Burst of honey crystal.
Wet raspberries.
Syrupy apples.
Max dragged his fingers through the jasmine bushes. The wilted buds burst into bloom behind him. His mouth a tart cherry. His mouth a rose and an orange. Max never knew how the soul of a dead thing would taste as it traveled into his mouth, through his body, back into form. But death always tasted sweet. Even though the sweetness never lasted. It wore him out. The recovery period required long naps that lasted an entire afternoon. His healings induced bright, burning headaches, sharper than the hiss in his eyes when he stared into the direct sun.
A boy his age shouldn’t be sleeping all afternoon.
Shh, he just lost his best friend.
What’s with the sling?
He should be playing with other kids.
He’s sleeping with a wet cloth across his eyes when it’s daylight.
He’s just different, that’s all.
He’s failing his classes.
He falls asleep at his desk.
As Max walked through the Southern death, he used his power on everything in his way: dried-up leaves, a stepped-on spider, crushed clovers.
He stopped, panting, in the middle of the thicket and glared. A fence stood right in front of him. This piece of forest wasn’t so big after all. It was just section of land running between the road and part of a neighborhood. His neighborhood. A dog began barking on the other side of the wooden slats. Max’s heart pounded in great, thundering blows. The traffic in the distance came charging toward his ears. He’d been careless. He was not alone.
Something back there, Bruno? called a gruff man’s voice. What’s back there? Who’s there?
Max fought the urge to ram his knuckles into the bark of a tree as punishment.
Who’s back there, Bruno? the voice graveled again, closer to the fence this time.
Max took off running toward the incline, toward the shoulder of the main road. Running felt good, that familiar fast feeling in his legs. How could I be so stupid? His stomach turned and burned. The people in Alabama had been so nice. But would they talk to him so sweetly, he wondered, if they knew what he could do?
DELILAH DID NOT HAVE a town square. Delilah had stores laid out in strips, one real mall, about a dozen churches, and state-famous BBQ restaurants that promised to make you lick your own fingers. It had cotton fields and enormous amounts of land owned by men. Men owned the earth in Delilah, and you weren’t allowed on it unless invited. That’s what Max’s mother explained. In Germany, you could walk anywhere not circled in by a fence, but here a man could own the ground and forbid others from it. If you entered without permission, anything could happen.
In Delilah, you could eat breakfast at gas stations. Max’s mother dropped him off at the gas station near school so he could get a biscuit before class. He’d walk the rest of the distance to God’s Way alone. Max felt silly standing in line in his uniform. The stitched cross anchored over his left breast. In line in front of him was another student. When Max got closer, he saw it was the witch. The witch’s name was Pan.
Pan said, I reckon you as new.
Just have moved here, Max replied.
Daddy’s got a job making SUVs? asked Pan.
How do you know this?
Vell, let me vink.
My accent, said Max. Okay.
Max noticed the stick-and-poke tattoos on Pan’s hands. REAL read one, LIFE the other. They weren’t sentences, but they counted. Pan held his REAL hand out toward Max as if it were something he did every day, as if his fist were anyone’s fist, as if Max could shake it and then put it away. The déjà vu feeling rose up again and unfolded around him. He had the sensation he was standing with Pan inside a memory they shared. They had met before. He was sure of it. He almost asked: Do I know you?
Pan ordered a biscuit with no chicken. It made Max want to eat no chicken, too.
Gracias for the titillating convo, said Pan. Welcome to the U S of A. See you around. I hope.
Pan brushed past him, touching Max’s hip with what seemed like intention.
See you around.
IhopeIhopeIhopeIhope.
Pan in his all-black. Pan with his goth choker and the gel that made his hair go straight up. Pan with the smooth skin he covered in dark brown foundation. Pan with teeth that stayed braceless and crooked as crossed legs. Max stood in line blinking. The cashier had to ask if he wanted butter or bacon with his biscuits twice.
Three times.
Four.
Please yes. Bacon and butter for the biscuit. Please yes.
Max smiled at the cashier.
He arrived late to Physics and found Pan scrawling furiously in an open notebook. The witch had been transferred into his class. Their teacher divined them as lab partners. A miracle, Max thought. No small thing. Pan looked up from the desk, mesmerized as he seemed to be by the grains of wood, and smiled like he expected him. Max shifted under Pan’s gaze, which ran the length of him in one flash. Pan’s cheeks were stamped with freckles. Max never realized chapped lips, held open like that, could look exotic.
One with the biscuits, said Pan. I knew we’d meet again.
Pan kept a collection of comics in his backpack. He pulled one out and placed it in his lap and read it as the teacher lectured. Teacher was orange-skinned with buzzed blond hair and breath of burnt coffee. Pan’s comics were not the adventures of Tintin but comics about monsters and muscled men. The world was always about to end but it never did. Good always stepped in. The day was saved from evil. Heroes existed. Pan fiddled with the choker on his neck, a clipped piece of panty hose. Twirltwirltwirl. Max glanced down at the comic that covered Pan’s crotch but could only make out the word Ka-Pow. Pan giggled as he read the panels. He elbowed Max beside him, as if Max were in on whatever joke he discovered.
Teacher made the class stand up, gather in a ring in front of their desks, grab palms. He showed them how to pass a charge of electricity around the circle by just holding hands. Muscles might spasm when static electricity triggered the nerves. Before class disbanded, an assignment was given. Pan looked at the textbook in front of Max.
Be careful with hot wires.
Pan circled the caution in a paragraph about electricity.
Don’t leave batteries connected for more than several seconds at a time.
AFTER PHYSICS, MAX HEADED to his locker to switch his books. A girl stood by as if expecting him. Her nose turned up like in the movies and her hair framed her face in close-cropped braids.
New boy, she said. Allow me to introduce myself.
A different colored bead sat on the end of each braid. Her name was Glory. When she turned her head, the beads tinked.
How do you know I am new boy? asked Max.
Glory picked at her bitten nails. Hands of someone less confident than she presented.
For real? There’s like fifty kids in each class. Getting a new kid is like getting a celebrity. We get one or two a year. Most of them just sit in the back of the class and look terrified. You get extra points for being an exotic German. But word on the street is your English is dialed in.
Germany is not exotic, said Max. We are not an island. We eat a lot of sandwiches and potatoes. Here is glamorous. The sun is what you have.
Glory was the only girl he’d seen who wore the uniform of a boy. Girls at God’s Way wore skirts or jumpers. Pants were for the boys. Everyone wore a polo with three buttons and the embroidered cross.
Okay, a geography lesson. Word, said Glory. Listen when you need a rundown of shit around here, you come to me. I’ll give you intel on whatever you’re looking to know.