“You have to, sweetheart. I’d do it for you, but it has to be you.”
I already knew that. One way or another, I was going to have to stomach the operation.
Father pulled me up from the ground. “Don’t worry. I’ll show you how to do it.”
***
The following day, I walked into school carrying a gold tin box. If these kids already thought I was a serial killer, what would they think if they knew I was carrying a box containing a human heart?
I went straight to Aubrey’s locker, avoiding the stares and the whispers from my fellow students. I couldn’t care less what they thought. After today, I wouldn’t be seeing any of them again.
I knew Aubrey’s combination, just like she’d known mine. I opened her lock and placed the tin containing Henry’s heart on top of her social studies book.
After first period, I went to my locker to grab my math book. Aubrey passed me, cradling the tin to her chest, one side of her mouth curved into an evil smile. She nodded at me as she passed.
I turned to open my locker. Inside was a small purple bottle made of glass. The top of it looked like a steeple. I slid the bottle into the front pocket of my backpack. I didn’t want to drink the elixir at school. I didn’t know what effect it would have on me.
I couldn’t leave without making sure Stacia was okay. During lunch, I found her outside sitting on her favorite bench where she always wrote her poetry. She didn’t look up from her journal as I settled down beside her. I cleared my throat.
“Hey, Stacia. Got a minute?”
She huffed, but slammed her journal shut, staring straight ahead, “What do you want?”
I expected her to be angry with me, but I wasn’t sure why. She hadn’t liked what I’d told her the other day about getting revenge, but it had been the truth.
“I just wanted to make sure you were okay about everything. Obviously, you’re pissed at me.”
Stacia’s stone-cold expression softened. “It’s not that. I’m disappointed I guess. I like talking to you, because I feel like I can be honest with you and you won’t judge me, but you totally judged me the other day.”
“I didn’t mean to. It was just what you said about Mia and Hadley—”
“I didn’t really mean that. I was just blowing off some steam. Of course it’s awful they’re dead. I may not have boo-hoo cried like everyone else, but it’s terrible what happened. I shouldn’t have said what I said to you. I was just upset. But after that, you looked at me like I was the most despicable creature you’d ever seen.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel that way. I guess it was just a misunderstanding. You know it’s totally wrong to hurt anyone even if they’ve wronged you, right?”
Stacia sighed. “Right.”
I couldn’t tell if Stacia really meant that or if she was simply telling me what I wanted to hear. I needed to know I’d gotten through to her, so I dug up a memory I kept buried at the very bottom of my vault of secrets.
“Stacia, I’m going to tell you a story about revenge. We might think it’ll make us feel good, but sometimes it has the opposite effect.”
Stacia leaned back against the bench. “What’s the story?”
“A long, long time ago, there was a princess. She had everything anyone could ever ask for. One of her many privileges was a staff of servants just for her. A girl who was a year or two older was assigned to be her chambermaid. The chambermaid was an orphan. The head-of-staff had found her in the furnace room. No one knew where she came from, but when she was discovered, she was covered in ash and soot, so they named her Cinderella.”
Stacia folded her arms over her chest. “Really? You’re telling me a fairy tale?”
“Just hear me out. Anyway, Cinderella was assigned to be the princess’s chambermaid. The queen had died during the princess’s birth. She’d had a beautiful pair of pearl earrings that were her favorite, and the princess cherished them, keeping the earrings in a special compartment of her jewelry box. One day, the precious earrings went missing, and the princess was devastated. I—the princess turned the palace upside down looking for the pearl earrings.”
Although Stacia tried to appear bored, I could tell she was interested. I went on. “It appeared the earrings were nowhere to be found. But then, the princess noticed an odd lump in the pocket of Cinderella’s smock. She ordered the chambermaid to empty her pocket, and when she refused, the princess forcibly removed the objects. The lumps were, in fact, the pearl earrings.
“Cinderella immediately dropped to her knees, pleading for forgiveness. ‘Please, your highness. I only wanted to try them on to see how they looked. I’ve never had anything nice, and I just wanted to see what it would feel like for a few moments. I promise I was going to return them.’ But the girl’s pleas fell on deaf ears. The princess was so angry that the girl had even touched her mother’s precious heirlooms that all she wanted was for her to be punished. Cinderella tugged at the bottom of the princess’s beautiful dress, begging her not to tell—that her life would be ruined if she did so, but the princess wouldn’t listen.
“The king was away, so the princess told her stepmother what Cinderella had done. The princess thought the girl might be whipped and banished to work in the furnace room for a few weeks, and then all would be forgotten. The princess wasn’t a harsh person—she was blinded by her anger and her love for her dead mother’s possessions. The chambermaid had to know that her actions were unacceptable and could not be repeated.
“The princess certainly did not expect the punishment the wicked queen dealt Cinderella, and she had not expected to be required to watch. Her stepmother insisted she toughen up if she were to one day rule a kingdom properly. The queen had Cinderella taken down to a cellar where she and the princess joined her. There were two male servants already there poking at something in the furnace. When they removed the objects, she realized to her horror that it was a pair of iron slippers. No matter how hard the princess and Cinderella begged, the queen showed no mercy. She forced Cinderella to wear the sizzling hot shoes until she dropped dead from the pain.”
That had been my fault. Cinderella was the reason I hadn’t been able to take another life for two hundred years. I could have forgiven her and pretended as if the whole incident had never happened, but my quest for revenge had left a girl dead and me with the gruesome images I would never forget.
Stacia stared at me wide-eyed. “Whoa, that was way harsh.”
“Yeah. The princess was never able to forgive herself. The moral of the story is, sometimes revenge backfires, and things go too far. When that happens, you’re the one left living with the consequences.”
“That was a messed-up story, but I got it. Are you coming to the meeting today?”
“I can’t. I have to do something after school. I’ll catch up to you guys later, though.” I had planned to say goodbye, but I couldn’t. I wasn’t sure how Stacia would take it, and it would involve way too much explaining. I left her alone on the bench to return to her poetry. I’d always promised Stacia that she would be all right. I made a silent wish that I wasn’t lying to her.
After school, I worked up the nerve to speak to Tate. I waited by his car. When I spotted him walking toward me, digging in his pocket for his keys, I was burdened by the memory of his giving Mia and Hadley rides home every day. Now he would ride alone.
His eyes widened when he finally noticed me. “Oh, hey.”
“Hey, Tate. Not that you would care or anything, but I wanted you to know that today’s my last day here.”
He bit his bottom lip, but he didn’t look surprised. “I can understand that. There’s been so much craziness going on. Sorry about all that happened.”
I nodded. “Me too. Sorry about your friends.”
He looked down at his pristine white sneakers. “I still keep waiting for them to pop up laughing, telling me it’s all a joke. Neva, for what it’s worth, I’m sorry for what they did to you, and I had nothing to do with that.�
��
“I know.” I was relieved to hear him say that.
“I’m also sorry about the way I acted. It was just that I really, really liked you, and I thought you felt the same, and when you wouldn’t kiss me, I was hurt.”
“I understand. I like you, too, Tate, but we just can’t be together. . . for reasons I can’t explain.” I should have never gotten involved with Tate knowing we could never be anything. “I have to get going. Take care.”
“Yeah, let’s keep in touch on Facebook and stuff.”
“Sure.”
Tate looked like he wanted to say something else, but I didn’t want him to. Once my curse was broken, I could be with him, but I needed a totally fresh start. Everything in Rock Canyon, and all my previous lives, needed to stay behind. Unfortunately, that included Tate. Besides, Father and I were moving away, and I wasn’t sure that sixteen-year-olds and long distance relationships were a good mix. I gave him a quick peck on the cheek and hurried away.
***
After school, I raced home and uncorked the bottle. I held it for a moment, feeling guilty. Henry had been trying so hard to earn this bottle for his sister. He died for it, and she still had to endure her curse.
Sitting on the edge of my bed, I took a deep breath, remembering it was a witch’s concoction. It could very well be poisoned, like the apple. I pushed the thought away. This was my only shot at breaking the curse. I put the bottle to my lips and let the warm liquid travel down my throat. It burned my chest and made me feel dizzy. I lay on my bed and closed my eyes, praying I would wake up.
Happily After
Father promised this would be our last move. Covington Cove, California was as beautiful as it sounded. We were both free to live as normal people. I could look into mirrors like a normal girl, and as for apples—I could take them or leave them. I was no longer a slave to their taste.
Father got a job as a general contractor, and I started a new school. I made friends easily, knowing I wouldn’t turn back into a fifteen-year-old and have to move away. I would be able to celebrate my eighteenth birthday, graduate from high school, get married—just grow up. I could kiss a boy, and he wouldn’t drop dead. For the first time in more than two hundred years, I was normal.
I told Father that he had never been obligated to be my guardian, and now that our curse was broken, he was free to move on, but he wouldn’t hear of it. “You are my daughter for as long as we live, and that’s the end of it,” he told me.
I kept in touch with Stacia and the other kids from the Rubber Room through email and social media. When they wanted to know why I’d left Rock Canyon so abruptly, I explained that after all that had happened, I needed a change. They seemed to understand. Mia’s and Hadley’s murders were still unsolved, and they would remain that way. As far as everyone else went, Henry never existed. Father had buried his body deep in the woods.
Raj pulled into the fire lane in front of the convenience store. “Will you grab me a soda while you’re in there?”
“What kind?” I asked.
He grinned, showing off those huge teeth of his. “You know.”
I rolled my eyes. “Of course, grape.” Why had I even asked? For the two months I’d known Raj, that was all he ever drank.
I ran inside to grab a bottle of sunblock before our day at the beach. I didn’t tan like the other girls—I burned. I scanned the shelf until I found the brand I wanted and then headed for the beverage section for Raj’s soda. As I rounded the magazine stand, I bumped into another girl, sending the items she carried crashing to the floor.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, stooping to help the girl pick up what she’d dropped.
“No, it was my fault,” she said.
I paused before handing her the candy bar and the bag of chips. She wore a pair of brown leather boots. They were nice, but they didn’t go with the khaki shorts and yellow tank top she wore, nor were they appropriate for such a sweltering beach day.
The girl was gorgeous with golden cascading curls and bright green eyes. She would have fit in perfectly with Hadley and Mia. Our eyes locked, and she frowned.
“Do I know you?” she asked.
It was weird. She didn’t look familiar, but there was something about her that made me feel we had some sort of connection. “I don’t know. Maybe, but I don’t know where from.”
She shrugged and took her items from me. “Thanks.”
I grabbed a bottle of grape soda and made my way to the register, eager to start my beach day. This was a new feeling for me, being able to look forward to things instead of dreading having to repeat them over and over. I thought about what Tate had once told me—you’re only going to do this once. I planned on taking full advantage of my one life.
I thought about Henry every day and somehow felt that I owed him. He had unwillingly sacrificed his life so I could have a normal one. Gretchen was also in my thoughts. She was hidden somewhere, depending on her brother to find her a bottle of elixir. I had no intentions of letting life pass me by and making the loss of Henry’s life a waste.
Outside, a woman stepped into my path as I headed for Raj’s car. She was short and plump and wore her silver hair in a bun. I tried to step around her, but she wouldn’t allow me to pass.
“Uh, may I help you?” I asked.
“Neva?”
“Yeah?” How did she know my name?
She grinned. “You earned one of the elixirs.”
I backed away, suddenly afraid. Something about her reminded me of my stepmother. “I’m sorry, who are you?”
“We need you. You can help the other girls at the academy.”
The academy . . .
Raj honked his horn. I wanted to leave the woman standing on the sidewalk, but I couldn’t. She took my hand and squeezed it.
“Please, we’re desperate, and we’re running out of time. You girls must stick together. Help us devise a way to break the other curses.”
I edged around the woman. “I’m sorry. I really don’t want anything to do with curses and elixirs anymore. I just want to be normal.” I walked toward Raj’s car and grabbed the handle. I felt terrible for those girls, but what could I do? I wished them the best in breaking their curses, but I couldn’t help them.
“What did she want?” Raj asked.
“She was asking for money,” I lied. The last thing I needed was for my new friends to think I was weird. There was no way I could tell him that the woman wanted me to go to a special school where cursed girls lived.
Raj pulled away from the curb, and I watched the woman in the side-view mirror. She kept her eyes on us as the car pulled off, and then as quickly as I could blink, she vanished into thin air. A tugging at my heart told me I would be seeing her again.
I dropped Raj’s soda in the cup holder between our seats. “I think this is going to be a good day.”
Raj looked over at me and smiled. “‘Every day is an opportunity to make a new happy ending.’ I read that in a fortune cookie.”
I put on my sunglasses and rested my head against the seat. Raj was always spouting positive quotes like that, but this time he was right. I was no longer bound by any curse. I finally had control of my life, my happiness, and my story.
The End of Forever Snow: Book One of the Everly Girls Series
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Forever Snow (The Everly Girls Book 1) Page 16
