The other evening Vivian settled herself on the arm of the old leather armchair and opened her iPad. She read a story that she had just finished in her Writer's Workshop class at school.
My first thought was "Wow"
My first comment was "Can your fellow 6th graders read this story?" It isn't exactly PG.
My second thought was "Where is she getting this material - it isn't autobiographical"
I wrote a post back in 2013 about
Vivian's first book. Here we are - five years later.
SHADOWS
A boy stood at the end of the empty hallway. His vivid green eyes pierced her muddy brown ones. Usually the middle school hall was so full of boys yelling and girls squealing, you could barely hear yourself think. But tonight the moonlight bounced off the sparkling linoleum, illuminating the boy’s pale face and making his dark hair glisten with silver, creating the illusion that his eyes were glowing. She felt as though she'd seen this boy before, but she couldn’t place it.
Kayla woke with a start. Her face was shining with a layer of cold sweat. Her blankets were tangled around her bare legs. Kayla’s orange tabby, Crookshanks, named after Hermione Granger's cat, hissed and spat at her, his hair rumpled from the short fall. He wasn’t the only one shaken. Kayla’s hands still shook with the intensity of his stare. Her head felt numb after the dream…
Kayla slipped a baggy T-shirt over her head and untucked her hair from the collar. Her jeans fit snug against her shaking legs. She laced up a pair of ratty grey high tops. A cheap plastic brush combed through her short hair that always got her mistaken for a boy. Her thickly framed glasses sat heavy on her freckled nose.
“Mom” Kayla whispered, “I’m going to school now.”
Mrs. Ruly had been sick for months now, and she wasn’t getting better. After she’d kicked Kayla’s father out of their small two bedroom apartment, she had spent most of her time at the local bar. She’d come home later and later. Stumbling and throwing up, she would make her way to her empty bed. Kayla could sometimes hear her crying into her father’s old pillow. Her mother would wake in the morning with splitting headaches. Kayla thought nothing of the throwing up and headaches, it was just a bad hangover. But soon her mother never left her bedroom, not even to watch a movie with Kayla. One day Kayla found her mother on the floor of her bathroom dazed and mumbling. Kayla rushed to the phone and called an ambulance. When they got to the hospital, Kayla was in tears and her mother’s eyes were closed.
The doctors were cryptic in their prognosis.“Sorry, but all she can do is go home and get some rest.” They looked at Kayla with pity. That was in February, it was nearly May now.
”Kayla,” a pretty girl with huge round green eyes shouted across the crowded lunchroom.
“Gotta grab my lunch, Avery,” Kayla shouted back.
Avery nodded and plopped back into her seat.
Kayla and Avery had become friends after Kayla’s mother had fallen sick. For the past few months Kayla had spent more time at Avery’s than at her own house. She grabbed her tray and made a beeline towards Avery.
“Hey, how’s your mom,” Avery asked.
“Not getting better,” Kayla said, “how’re your parents?”
“Fighting, as usual.” Avery tugged on the strings of her hoodie, eventually popping one into her mouth. “I wish they would just split, listening to them fight is torture.”
Kayla’s eyes softened and her brow creased.
“...Or at least let me move into the basement.”
Avery stabbed her broccoli and flipped her long blond hair that had recently been dyed black to match her usual attire of velvet high tops and a spiked choker. The sparkling green eyes were the only thing left from old Avery. Maybe that’s why they were drawn to each other. Avery’s parents had started fighting, she’d become introverted and her favorite color went from rose pink to coal black. Kayla wouldn’t have minded if her parents fought all the time if it meant that her father were still around.
Kayla’s dad was brilliant, at least that was what she thought. To everyone else, he was crazy. He’d wanted to solve the world's problems, but Kayla was the only one who saw him in that light. Even his own wife had kicked him out after finding a bra two cup sizes bigger than hers, although everyone knew it was because of the constant explosions in their basement.
Kayla redirected her mind and tried to focus on the wonderful dream she’d had the night before. Before she could even catch a glimmer of what the dream had been about, a new thought infiltrated her mind. The glimmering green eyes, the teasing smile, and the way he kept dancing out of her reach.
Avery waved her fork in front of Kayla’s face to bring her back, “Hellooo? Anyone home?”
Kayla jumped and they resumed their normal lunchtime commentary about the group they referred to as the ‘School Royals’.
After school Kayla dropped by the park. She walked around the pond and skipped rocks over the clear sparkling water to clear her mind.
“Ouch!” A head of black hair emerged from behind a large tree. “Geesh you’ve got a good arm.”
Kayla stood there, dumbfounded, like an idiot.
A startling green gaze landed on her and she almost fell to the ground with the intensity.
He grinned teasingly. “Hello Kayla.”
“How do you know m...“
But before she could go any further he crossed to her and glanced at the backpack on the ground at their feet “I saw it on your backpack.”
He offered her his arm in a courtly fashion. Kayla tentatively placed her hand in the crook of his elbow. This was not her normal behaviour. Usually she would ignore a stranger in the park, but there was something about this guy that made her want to be adventurous. “The names Kayla Ruly- although you already seem to know that,” she smiled weakly.
“Enchanted, Kayla Ruly, I am Zev.” He added a quick little bow.
They walked through the forest arm in arm like in a Disney movie. Yellow sunlight filtered through the fresh leaves. Kayla bounced on a squishy patch of moss. He glanced at her, but she was too busy blushing to notice.
He ran his hand through his shaggy hair, making it even more unkempt.
The rest of the walk went something like that as they walked up Main Street, stealing quick rosy cheeked glances when the other wasn’t looking. As they turned the corner, Kayla’s eye caught on a blazing, red glint of light near his pocket. She stopped for a moment.
“What’s wrong?” asked Zev.
She shook her head “It must have been my eyes playing tricks on me.”
“In that case, let me walk you home.”He offered his elbow to her again, but she grabbed his hand instead. He raise an eyebrow at her, questioning, but did not pull away.
They strolled back down Main Street, across a small stone bridge, and turned a corner. They walked up to the front door of the apartment complex.
“So I guess I’ll see you around town?” Kayla asked turning back to him.
“Coffee on Tuesday?” He asked, adding, “ at the new Starbucks on Hampton Street.”
“See you there.” Kayla pulled her head up to see if he was blushing as much as she was. But he was gone. She started to go into her apartment when she noticed a brown package sitting on the steps. She picked it up and slipped it into her pocket.
As she made her way up the grimy steps, Kayla was lost in thought. Where had Zev come from? She knew most of the boys in her small town that were that age and she had never seen him before. There was something about him...something compelling. She could still feel the cool touch of his hand on hers. She continued daydreaming until her phone buzzed with her reminder that she had an essay to write.
Reluctantly she opened her ancient computer. When it finally loaded, she started to search the web for a good essay topic. She came across an article that was published in the 40’s:
Last week the body of Alissa May was found in a ditch outside of a small town in Massachusetts. Alissa’s entire family is under investigation. The only thing found on the crime scene was a knife covered in blood. It had been stabbed into Alissa’s stomach but the only trace of fingerprints were hers.
Kayla stopped reading and feeling a little shaken, scrolled down. She skimmed a few more articles, until one published in the 90’s caught her eye
Earlier this month Maddie Kim disappeared during a school ski trip. In a gruesome turn of events, her body was found on one of the black diamond slopes. A hiker, Malory Jones discovered her, “Her body was covered in blood and a dagger was plunged into her skull.” Malory found the body when she and her husband were hiking the mountain. There were no fingerprints on the unusual weapon: a dagger made of ruby encrusted obsidian.
The article went into more depth but Kayla couldn’t read more. Her stomach roiled and tears pricked at the back of her eyes. She glanced at the small package on her desk. Maybe she would finish her essay tomorrow. She grabbed the brown paper-covered parcel and carefully untied the string. When she pulled the paper away, a strangled breath caught in her throat. A dim light glanced off of the red jewels and obsidian and an eire shadow was cast over Kalya.
