I Am Not Jessica Chen(31)
But in the absence of any real answers, I need to find my cousin now more than ever. There are no reliable answers online, and I don’t have either the faith or the intelligence to look into scientific theory, so I turn to lore. Legend. Fairy tales from fallen kingdoms.
Tiny motes of dusts swirl in the air, catching the silver sunlight as I pull out another collection of fantasy stories from the nineteenth century. It’s so heavy that I have to set down the stack of books I’m already holding and balance it against the shelf. My fingers drift over the title. The Strange and Fantastical Journey of Charles Collins.
Like most of the other titles I’ve browsed through, the pages are yellow and thinning, as if the edges had been dipped in water, and flecked with brown, like sunspots. The detailed illustrations curling around the text have started to fade in color too, the dark strokes of ink vanishing with time. But there’s a chapter about Charles transforming into the charming, handsome knight he envies. . . .
My heart ricochets inside my rib cage.
I read four pages before my pulse slows its pace again. Nothing happens to Charles’s soul, or the knight’s. Instead, Charles learns a forbidden spell that only works if he steals the knight’s face—which he does in a horrific manner, slicing off the knight’s nose and lips, then gouging out his eyeballs, then peeling off the knight’s skin. The accompanying drawings are just as vividly gruesome, depicting the two men, one gloating, grinning, his hands crusted crimson, and the other faceless, doubled over in agony, his ruined mouth a gaping abyss. I shove the book back with a violent shudder, the delicate skin on my face crawling with goose bumps.
“I thought it was you.”
I jump at the voice, my knees buckling. My first thought of pure black dread is that it’s the anonymous student, that they’ve caught me and everything’s over and they’ll all know I’m an imposter. But when I spin around, it’s Aaron standing in the aisle, a bemused expression on his face.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” he says.
I can still hear the blood slamming against my eardrums. “I . . . no,” I manage, my throat tight. “No, you didn’t scare me. I was just . . . surprised. There, um, usually aren’t a lot of people here.”
“I’m looking for a doctor’s memoir,” he says, then glances over at the thick volumes lying by my feet. “And you’re looking for . . . fairy tales.” The faintest lift of his eyebrows. “I didn’t think that was your area of interest.”
I wince. “It’s not. I only . . . I was only looking for inspiration,” I say, stringing the lie together as I go, “for my next English project. I thought it might be good to get some, um, unique perspectives from the novelists of the nineteenth century.”
“I see.” His eyes are too dark for me to tell if he’s convinced. “Well, if you want to read those, you should probably go check them out now. Old Keller might forgive you for being late if you tell him how dedicated you are to your English project, though.”
I stare at him blankly.
“Debate.” His brows rise higher. “Don’t you have the meeting at lunch? I saw them getting ready on my way over.”
Right. Debate. Because aside from her intensive academics, Jessica has also signed up for every extracurricular under the sun. Student council. The school magazine. Peer mentoring. The English club. Academic decathlon. Yearbook committee. The Chinese Club. And of course the club considered most competitive and elite at Havenwood: speech and debate.
I curse inwardly. “Of course . . . thank you,” I babble to Aaron. “I should definitely go—I’ll go right now. Nice seeing you . . . as usual.” I crouch down, trying and failing to gather all the books in my arms.
Aaron’s voice hovers over my shoulder. “Do you need help with—”
“No,” I say quickly, using my chin to stabilize the wobbling pile of books. “I’m fine. Really. Thanks again, Cai Anran.”
It’s not until I’ve brushed past him that I remember I’m the only one who ever calls him by his Chinese name.
Speech and debate meetings are held in what used to be the world literature classroom. The air tastes bitter, like old coffee and plastic, and the lone window at the back appears to be stuck closed. Two rows of tables have been arranged on opposite ends of the room, facing each other.
“Jessica, you’re finally here,” Old Keller says when I rush in, and for a confused moment I almost look around to find my cousin. I give my head a quick shake, try to catch my breath, get my bearings. Everything is starting to blur together, my life and Jessica’s. “I was just about to announce the topic for today.”
I do a quick assessment of the teams, sizing them up instinctively.
On one side is Tracey Davis, Liam Phillip, and Lachlan Robertson. They don’t smile at me; they don’t seem to notice anyone around them at all. Instead, their heads are bent together and they’re joking loudly about something, or someone, a name that sounds familiar but I don’t fully recognize. I chew the inside of my cheek, my gaze flickering between them.
Liam is the smartest of the three, without a doubt. Broad shouldered and naturally intimidating, he attended a special debate camp last year and won best speaker at a recent national competition. Tracey is intelligent, sharp-tongued when she wants to be, but not particularly confident. Lachlan is confident, but not very intelligent.