That is what the letter says, and what a thing to say too—but I know they’re words that can never leave my mouth. But this letter …
I take the journal and wrap it carefully in the best wrapping paper I can find, in the bedroom with the Christmas decorations and my mother’s collection of cards. The white wrapping paper has a golden trim, and my mom would use this for Easter presents. I fold the corners of the paper around the journal just the way my mother taught me, and I hide the gift in a pocket in my bag.
Early the next morning, I end up being the first one in my classroom, breeze making goose bumps pop up all over my skin. I take out the journal and slip it right into the hollow of Kalinda’s desk, next to her collection of erasers and used staples. Then I sit at my desk and wait.
I might as well be waiting for the death squad, I’m so scared. My hands won’t stop shaking, so I hide them in my lap. I almost go to Kalinda’s desk to take the present back three times. But then Marie Antoinette and another of Anise Fowler’s friends come into the room, and I know that if they see me taking the present, they’ll only accuse me of stealing something that belongs to Kalinda, and there would be a big drama I could do nothing about, and they would give the gift back to Kalinda anyway, and nothing would have changed, so I might as well leave it exactly where it is.
Kalinda walks into the room, head as high as ever, taking her time smiling and greeting everyone in the room. She leaves me for last, but I know it’s only because she has the most to say to me. She takes someone else’s seat beside me and takes my hand and tells me that I would never believe what has happened.
“My aunt Hortensia marched outside in the dead of night to scream at the accordion player, and she tripped over me as I was sleeping out on the front steps, and so now both my father and my father’s sister are absolutely livid. What a turn of events. I never would have expected this to happen.”
Throughout the whole story I’m nothing but selfish, because I want her to go to her desk and find my gift to her. It’s like I’ve lost my voice, and her opening that journal is the only way I’ll ever have it back. I don’t know what she’ll say once she finds it. She might laugh at me. She might tell me I’m being silly. She might decide to never speak to me again. I remember the disgust she had for the two white women holding each other’s hands, and I think to myself that I’m a fool to ever hope Kalinda could have a different reaction for me. Kalinda squeezes my hand and gives me my smile and only leaves my side when Missus Wilhelmina marches into the classroom.
I’d already learned by now that I could try to come up with every possible outcome, positive or negative, and try to account for every scenario that’s currently playing in the infinite number of universes, and no matter what fate would find an outcome that I hadn’t been expecting at all. Kalinda doesn’t notice the present for the entirety of the class period with Missus Wilhelmina. She stands up for recess without the smallest glance. She looks over her shoulder at me impatiently, and so I hurry to follow her outside into the hot sun. We sit in the shade of the barren mango tree, not speaking at all about the ghosts or demons or spirit world that may or may not exist, even though I know this must be in the back of her mind as much as it is mine. Perhaps we’re only giving each other a break—a chance to pretend my journey into the spirit world will not happen—and we’ll be able to live happily ever after.
And when we come back in from recess a few minutes early just so we can get out of the sun, in Anise Fowler’s hand is the journal, out of its wrapping paper, open in the palm of her hand like a Bible, the hyenas crowded around her while she reads her scripture. She reads something, whispering with a grin spread across her face, and the hyenas split into an uproarious screaming fit of laughter. Then they quiet again and listen to Anise’s whisper, and the laughter breaks out once more.
I stand still, my heart pounding to the beat of a death march. Boom. Boom. Boom. Kalinda looks at me, putting her hand on the side of my arm, shaking it and asking me something, but I don’t know what, because all I can hear is that boom against my chest. Heat fills my eyes, but before it spills over and runs all down my face, I wipe them against the side of my arm and turn to her quick. “Let’s go back outside,” I tell her.
“But the bell is about to ring. Missus Wilhelmina—”
“Let’s find my mom now.”
“Now?”
“Right now.”
“It’s not the eclipse.”
“There has to be another way.”
Kalinda looks frozen, like she doesn’t know what to say. “Are you all right, Caroline?”
At the sound of my name, the hyenas transform into wolves, spinning in their seats. Anise gently closes the journal, done with reading her scripture for the day.
“Caroline Murphy,” she says.
Kalinda looks to me. “What’s going on?” she whispers.
“Caroline Murphy,” Anise says again.
“You should take a step away from her,” one of the hyenas says. It’s clear that she’s speaking not to me but to Kalinda.
Kalinda looks to me and to the journal Anise is holding. She’s already putting two and two together.
“You know what she thinks about you?” Anise says. The
