PART ONE
MONODY
CHAPTER 1
The muffled tapping of the soles of her favorite high-top sneakers sounded against the floor of the endless hallway. From high above her, the windows, which were no larger than jail cell windows, cast an array of silken light shards on the floor below her. The hallways of the school were empty. She was late again. She could smell the all-too-familiar smell of cafeteria lunch being prepared. Like a tedious symphony, her breath and heartbeat played their anxious notes and she tried to time her footsteps to them. She hated being late. She hated the heavy feeling of people’s stares. She hated the texture of shame.
When she reached the classroom, she extended her hand and felt the chill of the metal handle against her fingertips. A paralysis came over her. She couldn’t afford another tardy, but she couldn’t force herself to go in. She couldn’t face them all. It was better to actually be alone than to feel, like the proverbial exile, alone in a crowded room; the feeling of being the outcast. But that she was. “Tomorrow,” she thought as she pulled her hand back from the door and, with a pivot, ran down the hallway to the nearest bathroom.
She leaned against the pink tile wall to catch her breath. She could feel the heavy husk of childhood at times like this. She could feel the prison of it, the burden of not being able to choose what to do with the hours in the day. She couldn’t hide in the bathroom forever. She knew that, but right now she almost wished she could. The row of mirrors on the opposite wall reflected the emptiness she felt inside. She shifted toward them until she was standing before her own image looking back at her. The honesty of the image of herself made her uncomfortable. But she did not look away.
Aria Abbott was 17 years old to the day. There was a warmth to the paleness of her skin. It honored the sharp angles and curves of her face. Her cheekbones sat high below a pair of rather feline eyes. Almond-shaped and olive green, they stared back at her, unmoving. There was a depth to her eyes, an ancient knowing that both beckoned and warned. The reflective surface of them felt like a membrane preventing her from falling into a foreign world. Like two albatross wings, her eyebrows reached toward her hairline. Her hair fell in disorderly waves and cascades to greet her shoulders, picking up light along the way. The color of it reminded her of the chestnut seeds she used to collect as a child. Her nose was aquiline, only a small shadowed indentation between it and a pair of sultry button-shaped lips the color of pink champagne.
Aria reached up to touch her chin and neck, and her fingers slid across the softness of her skin. Like most teenage girls, Aria was never satisfied with her reflection in the mirror. Fine-boned, she stood just over 5ft 4in tall. Her youth had only just begun to peel back, exposing the hint of curves. Curves that belonged to the woman, which had been dormant throughout her childhood. As she stared at her own reflection, Aria could feel the fierce intent of puberty pulling her immaturity away. She wouldn’t miss it. Aria had grown lonely in the prepubescent world of playthings and penny candy. Her childhood had been frosted with despair. It had felt more like a prison than a privilege; a prison sentence that was not yet fully served.
She had been sitting in the bathroom, listening to the relentless flow of the water in the pipes behind the wall, bored for what felt like ages, when the bell finally rang. Aria sprang to her feet, knowing that the bathroom would soon be inundated with other girls. Gathering up her backpack, she pushed past the heavy doors and out into the hallway. A rush of noise assaulted her, the deafening chaos of hundreds of students making their way to their next class. She joined them reluctantly. A wave of insignificance consumed her as she was swept up in the flux of students. Walking in the two-way traffic of the school hallways between classes always made her feel like a tiny blood cell in a crowded artery.
Aria reached her class and sat in her desk in the fourth row, watching the other students settle into their places. She had perfected the art of acting aloof and collected when the truth was that inside, the buzz of anxiety ricocheted incessantly inside her chest and made her breath shallow. This class was like all the others. She would listen to the squeak of the marker against the whiteboard. She would watch the contained gestures of her teachers. She would learn and regurgitate the material taught to her, not because she was interested in it, but because she was afraid. She was afraid of the consequences of not doing so. Aria could not conform and she did not fit in, but she went to great lengths to avoid drawing negative attention to herself.
For Aria, school was yet another part of the prison sentence of childhood. Unlike so many of her fellow students, she had no plans to go to college. She swore to herself that after her time was up she would not sit in another classroom for as long as she lived.
Aria had no friends to speak of. Loneliness graced the corridors of her life. So when the final school bell rang, she put one of her headphone earbuds in her right ear, chose a song to play and pulled her hoodie over the top of her head so that it hid her profile. Ignoring any others, she made her way to the city bus stop, where she waited with a loose collection of vagrants, students and businessmen. The bus swayed this way and that, starting and stopping to let people on and off. She glanced at their faces, trying to feel the people beneath them, but averted her eyes if they tried to make eye contact. The very connection that she wanted so desperately to make frightened her.
The bus pulled up to a stop in a suburban neighborhood on the south end of the city. Aria inched her way sideways past the other passengers’ knees and briefcases. The air outside was unfriendly, a frigid grayness known only to cities. She walked the six blocks to her house with her face turned toward the cement sidewalk, careful not to step on the cracks. Aria didn’t like to think of herself as superstitious, but when all was said and done, she was. She made the turn toward her house reluctantly. Went up the stairs and stood before the pastel plaque on the door that read “Bless O Lord, this thy house, and all who enter in.” Turning off her music, she opened the door. The air inside carried the fake scent of cheap cinnamon potpourri.
Inside, the sound of clanking in the kitchen was suppressed by a voice that called to her, “Aria, is that you?”
“Yeah.”
Her mother stepped around the corner, wearing a patchwork apron. The bangs of her bobbed, sandy hair were perfectly curled. She was wearing a scowl on her face. “I got a call today from your school,” she said in an exasperated tone. “You can’t keep doing this.”
She paused and then continued, “I called your new case worker. She said we should take you to see one of the counselors. Is that what you want?”
Aria stared at the carpet and said nothing. Irritated by the silence, her mother went on. “Your father and I have told you again and again that you have to set a good example for the littler ones.”
Aria looked up from the carpet. She wanted to yell. She wanted to scream but nothing came out. Despite the fury that burned its way through her veins, all she could say was, “Sorry.”
Her mother fidgeted, a pair of plastic tongs still in her hands. “Don’t do it again,” she said. “If you keep sloughing school you’re not gonna graduate.” Aria granted her nothing but more silence. So her mother ended the one-sided conversation with, “Your father will decide what to do about this later. Do your homework before you watch TV.”