Rules for Orion

chapter one

       

One: Logan
August 12, 9 PM. Dwyer, VA.

    I've had a straw in my mouth for the last hour. I'm letting Devi, my best friend, do all the talking. She's detailing the banishment of a fairy the pair of us had performed around two hours ago. The fairy had been in the form of an extremely angry badger when we'd first found it, hence the injuries I've sustained. Neither Devi or Blaise, who's listening to this whole recap, ask me any questions, and I don't prompt them to. I just keep drinking tea.
     My silence isn't out of the ordinary for us. My brain has a makeup that matches what the world likes to call 'high-functioning' autism—it plays out in a myriad of ways, two of which being excessive talking and the polar opposite. My friends know that sometimes I just sit in complete silence, and they're okay with that.
     I'm twisting the strings of my hoodie around my fingers and untwisting them and retwisting them and untwisting them and retwisting. Blaise is watching my hands before her sight catches on my neck. Her pale eyes narrow; she reaches over and bats my hands from my chest.
     She moves my tea, too, which brings a distressed noise from me. She says, "Too much sugar. Let me—Logan—no, let me see."
     Blaise gently pulls down the neckline of my shirt, revealing intersecting sets of three puckered, serrated scratches that skip from my chest over my collarbone to my neck. She makes a sound of distaste in the back of her throat. Without letting go of me, she turns to Devi, who's sitting beside me in the cracked, purple, faux-leather booth. "You didn't mention Logan getting fucked up."
     Devi jumps. Blaise almost never curses. Her tone sounds both hurt and accusatory, and I can tell Devi's beginning to crack under the pressure. Spinning the words in this conversation would be like lying. None of us like to lie to Blaise.
     Devi slowly shrugs. "I cleaned them up. They're not as bad as they look."
     "They're uncovered."
     "They're not bleeding. Anymore. We didn't have any bandages."
     We had, in fact, just cleaned me up the best we could with the contents of a half-empty, sun-warmed water bottle and pressed a tissue into my wounds until I'd stopped thinking I was going to die. I'd probably overreacted. They're already starting to knit up.
     "You don't have anything in that pack of yours?"
     Blaise is referring to the pastel pink backpack that Devi and I share. It functions as a repository for our tools related to dealing with all things mythological: iron, salt, amulets, incantations, and various other things that would make either of my Catholic grandmothers sick to their stomachs. Typically, the pack also contains medical supplies, but we'd just recently run out, and the energy readings on this job had seemed too urgent to make a Rite Aid run beforehand.
     Devi shrugs again; not flippant, but unsure. "Sorry. They're not that deep, really. He'll be alright."
     "If he gets rabies..."
     "It was a fairy, not an actual badger. He'll be fine."
     "Do you see how close to his jugular artery that is? You seem awfully calm considering he could've—"
     "—I'm fine." I cut them both off before anyone can start really fighting. My voice feels weird after forcing myself to use it. "Really. It's not as bad as it looks."
     That sentence seems to mean more to Blaise, coming from me. Her expression softens.
     Jay—my third of three friends, Blaise's boyfriend, our waiter and by extension the good soul who continues to supply me with iced tea—appears from the shadowy double doors of the kitchen with a full pitcher. He slides me a brimming glass before Blaise can intercept it. She throws him a look; he shrugs. "S'my job."
     Blaise looks fed up with all the shrugging going on, but she doesn't say anything about it to Jay. She never seems to become wroth with him, and for good reason: Jay never really acts in anyone's interest but one of ours.
     Jay leans forward to rest the heels of his palms on the edge of our table. His dark eyes cut up to the old television on the wall above our booth. "Rain tomorrow," he says. "Well, tonight. And in the morning."
     I say damn, but my straw is in my mouth, so it doesn't sound like a real word. The sound calls looks from my friends. I swallow, pull back my straw, and explain. "Car's in the shop. Shift's at eight; clock in at seven. I'll walk."
     "I'll drive you," Devi offers. I shake my head before she can finish. I'll sooner leave my fate in the paws of a badger-fairy than the hands of Devi Mansa behind the wheel.
     "Come on," she says. "I need the practice."
     I know what she's insinuating—I've had enough practice, apparently. I bought my car off Craigslist when I was fourteen and have been driving almost since the moment it became legal.
     "I need the exercise."
     There are a number of responses Devi could give to that, two of the most effective are You hate walking, and Alright, state-ranking swimmer. She doesn't say either of those or any others. Instead, she slumps back into the booth. She blows out, harsh, and sends a bit of the long black-brown curtain in front of her face to fly back for a second.
     Devi's been my friend the longest. You'd think that would make her more used to my idiosyncrasy than the others, but it actually just serves to make her feel more comfortable in trying to push me to the limits.
     One of those limits: I cannot stand to be driven anywhere by certain people, most notably Devi, because sometimes I can't handle what I can't easily control. If I'm in a car where Devi is driving—Devi "I've totaled two cars" Mansa—I won't be able to focus on anything else. I don't care if the ride is only five minutes. I won't be able to focus on anything else.
It's easier to just annoy her than terrify me.
     We've already decided driving arrangements on how we're going to get home tonight—it's the same way we always go from the diner when we're not using my car: I drive one to someone's house, then I go to mine, and the remaining girl drives herself home. Jay doesn't get home until an hour after the diner closes. Sometimes Blaise waits for him.
     Anyway. Devi gets over it quick enough. In less than five minutes, she's back to talking amiably with Blaise. Jay's disappeared. I don't know whether he'll come back again before we leave.
     I don't pay attention to what Devi and Blaise are saying. I look at the greasy menu; the sheen on the side meanders like a current. I look at the ceiling fan above it. The fractures around it make it look like it's dangerously dangling. I'm sure it's not. I look at the outside through the smudgy back window. The sky is lit purple and teal; it's already begun to rain. Suddenly I'm tired.
     I nudge Devi's arm. "We should go home."