Aces Read Free Page B

them.
    “What the hell’s going on?” I asked her in a low voice so the others wouldn’t hear.
    “I didn’t do it,” Soelle said immediately. “The Haxanpaxan did.”
    “There
is
no Haxanpaxan.”
    “The Haxanpaxan doesn’t like it when—”
    I grabbed her roughly by the arm. “Stop it, Soelle. This is serious.”
    “You’re telling me.”
    She nodded at the house. The firefighters had stopped running and were staring at it, too.
    The flames were green.
    * * *
    “So you’re saying you didn’t burn down your algebra teacher’s house because she was the one who confiscated your deck of tarot cards and got you expelled.”
    “Ex.”
    “What?”
    “She was my ex-Algebra teacher. I feel the need to have that stated for the record.”
    “The record? You’re not on trial, Soelle.”
    “Really? You could’ve fooled me.”
    “You said the Haxanpaxan did it.”
    “That’s right.”
    “But there is no Haxanpaxan.”
    “I wish you would stop saying that. It makes him very angry.”
    “Was the Haxanpaxan angry at Mrs. O’Reilly?”
    “No. I guess you could say he was angry on my behalf.”
    “And that’s why he burned down her house.”
    “I don’t control the Haxanpaxan, Toby. He knew I was upset, and I guess he just took it out on her.”
    “Well, that’s just . . . just . . .”
    “Aces?”
    “No, Soelle, it isn’t aces. It’s the exact opposite of aces.”
    * * *
    I got a phone call from the guy who owned the convenience store. He said Soelle was loitering around outside, and if I didn’t come down and collect her, he was going to call the police. I realized this was the guy who started all the witch talk. He sounded terrified. As I got in the car and drove over, I wondered how he got our phone number.
    Soelle wasn’t there when I pulled into the strip mall. I parked and went around back to where the dumpsters were. I found her writing on the brick wall with a piece of pink chalk. She was drawing squares, one next to the other, one stacked on top of another.
    “What the hell are you doing?”
    “What does it look like?”
    “It looks like you’re tagging the back of the store.”
    “Tagging? Oh, Toby, you’re so street.” She snickered and kept on drawing. “And it’s not graffiti. It’ll wash off in the rain.”
    “Then what are you doing?”
    “Testing a theory,” she said vaguely.
    She drew one final square, then walked back to where I was standing. She handed me the piece of chalk and walked further back, toward the screen of trees between the plaza and the lake. She stopped on the grassy verge, turned around, and suddenly ran full-tilt at the wall. I started to call out, but she sped past me, arms pumping, brow furrowed in concentration.
    At the last moment, she leaped into the air, throwing her legs out in front of her like a long-jumper, and landed on the wall.
    And stuck to it.
    She stood frozen there, in a half-crouch, on the wall. Then, slowly, she began to stand up straight . . . or rather, sideways. She was standing in the middle of the first square she had drawn. She hesitated a moment, then hopped sideways and landed on the next one. I tilted my head, trying to watch her, but it was disorienting. It was one thing to see her defying gravity by sticking to the wall, but it was quite another to watch her hop up and down in a sidelong fashion. It was like watching someone walking up the crazy stairs in an M.C. Escher print.
    It wasn’t until Soelle reached the final square and turned around and hopped back that I realized what she was doing.
    Playing hopscotch.
    * * *
    Things quieted down a bit after that.
    Soelle didn’t do anything too weird, and there were no unusual occurrences in town. It was a textbook Silver Falls summer: hot, quiet, and uneventful.
    September arrived and the kids went back to school. October came and the leaves started changing colour. Everything was still quiet. I started to think maybe it was just a phase Soelle had gone through.