Allie lay completely still under her bed. Her breath was silent and slow. She saw her target hop down from the bed, and walk towards her dresser to sniff at a drawer handle. She sprung into action, grabbing her victim.
“Aha! I got you, Abe!” she squealed as she tackle-hugged her cat. Abe meowed in response, but didn’t seemed bothered by her odd show of affection. Allie rolled onto her back, hugging Abe to her chest as she did. She patted the top of his head, then scratched the sides of his face gently. Abe purred contentedly.
“Good kitty,” Allie praised. She lay back, exhausted by her show of hunting skills. She briefly wondered when her mother would get home. The answer always seemed to vary from day to day, though Allie couldn’t help but notice that the time she heard the door creak open each night was getting later and later as the summer went on.
Soon she would be back in school and too tired to stay up to make sure her mom made it home safely. At the beginning of the summer, when she’d been playing with the other kids in her neighborhood, she had mentioned to the boy down the street that she always stayed up to make sure her mom was safe.
The older boy had laughed in her face, telling her that her mom was the one who was supposed to that, not her. So she’d thrown his favorite red dodgeball into his stomach as hard as she could, and ran back to her house to play with Abe. Abe was cuter and friendlier, anyway.
Allie shifted to her right side, loosening her grip on Abe so that he could find a more comfortable position. The cat jumped up and curled up on her hip and thigh, balancing himself effortlessly. Allie watched him rest for a moment, before turning to eye a tub across the room.
Her mom had given her the giant bin just a few days ago. It was made of a heavy but clear plastic, making it so she could see what was inside. She grinned at the sight of all the assorted beads sitting there.
As much as Allie loved playing with other kids or with Abe, what she enjoyed most was throwing a blanket down on her wooden floor, and sitting Indian-style, beading to her heart’s content. She never seemed to grow tired of hearing the beads click together as she added one and then another to the string.
Her mind made up, Allie righted herself slowly, giving time Abe to get up and climb down from where he was laying. She ran her hand from his head all the way to the end of his tail slowly, listening to him purr. She was surprised he hadn’t been more flustered by her getting up. Not that she was complaining. She rather liked it when her goofy cat was in a good mood.
Shaking her head, Allie got up and walked across to the other side of the room She seated herself in front of the bin, and gripping each side one at a time, she popped open the grips that kept the lid sealed tight. Once she was done, she shook her hands, trying to ignore the slight burning in them from her effort.
Allie got up quickly and scurried over to her craft cabinet, pulling out the fishing line she used for beading, and a pair of short but very sharp scissors that her mother technically didn’t know were missing from her sewing kit. Allie had reasoned with herself that if her mom really wanted her to bead, she would need a better pair of scissors than the safety pair her grandmother had given her during one of her visits.
There was no way those blunt things would cut through the fishing line, and there wasn’t any other string that was sturdy enough to not rip or get extremely tangled while she was working. She was smart enough to know the dangers of the scissors she had now, though, and walked back to her bead tub slowly.
Putting her things down and then finding a comfy seat, Allie set to work. Unwinding a piece of line as long as her wingspan, she diligently cut the end, and tied it into a tidy double knot. She scooped out a couple handfuls of beads out in front of her, sorting them out by shape, size, and color.
She arranged a couple of different patterns, and finally decided on one that had some clear, violet, and sapphire colored beads. She hummed quietly as she slid them onto the string, pausing now and then to pet Abe when he wandered up to her to see what she was doing.
When the beads in front of her dwindled, she reached in with both hands to pull out some more. She spread them out on the floor just like she did before, sorting out some of the ones she would need. She hesitated as she came across a bead that was clearly different from the others. She picked it up to inspect it more closely.
Allie realized the bead she was holding was shaped like a skull. She hadn’t registered it as one since it was such a vibrant shade of blue. As she studied it, she noticed how warm the stone bead felt in her hand. It wasn’t quite burning, but a few degrees higher, and she very well might have dropped the bead by accident.
She assumed the bead was made of stone, since it was so heavy, but aside from that, she didn’t have any clues that hinted at what it might be made of. Allie couldn’t help but think of her Spanish class. All of the lessons she could remember were really very simple, perro for dog, gata for cat, hola and adios for hello and goodbye.
But what this bead made her recall was when they had made colorful masks and bright food for Dia De La Muerte. Even then Allie knew she had been the only one who hadn’t been bothered by a holiday that was so cheerful about death.
It was an unacceptable thing in the world of the people around her, and she seemed to be the only one who could think of death as inevitable without going haywire. Even her mother didn’t like it when the topic came up naturally in conversation.
Allie’s hand was closed tightly around the bead. It didn’t just make her think of that lesson. It made her think of…other things. Not dark things, like the school counselors were always digging for. Just natural things. Things that couldn’t be argued with and were always there.
What made her feel so odd was that it felt like it had been 100 years since she’d thought about such things. As she was now, she couldn’t even fathom how long a century was. It felt to her like she was tapping into the memories of someone else, and calling them her own. But they felt like hers, so weren’t they…?
Feeling like she had decided something important, even though she had no idea what it was, Allie worked quickly and cut a fresh piece of string. Her hands moved faster than normal, tying a different knot. It looked like it had come from that big book about the ocean that lived on the bottom shelf at the library.
She stopped, watching as the string swung slowly from her little hand. Shaking her head to snap herself out of her daze, Allie rummaged through her bin of beads. She didn’t stop when some spilled over the sides, clattering to the floor and rolling away. Abe meowed almost nervously as she pulled her hand out, holding a handful of beads, shaped similarly to the first she had found, only they were all different kinds of colors.
Allie let the beads slide down the string, one by one, smiling as they clinked against each other heavily. She felt like she was finishing something, or regaining something. Another handful, and the string was full. She deftly linked both ends together, the string now a necklace. She rolled a couple of beads between her fingers, enjoying the warmth that had surprised them from before. She held her prize up for Abe to see.
“What do you think, sweetie?” she asked, trying not to giggle. Even her voice sounded different, now. “I think I’m going to try it on. Come look at the mirror with me!” She bounded off to her mother’s bathroom, the place where the only full length mirror in the house lived.
Her socked feet were soundless on the tiled floor of her mother’s bathroom, as were Abe’s as he walked in behind her. Allie grinned at herself in the mirror as she raised the necklace up to put it around her neck. As the necklace sat on her body, the beads no longer felt so heavy, like they were now sitting where they belonged.
Allie tilted her head curiously. She didn’t remember the areas around her eyes being quite so dark, or her dark brown hair fading into white at the tips. She could have sworn it was to the middle of her back, too, not just barely brushing her shoulders. And what had happened to her blue eyes? They were now brown to the point they looked black in the current light. Or maybe they were black?
Allie glanced down at Abe. The cat didn’t seem worried about her new appearance. He mewed at her and rubbed against her leg. He seemed to like her just as much as he had before. She turned to take in her appearance one more time, touching her face occasionally just to make sure it was really her face staring back at her from the reflective glass.
She turned away quickly, her smile returning. As soon as she found a decent pair of shoes, she was curious to see what the boy a few houses down would think. Maybe he needed a reminder that he shouldn’t mock her or the woman she had been taking care of? And really, calling that poor woman her mother…the child couldn’t be more stupid. Allie laughed, stroking her necklace briefly before making her way downstairs.
