Mirrored (8 page)

Now that the danger was over, Jennifer’s friends came back, all concerned, all, “Are you okay? What happened?” pushing me aside. Someone ran to dial 911.

Then, Greg was there. He must have been at practice. He knelt over Jennifer, beside me. “What happened?”

“It was a dog,” I said, a little breathless just from being near him. “It came out of nowhere and attacked her. I pulled it off her.”

“Where did it go?” Meighan said.

Jennifer was still screaming, sobbing, incoherent. But then, she formed words, painful words. “It was her.” With her good hand, she pointed at me. “She did it.”

“It was a dog,” Gennifer said. “A pit bull.”

“A white one!” said Meighan.

“It was her. It was her.” Jennifer’s voice rose to a violin’s pitch. “She made it attack me.”

Greg’s eyes sought mine, and I made mine wide, confused. “Jennifer, the dog attacked you. I got it to stop. I helped you.”

“Noooo! You didn’t. You made it attack me. You made it because of what I did to your stuff.” She was cringing in pain but still strong enough to accuse me.

“Poor Jennifer.” I laid my hand on her arm. “You’re in such pain from that bad dog. But of course, I can’t control the dog. And besides . . .” I moved my hand to her bloodied face. The wound was jagged, a lightning bolt from eye to mouth, streaks across her once-perfect nose. “Why would I want to hurt you? We’re teammates, right? Friends.” I stroked her hair until her eyes closed. “That’s good. Probably better to sleep.”

“You’re a hero, Violet,” someone said.

A siren sounded in the distance, distracting everyone. So I was probably the only one who heard Jennifer’s voice, softer than the breeze in the grass, whispering, “You’re a . . . witch.”

I turned to Greg. “The paramedics are here. It sounds like she doesn’t want me around, so I’ll go.”

“Thank you for helping her, Violet,” he said.

I shrugged. “I was just so scared when it came after her. It was all, like, adrenaline when I pulled the dog off her. I mean, it could’ve attacked me. Maybe call me later and let me know how she’s doing.”

“Of course. You’re a good friend.”

I looked at Jennifer. My spell had her sacked out on the lawn, three Cougarettes over her. “Well, that’s exactly what I want to be, a good friend.” I smiled more at the sight of bleeding bitch Jennifer than at that thought. If I couldn’t have Greg, I could at least have revenge.

But I meant to have Greg.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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Greg called that night, and we talked about Jennifer. Jennifer. Jennifer—the pain she was in, the surgery she’d require, the way they didn’t let him ride in the emergency vehicle and how mad that made him, the way they’d looked all over the neighborhood for the pit bull but no one had found it. Jennifer. Jennifer. Her name was like the bells, bells, bells in the Edgar Allan Poe poem, driving me mad.

“Did you see the dog?” Greg said, “the dog that attacked Jennifer? I thought it might have been that black Dobie across the street, but the fence was totally intact.”

“No, it was definitely a pit bull,” I said, not wanting to implicate the Doberman. Big, white one. It ran away after I got it off Jennifer.”

“You’re really brave. Okay, I thought maybe Jen was confused about the breed. She’s been kind of loopy from the drugs they gave
her, confused in the head. She kept saying
you
attacked her.”

I laughed. “I must have really sharp teeth.”

“I know. I told her that was crazy, that you were always sweet and gentle. I still remember how you helped that bird when we were kids.”

I smiled. “Of course I remember.” I wondered what had happened to that sweet girl, the one who loved all living creatures. Kendra said you couldn’t change the nature of a thing. The ability to strike out at my tormenters must always have been there. Now I was using it.

I didn’t mind. I’d had enough.

“Thanks for keeping me posted. Will Jen be back at school soon?” I still didn’t know how bad it was.

“Not for weeks. She has to have surgery for the scarring. The thing ripped off half her nose.”

“Oh, that’s terrible.” It was. Plastic surgery might make her even prettier. I wanted Jennifer to know what it meant to be ugly. “Let me know if there’s anything else I can do.”

“I will. Everyone says you saved her life.”

I winced. “Well, anything for a teammate.”

“It’s actually good to hear your voice, Violet.”

“Is it? Then, maybe you’d want to—I don’t know—meet at school to talk some more tomorrow.”

“That would be great. I usually sit with Jennifer at lunch.”

“I know.” How I knew.

“We could sit together until she gets back.”

“And talk about birds. Get your mind off things.”

I hung up and went to bed happy, Grimalkin purring at my feet. Jennifer would be gone for weeks. Weeks! I had Greg all to myself. And now, I wasn’t the frizzy-haired, hook-nosed loser I’d been. I was beautiful, talented, confident—at least on the outside. And, on
the inside, I was the girl he’d liked all along, the smart girl. At least, smarter than Jennifer.

The next few weeks were the happiest of my life. Greg and I ate lunch together, studied together, I drove him to school. Even Jennifer’s friends were nice to me. They’d seen me pull the dog off her. At first, Greg and I mostly talked about Jennifer, how amazing she was, but soon, we branched off into less-annoying topics, subjects like life, college (we both wanted to be environmental lawyers), current events, subjects an idiot like Jennifer couldn’t possibly talk to him about.

We planned to see the movie
Dead Poets Society,
which was playing at the mall. “It wouldn’t be a date,” I told Greg. “We could just go as friends.”

“I guess it’s okay. Jennifer didn’t want to go to that movie anyway. She said it looked stupid.”

Jennifer’s stupid.
But I didn’t say it. I didn’t want Greg mad at me. I wished there was some magic I could work to make Greg see how awful Jennifer was, how we were meant to be together. I couldn’t use magic to make bad things happen to people, at least not directly. But what about making someone fall in love with me?

I stopped by Kendra’s house the day of our movie non-date. School was out now, and Greg was visiting Jennifer. I put the question to Kendra.

“Tell me again why I can’t cast a spell to make Greg love me?”

Kendra winced. She hated the word
spell
. Said it smacked of mystical books and the silly TV series,
Bewitched
, about a housewife who made magic by wiggling her nose. Magic, she said, came from deep within. It was a matter of harnessing it, rather than learning it.

“You can’t make someone fall in love with you. Love comes from within too.” She reached out her hand, an awkward gesture
for her, and touched my shoulder. “Unfortunately, you had several opportunities to work your magic, so to speak, with Greg. It hasn’t worked.”

“It’s so unfair.” I bit my cuticle. “I have magic powers. I should be able to have anything I want. But this is the only thing I ever wanted.”

“Is it really? The only thing?”

I thought about it, shredding my cuticle as I did. Of course it wasn’t the
only
thing. But Greg was the main thing. Had I gotten him easily, maybe I’d be satisfied, but, as it was, I wanted more. I wanted to be beautiful, more beautiful than Jennifer, than everybody. I was. And powerful. I was that too. But that wasn’t enough, or hadn’t been. I was so sick of people making fun of me that now I wanted to be better than everyone, at everything. And obliterate my enemies. “Okay, maybe he’s not
all
I want, but he’s the main thing. That and world domination.” I waited for Kendra to laugh, but she didn’t. “But without Greg, I’ll never be happy.”

“Oh, dear.” Kendra pressed her finger to her brow.

“What?”

“I’m just worried you’ll never be happy.”

I took another bite of my cuticle. This time, it bled, but I immediately stopped it.

Great. I could save money on Band-Aids. What an astounding ability I had.

Greg and I did go to the movie, though, which was about this boarding school teacher who encourages his repressed students to pursue their dreams, write poetry, seize the day. Then, one boy kills himself because he wants to be an actor, but his parents don’t see it that way. Of course, the teacher gets fired.

“So that was a downer,” I said to Greg as we walked through the mall afterward. “The message is that if you write poetry and think
for yourself, you end up either dead or so beaten down you won’t dare have an original thought again.”

Greg laughed. “You’re right. But most of us don’t have parents as bad as that guy’s.”

“Speak for yourself,” I muttered.

“I think the real theme was
carpe diem,
” Greg said.

It was late, and the mall was nearly empty. I could hear, even feel our footsteps on the white marble floor. We were completely in step, just like when we were kids. I wanted to grab Greg’s hand.

Carpe diem. Seize the day.

I didn’t grab it. I was too scared he wouldn’t take it. Still, our arms brushed as we walked.

“Do you believe that?” I asked. “Seize the day? Do what you want because each day might be your last.”

“I do. Don’t you?” He stopped walking to look at me. I could see us, reflected in the mall doors, him, tall and dark, me smaller, my hair flowing down my back. We belonged together.

I shook my head. “Guess I’m more cautious.” Still I wondered how it would be to seize the day, do what I wanted. If I grabbed Greg now and kissed him, would he kiss me back? I looked up at him. His eyes met mine. It would be so easy to do that.

“You’re so different than you used to be,” he said. “It kind of shows how things can change. One day, you were this ugly duckling. Sorry. But look at you now—a swan.”

“Thanks.” He would kiss me back. He would.

“Or what happened to Jennifer.”

“What do you mean?” I wanted to go back to talking about me, about how I was a swan.

“That dog could have killed her. And then, she’d have been gone, and she’d never have known how I felt about her. That accident inspired me. You saved her for me.”

Saved her? For you? You’ve got to be kidding!

“Can I show you something? I’ve been carrying it around because I’m afraid I’ll lose it.”

And then before I could say no, no, I don’t want to see anything that has to do with Jennifer, he pulled something from his pocket, a red velvet box, and held it near my face.

I backed away. “What is it?”

“It’s a promise ring.” He opened it. There was a silver ring with a heart and the tiniest diamond chip known to mankind in it.

“Promise? Promise what?” I felt like my legs might buckle under me, like I’d be on the floor.

“That we’ll get married someday.”

“Married? You and Jennifer?” I felt the bile coming up in my throat. I couldn’t speak anymore.

Greg was nodding, grinning like an evil doll in a horror movie. “I’m giving it to her when she comes back to school. Unless you think I should seize the day and give it to her sooner.”

“I . . . I . . .” I tried to speak but could only choke. I caught sight of myself again in the mall doors. I was so beautiful, so beautiful, so . . . so what? What good was it? It was everything I’d dreamed of, and it wasn’t enough.

Suddenly the glass door shattered, blowing out like a bomb had hit it.

“Whoa!” Greg jumped back. “What happened? It didn’t hit you, did it?”

But it wasn’t like he threw his body over it to save me.

“N-no.” I saw myself in another door. Then that shattered too. My magic was ungoverned, out of control, getting away from me, and I knew I had to stop before Greg realized it was me, then realized I’d hurt Jennifer. I veered toward the one open door, looking down, half closing my eyes so as not to see myself, and I ran. Beside me, Greg
was shouting, “Whoa! Whoa, watch out! What is that?” He put his arm around me, shielding me, and I wished I could pretend he was doing it out of love. But I knew much better. We ran through the parking lot. I dared look up, only to see myself in a car’s windshield. It, too, shattered, but I hoped Greg didn’t notice. I had to get out, get home, get away.

Finally, closing my eyes entirely, I got to my car. I told Greg I thought there was glass in my eye, so he drove us home, me seeing nothing. Thankfully, talk about flying glass at the mall drowned out any thought about talking about Jennifer. Jennifer. Jennifer. I excused my looking down by crying. From the shock of it, I told Greg. I didn’t have to pretend. My tears were real.

I should have let her die. I had every chance, but I’d stopped it. Why? Why? What had Jennifer ever done but torment me? Why was I such an idiot?

I wouldn’t make that mistake again.

I got home, finally, and groped my way to my bedroom, trying to avoid my mirrored closet door, the giant frame mirror over my dresser. I didn’t wash my face or brush my teeth, fearing to enter the bathroom.

But when I stumbled to bed, something cold and hard touched my flesh.

A mirror. The mirror. Kendra’s same mirror she had given me the first day. How was it here?

I stared into it. It didn’t shatter. “Kendra?”

Thus summoned, Kendra appeared. She could see me too, for she stared at me. “My darling, what’s wrong?”

“It’s useless! He’ll never love me! He
loves
Jennifer! He wants to marry her. Marry! They’re seventeen! He’s supposed to go to college and be a football star. And my magic is all out of whack. I broke stuff.”

In the mirror, Kendra nodded, but her eyes narrowed. “Were you at Cutler Ridge Mall?”

“Yes. How did you know?”

“The news reported a bombing, broken glass everywhere. But they couldn’t find the bomb.”

“That was me.” I was shaking, thinking about it. “I couldn’t stop it. I don’t know if I can stop it now. I’m afraid to look at anything.”

“My darling.” Kendra’s face held all the sympathy I never got from anyone else. “When witches are unhappy, they generally make their displeasure known. It’s unfortunate you were in such a public place, but you must calm yourself now.”

“So what do I do?”

“Try to think about someone else. Try to be happy. Concentrate on other things. Your studies. You’re such a smart, wonderful girl. Find someone else. Forget him. Let him go.”

She was saying all the things my mother should have said, if she hadn’t sucked. Yet it seemed like she was speaking a foreign language. “Forget Greg? I can’t. I love him, only him.”

“He doesn’t love you. People get over failed romance all the time.”

“No, never. Don’t you understand? Everyone hates me.
Everyone.
They won’t even do a dance routine if I choreograph it. They hate me, all of them. I even hate myself. I’m worthless. Worthless. Greg is the only one who ever cared for me, ever saw anything in me but ugliness.”

“Shh.” Kendra put a finger to her lips. “That’s not true. I love you, Violet. You are my true daughter. And you’ll find someone else, someone better. Someone who will love you.”

I nodded, but I knew I wouldn’t, couldn’t. I would try to be happy, but the only way I could be was by getting Greg, by plotting Jennifer’s utter destruction. I’d missed one opportunity. I wouldn’t
miss it again. Not just a dog bite, something worse.

I’d have Greg—someday—if it took everything I had.

“Kendra?” I asked. “Am I the fairest one of all?”

“Aw, honey, of course you are. Please get some sleep. It will be better. You’ll meet someone else, someone who appreciates you as he never did.”

I nodded. “Okay.”

And then, she disappeared, and I was looking at my own face.

I was so beautiful.