Writing

Ella had stopped trying to get out of the closet when there was a scream in the living room.

She put her ear to the crack in the door and listened carefully; she could just hear what they were saying across the hallway.

It was silent there now. Fearfully quiet, as if they had all disappeared. The scream must have been Mother, she thought. What was it?

Then there was his voice, the familiar, strange voice of the prince, forced and slow. “It was you?”

“Yes, it was me the entire time, all the time,” Anna said, and her voice was like the voices in high-budget movies, when the microphone is so careful and the audience is so silent that all the crunches and breaths are as loud as bells.

“It’s you?” The prince asked again.

There was a tiny pause, and no one breathed.

“Look into my eyes,” Anna whispered. “Don’t you see me?”

Ella could almost hear the wet crinkling of the prince’s mouth as he smiled. “It is you!” And then there was a thud as he jumped up: “I told you! I told you I would find her! See,” he turned to Anna, “when you left the glass slipper there I knew, I knew I would go looking for you, and I would never stop, and here you are!”

Ella could feel the push of her heartbeat wracking her chest. Sweat crept across her shoulders. She shivered. She pushed at the door. It still wouldn’t give.

“I was too afraid, I couldn’t go back,” Anna said softly and her voice floated resonant and silvery around the house. “But I waited for you, and I waited and it was so hard not to just call out to you, and when you came I couldn’t even breathe, I saw you, and you didn’t recognize me. I almost died when you didn’t recognize me. But now we’re here, together, and we’ll live happily ever after.”

There was a little sigh, from Mother, Ella thought she heard it. She was sick. She pushed at the door harder. She felt strong. Her muscles tingled and she pushed, she pushed she shook the door. The wood was starting to split – just a little farther – and then there was a crack and the door fell. She rushed out. There they were, smiling like toothpaste advertisers, like models for anti-aging skin cream. They looked at her, the smiles stuck to their faces.

She stared.

The prince looked at Ella.

The prince looked at Anna.

“And who is this?” The prince asked Mother.

“This is…Ella. She is my – other daughter.”

Ella stared at the prince.

Ella stared at Anna.

There was a pause and the prince put his arm around Anna, but she gently stepped away from him.

“Ella,” she said softly, holding out her hand. Her smile was perfect, radiant, snowy. “Ella, come with me. Come on, we’ll get you upstairs. Come on. I’m sorry, if you’ll wait one moment, sir,” Anna smiled at the prince.

They were all watching her, Ella realized. She was still strong, she realized. She shoved Anna away and laughed. The door was fragile to her and she knocked it down, the painted wood suddenly crushing under her force. She mumbled.

When she got outside she turned around, dramatically, counting “one, two, three, four,” under her breath, and gave them each a glassy doe-eyed stare.

She looked at the prince and slowly pushed her tongue out between her teeth.

Then, quick as a minnow, she turned and skipped down the steps, across the yard to the road – she ran, she laughed. She could play her part too.

The Snow

She’d go past the window that faced his living room every day. Sometimes she’d cup her hands to the glass and try to see into his house; the curtains were always closed though. Like today, she walked by and her eyes always got stuck in the window as if it went on forever. The big house, at least the front of it, was all hers.

            The door was gray. She’d never seen what was behind it but she knew the man was inside. He’d walked in once. She swore he’d stared at her – opaque, dark eyes. Shiny holes in a skull. That was how she remembered it. She wondered if he’d seen her as a fairy that one day. When he’d seen her she’d felt tense and frail, a balloon stretched tight.

She imagined him smiling behind closed curtains.

But today, as she walked past his house, she noticed something by the curb. It was trash day. There were the green cans, three of them, and a box. She was curious. She walked to the curb. She picked up the box. It was heavy. She pried off the top, opened it. Five gerbils tucked in like bread rolls, gentle, warm, thumping, cuddling. They poked their heads out of the box into the cold air. They looked weak and sleepy.

She sat down on the curb, entranced. She held them close, wiggling, to her body. She grinned, slow and soft.

            It started to snow.

Untitled

“It’s mostly amusement park, I think,” Beth told me, tilting her head to one side. “I’m pretty sure it’s half water park, half amusement park, but they’re not letting us go to the water park because it’s still April and everything.” She was chewing pineapple-mango gum, and it smelled like fruit punch.

            I looked at the rest of the bus. It wasn’t that crowded since most of the kids were in the other two buses. Across the aisle a row in front of Beth and me was Ben and Dylan, talking about video games, as always. Straight across from us was Oliver. Oliver was staring out the window. I watched him.

            “Personally, I’m alright with that, because water parks are stupid, really,” Beth continued.  “And besides, it would be freezing if we went today – it’s like sixty degrees outside right now.” Fruity scents swirled around us in a cloud.

            Oliver wasn’t really bony but now you could see his collarbone and his cheekbones and the cable-like muscle crossing his neck because he was turned toward the window. He was small compared to the rest of the guys in our grade, kind of elfish.

            “You know,” I told Beth hurriedly, “it’s funny. Imagine – I could just take a picture of any of these people,” I held up the camera that I’d been holding in my lap, “and they wouldn’t notice – like Ben and Dylan, if I took a picture of them right now they’d think I was aiming out the window.”