Snow: Fog, Snow, and Fire

by Caroline B. Cooney

But Christina understood. The message was very clear.

  You may scream for help all you want, Christina, my dear. Nobody will believe you. And then, when you really need help, when the screams are loud and real — no one will come, Christina of the Isle. You are alone.

  Chapter 12

  IT USED TO BE THAT the ending of school was a clock thing: the big hand on twelve and the little hand on three. But now the close of school was a physical relief of body and soul. I’m out. It’s over for a while.

  “Everybody’s coming over to my house,” said Jonah. “Want to come, Chrissie?”

  Benjamin bounded by, headed for his garage job. Suddenly it struck Christina that Benj was still in high school, though he had always planned to quit at sixteen.

  How clever the Shevvingtons were. Benjamin and Michael Jaye were the balance. If anybody noticed that right after Anya fell apart, Dolly developed strange fears and Christina behaved oddly — why, Mr. Shevvington could point out how successfully he had kept this fine young lobsterman in school.

  “Yes, I’m coming,” said Christina.

  Across the school yard Dolly flew, her new jeans so long that the rolled cuffs made pale blue saucers around her skinny ankles. “Chrissie?” she called. Her voice was as thin as a snow flurry.

  Traitor, thought Christina. Her eyes stung with hot tears that Dolly should have joined up with Gretchen and Vicki and the Shevvingtons.

  “Chrissie, don’t be mad.”

  Christina turned her back on Dolly to go with Jonah.

  “Chrissie, I need you,” Dolly said.

  They were Christina Romney’s words. Her love of helping people was as strong as her love of life itself.

  “Chrissie, dancing class is so scary. I’m in the advanced class, but I’m not as good as the advanced girls. I have to dance alone, and they laugh at me. I’ve begged the Shevvingtons, but they won’t let me drop out. They say it’s good for me to face some competition for a change. They say on the island we didn’t know anything about the real world.” Her pixie face was turned up into Christina’s, waiting for Christina to solve her problem.

  A very heavy hand landed on Christina’s shoulder. Mrs. Shevvington had materialized. Her candle-stub fingers pressed painfully between the bones of Christina’s shoulder, and then attached themselves to Dolly’s head. “You must try your very best,” said Mrs. Shevvington to Dolly.

  Dolly’s tiny diamond-shaped faced was skewed by grief. “My best,” said Dolly, “isn’t good enough.”

  The Shevvingtons do not destroy by any evil of our times, thought Christina. Not by drugs, not by alcohol. But by an evil as ancient as time: cutting away strength, beauty, confidence, friendship — until there is nothing left, just a shell.

  “Dolly, that’s wonderful!” cried Mrs. Shevvington. “I’m so proud of you! If you get nothing else out of dancing class, you’ve learned a very important lesson. Sometimes your best just isn’t enough, and you have to accept being ordinary. You island girls oft times have difficulty admitting your ordinariness. You are so sure you are special.”

  Dolly’s red hair seemed duller, her fair skin wanner, her bright eyes dimmer.

  Mrs. Shevvington smiled. “You run along to your class now, Dolly.”

  Dolly obeyed instantly, like a slave, like —

  like Anya.

  In Jonah’s yard the snow was thigh high. Jonah brought out snow shovels and brooms. The children shoveled paths. He had drawn a maze on paper and was shouting directions, but nobody listened, shoveling joyfully at their own routes. The paths interlocked and dead-ended. White walls of shoveled snow grew higher and higher, until only the fluffy pompons on their ski caps showed above the passage walls.

  Above their heads, the sun set in a sky the color of frostbite. Pink channels appeared in the heavens as if dead children frolicked there in a maze of pearl.

  Jonah’s mother leaned out the back door. “Getting late, kids!” she called. “All you who have to be home before dark, set out now!”

  Christina hoped Jonah would offer to walk her home, but he was too busy finishing the maze. When she called good-bye, he hardly glanced up.

  Don’t cry, Christina told herself. You had a great afternoon. Shoveling snow with your friends. Maybe I want too much. Maybe I have to learn to enjoy less instead of craving more.

  She did not want to go back to Schooner Inne.

  From Jonah’s she went the long way, staring at front doors, wishing she could board with anybody but the Shevvingtons. She passed a phone booth and thought of telephoning her mother and saying, Mommy come get me. Come understand. She passed the laundromat, where Anya presumably stood in the hot, humid air, emptying detergent into washers. She went to the harbor, where the few boats in the water were crusted with ice.

  High above her on the opposite cliff loomed Schooner Inne, cold and white as ice. A wisp of smoke drifted up from behind the roof of Schooner Inne. Christina could not remember the Shevvingtons lighting a fire before. Christina wanted to warm her blue fingers at that fire and stare into the flames, a comfort as old as mankind.

  She ran up Breakneck Hill.

  Mr. Shevvington opened the door for her. He did not speak. His face was hard and cold as the winter sky. Gripping her shoulders, he yanked Christina through the long hall with its flocked emerald paper and the staircase rising like a wedding cake. Michael and Benj were standing there; she stumbled past, her feet catching on their big winter boots, and they did nothing. They might have been framed photographs on the wall. Dolly was on the second step, making a mustache of her braids, staring at Christina.

  Mr. Shevvington pushed her ahead of him, into the kitchen. For a moment she thought he was going to lock her in the cellar, and she came close to screaming. But he opened the back door. He’s throwing me out, thought Christina, numb with confusion.

  Mr. Shevvington held Christina in front of him as if preparing her for a firing squad. She felt smaller than Dolly: little-girl weak.

  “Look at that!” said Mr. Shevvington through gritted teeth.

  Spirals of fire shot like gold silk into the air.

  A bonfire in the snow.

  “You put your entire wardrobe on that fire!” said Mr. Shevvington. “All your clothes, Christina. You set fire to them.”

  “She warned us,” said Mrs. Shevvington. “We have to admit that. She even wrote an essay and insisted on reading it aloud to the class, detailing how she would dispose of all her possessions in a fire.”

  “I didn’t, either,” cried Christina. “You made me read that out loud. You know I didn’t really mean it. It was your assignment.”

  “It was your January daydream,” said Mrs. Shevvington. She jabbed a poker into the fire. In the ashes Christina recognized her snowflake sweater. It is my clothing, she thought. “I would never do that. I was at Jonah’s all afternoon,” she said desperately.

  “On the contrary, Christina. You left Jonah’s house an hour ago. I telephoned his mother. You sneaked into Schooner Inne, got your wardrobe, found matches and a can of oil from the cellar you so love to explore, and set this fire. Then you ran away to the harbor so you could return later and pretend to be innocent.”

  Mr. Shevvington shoveled snow to smother the fire. It hissed.

  The loss of her clothing became real. She had nothing to wear. The presents of Christmas, only a month ago: gone. Burned. Her mother’s hand-knit sweaters. The memories of their shopping together in the distant city for school clothes.

  Mr. Shevvington took Christina’s shoulder, roughly hauling her back into the kitchen.

  What will my mother say? Christina thought. Tears spilled from her eyes, hit her cold hands, and spattered on the floor.

  She looked at Michael, whom she had loved the first twelve years of her life and wanted to marry, so they could live happily ever after on the island. Michael avoided her eyes.

  She looked at Benj, who had been the older brother for them all: organized the games, been the referee, the baby-sitter, or sandwich
maker. Benj stared at the ceiling.

  She looked at Dolly, and Dolly looked steadily back. “Chrissie,” she said. “Mrs. Shevvington explained to me how jealous you are because I have new clothes and you don’t. Because I have dancing lessons and you don’t. Because I’m happy here and you aren’t. If I had known you were going to start setting fires to get attention, Chrissie, I — ”

  “I did not!” cried Christina. “How could you think that, Dolly? You know I would never do a thing like that.”

  Dolly frowned. “But Christina,” she said patiently, “the Shevvingtons said so.” Dolly, Michael, and Benjamin Jaye nodded in unison. The Shevvingtons said so.

  “That doesn’t mean it’s true,” Christina whispered.

  Dolly, Michael, and Benj looked at her reproachfully. The room echoed with their thoughts. The Shevvingtons said so.

  Christina sat down before she fell over. “Where’s Anya?” she said. Her mouth felt thick, as if the dentist had just given her a shot before filling a cavity.

  “She’s resting,” said Mrs. Shevvington sharply. “You are not to disturb her. Naturally, she is very frightened by this. You know how fragile Anya is, Christina. No matter how selfish you are, no matter how determined to spoil things and terrify others, I truly thought you had enough concern for Anya to protect her. Clearly I was wrong. You will do anything for attention.”

  Mr. and Mrs. Shevvington telephoned Christina’s parents.

  They gave their version of the fire first.

  How clever they were. “Of course you tried so hard,” said Mrs. Shevvington sympathetically. “It’s terribly difficult to deal with an adolescent. How could you have known you were spoiling Christina so badly in your effort to give her a good life?”

  Christina wanted to rip the telephone out of their hands, but she restrained herself. It would not help.

  “Christina in her terrible jealousy,” said Mrs. Shevvington in the gentlest voice in the world, “was forced to extremes to get attention. Her mental and emotional state is very unfortunate. I’m so sad about it, Mrs. Romney. We want you to know that Mr. Shevvington and I will help you in every way. When families are hit by tragedies like this, they must be brave.”

  Christina touched her hair. Sometimes she could actually feel its colors — the silver and gold like ribbons of honor spun through the brown. Tonight she could feel nothing. She was running out of courage.

  “Christina needs serious professional help,” said Mr. Shevvington when it was his turn. How soft his voice was. Velvet.

  This is how they finished Val off, thought Christina. They got her parents to put her in a mental institution. Would my parents abandon me like that?

  Mrs. Shevvington handed Christina the telephone. The little black holes in the middle of her eyes looked like the black hole of the cellar.

  “I’d like to speak to my parents privately, please,” said Christina. She was reaching bottom. If she did, the Shevvingtons would win. She imagined them going into her bedroom, emptying her bureau drawers, taking blouses off hangers, keeping Michael and Benj and Dolly away from windows. Setting that fire.

  I know the truth, she thought, but that doesn’t matter. The truth by itself is nothing. You have to be able to convince other people or it doesn’t count. Christina took a deep breath. “Mommy?” she said. “Daddy? It isn’t true. They’re making it up.”

  Her mother was sobbing. The sobs continued all through Christina’s talking. Her father was breathing deeply, as if he were in a tennis match. “Are they making it up, Chrissie?” said her father sadly. “There was a fire, wasn’t there? And your clothing on it?”

  “Daddy, I didn’t put it there! The Shevvingtons did! It’s part of a plot they have.”

  “Oh, dear God,” said her mother, who never swore, who would only say that as a prayer. “Mr. Shevvington is right. That is true paranoia. Believing you are surrounded by evil plots! Chrissie, darling. Mommy loves you, do you believe that?”

  “Yes, I believe it!” cried Christina. “I always believe you! It’s your turn to believe me. That essay was an assignment. But it gave them a clue about how to get me. I know Mr. Shevvington is the high-school principal, but he’s the one who is insane. Just because you’re a teacher doesn’t mean you’re a good person. Don’t you remember what happened to Anya? It’s part of their plan. I’m next, you see!”

  She turned to her audience at the Inne, to see the effect of her speech on them. Benj and Michael looked incredibly sad. Benj — strong, tough Benj — had tears in his eyes.

  It has worked, thought Christina. They think I’m crazy. This is how it worked with Val. I never knew how they pulled it off, but when you are the authority, it’s easy.

  Mrs. Shevvington’s silver tongue had done its evil work.

  To every protest Christina made, her parents replied, But the Shevvingtons said so. “Mommy,” said Christina over and over again, “Mommy, believe me.” But her mother did not.

  Chapter 13

  SEVERAL YEARS BEFORE MICHAEL and Benj had been fascinated by torture. They loved reading about the gruesome things man had done to man. Michael’s favorite torture was Assyrian: the warriors slowly slit their prisoners’ skin away. Benj’s favorite was from Merrie Olde Englande, where they would chain the prisoner to a rock by the sea and let the tide rise up to drown him inch by inch.

  As the whole seventh grade shunned her (that creepy girl from that creepy island, setting fire to her own clothes) she wondered which was more horrible. Physical torture or psychological?

  There was only one day of school before her parents’ arrival on the mainland. It lasted as long as the thirteen years of her life.

  Only Jonah stuck by her — and for that, nobody would associate with him either. “What really happened?” Gretch asked viciously in the cafeteria.

  “The Shevvingtons did it,” Christina said. The teacher on cafeteria duty was shocked; Christina could already hear the report on her insanity.

  “They’re grown-ups,” Gretchen said. “They wouldn’t set fire to your clothes. It’s sick.”

  Christina imagined her parents’ visit. They’d take her shopping (with money they could not spare) for a new, plain, serviceable wardrobe. Three pairs of Brand X jeans, socks that came six in a plastic package. Even the clothes would be a punishment. “The Shevvingtons are sick,” said Christina.

  But of course nobody accepted this. They all loved the Shevvingtons.

  Only Katy, whom Mrs. Shevvington routinely whipped, and Robbie, who had lost his sister Val, believed. But Katy and Robbie were Nobody. To be believed, you had to have the support of the Somebodies.

  “Maybe Anya did it,” said Katy, trying to find an acceptable “out” for Christina.

  The children and teacher considered this and were willing to believe it.

  If I let them blame Anya, thought Christina, I will be safe. I will have friends again. Nobody will get me “professional help” like Val.

  How she wanted to blame Anya. Why not use Anya for that? What good was Anya anyway? She could hardly even keep a job folding clothes.

  But if I let them blame Anya, thought Christina, I will be even more evil than the Shevvingtons. She straightened, knowing she would never have a friend again. Maybe not even Jonah. “It was the Shevvingtons,” she said. “Anya would never do that.”

  They stepped back from her. Gretchen chewed on a ribbon of her thin hair. “If it wasn’t Anya,” said Gretch, smiling, “then … it was you.”

  In the middle of science came a summons for Christina to go to the office to see Mr. Shevvington. The class snickered. “Here it comes,” they said. “He’ll lock you up, Chrissie. You’ll have shrinks from here to Texas.”

  Cheeks scarlet, heart ice, Christina stood up and walked alone to the principal’s office. The metal lockers on each side of the hall were like prison doors, opening and slamming, row on row. What was it like for Val? Was Val scared all the time? Did Val whimper and beg? Did Val even know?

  Mr. Shevving
ton was wearing a charcoal suit with gray pinstripes, a vest, and a crimson tie. He looked like a diplomat on his way to catch a plane somewhere important. The secretaries at their desks and two mothers waiting in the office looked at him with adoration.

  “Christina, dear,” he said. “We need to have a little chat about counseling.” He sounded so caring. The secretaries and the mothers smiled, happy that he loved the strange, sick little island girl.

  Christina said nothing. The mothers were Vicki’s and Gretchen’s mothers. He had brought her down here on purpose to display her to them!

  Mr. Shevvington hugged her. She wanted to throw up. But if she showed how she felt, it. would be a mark against her, not him. So she pretended to be comfortable. “I want to be sure you aren’t upset or anxious, Chrissie, honey.”

  They beamed at his understanding support of a little girl.

  “Chrissie, sweetie,” said Mr. Shevvington, ruffling her hair.

  “Don’t call me Chrissie,” she said hotly. She flattened her hair back down the way it belonged. She took three steps away and glared at him. “I am not anxious. I do not intend to have counseling.”

  The mothers looked at her reprovingly. The secretaries exchanged resigned shrugs.

  Mr. Shevvington coaxed, “I bought a new rock tape I know you’ll enjoy.”

  “No, thank you,” Christina said. “I have to get back to class.” She lifted her chin and exited. She was so filled with fury she paused right outside the office, leaning against the wall, wanting to go back and slug him.

  The conversation continued, and she heard it perfectly.

  “Ungrateful little thing, isn’t she, Mr. Shevvington?” said Vicki’s mother. “It’s so generous of you to take care of these island children. We all have the greatest respect for you and Mrs. Shevvington, putting up with their shenanigans. I know Michael Jaye is an asset to the basketball team, but the rest of them! Frightening little monsters!”

  “That Anya practically threw her boyfriend off the cliff last fall. Why, Blake’s parents had to ship him off to boarding school to keep him safe,” said Gretch’s mother. “And this Christina child! You should hear the stories my daughter brings home about Christina.”