Three Cursed Gods

BEFORE : PART TWO

McKayla hadn't meant to like her.

The day Linda's family moved into the house next door, McKayla was seven years old, and dreading the end of her summer vacation. When she'd heard that a new family was moving in, she'd been disappointed because the previous owner had been a sweet old lady who made delicious apple pies every Tuesday for the children of Rushmore Avenue. But the woman had died, and the house had been sold, and so these people were moving in.

McKayla's mom didn't share her distrustful views, however. She'd coaxed her daughter into taking a plate of freshly baked cookies over the day they moved in ("And don't you dare eat a single one," she'd warned. "I'll know.") thinking that it was a nice welcome to the neighborhood. And that was how McKayla had wound up on the doorstep of her new neighbors' house, knocking on the faded white door while balancing a plate of cookies in her other hand, and feeling like a complete moron.

After a few seconds, the door opened, and McKayla, who'd been expecting a severe-faced adult, was startled to see a little girl, around her age, staring back at her.

The girl was taller, with wide brown eyes and tan skin, a little lighter than her own—Latinx, McKayla guessed—dressed in a soft-looking green dress that brushed her knees. She had a button nose, a smattering of faint freckles (McKayla had the sudden urge to try and count them), and pink-lips rounded in an O of surprise. But none of that was what was making McKayla stare.

Her hair was longer than she'd ever seen on anyone, a sheet of brown that seemed to change shades depending on the lighting. It was unlike anything she had ever seen before, and she was bewitched by how the locks ranged from palest bark to darkest chocolate. Stunning.

McKayla realized that the girl was staring at her too, just as intently, and suddenly became self-conscious. She was skinny, she knew, but strong, with a wide face and a mess of tangled curls with a streak of white running through. Her skin was a rich brown, a cause of her mixed race—her mom thought she might be a mix of Black and Latinx, but they weren't sure, and the adoption documents hadn't disclosed any information about her origins. In any case, she was uncomfortable with the intensity of the girl's gaze, and wanted to leave.

McKayla shifted her weight awkwardly, scuffing the ground with her already-dirty sneaker. "Um...these cookies are for you," she said, shoving the plate into the startled girl's hands, and turning to leave.

"Wait!" McKayla paused at the sound of her voice, low and musical. She turned, slowly, to see the girl grinning back at her. "Aren't you going to tell me your name? That's bad manners, you know."

"I'm McKayla." She hated how rough her voice sounded, as if she'd just been screaming her throat hoarse. She paused, thinking of what the girl had said about manners. "What's yours?"

"Linda," she said. The name fit, as if it was made specially for her, and her alone. She didn't know much Spanish, but she did know that word—had heard the Cuban man across the street say that of his wife. Linda. Beautiful.

The girl cleared her throat, and shifted slightly on her feet—it was only then that it occurred to McKayla that she might be nervous too. "I like your hair," the girl said, and McKayla flushed. She was self-conscious of it, particularly the white streak that ran through her curls. A hair birthmark, her mother called it, unique just like you. The children at school however, only used it as more ammunition against her.

"Thanks," she said, reflexively stroking her curls. "Um...I like your hair too." Like was an understatement—she was mesmerized.

The girl smiled suddenly, and it was like the sun coming out in all its brilliance. "Would you like to come in?"

McKayla accepted the invitation that day, and when Linda turned up at her doorstep the next day, she accepted that invitation too. And the next, and the next, and the next.

Soon she no longer had to ask her mom–it was a given that every day at exactly ten in the morning, McKayla would race out of her house and climb the fence into Linda's backyard (she'd long ago abandoned the garden gate—it was a rusty little thing prone to sticking firmly in place) and they would while away the summer days together.

Granted, their friendship was an unusual one. They were opposites in many ways—McKayla was more taciturn, all logic and practicality, who radiated her own quiet strength. Linda was loud and exuberant, whirling through life with a devil-may-care attitude, the very paragon of youth. They complemented each other well; Linda coaxed McKayla out of her secluded bubble, while she in turn, cautioned Linda from being too reckless.

Later she'd learn why Linda was so prone to throwing herself into harm's way, not because of simple carelessness, but of a darker need to see just how far she could go. But not yet. For now...for now, all was well.

The summer ended before the girls were ready, and McKayla had a brief flash of fear that her friend would abandon her when school started, now that she had the opportunity to make new acquaintances. They were going into third grade, and McKayla dreaded interaction with her classmates. They still remembered her freakout in the first grade, and while they didn't mock her for it anymore, they had a way of making her feel like she was on the outside looking in, separated from everyone by a sheet of glass. And Linda, who was smart and funny and pretty and cool...of course she'd want to join those people. Why would you stay out in the cold when you could enter the warm rooms inside?

But McKayla's fears never came to fruition. For the rest of her life, she'd remember that first day at recess, when Linda had politely turned down an invitation to play soccer with the boys in favor of hanging out alone with McKayla by the gates.

"Why would you do that?" McKayla asked. "Why didn't you play with them?"

Linda smiled. "Because they're not you."

"So?"

"What do you mean, 'so'? You're my best friend, Mika. I'll never leave you."

McKayla was shaky; even then she could recognize a promise that could not be kept. But still she said, "Promise?"

Linda's face softened. "Promise." And that was the end of the matter.

A/N: don't forget to vote and comment :)