Prologue
A diary entry many years later:
“Long ago, a magical
king was born in a kingdom where animals talked and intellect sparred with
spirituality. It was a time when truth transcended culture, forgiveness won
battles, and love conquered a young girl’s heart.”
But lest I get
ahead of myself, let me start from the beginning—which happened a long, long,
long time ago. So long ago, I barely remember the beginning of my journey to
the Seventh Dimension.
Chapter One
The Dark Secret
of Shale Snyder
I
hid in a closet underneath the stairs—my safe house. Nobody would find me in
here. It wasn’t used because the ceiling was too low. After the accident, the
closet became my friend. I wanted to avoid Judd, who came over to visit Chumana.
She was not my sister but we lived together.
Guilt
overwhelmed me. The door creaked as I turned the handle. I held my breath and
peered through the tiny slit. Moving shadows darkened the room. Judd, Rachel,
and Chumana stared into a small brown shoebox.
Chumana
burst out crying. “I hate Shale.”
I
cringed. She already hated me anyway, ever since we moved in with them a few
months earlier.
Rachel
stood and recited a Jewish prayer. “Barukh shem
k'vod malkhuto l'olam va'ed. Blessed is the name
of his glorious kingdom forever and ever.” With her unkempt hair, puffy red eyes, and
flushed face, I barely recognized my best friend.
“Why
are you praying?” Judd snapped. “We aren’t here to pray.”
“Accidents
happen,” Rachel said.
“She
should be cursed,” Judd exploded.
“Don’t
say that,” Rachel said.
“How do you know it was an accident?” Chumana
asked.
I
looked away. I couldn’t listen. My whole body quivered—what kind of curse?
Judd’s
voice cracked. “I demand she tell us what happened.”
The
three twelve-year-olds sat silently for a moment before Rachel responded. “She
fell down the stairs with Fifi and she’s afraid.”
I
swallowed hard.
Judd
pulled his uncle’s Atlanta Braves cap over his eyes and clinched his hand into
a fist. “I hope Shale never has any friends—for the rest of her life.” He covered
his face and sobbed.
I
bit my fingernail holding back tears. I’d never heard a boy cry. Could his curse
come true?
Chumana’s
red hair matched her fiery temper. “That’s not enough of a curse. She already
doesn’t have any friends.”
“I’m
her friend,” Rachel said. “Accidents happen.”
Rachel
lived two buildings down from us in the Hope Garden Apartments. Would she still
be my friend if I told her the truth? I didn’t just fall—it was what I was
doing when I fell. I was too afraid. I rubbed my swollen ankle, a reminder of
my foolishness. The doctor hoped it would heal, but Fifi lay in the box.
Probably
God hated me, too. If I told the truth, everyone would hate me. I couldn’t even
tell my mother. My father—he left me long ago.
***
Two Years Later
I felt a hand reach underneath my
blue skirt. I spun around on my toes. Students in the crowded hallway blended
into a blur of anonymity. Hurried bodies shoved past. Am I going crazy? Did I
imagine it? I scanned faces and froze each one, like a snapshot with a camera.
“Shale, why are you standing there?
Come on or you’ll be late to class.” Rachel was waiting at the hall lockers.
I walked towards her as the bell
rang.
“Are you okay?” She furrowed her
brow.
“I’m fine.” I smiled, pretending
nothing had happened. I’d think about it later. “Did you finish your analysis
of As You Like It?”
Rachel’s brown eyes bulged. “Is it
due today?”
“Here’s mine. You can take a quick
look if you need to.”
“Oh, thanks, Shale. I hate
Shakespeare anyway. No copying, promise. Just a peek.”
“It’s no different from reading
Spark Notes on the web,” I quipped.
When we walked into English class at
Garden High School, I sat in the seat closest to the door and stared out into
the darkened hallway. Who did it? What would I do if I caught him? Mrs. Wilkes’s
voice brought me back to reality as she recited from a Shakespearean play.
“All the world’s a stage.
And all the men and women merely
players
They have their exits and their
entrances
And one man in his time plays many
parts
His acts being seven ages.”
What was my part? At fourteen, did I
have one yet?
***
Later in the afternoon, I tripped
while stepping off the school bus. My books were scattered over the ground. My bum ankle
from the accident two years earlier would catch at the worst possible moments—what
I considered my eternal punishment.
Scrambling to pick them up, I wiped
the red Georgia clay off my math book. The bus waited long enough to make sure
it wouldn’t run me over before pulling away.
“Hey, wait up, ya’ll.” I walked
faster to catch up as Rachel stopped, but Chumana and Judd kept going. We still
lived in the same apartment complex on the south side of Atlanta—had for years.
“If you used a backpack, you
wouldn’t have dropped your books,” Rachel chided me.
“Mine broke.” I scanned Rachel’s
back. “Where’s yours?”
“I did my homework at school. This
is all I needed.” Rachel waved a thick book with strange-looking letters in the
air.
“Can you read that stuff?”
“Sure,” Rachel laughed, “but I don’t
know what it means. You could too if I taught you.” Rachel flipped to the first
page. “You start on this side.” Her finger pointed to a line of Hebrew and she
ran her finger across the page from right to left.
“Really?”
“Yes.” Rachel giggled. “So who reads
backward, the English or the Jews?”
“I’d say the Jews. I can say that since I’m
not Jewish, right?”
“Why not?”
“Writing would sure be easier if
English was right to left. I wouldn’t smear my words.”
Rachel nodded. “I forget you’re
left-handed. It’s crazy, isn’t it—like the Brits drive on the left side and we
drive on the right.”
We walked for a while not saying
anything. I glanced at my friend with her striking olive skin, almond brown
eyes, and brown hair. “Do you like being Jewish?”
“Yeah, I guess. I don’t know any
different.”
“I wish I was Jewish.”
“Why?” Rachel asked.
“It would be neat to be able to say
I was something.”
“You could go to church,” Rachel
suggested.
“Mom and Remi would never go. Every
time they talk about God or anything religious, they end up fighting.”
Rachel flinched. “That’s too bad. By
the way, thanks for your help with English.”
“You’re welcome.” I switched my
books to the left, thinking how much I hated the long walk home, especially
since we now lived farther away. The new unit we moved into when Remi and
mother married was at the very back by the woods.
Rachel frowned, noticing my musings.
“What’s it like having a father now?”
I bit my lip hesitating. “At least I
have my own bedroom and don’t have to share with Chumana.”
“That’s good,” Rachel agreed. “How
did you ever end up living with her anyway?”
“Mother didn’t have any money when
we moved to Atlanta. She found an ad that Chumana’s mother placed in the Atlanta Constitution looking for a
roommate. It was a cheap place to live.”
I eyed Judd and Chumana ahead of us.
“What are they talking about? They have been spending a lot of time together.”
Rachel lowered her voice. “I know.”
“Maybe they deserve each other.”
Rachel edged up even closer to me
and spoke in a whisper, “You never knew your father, right?”
“No.” I clutched my books which now
seemed heavier. “Mother couldn’t wait to marry Remi after being divorced for so
many years. Then she cried all night when they returned from their honeymoon in
the mountains. I couldn’t sleep. I wondered why, but was too afraid to ask.”
“Maybe it was a bad honeymoon,”
Rachel chortled.
“Silly you. How can you have a bad
honeymoon?”
“I don’t know,” Rachel replied. “I’m
sure it’s happened.”
“I hardly knew Remi the day they
married.”
“It’s hard to imagine what it would
be like to be at your own parent’s wedding. I mean, it might be funny if it
could happen,” Rachel said.
“Like Back to the Future?” Then my thoughts darkened. “How would you like
having a stepfather you don’t know?”
Rachel shook her head. “I wouldn’t.”
I’d never confided in anyone about
my past but now I couldn’t stop. “Presents arrive twice a year from North York.
I don’t remember anything about my father. One day he left and never returned.”
“I can’t imagine what that would be
like,” Rachel said.
“Sometimes I get angry.”
Rachel’s eyes widened. “About what?”
“Mother didn’t ask how I felt about her
remarrying.”
We walked in silence as my words
hung in the air. I kicked a rock on the sidewalk and it skipped into the
gutter. Rachel’s warm nature was comforting. She came from such a perfect
family, or it seemed. I’d tell her things I wouldn’t tell anyone else.
Voices from the past mocked me. “Do
I walk like a chicken?”
Rachel laughed. “No, you don’t walk
like a chicken.”
“Do I have big lips?”
“Big lips?” Rachel stopped and
stared at me surprised. “No.”
“You don’t think so? Every time I
wet them with my tongue, I worry I’m making them fat—so I was told.”
Rachel examined my fair face. I pretended
not to notice. “You’re beautiful. Who would say such mean things?”
I didn’t want to tell her. What was
the point in making him look bad?
“I love your green eyes and long
brown hair.” Rachel reached out and grabbed a couple of strands, flipping them
over my shoulder. “I wish mine wasn’t wavy with all the humidity. I use an iron
to straighten it but it doesn’t stay that way for long.” Rachel giggled. “Guys
love long, straight hair.”
“Remi wants me to call him dad, but
that seems weird.”
A few feet in front of us, Chumana
knelt on the sidewalk.
Rachel squinted. “What are they
looking at?”
An earthworm wiggled on the sidewalk,
barely warm from the late afternoon sun. A few weeks after Christmas, it was
the wrong time of year for creepy crawlers.
“It’s probably cold,” I said.
Judd lifted his foot to squash it.
“Wait,” I demanded.
Judd glared at me.
“Why kill it?” I asked.
He leaned down and picked it up,
dangling the worm a few inches above the sidewalk. “Have you ever dissected one
of these?”
I shook my head.
He stiffened. “I should make you
squish it between your delicate fingers.”
I stared at the worm. Judd dropped
it on the sidewalk. As he started to smash it again, I leaned over and shoved
him. “Just leave it alone.”
Judd’s face turned beet red. “Don’t
ever push me again. You hear me?”
I nodded. My knees spasmed like a
jack-in-the-box.
“You don’t like squishing worms but
you killed my puppy.” His icy eyes ripped at my soul.
Rachel said, “Get over it. You sound
so hateful.”
Chumana glared through her thick,
black-rimmed glasses. “Judd is right, though, Rachel. Don’t you remember?”
“I remember,” Rachel whispered.
My heart raced as I picked up the
worm—its slimy body was cold to the touch—and stuck it in my pocket.
Judd shook his head and stomped off.
Ruefully, I urged Rachel and Chumana,
“You two go on. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Rachel nodded. They continued walking,
leaving me alone.
After wrapping the worm up in some
brown leaves, I placed it on a warmer corner of the concrete. When I lifted my
eyes, I saw the white dog for the first time. She sat nearby wagging her fluffy
tail.
As I approached her, she stood and
limped backward. The scruffy creature was dirty and mangy, with floppy short
ears and almond brown eyes. If she belonged to someone or was lost, the owner wasn’t
taking very good care of her. A fuzzy feeling warmed my heart. Did she like me?
Before I could get too close, the dog turned and ran away.
