Can We Agree That Battle Scars Suck?
“We stole the fortune-teller’s kid. Right in front of her eyes too!” The blonde woman with the twigs in her hair seemed to barely contain her excitement. She paced the traveling RV, rehashing what had occurred on the street. It was the ultimate sleight of hand, a dozen witnesses missing every important detail. The plan had been for Garrett to nab me while everyone was paying attention to her. She was wild and bruised—the kind of person people couldn’t ignore as she searched for her non-existent missing child. She’d tricked my mother, my father, and all the people who loved me into averting their eyes for a fraction of a second.
“Wasn’t I a good actress, Garrett?” The woman kneeled behind the driver’s seat of the RV, pleading for reassurance with her honey eyes. Garrett had a fat cigar crushed between his teeth, the smoke and its accompanying aroma swirling inside the cabin. He smiled into the rearview mirror, his yellowed, decaying teeth sending a brand-new chill down my spine.
I hadn’t had time to scream. The man had snatched me so quick. It wasn’t until after the fact when I realized what had happened. By then, I had no way to alert my mom and dad and little sisters that I was being taken. A whimper escaped my lips, saltwater spilling from my eyes, as my hands dug at the foam of the small booth seat. The woman turned toward me, extending her hands forward to trap my face in between their span. Her long, brittle nails tapped against my temples.
“Don’t cry, child,” she cooed, her thumbs wiping away a few of my tears. “We saved you from the bad witch lady.” The woman smiled proudly at her triumph. She was missing a tooth—an incisor. Half her face was layered with bruises, new and old. The clothes she had on didn’t match the season—a tank and cutoffs in late October. Her breath smelled like a mixture of candy and cigarettes.
I pressed myself against the wall, the chains around my ankles clinking with the movement.
“I want my mommy,” I whimpered. I was only five. My mom was my whole world. My monthly voyage to kindergarten was the only thing to separate us.
The woman frowned, my plea igniting a sudden darkness in her eyes I hadn’t noticed before. Her grip around my head tightened—my bones felt as though they were being crushed under the pressure. Gritting her teeth, she addressed the man. “This child is evil, Garrett! I thought he was supposed to be different from the others.”
Evil? I tried to pull away from her grip, but she was holding on too tightly. I couldn’t be evil. I’d heard the stories of the devil, o Beng, who struggled against God, o Del, to reign over our lives. Mom had taught me about our religion. Dad had brought me to church. Our house had rules to maintain the balance of our dueling deities. If we strayed from those rules, we would experience the consequences of bad karma, or prikaza, and our ancestors would dish out punishment. Had I done something to allow the devil into my life? Was I now unclean? Were my ancestors punishing me?
Garrett took a long drag from his cigar, unsurprised by the woman’s assumption. He breathed the smoke out without coughing, answering the woman calmly. “They’re all evil. That’s why we take them. They’re the spawn of the devil. We can’t let them mature, or they will end us all. The world as we know it will cease to exist.”
Hot tears flew down my cheeks. Had my mom not burned all my hospital clothes to please our ancestors after their last punishment landed me in that unclean place? Surely she had missed something. Maybe my punishment hadn’t been big enough. Maybe I was truly marime this time—cursed and unclean, evil, as Garrett had said. How easy it was to fall to o Beng.
The woman let go of my face, pouting. “I wanted him to be different.” She glanced at me scornfully. “He’s so cute. I want to keep him.”
Garrett roared with anger at her admittance. “He is evil! He must die!” The RV swerved a little on the road. A car honked. The woman cringed before stalking to the back and folding into herself on the floor. She didn’t say another word as she tugged at the loose strings of the carpet. I wanted her to keep pleading with him, to convince him I’d already paid my price. I didn’t have to die. I’d be good this time—stay clean by living Rromanija. It was no use, though. I knew I’d fail.
Garrett didn’t stop driving until we reached the woods. The brakes squealed as he slowed the vehicle to a stop, yanking the transmission into park. He tugged at a curtain behind the driver’s seat until it covered the width of the RV, removing all the front windows from my sight. I heard him leap into the colder air of the autumn night, losing track of him until the side door flew open to reveal his full frame. He half smiled, half grimaced, studying me with hungry eyes. My heart leaped into my throat at the sight, unsure of exactly how he planned to kill me. The woman in the corner shut her eyes as he yanked the door closed behind him. He loosened his belt as he lunged at me, my scream lost in the forest to anyone who might’ve cared.
Someone was shaking me, my name echoing from a distance. My screams soon changed from the shrill, high-pitched tone of my childhood into the deeper sound of my teenage cries. In less than a second, I was upright, sweat slicking my skin. My eyes burned from the sudden influx of light, my lungs heaving wildly as I gasped in lungfuls of air, trying to rid my senses of Garrett’s haunting acidity. My mom was standing at my bedside, her caramel eyes wide with worry.
“It’s a nightmare, Bradley,” she whispered, shaking my arm. I flinched from her touch, dropping my face into my hands. It was the ninth anniversary of my kidnapping, and although I had only spent two days with Garrett and the woman, my brain forgot sometimes that I wasn’t still there, being punished for whatever evil I had done to deserve such a fate. It had been so long, yet still as I grew older, I knew more. I understood more. I think the memories might’ve hurt more too.
“I don’t want to go to school today,” I mumbled. I didn’t ask, just stated my desire, knowing my mom would go along with whatever I wanted. Halloween was when I was given the most control of my day, even when I felt I had lost it all. Mom and I held horrible memories of that fateful holiday. Her guilt was often palpable. On many occasions, she had tried to take the blame for what happened—tried to blame it on her own marime—the uncleanliness she’d taken upon herself when she married my dad. He wasn’t Romani. He didn’t take on much of her culture when they officially united. After I was kidnapped, Dad tried to stamp the idea of marime out of our household. I always thought it was because he was selfish and unwilling to change, but after all these years and after all we had been through, maybe he had a point. Marime was as hurtful to our family as my dad’s belief in sin and a punishing God. Our constant bad luck either meant we’d challenged our ancestors into a constant state of retaliation or we’d become so sinful that God had to punish us with more darkness. Either way, I’d given up on pleasing any of them years ago.
Mom tugged absentmindedly at the end of my navy fitted sheet. “Does an omelet sound good to you?”
I shrugged, rubbing my eyes. “I’m not hungry.”
“You need to eat,” she protested.
There was a long pause before I dropped my hands from my face. “Fine.”
Lately, she’d been cracking down on managing my diabetes—the disease my doctor diagnosed me with shortly before Garrett had taken me. I had a bad habit of ignoring my symptoms to the point of needing medical attention. Not that I didn’t care. It was more like I didn’t want to have to care.
She left before I glanced at the clock—almost six in the morning. The house would be quiet for a few more minutes. I could already hear my twelve-year-old sister, Paige, shuffling around next door.
I forced a shiver, shaking my limbs in an attempt to rid the nightmare from my thoughts. Can it be called a nightmare if it actually happened? My life was more of a living nightmare.
What I hadn’t realized then was that Garrett wasn’t referring to evil little boys who broke from Rromanija. He believed all children of the divine were devil’s spawn. He knew we would develop powers as we matured, believing we would bring an end to the universe. He wasn’t the only one to genuinely believe this, but I had remained naive to the sheer amount of hate that existed toward the diviners until recently. I’ve had several near-death experiences, but the ones starring neo-Nazis were the worst by far. It turned out that a group called the New Order had been targeting me for a while. When Garrett failed to kill me as a powerless child, the target on my head seemed to grow bigger. My family was relatively safe from them while we lived in the Chicago area, but the second we moved to Indianapolis at the beginning of August, we became targets again. It took the New Order a month to execute their plan, somehow using me and my marime to bring our defenses down. Several of us barely made it out alive.
I made my way downstairs as the unmistakable scent of eggs wafted through the downstairs entryway. Sliding onto a bar stool in the kitchen, I watched as the eggs quickly changed from their liquid form to a mountain of yellow fluff. Mom loves to cook. I could have sworn it was pretty much the only thing she’d done since we moved to Indianapolis. She’d had so much free time with us kids in school that I think she was bored. When we lived in New Mexico and, later, the Chicago suburbs, Mom ran a fortune-telling business out of our home. She’d gained an entire community of loyal but curious clients. She hadn’t been able to do that in Indianapolis, though. It wasn’t a safe enough space. We had to keep a low profile to avoid drawing unwanted attention to ourselves.
I ate my omelet in silence as the rest of the family got ready for work and school. My eight-year-old brother, Blake, was upset that the schools in Indy didn’t do anything to celebrate Halloween. Since Mom and Dad never allowed him to go trick-or-treating, the school’s Halloween party was usually his only chance to dress up and collect candy.
“Rebecca is an artiste,” Paige said, smiling as she pronounced the i like a long e. She gestured to her own face, the entire left side coated in swirls of paint. Our ten-year-old sister, Rebecca, had re-created an elaborate work of art. It was very Van Gogh-esque. If I hadn’t known my sister to be unusually talented with a paintbrush, I would have thought it was professionally done. It was impressive. Too bad the paint would be a direct dress code violation.
Mom frowned, although I could sense a hint of pride in her eyes. “I really don’t feel like answering any phone calls from your principal today.”
Paige crossed her arms in defiance. “I’m not taking it off.”
Mom brushed a few strands of Paige’s dark hair behind my sister’s shoulder. Pursing her lips, she nodded wearily. “I know.” Out of all of us, I think Paige is the most stubborn. Once she makes up her mind, it’s tough to talk her out of it. Mom could probably already see she wouldn’t, the call from her principal ringing in a vision. Mom could really see the future—her business wasn’t all a sham. It would be a shame for Paige to have to wipe the paint off.
Mom’s refusal to argue with Paige struck a chord of envy inside Blake. “Not fair!” He stomped his foot. “If she gets to wear face paint, I get to wear a costume!” It was a fair assessment, but he was fighting a losing battle.
Dad cleared his throat from behind me, and I flinched at the unexpected noise. “Sorry, Brad,” he apologized, his hand resting on my left shoulder. I shrugged it off. Dad never seemed to grasp the concept that I hated my nickname. Coupling it with physical contact was worse.
Before Dad could talk some sense into my brother, Blake turned to me, furious. “This is all your fault!”
I dropped my fork onto my plate, the metal clinking against the ceramic. Blake knew he was in trouble before Mom could sputter his full name out. “Blake Alec Chambers!” He was already rushing up the stairs.
Gripping the edge of the counter, I tried to keep myself from doing the same as my brother. Frank, my mentor who also happened to be the school resource officer, had been working with me on fighting my impulse to run from my problems. I’d been doing it for too long, and it was hindering my progress. I’d also made a promise to my girlfriend, Savanna, that I would at least try to break my habit of running off when conversations got tough.
Mom tried to meet my gaze, but I couldn’t reciprocate, not when I was focusing all my energy on staying put. “This is not your fault,” she tried to reassure me.
I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t keep sitting there. It was too hard. Not with Dad and Mom and Paige staring at me. I tried to make a run for it, but Dad was ready, throwing his arms around me to lock me in place. “Your mother and I would appreciate it if you stayed where one of us could see you.” So much for getting what I wanted out of the day. I gritted my teeth. Blake was right. This was my fault. Because of me, he couldn’t be a kid—a normal kid, anyway. Our youngest brother, Jesse, who died from an inoperable heart tumor earlier in the year, never got to go trick-or-treating either. Paige and Rebecca didn’t remember going, although they had before I ruined the tradition. It wasn’t fair to them to miss out. There’d been complaints before, but nobody had truly challenged the rule. They understood our parent’s reasoning.
“You should take him,” I whispered. Mom and Dad looked at each other. I could tell they were debating the pros and cons. I tried to relax, feeling my heart rate slow, beat by beat. Dad was still holding me against him. He didn’t need to do that anymore. I wasn’t going to run. Attempting to outweigh the cons, I continued. “Savanna can take him. I’m sure she’ll be up for it. Or any other diviner, really. If you can get Rebecca to go, I’m sure they’ll stay safe. They can stay close by in the neighborhood.” We didn’t live in such a bad neighborhood.
“No,” Mom answered with finality.
Dad pulled away. “Think about this, Clarinda.”
She shook her head vehemently. “No. I can’t watch both boys at the same time. I can’t worry where Blake is every second of the night and still keep an eye on Bradley.”
“Mom.” I groaned. “I’m fine.” She didn’t need to watch me. What did she think I would do? I had learned my lesson from the year before—no alcohol.
“Don’t lie to me.” Mom jabbed her finger at me, her voice crackling with the fresh onslaught of tears. I can’t stand it when people cry. Their tears throw me into a sense of helplessness. I want to make them stop, but I don’t know how. My throat burned from trying to hold my tears back.
“Rin.” Dad rounded the island counter to comfort Mom. He has a thing for nicknames, but I think my mom’s the only one who likes hers.
I really wasn’t going to drink or, for that matter, do anything stupid. I wasn’t sure where I could get a hold of anything, anyway. It wasn’t like Mom or Dad had a liquor cabinet. Besides, drinking hadn’t ended well for me last time. The memory of that night was probably what was fueling Mom’s anxiety.
Paige cleared her throat, tapping at an invisible watch on her wrist as Rebecca popped into view.
“I gotta take the kids to school,” Dad mumbled, kissing the top of Mom’s head. She sniffled but let him go. As he reached for his briefcase, he shouted at the ceiling. “Blake! Let’s go!”
Mom wiped the tears from her cheeks. “Let him stay.” She sighed. “Maybe we’ll go to the candy store or something.”
“Ooh, get some Milk Duds!” Paige shouted as they hustled out the door.
“Don’t we already have candy?” I asked, glad for the subject change. I craned my neck to see into the dining room where two large bowls and six bags of assorted candy were taking up space.
Ignoring my question, Mom drummed her fingers on the countertop, her lips pressed tightly together. She stayed like that for a while, her eyes focused elsewhere. My stomach dropped. She wasn’t going to let anything go. I’d be trapped with her and her anxious fumes all day.
