Page 8 of The Wild Beneath

“We’ll see how it feels. If it’s wrong, we’ll go with your instinct,” Aiden says. “Like always.”

On the first day, he walks Annie up the hill, his hand in hers. The front wall of the school is faded red brick, with scrubby grasses poking out from the chipped foundation. At the back there’s an extension: four rooms, portables made out of beige aluminum siding with evenly spaced, square windows. A narrow hallway runs down the middle to the rear door.

“Hasn’t changed since I was a kid.” Aiden runs his hand along the front doorframe.

In the office, a fan whirs loudly in the corner. Annie smells glue and floor cleaner. The woman behind the desk has a pencil between her teeth. She grabs it as she flips through a notebook.

“It’s Annie MacLeod,” Aiden says.

The woman doesn’t look up. She runs her finger down a list, checks off a box, then looks over the rims of her glasses at Annie. “Ms. Penn’s class, last room on the left,” she says.

The classroom is small and colourful. Desks are lined up in rows and Ms. Penn sits at the front in a cream-coloured smock. She walks over when she sees Annie and Aiden.

“What’s your name?” Ms. Penn asks, crouching down.

“Annie.”

“Sit anywhere, Annie.” She hands her a blue notebook and a yellow pencil. “Best if you don’t linger, in my experience,” she says to Aiden and shuffles him out the door.

Annie stands there, deserted. She eventually slides into one of the attached chair-desks in the back row, wedged in like a hermit crab. The chair creaks as she tries to get comfortable. She smells pencil shavings. Soon, a river of other children flows into the room.

The clocktick-tick-ticksand the racket of a hundred footsteps ricochets off the walls. One kid wears splash pants that swishwhen he walks. The clack of the radiator startles Annie. Ms. Penn’s voice sounds too squeaky, as she herds the children to their seats amid shouts from the hallway.

Annie puts her hands in her pockets and feels the reassuring grit of sand.

Ms. Penn speaks at the front of the classroom. Chalk screeches across the blackboard. A girl in pigtails rubs the tip of a marker so hard on her paper that it squeals. A redheaded boy next to her unzips his sweater.

Annie takes her hands from her pockets and picks up her pencil. Her fingers feel heavy. She tries to focus on the shape of her letters, tries to train her eyes on the faint lines in her notebook.

She is sidetracked by a sticky spot on the desk. The chair is too hard. The gulls screech through the window. If Ms. Penn is still talking, if she’s giving more instructions, Annie can no longer hear them. She’s lost in the roar of other noises. The rest of the kids are being shuffled onto a rainbow carpet for story time. She remains stuck at her desk, gripping its sides.

A boy stops in front of her desk. He has the darkest brown curly hair, olive skin, and bushy eyebrows.

“Are you okay?” His voice is the softest thing in the room. Annie manages to look at him but doesn’t answer. He has chocolate-coloured eyes.

“She’s a freak like her mom, Evan.” The redheaded boy taunts her, moving closer to her desk.

Annie stiffens as a burst of hot shame shoots through her. What does he mean? Mara is the planet she orbits around.

“Stop it, Liam,” the brown-eyed boy says. He moves himself in front of Annie.

Liam reaches around and pokes her in the shoulder.

The boy with the chocolate eyes shoves Liam so hard, he falls backward.

Ms. Penn rushes over. “Evan!” With one arm, she grabs Evan by the elbow, and with the other, she pulls Liam up. “Just because you’re a Hale doesn’t mean you can do what you like.”

Evan Hale’s eyes stay on Annie, as if Ms. Penn doesn’t even exist.

Annie’s tears start, unbidden, salt water bleeding onto her notebook. The kids on the carpet stare at her, pointing. Word spreads around the story circle. The sound of the kids’ laughter sends Annie over the edge.

Climbing underneath her desk, she covers her ears and closes her eyes, tucks herself into the smallest ball she can and stays there.

By now, Mara is already halfway to the school building. Her path is so precise it’s as if she’s already walked it. She doesn’t stop at the entrance, doesn’t stop at the office to ask where Annie is.

Mara finds her under her desk, her ears still covered with her hands, a ring of six-year-olds staring at her while Ms. Penn tries to read to them.

Annie has never thought to question how Mara always knows exactly where she is.