This was why Tanisha hated riding the subway late at night. By the time she finished her shift, she was stuck taking a different route because half the trains were on limited service, and it always took her twice as long to get home as it did to get to work. Which wouldn't be so bad if she didn't always wind up sharing the car with someone weird like the woman across from her.
The woman had skin so pale that Tanisha wondered if she spent her whole time underground, riding the subway endlessly through the streets of New York and subsisting on spare food scrounged from other passengers. She wore a dark gray top hat over long, silver-blonde hair knotted into stringy dreadlocks that went all the way down to the small of her back, and she wore a pale gray dress with rips and tears all over it-not the kind of rips that came from neglect or wear, but the kind of conscious shredding that only came from someone who wanted to look like they'd just been through a rock tumbler. Under the holes in the fabric, Tanisha could see some sort of old-fashioned petticoat.
She was staring at Tanisha with a magnetic intensity, her eyes so pale blue that they almost looked silver in the harsh fluorescent lighting. The effect was accentuated by a haphazard smear of charcoal under each eye. Tanisha tried to unobtrusively check in her purse to make sure her pepper spray was handy, and glanced up and down the length of the car to see if there was anyone else around.
Of course not. Just her and the weird girl. Tanisha tried to project an aura of indifferent hostility-not looking for a fight, not looking for a conversation, just a tired black woman on her way home and not looking for anyone's bullshit.
It didn't work. "You think I'm weird, don't you?" the woman said, flashing her an unnervingly wide grin. Her voice sounded strange, breathy and slightly hoarse like she'd been talking for a long time without anything to drink.
Tanisha's eyes widened involuntarily. She tried to cover it by turning the resting bitchface she'd been so carefully cultivating into a friendly smile. "No!" she said, a little louder than she'd originally intended. She could already tell she wasn't fooling anyone, but she pressed on. "As a matter of fact, I was just admiring your necklace." She hadn't actually noticed a necklace, but gothy white chicks attracted jewelry like magnets attracted iron filings.
The weird girl cackled. An actual, honest to god cackle that ripped the air as it echoed through the empty subway car. "You should see your eyes!" she said, between bouts of laughter that made the top hat wobble alarmingly on her head. "They're the size of silver dollars!" She snorted out a final guffaw before getting herself under control. "You don't have to feel bad," she said. "I am weird."
Tanisha avoided rolling her eyes with a supreme effort of will. Why did some people always have to pretend 'weird' was like a video game achievement? "Um, yeah, that's great," she said, reaching for her purse, "and I'd love to talk more, but this is my stop coming up so..." She trailed off into an apologetic shrug as she stood up. Actually, the stop was nowhere near her apartment, but she'd wait for another train. Weird Girl was seriously creeping her out.
The train didn't stop. It just kept rattling through the station without even slowing, the windows outside briefly reflecting dingy yellow light before the blackness came down again like a shutter. Tanisha sat back down, trying not to let the disappointment show on her face. They must have converted this route to an express for the overnight runs.
"It's okay," Weird Girl said. "That just gives us more time to talk. Like you were hoping." She let out a short, explosive chuckle that suggested she knew full well what Tanisha was doing a moment ago. "Do you know what it means when you call someone 'weird'?"
Tanisha shook her head, resigned to a lecture. Maybe if she just said as little as possible, the other woman would eventually run out of steam.
Weird Girl stood up, evidently preparing a dramatic recitation of the rest of their conversation. "It means that you're connected to the workings of fate. The Old English, 'wyrd', used to mean 'destiny', an inescapable doom that was woven into the very fabric of your life. Prophets and seers could foretell your wyrd, but even a hero couldn't fight it. Struggle against your wyrd all you want, it would come to claim you."
She punctuated her words with grand, sweeping gestures that revealed a fistful of gaudy silver rings. More of that gothy white chick jewelry. "And over the centuries, that term, weird, became associated not just with fate itself but with those who could see it. The prophets, the soothsayers, the visionaries and witches and hags. They all became weird, and the word came to mean 'unearthly'. It described someone with strange, unnatural powers."
The other woman kept moving as she talked, getting uncomfortably close now. Tanisha reached into her purse, getting a good grip on her pepper spray just in case.
"And over time, the other meanings fell away." She was so close now that Tanisha could smell her, a thick scent of clinging incense so strong that Tanisha recoiled simply from the intensity of it. "The word simply came to mean 'strange'. Anyone could be weird, just by acting unusual. These days, apparently just playing the accordion is enough to qualify." She smiled, and Tanisha realized that was meant to be a joke. She might even have laughed, if her flight-or-fight reflexes hadn't been so jangly.
"But here's the truth," Weird Girl said, leaning in to whisper over the sound of the moving train. "Those old meanings? They're still true. Some people aren't weird because they're unusual. They're not even weird because they have strange, unearthly powers that ordinary people fear and mistrust." She reached out and stroked her pale finger against Tanisha's dark skin. "They're your destiny."
That was the limit. Weird Girl could yammer all she wanted, she could invade Tanisha's personal space, but touching her was officially going Way the Fuck Too Far. She pulled out her pepper spray and snarled, "Back right the fuck off, bitch!"
Weird Girl didn't move. She didn't even pull her finger away. She just looked down at Tanisha and said, "Even a hero couldn't fight it. Struggle against your wyrd all you want, it will come to claim you."
Tanisha almost blasted her with the pepper spray, but she'd probably get some in her own eyes if she used it this close. Instead, she swatted away Weird Girl's hand and said, "Seriously, fucking back the fuck off!" Her eyes darted left, then right. There wasn't really much of a way past the other woman that didn't involve knocking her on her ass, and while Tanisha probably had fifty pounds on Weird Girl, she didn't feel confident getting into a fistfight with a crazy person.
"It wouldn't do any good," Weird Girl said, leaning over Tanisha so that she had to look up to see the other woman's face. "If I backed away, you'd only see me around the next corner. If you took the next train, you'd sit down right across from me all over again. I'm your fate, woven into the pattern of your destiny. You've been heading to me your entire life. You just didn't know it until now." She caressed Tanisha's cheek again, this time with her entire hand.
