Read Online White Is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Helen Oyeyemi
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not wanting to disappoint her and not wanting to lie to her. “Where is this from?” she said, plucking at my T-shirt. I looked down at the shirt. I didn’t know where it was from. I wasn’t even sure it was mine. Maybe it was my dad’s or something. Or Lily had bought it. Clothing just appeared in my room and I put it on. Now that Sylvie noticed I recognised the miracle of it. I read my T-shirt, which said, PLANET HOLLYWOOD .
“It’s a secret,” I said finally. “Can’t tell everyone where I get my garms from, or there’d be too many look-alikes.”
Sylvie smiled. She and The Paul had been to visit us in Dover, and she knew that the place was full of Eliot look-alikes, and that I was one of the look-alikes, a copy of some original anonymous guy. I like that; attention makes me twitchy.
Lily had perfected a way of talking to me with her gaze elsewhere but her head slightly turned towards me so that I knew her words were for me. Dad has what I think of as only child darkside syndrome; he does everything as if he is being watched.
On Boxing Day I came down early in the morning. I had heard someone moving around downstairs and thought it might be The Paul. Instead I found my dad, sitting in The Paul’s baking pantry, on a chair that propped the door half open. He had his back to me, and you’d think that would make him warier, more sensitive to the presence of someone standing behind him, but it didn’t. I stood and watched him, thinking,
I’ll watch until he notices
. It took me a moment to realise what he was doing. He’d made one hand into a fist and was flipping his wedding ring onto it with his other hand, as if picking heads or tails, over and over.
I watched, and when I got tired of watching I said, “What are you doing?”
He turned around and seemed unsurprised to find me there. “Nothing. I might bake something. I don’t know.”
“Okay,” I said, and got myself some water. I went back to bed but couldn’t sleep anymore. I was lying on a hardback biography of T. S. Eliot, but that wasn’t the reason. After about half an hour I sat up again, and Lily was in the rocking chair by the window, Lily smiling with glad eyes as if she had something funny to tell me. Lily in the chair, I mean Miranda was, Miri in a black T-shirt that scraped the tops of her thighs, Miri holding the rockers still with her bare feet. When I jumped, she laughed. I half expected her to say, “Again, do it again!”
I sat down on the end of my bed, facing her, and said, “Good morning.”
Miri didn’t use lipstick, she used something in a little pot that was applied with a fingertip. Miri said, “I miss her. So much that sometimes I’m scared I’ll bring her back.”
The red on her mouth was so strong; maybe it was just the early morning but I’d never seen a red as startling, as odd. Maybe she’d bitten her lip.
“She liked you best,” Miri said, softly.
I shook my head but couldn’t speak. We both considered the lawn outside the window, Sylvie and The Paul’s tidy lawn. I did not have a thought, not even a painful one. A large and colourless umbrella had opened up inside my brain. All I did know was that after that initial shock of thinking that Lily had come back I had felt a cool, small relief, a moment of adjusting to Lily’s ghost so that I could be . . . not unsatisfied with the quality of her being there. I can only explain it in comparison to something mundane—my adjustment to Lily’s ghost was sort of like when you’re insanely thirsty, but for some reason you can’t get the cap on your water bottle to open properly so you tussle atit with your teeth and hands until you can get a trickle of water to come through. A little water at a time, and you’re trying to be less thirsty and more patient so that the water can be enough. The thing with having seen Lily was just like that, a practical inner adjustment to meet a need.
At least she is there,
I’d thought,
even if she is just a ghost
“It’s a secret,” I said finally. “Can’t tell everyone where I get my garms from, or there’d be too many look-alikes.”
Sylvie smiled. She and The Paul had been to visit us in Dover, and she knew that the place was full of Eliot look-alikes, and that I was one of the look-alikes, a copy of some original anonymous guy. I like that; attention makes me twitchy.
Lily had perfected a way of talking to me with her gaze elsewhere but her head slightly turned towards me so that I knew her words were for me. Dad has what I think of as only child darkside syndrome; he does everything as if he is being watched.
On Boxing Day I came down early in the morning. I had heard someone moving around downstairs and thought it might be The Paul. Instead I found my dad, sitting in The Paul’s baking pantry, on a chair that propped the door half open. He had his back to me, and you’d think that would make him warier, more sensitive to the presence of someone standing behind him, but it didn’t. I stood and watched him, thinking,
I’ll watch until he notices
. It took me a moment to realise what he was doing. He’d made one hand into a fist and was flipping his wedding ring onto it with his other hand, as if picking heads or tails, over and over.
I watched, and when I got tired of watching I said, “What are you doing?”
He turned around and seemed unsurprised to find me there. “Nothing. I might bake something. I don’t know.”
“Okay,” I said, and got myself some water. I went back to bed but couldn’t sleep anymore. I was lying on a hardback biography of T. S. Eliot, but that wasn’t the reason. After about half an hour I sat up again, and Lily was in the rocking chair by the window, Lily smiling with glad eyes as if she had something funny to tell me. Lily in the chair, I mean Miranda was, Miri in a black T-shirt that scraped the tops of her thighs, Miri holding the rockers still with her bare feet. When I jumped, she laughed. I half expected her to say, “Again, do it again!”
I sat down on the end of my bed, facing her, and said, “Good morning.”
Miri didn’t use lipstick, she used something in a little pot that was applied with a fingertip. Miri said, “I miss her. So much that sometimes I’m scared I’ll bring her back.”
The red on her mouth was so strong; maybe it was just the early morning but I’d never seen a red as startling, as odd. Maybe she’d bitten her lip.
“She liked you best,” Miri said, softly.
I shook my head but couldn’t speak. We both considered the lawn outside the window, Sylvie and The Paul’s tidy lawn. I did not have a thought, not even a painful one. A large and colourless umbrella had opened up inside my brain. All I did know was that after that initial shock of thinking that Lily had come back I had felt a cool, small relief, a moment of adjusting to Lily’s ghost so that I could be . . . not unsatisfied with the quality of her being there. I can only explain it in comparison to something mundane—my adjustment to Lily’s ghost was sort of like when you’re insanely thirsty, but for some reason you can’t get the cap on your water bottle to open properly so you tussle atit with your teeth and hands until you can get a trickle of water to come through. A little water at a time, and you’re trying to be less thirsty and more patient so that the water can be enough. The thing with having seen Lily was just like that, a practical inner adjustment to meet a need.
At least she is there,
I’d thought,
even if she is just a ghost
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