Blue Bottle Tree Read online

  I heated them up and ate. The plate outline was blurry and so were the two yellow foods. “So sad about that boy.” Mom looked over at me, testing. “Did you know him?”

  “Who?”

  “The boy who died. He was a junior.” She was reading from the obituary. “Played trumpet in band.”

  “I don’t know anything about it,” I said.

  “Seven LaVey. He had a heart attack. That’s so strange for someone his age. It’s a closed casket funeral, which is going to be …today.”

  I stopped chewing and my eyes came up to hers. “Did you say Seven LaVey?”

  “Yes. Did you know him?”

  “They used to date,” Ava stuck in.

  “You did?” My mom showed me the article, pushed it away like it was sick.

  “Not really. We just liked each other for about a week.” It was not sinking in. “What about him?”

  “He died.”

  “You should go out with Mad Dog Rickey,” Ava said. “He’s nice.”

  “I don’t like Mad Dog, Ava.” My heart sank.

  “He’s going to be a preacher, and we’re going to get married.” Ava’s hand flew to her lips, too late. She smeared a temporary tattoo of the Zebra wearing a cape.

  I fastened my eyes on my mother’s. Hers were watery and she dabbed them like it was an allergy. But I could not possibly have heard this right. “Did you say Seven LaVey died?”

  She nodded and showed me his picture. It was him. Seven LaVey.

  “I’m so sorry, honey,” my mom said. I read the obituary and shoved my plate.

  “This is not… It can’t be…” I read the article in my room and read it again. He had been gone for three days. I saw a mental image of him, hiding at the mouth of his cave, watching me, watching over me. It wasn’t always creepy. Sometimes it was nice. Like he was protecting me. Like he was looking out for me. Tears ran down my cheeks and I moaned into the pillow. It couldn’t be. We weren’t finished yet. We weren’t a couple, but we were something. I had got mad at him because he didn’t give me anything for my birthday. I should have let it go. I can’t believe I’ll never see him again. We weren’t finished yet. I stared at his picture. Held it up to the mirror, as if seeing it by my own face would make it real.

  I would go to the funeral, but before then I went back to my tree. I couldn’t practice clarinet because of the sores. I wouldn’t be in band at UT Madrid, so there was no point anyway. That part of my life was over. The Seven part too. And high school. Everything had ended. Knowing that Seven was not in the cave. He was crazy to be throwing acorns and pine cones at my window. I had only wanted Victor to talk some sense into him. And now he was dead!

  Maybe Seven wanted to get my attention because he had something to tell me. Something important. If I had been nicer and invited him into my room, or been a better friend, maybe he wouldn’t have died. People his age don’t have a heart attack. Something terrible must have been going on. Maybe the Social Services were coming for him. He had been worried about that.

  I spread out newspapers under my tree, feeling brittle, feeling about as strong as the crunching magnolia leaves under my feet. I had to resume some kind of a life. But the cave loomed and I wanted to go up there, as if Seven might still be inside. He’d say, “Well, hello Penny Longstocking. Haven’t you heard? I’m dead.” He would make me laugh, but then I would start crying again. Because he’s dead. I had never lost a friend before. I had no idea it would make a hole like this. It was a bottomless pit of a hurt and I was afraid it would never go away.

  I had already cried a lot—cried until there were no more tears. Coming back to my tree seemed like moving on. It was cooler under there, the leaves so big and dense that it made a perfect shade. I climbed this tree when I was younger. The limbs were easy to sit on and it was easy to see the cave. Where Seven will never be again. I have got to get over this.

  It looked like someone had been there recently. Digging, raking the leaves. I laid newspaper and sat down. I opened a National Geographic but my heart wasn’t in it. The articles were dull anyway. I flipped pages and read the captions under the pictures. There was one about how orca whales work together to herd schools of herring so they can eat them. Normally I would have found that fascinating.

  I learned that Pluto was not a real planet but a dwarf, and its rotation around the sun takes 248 years. I should have probably already known that. I laid the National Geographic down.

  My lips were getting worse. Chap stick and antibiotic ointment had not helped—the red cracks were getting deeper and harder to cover up. I had to be very careful not to smile or open my mouth too wide, or else they would pop open and bleed. Maybe I was going to die. Maybe there was a teenager-killing virus in this town and Seven and I were the only ones who got it. I could see it now. I could be buried by Seven. For eternity.

  I looked up at the cave. If I had known he was going to die, I would not have complained to Victor. Seven was just trying to get my attention. And I know he had a crush on me. I can’t say I haven’t encouraged him from time to time. But still, anyone should know that throwing rocks at a person’s window in the middle of the night is not the way.

  Victor and Mad Dog came stalking toward me, looking very proud of themselves, mischievous, and staring. “Penny Langston,” Victor said. “How are we feeling today?”

  “Fine.”

  “Really? How are those lips?” He raised my chin with his hoof, looking down on me, examining them. “Can’t hide it anymore, can you?”

  “It’s no big deal. I think it’s getting better,” I lied.

  “No, it’s not. Do you think it’s better, Mad Dog?”

  “Nope. Definitely not. And you look weaker, too. Are you weaker, and feeling sick?”

  “Not really. I don’t know. Why? What do you care?”

  “My birthday party is coming up, and I want you at your best,” Victor said. “You’re going to need all of your energy.”

  “I didn’t know I was going to your birthday party.” I straightened my back and picked up the National Geographic. It was no use to pretend I was reading it while they were there, not to mention how rude that was, but I needed something to do. I fanned myself.

  “It’s going to be a great party,” Mad Dog said. He was trying to play along. “Everybody’s going to be there. Everyone except…” He glanced up to the cave.

  “Velvet will, and you will,” Victor returned to me. “And some of my friends from Vandy.” I winced. The idea of being anywhere near Velvet West made me uncomfortable.

  We used to be friends. We were the smartest girls in our class, the smartest of everyone in our class, and we had a lot of fun in junior high. But when we got to high school, things changed. She was more competitive. I made higher grades. She was dating. We drifted apart. Which was not a big deal—I didn’t think—until we were sophomores and she devised a surprise birthday party for me. We had separate groups of friends by then, which is to say she had a group of friends. I didn’t have anything but band. She was better than me at clarinet, and that was okay.

  My cat, Hello Kitty, had gotten run over a few days earlier. It was the first time I had had any contact with death at all. And while I can’t say I felt a deep and special bond with Hello Kitty, I was still sad when she died. A few days later it was my fifteenth birthday. Mom got me a pink dress that had the white Hello Kitty character on it, which I loved. It was so cute. It was a special thing between Mom and me—that we were remembering Hello Kitty—even if it was corny. I wore it every day.

  So my mother knew about the surprise party, but of course she did not know what was going to happen. It was all very well orchestrated. I got to Velvet’s house and all these other girls were hidden. Then they jumped out and cheered, “Surprise!” and all that.

  What happened next was they had chocolate cake. But they ran out of it before I got any. I just said, “Oh, that’s okay. I don’t really eat chocolate cake anyway.” Then Velvet asked if I wanted to share some of hers
and I said, “Okay.” That was the signal to the other girls. Velvet mushed her cake into my Hello Kitty, and then the rest of them threw their cake on me too. They were all laughing and thought it was a big joke. Hello Kitty was ruined.

  Afterward Velvet said I was too childish, and she only did it to help me grow up and be more mature. She said I was too old for Hello Kitty and she was trying to help. But I never bought that. And I never forgave her. I seethed over it for the next two years. In the back of my mind I knew I was going to get her back. Then I found out about how you can make a reed crumbly by holding it in steam, and I did it. When she played that day, it chipped and she sounded awful. I thought it was the perfect crime. But it was all coming back on me now. I was falling apart, weaker by the day. She had written in my annual that I would be cursed. Lyme disease? How many cases of that are there? Nobody gets that. It had to be karma. I had failed as a human being, harboring too much hate. If you don’t take the high road, which one will you take? And this is what you get.

  “Unless, you’re not feeling up to it…”

  I had drifted off. For a minute there, I lost myself. I had forgotten they were still standing over me. I was totally losing my mind. “Are you going to the funeral?” I asked Victor. “You are,” I said to Mad Dog. I knew he had been named a pallbearer.

  Mad Dog looked to Victor for guidance, but got none.

  “I don’t feel like going,” Victor said. “Seven was nobody to me.”

  “Well, he was a friend of mine, and…” I did not know what else to say. How do you respond to something as cold as that? Seven was somebody.

  Victor grabbed a tree branch and did a one-handed pull-up. Just to show he could. He was a real curiosity. He wanted me at his party. Maybe he did like me. There were worse things in the world than fighting off Victor Radcliffe. His eyes burned into me while he did another pull-up. Gratuitously. He was not a really nice guy, but his dark side was appealing. Not just the hoof, but he had something nobody else had. A presence and an aura of authority. He was the boss, and he looked good doing it.

  I would not mind taking him from Velvet. Bad things happened to bad people and she deserved it. Maybe I should be more bad. She might not even go to his party. He might be mine by then.

  Victor dropped down from his one-handed pull-ups. Out of the blue he said, “Seven is …not what you think.” Reminding me again that he was really not a nice man. And yet, I was on a seesaw for him.

  “He’s dead,” I said, incredulously. “What is there to think?” I kept my lips shut tight after asking. I raised one eyebrow, trying to get a response. When I realized my trick was not working, I had to add, “I don’t want to talk about it.” This seemed like an appropriate time to open the magazine and immerse myself.

  “He was weak, and he’s weaker now, like you.”

  “Did you do something to him?” My heart pounded and my voice raised a pitch. “Because I did not say I wanted you to hurt him. I just wanted him to stop…”

  “And it did. I made it stop.”

  “Did you kill him?”

  “He died in his sleep, didn’t he?”

  I closed the magazine. “That’s what I heard.”

  “You don’t believe it?”

  “It doesn’t make sense, Victor. What teenager, in perfect health, dies in his sleep?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t say Seven was in perfect health. He was very skinny. He always seemed like a weakling to me. Survival of the fittest simply did not choose him. In his last days, didn’t he seem more confused, like you’re feeling?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You do.”

  He was trying to con me. “Seven was not weak.”

  “He was a coward.”

  I rifled through the pages of National Geographic and it happened to open to an article about Gandhi. “Nonviolence is a weapon of the strongest and bravest,” I read aloud. Sometimes fate was with me.

  “Being a coward is different. Do you want to see him?”

  “Don’t be gross. Of course I don’t want to see him. He’s dead!”

  “Not really,” Mad Dog said.

  “You guys are crazy.” They were trying to get inside my head, messing with me.

  “How’s the Eye of Marie?”

  Finally, I had my chance. “Gone! It wasn’t the Eye of Marie. It wasn’t the eye of anything. It was Lyme disease. You didn’t know what you were talking about. You don’t know anything!”

  “No?”

  He picked a stone from his hoof toe, flicked it away, unruffled and unperturbed. Whatever I had to say was so inconsequential that he would ignore me until I stopped talking. My emotions were all over the place. From being nearly about to cry over missing Seven to boiling for Victor treating me like I was nothing and wanting to kiss him anyway. “I got some antibiotics and now it’s gone. There was no Eye of Marie. It was a target lesion. Typical of Lyme disease. You were totally wrong about Seven’s grandmother. And about him, too.”

  “Ho hum.”

  If I had the strength I might have gotten up and tackled him.

  “What if I told you he was a zombie?”

  I did not even look up—just flipped a page and kept my head down. He did not speak again and I couldn’t stand it. I raised my head slowly, dramatically. I narrowed my eyes at both of them.

  “Anger could be dangerous in your state, Penny. Be careful, or you’ll split your cheeks.”

  “Just leave.”

  Mad Dog pivoted on a heel, but Victor stayed. “I didn’t kill him, Penelope,” he said. “I might let you see. But I’d really like you to promise you’ll come to my party. It’s my twentieth and my birthday is the most important day of the year. Every year. Because of …me.”

  I could have clawed his eyes out. “Seven’s funeral is today, and you’re talking about your birthday party?”

  “You have an after-hours invitation. You, Velvet, and me.”

  I hated to dignify the conversation with another response, but I could not keep from saying it. “Three people is not a party.”

  “I can come,” Mad Dog begged.

  Victor ignored him. “A soiree, then. Think about it.” He took a step backward. “I can help with that …problem.” His finger drew a ring in the air, encircling my mouth.

  “If Seven is really alive, show me where he is. Take me there first. Then I’ll come to your party.”

  “Okay,” he said, as easily as that. And he was serious. Seven—who happened to be a childhood friend of Rickey’s—had just died, and they were acting like it was nothing.

  The funeral was somber and Rickey was a pallbearer, just as he was supposed to be. Marie and Seven’s mother drifted through the crowd. They wore long black dresses and wide-brimmed hats with veils. There were some kids from band and a dozen people I didn’t know. It was a graveside service and the priest said a few words. That was it. They lowered his coffin into the ground and everyone dispersed. I did not even have a chance to give my condolences to Marie.

  I was marooned in the cemetery, standing dumbfounded over the rectangular hole. There were two men at a distance, leaning on shovels and waiting for me to leave. I threw a rose in with all the others. It was over.

  I had waved my mom away after she brought me, and I had not even considered how I was going to get home. But just as I stepped onto the road, there was Victor, idling up beside me. “You need a ride?” He was in the right place at the right time and I was so relieved. As we rode, he said, “I’m sorry you had to see that. It must be very disconcerting.” I did not respond and he pulled off to the side of the road, giving me his full attention. “You’ve been through a lot.” His eyes were softer than I had ever seen them. He was relaxed, genteel. “I only want to help you.”

  He was the only person who knew how I was feeling, the only one who knew what was really going on. He had the keys to everything and I gushed. He wiped my tears away and I didn’t want to hold anything back from him. I said, “It’s too much
. I don’t understand what’s happening.”

  “I only want to help you,” he said again. “And I can. But you have to trust me. Marie LaVey is behind all this. She is a very dangerous woman.” He squeezed my hand and his touch was soothing. It tranquilized me as we rolled back onto the road. I wished the ride would never end.

  Then I was back at home putting on makeup because Victor Radcliffe would be coming back to get me. It was an absurd date, but he had promised to take me to Seven, to show me what Marie had done to him. Just after sunset, he sailed up the driveway. He had a very nice car, low to the ground with a long, swooping hood—the sportiest car I had ever seen. He drove aimlessly through town, his thoughts elsewhere. Finally, we arrived at the dump. Mad Dog was there, playing a huge bongo drum and watching over Seven, who was picking through rubbish. Wait a minute! It really was Seven. I swooned.

  Seven tossed one piece of garbage after another from the big pile onto a smaller one. He had carved out quite a dent in the huge garbage mound. He looked horrible. I had never seen him like this before. I had never seen anyone like this before. His expression was blank and hollow. His eyes were empty, sunk back in his head. He looked right past me like he did not even know who I was. It was the most vacant face I had ever seen. He was afraid of Victor, though, and immediately shrunk back to the work he was doing. His hair was wild, more unkempt than usual, and he had mud stains on his face and arms. I crept nearer to him, questioning if this thing in front of me was really Seven, or what. If Seven had a twin brother—one who had lived in a cave all his life, and had only lived in a cave his whole life—well, that would be close to what was in front of me now.

  “Seven?”

  He stopped rooting in the garbage and acknowledged me. It was more like he acknowledged another animal—sniffing but not able to figure out what I was. His eyes were unfocused. I waved a hand in front of them.

  “Seven? Is that you?”