This Is All Your Fault, Cassie Parker

by Terra Elan McVoy

  Since Ellen wants us to get down first thoughts, though, I put What’s the Opposite of Real? on a blank page in my journal.

  Fantasy

  Imaginary

  Pretend

  Dystopian romance

  Horror

  At that last word, a sentence pops into my head: Callie Harper started out as a nice, smart, pretty, normal girl, until the day she and her friends read from an ancient and powerful book, and Callie became the Haunted.

  It’s clunky, and I’m surprised the subject of my horror story isn’t immediately Jennifer, but I try not to criticize or question. Maybe going with this story will be as liberating as freewrites.

  Her friend Kandra found the mysterious book on a picnic, and decided to read the passages aloud. Neither girl could conceive that the book was protected by a powerful spell that would render whomever that decreed if anyone undeserving read its masterful contents, they would immediately and irrevocably be transformed into a ghost zombie. And anyone within hearing range was doomed by the same fate.

  “It’s good,” Sanders says when he reads my first draft an hour later. “But how come this Kandra reads the book in the first place?”

  “Because she’s . . . evil.”

  “I guess I mean, this whole ghost zombie business is strong, but it makes things too complicated. You have to explain why the book has that kind of curse on it. Where it came from. What if, instead of Kandra reading the book out loud, it’s Callie who does it? Maybe reading it frees some kind of ghost—Kandra Black—from the book?”

  It isn’t what actually happened, but it does keep me from having to explain a bunch of things that aren’t very interesting. “That sounds a lot better. I’ll try it.”

  I give him the best feedback I can on his robot romance, which is almost too funny to really criticize, and we get back to writing.

  Little did Callie Harper know that on the day she lifted the book from its careful hiding place, and read aloud from its pages, she would become doomed forever to follow the evil commands of serve as a zombie slave to the ghost of the notorious soul-sucker Kandra Black. Kandra was as hungry as she was powerful. Once the final words spilled from Callie’s lips, she ceased being the good girl everyone knew her to be, and transformed into a thoughtless minion of her new, long-dead mistress.

  We trade revisions again before lunch, and Sanders tells me this version is much stronger. With his help, I craft a story in which Kandra commands Callie to snatch up the souls of unwitting sixth graders, in order to keep Kandra young and beautiful forever. They join forces with a new corporate recruit, Jenny Malone (who steals not souls but expensive jewelry and other people’s children). Jenny funds their mission, making Kandra (and Callie) nearly impossible to defeat.

  “Two words for what you need next,” Sanders says, when he hands me my pages at the end of the day. “Ninja sword fight.”

  Those are actually three, and I teasingly say so to Sanders. Mainly, I have no idea how to write a ninja sword fight scene, but he just says, “Get started, anyway. You can always change it later.”

  So after class is over, I park myself at a desk in the library and keep working, reminding myself to trust whatever comes to mind.

  Kandra was powerful enough to overtake the likes of Callie and Jenny, but she wasn’t smart enough to know that the nearby fire station housed a very special kind of local firefighter—the kind who had long been practicing the ancient ninja arts in order to protect others from dread monsters such as herself.

  I know right away that the fire station idea is lame, and wish I had my sister with me. They’re all probably having too good a time in the thick of their Disneyland adventure to even notice if I sent Leelu a message for story crafting help through Dad, though. I’ll think of something smarter tomorrow, I tell myself, at least in time to share with class before the weekend.

  But writing through the fight scene between Kandra, Callie, Jenny, and the firefighting ninjas only makes things worse, because I have no idea how to describe anything involving blood and guts. I wish I’d traded numbers with Sanders so I could ask him for advice. I can’t do this on my own. I need to think the way he would about it.

  “Mom, have you seen any ninja movies?” I ask her first thing when she picks me up.

  “I can’t say many, no. Why?”

  I explain our general assignment, and the gist of my story. When I’m finished, she chuckles, low.

  “That certainly sounds dramatic.”

  “I know. But I don’t think it’s dramatic enough. I mean, I know Ellen wants us to write the opposite of what we usually do, but I think the fight at the end needs to be more realistic.”

  “Well, I don’t know about ninjas, but there’s an old movie your Tante Juno likes with some pretty good fight scenes in it. It’s too violent for you to watch the whole thing, but with Leelu still gone we could find some clips.”

  We order pizza and change into pajamas before curling together on the couch so Mom can fast-forward through big chunks of the movie to the best (but still appropriate) parts. She’s right—the fights are intense, and I only need to see a few of the girl in the yellow jumpsuit swinging her sword to know exactly what my scenes need. I release Mom to watch whatever she wants, because I’ve seen enough. Back in my room (after I text Tante that I liked the movie), I’m so focused on my story that when Mom gets a call from Disneyland, I only wave a brief hi. I don’t need to hear about Disney Princesses, or even have Cassie to collaborate with anymore. Instead I’ve got Sideways Sanders and his kung fu masters with a taste for revenge.

  “This is great,” Sanders says the next morning, laughing. “You make them sound so realistic.”

  His approval spreads like a cape of confidence across my shoulders.

  “But what if”—he looks thoughtful—“instead of being Kandra Black’s slave, Callie gets fully possessed by her instead? That way Callie’s not even Callie anymore—just Kandra in a different body.”

  “Ugh,” I groan. “I’d have to rewrite the whole thing.”

  And then this story gets really far from what happened, I think too.

  “Sometimes you have to write through something before you know what it actually is, right?” He copies Ellen’s warm smile perfectly.

  And I know he’s right. Distancing myself from what happened between me and Cassie (even if only in fiction) is probably better for me anyway. Who cares anymore about the actual diary debacle, or Cassie, and Kendra, or anyone else? This is my story and I can make it into whatever I want.

  Iona watched in horror as, below them in the ruins of the chapel, the dread book slipped from Asha’s hand.

  “No!” Iona screamed, her voice tearing through the dark. “Not you too!” Iona had warned Asha about the book, and Kandra Black, but the temptation to experience Jenny’s riches must have been too great.

  “It’s a shame.” The leader of Ninja Fire Squad put her hand on Iona’s shoulder. “But she will have to go as well. Are you ready?”

  Iona stared down the hill, where Kandra and her gang were gathered in their secret ritual, inducting Asha into their fold. She gripped the handle of the razor-sharp bone knife strapped to her belt. She was afraid to fight, but if it meant freedom from Kandra Black, she knew she would.

  There was a blur, a shriek, and before Iona had finished nodding to show her readiness, the Ninja Fire Squad descended down the hill to the ruins, a mass of black and gray—and fury. Iona, lacking their ninja training, ran as fast as she could down the hill but still trailed behind. By the time she reached the ruins, Asha’s eyes—colored the telltale bile yellow that indicated her zombie status—were rolled back in her head, both legs severed and spouting blood. Iona was horrified at her friend’s death, but was grateful she hadn’t had to witness her in zombie form.

  The members of the NFS had taken out the dread Jenny Malone as well, and as Iona stepped over her blood-soaked carcass, Iona felt no pity. She joined them at the back of the ruined sanctuary, where they had corn
ered Kandra (still in the form of Callie) and were locked in a grisly and frightening fight.

  “You’ll never vanquish me!” Kandra/Callie shrieked, showing teeth that were gray and blackened with rot. She leaped from where she had climbed atop the altar, attacking the rear group of the NFS. She fought with bare hands, her nails grown long and newly sharpened to deadly claws, but she was no match for the squad. In a rapid barrage of hand-forged steel and lightning-quick reflexes, three members seized Kandra/Callie while the fourth made a clean slice across the ghoul’s middle, spilling her guts to the floor. In spite of the gore and Callie’s dying screams, Iona was not deterred. She gripped the enchanted bottle the White Witch had given her atop the mountain, and murmured the secret activation chant. The bottle glowed in her hand, pulsing with its ancient power, and Iona raised her knife, ready to plunge it into the escaping soul of Kandra Black in the manner she had been taught, capture it as it fled Callie’s body, and bury it with the proper rites at the bottom of Doom Mountain forever. Callie would not survive, but at least the world would be safe from the likes of Kandra Black.

  Everyone bursts into applause and cheers of “Awesome” when I read the final version out loud at the end of class, making an uncontrollable smile spring to my face. The hard work I did with Sanders, and the class’s praise for it, feels nice, but when I sit back down and it’s Austen’s turn, I still feel something’s wrong with my ending. I haven’t been sure about it for days, but hearing it out loud, I know it’s still not right.

  Camp is over for the week, but while I’m waiting for Mom I take one of the big red armchairs in the library to read my story over with a more critical eye. I comb through line by line, wondering if it’s the descriptions that are unsatisfying. Around me people walk back and forth, browsing shelves and checking out books, so I don’t look up when one seems to be coming in my direction. Not until they’re standing right over me, unavoidable.

  Kendra Mack.

  “Oh, hi, Fiona,” she says, like we just ran into each other by accident, instead of her walking purposefully all the way over here to talk to me. “What are you doing here?”

  I close my journal shut, putting my hand firmly over the cover. “Nothing.”

  “Hmm.” She wraps the end of one of her long, red-orange curls around the tips of her fingers over and over. “If I remember correctly from what we read in your diary, ‘nothing’ is just about right.” She sighs and looks over her shoulder in the direction she came from. “I’m babysitting my cousins. They have story time here at three, so my aunt wanted me to bring them.”

  You’re not doing a very good job of babysitting if your aunt is with you, and you’re over here talking to me instead of watching them, I consider saying, but mainly I want her to leave.

  She keeps twisting and twisting the end of her hair. “I saw you over here. Your shirt is so . . . splashy.”

  I look down at my T-shirt: an old tie-dye I found while searching for more creative outfit options again this morning. It’s only pink with a little green dotted in, and it’s probably too small, but the way Kendra says it makes it sound more like my shirt is made of spoiled mayonnaise.

  “Anyway.” She rolls her eyes like I’m the one who just said something stupid. “I saw you and said to myself, ‘Oh wow. There’s that Fiona girl from school. How funny. I haven’t thought about her in ages. I should go say hi.’ And—”

  She makes a surprised face and reaches for her back pocket, taking out her phone.

  “Would you look at that.” She holds her screen out so I can see Cassie’s picture splayed across it. “I just got a message from Cassie. Should I tell her you’re here too? Maybe you’d like to say hi. Oh, wait. I forgot. She doesn’t want to talk to you anymore because of the lame things you said about her and the rest of us, does she? Too bad.”

  Even if I wasn’t already too shocked to speak, I’d still have no idea what to say back, but Kendra just laughs and walks back to the children’s area, twisting and twisting that strand of her hair. I am utterly horrified, and sink lower in my chair, trying to hide my embarrassment.

  That, and the renewed candle of anger that’s become a flamethrower in my chest again.

  “Fiona, you were in such a good mood this morning,” Mom says as soon as I yank open the car door. “What happened?”

  Without any warning, I start crying—hard.

  Mom’s as surprised as I am. “Oh now, now.” She steers the car away from the curb to a more private parking spot in the library lot. “What’s all this?”

  I cover my face with my hands as she leans over and folds me into her arms. There’s so much that’s all this, I don’t know anymore where to start. One thing I do know is that what’s wrong with my story is that the bad guys all die in the end and disappear. The truth is, Kendra will never go away, because Cassie will never stop being friends with her, which means Kendra will never forget me, or what happened. And so I never will, either.

  “I hate everyone,” I shout into my palms.

  Mom smooths my hair. “Shhh, there. You hate who now?”

  “Kendra Mack,” I wail. “And Cassie. And just everyone.”

  Mom takes in a breath before saying anything. “Well, that doesn’t sound very nice.”

  My shoulders shake. “They aren’t nice!”

  “Oh, honey,” Mom says, turning toward me more. “I’m sorry about what you’re going through. Are you sure this is how you want to deal with it, though?”

  “I tried ignoring them,” I say. “I tried being different, but—”

  “You know that anyone who doesn’t appreciate you for who you are—” she starts.

  “You always say that,” I yell over her. “You always jump to telling me what to think and do, but it’s just not that easy all the time. I can’t always get away from people who don’t like me. I can’t pretend they aren’t there.”

  Mom pulls back, looking at me different. “You’re right,” she says after a minute.

  I wipe the itchy tears off my cheeks. “I am?”

  She nods, gazing out the windshield, pointer fingernail flicking against the pad of her thumb a few times while she thinks.

  “So, what do I do?” I ask when she still hasn’t said anything.

  “I don’t know for sure,” she admits. “But it might start with finding a solution that feels authentic to you, instead of turning into one of them.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  After my outburst in the car, Mom still doesn’t ask specifics about Kendra or Cassie, but instead we talk about anger, and revenge, and how not to let them control you. She tells me things I didn’t know about the Divorce, and her difficulties with Dad, especially how quickly he introduced us to Jennifer. It surprises me but makes me feel better at once.

  “We still had you two,” she explains. “And I still wanted to raise you to be strong, beautiful women with healthy relationships with your parents, no matter what our problems with each other were. I knew bad-mouthing him wasn’t going to help anything.”

  “So what did you do?”

  “I did what you see me doing. I focus on the fact that he is your father, and that I want you to have a good relationship with him. I concentrate on the parts of his personality I appreciate, and stop fighting the ones I don’t.”

  I’m still sniffling a little. “You make it sound so easy.”

  Mom laughs. “Oh no, it’s not easy. It takes a lot of patience, and intention, and sometimes I fail. But if I consider you, and your sister, and the best version of myself, that helps. We tell ourselves stories in our head all the time about how we think things should be, how we want them to turn out, or what might be going on in someone else’s head, but that isn’t always best, or even the truth. For that we have to listen close.”

  “I think I need to do that with Evie,” I say.

  Mom’s eyebrows go up. “Evie?”

  “She didn’t mean to get between me and Aja, and I know I should forgive her. We’re talking again, but I still don’t k
now how to say I’m sorry.”

  Mom strokes my hair some more. “Maybe there’s a way of saying sorry without doing it the way you think you have to.”

  I briefly picture Cassie. “What if I stay mad forever? What if I can’t apologize?”

  Mom squeezes me in her strong arms. “Then you’ll have to find a way to live with that too, I guess.”

  I don’t want to live with any of these bad feelings, but before bed, I try to write about them a little—first thoughts, without criticism.

  Your laugh will mock me through all the hallways of my future, your betrayal one that repeats in my mind like a frightening animated loop. What strength is there in forgetting, only so you can backstab me over and over again? Showing up when I least expect it, to rip the scabs off all my healing wounds? What would I rather live with? Letting this fear of continued hurt go, or letting you? What can I accept? What could I, ever again?

  It’s mainly about Cassie, but when I read it over, I see it could be about pretty much anyone else. At least it helps to have that thought in my mind when Dad brings Leelu back to Mom’s the next morning. To my surprise, the second she gets out of the car, Leelu comes running to wrap me in a giant hug. She’s leaping and squeezing and trying to tell me six things at once, and though I don’t like that Jennifer is so much a part of all these stories, the truth is I missed my sister, and I’m relieved to see she apparently missed me, too. When Dad grabs me up in a big hug, and says he’s never going on vacation without me again, I know Mom’s right that it’s a lot easier to just be happy to have them back, even if it doesn’t make me stop being mad at him for the rest.