Li Charmaine Anne
[mks_dropcap style=”letter” size=”52″ bg_color=”#ffffff” txt_color=”#000000″]T[/mks_dropcap]he movers had long left the new neighboursâ house, and for the last few days, silence had rushed into the space theyâd carved out. Grace could hear the birds gain. Listening, she lay beneath her bedroom window in a pool of sunlight while the windowâs slats beamed a crosswalk pattern across her growling, dented stomach.
âGrace! Supper!â
âYes, Mother.â She crawled over to the slit at the bottom of her door. A box covered with a napkin slipped through it and landed with a splat on the floor. Grace lifted the napkin. Inside was a hard piece of bread, a whole cooked carrot, and a chunk of smoked ham. It smelled like heated plastic and steam, but Grace couldnât resist digging into it with her bare hands.
But her mother was still on the other side of the door. âGrace, be quiet, girl! You want everyone in this damn house to hear? You need to be appropriate; youâre twelve, for goodnessâ sake. Almost a lady now.â
Grace swallowed as softly as she could, but it was a loud dull thud clanging in her throat. âSorry, Mother.â
But her mother tsked with disapproval. âSpeaking of growing up, have you seen that brother of yours, Eli, with that girlfriend of his?â
âNot much.â
âTheyâve been awfully quiet every time sheâs over. In his room, with that door closed. And I swear, weâve been running low on bread faster than ever. Faster than condoms. Do you think âŠâ Grace imagined her mother shuddering with disgust on the other side of the door.
âDonât worry, Mother. At school they teach us not to ⊠you know,â Grace said.
She heard a snort from outside. âI sure hope they do! Itâs how diseases get spread in the back alleys of inner cities, you know. Ugh. Anyway, hurry on and finish up.â And Grace heard a series of retreating footsteps.
Finally left in peace, Grace did her best to finish the dismal meal. It was always a challengeâeating fast, making the food disappear as quickly as possible without hurting oneâs stomachâand Grace ached as she carried the empty box out for washing. When she got downstairs, her brothersâsixteen-year-old Eli and eleven-year-old Jacobâwere just leaving the washing room. Grace caught Jacob wiping his mouth on his sleeve and quickly looked away. There was banging and grunting in the washing room, and when Grace got there her parents were in the middle of having sex, obviously, so Grace left her box in the sink behind her mother as quietly as she could and went back to the living room.
Eli sat down on the couch and turned on the video console while Jacob took a seat in the armchair and tucked a hand inside his fly. Heâd just started learning and was obsessed with getting it right. âI better be able to play an entire round before you finish,â Eli teased. He was the cockier boy. After all, Eli was shift leader at the SugarHump, where all the popular teenagers part-timed to raise money for university and parties and whatever teenagers got up to.
Their mother had been encouraging Grace to start practising herself. âSomeday all youâll be doing is pleasinâ some man, so do as much self-pleasinâ for the time being.â She even gave Grace all the magazines sheâd used when she was a preteen. So Grace tried. She genuinely did, but maybe it was because the magazines were all from the seventies and the eighties, the menâs skin all yellowed, but Grace could get no âpleasinââ from them.
But Grace didnât want to think about naked magazine men. Truth be told, she was still hungry. But she pushed that thought out of her mind, because the moment thoughts like these seized her, a blackness swirled in her insides and it was as if everyone around stopped in their tracks, stared at her, and knew exactly the evil she was thinking about. So, shaking, she stepped out onto the veranda for fresh air. Across the street, Aunt Ruth and Uncle Joseph were happily going at it on their own veranda, skirt and trousers rumpled around their ankles. Nothing new thereâ
âHello.â
Grace started. In the hedgerow bisecting her backyard and the neighboursâ, a girlâs face peered through the leaves like a moon peeking through clouds. She looked Graceâs age, and had wide, green eyes with burnt brown edges, smooth creamy skin the shade of sand, and a fierce array of thick and black curly hair. Unlike most people during this time of year, she was fully clothed and wore a long, tropical-coloured dress. Something strange and foreign bubbled in Graceâs chest then. Sheâd never seen someone in town so beautiful. A weird thought knocked on her head: she wanted to run away into her room, dive under the covers, and without the help of her motherâs magazinesâ
âWhatâs your name?â the girl interrupted. Her dark eyebrows knitted into a frown. âDo you speak?â she asked, when Grace didnât answer.
âYeah,â Grace croaked. âOf course. Iâm Grace. Whoâre you?â
âAutumn,â said the girl, âChandra.â
âIâve never heard of those names,â said Grace. âTheyâreâtheyâre pretty.â
âThanks. I have my motherâs surname, and I was born during the harvest. Hey!â She lit up with an idea. âAre you going to school on Monday?â
âYes,â said Grace. âOf course.â
âIâm new and I donât have any friends yet. Wanna meet up at recess?â
Grace shrugged. âI guess.â It wasnât like she had many friends anyway. There was Melanie, but all she ever talked about was boys and the way they smelled.
Autumn beamed. âIâll see you then, Grace.â
âSee you.â
And Autumn disappeared back into the bushes.
â â â
On Monday, at the lineup for school, Grace spotted Autumn straight away. She was an off-shade, colourful smudge in a sea of kids in skin. They caught each otherâs eyes and Autumn waved wildly for her to join her in line. Grace did, but soon regretted her decision when the boys and girls around her whispered and cast suspicious looks.
At noon, when all the students went to the lunchrooms and locked themselves in stalls, Autumn was slowest to finish. A group of boys loitered curiously outside, and when Autumn finally came out and Grace stood up from the bench sheâd been waiting on, they surrounded her. A tall boy named Silas, who always wore his fatherâs jean jacket and had a new temporary skull tattoo every week, took the lead. âWhat took you so long, Chandra?â he said. âDo they all take so long where youâre from? What the hell were you doing in there, being nasty?â
Autumn muttered something incomprehensible and pushed past them to reach Grace. âIâm actually not done yet,â she whispered to her, âbut I thought Iâd share.â
âShare?â Bewildered, Grace followed her, out of the school, past the playground, through the field, to the copse of pines just outside school grounds where kids sometimes traded cigarettes. It was empty today, thankfully, and when they were far enough from everyone, Autumn reached into her dress pocket and took out a fat green object Grace did not recognize. It was oddly shaped, like a voluptuous woman: narrow at the top and curved out sensually towards the bottom.
âThese just ripened yesterday,â Autumn whispered. âWeâMama and Iâwe have a garden. I know people here arenât that happy about this stuff, butâyou donât seem to be someone who judges, Grace, do you?â Her hot green eyes met Graceâs and widened. Grace nodded. There was nothing else to say. âCool,â said Autumn. âSo, you donât mind if I eat it here, right? Itâs justâtheyâre so messy and you get in trouble if you dirty the lunchrooms.â
Grace nodded again before she could think. And right before her eyes, as if sheâd never heard of privacy, Autumn dug her front teeth into the object. Almost immediately, a drop of clear liquid, like sweat, ran to the tip of her chin and dripped onto the forest floor. Grace shuffled her feet away. âWhat is that?â she breathed.
âOh,â said Autumn, âitâs called a Bartlett pear. Theyâre fruits, and theyâre super delicious.â Her bite revealed a bare spot in the fruitâs fleshâit was white instead of green and it scintillated in the sun like it was made of microscopic crystal prisms. Grace stared. Autumn must have caught her doing so, because suddenly the fruit was thrust under her nose. âDo you want to try a bite?â
A bite. Her mind hesitated, but her hand reached out to accept the fruit. It was heavy and sturdy in her hand, and as she brought it to her face she could smell its ripeness. She bit into the pear where Autumn had bitten and, in the sweet haze of the fleshâs taste, couldnât help but wonder if she was tasting something of Autumn as well. She had the sense to place her hand in front of her mouth to block what Autumn could see, but it felt unnecessary, almost weird, and so she dropped it. When she finally finished what felt like an eternity of chewing, she noticed that Autumnâs face was serious. âListen, we need to keep this a secret,â she said. âIf Mama finds out, Iâll get into a lot of trouble. Butââhere Grace could see her lips fumble and her eyes dart around the forestââI really like you, Grace. I donât want to get you in trouble. You know that, right?â
Grace nodded.
â â â
Aunt Ruth from across the street came over for a visit that evening. She and Graceâs mother sat in the living room, watching television and trading magazines. Grace sat with them, reading a book. Most of what they talked aboutâtheir husbands and the nights they spent with themâwent right over her head, but then Grace heard it: âThe mother works all on her own, I hear,â Aunt Ruth was saying. âSheâs a consultant at the plant for a year or something. I donât know where sheâs from, but definitely far. In the cities out west, perhaps, where theyâyou knowâhave âdiningâ rooms. Donât think the girl even has a dad.â
At that moment, Grace felt she wanted to be anywhere but in that room, so she got up and left. No one even questioned her. She darted to the edge of the property and walked along the hedge, hoping and hoping that Autumn was on the other side. Sure enough, a face peeked out of the bushes with a smile. âI thought I heard someone.â
âWhat are you doing?â asked Grace.
âTending.â When Grace didnât seem to understand, Autumn dropped her voice: âYou want to see something cool? Like, really cool? Itâs a secret, though, so you canât tell anyone. Anyone. Even your mother.â Grace didnât want to go back home and listen to her Aunt Ruth, so she nodded. âGood!â Autumn said. She opened up a hole in the hedge with her hands, revealing a dress that was splattered with dirt, and Grace stepped in.
Graceâs own backyard was a simple bare lawn, just like all the other backyards down the street. Autumnâs, however, was hidden behind a thick blanket of hedgerow and forest that the girls had to do some stepping and weaving through. So, after enduring a battering of flyaway branches, Autumn and Grace suddenly emerged into the houseâs garden, and Grace couldnât help but let her mouth fall open. She had stepped into an alternate universe. This universe was splattered with bushels and trees of every kind, but these were not the plants Grace saw every day walking to school, like the wooded groves or the wheat fields. For one, the trees were alive, with little chickadees dancing about them, as if celebrating with a chorus of chicka-dee-dee-dee. The trees had bulbous, colourful gems drooping off them, fat and beckoning. Like Christmas decorations. She dared to walk forward and look up: she was directly underneath one of the trees, and from her eyes on the ground it was like walking into one of those ballrooms sheâd read about in storybooks, the ones with ceilings hung with crystal chandeliers. There they were, the Bartlett pears from earlier in the day. She whirled around, eyes hungry for more sights. On a wall close to the house, a viney plant with bright red baubles clinging to it snaked higher than her head. And the smell. The aroma that hit her like a wall when she entered the garden was so warm. Like running into a wall, Grace was struck by the strangest, most oddly familiar desire when she saw all these colours: it rose from her stomach and simmered from a growl to a snarl; it stirred and bubbled deep in her abdomen; it was primal and uncontrollable and it filled her with so much shame her face began to prick red.
âAre you okay?â Autumn was staring at her.
âUm, yeah,â Grace said, flustered. âWhatâs all this ⊠stuff?â
Autumn beamed. âThis is our garden! Mama and I love gardening. Itâs all we did when we lived on the coast, but the soil and sun here has been amazing for the plants. I mean, these tomatoes practically grew overnight!â She pranced over to the vines near the house and plucked one of the fat red baubles off the wall. âAnd theyâre so sweet! Weâre not making them all into marinara sauce, I donât think. They taste so good as is.â She sank her front teeth into the bright red meat with a loud, fleshy crunch. Lips framed in pink juices, she chewed the tomato with sumptuous satisfaction. All Grace could hear was the munching sounds of tomato and teeth. She looked around the garden, trying to find a distraction. âWhatâs that smell?â she blurted.
âOh.â Autumn pranced back into view. âYouâre probably smelling the oregano. Here.â She motioned to a set of pots by the stairs. âOregano is Mamaâs favourite herb. I like rosemary more, but itâs too âsavouryâ for Mama, so we tend to use oregano a lot more.â Grace clenched her sweaty palms. How could this mother and daughter talk about such things so openly?
She asked, âSo, do you and your mama ⊠do it together?â As soon as she asked this question, she regretted it. What if the question offended Autumn and her familyâs ways like it would offend her own?
But Autumn just shrugged. âMama teaches me all about prep and stuff, and we make stuff together because Mama doesnât trust me with knives, but we eat in separate rooms most of the time.â
Something creaked behind them and Grace whirled around. A tall, beautiful woman stood at the top of the stairs, hair and skin even darker than Autumnâs. She wore a face of surprise when she saw Grace, then hurriedly drew her mouth into a line. âAutumn,â she said, her voice sticky and curt, âdo we have a visitor?â
âYes, Mama! This is Grace. She lives next door and we go to school together.â
âNext door,â Ms. Chandra said to herself before putting on a smile. âHello, Grace. Do your parents know where you are?â
âTheyâre busy, maâam, and Iâll beâIâll be going back soon, I guess,â Grace said.
âYes,â said Ms. Chandra. âGood.â She continued looking at the girls, her face stiff and her smile uneasy. âI bet theyâre wondering where you are. Why donât you go home for now? Iâm sure youâll see Autumn tomorrow.â
âCanât she stay a little longer, Mama?â Autumn pleaded.
âAutumn, donât you have homework to do?â her mother replied.
Autumn turned to Grace with a dramatic sigh and roll of the eyes. âI guess Iâll see you tomorrow, Grace.â She dropped her voice. âMamaâs being naggy. Like always.â And before Grace knew it the other girlâs arms were around her in a tight squeeze. Grace muttered a quick âsee youâ after that and crawled back through the hedgerows. She heard Ms. Chandraâs voice drowned out by the sticks and leaves as she crawled: â⊠ask me before you let anyone in our âŠâ Grace didnât catch the rest.
â â â
School changed for Grace. When previously sheâd dreaded each morning coming to another day of either teasing or isolation, now she couldnât wait. Each day was an opportunity to sneak into the woods and learn the name of another fruit. Gala apple. Grape tomato. Asian pear. But, of course, the girls were lucky to get one day out of a week to do so. Even when the forest wasnât occupied by the bigger, scarier girls and boysâthe type to corner you when youâre late coming out of the lunchroomsâAutumn sometimes didnât come with any fruits. Her mother was nervous, she said, and didnât want to draw attention to their family. âWeâre only here for a year. Mamaâs on a contract, but I think she canât wait to leave. She keeps saying it was a mistake to come here.â
When Grace heard this, her stomach shrank into a dark place, so she asked Autumn about the coast, which she described as a world completely alien. âThere are so many more people, for one,â she said. âWeâve got almost fifty schools in the city. On one special day of the year, they teach us about food. We learn how itâs made, how to safely prepare it, whatâs good for you and whatâs not. Sometimes, we even talk about how to have food with other people, which is supposed to be a really good way to get to know someoneâthat is, if you keep everyone feeling safe and happy, of course. Kids giggle a lot, yeah; mostly the boys, because theyâre so immature. I miss my old soccer coach, Mr. Santiago. He says itâs okay for women to have meals with women and men to have meals with men the same way moms and dads have meals together. Not many teachers outright say that, you know?â
Grace thought about her own school. The teachers never mentioned food, never mind who can eat with whom except the obvious, which was your parents. Since kindergarten, theyâd done lessons on how food can infect the mind like a disease, firing sparks upon sparks of desire in oneâs brain so that a human is rendered an animal: wild, uncontrollable, insatiable.
But surely the sweetness of a pear was worth it.
One Friday, Grace and Autumn decided to skip their last class and go biking in the woods. It was just P.E., a poor excuse for a class where the bigger kids pelted the smaller ones with dodgeballs, so the girls decided it would actually be healthier exercise to take their bikes through the forest trails and cycle all the way up the hill to see the entire town. (So technically, they werenât skipping.) They talked non-stop about television shows, books, and music. Autumn showed off her way of riding without hands, and Grace tried to follow but almost crashed into a tree.
They reached the shoulder of the hill, left their bikes there, and hiked on foot the rest of the way, sweating heavily by the time they were at the top. They dropped onto their elbows on the grass and opened up a basket of Pink Lady apples. The entire town unrolled before them, cloaked in a late afternoon amber dust. It was fall, and the wheat farms at the edges of town were crisping into a fertile gold. Everywhere else, houses sprawled about, as if napping. If Grace squinted to the west, she could see distant blue mountain forms. And behind thatââThe ocean is over there,â Autumn pointed. âI love the way it sings. It sounds like this.â She blew gently into Graceâs ear and it tickled.
âI want to visit someday,â said Grace, chuckling.
Autumn said, âYou should. Come visit me when I leave.â
âOr donât leave.â Grace curled her pinky finger around Autumnâs. It was warm and sweat-sticky from the hike. Autumn didnât say anything. They sat like that for a while, then Grace said, âI donât want to live here forever. I donât believe the worldâs this small.â
âItâs not,â said Autumn. Grace traced her eyes from the space between their knees to Autumnâs eyesâthey were the colour of rosemary burnt at the edges. A beat of a thousand milliseconds was a thousand years. Autumn raised her eyes. Grace leaned forward and kissed her lips. She tasted the Pink Lady and lingered there for another thousand years. Autumn pulled back what seemed like way too soon, grinning, and took a giant bite out of her apple. They held each otherâs gaze, eyes crinkling, before the two collapsed into a fit of giggles. They walked down the hill, hand in hand, and bumped their apples before taking a bite out of them.
âHey!â
A group of boys emerged from the bushesâhow long had they been there? Grace recognized the jean jacket. Silas. His face was gnarled into satisfied anger as the boys began to talk at once:
âHoly, theyâve been eating together. Like, in the open!â
âAnd, what, theyâre both girls. What the hell does that even mean?â
âMy daddyâs got a word for them. Calls them spitters.â
âWhy spitters?â
ââCause they eat together, which means you share a lotta spitââ
âAw, thatâs disgusting. Stop talking about ⊠foodââ
âMaybe the brown girlâs mamaâs a spitter too. Makes sense if Chandraâs got no daddy.â
âTheyâre nasty. Go kill yourselves, spitters!â
âYeah, go kill yourselves!â
And they descended into a round of laughter before turning around and heading back into the bushes, probably to smoke a parentâs stolen carton of cigarettes. âYou better watch out Monday!â Silas yelled. âWeâll tell everyone!â His blond head was the last to sink out of sight, but just as it did, Grace was on her legs and they were moving fast. Silas turned around, a frown of surprise alighting upon his face. Grace advanced towards him, quickly now, an apple in her fist. Her nails bit into the appleâs skin. Warm fruit-blood burrowed into her nail beds. Silas thrust out his chest. âWhat you gonna do, weirdo?â Just a foot from him now, Grace lunged and threw the apple against Silasâs head. He cried out, cursing. âDonât you dare tell anyone,â Grace hissed. She turned and ran, grabbing Autumnâs wrist on her way. They dashed down the rest of the hill, knees on fire, ankles in danger of twisting every step. The forest whipped into their faces. Autumn whimpered behind her; she was screaming but none of it was words in Graceâs ears because all that was there was the sound of drumming blood and drumming feet. When they got to their bikes at the bottom of the hill, they rode as fast as they could without looking back. Soon, the drumming diminished behind them, but the girls didnât stop peddling until they reached their houses.
Theyâd been silent the whole ride back, not wasting oxygen on conversation, but when Grace hopped off her bike, she had the passing thought that sheâd been asleep for twelve years and had only just woken up. There was a grin locked onto her face, there was delicious apple in her teeth, and she was certain sheâd made a nasty boy bleed that day, the way he deserved.
âGrace.â Grace snapped out of her reverie and turned to Autumn, who was clearly not grinning. Black hair webbed across her face, and her eyes were wet and shivering. âIâm going home,â she said quietly. âYou should too. Uh, goodnight.â
âGoodnight,â Grace said.
â â â
The next day, Autumn was not at school. Grace didnât think much about it. Maybe she was sick. It was November and thereâd been flu going around anyway. She caught sight of Silas, who kept avoiding her eyes. There was a bruise on the side of his head. At lunchtime, Grace found him, alone, coming out of the boysâ lunchroom. She stepped in front of him, as confident as confidence could be, and lifted her chin. âYouâre not opening your mouth at all, or Iâll pummel you again.â
Silas bit his lip. âYouâre nasty,â he breathed.
âBut Iâm no tattler,â said Grace, âand I know you. You donât grass on nobody either. And if you so much as think about it, huh, Iâll tell everyone a girl beat you to a pulp.â Silasâs face crumpled like paper. Grace tweaked the corner of her mouth into a smirk. She felt like she was running on clouds for feet.
At three oâclock when the bell rang, Graceâs knapsack was already packed. She ran out of school and down the blocks to Autumnâs house. She wormed her way through the bushes, climbed the steps, and rapped on the door. Chickadees hopped about the tomato vines, flapping and chattering in their chicka-dee-dee.
Grace waited. No answer. She knocked again. The chickadees left. The chickadees returned. Still no answer.
Her feet suddenly heavy, she walked slowly down the stairs, crawled through the bushes to her own house, and went inside. Mother was sitting with Aunt Ruth, riffling through magazines during their afternoon break. âGrace, darling,â she said without looking up. âYouâre covered in filth. Go shower, will you. Here, take one of these.â She handed her a magazine. Grace didnât look at it, just dragged herself up the stairs.
âNow where was I, Ruth? Ah, yes, she said the halfie attacked one of her boysâ friends.â
Grace froze. Slowly, she crouched down and shoved her ear between the banisters, lungs sucked in.
âJust like that? No provocation?â
âNo. Well, according to Joanâs boy, one of the other boys dropped the word âspitter.ââ
âNow I havenât heard that one around here since Josephâs cousin Edith ran away. Now that was nasty business.â
A break. Some more page-riffling.
âYou reckon itâs true, Anne?â
âMaybe for the mother. She doesnât have a man in that house, none that Iâve seen.â
âWell ⊠was the girlâshe was out alone, eh?â
Grace held her breath.
âAs far as I know, yeah, she was just out in the woods with her face in food like it was everyoneâs business. Got the boys all excited.â
Grace let go of her breath, but the darkness in her stomach dimmed tenfold.
âNow, if she was with someone ⊠now that would be cause for expulsion, wouldnât it?â Ruth said. âA child in the junior school like that.â
Her mother laughed, then dropped her voice darkly, in a mock-cautious way: âNow imagine if it was another girl. That would be a nightmare, wouldnât it?â
Ruth guffawed. âWell! I wouldnât even know what to say!â
Grace ran to her room and shut the door. She stood against it, breathing hard. Her eyes wandered to the window, towards Autumnâs house, but couldnât see anything beyond the hedges.
Her mother and aunt were still downstairs, so Grace squirreled through her window, held on to a tree branch that was just below it, and jumped to the ground. Then, as quietly as humanly possible, she slunk to the house next door, through the bushes, and into the garden.
Except there was no garden. Only bushes and trees. Green and brown. No crimsons, scarlets, goldens, or blues. Heaps of empty soil lay forgotten about. Grace padded around slowly, refusing to understand. She made her way up the stairs, to the porch, and to the door. She opened the mailbox slot and looked inside the house. There were tables and chairs, and maybe a book lying on that armchair, but everything was too still. And there was no sound. There was no sound anywhere. She imagined a sound in her head that wasnât thereâchicka-dee-dee-dee. Somewhere in the distance, her mother and aunt erupted into howls of laughter. She closed her eyes. At least in the realm of imagination between her ears, she could hear ocean.
Li Charmaine Anne is an undergraduate at the University of British Columbia creative writing program. She grew up, resides, and writes on unceded Coast Salish territory (otherwise known as Vancouver, BC), in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. Charmaineâs writing often involves young people discovering identity, music, board sports, and natural spaces, and she has written for Ricepaper Magazine, Discorder, and SADMag. Charmaine is passionate about diversity and representation in media, and you can find more of her writing at breakfastwithwords.wordpress.com.