Snowsisters Read online

  Orly calls out to me from where she stands with two other girls, “Pecan pie, Soph. You can’t beat it!”

  I make a face. “It’s too sweet for me.”

  From her chair, Grace goes through the groups. Apple is the biggest, not surprisingly. “You’re all alone there,” she calls to me. “What’s your pie of choice?”

  When I say, “Key lime,” Chris walks around another group and joins me. Who knew? I smile at her, but she’s too serious to smile back.

  “What’s your favorite color to wear?”

  Chris stays by my side, and we pick up other “urbans” by choosing black. Now Tess is all alone. I’m surprised, since you’d think with all the girls here, pink would be popular. But then Orly joins her. I never do hear them say pink, though, because Janaye and I compare notes about our favorite designers while Grace asks everyone their colors.

  Grace calls out the next question: “What do you write?”

  It takes a few minutes for us to “mingle” on this one. I walk around saying “Poetry?” and end up with a few girls.

  One of them, Yin, says she blogs and sometimes puts up poetry. “That’s how Helen found me. She saw my blog and invited me to apply.”

  “Helen?”

  “Yes, Helen Forsythe. The director. I hadn’t even heard of this program until I got her email inviting me to apply. She’s pretty cool.”

  “Oh, yes, Helen, of course.” I try to sound “cool” like “Helen” and pretend I’m more interested in “mingling” than in why Professor Forsythe was so interested in Yin.

  We go through a few other topics, like favorite movies and celebrities we most want to meet, but I found “Sorts” more fun. “Mingle” should put people together, but more people end up standing alone. Also, it happens too fast for me to learn much about any of them.

  I’m relieved when Grace announces that it’s nine o’clock and we should all go to bed because tomorrow is a busy day. On my way up to our bedroom, I think about how I’d better focus if I’m going to be on a first name basis with Professor Forsythe like Yin.

  I linger in the hallway outside our room, talking to Janaye and some others, asking them about how they got here. No one else refers to “Helen.” They all say they found out about the conference through school. Orly goes into the room next to ours. She’s there for a few minutes before Chris follows. They haven’t talked all night, from what I can tell. Maybe everyone is still shy about rooming with new people. I feel good about this week. Nobody here expects me to keep quiet about myself or serve as ambassador for my family. I still have six days to impress Professor Forsythe. Tomorrow I can pull out some of my work to show her. It shouldn’t be hard to be friendly with everyone here, and those two things together might convince her I’m Minerva material.

  Tess.

  Soph is still chatting in the lounge with Janaye, so I’m the first one back to our room. I don’t know what to think about what Chris said to me and I can’t get it out of my head. If I were braver, I would have told her I write fan fiction and asked what her problem with it was. And I don’t know what I was supposed to say about Orly. I talked with Orly during “Sorts” and “Mingle,” and she seems like the other girls to me. We like a lot of the same things. Her hair is long, and she wears a skirt, a yellow scarf, and dangly earrings.

  Sighing, I unlock our door and scrub my face. Going through my nighttime routine might help me think. Maybe I can ask Soph about it when she gets back. I wash my face and brush my teeth, grateful for the sink in the room. I’m doing sit-ups in my pajamas when Soph comes flying through the door.

  She stops short when she sees me on the floor, then laughs as she closes the door and says, “I love your PJs! Way to subvert the military-industrial complex with color!” Her laugh is distinctive, sort of glittery.

  I sit up straight, confused. “Way to what?” I don’t understand what she just said at all.

  She pulls off her fancy suede boots, stumbles backward onto her bed, and shrugs. “I think it’s great that you appropriated camouflage and asserted your femininity by making it pink. Robbing the male-dominated military culture of its aggression!”

  I look down at the pajamas. “I got them for Christmas from my grandmother.”

  “You did?” Her eyes widen as she pushes the second boot off her foot. “Is your grandmother a feminist? That’s so cool!”

  I think of MeMe, leaving church before coffee hour every Sunday so she can get home to put the roast in the oven and have it ready when we all arrive for lunch, hanging laundry on the line in the summer heat, and braiding my sister’s hair. I remember how she taught me to knit. It makes me smile. “No, she’s probably not a feminist. She’s a pretty hard worker though. She gave me these because I’m going into the military.”

  That should at least impress Soph a little more than being from a dairy farm.

  She stops short, her arms halfway out of the sweater she’s pulling off, and looks at me as though she’s seeing a ghost.

  “You’re what?” she asks, even though I’m pretty sure she heard me.

  “I’m going into the military. Next summer after I graduate.”

  “You’re kidding. Why would you—” She stops as she did when I mentioned The Witches’ Circle.

  “Why would I enlist?” I can’t understand why she’s asking, but I explain anyway. “My family is a service family. My grandpa fought in Vietnam and my father fought in the first Iraq war. We all serve. And the military is a great place for women these days. There are opportunities for travel and job training. They’ll pay for my education, one way or another.”

  She shakes her head at me, as though she’s still confused. “Did some recruiter tell you that, Tess? Because you know they promise you things that aren’t true. I don’t know why you would want to do that unless you got drafted. I mean, men use war and violence to kill each other, but women can get things done without bloodshed.”

  Now I’m both tired and angry. Joey was wrong. Showing these girls who I am is just making them judge me. I can’t ask Soph about Chris and Orly. I shouldn’t have left Castleton. At least I know what’s expected there. I abandon the rest of my sit-ups and climb into bed without saying anything more. I have no idea how I’m going to make it through a week of this place.

  * * *

  From Soph Alcazar’s Writing Journal

  February 10, 2018

  I can’t understand what’s going on here.

  Try, fail with Forsythe; Tess in combat gear.

  Chapter Five

  From the Fan Fiction Unbound Archive,

  posted by conTessaofthecastle:

  Daphne concentrated. She closed her eyes and repeated the incantation slowly, focusing her attention on the tingling sensation in her fingertips. “Actessar,” she murmured. Then again, “Actessar.” For a moment, she could feel her fingers twitching and she thought she might have mastered the space-shifting spell at last. But when she opened her eyes, she was still in the little glade where they slept last night. Astoria sat by the fire watching her.

  Soph.

  My cell phone wakes me at seven. Once I remember where I am, I notice that Tess is doing push-ups by the foot of her bed. I don’t care if she’s a jock, but I hope this doesn’t mean she has a body image problem. She shouldn’t, since her body is very nice, but plenty of girls do. I want to ask her about it, but she’s really working herself hard and I don’t want to interrupt. After push-ups, she turns onto her back and does sit-ups.

  I mumble, “Good morning,” and go into the bathroom to shower.

  We walk down to breakfast, and I work up the courage to ask Tess if she knows anything about admissions at Minerva College. She shakes her head. I think she must hate me for being flippant about military service last night. I can’t think what to say about it. Maybe Gordon will text me back today. He’s good at helping me pull my foot out of my mouth
. I’m not wrong. The military does fight wars and kill people. How can that not be bad? I can’t believe it’s really a “great place for women.” Hasn’t Tess heard about all those sexual harassment problems? But Tess is certainly entitled to her opinion, not to mention her future.

  A heavy snow comes down during breakfast, piling up on the sills outside the dining room’s picture windows. It’s beautiful. It almost never snows this much in New York, and when it does it quickly turns dirty until it disappears. After last night’s rubber chicken, even the cardboard-y waffles taste good if I douse them from the bottle marked “Real Maple Syrup from New Hampshire,” which we pass around. Joan soon tells us to finish up and clear our places so we can begin our first session.

  Professor Forsythe announces that we are going to split into four groups, each led by a different adult: the Professor, Joan, Celestine, and Grace. Everyone will discuss what they write and where they want to go with it. Dialogue is encouraged—I guess the whole conference is about us being chosen for how our work is interconnected. We walk into a conference room with several large tables surrounded by chairs.

  They put me in Professor Forsythe’s group, just what I hoped. I’m with Orly, Chris, Tess, Clover, Janaye, and Yin. I bet this is what Minerva will be like, with Professor Forsythe choosing me to join her seminars. I look around at the other girls and wonder if any of them will end up at Minerva. Tess isn’t interested, obviously, but I can see myself at college with some of the others. After her invitation-only poetry seminar, Professor Forsythe will edit my poem for a national journal. Then I’ll go with Clover to the student union for a nitro brew or hang out in the dorm lounge with Janaye.

  I sit next to Orly and smile at her, but she is not making eye contact. Clover sits next to me, and I’m fine with that. I don’t want to sit next to Tess this morning. She sits on the other side of Professor Forsythe, and Chris sits down next to her. Figures. Tess pulls away, squirming when Chris whispers in her ear.

  Once we’re seated, Professor Forsythe smiles and looks around the table. “Good morning again. This session is a chance for you to tell us about your writing and what you want to do with it at this workshop, and to hear each other’s reactions. I’ll start. I’m Helen Forsythe. I am an academic, so my writing is analytical prose. But I am no stranger to creative writing. I concentrate on comparative literature. This semester, I am hard at work on a history of structure and rhyme scheme in Western poetry from the twelfth to the nineteenth centuries. I teach English composition, including poetry and fiction writing, at Minerva College, which will host us for an event later this week.”

  Wow. It sounds as if Professor Forsythe’s current project lines up almost squarely with what I want to do here. I am about to say that, to introduce my work, when she cuts me off. “Tess, why don’t you tell us about yourself and your writing?”

  So Tess is first. Her eyes widen, and she darts a look toward Chris. “I’m Tess.” Her voice wavers. “I’m from Castleton, New Hampshire. I write fan fiction online. Most of it is based on a television show called The Witches’ Circle, which has two women as principal characters, Daphne and Astoria.” She pauses, catches my eye across the table, and says in a shaky voice, “I know some people think fan fiction is lame, but in creating different storylines, I am trying to use magic as a symbol of a different kind of femininity, one which is based on women’s skills, not their traditional roles.” Chris stares at Tess. Tess seems to know that because, even while keeping her eyes focused on the table in front of her, she shrinks farther away. “Also, I don’t always like what the show does with its plotlines. I change things to make the characters more powerful and less stereotyped. Umm…” Blushing, she ducks her head. “I guess for this workshop I want to write an ending to my current story that is pretty different from the season cliffhanger. I don’t think I’ve figured out what that is yet, but I’m leaning toward having one of the witches find out she has a new extra-magical power which she doesn’t quite understand how to use, and describing how she masters it.”

  Tess’s speech makes me reconsider what I thought about her fan fiction. Maybe she doesn’t just repeat dialogue from TV witches. She is writing about inherent female power, not about girls trying to become empowered or serve their country. I like that—there’s so much feminist fiction out there that is about bringing women to the table and getting them into positions of authority, responsibility, and confidence. Tess is saying that they are already powerful, and how they understand and use their power is important. She’s also writing about the women using that power for themselves instead of serving men or children.

  But Chris offers a different opinion. Cocking her head, she turns toward Tess as if she cannot believe what she is hearing. “I’m Chris. I’m from Dallas and, sorry, but fan fiction is pretty derivative. I think it’s a cop-out. If you are going to use characters already out there, you should be writing nonfiction. And if you’re going to write fiction, make it up yourself.” She rolls her eyes and looks at Janaye, who is seated at the foot of the table. Janaye nods.

  I expect Professor Forsythe to counterbalance Chris, but she goes along with it. “Tess, your fan fiction is very interesting, but your colleague, Chris, has a point. Why do you write fan fiction?”

  Tess blanches. She actually goes pale. Her eyes were wide before, but now they’re like saucers. Her mouth opens like a goldfish’s, but nothing comes out. Professor Forsythe asks us, “Would anyone like to say anything else about Tess’s work?”

  I think this is unfair. Even though I thought the same thing last night and I barely know Tess, I don’t like Chris’s tone or that she’s trying to make points with the rest of us by picking on Tess.

  “I would,” I say and am surprised by how worked up I am. “I think a little history and a little literature show that throwing shade at fan fiction is ridiculous. If you say it’s ‘derivative,’ you might as well criticize the Romans for taking the Greek gods, renaming them, and changing their stories. Myths and legends grew as they were changed, embellished, and turned into longer works with different structures and outcomes.”

  I look at Chris when I say this. She glares back. I don’t stop. This is what my mother calls “soapboxing.” “I’m Soph, I’m from the City, and I write poetry. I want to be able to create structured poems like English and Italian sonnets. But getting back to fan fiction, do you think Shakespeare’s characters aren’t original? Because I think Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra were ‘already out there,’ not to mention four Henrys, two Richards and a John—”

  Professor Forsythe interrupts. Her face bears a tight smile, and she says, “Sophie, maybe someone else would like to weigh in on fan fiction,” again emphasizing “fan.” Ouch. How can she not remember my name? I said it about twenty seconds ago and I cleared her plate last night. I’m trying too hard to impress her with how much I know and how well I fit in.

  Yin, who’s sitting next to Janaye with Chris, pipes up, “My name’s Yin. I’m from Buffalo. I don’t get why you say Shakespeare is fan fiction.” Yin emphasizes “fan” the same way Professor Forsythe did.

  Oh, lord, between the ganging up and the literary obliviousness, I might as well be at my mother’s club on Park and 64th. This is the girl Professor Forsythe invited? “I’m saying fan fiction,” I imitate Professor Forsythe’s emphatic pronunciation, “is making fiction out of other characters. If you take a character from history or myth or another work and give that character a chance to grow and experience things that they didn’t before, well, that’s actually writing in a well-established tradition. I also think that if you criticize its validity, then you’re rejecting a lot of literature that I bet you don’t mean to reject. If I want to write sonnets like Shakespeare did, that shouldn’t be a problem.”

  I look around the table. Tess stares down, frozen in place. Chris looks pissed, but some of the other girls are nodding at me. Professor Forsythe raises one eyebrow. Mimicking her was probably
a mistake. Okay, definitely a mistake. My mother would kill me. Orly raises her hand, drawing Professor Forsythe’s attention.

  “I think Soph has a good point. I would add satire and musicals to her list. If writers were limited to wholly original characters, we’d lose all kinds of shows. Rent is based on La Bohème, which is an Italian opera based on a French book. So it is derivative too.

  “I’m saying this because I am interested in how characters in stories change and also how they change across stories. So, I have done some research about how stories evolve and continue. I just started reading the original Wizard of Oz, to see how the story differs from the book Wicked, which uses the same characters but turns the Wicked Witch into someone sympathetic and likable.”

  Professor Forsythe smiles at Orly.

  I can’t keep my mouth shut. “And getting back to Shakespeare, West Side Story was based on Romeo and Juliet, which Shakespeare lifted from an earlier English poet, Arthur Brooks. Brooks didn’t think it up either. The story was already a hundred years old and had been adapted twice in other languages. Is that derivative?” I emphasize the last word. I nod at Orly, who looks at me and then away. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Chris smirk, turn to Yin and Janaye, and whisper something. Yin nods but Janaye frowns. I catch Tess’s eye. I hope she understands I’m sympathetic.

  Tess begins to say something, but Professor Forsythe wants to move on. It’s maddening. Maybe she’s not even worth impressing.

  “All right, great discussion. Chris, why don’t you go next.”

  Chris is now wide-eyed; she deserves to feel nervous. But then she says, with confidence, “I plan to be a journalist. I’m particularly interested in covering women’s issues and the relationships among groups of women in positions of relative power.” When Chris says “women,” she glares at Orly. Orly stares blankly back. What’s that about?

  I’m still so wound up that I can’t keep my mouth shut. “Do you consider yourself to be a feminist, Chris?” I do. I believe in calling out misogyny and I am against those old binary definitions. Every woman has to be, given our obvious history of oppression.