Rite of Passage

by Pamela Weis

Horrific Scribes Extremity Rating:

“This is where I do all of my important thinking,” said Clara. “I plan and make decisions and sometimes I take naps. It’s all mine and no one ever comes near.” She lowered her voice and whispered to the other girl, “it’s a secret. You can’t tell anyone. Especially not your parents.”

“Okay. It’s very nice. Did you set it up yourself?”

The other girl was Linny. She was new to the neighborhood on the lake and lived across the lawn from Clara. Linny’s big blue eyes took in all the wonders of Clara’s secret fort within the pine trees.

“Oh yes, every bit of it,” said Clara. This was not entirely true. Clara’s mother had helped her clear out some of the underbrush when Clara first identified the spot for her fort. But she had done everything else herself. Most importantly, she had carefully identified the found items worthy of inclusion in her collection herself, and she had placed them in a sacred corner of the fort—a large empty coffee can with a plastic lid containing small figurines, marbles, coins, acorns, particularly tiny and cute pine cones, and all manner of other interesting small things; a collection of cups and saucers that she had collected over the past year, paying close attention to what people threw away; and sometimes items appeared outside the fort. One day she found a shoe—much too big for her but just right for a doll bed. She told Linny, “The forest gods sent it to me.”

“Really? That’s a strange gift. I hope no one is missing that shoe.”

“Oh no. I don’t think it ever had a pair. The forest gods created it just for my dolls. I’m sure of it. They want me to know they’re watching over me.”

“Oh. Okay,” Linny said, her gaze targeting the item in question. Clara did not think Linny believed her, but she did not care.

Clara’s dolls were not the same types of dolls that Linny had. They were not Barbies or baby dolls or other small plastic people. They were stitched up from bits of fabric and hair by Clara’s grandmother. Some of them had tiny animal bones for legs and arms. They were not supposed to be outside in the pine tree fort. They were meant for other things. Important things. Ritual things. Clara knew this but ignored the rule and sneaked the dolls out of the house each morning, careful to replace them at the end of the day. Well, most of them. She let one doll sleep in the shoe each night.

“They take turns.”

“Your dolls are… funny,” said Linny, her mouth scrunched up on one side like she was trying to be funny.

Clara did not take offense. “They’re not funny. They’re unique.” She felt proud of herself for having come up with that particularly grownup answer.

The girls spent much time together in the pine tree fort, coming every afternoon once school was out. Linny and Clara did not go to the same school, but they met each day at the fort at 3:30.

“I brought one of my dolls,” said Linny, showing the plastic Barbie knock-off to Clara, who was not impressed.

“She’s very pretty.”

This appeared to satisfy Linny, and they played pretend with their dolls, putting them in real and magical situations in which things happened to them, and they reacted and fought and fell in love and acted as if they were grownups.

“A unicorn to the rescue!” squealed Linny, picking up a thick wooden branch and trotting it toward her doll. “She won’t be hurt long. The unicorn will take her to safety.”

“That’s not a unicorn,” said Clara.

“It is if I say it is.”

“You can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s my fort and I said so.”

Linny did not respond right away. She frowned and looked at her stick. Clara thought Linny might cry, but then Linny surprised her. “Well, maybe it’s our fort, not just yours.”

“No, it’s mine. I made it. You’re just visiting. You can’t decide a stick is a unicorn.”

Linny looked as if she might try to argue with Clara, but she did not have a chance because the stick in her hand began to change, becoming smooth instead of rough. All of the bits of bark were gone and in their place was something silky with a faint bumpy texture.

And it moved.

Linny screamed and dropped the stick creature onto the damp dirt floor of the fort.

“Wha… what?”

Clara shrugged and looked down at the doll in her hand. “I dunno.”

The snake slithered and hissed, just as shocked at its existence, stuck between two little girls, as Linny was. Clara tried half-heartedly to change it back to a stick, but it seemed to like being a snake. Of course, she had not transformed it intentionally. But sometimes, when Clara was angry or frustrated, she was able to do things that other little girls could not. She’d simply wanted Linny to be scared. And to give up her stupid unicorn idea. Clara was the boss here.

Linny whacked at the snake with her doll. And as any good snake will do, even one that used to be a stick, the snake defended itself. It reared up and bit her. She held her hand close to her chest. “Ow! That hurt! Stupid snake.”

Clara looked at Linny, bent down over her damaged hand, and wondered if maybe this was not the best thing to have happen in her fort. Her mother had warned her on a number of occasions to be careful. “You are more powerful than you realize,” she’d said. “You must remain calm and try to go along with what happens in life. When you reach the age of initiation, you’ll understand better.” Her mother had never provided a great deal of information about why this was the case. But Clara knew she was not like other girls. And her initiation was in a few more weeks. Her eighth birthday.

Clara wished harder for the snake to go away. For Linny to be left alone. And within seconds, it was once again made of wood. Linny cradled her hand close to her body and rolled over on her side. Clara did not know that a snake bite could be life threatening, but she knew it was bad. Very bad.

So bad she could get in trouble.

“I’ll get a bandage,” said Clara. She ran out of the pine tree fort, down the hill, and toward her house, hoping she would not encounter her mother.

Through the back door, she could see her mother sitting at the kitchen table. There was no way she could sneak by without being noticed. She took her shoes off and left them on the porch. Padding softly in the grass around the side of her house, she made it to the front door. It was locked. Clara cursed under her breath and quickly put her hand over her mouth, as if someone might hear her say a bad word. She needed a bandage. She needed to make sure Linny did not get sick. She did not want to get in trouble. Her mother could be quite mean when she wanted to be, and Clara was not eager to face that. She sat on the front porch and started to feel like she might cry. Then, the door opened. At first, she thought it was her mother. That she had been discovered. But no one was there.

Not wanting to waste this opportunity, she peeked her head in and looked around. She could see the living room and hear her mother doing something in the kitchen—around the corner, out of view. The bathroom just inside the front door might have bandages. Careful to tiptoe on the creaky wooden floors, Clara walked into the bathroom. The medicine cabinet was fully stocked. Bandages, gauze, and tubes of ointments that she did not trust. She picked a large bandage with smiley faces on it and went back out the door. Halfway to the pine tree fort, out of breath from her sprint, she realized she’d left her shoes on the back porch.

She kept running.

Back at the fort, Linny was sweaty and cold, and loose pine needles stuck to her skin. Clara gently lifted Linny’s clammy hand and looked at the bite. It was turning pretty colors, but she applied the bandage anyway, hoping it would help. Linny’s breathing was shallow, and she had slumped over onto a pile of branches. Clara wondered if it hurt, all those thin sticky branches poking her every which way. But Linny was asleep and did not seem to mind.

I will keep her company while she gets better.

Clara resumed playing with her dolls, trying to include Linny in the story even though Linny was not awake and could not participate. Clara knew she should find an adult, but she did not want to get in trouble. Getting in trouble was the worst possible thing in the world. Besides, she was still kind of mad at Linny for trying to bring a unicorn into their story in the first place.

When dinner time came, and Linny was still not better, Clara decided it would be okay for her to leave Linny. “I hope you won’t be too lonely here by yourself, Linny. I’ll come back in the morning. I promise.” She patted Linny’s head and walked out of the fort.

That night after dinner, Linny’s parents knocked on the door of Clara’s house. Her mother answered, and Clara listened from the other room. Clara’s mother spoke to the frantic adults and said she didn’t know where Linny was.

“Clara?” she called. “Clara, come here a moment, dear.”

Clara dutifully walked to the front door. Linny’s parents had splotchy faces. The father had his arm around the mother. Both of them seemed tired but also like they would not be able to sleep if they were to lie down just then. Clara felt a little sorry for them.

“Have you seen Linny, dear?”

Clara shook her head. Linny’s mother squatted down so her face would be at Clara’s level and said, “I know you were playing together earlier. Do you remember when she left to go home?”

Linny’s mother’s breath smelled of mints and garlic. Clara winced. She looked the mother right in the eye and without hesitation said, “We left at the same time. To go home for dinner.”

The mother seemed to accept this and stood back up. She started to cry. The father said, “Thank you.”

Clara’s mother put her hand on Clara’s small back and said, “I’m sorry we can’t be of more help.”

The door closed, and Clara had a bowl of ice cream.

The next day after school, Clara was met with unpleasant smells. Linny was there and looking fat, like a balloon or one of those puffy winter coats.

“I hope you weren’t too lonely last night.”

Clara touched Linny’s arm. It was cold.

“You must be chilly. I’ll bring you a blanket tonight.”

That day a nice warm breeze blew through the pine trees, and the smell dissipated as the afternoon progressed. Clara played with her dolls, including Linny’s dolls for a while, but eventually she decided to bury Linny’s dolls. She wasn’t sure why, but it seemed like the right thing to do. “You were good dolls, but you won’t be needed anymore. Thank you for being Linny’s dolls and for playing with my dolls.”

Days passed. Two police people came and spoke to Clara and her mother. Clara told them exactly what she’d told Linny’s parents—that she went home for dinner that night and that was the last time she’d seen Linny.

“I hope you find her,” she told the police man and woman who sat in their living room. “I miss her.”

Clara’s mother looked at her and smiled, and Clara felt good that she had said something so nice.

Linny’s body lost its terrible odor along with its form. Soft tissues were eaten away by maggots and beetles and other small creatures that Clara didn’t see because they came during the middle of the day when she was at school. By the time she arrived in the afternoon, they were just finishing up. And after a few weeks, there were no more insects. Linny’s body was frail and deflated with bits of skeleton showing through her skin, and this fascinated Clara, though she still preferred to pretend that Linny was alive.

They played. They played make believe where Clara was a knight saving Linny from a dragon. They played at dolls and played house. Clara stopped thinking of the corpse as “Linny.” She just called the body “friend,” or sometimes, “unicorn,” perhaps in some unconscious effort at redemption. But she did not feel sorry. And since no one had found her friend, it seemed that Clara would not get into trouble.

Clara’s eighth birthday arrived and with it, her initiation. She was now old enough to start learning the ways of her mother, grandmother, and all the women in her family who came before her. Her mother insisted she wear the lime green taffeta gown that her grandmother had made. Clara hated it. It was uncomfortable, and she had to wear fancy shoes. Clara was a tomboy. She did not like having to wear nice things. But the elders insisted upon it. Traditions mattered, her mother said. Clara did not think she agreed but went along with it, looking forward to the moment afterward when she could take it off and go play in her pine tree fort.

Clara did not really want to be initiated at all. She liked the idea of it when it was happening to someone else, but she did not like the rules and the ceremonies and the traditions when it impacted her. She just wanted to be a normal little girl, one who could play with dolls and run around in the rain and mud and get dirty and not have to worry about accidentally hurting someone.

The initiation took all morning and involved a lot of chanting and getting her hand cut. All the big ceremonies required blood. Her mother said that blood was necessary because otherwise, how would their gods know they were serious? They had to sacrifice something of themselves now and then.

Back in the pine tree fort after the ceremony, Clara told her friend all about the event and how much she hated it and couldn’t wait to get back here and play.

“I wish you could talk sometimes.” She drew pictures in the dirt with a stick for a few seconds, then added, “but I would only want you to say the things that I want you to say. Otherwise I wouldn’t like you very much.”

Clara stayed in the fort until dinner time, as she usually did.

Linny’s parents had continued their search for their daughter. They even came back to Clara’s house a few more times to see if Clara had seen or heard anything. Every time, they left disappointed. Clara wondered why her mother did not use one of their family methods to find the girl, such as one that involved blood. She also wondered why her mother did not tell the police or Linny’s parents about her fort.

“Are you sure you don’t know anything about Linny’s disappearance, dear?” her mother asked at dinner that night. “Nothing at all? Maybe she went home a different route that day? Maybe something else happened?”

Clara sipped her chicken soup and said, “No, Mommy. I don’t know anything about it.”

The next day after school, Clara trotted back to her pine tree fort, but her friend was gone. She searched around the fort, thinking maybe some animals had moved her. She even called out to her, reverting back to her friend’s name in life, a risky thing to do. “Linny, where are you?” She became frantic. Part of her was worried that a grownup would find out what happened and she would get into trouble. But a bigger part of Clara was heartbroken. Her friend was gone. Her only friend in the world had been taken away. She stayed in the fort for another half hour but eventually went back home and played in her room.

At dinner that night, her mother told Clara that someone had found Linny. Clara stopped breathing for several seconds as she stared at her food.

“Are you alright dear?”

Clara snapped herself out of it and said, “Yes, Mommy, of course. Was she… okay?”

“I’m afraid not. Linny died, my dear. It seems she was dead for several weeks.”

“Where did they find her?” Clara could feel her heart beat faster and harder and thought for sure her mother could hear it.

“Near a stand of pine trees. In fact, she was found not too far from your fort. Isn’t that strange?”

Clara swallowed. “Yes, that is very strange.” She realized she was sweating. Maybe it was the soup. “Do they know how she died?”

“Not yet, but they noticed what looked like a snake bite in the flesh of her right hand. That may have been it. Does that sound right to you?”

Clara looked her mother in the eyes and knew in an instant that her mother was completely aware of what had happened. That her mother had moved the body so that it would be found. Her mother did not know the details, but she knew the basic story. She knew Clara had somehow killed Linny. She knew Clara had been hiding Linny. Yet she still wanted to protect her daughter.

“Yes, Mommy, that sounds right.”

Clara’s mother smiled. “We’ll have a lesson after dinner. I’ll tell you all about the time this happened to me, when I was about your age. It’s… a rite of passage.” She reached across the table and patted her daughter’s hand. “Finish your soup.”

Clara’s heartbeat slowed back down, and she finished her soup, grateful she was not in trouble.