I am Clara

An Unwanted Visitor

I spent two hours praying, the night I came back home. Actually, I stared at the wall for two hours, while my mother prayed. I didn't even tell her about my misfortunes in the rainforest, and she was acting this way. I tried to keep my distance, during my first couple days back. Mom's behavior was odd when I was around. Odder than usual, to say the least. It was like she could smell the bizarreness on me. Her shoulders would tense, or she'd involuntarily take a step away from me.

     "Any news from the witch?" Andrews greeted, as he opened my front door.

     I shot him a warning look. Mom was still home, and when it came to things that threatened her religious beliefs, she seemed to gain supernatural hearing.

     Sure enough, as soon as he spoke, her head popped out of the kitchen. "Witch?" she asked warily.

     "No momma... Andrews was wondering which period we had first."

     Usually, she saw through all of my lies. But it was her morning time of prayer, she had better things to focus on. She dismissed us and returned to her room.

     "Moron." I shoved Andrews the minute we stepped outside.

     "I was acquiring very important information," he defended, brushing crumbs from his blue Buffalo shirt.

     I scrunched my noise disapprovingly. "Would it kill you to have breakfast in your house?"

     He had awful eating habits, and his truck and clothing took a beating for it. Andrews was not a successful multitasker.

     "My question," he reminded impatiently.

     I rolled my eyes, only pausing when it occurred to me that he was being sincere. He's got to be kidding.

     He wasn't.

     "Andrews," I said ridiculously. "She is not a witch."

     He huffed unsurely. Pausing by the truck, I took a good look at him, properly studying his face. His brown curls were their usual wild mess, fingers fidgeting with his keys. But it was the dark bags under his eyes, and redness around his irises that caught my attention.

     "Tell me you did not spend the entire night researching witches."

     "I need it to make sense, Clara!" He exclaimed exasperatedly. He could never let the unknown go, he always needed answers. And this was the perfect mystery. Dangerous, glowing stones fit his love for sci-fi a little too perfectly.

     Taking the passenger seat of his rusty, red truck, I groaned in my hands. Once Andrews got an idea in his thick head, it was nearly impossible to talk him out of it. We spent the entire ride to school arguing about the existence or nonexistence of witches, and which answer applied to the Indonesian woman of my nightmares.

     "It's a religion," I argued for the hundredth time.

     "The power of Udra," he retorted, wiggling his fingers as if that was supposed to support his point.

     "Eudora," I corrected automatically. I ignored the shiver that slithered down my spine when I spoke the name.

     Slowly life went back to normal. It was two weeks following the trip; Andrews had finally dropped the witch topic, and I portrayed the perfect daughter in front of my mother. She stopped acting weird in presence, and I forgot all about the old woman... Until Friday night. Late at night and tired from a DC marathon with Andrews, I was ready to collapse in bed.