“Really? Cool.”
Iris picked up an orange M&M, thought about eating it, then changed her mind and set it carefully on her lap. She was glad that Mrs. Feathers was familiar with SPD. The fact that Iris’s neurodivergent brain scrambled sensory input, at times interpreting soft sounds as loud and loud sounds as unbearable… or making her averse to the slightest physical contact one day, then wanting to slam into furniture (or into other kids in the playground, when she was younger) the next… or being unable to tolerate the feeling of mashed foods in her mouth… was usually confusing and off-putting to those around her.
As Mrs. Feathers typed something else, her gaze drifted to Iris’s pendant.
“Is that a moonstone? It’s very pretty. You rarely see moonstones that color.”
Iris reached up and curled a fist around the smiley face, not to calm herself but to hide it from Mrs. Feathers, although it was a little too late for that, like un-eating an M&M. She was usually fine wearing her pendant openly, since people didn’t recognize the yellow gem (moonstones were usually more moon-colored). The fact that Mrs. Feathers had identified it was kind of unsettling, since moonstone could be associated with magic. (And, in Iris’s case, the association was correct.)
“Gosh, is that what it is?” Iris exclaimed, trying to sound surprised. “I always thought it was just some random stone. Mostly I just like the smiley-face part; it cheers me up.”
“Well, we all need that, don’t we? Whenever I’m having a sad or bad or mad day, this is what I look at to cheer me up.”
Mrs. Feathers picked up a framed photo and turned it around. A gray cat with a couple of bald patches was meatloafing on a couch. It had one milky blue eye and another that appeared to be scarred shut. In the background, a little golden kitten was curled up in a sleepy, furry puddle.
“These are two of my kitties. I found her”—Mrs. Feathers pointed to the gray one—“under a highway, badly injured. The vet wasn’t able to save the one eye, and she can barely see out the other.”
“Aww, poor kitty-cat.”
“She’s a strong girl, though. A survivor. I named her Loviatar.”
“Loviatar?” It sounded like one of Iris’s medications.
“Loviatar is the blind daughter of the Finnish god of death,” Mrs. Feathers explained.
“The god of… death?” Iris repeated, frowning. Why would someone want to name their cat after a death god’s daughter?
“Loviatar isn’t like her father. In the myth, she becomes a powerful shapeshifter and warrior. She also tries to steal the sun, moon, and stars. Of course, the only thing my Lovi tries to steal is my breakfast, lunch, and dinner, right off my plate. Same with my other pets.” Mrs. Feathers chuckled.
“LOL! I mean, that’s funny!”
“Does your family have pets, Iris?”
“Yup. My little sister has a pet mouse, Lolli McScuffle Pants, and my little brother has a hamster named Hulk. They’re new, we just got them from the Sorrow Point SPCA, I bet you didn’t know you could get non-cat and non-dog pets from there? We’ve also had Oliver P. and Maxina for a while; my parents adopted them from a cat rescue place on the Upper West Side. That’s in New York City. Let me tell you, they were not happy about the cross-country relocation thing.”
“Why did your family decide to move here?”
“After my dad died—that was in May, so basically four months ago—there wasn’t a lot of money. Not that we ever had a lot of money but there was even less, like my mom wasn’t sure how we were going to pay the rent or buy groceries. New York’s crazy-expensive. So my grandma Roseline, she’s my mom’s mom, said we should move out here and live with her in her house, and Mom could work at her restaurant—Café Papillon. Do you know it? It’s part diner and part art gallery and part bead shop. On Orchard Street next to the tattoo place? Anyhoo, so Mom and Nyala and Ephrem and I, and Oliver P. and Maxina, we packed up and moved here. Yay.”
Iris twirled her finger in the air, then stopped abruptly.
“Gah! Sorry, no offense! I am such an idiot! I’m sure Sorrow Point is super, super cool. I’m just not used to it. It feels, well, foreign. Which is a dumb thing to say because it’s not foreign, it’s still the same country.”
“That’s tough about your dad,” Mrs. Feathers said softly. “My father died at a young age, too, so I know what it’s like to suffer that kind of loss.” She blinked and pinched the bridge of her nose.
Was Mrs. Feathers about to cry? Iris had never seen a teacher cry. Although technically Mrs. Feathers wasn’t a teacher but a social worker. Same difference, though.
“I’m sorry about your dad,” Iris murmured.
“Thank you.”
“Death really sucks.”
“Yes, it most definitely does.”
Now Iris wanted to cry. She pinched the bridge of her nose, hard, wondering if this was a stopping-tears trick. Hmm. It worked, sort of. Although now her nose hurt.
The bell rang, signaling the end of second period. Iris tried to remember what came after study hall. Oh yeah, French.
“Okay, well, merci beaucoup!” She picked up her backpack and jumped to her feet. As she did, the orange M&M that had been sitting on her lap fell to the floor and rolled under a bookshelf. “Argh! My M&M!”
Mrs. Feathers pushed the brown ceramic bowl toward her. “No problem. Here, have another one.”
“No, I’ll get it, I don’t want to mess up your office.”
“Really, it’s—”
Iris didn’t hear the rest of Mrs. Feathers’s sentence as she dropped to her knees (ouch) and crawled over to the bookshelf. She tried to peer under it, but all she could see was dust. And a piece of paper… maybe a newspaper clipping?
Iris reached in to retrieve it. As her fingers grazed it, a white-hot heat seared through her.
“Ow!”
“Are you all right?” Mrs. Feathers called out sharply.
Iris’s brain buzzed and prickled.
