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Disgusting slop rolled off their shovels. At least the professor had provided rubber boots. Tonya stood ankle deep in stench and shoveled up liquid sewage, but it oozed off her shovel before she could walk it to the truck.
“You’ve got to be kidding.” Arjun watched her from the edge of the mire.
Kirkdene didn’t scold Arjun for standing idly. In fact, he joined him, observing Tonya’s fruitless efforts.
“How’s that working for ya?” The professor crossed his arms.
The man was toying with her. At first, Tonya had worked to prove she was no sore loser and willing to learn, even from her enemies. But there was no winning him over. After the heat, the smell, and student laughter at her expense, Tonya had had it. She waded away from the mire, ready to leave.
Kirkdene slipped into his own boots and motioned her to follow him into the barn. “You can use magic, but there’s always a cost. Most times, it’s cheaper to pay for the electricity.” He hauled a pump into the middle of the manure puddle, spooking cows who headed for drier ground.
“There.” He switched on the pump, which spewed liquid manure through a ten-foot hose. “I’ll let the two of you figure out getting it onto the truck.” Without waiting for an answer, he went into the farmhouse.
Arjun approached the wet end and toed it with his boots. “Turn it off.”
Tonya found the switch on the side of the pump and waited for Arjun to the thread the hose between the tarp and the tailgate. “Ready?”
Arjun backed away.
“Hold onto it. It’s going to spray all over.”
Arjun held up his hands. “No way am I standing anywhere near that thing when it starts to spew.”
“Don’t be a baby.” Tonya shouldered him out of the way and grabbed the hose, aiming it at the center of the flatbed. “Go turn it on.”
He hesitated. It was the first time Tonya had seen anyone tiptoe in rubber boots, but Arjun finally reached the pump and switched it on. After that, it took some coaxing to get him to move the heavy pump from puddle to puddle, but he came through in the end.
An hour later, Tonya was sweaty, dirty, and covered in muck.
“Finished.” Arjun was mud spattered, but mostly clean from the waist up.
Without a word, Tonya raced him to the house where a length of hose hung next to the kitchen garden. Beating him to the faucet, Tonya turned on the water and adjusted the nozzle to high pressure. It felt great to let the cold spray clear the muck off her arms and legs.
Arjun took off his boots, socks, shirt, pants … “Gimme that.”
Tonya wasn’t ready to relinquish the hose. She turned it on Arjun, who held out muscled arms and braced against the icy flow, laughing.
She had rinsed her manure off but still felt dirty. What she wouldn’t give for fresh clothes and a bar of soap.
“Mine!” Arjun snatched the hose out of her hands and turned it on her, forcing her to turn her back to the chilly spray.
When she’d gotten clean a second time, Arjun carried his shirt but put on his pants to get back in the truck.
#
Tonya’s hair was still damp when Kirkdene dropped Arjun in front of Mackenzie Hall. She waved goodbye, but he didn’t look back. Really? After what they’d suffered together, he couldn’t spare her a goodbye? She would never understand why Priya called him a friend.
As the truck crawled through campus, Tonya tucked her head behind her arm and crunched down in her seat, hoping not to be seen.
“Please, Professor, could you drop me at the Western Gate?” She dreaded running into any Mods without a proper shower. If Marta saw her bedraggled hair and wet clothes, she’d guess what Tonya had been doing and tease her for weeks.
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“I have to grade papers.” When the truck pulled up to the curb, Tonya bolted away from campus, vowing to never approach another cow. Her sprint slowed to a training pace, and by the time she passed through the Western Gate, she strolled. Arms wide to the air, Tonya let the piney breezes dry her clothes in the sun. Away from the farm, life force pulsed at her from every tree and critter. Under City Hall, and again in his truck, Kirkdene had been dampening her magical abilities.
That had to be it. On their own, Tonya’s powers reached out and sensed life from all directions. They yearned to tap life force from nature, but actively using her powers would trigger her ankle bracelet. For now, it was enough to sense that forbidden energy and promise herself that once her parole ended, she could use it again.
Beside the highway, gravel crunched underfoot, and her shoes squelched with water. Wind batted damp white hair into her face on her way north to Helen’s place. She wanted to tell her birth mother she’d survived her first class with the Mods. Arjun was a jerk, but at least he remembered who she was.
If only it could have been Drake.
She couldn’t afford to think about him. Walking along the roadside past charred tree trunks gave Tonya a pang. In the fight against a deadly, subterranean Entity, she had burned down the cemetery. Flames had spread to Helen’s Herbal Healing Shop, demolishing her home above the store.
Was it any wonder Tonya was an outcast? Everything she touched combusted.
Her parents had divorced and sold their home while Tonya was recovering in Helen’s trailer. Dad had moved to his new home in Toronto, but visited Tonya in jail and helped her move into her dorm room when she got out.
Mom had taken an apartment on the fringes of Loon Lake City and spoke only to fellow Pures. She had to shun Tonya, or the Pures would cast her out. Most mothers would have chosen their daughter over their political affiliations, but Mom blocked Tonya’s number and pretended she was dead.
Maybe her adopted mother had never fully accepted her. When Mom found out Dad was visiting their daughter, she made him choose between Tonya and herself. That had backfired. Tonight, Dad would call for an update on today’s magical training. On the weekend, she’d take the bus to Toronto and visit him.
She loved her parents, but it was a relief to walk alone beside the highway, away from the drama. The strong sunshine cheered her despite her proximity to the cemetery. Since the fire, its blackened tree stumps stabbed her with guilt. Helen should never have forgiven her, but she did.
As she reached the wrought-iron fence, a little boy trailed after her, taunting in a whiny singsong:
Tonya Turncoat went to jail
For making Waldock very pale.
They let her out for good behavior
Forgetting how she killed her neighbor.
How can one who burns our tree,
And desecrates the cemetery,
Harp upon her innocence?
Tonya Turncoat makes no sense!
Before he could start another verse, she turned on him. “Go away!”
Unafraid, he dodged and wove, staying just out of reach. “Nah, nah! Can’t catch me! Better stay out of the cemetery!”
She gave chase. Felt stupid. Stopped.
The child skipped away, laughing and singing louder than before.
Tonya sighed. “Who taught you that song?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
A modern bully would troll her online, not teach kids hurtful songs. Or rather, one peculiar kid. He wore shorts with leather shoes, a vest, and a jacket. His newsboy cap glowed with a misty aura.
The little ghost loaded a slingshot, pulled back, and fired it at her. Too late to duck, she put up her hands to protect her forehead.
His ammo passed through her fingers, but she didn’t feel it. The ghost had shot a phantom stone. She found it on the grass behind her, glowing faintly, solid as a wisp of fog.
“Nice try, kid. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but runty ghosts will never hurt me.”
His baby face crumpled as he faded away leaving her completely alone.
All her friends had been magically spelled to forget her. Mods, Trads, Pures, and Mom had turned their backs.
She yearned for the good times with Drake and Priya and the Digital Ninjas, but the City Council had barred her from seeing them forever. The prison anklet and her solitude were turning her hometown into a prison.
It wasn’t right, and she swore to make City Council give her another chance.