Bliss

  ALSO BY

  LAUREN MYRACLE

  Rhymes with Witches

  ttyl

  ttfn

  l8r, g8r

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  How to Be Bad

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Myracle, Lauren, 1969–

  Bliss / by Lauren Myracle.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Having grown up in a California commune, Bliss sees her

  aloof grandmother’s Atlanta world as a foreign country, but she is

  determined to be nice as a freshman at an elite high school, which

  makes her the perfect target for a girl obsessed with the occult.

  ISBN 978-0-8109-7071-7 (Harry N. Abrams: alk. paper)

  [1. Interpersonal relations—Fiction. 2. High schools—Fiction. 3.

  Schools—Fiction. 4. Occultism—Fiction. 5. Grandmothers—Fiction. 6.

  Atlanta (Ga.)—History—20th century—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.M9955Bli 2008

  [Fic]—dc22

  2007050036

  Text copyright © 2008 Lauren Myracle

  Book design by Maria T. Middleton

  Page 73: From the song “Little Boxes.” Words and music by Malvina

  Reynolds. Copyright © 1962 Schroder Music Co. (ASCAP) Renewed

  1990. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

  Page 209: “Happiness Is a Warm Gun.” © 1968 Sony/ATV Tunes LLC.

  All rights administered by Sony/ATV Music Publishing, 8 Music Square

  West, Nashville, TN 37203. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

  Page 275: “Easy Rider.” Lyrics originally copyright © 1924

  Gertrude “Ma” Rainey.

  Published in 2008 by Amulet Books, an imprint of Harry N. Abrams, Inc. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher. Amulet Books and Amulet Paperbacks are registered trademarks of Harry N. Abrams, Inc.

  Amulet Books are available at special discounts when purchased in quantity for premiums and promotions as well as fundraising or educational use. Special editions can also be created to specification. For details, contact [email protected] or the address below.

  www.hnabooks.com

  With deep and abiding love,

  I blame this one entirely on my mother.

  randmother won’t tolerate occultism, even of the nose-twitching sort made so adorable by Samantha Stevens, so I’m not allowed to watch Bewitched. Jeannie from I Dream of Jeannie is indecent in her filmy pants and sparkly halter, so I’m not allowed to watch that, either. Mod Squad? Miniskirts. Scandalous. Those ultramodern miniskirt girls purse Grandmother’s lips up almost as much as boys with long hair and girls who neither shave nor wear appropriate undergarments. Almost, but not quite, because when it comes to the destruction of traditional values, hippies trump witches and mod girls, hands down.

  Hippies use marijuana.

  Hippies don’t bathe.

  Hippies cohabitate in flimsy tents and eat goat cheese. The girls don’t wear bras, and their unfettered breasts bounce shamelessly beneath tank tops reading MAKE LOVE, NOT WAR. They have sexual relations indiscriminately, and they burden their offspring with ridiculous names. And—the most dire offense of all—they deposit said offspring in the imposing Southern mansions of their even more imposing Southern parents, shirking the responsibility of raising their children themselves.

  To clarify: I’m the offspring. My name is Bliss. Mom and Dad fled to Canada to avoid supporting President Nixon’s version of American patriotism, and they abandoned me here, in Atlanta, with a well-coiffed grandmother I barely know. My grandfather is dead.

  This is a situation neither Grandmother nor I would have chosen, but Grandmother is nothing if not morally upright, which made it impossible for her to turn me away. She’s also uptight, and it seems that often the two go together. Mom hugged me hard after dropping me off, whispering that I should stay true to myself no matter what anyone said. By “anyone,” I assume she meant Grandmother, whose sole remark to Mom was, “Well, Genevieve, I didn’t think you could fall any further. Once again, you’ve proven me wrong.” Then she turned to me, her mouth pruning into a frown. “Pigeon Carrier’s Disease?! Dr. Montgomery will be aghast.”

  The penicillin made my pee stink, but it got rid of the fever and most of the scaliness. Even more remarkable, I’m no longer coughing. My clean breaths fill me with joy and guilt in equal measure.

  Something else I feel guilty about: I like my daily hot showers, and I like Grandmother’s expensive toiletries. The soap from the commune never lathered. It was lumpish and gray, and it itched my scalp. Grandmother has lavender shampoo to match her lavender soap. My hair is as soft as angels’ wings.

  I like TV too. Grandmother’s TV is a brand-new Zenith Giant-Screen, with a Space Command “600” Remote Control. I can change channels from the sofa. Truly! I stretch out on the chintz cushions—no feet on the coffee table, please—and with a push of my thumb, The Andy Griffith Show flickers into resolution. Andy Griffith is one of the few shows Grandmother tolerates, and of the others on her approved list—My Three Sons, Green Acres, Petticoat Junction—it’s my clear-and-away favorite. Plus, it’s in reruns already, so I can watch it every day.

  I love Sheriff Taylor in his crisp uniform, and sometimes (how embarrassing) I think about him as I fall asleep in my four-poster bed with freshly laundered sheets and down pillow. He’s got a kind smile, he’s a great dad to Opie, and he teases gray-bunned Aunt Bee, but never in a mean-spirited way. Plus, he’s nice to Barney, the bumbling deputy sheriff who causes more problems than he solves.

  If I were still on the commune, I wouldn’t be watching Andy Griffith. I’d be digging a new latrine or helping Flying V pick herbs or looking after Daisy and Clementine, the twins. We weren’t lazy on the commune, despite what Grandmother thinks. I’m lazy here. Grandmother’s maid, a black woman named Rosie who’s at least as old as Grandmother, whispers past me, picking up crumbs before I realize I’ve dropped them. She folds my underwear. She collects the hairballs from the shower drain and makes them disappear. Quite a lot of my hair seems to be falling out, which I attribute to my new regimen of washing, conditioning, and brushing.

  If Flying V could see me, she’d shake her head. “Letting an old auntie wait on you? That ain’t the Bliss I know.”

  Well, she’s right. I feel newly born, dropped like a baby into this slippery world of giant-screen TVs and lavender soap and feather pillows. Last week Grandmother hosted a “sip and see” to introduce me to her friends from the Ladies Auxiliary, and because I was nervous, I crossed and recrossed my legs in the school-issued knee-length cotton skirt Grandmother had given me to replace my gypsy skirt with the bells. Grandmother glared, and I didn’t know why. After everyone left, she informed me that young ladies are to cross their legs at the ankles only. To do otherwise suggests wantonness.

  I also made the mistake of mentioning Daisy and Clementine during the sip and see. Daisy and Clementine will have a new baby brother or sister next month, not that I’ll be there to meet him or her. But everyone likes babies, so when one of the ladies showed off a bonnet she was knitting for her soon-to-be-born granddaughter, I beamed and said, “Oh, groovy! My friend Flying V—well, really, it’s Virginia—she’s pregnant too.”
br />   Everyone fell silent, and my smile faltered. Grandmother later told me that you’re not supposed to say “pregnant”; you’re supposed to say “expecting” or “in the family way.” Um, okay. I don’t get it . . . but okay.

  There are so many things I don’t get, that I’m afraid even daily doses of Andy Griffith won’t bring me up to speed. School starts in a week, and I’m petrified. Grandmother has enrolled me in Crestview Academy, the most prestigious private school in the South. It used to be a convent, and when Grandmother showed me the brochure, I imagined nuns in black habits patrolling the vast grounds. The imposing buildings are constructed from stone; the lawns are green and dotted with stone benches. It’s quite stately looking, which, despite my apprehension, appeals to my imagination. There’s not a latrine in sight.

  The school shifted from Catholicism when it lost the nuns, but Grandmother assures me that Crestview students follow a Christian code of conduct. They also follow a Christian code of attire—though when I said, “Neat-o! Tunics and sandals!” Grandmother didn’t crack a smile. Crestview boys, I gathered from the brochure, wear khakis and collared shirts. Girls can wear either a blue or gray skirt, a white blouse with a Peter Pan collar, and brown penny loafers. Grandmother bought me two skirts in each color, three blouses, and a blue cardigan for chilly weather. Also, five pairs of white knee-highs, five pairs of nude hose, and the penny loafers.

  I’ll be a freshman, Grandmother informed me, and I could sense her amazement that I tested into my appropriate age-based grade level despite the fact that I’ve never been formally schooled.

  “Well . . . I did read on the commune,” I told her. “Quite a lot, actually.”

  “How?” Grandmother asked.

  “What do you mean, how?” I said. I didn’t want to be rude, but surely she didn’t want a description of how I moved my eyes from line to line.

  She made an impatient sound. “The books, where did you get the books? You were squatting like animals in the wild.”

  I felt a surge of shame. “The bookmobile came every week,” I said as levelly as I could. “It was government funded.” I was never an animal squatting in the wild, but she had just made me feel like one.

  So beginning next week, I’ll be in a homeroom with twelve other fourteen-year-olds. There are three other ninth-grade homerooms in addition to mine, which means fifty-two freshmen, give or take. Grandmother informed me that unlike myself, they all attended a freshman orientation last spring.

  “They will know all about the school, while you will know nothing,” she said. Her tone implied that she held me personally accountable for my ignorance. “You’ll be a babe in the woods.”

  I refrained from pointing out the irony of her remark.

  There are approximately fifty sophomores, fifty juniors, and fifty seniors at Crestview as well, bringing the total number of students to around two hundred.

  That’s a lot of teenagers.

  I haven’t had a lot of experience with teenagers.

  Last year a sixteen-year-old guy lived on the commune for about a month, but his parents decided to follow the Dead, and that was that. Daisy and Clementine shared a tent with me, but they’re four-and-a-half. I did meet other kids at festivals and concerts—I’m not a total freak—and yes, I’ve even kissed a boy. Once. His name was Peter, and he had B.O. Then again, I probably did too.

  So while I’m terrified of starting at Crestview next week, I’m also twisty-turvy, stomach-flopping excited. Going to Crestview equals being around people my own age, and being around people my own age equals (maybe? hopefully?) making friends.

  Sheriff Taylor has Barney. Aunt Bee has Clara. Opie has Johnny Paul Jason, which is an awfully big name for an awfully small boy. But even Opie has a best friend.

  I would like a best friend. I’d like that very much.

  On the day I left the commune, Flying V pulled me to the edge of the fire pit. She’d had one of her visions, and her expression was dogged.

  “You know I ain’t happy ‘bout you leaving,” she said, “but ain’t nothing either one of us can do about it.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine,” I said, trying to sound more confident than I felt.

  “‘Course you will. It ain’t you I’m worried about.”

  “You’re not?” Perversely, I now wanted her to be worried about me. Why wasn’t she worried about me?

  “Bliss, baby, you got a light inside you as bright as they come,” Flying V said. “You don’t always have the best of sense, but you do got light. It’ll burn within you even in the darkest of times.”

  I rolled my eyes. I was being shipped off to the land of indoor plumbing, not the ninth circle of hell.

  “But you listen to Flying V now,” she said. She clasped my hands, lacing her brown fingers through my much paler ones. “There’s change coming your way like you ain’t never imagined. New sights, new smells—new people, too. Two people in particular.” She squeezed. “That’s what I seen.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Two girls, just your age. Your lives are intertwined.”

  My lips went loose, twitching into a smile I couldn’t control. Here Flying V was, acting all agitated, but this was fine news. Not just one dear friend in my future, but two?

  Flying V frowned, reading something in my face she didn’t like. “Hold on, baby. I can tell you’re spinning plans, imagining the three of y’all whispering and giggling and telling secrets. But this ain’t no magic friendship spell I seen.”

  “I know!” I protested. She made it sound so childish: a magic friendship spell. I knew friendship had to be nurtured. I knew it wouldn’t happen magically.

  “There’s trouble in that mix, and girls your age . . .” She shook her head. “They can be downright cruel. Downright bloodthirsty, baby. I think it’s best you stay clear.”

  “And, what? Be alone?” I said. “I think I can handle a few spats and hurt feelings, V. I am a girl myself.”

  She snorted. “Yeah, uh-huh. A girl who can’t tell a snowberry from a nightshade berry.”

  I pulled my hands free and turned away. I appreciated Flying V’s mothering, especially since my flesh-and-blood mother did so little of it, but even I wasn’t such a dumb pudding that I couldn’t hold my own with girls my age. And of course I could tell the difference between a snowberry and a nightshade berry. Snowberries are white; nightshade berries are bright red. Snowberries are harmless; nightshade berries are deadly.

  “Maybe I’ve never had a lot of friends,” I admitted, my voice breaking. “But I haven’t exactly had a lot of opportunities, either.” I swallowed. “I think—I mean, I hope—that I’d be a really good friend.”

  “Oh, baby,” Flying V said. She took me by my shoulders and turned me back toward her. “You got me all wrong. Anybody would be blessed to call you a friend. Absolutely blessed.” Her eyes were the deepest brown, full of concern. “I want you to be careful, that’s all.”

  I still didn’t get what I was supposed to be careful of, but I was ready for the conversation to be over.

  “I will,” I said, hearing the petulance in my voice.

  Flying V sighed, and I sensed she wished she’d kept her vision to herself. Right then, I wished she had too. But now I’m glad she didn’t. An unseen world shimmers beneath our seen world, and for Flying V to share a glimpse of it . . . well, I like it when the universe reminds us how intricate our world is.

  I miss Mom and Dad, but their absence is nothing new. Even when we lived on the commune, they were always hitching to San Fran or Seattle or wherever. Sometimes they let me tag along, but more often they didn’t.

  As for Grandmother, yes, she’s one huge frown. But I’m her granddaughter. She’ll come around.

  Occasionally, I have visions too. Mine don’t come as frequently at Flying V’s, nor, I suspect, do they pulse with the same degree of clarity. Flying V was helping me with that. She said I had “the gift”—as, indeed, most people do, though they often don’t realize it—but that I
needed guidance in order to interpret what my gift revealed. Our training sessions were cut off, of course, but I’m not too terribly worried. I think I’m clear-sighted enough to divine the general sense of my visions, even if I miss the more subtle particulars.

  At any rate, on my first night in Atlanta I had a strange and telling dream. In it, I walked along a footpath on Crestview’s sprawling campus. It was the footpath pictured in the brochure, only more heavily wooded, with dappled shadows making spots of light and dark. The sweet tang of lemons inexplicably filled the air. I felt as if I were exactly where I was supposed to be.

  But as I ambled along, the shadows shifted and became mouths, hungering for me. I tried to run, but couldn’t. The lemony scent grew cloying and veiled me in a misty shroud.

  Then, out of nowhere, swooped a dove. I knew it was a dove and not an odious pigeon because it was snow-white, and because it was unafflicted with parasites. Also, its coo was soft and beguiling, nothing like the ugly chup-chup of a pigeon. The dove alit on my shoulder, its wings a whisper on my cheek. The mist around me cleared.

  My sight may not be as clear as Flying V’s, yet I’m not completely unversed in life’s mysteries. Yes, starting school will be hard, possibly even scary. But my dream dove was a sign, just as solid and real as Grandmother’s bone china tea set. Doves are incapable of malice toward any creature, and as long as I remember that, as long as I never stoop to spite or meanness, I’ll surely be able to navigate the occasional catfight between friends.

  After all, fourteen-year-old girls are just fourteen-year-old girls. They may bicker, they may hold silly grudges, but they certainly don’t thirst for blood.

  randmother had hoped to take me shopping today. She wanted to buy me some “play” clothes (does she think I’m five?), but instead she retired to her bedroom with a migraine. Something awful happened—not here in Atlanta, but in California—and Grandmother deems it one more horror to blame on the lawless, shiftless hippies.