Aviva vs. the Dybbuk: "Before"–Chapter 3

We didn’t really have a woods in Beacon, but we did have a ragged overgrown area with a ramshackle sign in front that said BEACON PARK.

I imagined being yelled at, and it filled me with new determination.

So I stumbled through the weeds and hunkered down in a scratchy clearing, and I waited for Ema to come for me.

I wanted to go back home then—I really did, more than anything—but the messy, boring little woods I'd wandered through in the daylight had become a sprawling, twisty forest at night.

She was tall, taller than I'd remembered, and she wore a smart kind of sweater with a straight skirt, all of it somehow untouched by the brambles in the woods.

I kept my eyes trained on the ripped gray vinyl of the seat in front of me most of the time.

When we got to my shabby little apartment next to the shul, Mrs. Eisenberger walked me to the door, her keen eyes fixed on me as though I might run away again.

When we got to my shabby little apartment next to the shul, Mrs. Eisenberger walked me to the door, her keen eyes fixed on me as though I might run away again.

The lights were on, and the dybbuk was watching me with solemn eyes.

He smiled at me, an impish look that showed no sign of reproach or disappointment, and I exhaled and reached for him.

He smiled at me, an impish look that showed no sign of reproach or disappointment, and I exhaled and reached for him.

Mrs. Blumstein's purse has been opened, and there are little candies strewn across the floor.

They're all open, the wrappers lying beside them, and I hiss, “Dybbuk, why?” as I stare at them in consternation.

“You'll have to convince Aviva, not me," she says wryly.

The dybbuk makes a face, and I don't waste any more time glowering at him.

I scramble out of the room, shoving right past the dybbuk, and clamber onto one of the ugly flowered chairs in the waiting room.

He'd share the legend of the Golem of Prague, brought to life from river clay to lumber around and defend the Jews of the city and the stories of the sheidim who would test King Solomon.

But Abba was adamant that this is how the story had to go.

In front of that mikvah is an outdoor one, a third mikvah just for immersing dishes and silverware to make them kosher.

I saw him then as a laughing figure, a boy as old as my cousin Ari, and then he threw my clothes into the mikvah and careened from the room.

They used to come over at first, to visit and to invite us for the big Shabbos meals our community has every Saturday, that are full of steaming hot potato kugel and breaded schnitzel and challah with a shiny egg glaze, soft in the middle.

Morah Miller is frowning at me under her round glasses, and I realize sheepishly that I've been tapping my feet against the floor, thumping my desk back and forth.

“Sheket bevakasha,” Morah Miller says reprovingly, and I quiet down obediently.

Kayla's hand is up every time Morah Miller begins a question, smug with her knowledge, and I click my pen absently, listening to Morah Miller's sigh.

I click my pen some more, glancing wistfully out the window of Beacon Torah Day School. It's a gorgeous day outside, the kind where it should be illegal to make kids sit inside all day.

There's a low laugh in the classroom again, this time tinged with a little more unkindness.

“Aviva,” she says, drawing out my name into a melodic A-vee-va that sounds less exasperated than she looks.

We walk upstairs together, and Mrs. Leibowitz says casually, "Do you have Shabbos plans already, or would you and your mother like to come over to my house Friday night for the meal?”

I walk warily beside her, stepping out on to the roof and turning to walk its perimeter.

We walk in comfortable silence around the roof, and Mrs. Leibowitz ventures, "How about coming over when I'm not there? I have a wedding next Monday night, and I've been looking for a babysitter. My older girls insist they're too busy with midterms to do anything but study.”

But lately, my socks have been threadbare, and one of my expensive uniform skirts has torn at the waist.

I feel pretty windswept too, and I must look it because Morah Miller looks dubiously at me as I shove the door open and fly back into my seat.

She tosses me a resentful look, and she mutters, “If you want us all to bring someone, then let Aviva bring her dybbuk.”

There's a ripple of almost embarrassed laughter through the class, a few furtive glances at me from those who don't laugh, and I lose my temper.

“Tryouts will be this Thursday at lunch,” she says, conceding to the mood of the room.

She hurls the ball high, too high for any of us to catch it, and it comes down just in time for a flash of the blue and gray of our uniform as Shira snags it out of the air.

She catches it against her abdomen, lurching back and then bouncing forward to slam it into tiny Hodaya’s side.

By the time the nurse arrived upstairs, Rikki's face looked oddly misshapen and swollen, purpled from the force of the ball.

I hate disappointing her, and I scuff my feet against the carpet and sit when Principal Axelrod motions.

“You’re a leader in your class. The other girls look up to you, and I know you’ve organized some class get-togethers on Shabbos.” Kayla looks mollified, though still wary.