Fallen From Grace
As Solitare crept into Payne’s room, she looked around and saw a cluster of his pictures surrounding the mirror on his wall. Many boys with dark eyeliner and raven-haired girls stared back at her. She has tried to look like those girls as far back as her memory will take her. The fierce glints in those eyes have always intrigued her. Now was her first chance to truly be like them. She noticed her brother’s keys were missing from his desk. That was a sure sign that he was already gone. She had spent so much time this afternoon deciding on what to wear. She settled on tattered black jeans and a dark purple tank top. That crucial decision had almost lost her the chance to go along with Payne. Solitare glanced out the window in his room to see if his car was still in the driveway. When she saw that the black Chevelle hadn’t left without her, she sighed with momentary relief.
Solitare flew down the stairs to try and intercept him at the kitchen. Payne was half way out the door when he heard his tiny sister making such a huge racket. He turned his head to greet the flustered auburn head of the girl. He knew she’d decide to come.
“Lemme guess,” he stated with humor in his voice, “you wanna join me?”
Solitare smiled with wide-eyed gratitude and rushed to the passenger door of his car without saying a word. Payne met her in the car and asked if she was positive she wanted to go along. Of course, she did. She’s always wanted to see the mysterious goings on of his crowd. Now, he would finally give her that chance. Payne discussed it with his group, and surprisingly, they seemed to jump at the idea of bringing her. He told Solitare that if she wanted to go, she’d have to be ready by seven o’clock sharp or he’d just assume that she wasn’t accompanying him and leave without her.
She thought about it for a good two days. This might be a dream come true for her if she decided to go. She might even see Silver, one of the group members that frequented their house and their fridge. He was a tall boy with a bright smile that could even make her mother melt. The down side was the danger her brother warned her about. Solitare was unsure what that danger might be, and being the innocent child she has always been, she wasn’t sure she wanted to find out. Curiosity had her in its grasp, though. Also the fact that she idolized her brother compelled her to go despite the danger.
Solitare twitched as her brother shifted into fourth gear around a sharp curve. She’d met a few of Payne’s friends before; Silver, of course, and her brother’s girlfriend, Chaos, but she never spent much time with them. Now, she supposed she would get to know them a bit better. She still had an uneasy feeling in her stomach, though.
Her awareness that this was a dangerous crowd only served to thrill her more. Ever since she could remember, she always wanted to be just like Payne. She saw him with the dark-eyed girls with hoarse voices and thick veins in their arms. When some of these girls came by the house, they always wanted to put makeup on her or dye her hair in wild blues and blacks. Solitare could just picture herself in a few years donning ripped fishnets and black eyeliner hanging on the arm of a leather clad male with spiky hair and a nose ring. Once, she had pierced her own navel to be like those girls. Then her mother spotted it and promptly made her remove it.
Payne’s car slowed and stopped behind a black jeep with a license plate that said, “DEVOUR.” He jumped out of the car and waited as Solitare undid her seatbelt. He grasped for her spidery hand and led her to the door.
They let themselves into the house and paused at the foyer for their eyes to adjust. Solitare squinted in the darkness to make out bodies lounging and sprawled out like cats scattered among all the furniture. She was proud of herself for recognizing the song that droned on the CD player as one by Dead Can Dance; a slow melody with a flute.
One bleach blonde head on the far couch rose up. The girl untangled her limbs from a few of the others around hers and stumbled across the room to kiss her brother. Chaos then whispered a hello to Solitare. Rousing up the room, she announced their arrival. More heads shot up randomly throughout the room. Including one Solitare had wished to see the most, Silver. She was glad of the darkness, because she could feel herself blushing.
With that, the room began to clatter with the clinks of metal. Little gleams and flashes could be spotted in the candlelight. Solitare saw that some girls were drawing daggers from their boots and the boys materialized pewter goblets and crystals from behind their backs.
Payne hoped his little sister was ready for this. Chaos let a terrified kitty out of the closet. She scooped it up and handed it to Silver. Then she took Payne’s hand with a promising look in her eyes and led him down the hall to the bedrooms. Payne warned his sister not to be afraid and not to interrupt any part of the ceremony and not to worry about the kitty.
When Solitare’s eyes switched back to look at the general bunch of people in the living room, she saw that they had arranged pillar candles in a star shape with a circle of chain on the outside of it. A goblet stood at every point and a crystal at every space between them. Silver, obviously in charge, was kneeling at one point with the kitty under his arm. The others began to gather around it, too. Only Solitare remained silent and excluded.
She listened as their voices began speaking words she couldn’t decipher. All at once, their voices united to become one dirge of a backward sounding language. The silence was deafening when they came to an immediate stop. Silver turned his dark head up to look at the innocent girl. He let go of the kitty and gestured hypnotically for her to stand in the center of the star. She could hardly resist when he gave her that winning smile. Once she was in place the circle resumed their incoherent dirge.
Somehow Solitare felt compelled to lie down. Under her trance, she stretched her limbs out in all the points of the giant star. She felt almost sleepy—almost like in a half-dream state. She felt nothing could hurt her now. In fact, she hardly felt the blades when they sank into her wrists and belly. Payne’s screams of protest were barely audible to her. The most she could make out was his hysterical outcries about how Silver tricked him.
Solitare wasn’t in the star anymore, though. She wished she could console her brother and tell him that. She was perfectly content still floating on the nonsensical words of the chant.
Solitare looked down and saw her older brother cradling a limp body that resembled her. She saw him stare daggers at Silver who stood up and moved away from the circle with the rest of the group. She saw Silver’s accomplished smirk. She saw Chaos standing in the doorway of the bedroom with an unhappy scowl from being run out on. She was sure she could’ve kept Payne away. Solitare took all this in and waved good-bye to it all.