Michael stabbed the fairy through the hand. That’s what he and his buddies called Calvin behind his back, not that he’d have the guts to say it to his face. Not normally, but he just had to be smartass. It wasn’t his intention for it to go this far, but insults were swapped, and Michael tackled Calvin, straddled his hips. Reaching inside his khakis, he fished out the switchblade his dad got from the gunshow.
Michael stabbed the fairy through the hand. The blade sluiced through the flesh, jutting out through the other side as the hilt hit the palm. Calvin’s eyes widened, stared through Michael, past him, into what lay beyond. His lips sucked in a tiny gasp. Michael ripped out the blade.
Calvin’s eyes shot to his hand, held a foot above his chest. He remained still, stiff. They watched the wound drip blood onto his school polo, staining the navy fabric red little plops at a time.
His other hand, his left hand was laying in the grass, sweetly by his head. Michael gritted his teeth, plunged the blade into Calvin’s other palm, pinning the fairy to the ground.
Calvin barely winced, too transfixed on the first wound to register the second. A tiny jewel of a tear swelled in the corner of his eye, rolled down his cheek into the grass.
Michael stood up, brushed off his pants, grinned, adrenaline pumping his heart like a stress ball. Calvin looked kind of pretty, with his plumes of curly hair, sprawled in the grass, surrounded by a ring of white clover blossoms.
The school tugged at his periphery, looming. Michael scoped the parking lot. Nobody was around, so he brushed off his pants, spat in the fairy’s direction, then booked it across the schoolyard, slinked around the side of the brick building, and snuck back in through the rear entrance.
He strutted through the empty hallways to the cafeteria, sat down at the table with his friends, tried acting like nothing was out of the ordinary, but a numbness crept down his fingers from the tips to the wrist and up his shoulders to his chin. Everything sounded underwater.
He actually did it.
He stabbed him.
Twice.
His friends were talking, chatting about Saturday’s game. Michael couldn’t pay attention. What came over him? Why did it have to happen now, here? Anywhere else would’ve been better, less witnesses.
He was going to get caught.
The school was on a corner. There wasn’t much traffic, but lunch was almost over. The students who eat off-campus would return soon. He rubbed his palms off on his jeans.
A girl ran into the office, crying. He couldn’t make out who it was through the frosted glass, but she was frantic.
The receptionist jumped up from her desk and ran out the door, the rest of the office staff trailing quick behind her. Two men carried in what had to be the fairy a few minutes later.
Michael squeezed the table so hard he thought he would crush the laminate, the kind made to look like mottled marble, but surely it wasn’t nearly as strong or who knows maybe his knuckles would snap first. Any minute, the principal, the police, anyone could yank him out of his seat, scream what have you done.
The bell rang.
Everybody got up, began moving to their next class. Michael walked around the edge of the cafeteria slowly, watching the fairy in the office, sat upon the main desk. The staff were sitting in a circle around him, listening to him speak or something, but just sitting.
Michael’s throat went dry. He felt sick all the way to his next class, trembled at his desk while his peers filed into their seats around him. The seat next to him was still empty by the time the teacher started his lesson.
Lydia. She must have been the one who found him.
Michael waited. His heart thumped steadily against his chest for the full thirty minutes it took for Lydia to make it to class. He expected her to be traumatized, frightened, at least mildly upset, but she seemed almost… giddy.
A peachy grin spread across her face as she handed the teacher a tardy slip and slid into her seat.
“Hey,” Michael whispered, “Where were you?”
“I can’t say.” She smiled.
“C’mon.” Michael smiled back.
“No. I really can’t say. I promised.” She bit her lip.
“C’mon, you know I can keep a secret.” Michael did his best attempt to look nonchalant, hiding his shaking leg behind his backpack.
“Fine,” Lydia looked around the room, tucked her baby-blonde hair behind her ear then leaned in towards Michael, “Between you and me, I think I just witnessed a miracle.”
The fairy never returned to class. The next day, he wasn’t in homeroom. Michael was nearly nauseous, waiting for some kind of news. At any moment, police could burst through the door, put him in handcuffs. He made it to third period, theology. The intense anxiety from the morning was waning. The teacher, Mr. Dallmann began his lesson.
“Alright, give me a show of hands. Who here knows what the stigmata is?” Michael was barely paying attention, too busy staring at the door, waiting. Luke, the know-it-all, raised his hand, flopping it around like his life depended on it. “Okay, Luke. Anybody else?” A few kids shook their heads. “Luke, go ahead.”
“It’s the wounds of Christ.”
“Correct, but they’re not just any wounds. They’re miracles, a message sent directly from God. The stigmata are rare, only appearing on the most venerable of saints. These wounds can appear in several forms, but one of the most poignant and powerful are the holes in Jesus’s palms, pierced during his crucifixion.”
Michael’s blood ran cold.
“I have to admit something to you all. Today’s lesson was not planned, but something wondrous, truly magnificent has happened.”
His mouth went dry.
“I’m sure you all know Calvin Petz.”
It felt like he had been punched in the head. The room blurred, fell out of focus. Mr. Dallermann continued babbling on, but Michael couldn’t hear it. Everything sounded muffled. There was a ringing in his ears.
The door opened.
Calvin walked in, smiling. Standing in front of the class, he unwrapped the bandages around his hands, showed them all the wounds on his palms, still wet, still oozing blood. There were gasps. The other kids exchanged glances.
“But he’s not even Catholic.” Somebody said from the back. Michael couldn’t tell who. It felt like was suffocated, strangulated by his polo collar.
“Hey,” Mr. Dallermann came to his defense, “You know we don’t cast judgement on—”
“It’s okay,” Calvin spoke like a pastor, with a sense of authority beyond his years, “He’s right. I wasn’t Catholic. I was not a devout follower of Christ. I committed mortal sins. I neglected my spiritual calling. That is, till God came to me. Like a blearing heat out of the sky, he came to me, offered me enlightenment. I accepted, and the stigmata bloomed from my palms as he granted me the secrets to salvation.”
The room went quiet. Michael clenched his body, every muscle tense like a rabbit inches away from a hungry fox.
“Still, I understand that human instinct, human inclination is to presume fraudulence, to presume malicious intent, but there is proof. I was not alone when this happened.” Everybody, even Mr. Dallermann gasped.
“I thought there were no witnesses.” He half-whispered to Calvin who nodded his head.
“It’s true, I did not speak of witnesses until now, but Michael. Michael witnessed everything, the blinding light, the opening of the wounds. I asked him to leave, to not tell anyone as I needed time to complete my convention with God.”
“Is this true?” Mr. Dallerman asked. Everybody in the room turned to look at him. Lydia’s mouth nearly fell to the floor. Michael’s entire body went numb. A bead of sweat rolled down the back of his neck.
“Yes,” it came out in barely a whisper, “It’s true.” More gasps. Murmurs. There was an energy, something sweeping its way across the room.
“It’s true!” Lydia professed, stood up. “I witnessed it too. It was real, a true miracle.”
Michael could see it. In all of their eyes, there was a shift, an instance where they stopped rejecting the obvious lie, and accepted it as truth. The anxiety he’d been feeling all morning was replaced with a deep, icy dread. He looked up, and Calvin was staring in his direction, smiling.
Everybody just kind of accepted it. Calvin became distant. The clergy pulled him out of class regularly. He spent most days in the chapel.
The wounds never healed.
It drove Michael crazy, the constant lie, everybody believing it. He wanted to, so badly, to tell everyone the truth. He couldn’t, of course, not without confessing to assault, but surely Calvin would drop the charade, move on, or maybe finally tell the truth.
He didn’t. He began participating in Wednesday mass, acting like an altar boy. They never had altar boys, not during the weekly school masses, but there he was anyways.
They even let him take communion.
It made Michael sick. Everybody’s been playing along, treating him like some kind of holy apparition. He almost wished that the police would just finally arrest him, almost preferred to be locked up over having to watch everyone fawn over the fairy.
Almost.
He ignored it the best he could, let it fester in the background. Things felt like normal again. Until Ash Wednesday.
In the gymnasium, Michael stood in line waiting for his ashes, waiting for mass to be over. The extra-special masses always took forever. He was so out of it, he didn’t even notice who was administering the ashes until it was his turn.
Calvin.
The fairy dipped his thumb into the ashes.
“Memento, homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris.” He pressed his thumb against Michael’s forehead. It felt electric on Michael’s skin as he formed the cross, like a radiating light, a gentle heat that beckons you forward. Calvin took his hand away, and Michael wanted to follow. “The Lord be with you.”
“And with your spirit.” The words fell out of Michael’s mouth in a whisper. Calvin smiled, haunting Michael as he walked his trembling legs back to his seat.
After mass, Michael followed Calvin out the gymnasium, fought through the crowd of people to try to catch up to him but when everybody else turned right down the hallway, Calvin turned left.
Michael followed, thankful to separate from the flock. Calvin took another left, towards the locker rooms. Michael, right on his heels, rounded the last corner and came face to face with the fairy.
“What? Planning to stab me again?” Calvin stood in front of the trophy case with his arms crossed, smirking like a smug bastard.
“No,” Michael muttered, “Just, what are you doing? Why are you doing this? What do you want from me?”
“From you?” Calvin laughed, a nasty, acidic laugh that made Michael’s nose curl. “Why would I want anything from you? What could I want from you?”
“You’re fucking with me.”
“Why do you think this is about you?” Calvin took a step towards him. “Why would it be about you, Mike?”
“You are trying to fuck with my head.”
“God, you are obsessed with me.” He took another step forward. Michael took a step back, his back pressed against the wall. “I bet I’m all that you think about. All you’re ever thinking about. What I’m doing. With who. Where. Why. I’m already in your head, always, aren’t I?”
“No…” Michael stammered. Calvin stepped in close, their bodies almost touching, faces inches apart. “No—”
“I am.” He leaned his head in, cheek next to cheek. Michael could feel his breath on his earlobe, sending goosebumps up his neck. “I see you watching me. And now you follow me. You want this to be about you so bad. You want to be in my head just as much as I’m in yours.”
“Stop,” Michaels voice cracked.
“But that’s not how this works.” Calvin stepped away. Michael suddenly felt cold, exposed. “That’s not how it works at all.” He started this drawn out, whiny laugh.
“Fuck you.” Michaels legs were weak, barely holding him up. Calvin’s laugh came to a cackling end.
“I’ll remember you,” he said, and left Michael in the empty hallway, alone.
Tears welled in his eyes. He clenched his teeth, but sobs sputtered out anyways, choking him as he gasped for air, sliding down the brick wall, whimpering, wondering why he can’t stop.
Michael resigned, forfeited, gave up fighting whatever it was. He fell in line, kept his head down during the school day. He tried not to pay attention to Calvin, to move on. It gnawed at him, always, but he could shut it out, stare out the window while he gave his sermons.
Calvin hardly came to class anymore, spending nearly all of his days in the chapel or hosting confession. It was such a rare occasion, that when he walked in on Michael’s third period class, it was enough to send chills down his spine.
“Ah, Calvin. Welcome,” Mr. Dallmann stopped his lesson. “What brings you here today?”
“I’m not sure.” Calvin rotated slowly, observing everyone in the room. “The Holy Spirit has guided me here. I can’t say I always understand God’s will. I only obey it. Carry on. I’ll sit in the back.”
He walked his long, black robe to the back right corner and sat down at the desk. There was a couple minutes of silence, but Mr. Dallerman continued teaching. Michael kept looking over his shoulder, checking to see if the fairy was watching him, but he wasn’t. He was just sitting, waiting.
There was a thud, from the front of the room. A couple gasps. Michael stood up, looked over the shoulders of the rapidly forming crowd.
Lydia. She was on the floor, pale as a sheet, gasping for air, hands clawing at her neck, eyes bulging, red, leaking fluid. Her head whipped backwards and a surge of phlegm shot out of her mouth, across the tile.
“Call an ambulance,” Mr. Dallerman yelled, but Calvin stood up.
“Stop!” Everybody stopped. The room went silent apart from the gurgling coming from Lydia’s throat. “You cannot take her away. The hospital is of no help here.”
“What do you mean?” Mr. Dallermann looked to Calvin like a child to a parent.
“This… this is a sickness of the soul, a spiritual ailment. Medicine is not what we need here. No. Bring her to the chapel.”
Without question, Mr. Dallerman grabbed her by the shoulders. One of the jocks grabbed her legs. Together, they carried her convulsing body out of the room. Calvin followed.
An eerie quietness settled over the class. They all remained in their seats, waiting for someone to return, to tell them what to do. The principal announced over the intercom that everybody was to remain in their third period classroom. About an hour later, Mr. Dallermann came back.
He had everybody line up, then he walked them down to the chapel where they joined a long line. One by one, they had each student go in and pray over Lydia’s body. The line became shorter and shorter. Michael thought for a moment that he should run, flee to anywhere but here.
Then it was his turn. Mr. Dallerman motioned him forward, rested his hand on the small of his back, guided him through the door, over the threshold, into the tomb-like perfume of the dimly lit school chapel.
Calvin and the priest stood with their hands hovering over Lydia’s body, rested upon an altar. Michael stepped up. Her face was red, swollen, face melted into her neck, cheeks puffed over her eyes. Shrill gasps of air wheezed in and out of her throat, slowly, rhythmically.
“Oh my god.” Michael covered his mouth. Tears rushed out of his eyes. “Stop this.” He moaned. “You have to help her.”
“We’re trying,” Calvin said calmly, solemnly. “You can help by offering—”
“Stop!” Michael pleaded. “Just help her. Stop this and help her. Stop it, Calvin. Whatever it is, stop it and help her.”
“You want to help her?”
“Yes.”
“You’d do anything to help her?”
“Yes!” Michael wiped away the snot drooling from his nose, looked up to Calvin who nodded his head. “Come with me.”
Calvin led Michael out of the chapel, past the line of worried students, past the empty classrooms, through the unlit gym, and left him in a square white room right across the hall from the stage entrance. There was a tiny round window, kind of near the ceiling. It let in just enough sky to bathe the room in a soft glow. A cloud shaped like a reaching hand drifted across the pale blue. It was lovely.
The intercom crackled. Attention all teachers. Please report with your students to the gymnasium for an emergency assembly.
Michael remained seated, waited for Calvin to return. Everything felt numb, his limbs devoid, his chest empty, mind emptier. His eyes ached for tears, but none came. He just wanted to go home, to go to bed, to rest. He was so tired.
“It’s time.” Calvin stood in the doorway in his priestly garb. For once, Michael was almost happy to see him.
He followed Calvin out onto the stage. The entire school was sitting in rows as if it were Wednesday mass.
“Thank you all for coming. As you know, Michael, my dear Michael has been with me since the beginning. Since day one, he has been a devout believer, an exemplary disciple.”
Nothing felt real. The spotlight, above him, was so bright. Michael stared at his hands, and they looked translucent, almost ghost-like.
“Michael was the first to profess my divinity, the true witness to the miracle, to the birth of salvation. Isn’t that right?” He nodded his head. “Michael, do you profess that what you have witnessed is true?” Calvin held the mic up to Michael’s lips. For a moment, he thought about telling the truth. He looked out to the hungry pulpit, decided it didn’t matter.
“Yes.” The word came out in a whisper, but loud enough for everyone to hear.
“Do you trust my guidance and the wisdom bestowed upon me, handed down directly from God himself?”
“Yes.” Michaels eyes fell to the floor. A single tear rolled down his cheek.
“Michael, you are brave. You are so special.” Michael smiled. Another tear. “You are a dauntless soldier of God, and you will forever be remembered for your service.” Calvin turned back to the people. “Michael has graciously volunteered to be the first sacrifice in the war to reclaim Lydia’s spirit.”
Calvin kept speaking, saying something, rambling on and on, but Michael shut it out. The world sounded muffled, like it was in a separate room, miles and miles from Michael.
Two jocks came up, grabbed jim by his arms. He let his body go limp and let them half-carry, half-drag his body off stage, down the center aisle. Everybody stood, clapped for him as he passed, their faces full of adoration and respect.
They brought him through the double doors, through the school, and outside, out to the brisk spring air, out to the football fields. Michael stared up into the sun, into the blearing heat. The field posts had been altered to form two large, yellow crucifixes. A cool breeze swept through Michael’s hair as his feet finally reached the astroturf. Was Calvin watching? Did it matter?
He smiled
