Savage Saints (Monsters of Saint Mark's)

She sighs. “I understand that part. Maybe better than you realize.”

I scoff. “You were the weird girl? Please. Weird girls don’t grow up and still have childhood friends, OK? Perhaps you were quirky, or eccentric, or whimsical. But there is no way you were the weird one.”

She doesn’t say anything, so I know I’m right.

It would’ve been nice to meet another weird girl though. Perhaps if there were two of us, we could be a team. We could celebrate our weirdness, and prop each other up when we got the oh-so-familiar strange looks. And neither of us would have to feel so uncomfortable in our own skin.

But apparently, I am one of a kind.

I hate it.

Talina must see that I’m serious because she says, “Fine. I will call you Pie.”

I brighten. “Thank you. Now show me how the spelling works.”

She goes over to a cabinet on the long end of the room, takes out a fresh notebook, grabs some pencils, and comes back to the center table. “Here. This is what I use. These are charcoal pencils because I like thick lines and I like to draw my spells before I compose them.”

We each take a seat and she opens the notebook, then pushes it towards me. “This one can be yours, so I won’t write in it. I’ll just tell you how to do it, OK?”

“OK. I’m ready. Teach me how to spell.”

“OK. The first letter of the alphabet is the most powerful.”

“Why?”

“Why? I don’t know why. It just is.”

“Isn’t there some kind of… like… science to this?”

“Yes. That’s why it’s number one.”

OK, then.

“Take the pencil and draw the A.”

I do that, but Talina points to it. “What is that?”

“What do you mean? It’s an A.”

“In what language?”

“What language? English. Hello? The same one we’re speaking.”

“I don’t know that language.”

I just blink at her. Then it hits me. It’s like I’m having that conversation with Pell all over again. “What language do you think we’re speaking?”

“Um. Vincan.”

“Huh. Well, I’m hearing English.”

“That’s your language?”

“Yes. And this is my A.” I point to it. “Is it gonna mess things up with the spelling?”

“Unknown. But it’s very curious. You don’t seem surprised that I think you’re speaking another language.”

“I’m not. Pell said the same thing. He thinks I’m always speaking Latin. But the very first spells I did back in my own world were about understanding languages. So maybe that’s why I didn’t notice things were off.”