Prologue
February 4th, 2012
Dear Diary,
Cora got me this journal for my birthday—how’d she know I’d need to vent?
I’m sitting here, trying to lose myself in my character, but my brain won’t shut up. I wish I could just get lost in my role and forget my life. That’s why acting means so much to me—I get to be someone else. And this time, I am the baker’s wife in Into the woods. I worked so hard to get this part, and I’d love to lose myself in her agony rather than face my own.
I wish I could be someone else. Anyone else.
But my brain won’t let me.
This is not how I saw my seventeenth birthday going. My parents just…blew my world up beyond recognition. If I told you the story they told me, Diary, you would never believe it. I still don’t know if I can.
What a beautiful world it was…and it just came to a screeching halt. I had the lead in the school musical, great friends, and a cute boyfriend who finally freaking kissed me (we’ve been practicing a lot of that lately…more on that later). Everything was going so well. So well.
That should have been my first clue.
Then my parents sat me down and told me about my heritage—and I don’t want any of it! Ugh, I can’t even write the words they said…it takes too much energy and forces me to face something I can’t even wrap my head around. How do I go on now? How do I learn my lines and go on dates and have slumber parties with Addy and teach my dog new tricks and eat ice cream and choose a college, now that I know what I am…what I’m becoming? I guess none of that matters anymore, does it?
I don’t want any of this!!!
Don’t I get a choice? Don’t I get a say in who I am? I thought that was the point. I thought we got to determine our own paths. I was on the way to doing this for myself. But here I am, a mess of tears and snot and mascara, sitting on my bed, my musical soundtrack playing in the background, my script laid out highlighted on the floor, but my brain won’t stop racing.
My head hurts. What I thought was my reality is only an illusion. And I’m freaking out. Seriously freaking out. My parents told me the sooner I embrace this thing inside of me, the better it will be. But how the hell do I do that?
Oh, and just to make things interesting, apparently someone wants to kill me now…wants to kill everyone who is like me. Ugh, like me. I’m not sure I even know what that means.
And on and on and on and on it goes. The thoughts. The crippling fear. The paralyzing prospect of losing my mind and doing the unthinkable…
Make it stop, Diary. Please, just make it all just…stop.
1
Jessie
“I’ve never lied to royalty before. I’ve never anything to royalty before! What a beautiful gown you’re wearing. Were you at the King’s Festival?”
My own dark gaze peered at me from my reflection in the mirror as I watched myself recite my lines. I exhaled and twisted my face into the pained expression I had practiced so many times before now—the one that had secured me the role of the baker’s wife in our high school’s rendition of Into the Woods. I ran the lines and then I ran them again, practicing with different inflections and intonations to ensure I got it just right. It was a personal goal to have the first two scenes memorized before tonight’s rehearsal.
And I was almost there, despite the ungodly early hour of the day.
“Aren’t you the lucky one. If a Prince were pursuing me, I certainly wouldn’t hide.”
My bedroom door flung open and my mom and dad stood there smiling, a plate full of birthday donuts and balloons in hand. They burst into a chorus of ‘Happy birthday’, my mother harmonizing at the end as she did with every annual performance on this day. Millie, my border collie, wagged her tail at this out-of-the-ordinary set of morning events, happy to have all her pack in one place.
I didn’t want them to know how cute I thought this was, how much I looked forward to this tradition, even if it had grown a little embarrassing the older I got. Thank God there were no witnesses.
Wrong again.
My two sisters sprung out from behind my parents, throwing confetti and jumping up and down. Well, my youngest sister, Cora, jumped up and down. My middle sister, Talia, who was in the “too cool for school” stage, threw her confetti with a bored look on her face. And by “threw” I mean she raised her arm two inches from her side and let the chopped up colorful paper fall from her fingertips.
The whole lot of them filled my room now, trespassing on my sacred territory. But, I supposed, I would allow the intrusion for today.
Mom hugged me first. A cockroach set in resin dangled from her neck, and her little pet snake Arnie was wrapped around her arm as he often was. Mom almost always had one of her many pets on her person, but lately Arnie, the baby snake seemed to have taken up near permanent residence around her arm or neck.
“Oh, happy birthday, sweetie. Seventeen! I can hardly believe it.” Every time I had a birthday, she could hardly believe it. Like each year this date came as a surprise.
“Eww, Mom. No offense, but I don’t like it when that thing touches me.” I squirmed out of her grip and gestured toward the bug-turned-jewelry. Then I reached forward and stroked the little snake coiled around her forearm. “Good morning, Arnie. You’re such a cute little guy, aren’t you?” I cooed, stroking his soft back.
“Oh, come on, Jessie-girl. You know I love to help them live forever. And here! I made you a bracelet this year!” She reached into her robe pocket and dangled a leather bracelet in front of my face, a colorful beetle trapped inside it.
“Thanks, Mom.” I pinched the bracelet between my finger and thumb, as if the thing was going to come alive and eat me. This newest piece of jewelry from my mother would join several others in my secret drawer, out of sight, but unfortunately, not out of mind. I shuddered, thinking of all the dead but forever preserved bugs that lived in that drawer.
Dad’s embrace was stiffer and more akin to a rough squeeze than a hug. “Almost an adult now. How’s it feel?”
Displays of affection were not his thing. I always chalked it up to what he must see in his line of work as a detective. Even though he kept a safe distance—emotionally speaking—from his daughters, there was no doubt he loved us. He just showed it differently from Mom. And it worked for us—she was the buffer, the confidant, the problem solver. We left it up to her what she would convey to our dad and what she would keep between us and her.
“Thanks guys!” I said, sweeping the room with my gaze to indicate all of them. “Now, where’s my jelly donut?” I picked through the options on the plate and found my donut of choice. Wasting no time (there were donuts to be consumed!) I stuffed that sucker into my mouth, the strawberry jelly spilling out and staining the corners of my mouth. In all my now seventeen years, I had never learned how to eat one of these things gracefully.
Mom looked from the script lying on my bed to my face. “Were you rehearsing your lines before school? How’s it going, baker’s wife?” There was a warmth, a pride in her tone.
“I was. And good. Did you know I was the only junior to get a lead? So far, the script is a bit different from the movie, though. I’m just glad I didn’t land Cinderella or Rapunzel. I would not a great princess make. You know when rehearsals start, we hit the ground running. Gotta be ready for that.”