Clair

            Clair slowly opened her eyes. Dried make up and a fuzzy head tried to keep them closed. Slowly she put a hand to her head. What happened? It was hard to remember anything at all. Her body didn’t want to cooperate either. All her muscles felt slow and cramped. What happened? Slowly thought and memory came back to her.

            She could remember running out of a Café. Her heart and mind so conflicted she didn’t know what to do. She had left him there, all alone. She was mad at herself so disgusted that she could do anything like that. She was sure that he liked her, and she liked him, she just wasn’t sure she liked him like that.

Sometimes it was so hard finding someone that liked you for you and not because they thought you were beautiful and wanted something. People always seemed to like her just because she was pretty. Soon she got to the point where she played that part because it was easy. Then William had come along. He had never meet her, he didn’t want anything form her except to talk. She started to like him just for that. Then he had told her to be true to herself, to be her own person. She could feel herself falling in love with William when he told her that. She had drawn strength from his words and changed her life. She changed, and promised herself that she wouldn’t do something just because it was easier that way.

Then she had broken that promise to herself that day that she had found out it was him. How could it be Hod? Why was it Hod? He didn’t even like her. Did he? She thought of him as a friend, especially since they had hung out so much over the summer. Did he think of her as a friend? He had never asked her out, held her hand or tried to kiss her. All the things that other guys had done. Did he know it was her? Had he done all of this just so he could make fun of her? Or make her go out with him? But he said he didn’t know her. Was he lying? It wouldn’t have been the first time a guy had lied to her to get what he wanted. These thoughts and thousands like it rushed through her head as she stared down at Hod. How much time had passed? She didn’t know. Hod turned his head to speak to her and Clair realized she didn’t know what to say. She panicked and run. She ran away leaving him there alone without an explanation, without even telling him it was her. Her only consolidation was that he was blind and hadn’t known it was her.

Since that day she hadn’t been able to talk to him. She couldn’t talk to William because she was too ashamed. She couldn’t talk to Hod because she felt to embarrassed. She wanted to talk to him and tell him that she was Elisabeth. But every time she was about to he would look at her with those pale blue eyes that almost looked like snow, and she couldn’t. She couldn’t ruin what they had. Out of all her friends she was sure that he treated her like everyone else, like normal. He didn’t act deferent around her like most guys did because she was pretty. How could she ruin that?

Clair thoughts and memories started coming back to her faster now. Avoiding Hod so she didn’t have to feel guilty. Driving down to walking by the water in English Bay. She tried to figure out what to do with Hod. She knew that if she didn’t nothing she would lose him. For some reason that made her terribly dejected. That’s why she didn’t realize until too late the filthy rag over her mouth and a sharp pain to the back of her head and everything going black.

She sat up suddenly, and immediately regretted it. The pain rushed back and made her put both her hands to her head. Her vision had gone bleary and she couldn’t see anything. When it came back she wished it hadn’t. She was laying on a pile of filthy cloths. Like someone had taken a dirty laundry basket dumped it in a pig pin and then dumped it in here and her on top of it. She was in some type of crude cage, made from everything imaginable. Wood 4x4 were nailed to bent bikes. A broken door was connected to a chain link fence and connected to a box create. There was also a car bumper complete with a car door and the hood from yet another car. They all had a dirty wet feel to them as if they had all spent time at the bottom of the harbor. There were so many holes through the whole structure that it was easy to see out of it. Sadly none of the holes was big enough to even attempt crawling through.

Slowly she turned her head to look all around her and jumped to the other side of the cage as far and fast as she could from where she had been sitting. Staring at her though a hole was what looked to be the giant face of a frog. When it saw her jump and move back at gave a laughing crock. It lips pulled away from its mouth reviling row upon row of shark like teeth. Tusks protruded from the sides of its mouth. It had no neck on a thin body with all the appendages to long. Its skin was gray blue and looked as if it couldn’t decide if it wanted to be slimy and leathery or scaly like a fish. Seaweed hung from its head like hair and of its back and shoulders. Trash an odds and ends stuck in and out of the seaweed. Clair was surprised she was still conscious, the creature smelled like 3 month dead fish. It had a loincloth made from roughly sown together cloths and holding the whole thing up was a grisly looking belt made out of skulls, some of them human.

“Haha, yep yep. My pretty. Shiny pretty awake. You up?” the thing said in a throaty voice. “You hungry, you eat now.”

Library

"I'm telling you David, that's not Clair!"

Hod was usually a pretty calm guy. David had never known him to get really agitated the entire time they'd been friends. Beheaded stuffed toy, stomped sand castle, demolished snowmen (Hod made the best snowmen), and he never even flinched. Broken computer, being pushed around, whatever it was Hod never lost his cool. He was their for David when Anne had... well, during that whole thing. He'd been incredibly calm when his parents split up, when his dad remarried and when his mom gradually stopped asking him to come visit. He'd written a beautiful, almost funny poem when his dog Never died, saying he could see Never better than when he had been alive. Hod stared down indifferent blizzard and cold human hostility alike with the same stoic attitude that he approached everything. 

So when David saw his best friend this upset, he knew something was going on. Even if what Hod was saying made no sense. 

"Alright, Hod, but I still don't understand. How can you be so sure?" 

Hod had pulled aside David right after the school meeting. They were both missing class, huddled around a desk in a corner of the library, whispering. David didn't understand why they were whispering, but it seemed appropriate. 

"David, didn't she seem strange to you? Like she wasn't herself?" Hod stared straight ahead, cold sweat beading on his forehead. "Didn't she sound different?"

"No I didn't. She didn't seem quite as organized as usual, that's all. But she was pretty good about getting everything together once I reminded her of what was going on." David hesitated, "There was one other thing," he said reluctantly. It had seemed strange then. It was still strange. "Just after everyone else had left, when Clair and me were the last people in the room, Clair- she kissed me. It was really quick, but..."

"But Clair and you haven't gone out since the 9th grade, I know." Hod's voice held a note of pain. "David, remember when I told you about that mystery girl I was talking to on the high school forums?"

"I think so, yeah." David said. Hod had actually said something a couple times, and even though he sounded really casual about it, David knew it was big. Hod never mentioned girls ever, except in a generalized way. He felt a cold chill. "Wait. You mean... that was?"

"It was Clair. I found out a couple weeks ago. It... it wasn't the best experience." Hod gave a chilly smile. "I don't know if you've noticed but we haven't been able to be in the same room together for awhile now." The admission seemed almost dragged out of him.

"You think she kissed me to get at you?" David could believe it. Clair could be pretty mean at times, especially when she felt hurt or ignored.

"No, David, you're not listening. I think that the... person... who kissed you wasn't really Clair. I think it might now even have been human."

"You think it was a Spook?" David shivered. Every once in awhile something strange would happen to David and Hod. They didn't tell anyone else, but it was part of what made them such close friends.

"David, I swear on my life it's not her. It might look like her, but it's not. I know it."

A weird shimmer, like a heat wave, rippled out from them, but they were too caught up to notice it. But someone else did. 

"I believe you." David put his hand firmly on Hods' shoulder. Hod slumped a little in relief. "But if it's not her, who is it?"

"I don't know." Hod said, voice breaking slightly. He set his shoulders, pulling out his walking cane with a snap. "But I'm going to find out, David. And I need you to help me."

"Of course Hod. You know I got your back," David said, checking his phone reflexively. "Dude, we're already late for Chem. We should get going."

"Okay, but after school, we have to figure out what's going on."

"Where do we start looking?'

"We follow whatever it is home. Maybe it will lead us to the real Clair."

"Maybe it will." 

Lunchtime

It all happened in the lunchroom. Hod was busy working on his computer, poetry and sonnets coming unbidden into his thoughts. It was a couple of weeks before school let out, so almost 4 months since his birthday. Hod was of course sitting next to David who was of course sitting with the rest of the school. Hod could hear Clair and one of her friends close by chatting and giggling but he didn’t pay much attention to them. Well not until Clair started talking about William he didn’t.

It wasn’t unusual for Clair to be near, during their freshman year she had even gone out with David, and even though that didn’t last long they stayed really good friends and so was constantly around. This also helped the rumor that David and Clair were still and item. And really who wouldn’t think that? The most popular girl and boy in school that have dated and are constantly with each other, you would think they were still going out too. Hod really didn’t mind, besides their arguments Clair was nice to have around. Hod liked how she was forward and honest with everyone as well as being nice and diplomatic. It was refreshing to not have someone that teased him or was overly careful around him.

            “So he is the one that convinced you to stop cheerleading and modeling and do business stuff and be the school treasurer instead?” Said Clair friend. She had a very high voice and Hod thought she sounded like a valley girl and so instantly cataloged her as one of Clair’s Cheerleading friends.

It was true that Clair had quit cheerleading and told the modeling agencies she worked for that she was done being a pretty face and selling things for them. It seemed that almost no one could stop talking about it for a month, actually people were still talking about it. Hod didn’t get it at first why everyone was making such a big fuss over the whole thing. Hod actually felt proud of Clair for making that decision and using her mind. Hod new that Clair was really pretty by the way guys acted around her. Which was usually to pick on Hod or act tough. But Hod still didn’t understand it all until David explained it to him one day.

*

“So what’s the big deal? Why does everyone seem so obsessed that Clair quit Cheerleading and Modeling?” Hod asked David one day in one of those moments they were alone in the student council room together. “Even the Teachers are talking all the time about it.”

There was a moment of long silence before David answered him. “Hod I know that beauty and the way you see the world is a little different from most people. Because of that you have a very unique perspective. I also know that you know the concept of physical beauty from all your poems and stories. So just imagine all the writings about beautiful women, now times them by ten, and you might get close to what Clair looks like. Now out of a School with a lot of very beautiful girls, and Hod we have a lot of them, Clair is the Prettiest hands down.”

*

“No he didn’t tell me to quit modeling and cheerleading. That was my own decision. What he did was give me some advice.” Clair said.

“Well what did he say?” Cheerleader voice replied.

“William said ‘This above all; to thin own self be true’ and ‘God has given you one face, you make yourself another’” Clair responded. Clair went on to tell about how nice William was. How he understood her. How he was always there for her. How he always knew what to say, and how he would send her cute little love poems.

Hod felt like someone had just electrocuted him. He felt numb. He was shocked, dumbfounded, he couldn’t move. William, that was his name, those were the words he had sent as advice to Elizabeth. It was hard for him to breath his mind was working so fast and yet at the same time not at all.

It was Clair, Elizabeth was Clair! How could it be Clair? Why did it have to be Clair? Popular socially correct Clair. She would never even think about going out with Hod. That kind of future just wasn’t in the cards. Why did this have to happen? It seemed like every time he found a girl something irremovable was in the way. First it was Anne and now it was Clair.

Waves of cold flowed through the lunch room. Students started to rub their arms at the sudden appearance of goose bumps. Hod reached up and brushed a frozen tear away from his eye. He stood up slowly and he could feel people looking at him. He turned to where he had heard Clair and the Cheerleader talking. He closed his laptop with a loud snap. “You know you shouldn’t talk to strangers on the internet. They might be dangerous or just not who they say they are.”

Hod didn’t really know what happened after that. He wasn’t really paying attention. He left the lunchroom and somehow went throughout his day in true zombie like fashion. When his mind and body actually decided to work together he was in his room lying on the bed. He decided to check his email where there was a letter waiting for him from Elizabeth. Simply put she wanted to know who he was and more about him to make sure he wasn’t some fake. Hod didn’t answer right away. How could he tell her who he was and risk never being able to talk like this with her again. It would crush him, he hadn’t noticed how attached he’d grown.

Hod spent the next couple of days working out hard in the Dojo, trying to get his thoughts straight. Finally after a couple of days he answered her. He told her that he was real that he couldn’t tell her who he was right now but that shortly she would know. He told her that he was going through some stuff that he had to figure out and asked Elisabeth for time. She agreed and they went back to writing back and forth. Hod however made a vow with himself that at the beginning of the nest school year he would tell her who he was.

 It is not in the stars to hold our destinies but in ourselves. This became his mantra and he did everything he could to spend time and get to know Clair. Hod began to actually absorb everything he could about her. He memorized her voice. The way she walked. He started to purposefully start conversations with her to find out who she was. It became exciting it became real. The more Hod was around her the more he became attached. The more his feeling grew.

So that’s how Hod found himself about a month after school started in a little Café, waiting for Clair.

Sitting in the café, alone, the smell of coffee and pastries thick in the air. So thick he almost couldn’t smell the soft scent of the rose in front of him. He touched the rose feeling its velvet petals. The prickle of the spiny leafs. He wondered if it was beautiful. He wondered if she would like it. He had had to have help by the casher. She had said it was a beautiful red rose, the prettiest one they had. Sometimes it was hard to trust people. Especially when it was something so important to him.

The chime of the little bell over the door rang as someone walked in. Hod sat up straight without meaning to, he wanted to laugh he wanted to throw up at the same time. He couldn’t tell how his stomach had so much room for whale sized butterflies and elephants to march through accompanied by a band of bears and giants. It happened each time he heard that bell the announcer of doom the bringer of his salvation. Hod took a deep breath, it wasn’t her. The footsteps proclaimed that they were wearing a loafer type shoe. Definitely not her, she would never wear something like that. Hod let out the breath he had been holding. It came out as a long sigh. He sat there every once in a while touching the rose to make sure it was there.  Sitting there waiting… waiting.

The bell rang and the click of high heels entered the Café. Hod thought his back might break from how hard he was sitting up straight. The high heels hesitated and then slowly made their way toward where Hod sat. As soon as she got close there was no mistaking that it was her. The slight clip to her walk, the way the air hummed. She came and stood beside his table, and now there was no mistaking it was her. This close he could smell her perfume a rich and intoxicating array of scents, and underneath that was her own unique scent a wholesome earthy and metallic scent.

Hod waited, his heart trying to beat out of his chest. His stomach was so knotted up he could barely breath. He waited and she stood there not saying a word just stood there. A minute went by then two and then five, it felt like hooks were in his back slowly pulling him apart. Finaly he couldn’t take it anymore and he turned to speak to her. Hod never got a chance, as soon as he turned to her she turned and run. Her pace picking up until she was out the door and all that was left was the sound of the bell ringing against his broken soul.

Hod’s back ached, he was back in the present leaning against the student council room door. He had expected her to yell at him. Or just say something. He expected to be made fun of at school, but no one seemed to know anything about it. She was probably too ashamed to have found out it was him. The few times that they had found themselves together since then were awkward and tension filled. Eventually one of them would leave. Ever since that night Elizabeth and William hadn’t spoken to each other either.

Hod sighed. He couldn’t concentrate. All he could think about was her. It was time for him to leave. He took out his seeing stick from it holster and undid it, straightening it out into its long rod. As he was about to find his way out of the library he heard David make a comment about not being able to find the money that everyone always seemed to need

            “Hahaha, David you’re so funny!” Clair said in a giggle. Hod stopped in his tracks. Cold sweat breaking out all over his body. That was Clair’s voice, but that was not Clair.

Names and Roses

It took Hod a few days to get used to the new system. Computers were not normally designed for blind people, and their was a lot of content that made little sense to him. Youtube seemed particularly inane. He joined a few chatrooms for literature appreciation. Their was an association with other districts, so that high school kids could ask each other for help and advice from different schools. Within a few weeks, Hod was deeply embroiled in the Shakespeare discussion boards, and within two months he was in charge of a weekly challenge and prize: whoever wrote the best sonnet won 10 dollars and a spot in the University newspaper where Hod's stepfather worked. On the school discussion boards usernames had to be literary references; Hod went by Williamthebard. She went by Elizabethfair

Elizabethfair kept winning. She didn't win every week, maybe only once every five challenges, but she won more than any other student on the boards. Hod first thought she was cheating, but when he checked her lines in Google he couldn't find anything she would have copied. She was just that good.

Hod wanted to start a conversation with her. He wanted badly to get to know her, know what she was like as a person, and not just as an amazing poet. He wanted to perhaps hear her read the lines herself. Maybe if she-

And Hod couldn't ask for help. David was his best friend, and David definitely had a way with girls, but David was well... David. That kind of stuff came easy to him. People didn't react to Hod the same way, and that was alright, but it also meant that whatever kind of advice David could offer Hod probably wouldn't be very helpful. And Hod wanted to keep Elizabethfair a secret.

Hod tried borrowing the words at first: "What is your substance, whereof are you made, That millions of strange shadows on you tend?"

Elizabethfair: The Bard might use the words that he hath penned, and yet those words reputed sound unmended, broken, like a line out of tune.

And Hod was Williamthebard: Shadows favor me, not lines. I feel them cool like shapes, and the substance they create loosens the heat of day.

Elizabethfair: ...

Williamthebard: What is your favorite line?

Elizabethfair: Sonnet 52

Williamthebard: Blessed are you whose worthiness gives scope/ Being had to triumph, being lacked, to hope

Elizabethfair: yeah

Williamthebard: Interesting choice.

Elizabethfair: It's sort of a personal motto

Williamthebard: Why's that?

Elizabethfair: because I want to show people what I'm capable of. So many people think that I'm not more than a pretty face.

Williamthebard: I wouldn't know, lol.

Elizabethfair: So you're not a teacher then? Their's a rumor that the Bard is actually a teacher just being creepy by pretending to be a student.

Williamthebard: What do you think?

Elizabethfair: I think you're a student. Otherwise someone would have caught you already.

Williamthebard: let's pretend we're from different schools. We might have met in real life, but we are shadows to each other here. We don't exist except for the words on the screen.

Elizabethfair: Why?

Williamthebard: Because sometimes not seeing a face is the kindest judgement. Because sometimes names can hide the truth as much as reveal it. Names and roses, you know. "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet and Oh! how much more doth beauty beauteous seem By that sweet ornament which truth doth give! The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem for that sweet odour which doth in it live.

Elizabethfair: So you want to sniff me?

Williamthebard: No, I'm just saying I want to get to know you better. If I know your name, then I think I know you, and I don't. Your name just tells me what everybody knows: height, weight, color, family, car. Without your name, I can ask you why you wrote that the sky was like threads of gold.

Elizabethfair: You really don't know who I am?

Williamthebard: Is that so surprising? Nobody knows who I am. They probably think I'm Mr. Turkley.

Elizabethfair: I always kind of assumed, you know, that even though they say we're not supposed to share any personal information, people would do it anyway.

Williamthebard: Sometimes the greatest treasures are the ones we keep to ourselves.

Elizabeth: You are weird and kind of creepy, lol.

Williamthebard: Sorry.

Elizabethfair: No, I'm okay with it.

That was how it started. The first awkward conversation blossomed into hours on the screen, messaging, waiting impatiently for the response. Hod wrote reams of poetry to her, and burned them all before sending a single one. Instead, he relied on the words of Shakespeare, of Lord Byron and Edgar Allen Poe and Emily Dickinson. E E Cummings, Sylvia Plath, Pablo Neruda, Langston Hughes- they all lent their words. He couldn't seem to give her his own. His own poetry was never good enough, somehow.

Every day dragged by that he couldn't write to her. Every night his brain burned in exultation to listen as her words were read dryly by his computer. He used headphones, kept his conversations private. She was his secret, a treasure he shared with nobody, not even David.

And then she had to ruin it all, when she started asking who he was.