Visiting
by Avra Margariti
Calla stares at the sky, pink as Grandma’s rose-petal jam. She puffs out her fifth strategic sigh of the trip, which elicits a sigh from her mother in turn. The airplane is actually a Chinese festival dragon. Its sinuous body is red and gold, made of papier mâché, bamboo, and undulating magic. Calla has been given the window seat, but this does little to improve her sour mood. All her friends are staying back home to watch the spirits arrive. But no, Grandma has to be difficult as always and expect Calla and her mother to make the yearly trip themselves, when the veil between worlds is at its thinnest.
Calla’s mother is named Lily. Grandma came up with both their names, thinking it a funny anecdote to tell her garden club. Calla wonders if Grandma has a garden club now, then reminds herself that she was brought here against her will, therefore she doesn’t care what Lily or Grandma do.
“Will you please be good and not recount to Grandma all the ways I’ve disappointed you as a mother?” Lily asks.
She sounds tired, like she wishes this flight was a regular flight, or at least a place she could order a stiff martini. An old spirit lady offered Calla some liquorice candy earlier, which Lily slapped out of Calla’s hand. “What did I tell you about accepting food and drink here?” she whisper-shouted. “Unless you’d rather stay with Grandma in the spirit world forever.”
Calla hissed her frustration like a cat. It made the front seat’s occupant shake with silent laughter, black velvet ears twitching.
Now, just to spite her mother, Calla makes a mental list of things she could complain to Grandma about.
You always buy the wrong cereal brand and forget the milk.
You never show up to parent-teacher meetings or help me with my homework like Grandma used to.
Your boyfriend chews his food too loudly and talks to me like I’m five instead of nine.
Because this is the spirit world, and spirits are known tricksters, Calla’s mental list manifests in airborne letters of seafoam green smoke. Lily reads them and purses her lips. Before Calla can either apologize or dig herself a deeper hole, Lily yanks her headphones in place and screws her eyes shut.
With her mother asleep, Calla no longer has to feign disinterest in the spirit world. She presses her nose to the cellophane window. Below, a field of purple corn is dancing the cancan. The surrounding farm houses are shaped like geckos and wrens.
The cat-eared girl from the front seat turns around to smirk at Calla.
“Are you a demon?” Calla asks.
The smirk turns into a toothy grin. “Not when I’m on vacation. And you?”
Calla looks down at her lap, then at her sleeping mother. “Only sometimes.”
She removes the neon-yellow shoelaces of her sneakers and weaves them between her fingers.
“Cat’s cradle,” Calla clarifies, pushing her hands toward her new friend.
The part-time demon laughs and hooks her fingers around two lengths of string.
Lily stirs awake as the flight attendant arrives. He has shiny goldfish scales and a rattlesnake tail with which to rouse the passengers.
“This is your stop,” the flight attendant tells Lily, handing her a rainbow parachute large enough for two.
As they fall down the rosy sky, Calla and Lily cling onto each other. Daughter tucks herself into mother’s arms and mother squeezes daughter close as they rush to meet the ground. Calla hasn’t allowed herself to hug her mother like this since Grandma’s death. If anyone asked now, she would blame her tear-wet eyes on the whistling wind.
“I don’t want to see Grandma,” Calla says as she stands outside the constellation-strewn door of Grandma’s bungalow. She pokes at a star, and it explodes in sparkly dust, raining down the woodwork.
Lily doesn’t sigh as Calla expected. “And why’s that?”
Because it’ll only make things more difficult when we leave again and she has to stay here, Calla thinks. Out loud, she says, “She’s always pinching my face and finding things wrong with my clothes.”
When the door swings open, Calla steps right into Grandma’s soft embrace.
“Calla!” Grandma exclaims, cupping her cheeks in origami-wrinkled palms. “Have you been looking after my flower for me?”
Calla mumbles a greeting, then sprints farther into the bungalow, ducking through the door she knows leads to Grandma’s bedroom. The curtains are drawn tight, sinking the room in grainy darkness. As Calla dives onto the bed and burrows under the covers, she hears Grandma repeat the same words to Lily, only this time she’s talking about Calla.
Have you been looking after my flower?
The bed smells of mothballs and patchouli; Calla inhales deeply and rubs her cheeks against the pillowcases. She used to hate sharing a bedroom with Grandma back home. But after Grandma was gone, Calla found she couldn’t sleep, too unsettled without Grandma’s wheezy, old-lady breath keeping the nightmares at bay better than any dreamcatcher ever could.
Lily and Grandma bicker in the kitchen, at turns fond and irritated. They’re cooking Grandma’s secret family recipes. Lily brought the ingredients from home so that they can eat without becoming trapped in the spirit world. In her fist, Calla holds a secret of her own: a piece of liquorice candy Lily didn’t manage to confiscate earlier. She turns it round and round in her hands, rubbing it like a lucky coin. Calla doesn’t intend to eat the candy, but it feels good to know she has options.
When both women call for her to set the table, Calla gets up, but not before hiding the liquorice candy under Grandma’s pillow.
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About the Author
Avra Margariti is a queer author and poet from Greece. Avra’s work haunts publications such as Cast of Wonders, Baffling Magazine, Lackington’s, Daily Science Fiction, The Future Fire, Best Microfiction, and elsewhere. You can find Avra on Twitter (@avramargariti).
© “Visiting” by Avra Margariti. All rights reserved.
