by Alex Flinn
I realize this sounds crazy. “Not afraid, exactly. But sometimes, with this group, I feel like I can’t keep up. Everyone’s so outgoing.”
“So you’re shy?” He nods like he’s processing this new idea. “That’s why you always sit with your friend and only talk to her?”
Do I do that? “I guess. Why? Did you think I was a snob?”
“Yeah, sort of. But maybe I just assumed that because you’re so . . .” He stops.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“So what? What am I?” Though I know.
He shakes his head. “Nothing. I was going to say I’d see you in the hall at school, even before the play, walking by yourself, and I figured you were a snob because you’re so beautiful. Okay? Usually, girls who are complete tens don’t have a reason to be shy, so you assume they’re snobby if they don’t talk. But that was idiotic to think, so I wasn’t going to say it.”
Et tu, Goose? I wonder if other people think that, people who aren’t as honest as he is.
I say, “When you pointed to me that day and said I should be Oliver, I could have killed you. I only tried out for the play at all because Laurel wanted me to. She’s my best friend. I wanted to be in the chorus and dance in back, not be a star. I hate when people look at me. I hate when people think they know what I’m like.”
“Like I just did. Got it.”
“You’re not the only one.”
A car comes up behind us and honks. Goose starts driving again.
“Sorry,” he says. “I shouldn’t have judged you by your looks. You might not realize this, but people judge me by my looks all the time.”
I smile. “No. It was a good thing. An opportunity. Once I got the part, I enjoyed it.”
“You’re awesome in the play. I tear up when you sing, ‘Where Is Love?’ It’s . . . lovely . . . so sweet and innocent . . .” He laughs.
I laugh too, realizing the conversation had gotten too serious for him. I roll my eyes. “Anyway, I guess I have you to thank for me getting the part, since you didn’t want to play it.”
“Are you kidding? People would have come up to me, going, ‘Please, suh, can I have some maw?’ for the next year.”
“And they won’t do that to me?”
“It’s cute when you’re a girl, right?” He looks at my eye roll. “Guess not.”
“I’m sorry you didn’t get to be Bill Sikes like you wanted.”
He laughs. “I didn’t want to be Bill Sikes. I’m not stupid. I know I can’t be Bill Sikes with a Nancy who could kick my ass. I wanted to be the Dodger. I figured by pretending I wanted to be Bill, I could guilt her into giving me Dodger, instead of making me be Oliver.”
“Genius.”
“That’s me.”
We’re in my driveway now. I wish I could freeze time, freeze this afternoon and hang with him and Willow, instead of having to go home to Violet. Fun and laughter seem to follow Goose around, and I wish I could too. I like him and suddenly, it’s really important that he like me. “So you don’t think I’m a snob anymore, do you?”
“Nah, you went along with my stupidity, so you must be okay.”
“I enjoyed it,” I say. “Thanks.”
“Any time you need a ride, let me know.”
“Oh, you don’t have—”
“Any time, Celine.”
“Sure.” I get out of the car and walk toward the house. Halfway there, I notice Violet gazing out the window at me. When she sees me seeing her, she closes the curtain.
I glance after Goose. He waited while I walked to the door, but now he’s pulled to the bottom of our circular driveway. He looks back at me and grins. I wave.
I walk inside, yelling, “Hello!” Even though Violet was there two seconds ago, there’s no answer. Sapphire is on the staircase. I bend to pet her. A claw flashes, and my arm is bleeding. I pull back. “Sapphire, you hurt me!”
As if realizing her mistake, she nuzzles my arm, then licks the spot she scratched.
“Oh, are you sorry? You should be. I don’t know what got into you.”
I remember Violet’s face at the window, that odd, envious expression she’s had on her face all the time lately. Could she have turned Sapphire against me?
Don’t be crazy.
Almost as soon as I get to my room, Violet calls me for dinner. I think about saying I don’t feel well to avoid it. But I’m actually hungry.
“Just a minute,” I say.
I take out my phone and go through the pictures we took at Target; Goose, Willow, and me with the confused old lady. Then, all of us, trying on accessories. I’m looking for the one I took of the strange woman, Kendra her name was. I want to send it to Laurel. But weirdly, it’s not there. I remember telling Kendra I could delete it, but I didn’t think I had. Had someone else taken the picture, not me? No. It was selfies with strangers. I go through every picture on my camera roll, but it’s like it was magically removed.
Finally, I go down to dinner.
Dad and Violet have already started. Violet stares me up and down, like she’s trying to figure out who I am.
“Mmm, this looks good,” I say, just to say something.
“What happened to your arm?” Dad asks.
“Sapphire scratched me. Can you believe it?”
“That’s not like her,” Dad says.
“I know,” I say. “She doesn’t even seem like she remembers she has claws.”
“Sometimes, animals just turn on people,” Violet says. “Like someone will have a pit bull for years, and then one day, it attacks someone. Or what happened to your mother.”
Dad and I both stare at her. Outside, someone’s mowing their lawn. Otherwise, it’s silent.
I say, “I must have scared Sapphire. She acted sorry afterward. She licked my arm.”
“Well, be careful,” Dad says.
I glance at Violet. “I will.”
Dad goes to the gym after dinner. Violet never goes. She’s one of those lucky people who has a perfect body, seemingly without exercising. I go up to my room to do homework.
But later, when I go down to get a glass of water, I pass their room. Violet is sitting on the bed, staring into the mirror. It looks like she’s talking to it again, a whole conversation.
What a weirdo.
I hear the words, so beautiful. But no, Violet’s lips aren’t moving.
Okay, so I’m crazy. But no crazier than Violet.
When Violet sees me, she turns the mirror facedown on the bed.
I walk away.
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8
So now, I stay away from cats, straight irons, beauty products, hair dryers, anything sharp, hot, caustic, or with the potential to become sharp, hot, or caustic.
And Violet. I stay away from her as much as possible. I go to Laurel’s house most nights for dinner and all weekend, every weekend. Dad doesn’t even seem to notice. When Laurel’s mom picks us up for the fifth time in one week, she comments, “We’re seeing a lot of you lately, Celine.”
“I’m sorry. I sort of hate being home lately.”
“You’re always welcome, Celine. You do more chores than my own children.” She glares at Laurel, who glares at me. It’s true. I’ve been nauseatingly helpful at their house, doing all the dishes and volunteering for other chores so they won’t get sick of seeing me so much.
“What’s wrong at home?” Mrs. Mendez asks. “Does her name begin with a V?”
“Oh, it’s not . . . Violet just doesn’t like me that much. Guess I remind her of my mother.”
“Yeah, they hated each other. Everyone else loved your mom, everyone but Violet.”
“And now
, she hates me. Only three more years until I leave for college.”
“You can come over whenever you want, Celine. You can even just stay here if your dad says it’s okay.”
“Really?”
“Absolutely. I’d do anything for Jennifer Sadler’s daughter.”
“And my best friend,” Laurel reminds her.
“Well, Jennifer was my best friend,” Mrs. Mendez says. Then she stares out the window, like she’s trying not to cry, or maybe like she’s crying.
After a while I say, “So, what was Violet like when you were kids?”
Mrs. Mendez wrinkles her nose. “I hate to say it, but Violet was a total freak. We were a little mean to her, but honestly, it was hard to resist. Violet went out of her way to do weird stuff. Like, once, in fourth grade, she picked up a dead bird on the playground.”
“A dead bird?”
“Well, it turned out not to be dead. But it looked dead, and it probably had some kind of bird disease. We were all grossed out, but Violet just walked over and picked it up with her bare hands. Like it was nothing. It was such a typical Violet thing to do.”
“Violet loves birds,” I say.
“Violet loved being a weirdo. For a while, we referred to anything incredibly weird as ‘Violetish.’ Oh, we were terrible. She was just . . . awkward. Poor thing.” She sounds a little like the mean girls at school when they know they’re being mean, but they just enjoy it.
“But you said the bird wasn’t dead. Maybe she was trying to help it.” I remember, now, Violet told me this story, a long time ago. She said they’d rescued the crow.
Mrs. Mendez shrugs. “I didn’t see it, but Greg said it flew away.”
“After she held it?”
“After she held it.”
I think of something else. “My father said she was really ugly when she was a kid.”
“Oh, yes, sooooo ugly. Poor thing. Crooked nose and no eyelashes. She looked like a parrot with no feathers.” She smiles a little.
“And then, she got prettier?”
“It was like a miracle, really.”
“And she didn’t have surgery or anything?” I figured my dad, being a man, wouldn’t be smart about stuff like that. A woman would know the truth. And maybe she was wearing five-inch heels in the dance photo.
“Not that anyone knew about. It wasn’t like someone who got a nose job over summer vacation. I did that. With Violet, it just . . . happened. Everything in maybe a month or two. And she just kept getting more beautiful. More power to her, though. We were awfully mean to her.”
I noticed she had gone from “a little mean” to “awfully mean.”
“Including my mom?” I asked.
She stares out again before speaking, then says, “Not to speak ill of the dead, but especially your mom. She was brutal, even more so after she started dating Greg. Violet always liked him, and Jen couldn’t resist rubbing it in her face. I think part of her attraction to Greg in the first place was that it made Violet so mad.”
Which makes me feel a little sorry for Violet. I hate that my mom was so mean to her, and kind of my dad too. My parents were obviously like the Bryce Richardson and Whitney Jacobs of their class. I hate that.
At least, until I get home and the mockingbirds in our oak tree dive-bomb me.
And I see Violet watching me out the window, smiling.
And I remember that she’s decided to be mean to me, to make up for it.
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9
There’s a song in Oliver! called “Who Will Buy?” In it, Oliver, who has survived the workhouse, being sold to a funeral home operator, and living in a den of pickpockets, has been taken in by the kindly Mr. Brownlow. He looks out the window at the beautiful morning—a beauty he knows can’t last, not for him. He wishes someone would buy the wonderful morning and the feeling in his heart so he can remember it forever. He knows he can’t.
It’s my favorite song in the show, and it’s how I feel about being in the play too. After that day with Goose and Willow, Goose gets everyone to include me when they do stuff after rehearsal or on weekends. I bring Laurel along, so suddenly, we’re part of this cool, weird group of friends instead of sitting home every night with Violet and her disgruntled cat. Everyone’s also raving about my voice. Mrs. Connors says I should take drama and try for thespian conference next year. Laurel and I are both going to. This is the happiest I’ve been since I was a kid in Brownies, and my mom was alive.
And, like Oliver, I know the skies won’t stay blue forever.
The play is this weekend. There are two more days before dress rehearsal, so we’re staying late every night. I’m barely home, which is good because the cats are plotting to murder me. Grimalkin waited by my bed last night and attacked my leg when I walked to the bathroom. When I fell (hard!), Sapphire went for my face. It felt like an ambush. Appliances are still turning against me too. I’ve started taking baths because the shower never stays the temperature I choose. Dad says he’ll call the plumber, but he keeps forgetting until he hears my screams.
But the show’s songs are in my head all the time. Today, in the bathtub, I start singing
Who will buy this wonderful feeling?
I’m so high, I swear I could fly.
When I walk downstairs to go to the bus, Dad and Violet are there, sharing coffee. Like, they’re literally sharing it—she’s sipping out of a cup that he’s holding. Kill me. I brush past Dad to get to the refrigerator for my lunch.
“Hey, you sounded incredible up there,” Dad says.
“What?” Violet stops drinking coffee. “Who sounded incredible?”
Dad brushes Violet’s butt with his hand, a gesture that always makes me wince. He says, “I heard Celine practicing in the bathroom. She has a beautiful voice, just like her mother . . . oh, and you too Violet. But, of course, she inherited it from Jennifer. I sure can’t sing.”
Violet looks like someone who found a pube in her ice cream. Then, she smiles. “How wonderful. The play must be soon.”
“Yes, when is it?” Dad asks.
“Um, it’s Friday and Saturday. But you don’t both have to go if you don’t want.” I want Dad to go, not Violet.
“Of course we’re going. What else would we do? Friday night? I’ll put it on my calendar.” Dad takes out his phone. “Is there preferred seating for parents of the star?”
“I’ll check.”
Violet’s sitting there with a weird, strangled expression on her face. I know she’ll ruin it somehow. “We’re both looking forward to it,” she says. But her eyes don’t match her words.
When I wake Friday morning, I have no voice. None at all. I take a decongestant, but I don’t have a cold, so it doesn’t help.
No! I want to scream it, but nothing comes out, not even a shriveled whisper. I am literally speechless.
This is impossible. I’ve never lost my voice in my life. Now, on the first day of a play I have the lead in, it’s gone.
I know Violet’s behind it.
There have been so many clues, so many reasons for believing it’s true, and only one reason for not believing it:
There’s no such thing as witches.
But how can we know that’s true, really true?
Throughout time, we’ve believed in magic, not cute, Disney magic that makes stuff fly around the room, but black magic, magic that caused plagues and brought down churches. That’s why they burned witches at the stake. That was what they feared when they hanged women as witches in Salem. But the women in Salem weren’t really witches. Not the women who died anyway. Real witches would have been better at avoiding detection. Real witches wouldn’t have been captured. Real witches wouldn’t have died. Real wi
tches would have taken revenge on their enemies.
Like Violet had.
Violet was an ugly child. Dad says so. Mrs. Mendez too. The middle school yearbook confirms it. But now, Violet is beautiful without surgery or anything.
And my mother was Violet’s enemy.
Twice, in Violet’s presence, my mother was attacked by animals. The second time, an animal killed her.
Violet made them attack my mother. Violet killed her.
I am my mother’s daughter.
So Violet hates me.
Now, objects and animals are attacking me.
Yet I know no one will believe me. I know my father won’t. Why?
Because there’s no such thing as witches.
I don’t know what I can tell Mrs. Connors or all my friends in the cast. I’m letting them all down.
I knock on Dad’s door. I want to go to a doctor.
“Come in.”
When I walk in, he and Violet are still in bed, watching the morning news, wrapped up in each other as usual.
Nauseating.
Daddy sees me. “Hey, it’s your big day.”
Violet smiles, happier than I’ve seen her in a long time. She waves but says nothing.
Dad says, “Would you believe it? Violet lost her voice. Can’t say a word.”
I point to my throat, gesture and nod, like, Me too.
The doctor can’t do anything. He sees nothing wrong with me. “No cold. Throat isn’t red. Nothing wrong with her tonsils,” Dr. Alvarez tells Dad. “Seems like selective mutism.”
I shake my head so hard my hair hurts my eyes then write a note. I did not select to be this way.
“I didn’t mean you’re faking. Perhaps a better term is hysterical mutism. Is anything upsetting you?”
Other than having no voice and a stepmother trying to kill me? No.
“She has a play tonight,” Dad says, “a play she’s been practicing for weeks. She has the lead.”
“Maybe she’s nervous,” Dr. Alvarez says. “Are you nervous, Celine?”
I shake my head. On my pad, I write, I want to be in this play. My eyes are full of tears.
