Snow
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Snow - Chapter 1
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AUTHOR'S NOTE: I blame my daughter for this one. She loves princesses, and while I've told her some stories that I made up on the spot, she prefers the classics. Well, if any of you know me, which I should say that many do, then you know that I can't just tell a classic. I have to make it my own. Now, I have no plans for anything TG in this story, since that's not the story that is coming to me this time.
I hope you'll not hold it against me.
Tell me, should I continue this, or not?
Karen stared out the window, wondering how you come back from the death of a parent. It’s supposed to happen, sure, but it’s not supposed to happen when you’re in high school, and definitely not supposed to happen twice.
Not that it happened the previous time while she’d been in high school. Her mother had been a beautiful woman, even when she had lain there in the hospital bed, unable to get up.
They’d thought everything was fine when Karen was born, and for Karen it was, but the strain had been too much for her mother’s heart. A defect that they hadn’t known about earlier had failed, and for six years her mother had been in and out of hospitals before her heart had finally stopped altogether.
Even though Karen had known that her mother was dying, nothing truly prepares a six year old for that moment. She remembered crying when they lowered her mother into the ground and thinking that she skies should be cloudy and rainy and not the beautiful clear cloudless blue that they displayed that day.
“I hate the sun,” she said as she walked away with her father.
“Why, Karen?” her father asked distracted by his own grief.
“Because it’s smiling. It should be sad just like us.”
Her father had taken her into his arms and just held her as she cried.
“Who’s going to hold me now?” she whispered quietly to the glass.
Behind her the well wishers talked quietly to her stepmother, but Karen didn’t pay attention. The Woman, which is how she called her stepmother in the quiet of her own mind, was smiling and greeting all her friends.
This wasn’t supposed to be a party, but for the Woman it was. At thirteen Karen never really thought about how her father made a living. He went to work and provided for her. She loved when her dad had been here. He’d always had time for Karen, even after he married the Woman two years ago. He didn’t have any time left for her because the drunk driver had stolen all of his remaining moments.
The Woman ran a website. Karen’s friends thought that she was so lucky to have the creator of Mirror Mirror in her home with her. Karen got to see the ugly side of the person some people called ‘The Most Beautiful Woman in the World.’
Like how she was treating this solemn occasion as if it were her own personal coming out celebration. She wasn’t even wearing black.
“Karen, you know how washed out the color black makes me look. I have to keep up appearances.”
As far as Karen was concerned, the Woman had no shame.
Karen scowled at her stepmother for a moment or two more, but then gave up and looked back out the window. At least today it was raining.
Karen looked up at the sky through her tears as the rain continued to come down, “It’s not enough,” she said to the sky, “the rain, I mean. From now on, the only weather I like is snow. It’s cold and pure and maybe, just maybe, it will stop me from caring that everyone that I loved is now dead.”
The last guest finally left and Jean walked up to her room and booted up her computer. “Why are people so stupid,” she said to the emptiness of her room. The clock on her bedside table said it was just after eight in the evening. This ‘event’ was supposed to have ended three hours ago. They were supposed to have met this morning for the viewing and eulogy, dropped the body off at the cemetery at noon and then proceeded to the home for well-wishes and condolences until five.
“Well, that didn’t really work out, now did it, Jean,” she said with a rueful smile. Her computer was up to the desktop so she started the chat program and logged in. Mephistopheles was already in so she joined him in a private chat room.
QueenMab: Mirror-Mirror, on my site, who is the prettiest tonight?
Mephistopheles: Well, my lady, so it seems, that you’re the queen of ‘memes’.
QueenMab: I’d prefer to be the queen of dreams, Meff.
Mephistopheles: Not something I can do for you, directly, but the site is truly putting you out there.
QueenMab: Good. The money from the insurance will go a long way toward giving us a persistent advertising presence.
Mephistopheles: You are pretty cold hearted, you know that? Didn’t you just put him in the ground today, and already you’re talking about how to spend his money?
QueenMab: It is the reason he died, after all.
Mephistopheles: LOL. Like I said. Cold. :)
QueenMab: I know you love me.
Mephistopheles: I love the effect you have on my bank account. Nothing more.
QueenMab: Night, Meff. I need my beauty sleep.
Mephistopheles: Don’t we all.
Jean signed out, and shut down her computer. The design of the website was all hers, of course, but Mephistopheles ran the back end. It was always good to have an IT drone to do the dirty work for you.
She changed for bed and shut off the light. For a moment or two she just lay there, smiling at the ceiling. Everything was going according to plan. The police were sure that her husband had been killed by a drunk driver. When he’s a banker, which in some people’s mind is tantamount to a thief today, they don’t look too closely at the circumstances. Especially when said drunk died on the way to the hospital.
He’d been paid in alcohol, so there was no real trail back to her. She was amazed, looking back on it, that he’d lived long enough to run into her husband. Giving him just enough to kill him, but not enough to knock him out...that had been pure magic. The injuries he’d sustained helped. It’s always sad when a seat-belt fails to lock into place.
She smiled even more broadly up at the ceiling.
Truly sad.
Karen sat on her bed, staring at her mirror. Her clothing, like any normal teen girl, was colorful. There were pinks and blues, reds and yellows, really any combination of colors you could really think of, but there were colors. Colors weren’t doing her any justice. Colors said life was normal, and life wasn’t normal anymore.
She grabbed a black t-shirt and a black pair of jeans. She grabbed her dress shoes, the only black pair of shoes she owned, and put those on.
Her hair was naturally black, so she didn’t have to worry about that. She didn’t wear any makeup.
Unfortunately, her backpack wasn’t black. It was a pale cream color. She searched the bottom of her closet for a while before she found what she was looking for. One of her cousins had given her a black denim bag for her birthday. At the time, she’d liked the style, but the color hadn’t really been something she wanted.
Now, however, the color was perfect. Karen transferred her books from her backpack into the bag and walked out the door to go to school. James, her driver, was waiting for her at the front of the house, the door to the rear seat of the car held open for her.
It had been their little joke for the longest time, even though he was more bodyguard than driver, truth be told. Karen didn’t even smile at it this morning.
“Anything you want to talk about, Kid?”
Karen just shook her head and James slid into the front seat. “I like the new look,” he said, looking at her face in the rear view mirror.
“I thought it was time for a change.”
“I cared for your father a lot as well, Karen. He was one of the best men I’ve ever known.”
“Sounds like you had a crush on him,” Karen said with an almost smile.
“He was like family, and so are you, Kid. It will get better.”
“What, are you going to tell me you were an orphan as well now? That you know what it’s like?”
“No, I wasn’t an orphan, but my twin brother was hit and killed while we were walking to school one day.”
“James, I’m so sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”
“Don’t worry about it. You’re hurting. I get that. It will get better.”
“I’ll forget the pain? I’ll forget what he meant to me?”
“You never forget the pain, Karen. It’s a part of you. It will just, step by step, hurt less. Eventually it will have been a part of you so long that it will just be a part of the background. You’ll be sad, but it won’t take away your happiness anymore.”
“I don’t want to be happy.”
“You say that now…”
“I’m not going to be happy ever again,” Karen said with vehemence.
“Well, my little goth princess. I’ll not interfere gain,” he said with a smile.
“What’s goth, James?”
“Look it up tonight when you get home.”
Karen hated how the other students looked at her. The whispering was bad, but the looks of pity were worse. This was a private school, and only the privileged were capable of going to school here. They didn’t know loss the way that she did. They didn’t understand. It didn’t fit into their view of the world. That was fine, because they didn’t fit into Karen’s worldview right now either.
Karen was going through the motions at school, going from class to class, not really paying any attention.
Lunch passed without even registering itself. She ate food, but there was no pleasure in it. After lunch, in another class that meant nothing to her, an announcement came over the PA into her room.
“Mr. Fielding?”
“Speaking,”
“Could you send Karen King down to the main office please? Her driver is here to pick her up so she’ll want to clean out her locker on her way down.”
The school served grades k-12, so she’d been here for eight years already, and expected to be here for another five. That being said, she’d heard that message before and knew what it meant. She was no longer a student here. Last week, she would have been embarrassed. Last week, she would have had friends to say goodbye to.
This week she was ‘that orphan girl’ who people avoided. It’s not like they had to worry about catching something from her, but children can be cruel, and cruelty never really needs a reason.
She pulled out the few things she kept in her locker and put them in her bag and then went to the front office. She didn’t even notice the look of concern on the secretaries face as she arrived.
“Where will she go?”
James spoke up, “She’ll be going to Wood’s Point Junior High for the next couple of years.”
“The public school,” the Secretary said as if she were swearing.
James just looked at Karen, hoping for some response from the girl. He felt sorry for her, he really did, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it. She needed a parent, not a body-guard. Mrs. King wasn’t any kind of a parent.
“Surely you must be joking. Her father paid for all of her schooling up front, so there isn’t an issue of…”
“Apparently Mrs. King wants a refund of those unused moneys. She is having her lawyer draft a request.”
The Secretary’s face turned sour, and James simply nodded.
“She wouldn’t...couldn’t...be so selfish, could she?”
James sadly nodded.
“You take care of her, then. She shouldn’t be kicked out into the world in this state.”
“Don’t worry. Even if Mrs. King fires me, I’ll still protect her for as long as I’m able.”
James escorted Karen out to the car. She never once looked up as they drove away.
“We need a better name than AV Club,” David whined.
“How about the fairies,” the twins chimed at the same time. Candy and Mindy played up how much they looked alike. Someone who knew them well, as the other five in the room did, could tell the two of them apart. Mindy’s hair was a shade or two lighter. Candy had a small freckle on the left side of her nose. They were consummate actors, however, and made sure that even if you knew there were differences, and what they were, that you questioned which one was which.
“I’m not going to be a fairy,” Brad stated with a scowl on his face.
“Not sure anyone would believe you were gay anyway,” Able said with a grin as he adjusted his coke bottle glasses.
“Well, there are seven of us,” Harry said. The other’s threw wadded up paper at him and he just grinned as he ducked. All, that is, except for Thomas who sat there quietly, thinking.
“Why not?” Thomas said. His voice was never that loud, or never really seemed to be, but somehow it commanded your attention. Thomas was always heard when he spoke, even if he seemed to be speaking in a conversational tone up in the booth and you were on stage doing a check.
“Why not what,” David whined. Somehow, no matter what he was saying, David whined. It’s not that he was an unpleasant person, just that he was unpleasant to talk to.
“Why not the Seven Dwarves.” Thomas said seriously. Of the seven people in the room, only David really looked like the traditional ‘AV Geek.” Candy and Mindy were sporting 80’s chic. It was currently very popular at school and the two girls didn’t look out of place. Thomas wore polo shirts, so on some level he would be considered a geek if it weren’t for his good looks and perfect hair and skin. Brad and Able, even with the heavy glasses, wore standard Skater attire, as that was where they spent their time outside of school and one of the two dragged the other to the first meeting at the beginning of the year. David wore white button shirts, but they were in a heavier canvas material, and he lacked the glasses and bad hair the stereotypical nerd was supposed to wear. Harry was an odd duck, even in this group. He changed his style on a weekly basis. This week he was wearing tank tops and camo pants. Last week had been a duster jeans and a fedora. They had one thing in common, however, their love of the technical aspects of stage and film.
What none of them were, however, was short. A couple of them were average height, but the rest were at least above average, if not outright towering like Harry.
“How can we be dwarves,” David...well...whined.
“It isn’t about how tall we are,” Thomas said, “Dwarves, traditionally, were the crafters in norse mythology. They made the gods look good. They hid in their darkness, under the mountain, and provided the tools, weapons, and wonders that the gods needed.”
“You mean, like we make Angelica look good.” Mindy said Angelica’s name with a little sing-song whine that had the others laughing.
Thomas smiled in a way that made Mindy blush, “that’s exactly what I mean,” he said.
Before he could say something else, Zack stuck his head into the room. “Guys, someone just pulled up in a limo. You’ve all got to see this.”
The seven of them piled out and headed to the front of the school. After hours on a Friday most kids had gone home, especially when colleges weren’t looking at your extracurricular activities in Junior High...yet.
The driver got out of the car and walked to the back. It was like what happened in one of those movies, where the famous person shows up at some normal place. A girl of around their age got out. She didn’t seem to be a goth, she wasn’t wearing any of the makeup. Maybe she was a proto-goth, though, as she had straight black hair and every stitch of clothing she wore was black.
“She’s hot,” Harry said to general laughter. “Well, she is,” he defended.
“Let’s leave the girl alone,” Thomas said and the twenty or thirty people at the doors began to disperse. People like her usually didn’t go to school at places like this. Not that it was an inner-city school by any stretch of the imagination, but she had a driver, and Thomas was willing to bet that her clothing, simple as it appeared, all sported designer labels.
“You sure about calling us the Seven Dwarves,” Able said quietly to Brad.
“It seems cool to me,” Brad replied, “why do you ask?”
“Because I think that we just met Snow White,” Thomas said thoughtfully. The rest of them looked at him with varying states of shock showing on their faces. When comprehension dawned he gestured for them to follow him inside.
Snow - Chapter 2
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Karen walked through the deserted halls of the school in James’ wake. There were still a couple of kids hanging out in the halls, most of whom just stared at her as she walked past.
“You’re going to be okay,” James said over his shoulder.
“Hmm?”
“At this school. And if it doesn’t really work out here, you’ll be going to a new school next year.”
“Do normal people really change schools this often?” she said, a little bit of her former life filling her words.
“More often, actually. They go to the same elementary school, usually, go to a middle school for 6th and 7th grades, a junior high school for 8th and 9th and then high school for 10th 11th and 12th.”
Karen actually smiled at this. “Forgive me if I’m wrong, but I’m in 8th grade now.”
“Some school districts work it a little differently. They have junior high school start at 6th grade and go through 8th grade, and then have 9th through 12th in the same school.”
“Why the differences? Doesn’t it make sense to have everyone follow the same division?”
“Oh, you mean like just putting everyone from kindergarten through twelfth grade in the same building?”
“Sure…”
“When you’re asking about a private school, yes, it makes sense, of course your private school controlled how many students there were. There aren’t many schools that want to do that, though. Too much opportunity for abuse. When you mix things up, or so the conventional wisdom holds, you limit the possibility for dangerous cliques forming and continuing for long periods of time.”
“It all just sounds silly to me,” Karen said.
“Me too, but then again, I’m just the bodyguard.”
The walk to the office wasn’t that long, and they were there quickly. The secretary, who had her purse and coat at the ready, handed the map of the school and her schedule to Karen and then walked out.
“That was it?” Karen said. She looked at the map and schedule in her hands in confusion.
“What did you expect? An interview with the principal? Some one on one counseling?”
“I don’t know...maybe?”
James laughed. His was a pleasant laugh that involved his entire body. Karen began to smile. “There’s my girl.”
“James, does any of this ever get any easier?”
“Dealing with death? No, it doesn’t.”
Karen sat down in the dark office and just looked into space.
“You know who I was before your dad hired me?”
“A soldier of some sort.”
“I was an army Ranger, and proud of it.”
“Did you kill people?”
“Karen…”
“Sorry, it’s just…”
“You want something to take you away from this pain you’re feeling. I am a ready target for hate…”
“No, I wouldn’t hate you,” Karen said with a frown.
“Hero worship, then. You need to connect with people your own age.”
“They don’t understand,” Karen said, with a bit of a whine in her voice.
“Then make them. Show them how difficult life is, and help them to really see what you’re going through.”
“It hurts too much to talk about it.”
“Well, you can’t begin to heal until you get the thorn out. All leaving it in does is to make the flesh around it all red and puss filled...really nasty.”
Karen giggled a bit. She really wasn’t the sort of girl to stay down for a long time, which caused James to worry about this depression she was forcing herself into even more.
“Your father wouldn’t have wanted you to feel sorry about yourself.”
“We’ll he’s dead and doesn’t get to have a say in my life anymore,” she said with a little bit of anger. James just shook his head and smiled.
“Hi, I’m Thomas. Would you like me to give you a tour of the school?”
James almost dropped into a defensive stance before he realized it was just another kid. He shook his head at his own reaction. It’s not like he was back in a battle zone with Mr. King.
All of the animation bled out of Karen’s face. “Hello, Thomas, that won’t be…”
“Necessary? Of course it’s necessary. You’re new here…”
Karen looked at him, wondering why he paused.
“I think he wants your name,” James prompted.
“Karen King,” Karen responded in a dead voice.
“I’ve got it from here, Mr. King,” Thomas said as he smiled up at James. Thomas wasn’t a short kid, for a fourteen year old, but James towered over him.
“I’m the bodyguard. Will you be ok, Karen?”
“Sure, just go wait for me at the car, James.”
“Ok, Miss,” James said with a smirk. Karen giggled again before turning her attention to Thomas. Again all emotion fled from her face and she just nodded imperiously toward the hall.
Thomas just shook his head. He could tell from the few unguarded moments he’d seen that she was...alive. The thing was every time she turned away from her bodyguard her emotions seemed to shut down completely.
As they wandered the halls, the rest of the AV club joined them in ones and twos. Without Karen ever realizing it, she was in the center of a group of smiling and laughing teens as they walked her through the halls, telling her trivia about the individual rooms.
“Who are all these people?” Karen said quietly to Thomas.
“We’re the Seven Dwarves, of course,” Harry said with an incorrigible smile plastered to his face.
“You’re not short,” Karen replied, confusion suffusing her features.
“No, we’re not short,” Brad said, “but we make up for it with behavior. We’re subterranean.”
“You live underground?” Karen said getting more confused.
“In a manner of speaking,” Candy said. “I’m Candace, by the way. Everyone calls me Candy, though, I don’t know why,” she said just before tossing a hard candy into her mouth and beginning to suck on it.
For a moment Karen thought to laugh at what she assumed was a joke, but David shook his head slightly with a scared look on his face. Apparently Candy really was that clueless about some things.
“Who are you all?”
“We’re the AV club. Well, after a manner of speaking. Each of us have skills that we bring to the table,” Thomas said, smiling at the others and Karen equally.
“We’re seamstresses and designers,” Mindy said. “I’m Mindy.”
“They’re more than that,” Thomas continued, “they’re the art portion of our group. We don’t often have any sets to make, but they do those as well.”
“Abel and I are brute labor and lighting,” Brad said.
“Harry and David manage wiring and networking.”
“And anything electrical, like the microphones and such,” David whined.
“So, that’s them, what about you, Thomas?” Karen said.
“Me, I’m the ringleader. I make sure everything comes together.”
Karen smiled.
“So, that’s the school,” Thomas said,” see you in school tomorrow?”
“Why not?” Karen said getting more serious once again. Like most rhetorical questions it went unanswered, as expected. She waved goodbye and then walked out to the front of the school to meet James.
Karen was not the sort of girl to really get into shopping. Girls, in general, are social. Getting together with friends and relatives in order to spend hours trying on clothes is one way that they can bond socially. It is only one way.
The problem is, with no friends or relatives willing to go out and spend time with her doing anything everything becomes a chore.
New clothes, however, were definitely something that Karen liked. There was something about the ability to reinvent your image with every new outfit that Karen could easily get into. Her closet was filled with clothing of different styles. She had workout clothing in three styles. She had light skirts and denim skirts. There were the dresses of varying cuts and fabrics. Each outfit said something to the people around her about who she was and what she was feeling.
There were the happy outfits in pastel colors with flouncy skirts and flirty tops. There were the comfort outfits that encased her in a hug.
The clothing that she hung up now wasn’t anything like the other clothing that was there. It wasn’t different in cut from really anything that she had in her closet, at least not in any extreme way, but the colors were different. It was burgundy and black and bruised plum. While a pink or two might have crept its way in there occasionally, for the most part is was a shadow across the sun that was her wardrobe.
When she was done adding the new clothing she went about clearing up her makeup table. She packed it away in the drawers. What wouldn’t fit in the drawers she slid into boxes and banished to the darkest corners of her closet. When she was done she placed a single lipstick onto the table in a deep blood red.
“How could you do this to me? Moving her to public school was supposed to save me money, not cost more!” Jean screamed at James. Her plan was so perfect. There’d been media attention on the girl following her father’s death, but if the media had no real clue where she was, if her circumstances went down, then there was no reason to believe that she would be a threat.
For now, with the girl being thirteen, there was no real worry that she would be competition. Luckily most people were still a little disgusted with the idea of a young teen being desirable. Her outfits had been detestably normal. Sure, they might have been a little perkier than other girls her age were willing to submit their peers to, but at least they screamed kid.
These choices were something else entirely.
“You already separated her from her friends. Isn’t that enough?” James replied. This type of behavior was baffling to him, which could explain the reason he’d never kept a girlfriend more than a few months. He had a tendency to dismiss any behavior he couldn’t understand as irrelevant. No one wants to be considered irrelevant.
“That isn’t the point,” Jean sneered.
“Then what is, Jean?”
“You’re being rude. Have you forgotten that you work for me now?”
“Actually, Jean, no I don’t. You and I both know that I am provided for out of a trust. Mr. King wanted me here to guarantee the safety of his daughter no matter what happened to him.”
“I could lock up the funds legally as I pursued having the will overturned.”
“You could try, but what would it really accomplish? You and I both know that when you have a federal judge and a former governor witness a document like this you have a certain amount of assumed clout that even your high priced lawyer friends would be unwilling to challenge.”
She glared at James. Legally, he had a point. The people you had witness signatures shouldn’t matter. As long as you had witnesses then it should be fine. In practice, however, when you have someone currently sitting on the bench of justice, someone whose legal opinion was well respected, then it tended to alter how people viewed that document.
Sometimes it was a good that she had friends that had no qualms about pursuing illegal methods.
“We’ll James, I guess you have a point,” she said with a large smile. It was one of her practiced ones. She even allowed the happiness she felt about the death of her late husband to color it.
“I’m glad you see it my way.” James said and walked out. Jean screamed at his retreating back. It wasn’t enough that he was flouting her authority, but he was so smug about it.
She booted up her computer and logged into the chat program. The person she was looking for was already online, so she created a private chat room and he soon joined her.
Mephistopheles: Well, things are going quite well, your majesty.
QueenMab: Can it. I have a problem.
Mephistopheles: What sort of problem?
QueenMab: More a complication, actually. Apparently the idiot bodyguard my late husband hired is more of an enabler than I assumed.
Mephistopheles: Do tell.
QueenMab: He took the brat out shopping today. They spent close to a thousand dollars on clothing. $1000! What thirteen year old spends a thousand on clothing?
Mephistopheles: Yours, apparently.
QueenMab: That thing isn’t related to me in any way, thank goodness. I may have to take care of her sooner than I thought.
Mephistopheles: School plan not working out like you thought? She only changed schools today, after all.
QueenMab: that is 10% of what I pay for a year at that school, and this is only the first day.
Mephistopheles: You told me she isn’t a big shopper.
QueenMab: She’s not. I tried to bond with the gutter-snipe over shopping when I was first dating her dad.
Mephistopheles: Then you have nothing to worry about. Pay $1000 to save $10k.
QueenMab: But, what if she does this tomorrow...and the day after
Mephistopheles: Then deal with it when it happens. In the mean time get an insurance policy for yourself and the girl.
QueenMab: Myself? Why would I get one for myself?
Mephistopheles: Because if you insure both of you after an accident that killed your husband it is less suspicious than if you just insure her and she dies.
QueenMab: I like the way you think.
Mephistopheles signed off
The individual known as Mephistopheles online sat there in the darkened room, the smile that played across his features illuminated by the screen in front of him. Manipulation was an art form. Sometimes, telling the absolute truth was better than a thousand lies.
Especially if that truth was one that served your own ends more than the other persons. The months he’d spent cultivating this individual were beginning to pay off. The paycheck wasn’t all that bad. Jean was more than willing to pay him to do the types of things he would do willingly for fun. Jean. He shook his head in wonder. The woman was convinced that she’d kept her real identity a secret, but he was so much better than even she gave him credit for.
It had taken less than two hours for him to first find out her real identity. The ‘Jean’ alias had taken no more than ten minutes. He saved the latest chat to his cloud server and shut off the dedicated machine that he communicated with her through.
Given enough time, he knew that she would forget all about Karen and would focus entirely on her own work. Truly selfish people were like that.
No, to meet his own ends, he needed Jean to take a more active role. After all, if he took the money from her account while she was still at large she’d know exactly who to go after.
If she was dead or in jail on the other hand…
There was a lot to do before anything like that could be arranged, and while he was a criminal by any definition you were prepared to apply, killing people was something he didn’t really approve of, so he had his work cut out for him.
Now, how to make his money coming and going, he thought as he opened the file dedicated to Karen King.
Snow - Chapter 3
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AUTHOR'S NOTE: Some of you will notice that I have made changes here...and some will not. I decided that the story as it was being written was diverging from my original intent. As such having Karen start the story at age 13 no longer worked. That darn Mephistopheles is mucking things up and accelerating plans too much.
So, I removed the 3 year progression I had planned and moved things to Forest High School. Some of the story elements will remain from what I had planned at Wood’s Point Junior High, but for the most part the story will be progressing to the older Karen.
I will eventually be pushing my edits of chapters 1 and 2 out. when I do I will delete this note.
“Now that is an outfit,” Candy said as she slipped into a seat next to Karen.
“What, this old thing?” Karen replied. The grin was missing from her face, but she was trying, and there was a bit of the bubbly personality underneath that shone through. It helped that the only makeup she was wearing was the lipstick. It was shocking in it’s contrast to her pale skin, even more so as she was still a young teen, but it fit with the rest of her outfit.
Her clothing was unrelieved black. There were some black lace accents to the overall design, and the cut was such that it left room to move. At first glance, it seemed to almost fit into certain Japanese goth designs, but it didn’t have the over-the-top little girl look that those strive for. It was, in a word, perfect.
The skirt came to mid calf and was a flowing cotton. The blouse was in three quarter sleeves with a slight puff at the top. It was somewhere in that middle ground between being skin tight and loose and seemed to fit the skirt perfectly.
“What gave you the idea for the whole ‘goth princess’ theme?” Mindy said as she slipped in on the other side.
“It just felt right,” Karen said as she just stared at the tray of food in front of her.
“Well, it looks good on you,” Candy said.
Karen looked up and that and realized that it was only Candy and Mindy sitting next to her. “Where are the boys,” she asked.
“Oh, they’re over at our table in the corner. No one sits at the folding tables if they can avoid it. We have the round one over there,” Mindy said as she pointed at the table where the five boys sat. Harry, who was wearing what looked suspiciously like a navy flight suit, waved and smiled. Karen just stared.
“Something the matter?”
“What’s with Harry?”
“What do you mean?” Candy said with false innocence.
“His clothing. It’s so...outre,” Karen says with a small smile as if the word is silly to her.
“What does ‘outre’ mean,” Mindy asks and Candy laughs. “It means ‘out of the ordinary,’ you goof,” Candy replies.
“Oh, why didn’t you say that then, Karen.”
“Because I sometimes like to use uncommon words. I think that they feel lonely on the outside so I like to bring them into the conversation.”
Candy and Mindy looked at Karen as if she were weird, which in a way she was. Karen just smirked at them and all three of them began laughing.
“So, the flight suit?”
“Is that what it is? I thought it was mechanic’s coveralls.” Mindy said.
“Flight suit...so that’s why he’s been calling Thomas ‘Goose’ all day,” Candy said.
Karen just looked at the other girl as if her statement didn’t connect, because it didn’t.
“We’re the AV club...sort of. We’re tech crew, and a lot of other things that no one really cares to do. When there are no productions at the school we do a lot of film work, which means we watch ‘the greats’ for inspiration.”
“And what does this have to do with Harry?”
“Well, we watched Top Gun a couple of weeks ago.”
“I’m still lost.”
“It’s about Naval Aviators in their Top Gun program.”
Everything came clear and a look of understanding crossed Karen’s face. “He...imitates actors. This is cosplay...at school? They let him get away with it?”
“There aren’t any uniforms so what are they going to do? It’s not like he comes to school dressed like female anime characters…” Mindy said with a shudder.
“And what would be wrong with it if he did?” Candy said a little incensed.
“I’m sure I’m coming into the middle of a huge argument, so for the moment let’s just say you had your argument and we can get back to Harry.”
Both girls just looked at Karen as if they were seeing her for the first time and then they began to laugh.
“Fine. Harry likes to be creative in his clothing choices. He figures…”
“He figures that it’s better to make a scene that to fade into the woodwork,” a male voice said from behind the three of them. Karen turned around to see harry looming over her.
“Hi, Harry, we were just talking about you.”
“Yeah, Mindy suggested you come to school dressed like sailor moon,” Candy said with an evil grin on her face.
“I did not. I said nothing of the sort, Harry.”
“It’s fine, I don’t have the legs for it,” he said with a gleam in his eye that set the girls off laughing.
“It’s simple, Karen, I like clothing. Not just well fitting clothing either. I like different styles and like to play around with conventions. Each era had it’s own strengths and weaknesses in the male clothing arena, and I like to explore those in a safe environment.”
Mindy and Candy snorted at this and Harry just grinned.
“What am I missing?” Karen said, looking lost.
“Hey, look at the girls,” a voice said right before a loud and fake laugh broke out. The voice was attached to a truly immense boy in a football jersey. He was easily over 6 feet tall and built like a brick wall. He looked over at a table where other football players were sitting and grinning, as if looking for support.
“I’ve told you before, Leo, I don’t date guys. No matter how nicely you ask, I’m not going out with you,” Harry said with an impish grin. Leo’s face suffused with blood and a look of hatred entered his eyes. Still laughing Harry took off at a run out of the lunch room.
“Is he going to be okay?” Karen said. She was worried about what the larger boy might do to Harry.
“Sure. Harry’s on the cross country team. He runs ten to fifteen miles a day just to warm up,” Candy said with a far off look in her eyes and a grin playing on her lips.
“Candy has a crush on Harry,” Mindy said, exasperation coloring her features.
“I do not,” Candy said, coloring slightly.
“Girls,” Karen said with a grin of her own and the twins turned to look at her, each one looking a little sheepish. Karen continued, “So, I take it I was missing that some of the football players are meatheads?”
“That’s putting it lightly,” Mindy muttered.
“Not all the football players are like that…” Karen began but both Candy and Mindy looked at her as if she were insane.
“They’re jocks,” Candy said as if that answered everything.
“And I’m a goth,” Karen said pointing to herself and smiling sweetly, “which should mean I’m moody and depressed with a preoccupation with death.”
“I thought that was Emo,” Candy said in a stage whisper to Mindy.
“They’re moody and depressed, but without all the death imagery,” Mindy said in a knowledgeable tone. The three girls giggled at this.
“What I’m trying to say is that people are more than any one group that they associate with.”
“Karen, that may be true in the real world, but this is high school.”
Karen looked at Mindy for a moment and then gave a little resigned shrug, “Just because it happens doesn’t make it right.”
The boys bussed their trays and then stopped by the table where Karen and the other girls were sitting. “Going to join us this evening, Karen? We’re getting ready for the fall musical.”
“There’s a musical?” Karen asked, an eager look in her eyes.
“One in the fall and a couple more in the spring. We also do a regular play in the fall and one more in the spring. This year the musical is first.”
“When are tryouts?”
They all looked at her, some of them with visible shock on their faces.
“You can act?” Brad said.
“Well, I don’t know about act, but I can sing, and I figure that I can do at least something I love even if I’m in the chorus or whatever.”
Although he’d only really known the girl for a couple of days, Thomas was beginning to get a feel for her personality. She didn’t say anything she didn’t mean, and if she said she could sing…
“They start tonight and go for the next couple of nights. I have to tell you, though, that the next couple of nights are usually for call backs.”
“That’s fine. I have a piece prepared.”
“We’ll be there tonight at six to cheer you on then,” Able said.
Shortly after he finished speaking the warning bell rang and they all headed off for class.
“I’d like to welcome you all out to our fall musical,” the teacher who had just walked out on the stage at the front of the larger of the two auditoriums began before a group of students shouted out, “Musicale,” to general laughter.
The teacher stood there waiting for the laugher to die down a bit before continuing. “For those that don’t know me, I’m Mr. Leif. That is spelled leif, not leaf. I hope each of you picked up a form at the door. I’ll give you a moment or two to get them now if you forgot.”
A couple of the students got up and picked up pages from the chair next to the door. As they went back to their seats Mr, Leif continued. “We have the Seven Samurai with us…”
“Seven Dwarves this year, Mr. Leif,” Thomas called out.
“Really? I like Kurosawa.”
“Really, it is more relatable.”
“So, we have the Seven Dwarves. Pay attention to who they are. While I am the teacher advisor, and the director, they are the crew. This will be the only warning you receive. If one of the Dwarves gives you a command, no matter how crazy it is, you obey it or you’re gone.”
“What if they tell me to…” began a girl in the front row before Mr. Leif rudely interrupted her.
“Angelica, what did I tell you last time?”
“That it would never happen.”
“And the time before that,” he said again, allowing his annoyance to come through.
“That it would never happen?” she said, getting a little smaller in her seat.
“And the time before that? And the one before.”
“But it could. I’ve seen the way that David looks at me.”
“David, stop staring at Angelica.”
“Sorry, Mr. Leif, but I’m still sure she wears contacts and I’m just trying to prove it. No one’s eyes are that blue.”
There was general laughter and Angelica colored. “David, this is your last warning. Stop tormenting Angelica.”
“Yes, sir,” David said and gave a crisp salute.
“Now, Angelica. Can we move on and not revisit this issue every time.”
Sullenly the pretty girl in the front row nodded.
“It is serendipity that the AV crew have renamed themselves, at least for this first play of the season. We’ll be doing a fairy tale. As many of you already know, I have an affinity for Rodgers and Hammerstein. We did both Carousel and South Pacific last year. While I doubt we’ll be doing anything like that this year, we will be doing…”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. We’re doing Cinderella?” Angelica said.
“You’re welcome not to do the leading role this year,” Brad calls from the back. Angelica glares up to where he is sitting. He blows her a kiss and the other Dwarves laugh.
“None of that, Brad,” Mr. Leif says with a smile. “Are you telling me you would prefer not to try out for the leading role?”
“What other roles are there?”
“I’ll take that as rhetorical. We’ll begin in about 5 minutes. Take the time to fill out the forms and pass them in. I’ll call you up one at a time. Judging by the number of people here I’ll likely need all of you for at least a minor part. For those that I am considering for speaking roles, expect your names to be posted on the auditorium doors tomorrow morning.”
The theatre was quiet save for the rustle of paper and the scratching of pens. One by one and group by group the students turned in their papers. Then the auditions began.
Contrary to heavily edited talent shows and other television programs, most people who try out for a play are decidedly mediocre. That’s really not a bad thing. You need people who are right there in the middle. You get a good group of them, especially when they know how to listen to each other, and it’s called a choir. In that instance, they are better than the sum of their parts.
The chorus in a musical is simply a choir that can dance.
Every once in a while, there are outliers. Some of those are very very bad. Angelica was not one of those. Thomas watched the people in the auditorium as they listened to her sing “Castle in a Cloud.”
All things considered, it is a simple song with a really simple tune. That being said, if you can emote through your voice, if you understand the emotion of the piece, there is more to it than just the lyrics. It is a song about longing and fear. Longing for a relief from the constant misery of day to day life. Fear that this life that you know is never going to change.
Angelica, for seeming to be a prima donna was, in a sense, a true Prima Donna. She was the first lady of this stage, and she knew it.
There was a smattering of applause when she finished and she smiled and waved at her friends.
There were a few more auditions and then Karen was called out onto the stage. She stood there in the center of the stage, and everyone waited for a moment or two for the music to start so they could tell what it was she was singing.
The music never started. She simply looked out at the audience for maybe thirty seconds and then she began to sing, accompanied only by her echo off the bare walls around her. Her voice was pure and full and she hit the notes that you expected with her rendition of “Somewhere over the Rainbow.”
This was also a song of longing, but where Angelica’s song held nothing but a little girl’s fear, this held a young woman’s hope. Both songs were about an unseen world. Doth talked about dreams, but only one of them believed that they could achieve their dreams and Karen sang that song and every person in the audience believed that she would be able to achieve those dreams. When she ended, she walked off the stage in silence. After a moment, when people realized what had happened, they broke out in spontaneous applause.
Snow - Chapter 4
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The next morning there was a crowd of students pressing up against the doors of the auditorium. The hopefuls made their way toward the front and either gave a quiet cheer, if their name was on the list, or a quiet moan, if their name was not.
Karen stood back watching the pageantry with a slight smile on her face. The Dwarves were there around her for support and they joked a bit as they all waited for the press to die down. Angelica was about to push in when she noticed Karen standing back. With a toss of her head she moved over to stand at the other side of the crowd. If Karen noticed anything, she didn’t let on as she waited for the students to thin out and make room at the front. Almost as if it were choreographed Karen and Angelica stepped forward as one and stood almost shoulder to shoulder looking at the list.
“Congratulations,” Karen said with a genuine smile when she noticed Angelica’s name on the list. Angelica made a noncommittal grunt as she looked desperately for the other girls name on the list, hoping that she wouldn’t find it.
Karen smiled and walked away, nodding to the Dwarves. Her name was there. She was getting a call back. Angelica huffed and walked away. Karen looked appraisingly at Angelica as she walked away.
“That should show her a thing or two,” Candy said as she sat down. Much like the day before Karen was the first of the group to arrive in the lunch room. Unlike the day before, however, she was sitting at one of the round tables. It wasn’t the table that the AV club staked out for themselves, but at least it wasn’t one of the long tables.
“Who,” Karen asked. She’d been lost a bit in thought, wondering what she’d be singing tonight, if she was even called to sing.
“That little witch Angelica. I mean, just judging from your performance last night you’re sure to get the leading role,” Mindy said.
“I don’t want the lead,” Karen said with a smile.
“Why not, Karen? You’d be a great Cinderella?”
“I don’t want to be ‘that girl,’” Karen said simply. “I mean like Cinderella.”
The twins looked at her like they’d lost her completely.
“Cinderella is so passive. She lets life happen to her. Sure, some of the remakes were designed to give her some degree of control of her life, but she lets her stepmother turn her into a servant, and then her fairy godmother turns her into a Beauty Incognita. The only action she personally takes is to run away, which in a story which is trying to tell us that love conquers just adds to how passive of a character she is.”
“And when the prince finds her and she tries the shoe on?”
“The prince found her, not the other way around. Let me be the stepsister instead. This is acting isn’t it? I don’t want to just go up there and be the same person I am. I want to be evil for once, especially since I can leave it behind when I leave the stage.”
“You’ll pretend to be evil and Angelica will pretend to be good,” Mindy said with a smirk on her face.
“Mindy! Be nice. Just because you don’t like her,” Karen began.
“It’s not that we don’t like her,” Candy began.
“It’s that she doesn’t like us,” Mindy finished.
“Hey, Snow!” Harry said as he sat down next to the girls.
“Snow?” Karen said. He seemed to be looking at her so she assumed he was talking to her.
“Yeah, Snow. Apparently Angelica says you are a bit of an Ice Queen so they’ve taken to calling you Snow.”
Karen looked a little confused at that.
“Why snow, though? Why not Ice or something like that.”
“That’s actually my fault,” Thomas said as he sat down on the other side.
Karen had to laugh, “I thought you all sat at that table,” she said pointing to the table in the corner.
“We normally do,” Harry said. “Thing is, we are your friends.”
“And friends don’t let friends eat alone,” Mindy said in an announcer voice.
Karen just looked at her as if she were insane and she blushed. Everyone else at the table laughed and it was Karen’s turn to feel a little embarrassed.
“Getting back to Snow…”
“Well, with your black hair, pale skin, and blood red lips you have to admit that you’re sort of the spitting image of a certain Fairy Tale heroine.”
“Better Snow White than Cinderella, right Snow?” Mindy said innocently. There was an impish gleam in her eyes.
Karen glared at her for a moment before her gaze softened.
“I can live with that,” Snow said after a moment or two, “especially since she was considered to be the most beautiful in the land,” she finished with an impish grin of her own.
The others at the table joined in the laughter.
“What’s so funny,” Brad said as he walked up.
This started a fresh round of laughter as Brad and Able just stood there looking confused.
Snow was nervous. She never let on while sitting there waiting in the darkened auditorium, but she was all the same. Angelica was good. She might not be the best singer in the world, but she was good enough. Where she really shone was in her acting.
Snow had assumed, incorrectly, that today would be singing again. The reason that she’d tried in the first place was that singing shut off the world for her. When she sang, she wasn’t the girl who had lost both parents. While she was singing there was just the next note and the one after that. Singing put her into a space where nothing in the world mattered except for the pitch and tone of the words that she sang.
Acting was obviously Angelica’s world and one in which Snow was a novice. For a moment, when she was giving her lines Angelica became another person. Angelica wasn’t reading her lines. She had already memorized the part and was simply up there acting the role.
While it was true that Snow didn’t really want to be Cinderella it wasn’t for all the reasons she’d mentioned earlier. While she’d have liked the leading role she didn’t feel like she’d be able to do a credible job at it.
She was here, though, and she would give it whatever she had.
“Thank you, Angelica. Karen, you’re up next.” Mr. Lief called out.
Snow took a couple of calming breaths and walked up on the stage. It was the same scene that Angelica had just done. She was about to give her lines, read from the page, when she had a thought. She didn’t need enemies, especially if they were going to be in the same production.
“Mr. Lief? Would it be okay if I read for the part of the stepsister opposite Angelica as Cinderella?”
Mr. Lief considered for a moment and then called out, “Angelica, if you’d kindly join Karen up on the stage?”
“Why are you doing this?” Angelica hissed. “Are you trying to make me look bad?”
“How would I do that by reading the other part? You already know Cinderella’s part.”
“I don’t know it know it, but I know the lines.”
“You know the part, Angelica.”
“Anytime you girls are ready.”
Karen was not perfect, but she read well. She interacted with Angelica, moving around the stage and making the other girl look good. When they were done everyone could see Angelica in the leading role. The students in the audience clapped and hollered for a moment before Mr. Lief had enough.
“If I have to I will make this a closed audition,” he said in a stern voice. The grin on his face let people know he was joking, mostly.
“Why did you do that, Karen?” Angelica said as they walked off stage.
“Because I could and because I don’t want to be Cinderella.”
“No, really. Why did you do it?”
“Really. Though there is another reason. You’re the best one for the role.”
“Seriously? You think I’m good?”
“You’re better than good, Angelica. I thought you knew that with the way that you act all the time.”
Angelica looked a little angry at the comment but then the anger faded and she just looked sad, “I know I’m difficult to work with. I try, but I’m so worried about failing that I push everyone else as hard as I push myself. I’m terrified that people will figure out that I’m not that good.”
“Angie, your singing could use some work, but no one will ever say you’re a bad actress.”
Angelica looked shocked. For a moment Snow was worried that she’d said something wrong.
“I didn’t mean…”
“Oh, about the singing? No, I agree with you, but then I’ve always been critical of everything I do. Why did you call me Angie?”
“Because I like it more? And if I have to call you Angelica one more time I’m going to scream. Do you realize how big that word is? It’s like having to say antidisesablishmentarianism every time I want to talk to you.”
Angelica giggled, “my name isn’t that bad.”
“No, but it feels that bad. Besides, if we’re going to be friends then I’m calling you Angie.”
“Ok, Karen,” Angie replied, exaggerating the name.
“Snow, please.”
“Snow?” Angie said a little unsurely.
“Yes, Snow. I like the nickname. The Dwarves think that I look like Snow White.”
“Oh emm gee, you’re Snow White and the Seven Dwarves,” Angie said loudly. The auditorium burst out laughing and Snow just smiled. Angie blushed and tried to hide in her hair.
“Come on, let’s go have a seat,” Snow said and walked toward where the Dwarves were sitting.
“I can’t sit over here,” Angie said holding back.
“Why not?”
“Well, they don’t like me, and they’re a little weird.”
“Have you seen what I’m wearing?”
“Yeah, you have this whole goth fairy tale thing going on.”
“And that’s not weird?”
Angie chuckled and followed behind Snow to the Dwarves’ seats.
“Guys, this is Angie,” Snow said when they arrived.
A bodyguard has no place in a public school. James kept to the shadows in the auditorium, watching the interplay between Karen and the other students. He was beginning to wonder if maybe he had no real reason to be there.
He respected Karen’s father, and wanted to be there for him more than for her, but there was only so much of this he could take. None of the other students had bodyguards, and Karen seemed to be able to take care of herself.
Karen seemed to be able to get anyone together. She was integrating the other girl, Angelica, into her group of friends. The new girl seemed to still be a little uncomfortable, but was by steps relaxing.
Karen was called up another couple of times to read for various roles, but more often than not she was asked to read for the role of the elder stepsister. Angelica was asked to read a couple of other times, but she was always asked to read the role of Cinderella.
James was a little sad about that, but he had to admit that the girl could act, and you wanted a strong actor in the leading role. It wasn’t that Karen was bad. It was more that Angelica was just better.
“Thank you all for coming in today. We’ve simply run out of time. Tomorrow I’ll post the cast roles as well as those I would like to come back for further readings. If those of you with cast roles could come tomorrow as well it will greatly speed the process up.”
Karen said goodbye to her friends and walked over to where James was sitting.
“Hello, James,” Karen said with a glowing smile.
“Hello, Karen.”
“Actually, could you call me Snow?”
“Snow, huh, Any reason for that,” James said as he gathered his things in preparation to leave.
“I just like it. It’s a nickname they gave me today.”
“Whatever you say, Snow. It does seem to have a certain ring to it,” James said thoughtfully.
Snow just smiled at him as they walked out to the car. James opened the door for her and then closed it behind her before climbing into the drivers seat.
“I take it that you had a good day at school?”
“I had a wonderful day. So, you know I got a callback, of course, but…” Karen proceeded to relate the events of her day to James. He nodded and paid attention to her, trying in some small way to replace her father. He wasn’t going to be able to be her father, he knew that, but at least he could be a strong parental figure. He was going to be here for a long time after all.