“Fuck, that’s cold,” Lola said. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Putting Mr. Wrinkles away until later,” Maggie said. “Unless he gives me a nod right now to tell me he’s cooperating.”
Both Maggie and Lola looked at the goblin.
He thrust his pelvis into the air once. Quite amazing, even, given the chains that bound him.
“Right-o,” Maggie said. She grabbed the chains and hauled him off the ground. “Heavy little snot, aren’t you?”
The goblin’s retort was muffled but his glare said enough.
She held him above the open window.
Behind Maggie and Lola, the bathroom door opened. Maggie still held the goblin out the window.
A teacher.
“You two should be in class,” the woman said.
“I’m new,” Maggie said. “Still learning my way around town.”
“I know for a fact that isn’t true,” the woman replied. “Your name is making its rounds around the staff room, Maggie. We do talk about our students.”
I am new, relatively speaking, Maggie thought. And I am still learning my way around town.
Still, she made a show of looking suitably embarrassed.
“I have to assume you’re using the windowsill as an ashtray. Please tell me it’s a cigarette, and not something you could get suspended for.”
The goblin squirmed, fingers reaching out in an attempt to scratch at Maggie’s hands. Maggie shifted her grip so the goblin couldn’t touch her.
The woman couldn’t see, of course. The goblin had cloaked itself, and something told Maggie that the woman was one of those people that could look right at an Other and walk away none the wiser.
“It’s neither,” Maggie said. “Want to do a breath test?”
“Yes, I’ll call that bluff,” the woman said. “Whatever you’re doing, please close that window first.”
Maggie nodded, turning her attention to the window, “Just trying to see if there’s something on the outside… ah.”
She balanced the goblin on the very edge of the window, then hooked the metal clip at the end of the chain to the raised lip of the window frame.
A nudge, touching the chain alone, and he tipped over, screaming. A moment later, he jerked to a stop, screaming in pain, this time.
That only lasted a second or two. He started screaming in rage as he realized what she was doing. The chain swayed as he struggled, swinging left and right.
Maggie shut the door, only to find the teacher a foot behind her.
“Breath test,” the teacher said.
Maggie huffed a breath in the teacher’s face.
“Hands too.”
“You might not want to-”
“Hands,” the teacher said, firmer.
Maggie held out her hands. “I’m telling you-”
The woman took a sniff, then recoiled. “Good god. Wash your hands.”
“I did.”
“Wash your hands again,” the woman said, irritated, “Then go to the office, get a late slip, and get yourself to homeroom. Lola Duchamp?”
“Same thing, I get it,” Lola said.
The woman turned to go, pausing at the door. “Maggie?”
“Yes ma’am?”
“Consider seeing a doctor.”
The woman slammed the door.
“Goblin stink,” Maggie commented. She took a tentative sniff of her own hands, then screwed up her face. She started washing her hands again. “I don’t think I even touched him directly when I was sticking him through the window.”
“It’s probably in your clothes,” Lola commented. “Mine too. Come with me to the office? I’ve got something to bring up.”
Maggie nodded, giving her hands a quick rinse to get the soap off.
Lola held the door for her as they made their exit.
“Are we friends now?” Maggie asked. She let her shoulder bump Lola’s. “Partners in crime?”
“No,” Lola said, without humor.
“That’s cold,” Maggie said. “Shutting me down. You could at least play along, or give more material so this conversation keeps moving.”
“Anarchists can be too dangerous to befriend.”
“Sticking to the Duchamp party line there, Lola? What is it they tell you? Stay away from outsiders, they’re dangerous and they’ll fudge you up? Stick with our cult of black widow enchantresses, marry the disgusting old dude we tell you to, squirt out some Duchamp clone, drink the kool-aid…”
“If we’re talking about dangerous company, practitioners that make stupid mistakes like giving away their ability to swear have to rate somewhere up there.”
“That’s not exactly what I did,” Maggie said. “But hey, excellent banter. I could convert you yet.”
“Oh? Do tell. How long do I have before I’m killing people in cold blood, Maggie?”
The words were like a physical blow.
Maggie managed a fake smile, “As banter goes, that’s a little too direct-to-jugular to fit in with the flow, FYI.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. While we’re trading tips, if you want to pretend my words aren’t affecting you, you can’t have that telling pause before you respond.”
Despite herself, Maggie hesitated before speaking again, trying to find her mental footing. “You think you’re better than me?”
Stupid. If an argument was an exchange of blows, she’d just given up her opportunity and stuck her chin out for a hit.
Sure enough, Lola seized the chance, “We’re civilized, we’re building something. You’re, what, doing the metaphorical equivalent of grubbing in the dirt for cockroaches? I can’t even think of a good metaphor for what you did to the last Thorburn heiress, but it’s lower than that. The fact that it needed to be done doesn’t diminish the ugliness of it at all. We’re not ever going to be friendly, understand?”
“My metaphorical cockroaches could slit your throat and drop a dookie in the wound,” Maggie said.
The look Lola gave her was priceless. Shutting up a Duchamp?
“Could, not will. Just saying,” Maggie said, before Lola could decide on a retort, or escalate this into a problem. “Not to worry. You might not be friendly, but I’m a lot nicer than I look.”
Even now, Lola didn’t have the words for a reply.
Which worked. Going back to her exchange of blows metaphor, she’d just picked up a chair and slapped Lola across the back of the head. It wouldn’t make her friends, but she’d won the argument.
“You’re more energetic than usual.”
“It’s the end of the semester, and I’m pretty happy things have gone as well as they have, believe it or not.”
“You’re in Jacob’s Bell. You murdered a girl. You’re happy?”
Lola kept bringing that up. Lola had to know the effects the words had, and it rankled. She had no idea what was involved, the sleepless nights, the shame, and yet she threw it out there.
Which made Maggie’s mood worse and made it more likely Maggie would say something they’d both regret. ‘I’ll have a goblin cut your throat and crap in the wound’ wasn’t her worst.
Maggie took a breath, then exhaled slowly before replying. “Pretty happy, for lack of a better term. I’m in a better place mentally and emotionally, even literally. The damn nightmares have stopped. I’m meeting people and making sorta-friends.”
“Sorta-friends like Mr. Wrinkles, the bathroom goblin?”
“No,” Maggie said.
“Because he’s a better choice for a friend than Blake Thorburn.”
“Blake gets a bad rap.”
“Maybe. But I still don’t know how you can interact with him. Aren’t you scared?”
“Nah. Look at where we are right now. What could be worse than high school?”