Forever Snow (The Everly Girls Book 1)

by V. B. Marlowe

  “Yeah. It is.”

  Henry stood up. “Great story.”

  “Henry, wait.”

  “You must think I’m some kind of idiot to believe that story you clearly just made up off the top of your head. I’m going in. Later.”

  “Henry, wait!”

  The back door slammed shut. Henry left me alone at the fence wishing I had kept my deepest darkest secrets to myself.

  9

  On Monday morning, Hadley and Mia looped their arms around mine as we headed toward the school building. I’d grown tired of being stuck between them.

  “Hey, Neva,” they said simultaneously.

  “Hey,” I said, feeling awkward and suspicious at the same time. I didn’t trust these girls at all.

  “You are totally eating lunch with us today,” Mia informed me. “We’ll save you a seat at our table.”

  “Oh, but I—”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Mia said. “We know you always eat with Aubrey. But Aubrey’s a loser with a terrible rep. And after the way she went off on you at Tate’s party . . . totes disrespectful. You’re eating with us.”

  The girls let go of me, and I gratefully hurried to my locker. They were weirding me out, but this new behavior was better than them ragging on me all day.

  In PE, no one harassed me in the locker room or tried to trip me while we ran laps. It was nice not having to look over my shoulder or worry about what would happen in the locker room. After Mrs. Davenport’s class, I looked around for Aubrey and caught a glimpse of her racing off in the opposite direction. She had drawn the line in the sand. I tried not to be hurt by reminding myself that all my friendships had a short shelf life anyway. Why not end it now? That didn’t help the sting.

  Aubrey blowing me off was almost a relief, since I could sit with the other girls with no problem.

  “Here, Neva,” Mia said, waving me over as I entered the cafeteria. “Move over,” she told two other blondes—Kailie Mitchell and Eva Santos—as I approached.

  The girls grumbled and moved down.

  I unzipped my backpack and removed my brown paper bag. I felt self-conscious about my lunch when I saw the table littered with soda cans and potato chip bags from the lunch line. No one else was eating from a brown bag. I pulled out an apple and bit into it. Nobody seemed to pay much attention to what I was eating, so I relaxed.

  Hadley poured some salad dressing onto her chicken salad. “So, the fair opens this Friday, and we’re all going together.”

  I had never been to the fair, but I’d seen the commercials on TV. Rides, food, and games—it looked like a good time. In Rock Canyon, the annual Canyon County Fair was a huge deal.

  “You in?” Mia asked.

  “Sure, why not?” I knew Father wouldn’t want me to go, but I’d figure something out. Tate’s party had given me a small taste of the normal life, and I wanted more.

  Tate plopped down next to me. “I just dodged Noelle. She’s freaking out, saying we should have a final run through instead of eating lunch. I told her no way. I’m starving.” He opened a bag from a nearby taco place and shoved a burrito in my face. “Want some?”

  I shook my head. It smelled horrible.

  “Tate,” Mia said, “I was just telling Neva how we’re all going to the fair on Friday.”

  Tate bit into his burrito. “Yeah, Neva’s going with me,” he said with his mouth full. He winked at me, and I couldn’t help but grin. I think I saw Hadley roll her eyes.

  Noelle plopped a stack of books down on the table. “How can you two just sit there and eat when we have a presentation soon?”

  Tate dove further into his burrito. “Noelle, sit, chill, eat something. We’re good. We practiced as much as we could.”

  I was already nervous about speaking in front of the class, but Noelle was giving me extra anxiety. I didn’t know why she was panicking. She was perfect at everything.

  “You guys will do great,” Mia assured her. “And Noelle, you never get anything lower than an A.”

  Noelle nodded, but she didn’t look convinced.

  Social studies came around quicker than I wanted. Noelle volunteered our group to go first. Tate was annoyed, but Noelle said it was always best to go first to set the precedent. I thought it was best to go first so we could get it over with and relax for the rest of the period.

  Noelle opened with the topic. She spoke about what was happening with work camps in China. She was flawless, and all eyes were on her as she spoke. She showed off our board like a spokesmodel at a trade show. The girl was good. She was confident and delivered her presentation without a hint of nerves. I hated having to follow her. When it was my turn, I took a deep breath.

  Public speaking was not something that got easier for me over time. You’d think I’d be great at it. Princesses were trained to address their people and speak intelligently and eloquently in front of entire kingdoms. Speaking in front of twenty something kids my age should have been a piece of cake.

  It wasn’t.

  I looked at my cards. I had everything memorized, but I needed the cards just in case. Besides, holding them gave me something to do with my hands. I cleared my throat.

  “Labor camps have been criticized as a human rights concern . . .”

  My job was to discuss the concept of labor camps. As I started, I was so concerned about everyone staring at me that I forgot what I had memorized and resorted to reading from my cards. Obviously, I didn’t have the same charisma as Noelle, because everyone looked like they wanted to doze off. Suddenly, I froze. Even having the words in front of me didn’t help. I told myself to keep talking, but my mouth wouldn’t work. A few snickers came from the class. I wanted to run away.

  Tate saved the day by asking me questions about my topic. I responded like a semi-intelligent human being, and once I started talking, things flowed a little easier, but it wasn’t great. I was relieved to turn the presentation over to Tate. He was as good as Noelle. Clearly, I was the weak link. I hoped I wouldn’t bring our grade down. Noelle would freak. Mr. Granger told us we would get our grades at the end of class the following day after everyone had presented.

  I had to admit that I missed spending afternoons with Noelle and Tate now that the project was over. Friday night couldn’t come quickly enough. I was looking forward to my date with Tate at the fair—if I could manage to talk my father into letting me go.

  ***

  “I can’t imagine anyone picking on you,” Reginald said at the next Rubber Room meeting. “You’re gorgeous.” He was looking at me all googly-eyed, and I wanted him to stop.

  “That’s a misconception,” Marley said. “A lot of people think you only get bullied if you’re overweight or not good-looking, but beautiful people get bullied, too. Much of the time, it’s from jealousy.”

  I wouldn’t say people were jealous of me—I think they kept their distance because I was weird. “Actually,” I told the group, “the girls giving me the hardest time have been pretty nice lately.”

  Anh narrowed her eyes. “Be careful. It might be a trap. That happened to me in middle school. The mean girls suddenly pretended to be my friend. They invited me to a sleepover only to humiliate me and play pranks on me the entire night. They even took pictures and showed them to everyone.”

  I suddenly felt queasy. Was that happening to me? Were Hadley and Mia only being nice in order to set me up for something awful down the line? I didn’t want to believe that. I wanted to think positively.

  “Don’t worry,” Stacia answered. “Neva’s smart, and she knows exactly what she’s doing. If those girls were playing her, she would know.”

  Anh shrugged. “I’m just saying, be careful.”

  “I will.” I looked around the room. The Rubber Room had come along since the first time I’d visited. Now there were posters hanging on the walls. One had kitties. Another featured a rock band I had never heard of. One was a beautiful beach scene. The fourth was of Saturn with the words “Where I want to be right now” scribbled unde
rneath it. I assumed each member had put up a poster to their liking. I guessed the one with the kitties had been Stacia’s choice.

  That day was Tyler’s turn to talk. He described how he’d been picked on since elementary school and how he’d run away from home several times just so he wouldn’t have to go to school anymore.

  As I listened, I wanted to tell the kids the truth I’d learned a long time ago, but I couldn’t. All the popular kids who seemed to have it all together, the ones we thought would have the perfect lives, turned out just like everyone else, sometimes even worse. Over the years, I’d look up kids I’d gone to school with decades ago. They weren’t famous models or movie stars. They weren’t running Fortune 500 corporations or playing pro football. Nine times out of ten, their looks had faded, and they were leading average lives. Sometimes the kids who’d had it the hardest turned out to do the greatest things. There was no way I could tell the group that without giving away my secret, not that they would believe it.

  ***

  Henry was happy to have me all to himself again in the afternoons. He didn’t seem angry anymore.

  “My dad bought me some new comic books,” he said.

  “That’s cool.” Henry’s parents seemed nice. I saw them from time to time, coming in and out of their house. We would wave at each other, but we never really talked, mainly because Father preferred we talk to no one. Dot’s recent behavior had made him even more cautious.

  “Have you thought about what I told you last night?” I said.

  Henry snorted. “That was an interesting story, but no, I don’t believe it.”

  “Why not?”

  He laughed harder, which made him choke. “You want me to believe that you’re the real live version of Snow White, that you’ve been around for more than two hundred years, and that the Grimm brothers got it all wrong? Come on. Snow White is just a made-up fairy tale. Your story would make a good movie though.”

  I was kind of relieved he didn’t believe me. I had gotten it off my chest, and I wouldn’t have to worry about my secret being out.

  “Dot was looking at your house again today,” Henry said. “She’s been doing that for a while now.”

  Dot had to be the nosiest person I knew. “She’s convinced Father did something to Boopsie.”

  “Why would she think that?”

  “I have no idea.”

  I heard Henry turning the pages of his comic book.

  “Neva?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you really mean it when you said you would have to leave soon?”

  I wrapped a blade of grass around my finger. “Yeah, I meant it.”

  “Then why don’t you break the curse so you can stay?”

  “I thought you didn’t believe that story.”

  “I don’t. I think you’re just using it as an excuse to leave me, but . . .”

  “But what?”

  Henry paused for a few moments. “If it were true, if I were you, I’d pick one of those girls—one of those mean ones—and deliver her heart to the witch. That way, you could kill two birds with one stone.”

  “I could never kill anyone, much less cut out their heart. That’s horrible.”

  “It can’t be that hard. We’ve seen it done in movies.”

  “This isn’t some horror movie. This is real life, and I can’t do it. That’s it.”

  Henry sighed. “Fine, then I guess you’ll be cursed forever.”

  I wanted to be angry with him for saying that, but how could I when it was the truth?

  10

  I spent the week getting to know Noelle and her friends while Aubrey spent the week ignoring me. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss her. As weird as I was, she understood my quirks and never judged me. What I liked most about Aubrey was that she never asked too many questions. She just accepted me for who I was—all the things she knew, and all the things I had to keep to myself.

  I waited until Thursday night to ask my father for permission to go to the fair. It had taken me all week to work up the nerve.

  “No,” he said simply, as he dumped a spoonful of broccoli onto my plate.

  “Please! It’s just rides and food. I think I deserve to have a little fun. What do you think will happen?”

  Father shook his head. “No. You know we need to keep our distance from people. Nothing good comes from getting too close to them. Sooner or later, they will betray you.”

  “It’s just a few hours at the fair. We’re not sharing deep, dark secrets. I’m not stupid. I know what and what not to say.”

  He sighed and looked at me. He was weakening.

  “Pleeeease,” I whined. “I do everything you ask. I just want this one thing.”

  Father stabbed his fork into his roast beef. “Fine. Just a few hours. And be careful.”

  I squealed and ran around the table to give him a hug.

  “I promise, Father. Nothing bad will happen.”

  ***

  Friday night came quickly. I put on jeans and a simple cardigan. I hadn’t told Henry anything about my date, but he’d probably be watching from his window when Tate arrived.

  As Tate pulled into the driveway, I darted down from the porch.

  “Well, somebody seems eager to go,” he said as I slid into the passenger seat.

  I kept my head down and shrugged. “I’m excited. I’ve never been to this fair before.” I couldn’t tell him I had been waiting outside, because I had to ensure there was no chance he would catch a glimpse of the inside of our house.

  Tate wore a tight black shirt that hugged his muscles, showing off his well-built arms. I tried my best to look away, but it was nearly impossible. He gestured toward the house. “I was prepared to knock on the front door and hold the car door open for you like a gentleman, but you came out so fast.”

  I focused on my fingernails. I’d painted them a bright red that afternoon. “Why would you do all that? This isn’t a date.”

  “Right, not a date,” he muttered as he reversed down the driveway. “You’re not afraid of rides, are you?”

  “Of course not.”

  He smirked. “Even roller coasters?”

  “I will even ride a roller coaster.” From time to time, Father and I did fun things like take road trips or visit amusement parks. Those were the times when our lives weren’t so depressing.

  Tate turned the radio down. “A couple of my buddies got jobs at the fair, and they’ll let us on the rides they’re working without any tickets. Those tickets are mad expensive.”

  “Oh, that’s cool,” I said, although I wasn’t sure how I felt about sneaking on rides. I didn’t have time to worry, because I had to ask Tate something that had been bothering me. “Tate, at your party, Hadley told me that you guys had dated just last month. How come you told me you hadn’t been together since middle school?”

  Tate took a deep breath and shook his head. “I didn’t want that to scare you off. I know how Hadley is. I figured if I told you the truth, you would be afraid to date me. You really shouldn’t be afraid of her.”

  “I’m not afraid of her,” I argued. I thought I stood up to Hadley as much as I could. “But from now on, no more lies.” That was funny coming from me. I was over two hundred years old pretending to be sixteen.

  “You’re right. No more lies.”

  “So, you want to date me?” I asked.

  “Yeah, isn’t it obvious?”

  I’d had a crush on Tate since my first day at Rock Canyon High. It wasn’t a big deal, because I knew I could never date anyone. Tate didn’t seem to know I existed, so liking him was just a harmless crush. Now it was getting serious. I would have to tell him the truth.

  “Tate, we can be friends, but nothing more. I really do like you, and you’re a nice guy and everything, but I can’t date you, or anyone else.”

  He didn’t seem bothered by that at all. “Gotcha.”

  I sighed, not knowing what to say to tell him how serious I was.

  By the time
we got to the fair, the group was already at the entrance waiting for us. Hadley, Mia, and Noelle wore matching baby tees with large red lips on them. Normally, I would think something like that was cheesy, but they looked cute.

  Hadley stepped forward and lowered her voice. “Garrett is letting us in through the side gate.”

  “Awesome,” Tate said, putting his arm around me. My body tensed.

  “How about we just pay admission?” I whispered to Tate.

  He scrunched his face. “Where’s the fun in that? Besides, we could use that money for candied apples, huh?”

  All sorts of thoughts raced through my head. The last thing I needed was to get into any kind of trouble. I pictured myself getting arrested and the police calling Father to bail me out and our secrets being discovered. He would never let me out of the house again.

  Tate pulled me along with him, and I told myself everything would be all right. Garrett stood behind the merry-go-round, holding part of the metal railing open for us. As soon as we squeezed in, he closed it.

  “All right, we’re working the haunted house, the Double Loop, the Tilt-A-Whirl, and the Gravitron,” Garrett informed us. I assumed he meant that those were the rides we wouldn’t need tickets for.

  “So, where to first?” Mia asked.

  Tate walked away from the group, still holding my hand. “Uh . . . Neva and I will catch up with you guys later.”

  “You guys aren’t going to hang with us?” Hadley asked, looking disappointed.

  “Later,” Tate called behind him.

  I looked back at Hadley and Mia. They stared at us with narrowed eyes, probably thinking I’d lied to them at the party when I’d said I wasn’t interested in Tate.

  Everything looked so magical that I quickly forgot about the other girls. Carnival rides covered in bright lights shone like fireflies against the black night sky. The smells of buttery popcorn, sweet cotton candy, and funnel cakes teased my nostrils. Everyone around us looked happy and carefree. It was like being at the fair had wiped away all their worries.

  “What do you want to ride first?” Tate asked.