Page 3 of The Chosen Two

“Nothing. I’m good. No really, I am.” I give her a shaky smile and attempt to wave her concern away with a flip of my hand.

She gives me an incredulous look but raises her eyebrows and shakes her head to get her focus back on the meeting she’s about to lead.

The day is sunny and bright, with a clear blue sky, thankfully. Brisk, but still relatively warm for this point in fall. It sucks that all our meetings must take place outside since the conference room had to be commandeered for use as another classroom. Obviously, the kids’ needs are more important; I just wish we could have space for everything.

More parents arrive now. Being good friends with the president, I try to be early so I can support her with whatever she needs. Therefore, I am usually the second one here. But I don’t feel like such a great friend during the meeting.

Nadia’s voice fades away. Even as I try harder to listen to her, another conversation replaces her words, starting with the low chuckle I heard in the parking lot. Then another, slightly higher whisper joins the first. Then another. And another. I can’t understand the breathy murmurs, but they sound like a conversation. I look around but don’t see any of those birds. Then again, I can’t tell which direction the sounds are coming from. They seem to be multiplying by the second, as well as moving in on me from all sides. My heart races as I turn my head back and forth, up and down, trying to figure out what is making this noise.

Then Nadia’s hand is on my shoulder, and the whispers quiet down. “Miranda, you okay?”

Everyone at the meeting is looking at me with their faces full of concern. I consciously and slowly pull in a deep breath and let it go again. I nod.

Nadia nods back to me and after a moment asks, “Could you give us the report on the bake sale?”

“Oh! Shit, yes! I’m sorry.” I sit straighter in my chair and pull a slip of paper out of my notebook to make sure I give the accurate numbers. “Okay, at our October bake sale—Halloween themed, of course—we had sixteen parent bakers. This was our first time setting up the separate table for the allergy aware students, and I think it really helped them. We should keep track of which bakers have which allergen-free kitchens for the kiddos. We sold about five hundred items in thirteen minutes. And, our total revenue for the sale was, drumroll please, $1308. So, we can definitely get at least one or two more sets of the foam blocks the office asked us to get the kids for recess.”

“That’s fabulous, Miranda! Thank you. Okay everyone, I think that wraps everything up. Thank you so much for coming today. We’ll see you next on December 14, same place and time, so dress warm.”

Everyone gets up and gives me sideways glances that make me feel like they’re questioning my sanity. Not that I can blame them. I am too.

“Hey, really. Are you okay?” Nadia looks at me with concern. “You looked like you had a particularly large mosquito buzzing all around your head for a minute there.”

“Yeah.” I force a smile. “Just a weird day. I honestly couldn’t explain it if I wanted to. I need to figure out what’s going on in my head.”

This doesn’t seem to reassure her. She arches one eyebrow and purses her mouth the way only a mom who knows her kids are lying can. "I wish I could say I’m not worried, but I can’t.”

“Really. I’m okay. I just need more sleep. Or more coffee. Or both.” I flash her a nervous smile. Maybe my freakout was only an aura before a migraine. I’d never hoped for a migraine before. We share a quick hug, and then I sprint across the parking lot so I don’t have to linger where I first encountered that bird and so I can get the hell out of here.

***

Ten minutes later, I pull into the Shop Rite parking lot, breathing a sigh of relief. At least I managed to drop off the mail at the post office with no strange experiences.

I park and gather my purse, list, and shopping bags. I groan a little at the thought of going in. Generally speaking, I do not like people, which I know contradicts my constant involvement in my kids’ PTAs and my other volunteer groups in town.

Footsteps rhythmically tap on the pavement behind me as I head into the store. I glance behind me to see if I know the person behind me and should say hi, but no one is there, except for a brilliantly blue butterfly that landed on the windshield of my minivan. Normally, I love butterflies. But after the bird at the PTA meeting, I’m not getting too close to this one. I walk through the automatic doors, grateful for the lack of fresh air and wildlife.

As I go about my shopping, I keep feeling as though someone is behind me, but there never is. I fill my cart with fresh produce for my kids and processed junk I don’t have to lift a finger to prepare for myself, regardless of my body’s best interests. As I approach the end of the aisle, someone behind me chuckles. I freeze in place because this chuckle is not the airy illusive sound I heard in the school parking lot. This chuckle belongs to a man amused by his quarry. As my adrenaline kicks in, I spin around to catch whoever is behind me before they can disappear. As I twist, my knee groans and pops; still, no one is there, and now my knee is throbbing. Awesome.

I turn back to my cart and shriek. A young man wearing a grocery apron grips the front of my cart, his knuckles white. His shiny brown hair is barely longer than a buzz cut, and his jade green eyes appear to be…yup, they’re glowing. His teeth are straight and white, but something about his smile is off. The corners of his mouth are too high and at the wrong angle. The center of his bottom lip is too low, making his smile too…deep. He resembles a caricature more than an actual person.

“Finding everything you’re looking for?” His mouth is the only part of him that moves when he speaks, and even then, just barely, but he over annunciates his words.

“Y-yes. Thank you.” I make eye contact as I speak in an attempt to show dominance over my situation. But when I try to pull my cart free, he keeps it in his hands. As his eyes study me closely, his smile becomes a little less impossible looking, but it’s still quite menacing. “Please let go of my cart.”

He lets go and brings his hands to below his face, fingers splayed. But that deranged smile never leaves. I back up quickly, not sure if I should go around him or backward. I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of either, but I push my cart to the far side of the produce section so I can resume my route without getting too close to him. He watches me until I turn the corner, still glancing back at him to make sure he doesn’t follow me.

I don’t see the man the rest of the time I’m shopping, but I hold my keys in my fist like claws as I walk to my car. The butterfly hasn’t left my windshield. At least I think it’s the same butterfly. It’s hard to tell because now a whole flock of them covers the glass. “Are you serious right now!”

A slightly hunched-over grandmother with a shawl wrapped around her shoulders loads the car next to me. She looks at me sharply as she moves her last bag from the cart to her trunk. She must not find a gaggle of butterflies as strange as I do. But then again they’re not on her car. I give a friendly head nod and quick wave and mutter an apology. The butterflies flutter away and land on a nearby cart coral so I can get to my car. Well, maybe that’s assigning too much intention to them. I mean, they are insects.

As I drive home and unpack my bags, my mind keeps jumping back to all the inexplicable things that happened today, in spite of trying to focus on the podcast playing. Not just inexplicable. Creepy. Even haunting. The fox, the laughing bird (or birds), the eerie man, and the butterflies… So. Fucking. Weird.

I hope our food is going where it’s supposed to because my mind is somewhere else while I shove my groceries into my overstuffed cabinets (I really need to clean out this kitchen). As soon as I’m done, I collapse onto the couch to take a nap. Unfortunately, I can’t stop thinking about that freaky grocery store dude’s grotesque smile. His leer made him look like a hyena or something. Beyond bizarre. Just as I finally am able to push the image of him out of my mind, my alarm buzzes. Shit, my lunch date with Eliza.

“Oh no. That’s not going to happen…” I pull my phone to my face and send her a quick text:

Having the absolute weirdest day imaginable, or not even imaginable tbh. Anyway, can we meet for coffee tomorrow instead? How’s 9:30 at The Tulip?

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