From the Fan Fiction Unbound Archive,
posted by conTessaofthecastle:
“Daphne, are you sure this is going to work?” Astoria sounded nervous as they crept along the rapidly darkening path leading away from the Coven’s fire site. They had discussed the plan last night. Daphne thought that if they could just make it past the Coriolan Woods and through the Meadow of Cymbel to the Portal of Arden, they would be able to find a spell-caster who could help them defeat the dark magic of Lord Quintana. They needed to master the space-shifting spell.
Soph.
“Sophronia!”
“Coming!” Lugging my big backpack, I run down the long hallway and swing open the double doors to the kitchen. I’m holding a copy of Q3R/F, one of the more out-there zines, which shows a shot (probably photoshopped) of a half-naked Ellen Page on the cover. My mom sits on the high stool in her “office,” which is the converted pantry. She puts down the intercom to the doormen’s station and picks up a teacup, which she cradles in both hands. When the picture of Ellen catches her eye, she blinks slowly at me, which is Mom-code for counting to ten before she speaks.
She sighs and says, “Soph, one of the doormen just called. The car is here. Please don’t make the Pecketts wait. Betty packed the medium-sized Vera Bradley for you. Did you check to make sure you have enough warm clothes? Have you got everything?”
“I’m fine, okay?” I did a little packing of my own, I think, as I jiggle my knapsack. They’ll never notice that bottle of Hennessy missing from Papa’s den. It was in the back of the wet bar anyway. The only other important thing is my writing journal, which has my latest poem in it, along with the stuff I scratch out every day.
“Darling, I leave it to you, but you might just tell them at the seminar that you’re there for writing, not your whole life’s story. And please mind your manners with the Pecketts. They are being nice enough to fly you up on their way to Bretton Woods.” She really means, “Be careful about telling everyone you’re gay.” We’ve been through this before. She doesn’t understand that it’s completely safe for me to be out.
“Oh, puh-lease, everyone knows anyway!”
My mom says she’s fine with me being gay. She just doesn’t think it needs to follow me everywhere. Like I could walk out of the building and leave lesbianism in my room. Hah! I’m not changing who I am for anyone.
“Darling, I just want to make sure you’re safe. I understand that you’d like to meet some other… girls, but be patient and see who they are first, all right?”
“Sure, okay.” I want to get out of here as fast as I can. But she’s right about how I am hoping I’ll meet some other girls at the conference and not the jock types who go to school with me. I wish she wouldn’t keep nagging me about safety, though. We’re not in the 1950s or something.
Before I can escape, she reminds me, “Now, you’ll be missing deportment class this week and you have to go through that before nomination and presentation next winter, so keep in mind that you have to do a special makeup in March and if anyone else is there who is also going to be presented, you must make the right impression. Genevra Peckett is on the selection committee, so she’ll be voting on you and your escort next winter.”
“Come on, Mom. Debutante balls are patriarchal and elitist!”
“No ‘come on, Moms,’ Soph. It’s important to your father and me. We made a deal—you get to go to the conference in New Hampshire provided you’ll cooperate and prepare for your coming out at the Rassemblement de l’Éminent.”
“God, yes, okay.” Be a debutante? I am so not going to do it, but I had to say I’d consider it so that they would let me go this week. Even its name smacks of privilege. When I get back, I’ll put my foot down and refuse. They don’t understand how wrong it is or what century we’re in. Right now, I want to escape—my mother, the attitudes, the deb thing, all of it.
“And Soph, remember that Helen Forsythe is a big deal. Impress her, and you can get into any college writing program you want. Now kiss me and scoot.”
I’m out the door so fast my mom probably didn’t even feel my lips on her cheek, but she’s usually good with an air kiss. It’s true about Professor Forsythe, though; she’s a big deal. I don’t think I have the grades to get into her writing program, but if I impress her and take my poetry to the next level, that would definitely help. Minerva is the best school for writers!
Davey greets me in the elevator as I stuff Q3R/F into the top of my bag. “Where are you off to, Miss?”
“New Hampshire for the week, Davey. Big women’s writing thing.”
With his gloved hand, Davey holds the elevator door open for me when we reach the lobby. “Knock ‘em dead, then, Miss!”
I wave at him as I rush through the door to the street without waiting for whoever is on duty to hold it for me. The big black car is waiting, and I hop in.
Tess.
Sometimes when a calf is born the mother cow rejects it. No one knows why or when it will happen, but today it happened and I am standing in the small barn in the freezing cold, pouring feed over the newborn’s back, which is supposed to trick her mother into licking off the placental matter, trigger her maternal hormones, and lead her to accept her own child.
Daddy is in the large barn working on a problem with the milking equipment, and I’m impatient. The work is messy and cold, and I want to go talk to Joey, who’s up in the hayloft, not spend my time making things happen that are supposed to happen naturally.
The newborn calf is shivering and looks miserable. I want to clean her off and bundle her in a warm blanket, but I can’t because the wet mess on her is what her mother needs to find to learn her scent. So instead I name her, even though Daddy has a rule against naming the calves before they bond with their mothers, in case it doesn’t work out. I call her Angie, and, when I tell her softly what a good girl she is, how she’s going to be fine, and that her mother will come over soon, she stares at me as though she believes me.
I’ve tried a couple of things to get her mother interested, but they didn’t work, and part of me wants to give up and call Daddy to figure it out. He’s under a time crunch with the evening milking coming, though, and he trusted me with Angie. I pour another scoop of feed over the calf’s back.
“Don’t worry,” I say to Angie before I lead her mother to her side.
Once I push her nose right into the feed all over her calf, the mother does become interested. When I leave them and climb the ladder to the hayloft, Angie is nursing and her mother is letting her. I can’t go too far until I’m sure the mother won’t reject Angie again, but I can hear them from up here.
“It should not be this hard for parents to figure out how to accept their own children,” I say as I flop down next to Joey in the hay. My jeans are filthy and, even though I washed my hands in the service sink, I probably smell awful.
Joey glances up from his phone, pretends to glare at me, and says, “You’ve met my dad, right?”
I roll my eyes at him, and he asks me again if I sent in the registration form for the writing conference.
Again, I tell him I’m still deciding. We’ve had this conversation at least twenty times since the letter came.
My English teacher, Mrs. Pezzuli, gave me the link for The Young Women’s Writing Conference back in October. It’s a week in Granite Notch, New Hampshire with two dozen other high school girls who want to write. Granite Notch is only an hour away from Castleton, in the White Mountains. I was intrigued. I mean, I never knew there were writing workshops for high school students, let alone workshops for girls. My mom used to teach high school English, and, when I showed it to her, she thought it looked pretty good but reminded me I would need a scholarship to be able to go.
Joey made me send in the application anyway and he picked the writing sample I sent, from the chapter in my fan fiction where Daphne and Astoria, the two main witches, decide that they are going to go rogue and leave their coven together. I’ve been working on this story for six months now and I’m up to fifty-four thousand words. It’s based on that TV show, The Witches’ Circle. In the real show’s plot, Daphne has a charming blond boyfriend, and Astoria is always looking for love in all the wrong places. I prefer to focus on what they do with their magic and how they form a powerful team. I just write it for fun, to practice, and because everything you post online is anonymous. No one except Joey knows I’m the author.
Anyway, I sat on my acceptance letter for almost a month. With only a partial scholarship, I need to find two hundred and fifty dollars or I can’t go.
After listening to me blather on again for half an hour over whether I should pay for it from the money I earned last summer scooping ice cream at the Lickety Split or save that money for after graduation as I was planning, Joey announces that I’m going and gets up to leave. Boys are like that. They just decide stuff. The cows are moving toward the milking room door. Outside, my younger sister Molly is talking to my dad as they get the equipment ready.
“I’m calling it. You’re going. Hey, that’s what boyfriends are for, right?” Joey scrounges through his backpack for something to write down the English homework assignment on. This always happens. He doesn’t get the assignment, and I have to give it to him later. Now he has to walk home to help with the chores at his folks’ place.
“I’ll give you a ride up there. Dad will let me take the truck if we’re on a date. You know you have to go, Tess.”
I don’t always like it when Joey gets bossy. I argue, not because I don’t think he’s right, but to prove his way of looking at it isn’t the only one. I need to learn to speak up. I’m usually pretty quiet. But I plan to go into the military next year, one way or another and, from what my dad says, I’m going to need to speak up for myself. And Joey’s pretty safe to practice on.
“But if I use that money, I might not have enough saved for later.” I don’t say what I’m thinking about being away from home for the first time.
“So?” he shrugs. “You work another job next summer, before you leave. And the military’s going to pay you one way or the other. Besides, this might help you with the military, Tess.” I hadn’t thought of that. He finally locates a pen and a spiral-bound notebook and looks at me. “Tess, you’re an awesome writer, even if no one knows you. It’s time to tell people who you are.” He’s smiling at me, but I’m still nervous.
“Fine,” I sigh. “Pages three hundred to three-twenty-five of Of Mice and Men, and there’s going to be a vocab quiz on the words she put on the board.”
He scribbles it down, zips up his pack, and says, “Email me the words after dinner, please?” Then he drops a kiss on my head and swings himself around to go down the ladder.
“Hey, Joey?” I say, as he peers down to see the rungs. He looks up. I want to tell him I’m nervous to be going to a conference with a bunch of girls from all over, but I stop myself. I’m leaving Castleton one way or the other after graduation. Joey and I promised each other that. He’s right. I need to practice.
“Be careful getting home in the dark,” I tell him. He grins at me. His jaw is still a little crooked from when it was broken last fall and they set it wrong. It makes his smile slightly lopsided. He shrugs and heads down the ladder.
I hear Daddy calling me from below. His voice is sharp. “Tess? Why didn’t you take care of this calf?” When I get down the ladder, Joey is disappearing out the door after quickly greeting my father. Daddy is struggling with Angie’s mother, who is kicking at Angie.
“You know better than this, Tess,” says Daddy, struggling to get to Angie while her mother thrashes. “You know not to walk away before a job is done.”
I wince as a hoof hits Angie and knocks her off her wobbly legs before Daddy can intervene. Angie’s brown eyes follow me as I rush to help Daddy with the restraints.
* * *
From Soph Alcazar’s Writing Journal,
February 10, 2018
From the City to cold, mountains, and snow,
For new blood, openness, I am ready
To write, meet, show what I already know:
That we all should be out, proud and steady.
And learn how to write in a new structure.
Something advanced, a shape I’ve never done.
Edge of the new; am I at a juncture?
Hoping also that I find a someone.
So far, there’s been no one, but I’m sixteen.
My parents desperate that I conform.
They don’t understand it’s me they demean.
I won’t dance their steps however they storm.
Because I know who I am. I won’t change.
No matter if they insist, ’not their page.