Chapter Fourteen

From the Fan Fiction Unbound Archive,

posted by conTessaofthecastle:

The next morning, Daphne awoke with a start, looking for Astoria. No one was there. Daphne wasn’t sure how the magic had changed, but she knew she would only be able to figure it out if she found Astoria again. Sighing, she packed up the blanket and the single bowl they had been using for meals. She made sure the campfire was completely doused, strewed the ashes and covered them with leaves. If the Coven came this way they would probably be able to sense her presence, but she didn’t want to give them any obvious clues. The sun was out today at least, and Daphne checked its position as she murmured the pathfinder chant to make sure she was headed east, toward the Portal of Arden. She didn’t know what else to do.

Soph.

Wednesday morning when I wake up, I find, to my surprise, that Freddy has texted me. It’s Valentine’s Day, but that’s not the point of Freddy’s text.

[From Freddy to Soph] Help! They’re insisting I ski this time.

I suppose it was bound to happen. Mrs. Peckett can be very persuasive.

[From Soph to Freddy] Just do the bunny trail once then say you twisted your ankle.

[From Freddy to Soph] It’s been three years. Last time I fell it was a total yard sale. I broke my collarbone.

[From Soph to Freddy] You can fall on the bunny slope—everyone else there does.

[From Freddy to Soph] But ski instructor is 2 hot. He’ll laugh at me.

Well, that answers the question: Freddy’s gay, like me, or maybe bi or pan. Did he think I already knew?

[From Soph to Freddy] Gotta pretend to try. Then be damsel in distress!

Freddy responds with an emoji of a princess. He turns out to have more personality than I thought.

[From Soph to Freddy] Good to try new things.

I attach the selfie of Tess and me holding the lasagna.

[From Freddy to Soph] Since when is lasagna a new thing?

[From Soph to Freddy] No, we made the lasagna. Ourselves!

[From Freddy to Soph] Cool. And the girl in the picture?

This time, he puts in a winking emoji.

[From Soph to Freddy] Room8. Nice girl. Different tribe.

He turns serious.

[From Freddy to Soph] Don’t tell anyone.

[From Soph to Freddy] OK.

But I can’t help adding,

[From Soph to Freddy] UR late to the party, F. Time to come out!

[From Freddy to Soph] UR the only one I told. Please.

[From Soph to Freddy] Why did you wait so long?

[From Freddy to Soph] Too hard.

[From Soph to Freddy] Duh. But it only gets harder.

[From Freddy to Soph] There’s no other way?

[From Soph to Freddy] NO!!!

[From Freddy to Soph] Know it all.

Tess hears me say “humph” out loud.

“Did you say something, Soph?”

“No, I’m getting frustrated with this guy.”

“A guy?”

“Yeah, well, no, not that. I know this guy, Freddy, and he just told me that he’s gay but he won’t tell his parents or anyone. I wish he would come out already.”

“Why do you care?”

“Because he’s going to have to at some point. You have to come out if you want to live your life. I did it. My queer friends did it too. Freddy’s parents will find out sooner or later. He should tell them now. It feels a lot better after you do.”

Tess seems to ponder this. She probably doesn’t understand. Straight people don’t.

“You sound pretty certain about that.”

“It’s a fact, Tess. Coming out is better for everyone. We can’t hide in the closet forever, you know.” I’m getting worked up over this and I probably shouldn’t. If Tess is from a military family, she probably isn’t too keen on gays. I don’t think they even had Don’t Ask Don’t Tell when her father went to Iraq. That’s over now, but I bet things haven’t changed that much. Now she’s frowning at me.

“Maybe he will someday, Soph. Why does it have to be right away?”

“Because there are other gay kids, and the more of us who are out, the less we can be oppressed. We need to build our own community.” Tess picks up her phone and starts texting, probably to the boyfriend again.

After a minute she says quietly, “But he did come out, didn’t he?”

I look at her.

“He came out to you. Isn’t that enough, if it’s enough for him?”

Like I said, straight people don’t get it. I pick up my phone again, thinking I’ll text Gordon, Mibs, and Lally. Except I promised Freddy I wouldn’t tell. I realize Tess is right. He did come out to me. It’s a start.

* * *

I’m a little nervous going into the second group session on Wednesday morning. I’m glad that we decided to do a ballad, but so many of these girls aren’t what I expected. Yin seems fine when we talk, but she was hanging out with Chris and piling on Orly. I wish she’d get over that. I had a good time making dinner with Tess. Sometimes it seems she likes me, like when we were skating or when she was teasing me about going to college in New Hampshire, but we’re really different. I hope I can avoid Professor Forsythe, at least until I figure out how to make a better impression.

We meet in one of the third-floor rooms, but no one is focused, so I start. “We’re doing a ballad. What kind of story do we want to tell?”

“Obviously, it should be about a woman,” Ellen offers to general assent.

“Should we do a love story? Maybe a tragic one? For Valentine’s?” It makes sense to me that Gabriela would propose this. She’s got a tragic streak and a boyfriend.

Yin wants us to do something which has a compelling story, including a journey and something our protagonist learns after overcoming a great challenge.

I’m fine with this, but it doesn’t help us narrow anything down. “Do we want to make up characters?”

“No way. Too much work. Ballads like Beowulf are from oral history. Let’s work with a story which is already out there.” Ellen’s right.

We can’t decide between comic book heroines and historical feminists until Gabriela suggests we try a goddess from one of the Greek myths. “We could do Demeter and Persephone. I love that story! Demeter helps her daughter Persephone escape from Hades, but Persephone has to return six months a year because she ate six pomegranate seeds while she was there. Demeter is the goddess of the harvest and is depressed when her daughter is away, which turns the season dark and cold.”

“But there’s no lesson to that one. It explains winter, that’s all,” Yin complains.

I ask if anyone knows any other Greek or Roman goddesses, maybe in nontraditional relationships. The general answer is that they’re all married with god-kids.

“Why are we doing Greek or Roman goddesses. What about a Norse one?”

“Does anyone know any Norse gods?” Gabriela asks.

“I do,” Ellen volunteers. “My mom’s family is from Sweden. I grew up hearing about them.”

We settle on Freya. Ellen says she’s the chief goddess. We use our phones to do some quick research on her. She’s the goddess of love, sex, beauty, fertility, gold, war, and death—try to beat that. She’s married to another god, Od, and has a chariot pulled by two cats. Freya has a magic necklace of desire that makes her irresistible to men and a cloak made of falcon feathers that allows her to turn into a bird and fly.

“It says there are already epic poems about her, including an appearance in Beowulf.”

“Why don’t we change her?” I suggest, thinking I want her to be bisexual and definitely have a wife.

Yin goes along with it. “Great idea—enough with the same old binary stuff!”

I wonder if she realizes this is basically fan fiction. For once, I decide to keep my mouth shut.

Tess.

Chris doesn’t bother to come to this morning’s group meeting. I don’t know where she is. Part of me thinks she might be upstairs going through Orly’s things, which gives me a slightly sick feeling in my stomach, but I decided not to involve myself and I’m going to stick to that decision unless something changes.

Peggy, Keisha, and I are brainstorming plot points, and then Peggy drafts a description of the town. I use my phone to research Maizy Donovan’s character. We decided to stick with the original idea, because I keep hoping I can figure out a way to convince Chris to work with us and because, after finding some background online about Ultraman comics, I’m pretty excited about Maizy’s character.

Ultraman started in the 1970s, and Maizy is described as a “bold and fearless career woman, seeking out the truth wherever it may take her.” Not surprisingly, the truth leads her straight to Ultraman over and over, but I like that Maizy is ahead of her time. Ultraman keeps flirting with her, and she keeps him at arm’s length until she solves the mystery for her newspaper article. She might let him kiss her now and then or fly her out of danger, but she’s not all clingy and needy. In fact, until the comic gets sold to a new publisher in 1985, she’s very independent. After 1985, she wears tight clothes and screams to be rescued from bad guys in almost every panel. The comic got cancelled in 1993, right after Maizy and Ultraman got married.

We agree to go back to the early days. I research some big news stories from that time. I have a hard time understanding that this was how the world was when my mom and dad were born. I decide to write about Maizy’s fight to be paid the same amount as the dashing investigative journalist Ron Reynolds. From what I’m reading, lots of women were joining the workforce in the 1970s but didn’t have the legal protections they do now. Men weren’t fired for “sexual harassment,” nor did women always understand they were entitled to equal pay for equal work. I think that at least sounds like something Chris would be interested in following up on, if she ever shows up. Even if she doesn’t, I think it will make a good story.

Peggy, Keisha, and I work pretty efficiently, and it’s much easier without Chris. Keisha is funny and smart and she takes notes on her laptop since I don’t have one. She offers to let me use it after lunch so I can draft some parts more easily. I’m a little uneasy about that, because she says she’s going to hang out with Chris while I use it, but I decide to try to be friends.

At noon Joan ends the session, and we go to lunch. When I sit at the table next to Keisha, I find that Chris is there already, talking to Clover and Janaye in low tones about why Orly shouldn’t be here. Clover beckons me, but I look away. I really don’t want to do this. When Soph comes in with Orly, Chris and Janaye stop talking. I’m liking this less and less, and now I think I should say something to someone. None of the adults have arrived when Soph looks out the window of the dining room as she’s pulling out her chair and asks in a loud voice, “What the actual fuck?”

We all turn to see what she’s pointing at. Our snowsisters from the other night are lined up outside. They’re a little ragged, since it kept snowing, and most of them have snowdrifts clinging to them. But I see it immediately. Someone took the carrot nose from the snowsister Soph and Orly built, with its lacy black bra, and shoved it down lower. To make a penis.

* * *

From Soph Alcazar’s Writing Journal,

February 14, 2018

Come out, join the group, acknowledge yourself.

Those who persecute us can go to hell.