Exorcize This, Julie Steimle [best books to read in life txt] 📗

the person who gave her the hair styling tips back when we were freshmen, which made her look less like a frizzy-headed 80’s Nichole Kidman and actually have style.

As we went out onto the field with the other girls, I noticed that new girl, Brigitte Caoilfhionn (her last name is said like Kale-finn; her father is actually from Ireland), rushing onto campus, running late again.

“Caoilfhionn!” Coach O’Conner shouted at her when she saw her. “Hurry it up! Get your butt over here!”

Everyone with me watched as Brigitte rushed across the asphalt to the football field where we practiced, not bothering to go to the locker room to change. She was in jeans with a tee shirt that said something like Youth Conference, with last year’s date, and Light of the World on it.

I barely knew the Caoilfhionns, though her father was my English teacher. He was a new teacher at our school who taught British Lit this year (He spoke with an Irish accent while Brigitte had an American accent as her mother was American). They moved into town at the end of last year when her father was hired. I was never sure why she was always late—especially since her father was here early to teach. But she came with Tiffany Fitzgerald and brothers who also transferred to our school last year. The Fitzgeralds reminded me of the Johaansens. They had that same kind of feel about them—nice people who kept to themselves mostly, the kind you’d expect would homeschool.

“Sorry,” Brigitte apologized to us. She barely peeked at me as she ducked around to Jennifer Daily’s side. Like everyone else, I made Brigitte nervous.

“Ok, everyone,” Coach O’Connor said, “Get into formation.”

Dawn and I quickly found our places, grabbing the flagless staffs we were working with. We didn’t want to get the actual flags dirty. The coach always put Dawn and me near each other as we made a good team, and also to comfort everyone else who practiced around us.  

As we worked on our routine, the music playing in an echo projecting toward the Home side of the stadium, I overheard Jennifer say to Brigitte, “So… did you see them?”

Brigitte shook her head, catching the staff she was twirling. “No. The car was still there, but I didn’t see who lived there.”

I could hear their imps suggest they sneak over to the Bale’s house to peek into it to see who had moved in. It surprised me. Were they that curious about the new people? Maybe they felt lonely because our town got rather cliquish and did not welcome in newcomers that much. Our last move-in before the Caoilfhionns was Mr. McDillan who moved in because of me—and that was about twelve years ago. He was summoned, actually, by the city council as he’s a retired vampire hunter after all and a former member of the SRA—the Supernatural Regulator’s Association.

Their conversation continued as I followed the routine, listening in. I think we all were listening to them, as Brigitte was as curious as squirrel with just as much energy. She would know things.

“…but heard that there are just two people living there. A dad and a girl. She’s going to go to our school.”

“Heard from where?”

“My mom’s a delegate from our church’s Relief Society to work with LASS—” (which was our town’s Ladies Aid Society connected to our church), “—and they stopped by to see if the family needed anything.”

“Your mom stopped by the Bale’s home?” Jennifer nearly dropped her staff.

So did several others.

“Hey!” Coach O’Conner yelled at us, stopping the music. “What’s going on?”

But all of us surrounded Brigitte now who grew startled that everyone was so interested, including me and Dawn.

“Uh…” Brigitte glanced helplessly to Coach O’Conner then Jennifer to answer her question. “Yeah. Mom brought over a plate of brownies. Don’t you guys ever do that when new people come in to town?”

We all stared at her. Jennifer shook her head, “Hardly anybody new moves in.”

Several eyes twitched towards me, begging Brigitte to look at the reason why.

I hung my shoulders and internally moaned. Out loud, I said, “I am not stopping people from moving into this town.”

Brigitte’s eyes flickered to me, but she looked confused. Apparently if she had been told what I was, she had not believed it. After all, I almost always wore my sunglasses, and I hardly ever showed anyone my wings these days. The one time I had opened them in public was two years ago, and it had been on accident and in an emergency. And I had gained a certain degree of self-control so that they did not pop out as frequently when I am startled. Then again, those who could startle me were few and far between and did not live in our town.

“That’s it! Get back into formation!” Coach O’Conner said. She pointed to Brigitte. “Keep this conversation for after practice.”

Nodding, Brigitte hurried back to her spot. The rest of us followed suit.

For the rest of the hour, conversation went down to whispers. I could hardly hear it. But what amazed us all was that Mrs. Caoilfhionn was brave enough to go to that haunted house with a plate of brownies and only came back with a tale that it was a single parent household, and the people who lived there were called the Johnsons.

Well, when I went on to my Algebra II and Trig class, my mind whirling over what the Johnsons had to be like, I found there was a new girl there—black haired with an almost French noir feel about her. And an empty space formed around her also, like an invisible bubble no one wanted to enter. She sat alone with her eyes facing toward her desk. With her sleek, nearly licorice thick and twisting sort of hair pulled into a simple ponytail at the nape of her neck, she was dressed like any other teenager. There didn’t seem to be a reason for people to give her a wide berth, though I noticed her imps were nearly perched on her shoulder, ‘whispering’ into her ear—well, as far as an imp ‘whispers’ at least. Imps always shouted. They were saying: ‘Just kill yourself and get it over with. You can join them.’

Join who? The class? That made no sense.

But as I walked further into the room, I noticed the room was considerably colder than usual. And the closer I got to that girl, the colder it got. It was as if the cold came from her—though that did not feel right. It was more like it hovered around her, like a cloud… or a group of imps.

I decided not to introduce myself. Something in me said it would not be wise. Maybe it was the way those imps on her shoulders were eyeing me. Those imps seemed particularly evil (spiky horns, glaring dark orange eyes), though it did not appear to be the girl’s fault. They were not fat, but lean. Lean and mean. Like they wanted to kill her off so they could tempt someone more interesting. Immediately I felt sorry for her.

For a second Sarah McDonald drew in a breath, steeled herself up, and walked up to the new girl, sitting in the chair next to her. “Hi. I’m Sarah. You’re new here, right? What’s your name?”

Startled that someone was talking to her, the new girl lifted her rather rich blue eyes with hope and said, “Uh, Deidre. Deidre Johnson.”

“You just moved in yesterday, right?” Sarah said, tugging her sweater a little closer to her body to keep warm. Her imps were shouting at her to complain about the air conditioning. Her eyes were looking up and around for an air vent above them. I looked up too, wondering if that was it. But the air vent was three ceiling tiles away. It wouldn’t be blowing on them. In fact, it would not be on in this fall weather.

Smiling with relief, Deidre nodded. “Yes. We did. It is a really nice town too. Very pretty. I hope we can stay here for a while.”

More people listened in, getting in a bit closer. This new girl sounded normal.

“Stay for while?” Becky Dominae asked with Jill Saunders right behind her, nodding as if that remark was weird. “Do you move a lot?”

Deidre nodded. “Yes. My dad… the work that he does is, uh, not very stable. We go from job to job. In our case, we help people with various problems.”

More people gathered around her.

“You’re helping Mrs. Bale sell the house,” someone said.

I got in closer to listen. Deidre’s eyes stared right at me rather intensely, then she averted her gaze as if I terrified her. I pulled back, realizing that she too saw a monster in me.

Yeah. She was like everybody else.

Except her imps cackled with delight as if my effect on Deidre was perfect fun. I didn’t like that.

Deidre nodded, her smile of relief relaxing. “Exactly. My father and I… we’re experts that help with difficult things like this.”

But then her imps shouted, “Tell them about the ghosts.”

I shuddered. The house actually had ghosts?

But Deidre did not tell them anything more. And the air around her seemed colder.

“What is wrong with the air conditioning?” Joan Lohan finally said.

“Take your seats,” Mr. Bates ordered, looking up from the white board where he had been writing out equations for us to solve. “Get out your homework.”

Every one of us went back to our seats. I dropped into mine, pulling out my textbook and the folded sheets of homework tucked in the pages. As I took them out and smoothed the wrinkles in the pages, I noticed Deidre peeking at me with a puzzled expression, especially when Mr. Bates called for our homework to be handed forward, and I passed up my paper as well as the other ones from those classmates behind me.

When the class hour ended and I gathered up my things, I overheard Deidre as she tugged Sarah aside and asked, “Is she for real? Can you see her?”

Sarah chuckled, a little embarrassed. “Yeah. She’s real. That’s Eve McAllister. Her father’s the town’s dentist.”

I could feel Deidre stare, though I did not look while I tucked my books into my backpack. “Dentist? Did he make her teeth like that?”

Becky snorted, shaking her head and leaning near. “No. She was born that way. Eve is a monster.”

“That is really rude,” Sarah said, which surprised me. “Eve’s a good person. She’s always on the honor roll, and she never lies.”

“She’s creepy,” Becky snapped back. She then looked to Deidre, “The girl has wings and fangs and her eyes are orange. She’s not human.”

“Really?” Deidre breathed out. And I could tell that she believed it. I did not know how. But I did not want to listen anymore. It hurt too much, though I was glad to know Sarah at least didn’t see me as evil.

I left the room.

I hurried to English where Jane waited for me. I felt like hugging her. I needed a hug.

When Jane saw me she smiled then said, reading my expression, “What happened?”

Shaking my head as I took my seat I just said, “Same old. Same old.”

She nodded, sitting at the desk next to me. “Well, anyway, rumor has it, there is going to be a federal investigation about the disappearance of the hikers.”

“A federal investigation?” I murmured. “Or is the SRA just coming into town pretending to be the FBI? That would be dangerous for me.”

Jane shrugged. She knew about as much as I knew about the Supernatural Regulator’s Association. We had researched what we could on the internet after we had met Michael Toms, who was a member of that monster-hunting union. And Mr. McDillan gave us his two-cents about them with an insider view as he was a former member. But he said that there was no way the SRA would enter our mountains unless they had a group large enough. Our vampire-infested mountains were what he called a ‘black hole’—a place where hunters went