Confession
By Laura Schiller
Based on: Weetzie Bat
Copyright: Francesca Lia Block (Includes the expressions 'clutch pig' and 'slinkster-cool'.)
It was a Saturday, and Raphael Chong Jah-Love had dropped by the Bats' house to play with his best friend Cherokee as he always did. When he came up the front yard, however, a crinkly-crawly feeling at the roots of his dreadlocks told him that something was not as it should be.
The door was locked, for one. There was no music to be heard, no laughter, no shrieks from Cherokee and Witch Baby fighting. Raphael rang the bell and hugged his backpack, waiting.
The door was flung open almost instantly by Weetzie Bat, Cherokee's mother and the best friend of Raphael's own mother. She wore a white silk bathrobe embroidered with snarling red dragons, stylish as always, but the face above it was pale and red-eyed. Her hair was a rat's nest of spikes, brown roots standing out darkly against the bleach. She looked down and let out a sigh of disappointment before forcing her face into a smile.
"Oh, hi there, Raphael," she said breathlessly, smoothing her hair. "Come in, come in."
"Is something wrong, Aunt Weetzie?" he asked, edging in past her into the corridor.
"Ye – no – oh, all right, yes there is!" Tall and grown-up as she was, for a moment Weetzie looked no older than Raphael herself. "Witch Baby's gone missing. You haven't seen her, have you? I called your parents and they said she wasn't with them, but...?" When Raphael shook his head, her thing shoulders slumped under the billowing silk and she leaned against the wall, holding her hand over her eyes. "No? Okay."
Witch Baby, missing? How strange. But then, Witch Baby had always been strange, Raphael reflected. Sometimes she acted as if she hated everyone, snarling and snapping at them to go away. It would be just like her to run away somewhere. But then again, she could also be very decent. She had done her best to teach Raphael to play on her drum set. Yes, Witch Baby was good. Suppose something happened to her, like you saw on the TV news? No wonder poor Weetzie's eyes were like that. Raphael's own eyes, in fact, were beginning to feel distinctly odd.
"Oh now," said Weetzie, giving him a handkerchief embroidered with red poppies. "I'm sorry, honey-honey. I didn't mean to worry you on top of everything else. Go on upstairs and see Cherokee, okay? You can make each other feel better."
Cherokee. Of course. Raphael bolted upstairs as fast as his sneakers could carry him, with Weetzie's watery little laugh floating up behind his back.
Cherokee was lying on Witch Baby's unmade bed, staring blankly at the newspaper clippings on the wall above it. Mother Suspected In Murder of 5-yr-old Girl. Missing Child's Body Found. Raphael had found her crying over these stories several times and hugged her, or distracted her with a run around the neighborhood or a game of pretend. But would anything he said now make that porcelain-doll look in her eyes go away?
"Hey, Kee," he said.
Cherokee sat up and pushed her white-blond hair out of her eyes. She blinked and stared at him for a while, as if to make sure he was really there.
She did not ask him if he knew. She saw it in his eyes.
"I think I know why she did it," she said softly.
Raphael came down and sat on the bed, making sure to look only at her white face and sea-green eyes. If he read any of those stories on the wall, he might turn into a doll too.
"Why?" he asked.
"It's my fault." Cherokee's long eyelashes swept the air as she blinked; a glimmer of tears began to gather in her eyes. "I was so mean to her. We had a fight because of our parents – you know I don't know who my dad is. It could be either Dirk, Duck or My Secret. Witch Baby knows who both her parents are, and I – I was so jealous – I yelled at her and now I bet she's gone to find her mom, and her mom is a witch who's gonna roast her in a pot just like in the fairy tale and it's all – my – fault!"
She threw herself at Raphael, clinging to his shirt and sobbing until the bed shook. He stroked her back as his mother and Weetzie did when someone was upset, waiting until she cried herself out – wondering, at the back of his mind, how much water a girl's eyes could actually produce. He wanted to tell her he was scared too – but after all, he was the man here. He ought to be the stronger of the two.
"I never told her," Cherokee continued, once the flow had ebbed a little. "I never told her I care about her. She's my sister – well, almost a sister. She even taught you how to play the drums, Mr. Drum Love." For a moment, she smiled a little, remembering the moment she had danced to 'his' playing in the dark garden shed. "Without Witch, you and me wouldn't be friends. I never even told her thank you!"
Raphael squirmed. Of all the times to bring up that day! He had never felt so guilty about anything in his life; it was like having a slimy lizard in your stomach that writhed and wriggled no matter what you did. Lying was a bad thing. His parents said so. Suppose Witch Baby's photo appeared in one of those gray newspaper clippings – Missing Child's Body Found – without her sister ever knowing the true circumstances of that moment in the garden shed?
"I have to tell you something, Kee," he blurted out, putting his hands on her shoulders to gently distance her from him. "I lied. That – that wasn't my drumming you were dancing to. It was Witch Baby's. She tried to teach me, but I couldn't – I just didn't get the rhythm. So I pretended. I wanted you to like me, Cherokee, because you're so pretty and nice and a slinkster-cool dancer. But I'm just a clutch pig liar and I understand if you don't want to be my friend anymore."
Cherokee wiped her eyes with a balled-up pink Kleenex rose. "Crazy Witch," she muttered, shaking her head. "Crazy Raphael," giving him a tiny, affectionate shove. "Never mind, it's okay. As long as she comes back I don't care what-all you two get up to. Just – " She fixed her green eyes on him with a look reminiscent of Weetzie in her most grown-up mood. "Just promise not to lie to me again, okay?"
"I promise." Raphael's sigh of relief whooshed out like the air from a pricked balloon.
"Pinky-swear?"
"Pinky-swear."
They linked pinkies with solemn faces and looked at each other for a moment. Raphael's guilt-lizard had squirmed away, leaving only a pleasant sort of emptiness in its wake. If it weren't for the absence of Witch Baby still hanging over them, this might have been the best day of his life. Cherokee knew the truth, and she still liked him.
"I've got an idea, Raphael!" Cherokee suddenly said. Her eyes lit up and she bounced off the bed. He knew that look; it meant something exciting was in the offing, such as the times they had coaxed their parents to let them sleep in a tent outdoors or had an ice cream eating contest which later made them sick.
"What?" he asked, a little warily.
"We can go see Coyote! He can help us do a ritual to find Witch Baby. Coyote knows everything – come on, let's go!"
She grabbed his hand and hauled him away before he could say a word. This was the Cherokee he knew, and he was so relieved to have her back that he would have bearded much worse lions in their dens than a mystic Native American.
They flew downstairs, barely stopping to inform Weetzie, who smiled to herself and thought wryly that at least one of her daughters was in good hands.
Thank the Goddess for Raphael, she thought.