I couldn’t say anything about the necklace, or about my suspicion of Auntie Eva. Besides being my aunt, she always has been my friend, and we always kept secrets with each other. If she really was responsible for this and my mom decided to investigate my secret, the chance I had to understand everything that was tormenting me would vanish. So even if she was lying to me with that necklace, I had to cover for her.
My mom didn’t show any reaction to what I said. She turned into a statue, looking at me with her mouth open as if I was a comic book monster. Rodrigo started to cry wanting to be held, and Koda started to bark to get attention. She blinked as if she was coming back from a trance, her face was strained. She took Rodrigo, her purse, and her keys and got out of the house. I was there, glued to the floor, waiting for her to do something with me. Before she closed the door, she looked back and said in a weak voice, “Put your sunglasses on when you go to school, don’t show anyone your eyes. Tonight, we will show it to your father,” and with a haunted face, she closed the door.
I stood still, trying to figure out if she bought my excuse or if I turned it into something a lot worse. Maybe she acted like that because she knew who had done this and went out to ask for an explanation right now? After that dinner where Mrs. Lena brought up my birthday subject, my mom was acting weirder than ever. She was contemplative and spent too much time alone in the kitchen. I have seen her worrying but never as those last days. Not even when my father, drunken to the point he could not form a full phrase, slapped her face in front of me one day.
Maybe she was thinking I was on drugs, could she be worrying about me? At least it was good for one thing, I got her attention. I felt a jolt of joy, but I couldn’t tell what was really happening, the guilt for lying was heavy on my back. I will think of something to tell her later. Now, I must think out how to explain a pair of sunglasses at school on a cloudy day, in Sweden, a place that spend months without a hint of sun.
What type of drug would cause a person to get a purple eye? I never heard of one, but Auntie Eva had to have a good explanation. I looked back at myself in the mirror, saying out loud ‘Congratulations, Lola! Didn’t you complain about your boring life? Be happy now!’
I regretted complaining when everything was fine. You must take care with what you wish for, you never know when something is going to happen.
For caution, I put a whole bottle of eye drops into the eye before I left the house. At least I wasn’t blind, but nothing changed. I ended up doing what my mom told me, put my sunglasses on and went to school. Lucky for me, I didn’t meet Gustav on the way (I was late) which was a relief, I didn’t want to explain myself this early in the morning.
It didn’t hurt or itch, but there was something different. I think I started seeing better from that eye. But that could be an effect of that bottle of eye drops I put in. Every step, my mind searched for an explanation, trying to control myself from having a nervous breakdown.
When I got to class, my teacher had already called our names.
“You’re late, lady! The review started twenty minutes ago. And you can take those sunglasses off!”
I couldn’t take them off even if the teacher beat me. Everybody would laugh at my purple eye screaming in the middle of my face. I already have these freckles, these weird bangs, I didn’t need an eye of each color to help me more! It was too much. Good that making excuses was my thing.
“You know, Professor Nilson?! I woke up with this bad allergy in my eye, light is bothering me. I can take them off, but it might be contagious, and could get worse…”
“Contagious? Okay. Come in and sit in the last row, down there, get your book out and stay away from your classmates,” she said, cleaning her hands on a white tissue.
I gave a smile of relief. The panic of being contaminated from some plague made Professor Nilson an easy target, good for me. This was close.
As soon as I sat down, a paper note hit my shoulder and fell to the floor. Allergies? Can I see it? Signed. Gustav
I turned the paper to the other side and answered right in there. NO. Keep your distance.
Just like in target shooting, I put down two pins at once. Gustav and Professor Nilson was down on questioning my “allergy”.
I didn’t leave the classroom on the break. It took forever for the bell to ring. I left like a thunderbolt from the room, with just a little goodbye wave to Gustav. Wearing my sunglasses, I flew in the direction of the store. No one wears sunglasses on a cloudy day, but as I already said, I’m not everybody. Some people, as they walked past me, might think I was walking very fast for someone who was blind. It was time to get a solution for this issue that was only getting worse. The little bell on the door announced my arrival at Kaleidoscope. Auntie Eva rolled one of her yellow curls on her finger while a customer complained of her grandchildren when I stopped and looked at her direction.
“Lola!! Hi, my dearest, just a minute I’m finishing talking with…”
Before she could finish, I took off my sunglasses, and without a word, faced her with my eyes, one of each color. Auntie Eva lost all the color on her cheekbones, let out a little cry of astonishment, covering her mouth with one hand. She knew what that meant, she knew it. Her customer, who was holding onto a cane, was so busy complaining that she didn’t even notice the reaction. Auntie Eva went very fast around the counter, while pushing the old lady out of the store with a poor excuse. She closed the door in a hurry turning the “Be back soon” door sign and took me by the arm to the back of the store.
“Lola! What did I tell you about the gift? You shouldn’t have opened it. I don’t believe you! I should have imagined you were going to do that, what an idiot! I am so stupid!” she cried out loud with her hands in her head, walking from one side to the other distressed.
“What kind of drug was on that necklace, auntie? What has this to do with what we had to talk about? First, I fainted and had this hallucination, and then I woke up the next day with a purple eye??”
“What?? You are thinking… No! I would never do something like that to you! And your eye is now purple, just like the amethyst stone.”
“No, it is not! Make it go back to blue as it was, now!”
“I can’t, my dearest,” she sighed.
“Once you travel to the Lumen’s Kingdom, your eye becomes purple forever.”
I heard her words like it was a slap on my face. I thought for a moment that my aunt must have smoked one of those cigarettes I found in her Beetle, that would make sense. But she looked very clearheaded while speaking to me. I had to sit down before I passed out onto the floor.
“I’m sorry, I don’t think I heard you right. Can you repeat, please?” I asked, biting my fingers, my nails were gone already.
“Wait here, I’m going to close the store. We need to talk.”
I think this just got serious. I had insisted so much on knowing what was going on, but I panicked when she decided to tell me. I was feeling so nervous that my stomach writhed, I felt that bad taste in my mouth and my heart quickened. Auntie Eva went to the front door to change the plate from “Be back soon” to “Closed,” locking it. Coming back in a hurry, she was fanning her armpits (she smelled like sweat when got nervous).
“Lola… Did your parents see your eyes like that?”