chapter 29
Definition of satisfaction: knowing that you got back at someone who stabbed you in the back. Brendon will never forget what he did to me. Justice has been done. I feel at peace.
But then, I don’t.
The peaceful feeling turns into an irritating itch, and the itch works on me until I’m half crazy with frustration. My mind won’t rest. I can’t sleep or eat. I can’t stop thinking about all the others.
“Why should they get away with it?” I demand of Alix and Stephanie. “The Double Ds laughed at me. The surfers hid in the closet. All those people who did nothing to stop it. What about them?”
Stephanie loops her arm around my waist. “Ambrosia said that there’s nothing to fear from the Furies if you don’t get in their way. She warned them. They are in your way.”
Alix smacks a fist into her palm. “Eye for an eye. They shouldn’t get away with it. They should feel what you felt.”
“Suffer what I suffered.”
* * *
Here is an undeniable truth of human nature that we Furies take advantage of: everyone has a point of entry. We are like mice that can always find a way into the foundation of the most fortified building. We mutate our shapes and squeeze into the tiniest crack in a person’s thick wall of defense.
Our experience with Brendon taught us how to go deeper, to burrow down to the very core of shame that exists in everyone. We find the thing that you can’t ever truly apologize for, that you can’t deny or rationalize.
Like the first hurtful lie you told before you learned to justify your lies.
Like the first heart you broke before you figured out how to harden your own heart.
Everyone has a memory that sits at the cusp, dividing life into before and after.
Before: You fumble your words when you lie. You feel the sting of your own mean actions. You experience the hurt of others like it’s your own hurt.
After: You don’t give a shit. You want what you want, and you take it.
That’s the long-buried memory that we dust off and stick in each of their faces.
In the late afternoon, we stand on the cliff and home in on Gnat in the surfer lineup. He’s straddling his board while waiting for a wave. Into this serene scene we unleash his personal vision:
He was seven, stole five dollars from his mother’s purse and lied about it, claimed his little brother took the money, and his parents believed him.
In the middle of the ocean, he tries to blink away the memory. We show him his mother’s face and the disbelief in his brother’s deceived eyes, the monumental bond of trust that he broke and never got back.
This was the start, we remind him. After this lie, your whole life became a string of lying to others and lying to yourself.
Gnat stares directly into the sun. A wave slams him on the head. He doesn’t even try to paddle. Two surfers—we’ll deal with them next—haul him in to shore.
* * *
At midnight we position ourselves outside of Pox’s house. While standing under a streetlamp, we sing into his sleep to play and replay his moment of truth lost:
He was six, and in a snit he walked up to his sweet, trusting dog and kicked her, just because he could. Pox jolts awake and turns on a light, but he can’t stop living in the nightmare of his dog’s betrayed eyes.
* * *
On the bus, we sit behind the Double Ds and take them back to age eight, when they made every kid in their class stop talking to a girl who thought she was their best friend. They announced all of her secrets. We force them to experience the full brunt of their treachery. They feel that girl’s shock and loneliness. By the time we get to school, they are curled up in their seats and unable to move, paralyzed by regret.
* * *
And when the pleasure of that payback leaves us longing for more, we usher in others. The friends of our enemies are guilty by association. Soon they move like sleepwalkers in an endless nightmare of sadness, fear, and regret. They twitch and stutter. Their minds wreck their bodies with weight loss and hives, immune systems sent into complete disarray. We multiply their pain past the point of unbearable.
* * *
It’s fantastic. Who doesn’t deserve it?
We want even more.
The principal convenes a special parent-teacher conference to enact emergency health precautions. Everyone washes their hands so much they get dry and raw, even bleed. Mr. and Mrs. H start a trend by wearing surgical masks to school. Students stay home even when they feel perfectly fine. PE classes are cancelled. E-mails swirl. There must be something toxic in the air ducts. A ventilation specialist comes in. There’s nothing in the air ducts.
We keep bringing them down.
The show-off lead in this year’s production of The Sound of Music.
Our class treasurer who gave Stephanie only $100 for her anti-littering campaign.
The Eagle Scout who keeps bragging about getting early admission to Stanford.
The girl whom we just find to be irritating. She chews too loud.
The local TV station does a special report on the mysterious illness at Hunter High. A parent blogger lists the names and symptoms of the fallen.
An expert from the Centers for Disease Control flies out from Washington, DC, to investigate the possibility of a terrible new viral strain that invades the cells of healthy high school students. She looks down throats, draws blood, and orders X-rays. I wonder if Raymond is going to denounce us, but what can he say that anyone would believe? There are three girls who have the power of the Furies? He’s way too smart to try explaining the truth. The doctor leaves town with lots of notes, but no diagnosis.
It remains a mystery, except to a few of us.
* * *
“Meg, a moment of your precious, valuable time.”
A familiar voice with a sardonic, elevated tone equals Raymond equals a lecture that I don’t want to hear. With my back to him, I finish hanging up my jacket in my locker and fuss with some other stuff—as if killing a little time will make him give up. But he’s not leaving. I swing around. It’s not only Raymond, but sneaky Ms. Pallas beside him, both of them with their color guard batons propped in front of their chests.
“Pray tell, what’s this?” I can be sardonic and elevated, too. “An intervention? You’re here to say that you love me deeply but are concerned about my anger-management problem. Oh goody. How thoughtful.”
They exchange looks and have an entire conversation with their eyes that I can’t interpret, other than the fact that it ends with Ms. Pallas giving Raymond an encouraging pat on the back. Aren’t they the perfect pair? He doesn’t say anything until she and her swishing silver outfit are down the hall. Good riddance.
Then a thump of his baton. “Meg, what the hell are you doing?”
Innocent me with a singsong in my voice. “What do you mean? I’m not doing anything.”
“Stop that! I need you to tell me the—what’s that thing called again?—oh right, the truth. No, wait, I already know. You’re not fooling anyone else, either. The whole school knows that it’s you behind the Hunter High epidemic. They don’t know exactly what you’re doing or how or why, but they know it’s you.”
“Really?” I put on a distressed expression to match the concerned tone in my voice.
“Really! Look at how everyone is looking at you.”
Two juniors in surgical masks happen to be passing, so I whip around with a loud “Booga-booga!” They jump back, their eyes circles of horror, and scurry away. I laugh, rubbing my hands together like a movie mad scientist.
“You know what people are saying? That Brendon was innocent, that he didn’t know what Pox and the others were up to.”
“People don’t know what they’re talking about. Brendon took me by the hand into that room.”
“Because Ambrosia told him to. Have you thought about that? What about her role in all this?”
I order myself not to listen to him. No! I will not listen. These are just tricks designed to make me question what I already know. I was there that night. Brendon took me into that room. He let it happen. He didn’t do a thing to stand up for me. There’s no defense for that. And Raymond has no right to drag down Ambrosia. She rescued me from my old life and showed me who I can be. She’s on my side.
“Brendon got what was coming to him. They’re all getting what they deserve. If people are smart, they’ll stay out of our way.”
“Is that what you want for real? For everyone to be terrified of you?”
“Let me think about that.” I press a finger to my temple, remove it immediately. “Thinking is over. Terror is working. Why mess with proven success? I know what I’m doing!”
“Explain it to me then, because all I see is misery!”
“Do I really have to spell it out for you, Raymond? Look around. Because of us and what we’re doing, the Leech will never mistreat another foster kid. Alix says that it’s been totally chill out in the ocean with all the Plagues on indefinite bed rest. And around school? No bullying. No practical jokes. Our warning has been heard. We’re doing what needs to be done.”
He mimes pointing a gun in my face and pulls the thumb trigger. “By any means necessary?”
“If we don’t do it, who will?”
Raymond’s features collapse into his deep-thinking pose. He strokes the part of his chin where a beard would grow if he were far enough into puberty to grow one. I get impatient waiting because I know what he’s going to say. Here come all of his old, tired arguments. We’ve gone too far. We’re abusing our sacred power. There’s a justice system designed to punish the guilty. Or the karmic chain of the universe will eventually get around to sorting things out and making life fair. The righteous will be rewarded and the guilty punished.
But I don’t see evidence to support any of those arguments. I never have and never will.
The animation returns to Raymond’s face. At least he doesn’t insult me with clichés: “Meg, I honestly don’t know who will punish them. Or if they’ll get punished at all. Or if they deserve punishment. I can’t say that life will even things out or that it’s fair. Because I don’t know.”
“Wow! The Raymond oracle admits that he doesn’t know something.”
“Want to know what I do know?” He pauses. I don’t bite. “Well, don’t you want to know? The old Meg would be dying of curiosity.”
The new Meg shrugs with a complete lack of enthusiasm. I even fake a yawn. “Sure. Knock me out with your wisdom.”
He ignores my snarkiness. “I know that this—what you’re doing—isn’t right. You claim to be on the side of justice, but you’re as mean as the people you’re punishing. Frankly, you’re more vicious.”
“If we back off, it will be chaos again. People will do whatever they want ’cause they know they’ll get away with it. Hunter High needs our law and order.”
“It’s all black and white with you. People are people and they make mistakes. You don’t give anyone a break. You’re…”
“I’m what?”
“You’re a colossal, monomaniacal tool. You’re power crazy.”
“I’m just using my power!”
He gives a double thump of his baton. That’s how I know I’ve gotten to him. “Meg, your power is using you. And so is someone else—Ambrosia. She’s manipulating you.”
“You never did like her, Raymond. You’re jealous. You just want me to be your harmless, patient, forgiving little friend again. You think I should reenlist in the Good Girl Brigade.”
“Did I say that? No! I like having a sassy straight friend. You do have things to be angry about. So does Stephanie and so does Alix. I’m not arguing with you about that.”
“What’s your problem, then?”
“You think you’re in control, but Ambrosia is twisting your anger for her own purpose. That’s what Ms. Pallas told me. Ms. Pallas knows that you won’t listen to her, but you might listen to me. You need to listen to me. This is serious. You are up against something very powerful and dangerous. I want to help. I’m on your side. But I can only do so much. Ms. Pallas—”
I break in mockingly, spit out the words. “Ms. Pallas. When did you become completely devoted to her? What a suck-up! You sound exactly like her.”
“You want to talk about swallowing someone’s entire way of thinking? You sound like Ambrosia!”
“What if I do?”
“Ambrosia is not who she says she is.”
“And who is Ms. Pallas? Not some first-year teacher! What’s she up to?”
Instead of answering, he waves his hand in front of his nose. “Whew. Your breath. Have you been eating your young? Take a look at yourself.” He spins me around so I get a close-up of my face in the small locker mirror.
“What? What am I supposed to see?”
“You’re that blind? Let’s do a vision test.” He stands behind me, points to my eyes: “Healthy or bloodshot?” To my lips: “Kissable or cracked and raw?” To my skin: “Caramel-colored or puke green?” To my stomach: “Flat or bloated? And what’s with the enlarged pores? Honey, your complexion is like the surface of the moon. You’re unraveling fast, a total mess. You look as bad as your victims. Everyone but you can see it.”
I have to admit that I do look like Grade C dog doo. I let him fuss with my hair a little and push back some brittle strands, but others spring up to take their place. “I’m a little tired, that’s all. Maintaining law and order is a full-time job.”
“A little tired? What about Stephanie and her new fangs? Alix looks like the Incredible Hulk. Ms. Pallas says—”
Poof. Raymond’s moment of being tolerated is over. I don’t want to know what Ms. Pallas—whoever she is—has to say. I push away his hand. “Let’s do your vision test now. How many fingers am I holding up?” I flash him the middle one.
Raymond swallows hard. “I hardly recognize you, inside or out. All this hostility and anger, 24-7. Meg, when you make others live in misery, you wind up living in it, too.”