The Bad Crowd

Chapter 4 - Marsha's House

She was supposed to wake up.

In movies, they always woke up.

This wasn’t a movie. If it weren’t for the warmth of her hand and the disembodied beep of the monitor next to her, I wouldn’t have believed she was alive.

I could feel my world trying to narrow down to a pinhole, like before, but I didn’t want it to. I wanted to keep feeling. I didn’t want to keep slipping. I didn’t want to get used to it.

Things like this weren’t supposed to be something you just got over. They were supposed to hurt, to feel fake, to feel like all of the air in the world wouldn’t fill my lungs.

I was feeling exactly what I was supposed to.

Probably.

They didn’t let me stay long.

I imagined myself screaming, telling them I wouldn’t leave her, that nothing would make me step away from that bed, but I didn’t do any of that.

Despite my best efforts, I didn’t really remember doing anything.

There was paperwork.

I think I answered questions.

There was a car.

I was going somewhere, somewhere far away where I couldn’t hear the beep that said my mom’s heart was still beating.

T minus… maybe never.

It was, I decided, not because I trusted the doctors to get her home, but because the alternative simply wasn’t an option.

We were going to go home.

Both of us.

We had to.

I was going to stop feeling this way.

In that order.

I wanted to go home, lay in my own bed, groan at my mother’s soppy nonsense, and take everything for granted for just a little bit longer.

“Hey, you want a book story or a me story?”

“I wanna stay up all night! No stories!”

“No stories? No we can’t have that, but… hm, do you wanna tell me a story instead?”

“Yeah!”

Her laugh, warm and low. The shift of the mattress when she climbed under the covers with me. The smell of sea-salt and citrus shampoo.

“Okay, baby. What’s it about?”

I closed my eyes, forehead pressed against the glass. She wouldn’t want to hear this story, maybe not ever, but what I would have given to hear one of hers. I never picked her stories, always wanting to hear about the people in her books. Maybe she told me some, anyway.

I hoped she had.

I caught sight of the moon.

It drifted through a gap in the clouds, beautiful and full, and mom in her sweats, stuffed into her windowsill with a book, slipped to the front of my mind.

“You’re up late, baby. Did something happen?”

“Momma!”

“Come ‘ere, honey. Do you want to see what I’m reading? Look, can you read this for me?”

“Mr. No-yes!”

She laughed, burying her face in my hair. “Yes, baby, Mr. No-yes.”

All I needed was a torrent of dark wind and a purple moor and I could call myself The Highwayman.

"I'll come to thee by the moonlight, though hell should bar the way." I muttered under my breath. Never mind how that poem ended. What I needed was the promise. The rest didn't matter.

"What's that dear?"

I jumped, realizing for the first time that someone was driving the car I was in. “Nothing,” I said, looking out the window again and actually seeing the countryside flowing by.

Mom wasn’t so far away, I decided.

As we passed a stand of trees, I thought I saw the glinting eyes of some animal watching us pass. A twinge of curiosity, wrenched away by a sick twist of anger. What was I doing rationalizing this? Why was I doing any of this? Why was I going with some random stranger, ready to leave my mom behind when the doctors didn’t even want to save her? Why did I still not have my knife?

I wanted to veer the car off of the road. I wanted to scream. I wanted to throw myself at the driver until she drove me back to the hospital.

No.

Anger wasn’t going to solve any of this.

The Doctors were going to save her. They were going to fix this. I couldn’t live at the hospital. This was temporary, and nobody’s fault.

Except mine.

No. Not even mine.

By the time the trees passed, and the smell of cows overtook the petrichor of the night, the anger felt fake, like I had imagined it entirely, though a wary frustration remained.

They were trying.

It wasn’t good enough.

I should have been there.

The house we pulled up to had a neatly trimmed yard, almost obsessively perfect. I hadn’t realized real lawns could have those lines in them. This one did. Roses tangled each-other up at the edge of the wide porch, the sparse leaves only somewhat covering the thorny branches.

The thorns looked like cat claws, and as I got out of the car and began walking toward the house, I realized they even looked like they were tipped in blood.

The porch roof above glimmered with unlit Christmas lights. Weird of them to be up already, I thought, but maybe when roofs were that high, you just kinda left them up there year round.

“Do you wanna help me put the star on the tree?”

“No! Dragon!”

“The dragon on the tree? Are the presents its hoard?”

“No, I’m d’ dragon! MY hoard!”

“Eric, nonono, you can’t climb the tree!”

Laughter. Lights.

“Alright, dear, ready to see your new home?” I jerked, almost hurting myself with how quickly I looked over my shoulder to see the woman getting out of the car.

“This isn’t my home.” I said, aware that I was being too blunt but not quite caring.

The woman came up beside me, a hand fluttering near my shoulder for a moment before reaching past me to unlock the door. “Well of course not,” she said with a nervous little chuckle, “Just for a little while, until your mother can get back on her f- well, until she’s ready for you to come back.”

I winced, and she sighed, “Anyway, welcome.” She reached toward my shoulder again, then seemed to think better of it, fingers hovering rather than touching, and I took my first steps inside.

It was like something out of a catalog, not a place people actually lived. Dull grey carpet, off-white walls, shelves lined with decorative books and weird baubles. There were even throw pillows and couch cozies. If couch cozies weren't proof that the house was a fake, I didn't know what was.

One thing, though, was different. A large wooden mask, its long face painted white. I could almost feel the violence behind it. It was creepy, with its dark eyes and slot-shaped mouth, and I got the odd sensation that it was guarding the room. Maybe that was why it was so clean?

The click of the door behind me made me jump.

"How are you feeling, dear?" She smiled, walking to the kitchen table and setting down her bag and the packet she'd been given. "Think you can handle sticking around while your mom gets better?"

I finally focused on the woman, getting a good look at her. She was plump in a grandmothery kind of way, and her brown hair was cut in a bob that only made her face seem rounder.

She looked the same way my mom looked after pulling too many long shifts; It was always like she was too tired to stop moving. Even thinking that they were similar felt like a betrayal.

Realizing that she was waiting for a response, I gave a non-committal shrug.

She sighed, "Hey, I'm sorry, dear. I know this is all very strange. I promise, though, you're safe here. So you just try to relax, and let me know if I can help, okay?"

I looked anywhere else, not wanting to focus on her anymore. There was nothing wrong with her, she looked nice and fine and made me want to throw up.

She was a replacement mother. No, worse... She was a professional replacement mother.

"Look, let's start simple, honey. Let's get you cleaned up. Sound good?"

I nodded again, barely registering what she was saying.

"You can meet the others in the morning."

"Others?" Other people lived here? That made it even weirder that everything was so catalog clean. A seed of wariness rooted in my stomach.

"He speaks!" She laughed, putting a hand on my shoulder and starting to usher me toward the stairs.

Her hand was... warm.

A strange sense of comfort seemed to radiate from the touch, but before I could dissect it, I heard steps on the second floor and looked toward the ceiling.

I didn’t want her to touch me anymore. Why was everyone touching me?

"You're going to be living with two other kids. Mira, she's been staying with us for a few weeks now, and Joel, my son. I'm sure you'll get right along."

Then there was a girl, hand hooked over the banister on the turn of the stairs, as if she had just swung around the corner. She didn’t say anything, just stared at me, and I straightened slightly, wondering what I must look like to her.

She looked like she was about my age, maybe a little older. Teenager, though? Definitely. In attitude, if nothing else. She half hopped, half danced town the stairs and past us towards the kitchen, "What's going on?" Her dark hair was messy, and a long T-shirt brushed at her knobby knees. Wasn't she wearing pants?

"Oh, Mira!" The woman smiled, but the fingers on my shoulder tightened. The warm feeling faded, replaced with an antsy sort of irritation. "What are you doing up?"

"I sleep during the day, Marsha. You should really be used to that by now."

Marsha? Okay, name to a face.

Marsha slumped slightly, hand leaving my shoulder to press on the spot between her eyes. “Right, of course.”

Of course?

“Come on, it’s right in the name.” Mira said. Marsha glared over my shoulder like she’d said something wrong. I looked between them. What the hell?

“Mira,” she said slowly, “This is Eric. His mother is in the hospital, so he’ll be staying with us for a while.”

Mira’s expression changed a bit. Her head tilted, catlike, brows furrowed like something about me had changed with that sentence.

"Oh yeah?" Mira walked toward me, bending at the waist to push her nose into my face. Her eyes, which I'd thought were grey, were actually a silvery violet color. She was wearing contacts. Her pupils were ever so slightly sharpened by the edges of the contact. No wonder I thought she looked like a cat! I stayed very still, though my bones wanted me to put distance between us. I wasn’t going to lose another power play.

I think I did anyway.

“So how old’s the kid?” she asked, not looking away from me.

“I’m not ‘the kid’. You know what my name is.” I grit out.

She ignored me, and annoyance bubbled up under my skin. I opened my mouth, but Marsha cut me off. “He’s twelve, but he’s got a birthday coming up, isn’t that right?”

I blinked. A birthday? s**t, I did, didn’t I? I frowned, realizing I didn’t actually know what day it was.

“Oo, almost ready to pop, then!” She grinned, poking me in the nose.

I almost dropped my bag.

Marsha pulled me back against her middle, rubbing over my shoulders. “Mira, stop.”

I looked between them, “What is she talking about?”

Mira considered me a moment, running her fingers through her hair, then shrugged and zipped her lips.

Marsha sighed, “It’s not something you need to worry about, Eric. Especially not right now. It’s been a long day. Let’s get you to bed, alright?"

"Actually, I'll take him." Mira grabbed my bag and started dancing her way up the stairs, leaving me no choice but to chase after her.

Marsha let me, though her smile looked far tighter when I glanced back her way.

I caught a flash of fabric disappearing into a room at the end of the hall, and by the time I turned the corner, she was slinging the bag and herself onto the edge of the bed, grinning a mischievous grin.

"What was that all about," I asked, closing the door behind me.

Mira shrugged, then leaned forward and pointed at one of the three pieces of furniture in the barren room, "She left your orientation there."

I paused. I had hoped that she would make more sense once we were alone, but it seemed like she took pleasure in me having zero idea what was going on.

"What orientation?”

She gestured again, a breath away from chuckling.

I took a look around the room. The bed was directly across from the doorway, shoved into the corner. Next to the door, a vanity had been set up with big garish light bulbs circling the large mirror. It looked like on of those dressing room vanities I'd seen on TV.

There was a big wardrobe too, bare except for a few mismatched hangers.

I walked to the vanity. A small wooden chest sat directly in the middle. In front of it was a single piece of paper, and a key with a narrow pink ribbon to act as its ring.

'Eric,

Things will be hard, but we are going to help you as best as we can. Please try to use your time here to heal and feel a sense of normalcy. Let us distract you, while we can. I can't promise things will get easier, but I can promise that we care, and we're not going to leave you to deal with this alone.

- Much love,

Marsha

P.S. keep the key with you. This chest is for your important things. You can take the chest with you, when you go, as a reminder of our time together.'

I held up the key, showing it to Mira. "What's this for?"

The laugh escaped, and it wasn’t entirely kind, "What, can't you read?"

I rolled my eyes.

Yeah, okay, bad wording. "Yeah, of course! Just... why though?"

"Oh!" She slid off the bed, still bouncing on the balls of her bare feet. "Less dumb question. So, okay, so here's the thing. Marsha does this for all the kids who come through. The foster system...” She chewed on the inside of her cheek, voice dropping a bit. “…it has this way of making you feel like your stuff's trash. Marsha wanted one thing that made their stuff feel special and important."

"That..." I looked at the key, chest aching. “Oh.”

Her voice stayed serious, a little sad. "Yeah, Marsha and her husband? They're good people. They care, so don't treat them bad, got it?"

I nodded, and she watched me for a second before flicking a little wave my way as she left me to my own devices.

I had no idea what those devices even were, so I fixated on the only thing in the room that felt like me: my bag. I needed to unpack.

I unzipped my bag, a few grains of beach sand falling out of the zipper and collecting on the pale blue comforter.

It wasn't until I had hung up my clothes that everything crashed down around me again. As I looked at those lonely shirts, twisting softly on their worn hangers, I realized I was crying.

Everything I owned, and I couldn't even fill a single room.

Uprooted.

Torn out of the ground.

Mom wouldn't want me to fall apart, though. She would have wanted me to be strong, to push forward. I scrubbed at my eyes with the sleeve of my shirt until my skin stung.

The resolve lasted all the way until I was laying in bed and staring up at the ceiling, where my thoughts caught back up with me. "Good joke, world... ya got me. Can I go home now?"

“A book story or a me story?”

Anything but this one, Mom.