CHAPTER 1Curtain Call
I stood alone, tucked away in the shadows where no eyes would see me, where the curse couldn’t harm me. In front of me, a spotlight painted a bright circle in the middle of the stage floor. All it would take was thirteen steps. I’d measured it, paced it out a dozen different times when no one else was around. Just thirteen steps forward and I would be bathed in light, ready for the world to see me.
A rhythmic thumping drummed from the auditorium speakers as the music started. I swallowed back a rising nervousness, but my feet didn’t move. No matter how much I wanted to know what that light would feel like, how much it would warm my soul, my curse fed on the light. And so, I didn’t perform in spotlights; I pointed the spotlights. Actually, that’s not exactly true. I didn’t even do that. Still too much exposure. I was a curtain jockey, pulling curtains open and closed from the cover of darkness. I was tech crew. Good for avoiding curses, bad for trying to break them. Those thirteen steps toward center stage might as well have been thirteen million.
I watched as Candace Palmer, wireless mic in hand, strode forward and paused, the bright stage lights casting silvery glints on her shiny black hair. Her high-rise jeans, chunky sneakers, and crop-top hoodie were the epitome of Wyoming middle school fashion. Her outfit would be different during the actual performance of Peter Pan, of course, but whatever she wore I was sure she’d look amazing.
She lifted the mic to her lips, closed her eyes, and started to sing, sinking into the lyrics and notes. Even with how much I despised her, I couldn’t stop the chills from prickling every square inch of my skin. If her voice had come out the business end of Dumbledore’s Elder Wand, it couldn’t have cast a more powerful spell over people. Last year, Kenny Bowser’s dad had wept during one of her performances. Like full-on streaming tears. My attempts at singing (with or without the curse) sounded like a stray cat getting slowly backed over by a pickup truck. What must it be like to have such a talent, to wield such a power? To have expression and mastery over something like Candace had? To be seen and adored for what you could do?
I absently rubbed one of my earlobes, pressing my fingers on a piercing hole. I used to get compliments on my earrings. Toilet bowls, Captain America shields, dangling snakes. I tried not to think about it, just like I tried not to think about how it would be to have what Candace had. Lingering on big dreams was a good way for a cursed girl to accidentally draw attention and get in trouble, doubly so with Candace nearby.
My pocket buzzed, snapping me from my thoughts. I slipped out my phone, careful to cover the glow of the screen as I read the new message from my gamer group chat. I rolled my eyes. We had an online raid tonight in Warcraft of Empires, a popular online role-playing game. The group was divided on strategies: Half wanted to send the rogues out ahead to scout, while the others thought we wouldn’t have time and needed the barbarians and paladins to push immediately into Skullgrinder’s Keep. I wasn’t even close to being the strongest or most experienced character in our group, but somehow it always fell to me to keep the peace and come up with a workable strategy before the whole thing imploded, which it threatened to do before almost every big raid.
I typed my response, suggesting they send the rangers and elves out in front with the rogues while our slower-moving characters methodically pushed in with the wizards. The solution seemed obvious, but it often took an outsider’s perspective to see these kinds of things. I wasn’t exactly a lifelong gamer like most of the group. Video games had been more of a recent find, a way to operate from the “digital shadows.” The curse, for whatever reason, seemed not to have made the jump online. Must have been an analog curse. Made sense coming from my grandma. Old-school curse for an old-school lady.
I watched the chat and stared at the three jumping dots that indicated someone was already typing a response. I held my breath and crossed my fingers. The raid had to go through. For someone whose social life revolved around actively avoiding all social situations, these video game events were basically all I had.
“Tiffany, open traveler curtain one,” a voice came over my headset.
“What?” I said, looking up from my phone.
“Traveler one, Tiffany. Open it now.” It was Marco, the tech crew team lead. From his tone, I could tell he’d said it more than twice.
I fumbled my phone back into my pocket and snatched a nearby rope, pulling down as fast as I could like some pirate working the sails during a hurricane. Pulleys squeaked as Marco barked into the headset.
“Tiffany!”
“I’m going as fast as I can,” I hissed back, not wanting to raise my voice and draw too much attention. I kept my head down and pulled harder, faster.
“You’re pulling the front curtain!”
I looked up to see a confused Candace trapped behind the now closed main curtain.
“Oh no.” I gasped, grabbing an adjacent rope and yanking down even faster than before to reopen the main curtain. I dashed to another rope and tugged open a second set of curtains, revealing a group of three backup dancers at the rear of the stage. I took deep breaths, as much from the stress as from the exertion, and placed my rope-burned palms on my knees.
“Yeah … I think we already missed our mark,” one of the dancers sneered while the others laughed. While her pixie-cut, strawberry-blond hair and freckles made her look nothing like Candace, she was every bit as beautiful and intimidating.
The music stopped abruptly, and my pounding heart seemed to hold for its next beat. Even concealed in the backstage darkness, I felt like all the spotlights in the world were blazing down on me.
Please don’t let Candace know it’s me. Please don’t let Candace know it’s me. I chanted the words in my brain like some incantation to ward off the curse.
“From the top,” Mrs. Willard intoned, sitting alone down in the auditorium seats. She clapped her hands three times, her large turquoise bracelets clattering like dice in a cup. Her black-rimmed glasses, shock of white hair, and hippie-style outfits made her an icon as the drama teacher at Peak View Middle School. She’d made a name for herself by implanting her own random musical numbers into every one of her plays, and this version of Peter Pan was no exception. “We haven’t time to waste, my dears. The play is in two weeks and this musical number will be the crowning jewel. We do not practice until we get it right, we practice until we cannot get it wrong.”
Candace furrowed her perfect eyebrows and made a show of glancing around backstage. “Well, I think we might be in trouble, then, because apparently there’s a lot of ways for someone to get the curtains wrong.”
I gulped and took a step backward, retreating deeper into the darkness. I could feel the curse searching for me like Sauron’s eye trying to find Sam and Frodo on their way to Mount Doom. I tensed, bracing for someone to yell my name, to identify the culprit. But nothing happened. Candace had said “someone,” not “Tiffany.” My armor of darkness had done its job against the curse.
After running through Candace’s special “Lost Boys” musical number a few more times, Mrs. Willard finally stood. “That’s a wrap, my beauties. Same time tomorrow.”
I whipped out my phone like some cowboy unslinging his revolver on a quick draw. One hundred and forty-six unread messages. That meant the team was either arguing or excitedly strategizing. I held my breath and scanned the conversation, a smile creeping across my face. They’d liked my strategy and been busy working through tactics. The raid was still on.
“Let’s go,” I said, pumping my fist.
“Tiffany.” I jumped as Marco yapped in my earpiece. “I need to get a commitment from you to do better on the curtains.”
I said nothing. It was one thing to get chewed out by a teacher, but Marco was just a student on a power trip.
“Tiffany?” he repeated.
“What’s that, Quinn?” I said to no one as I held down my talk button and pretended not to hear Marco. “Oh, sure thing. No, the math test is tomorrow, not Friday. Okay. I’m just gonna put my mic back and then I gotta run. Peace.”
“Tiffany? Tiffany!” I could hear Marco even without my earpiece.
I retreated into the curtains and waited. Thirty seconds later, I saw Marco come onto the stage from the direction of the radio-equipment storage cabinet, spinning around in circles with his hands on his hips like he was trying to find a bike that had just been stolen.
I smiled as he quickly gave up and stormed off. That was one thing about bumbling into countless embarrassments over the last two years: I’d leveled up a bit. If the curse was looking to use Marco Benavidez to catch me off guard, it was fooling itself. Maybe two years ago, but not now.
I waited until the auditorium had cleared out before slipping from the curtains. I glanced around to make sure I was alone and tentatively walked forward to where Candace’s spotlight had been. With eyes closed tight, I imagined being someone else, someone who didn’t have to slink around in the shadows, someone who could sing or dance or play the guitar in front of a crowd of adoring students. Maybe even just the old me but leveled up a bit. Green hair back, new set of trippy earrings. I could almost feel the—
“Oh my gosh, please tell me you saw that boy working the spotlights.”
I jumped at the voice and skittered to the shadows like a scared mouse. I reached up and felt my headset. I’d forgotten I was still wearing it. Someone must have left their mic on when they turned theirs back in, and it was picking up a nearby conversation. Against my better judgment, I reached down to the receiver clipped on my belt and turned up the volume.
“You mean did I smell him?” It was Candace’s voice, laughing. “I thought someone had brought in spicy Taco Bell from a hot car.”
“At least he could do his job,” someone else said. “What about whoever was doing the curtains?”
“Like, does she even go to school here or does she just live under the stage?”
“She totally lives under the stage. Oh my gosh, she’s like our very own Phantom of the Opera!” The group erupted in laughter.
“Except the Phantom was good for something, right?”
“Yeah, and he covered his face with a mask.” It was Candace again. “We’re center stage doing a legit three-minute song and dance routine and she, like, can’t even get the curtains right.”
More laughing.
“Candace, you know who that was, right?”
My eyes went wide. No, no, no.
“It’s the poem girl. It’s totally Ugly Cry Girl.”
“No way,” Candace said. “I thought she’d transferred away or something years ago.”
“Facts. She’s on the tech crew web page. Here.”
There was a pause. This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be happening.
“Oh my gosh,” Candace said, vicious delight dripping from every word. “Look at those bangs! It looks like she cut them with a weed whacker.”
“They’re to cover that forehead!”
“Forehead? That’s more like an eight head. What’s her name again?”
“Tiffany Tud—”
I clicked off my receiver and slowly removed my headset. I was frozen, my whole body numb. Why had this happened? How had this happened? I had kept to the shadows. I hadn’t tempted the curse. I hadn’t stepped out of line. I could handle it being anyone but Candace. Two years ago, she had used one of my most vulnerable moments to make me into a laughingstock. I had sacrificed so much of myself to make sure it wouldn’t happen again. And yet here I was.
My view of the stage blurred with tears as I wrapped my arms around my chest, bracing against an imploding tightness.
“Be brave, Tiffany. Let the world see my Shining Star.” The phrase was an unrelenting mock. Let the world see? The world had seen, and it had laughed. I didn’t know how I could ever even face four girls at my school, let alone the world. My grandma was wrong. I was the opposite of anyone’s shining star. I was a black hole.
CHAPTER 2Planetarium
My legs and lungs burned as I pulled my bike to a stop at the top of Galaxy Hill. Behind me, the sun was setting on a commanding view of the steep switchback road that ran down the hillside and back toward town. In the winter, the descent made for a fantastic sledding hill and a terrifying bike ride. In front of me sat an octagonal brick building that could have been mistaken for some castle fort if not for the large slate-shingled dome sprouting from its center. At the bottom of the stairs leading up to the double-door main entrance was a sign that read MYERS PLANETARIUM AND SCIENCE CENTER, or at least that’s what it was supposed to read. Over the years, vandals and graffiti artists had slowly morphed it into the MEGA BORE-ROOM AND SCIENCE CENTER.
I continued along a walkway to the back of the planetarium before turning off onto a well-worn dirt path that wound around for a few hundred feet. At the far side of the hill, deposited between two dead trees, sat a double-wide mobile home, its pukish-yellow paint chipped and peeling.
“Home sweet home,” I said as I put my bike down next to my dad’s old, boxy Oldsmobile sedan. I walked up the front steps (skipping the collapsed one in the middle) and paused before I opened the door. I undid my helmet and took a moment to wipe my eyes with the back of my sleeve, although the sheets of sweat pouring down from under my helmet probably already did a good enough job at masking my tears. There was a life lesson in there somewhere.
“Dad, I’m home,” I announced as I opened the door and hung up my backpack on my way to the kitchen for a glass of water. “Dad?”
“Out back, kiddo.”
I gave a soft grunt. I knew what that meant. I opened the cupboard to find three mismatched plastic bowls and a Kennedy Space Center collectible shot glass. On top of a sink full of dirty dishes were two white plates blotched with a red and brown crust, the remnants of yesterday evening’s microwave lasagna.
“Is the dishwasher clean?” I called back to my dad.
There was a pause. “Uh, I don’t know.”
I also knew what that meant. With the dishes in the sink, there wasn’t room to duck my head under the faucet, so I just pulled out the side sprayer and drank from it like a dog from a garden hose. Not my proudest moment, but my life was short on those in general, so I wasn’t too picky. I wiped my mouth on the dish towel and inspected the pile of mail unceremoniously littered on our small IKEA dining table along with this month’s copies of Astronomy and Sky & Telescope. An Amazon box lay discarded on the floor, the cardboard ripped open with all the grace of a rabid badger.
I checked the time. It was already almost 6:30 p.m. Opting for a Tudwell family classic, I plopped four hot dogs down on a paper plate and took out a box of macaroni and cheese. I boiled the water, did the dishes, and soon held two bowls of gloppy orange noodles accented with chunks of pink, microwaved hot dogs.
I pushed open the screen door with my foot and walked across my backyard of yellowed grass and hardened dirt to find my dad fiddling with a camera attached to a tripod, a giant lens pointing skyward.
“Hey there, Tiffy.” My dad turned around and used his fingers to squeegee the sweat from his bald head and flick it to the side. His blue Best Buy polo still bore his gold nametag and was accented with dark armpit stains. He glanced up at the evening sky. “Won’t be long now. How was your day, sweetie?”
I bit my bottom lip. A part of me wanted to unload, wanted to tell my dad everything about school, my mistake with the curtains, the bullying from Candace and her friends … the curse. But what good would it accomplish? It wasn’t like my dad was in a position to solve any of it. It would only spread the worry to him like some kind of disease. Getting other people sick didn’t help you get better any quicker. My dad had his own problems. He was a single parent working two part-time jobs to make ends meet, or at least make ends almost meet. The ends were within shouting distance, let’s say that.
“Another day in paradise,” I said, forcing an unconvincing smile as I handed him a bowl.
“Oooh.” My dad finally looked down from the sky, his eyes growing wide. “Dogs and mac. Thanks, Sparkles.”
Even though the nickname sounded like something a five-year-old would name her cat, I didn’t mind it. My dad loved the stars and he loved me. Heavens knew I’d probably be called much worse than Sparkles tomorrow at school thanks to Candace and her friends.
“Sorry I didn’t do dinner. Must have lost track of time,” my dad said between mouthfuls. “Got back from Best Buy and went straight to the planetarium with all the new touchscreens for the interactive exhibits. Earl showed up, so we tried to figure out how we’re gonna set up the moon-walker rig. That one’s a head-scratcher. Didn’t even think I’d get my new wide-angle lens in before tonight’s meteor shower, but then I saw the UPS truck and boom. There it was. Pretty wild, right?”
Copyright © 2023 by Mike Thayer
