But he would remember: the same frizz-haired girl boldly seated at his computer after school one day frowning at the screen and click-clicking keys with as much authority as if the computer were her own and this time he’d spoken sharply to her, “Excuse me?” and she’d looked up at him cringing and blind-seeming as if she thought he might hit her. And so he joked, “Here’s the famous hacker, eh?” — he knew it was the kindest as it was the wisest strategy to make a joke of the audacious/inexplicable behavior of adolescents, it wasn’t a good idea to confront or embarrass. Especially not a girl. And this stunted-seeming girl hunched over like she was trying make herself smaller. Papery-thin skin, short upper lip exposing her front teeth, a guarded rodent look, furtive, anxious, somehow appealing. Her eyes were of the no-color of grit, moist and widened. Eyebrows and lashes scanty, near-invisible. She was so fiercely plain and her unbeautiful eyes stared at him so rawly... He felt sorry for her, poor kid. Bold, nervy, but in another year or so she’d be left behind entirely by her classmates, no boy would glance at her twice. He could not have guessed that the tremulous girl was the lone descendent of a family of reputation and privilege though possibly he might have guessed that her parents were long divorced from one another and perhaps from her as well. She was stammering some feeble explanation Just needed to look something up, Mr. Zallman. He laughed and dismissed her with a wave of his hand. Had an impulse, out of character for him, to reach out and tousle that frizzed floating hair as you’d rub a dog’s head partly in affection and partly to chastise.
Didn’t touch her, though. Mikal Zallman wasn’t crazy.
Is she breathing, d’you think?
She is! Sure she is.
Oh God what if...
...she is. See?
The Corn Maiden slept by candlelight. The heavy open-mouthed sleep of the sedated.
We observed her in wonder. The Corn Maiden, in our power!
Jude removed the barrettes from her hair so we could brush it. Long straight pale blond hair. We were not jealous of the Corn Maiden’s hair because It is our hair now.
The Corn Maiden’s hair was spread out around her head like she was falling.
She was breathing, yes you could see. If you held a candle close to her face and throat you could see.
We had made a bed for the Corn Maiden, that Jude called a bier. Out of beautiful silk shawls and a brocaded bedspread, cashmere blanket from Scotland, goose-feather pillows. From the closed-off guest wing of the house Jude brought these, her face shining.
We fumbled to remove the Corn Maiden’s clothes.
You pull off your own clothes without hardly thinking but another person, even a small girl who is lying flat on her back, arms and legs limp but heavy, that’s different.
When the Corn Maiden was bare it was hard not to giggle. Hard not to snort with laughter...
More like a little girl than she was like us.
We were shy of her suddenly. Her breasts were flat against her rib cage, her nipples were tiny as seeds. There were no hairs growing between her legs that we could see.
She was very cold, shivering in her sleep. Her lips were putty-colored. Her teeth were chattering. Her eyes were closed but you could see a thin crescent of white. So (almost!) you worried the Corn Maiden was watching us paralyzed in sleep.
It was Xanax Jude had prepared for the Corn Maiden. Also she had codeine and Oxycodone already ground to powder, in reserve.
We were meant to “bathe” the Corn Maiden, Jude said. But maybe not tonight.
We rubbed the Corn Maiden’s icy fingers, her icy toes, and her icy cheeks. We were not shy of touching her suddenly, we wanted to touch her and touch and touch.
Inside here, Jude said, touching the Corn Maiden’s narrow chest, there is a heart beating. An actual heart.
Jude spoke in a whisper. In the quiet you could hear the heart beat.
We covered the Corn Maiden then with silks, brocades, cashmere wool. We placed a goose-feather pillow beneath the Corn Maiden’s head. Jude sprinkled perfume on the Corn Maiden with her fingertips. It was a blessing Jude said. The Corn Maiden would sleep and sleep for a long time and when she woke, she would know only our faces. The faces of her friends.
It was a storage room in the cellar beneath the guest wing we brought the Corn Maiden. This was a remote corner of the big old house. This was a closed-off corner of the house and the cellar was yet more remote, nobody would ever ever come here Jude said.
And you could scream your head off, nobody would ever hear.
Jude laughed, cupping her hands to her mouth like she was going to scream. But all that came out was a strangled choked noise.
There was no heat in the closed-off rooms of the Trahern house. In the cellar it was a damp cold like winter. Except this was meant to be a time of nuclear holocaust and no electricity we would have brought a space heater to plug in. Instead we had candles.
These were fragrant hand-dipped candles old Mrs. Trahern had been saving in a drawer since 1994, according to the gift shop receipt.
Jude said, Grandma won’t miss ’em.
Jude was funny about her grandmother. Sometimes she liked her okay, other times she called her the old bat, said fuck her she didn’t give a damn about Jude she was only worried Jude would embarrass her somehow.
Mrs. Trahern had called up the stairs, when we were in Jude’s room watching a video. The stairs were too much for her, rarely she came upstairs to check on Jude. There was an actual elevator in the house (we had seen it) but Jude said she’d fucked it up, fooling with it so much when she was a little kid. Just some friends from school, Denise and Anita, Jude called back. You’ve met them.
Those times Mrs. Trahern saw us downstairs with Jude she would ask politely how we were and her snail-mouth would stretch in a grudging little smile but already she wasn’t listening to anything we said, and she would never remember our names.
101 Dalmatians Jude played, one of her old videos she’d long outgrown. (Jude had a thousand videos she’d outgrown!) It was a young-kids’ movie we had all seen but the Corn Maiden had never seen. Sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the TV eating ice cream from a bowl in her lap and we finished ours and waited for her and Jude asked would she like a little more and the Corn Maidden hesitated just a moment then said Yes thank you.
We all had more Haagen Dazs French Vanilla ice cream. But it was not the same ice cream the Corn Maiden had not exactly!
Her eyes shining, so happy. Because we were her friends.
A sixth grader, friends with eighth graders. A guest in Jude Trahern’s house.
Jude had been nice to her at school for a long time. Smiling, saying hello. Jude had a way of fixing you with her eyes like a cobra or something you could not look away. You were scared but sort of thrilled, too.
In the 7-Eleven she’d come inside to get a Coke and a package of nachos. She was on her way home from school and had no idea that two of us had followed her and one had run ahead, to wait. She was smiling to see Jude who was so friendly. Jude asked where was her mom and she said her mom was a nurse’s aide across the river in Nyack and would not be home till after dark.