************************************************************

The room wasn’t dim and gray, like you see in movies. A fluorescent tube hung unevenly against the ceiling and filled the small space with yellow light that made everyone’s skin the same sickening sallow tone. I wanted desperately to look through that two-way mirror, but it was to my left and I had no reason to face that way at the moment. The questions started easy enough. The skinny, pale one with JASPER on his smudged golden nametag led the conversation while the other one (I couldn’t see her nametag clearly) leaned back, arms folded, and loudly chewed pink gum.

“Where do you live?”

“You already know the answer to that.”

“Eve, maybe you should cooperate,” my mom whispered behind me.

“No helping the accused!” Jasper shot back.

“Um, that’s the alleged accused, sir, please,” a sweaty attorney I didn’t know coughed next to me.

“Where do you go to school?”

“You already know that, too.”

“Why were you at Joy Valley Bible Church today?”

“For a funeral. You know what.”

“So you knew the deceased pretty well, eh?”

“No. Not really.”

 “Then why show up? To evade suspicion?”

“Objection!” the sweaty attorney coughed again.

“This isn’t a court of law, friend. So, Evelyn, if you didn’t really know the kid, why be at the funeral?”

“That’s not my name.”

“Is it because you murdered him, and you found some sick fascination in seeing the kid laid out like that?”

“Dios mío, take it easy, Jasper,” the woman next to him finally spoke. She popped her gum loudly and settled back into her chair. “She’s only a kid. A wimpy, little nobody from the looks of it, but still only a kid.”

“Thanks,” I said dryly.

“Eve!” my mom hissed, “Be cooperative!”

“You, Evelyn, are accused of murder. You have no alibi, and all the evidence points to you.”

“You don’t even know my name, why would I believe anything you’re saying?” my voice was strong but my hands were shaking. Hell, my entire body was shaking. “Why would I believe you have ‘evidence’?” I drew air quotes with my fingers.

“Because of this,” Jasper said smugly, sliding a stack of papers across the table.

“This … this is my math homework,” I said, confused.

“Flip it over, vato.”

I frowned. The last time I was referred to as vato was when my fourth-grade nemesis Martin chose me last for kickball and yelled “apúrate, vato!” at me. Context clues told me it wasn’t chummy, then or now.

“Read it and weep!” Jasper said, clapping his hands. “That’s a to-do list for a funeral! Guilty!”

“Oh dear,” the sweaty attorney coughed. “This [cough] is really [cough, cough] not good. But she is allegedly guilty, let the record show.”

“Can I offer you a lozenge? I have peppermint and eucalyptus in my bag,” my mom spoke warmly.

“Hate ‘em,” he coughed.

I stared at the paper. It was, indeed, a to-do list for a funeral. A funeral for my dead frog, Hogwart. Complete with my sister singing “Amazing Grace” and my mom offering a eulogy before I laid him to rest in an Adidas shoebox I had painted to look like ferns, which had been his favorite plastic plant to sleep under. The beginning of an obituary was written at the bottom.

“Hogwart came into this world like most frogs,” I read aloud, “small, alone, wondering what his future beyond tadpoleship held.”    

“Dios mío,” the other cop sighed dramatically and got up from her chair. “I’m outta here. Jasper, she’s not a murderer.” She paused in front of me and put her hands in her pockets, still loudly smacking her gum. “She knows something, mmmhmmm, she knows something alright. But she ain’t gonna talk right now.”

“Dammit, Serrano, she is the murderer!” Jasper yelled and pounded his fist on the table.

“Please don’t refer to my child as a murderer,” my mom spoke up.

“That’ll be alleged child and alleged murderer,” the attorney coughed.

“She’s not allegedly my child, she’s only allegedly a murderer,” my mom countered.

“She won’t be alleged when I’m done proving she’s the murderer,” Jasper growled.

“That doesn’t even make sense,” my mom replied. “And honestly, she’s not a murderer!”

“Oh, she’s a murderer alright,” Jasper pounded his fist on the table again.

“She’s not your murderer, Pete,” Serrano piped in.

“Ahem, alleged murderer,” the attorney coughed again.

“I AM NOT A MURDERER!” I screamed.

Everyone stopped. Jasper leaned on his forearms on the table. Serrano blew a bubble and leaned her hip against the wall. My mom folded her arms and crossed her legs. The attorney coughed.

“I’m not a murderer,” I said again. “I’m a dragonologist.” I swallowed hard, uncertain what was going to come bubbling out of my mouth. “I’m an eighth grader. An old eighth grader. I – I’m nothing. I’m a dragonologist, ok? I like dragons. I draw them. I write dumb stories about them. That’s it. That’s all you need to know. I haven’t actually been to a funeral before today. And I cried when I forgot my English lit homework, and I blamed the tears on my dead frog. And he’s dead, by the way, because I accidentally stepped on him after I let him out. So yes, I did kill Hogwart.”

I finally broke down and sobbed.

“Oh, Eve, I’m so sorry,” my mom’s arm fell around me and she hugged me against her. “I didn’t know that’s how he died. What a thing to carry!”

The small room was quiet. The fluorescent light hummed. Angry voices sounded outside and carried down the hall. No one spoke. I felt like they were all listening to my sobs. My face burned red.

“What’s a … a, uh, dragon-all-oh-gist?” Jasper asked, holding a pen poised over a pristine notepad he had just taken out.

“Who’s Malcolm Derringer?” Serrano’s voice was cool and even. I looked up, blinking away tears.

“Malcolm? My … my therapist?”

“You know who needs therapy?” Jasper asked. “MURDERERS.”

My mom, faster than I’d ever seen her move before, lunged across the table and slapped Jasper across the cheek. He stared at her, eyes wide with shock. She stared back, eyes equally wide with shock. She slowly stepped backward and stumbled against her chair. It creaked loudly.

“You cannot strike an officer of the law!” he gasped.

“Allegedly strike,” coughed the attorney.

“You’ll regret that later,” Serrano spoke coolly again. “But I think he needed that.” She turned to the attorney, sweaty and coughing even more. “And I don’t think you know what that word means.”

Jasper scowled and rubbed his cheek as he rocked his jaw side to side.

“Tell her she can’t do that, that I’m adding it to the list of allegations,” he whispered loudly. Serrano waved him off. Holding his cheek with one hand, Jasper carefully wrote something down on his notepad and made a point to underline it several times.

“Now,” Serrano walked back over to her chair and sat down. “Tell us what you talk about with Malcolm.”

“Um, I don’t think, that is,” I fidgeted, uncomfortable, until I saw my mom’s earnest gaze. She nodded encouragingly at me. “Well, Malcolm is my therapist because I have really bad anxiety. And what we talk about isn’t relevant here.” My mom gave me a smile and thumbs up. “And it’s not any of your business, anyway. You don’t need to know that he’s awesome, or that we usually just talk about music, and specifically about how the Beatles circa-1965 are the superior Beatles.”

“I like the ’67 Beatles,” coughed the attorney, this time taking out an embroidered yellowed handkerchief and loudly blowing his nose.

“Too psychedelic,” I countered.

“What’s this,” Serrano cut me off, pointing out a series of illustrations on my schoolwork. “You in a gang? You know something about the Draco Boys?”

“What? The who?” I grabbed the papers from her and shuffled them. “These,” I said impatiently, “are doodles.”

“Doodles?” Serrano repeated.

“Doodles,” I said.

“And they’re brilliant, Eve!” my mom chimed in.

“Enough of this. Where’s the father?” Jasper asked as she stretched his arms overhead. His cheek was bright red.

“Alleged father, sir, if you [cough, cough] please.”

“Dammit, Jasper, I know you did not just dismiss talking to women in favor of a man,” Serrano glared at him.

“I really wish you’d take this lozenge. They’re organic!”

“If my dad were here,” I frowned and stopped talking. Scratch that. If I knew who my dad was, or is, I like to think I’d have him at my side, throwing zingers at Jasper and confounding Serrano. But that’s where it gets complicated. I overheard a conversation a few years back wherein my mom divulged that I am the product of a sperm donor. I had been romanticizing something quite different that left me heroically fatherless. Then I learn that my mom basically threw a dart that landed on Sample 04238 a little over 15 years ago. That’s how she described him. A sample. I cleared my throat. “I came from a sperm donor. My mom felt bad when I found out and she gave me stuffed dragon. I named him Bartholomew and he has been my companion for the past six years. And Bartholomew,” I threw the stack of carefully shuffled papers back at them, “is who you’re scrutinizing.”

Serrano and Jasper both crossed their arms and leaned into each other, whispering furiously.

“What else do you need to know? You’ve cracked the case on my anxiety, my dead frog, my unknown father, my stuffed dragon,” I continued despite my mom’s concerned glance and the coughing attorney’s raised palm. “Do you need to know that I sometimes eat lunch in the library, and by library, I mean bathroom because Ms. Neally doesn’t allow food in the library? And, like, why would I ever willingly go into that vapid petri dish called a cafeteria? Do you need to know that I’m currently wearing two different socks?  Do you need to know that my mom thinks she can sing (she can’t, sorry Mom), or that my sister thinks she can’t sing (she can)? Or about Libby who makes fun of me every time – literally every time – my glasses start to slide down my nose during math class? You don’t need to know that because of that last fun fact, I rarely wear my glasses now and generally wander around just a teensy bit blind. Or that my backpack is down to one functioning zipper, or that I have too many freckles on one arm. Where do they all keep coming from, and why on just the one arm?!”

I was yelling now, hysterical, and at some point, I had stood up. I faced the two-way mirror. I don’t know if anyone was on the other side. But I could see the stunned looks of the four adults in the room behind me. My face reddened again. I cleared my throat and shifted nervously.

“Uh, er, who is Libby?” Jasper started.

“No one. She’s no one. You don’t need to know about her. You only need to know that I, Eve Gwendolyn Genevieve Archer – that’s my actual name, which you really ought to know – am a dragonologist. I draw dragons. And I kinda know everything about them. Big whoop. Who cares? I shouldn’t have been in that church – you got me. And … and I sure as hell shouldn’t be here. But I know where this started.”

Just then, the door slammed open. A smartly dressed man with a smart haircut and smart sunglasses strode in and dropped a business card on the table.

“We’re done here, yep,” he said evenly. He turned to me, stomped his foot and did a short bow. “Shall we go, then, yep?”

The attorney coughed and started to stand; the man put a palm on the attorney’s shoulder and pressed the sweaty, coughing body back down onto the heavy chair with a “nope.” Jasper started to reach for the card but Serrano swiped it up first.

“Kip?” she said. “What the hell is Kip? Hold up, how did it start then?” 

“It started,” I called over my shoulder as I followed Kip out of the room with my mom, “with a freaking math test.”