Dear Diary,
Hell is fear. And fear is faith. Faith in the pain above pain. In the loss above death. Fear is constant and sudden. Primal and sublime. Fear is the inexorable, insatiable apex predator of the animal kingdom.
But even this beast can be tamed. Forged into a sword you never need to swing. Your opponent can be stronger, faster, smarter. But control their fear, and you consecrate their faith in your name.
In other words: if you make them pray, you make them prey.
With all the love left in my heart,
H.
-
Haven stays out of it.
That’s my one rule. The one line I won’t cross, can’t cross. I just needed one line to keep me from falling completely off of the edge.
Under no circumstances can she be part of my grim business with the city. So it is paramount that I keep my ugly mug a secret from all eyes, whether they be innocent or sinister. But I’ve been a reckless fool leaving breadcrumb trails all across the city, leading straight back home. The moment somebody finds out who I am behind the mask is the moment Haven becomes a target. Then it’s all over.
Questions bounce inside my skull like rubber bullets. Was I followed? How much does my pen pal know about me? Did they watch me shed my skin? What do they want with me? Do they think they have me completely underneath their thumb?
I hope they do. I hope everything goes according to their master plan. I hope I’m useful.
The buzz in my ears rises in pitch until it drowns out the raging storm. Color drains from the world into shades of gray like a silent film. Skipped frames take me through alleys. Jump cuts send me across town. In between, something subliminal flashes before my eyes.
A baby is born. A girl. She’s got two loving parents and a sister on the way soon after. They teach her to be kind and strong and loving, just like them. Whenever she’s afraid or hurt, her family is there for her. And she’s there for them.
I’m lost in a concrete sea. But look- a buoy! A pay phone bobbing in the cascading waters. I love pay phones.
She’s grown up so much, but she’s still a kid. She greets each day with bright, hopeful eyes and limitless energy. She wants to be a Magical Girl, like the ones on the television and the toys and the radio. While she isn’t lucky enough to be able to become one of them, that doesn’t stop her from trying in her own way. For her sister is sick and weak and afraid. She needs an angel with a sword of fire to make her feel safe.
One minute comes out of my pocket. One minute is all the time I’ve got left in this world. Cramped up in a booth the size of a coffin.
What happened to that girl? Was she lost to the madness that burned her world to ash? Was she crushed in the grinding gears of the foster-care system? Did she fade away into the faceless masses of the city to become another statistic? Nobody knows.
Punch in the numbers. I don’t wait long.
-
Someone picked up. Mercurial silence.
Neither of us speak a word, but I still get the gist of it. We’re a couple of psychopaths with nothing better to do than listen to each other’s lusty breathing over the receiver. Ours is a romantic Cold War. Our weapons are proxy and embargo, though I’m much more comfortable with the axe and fist.
Something nags at the back of my mind. It’s probably patience. We have a contentious relationship, to put it lightly. She thinks she knows what’s best for me. I hate her because she’s usually right, because right now I want to scream and tear into this artifact of metal and plastic that charges a dollar a minute. But dear patience keeps me muzzled for my own good. I hate it. There’s a time and place to be rabid, and she reminds me it isn’t now. I swallow foam. A dozen threats die in my throat. A hundred questions wither on my tongue.
No time to mourn. The phone sings an uncanny melody.
Whispering through the mechanical hiss of the speaker are the silvery tones of a wind-up music box. Color bleeds back into the world with vibrant familiarity. I know this song.
Rize to the Bottom. Theme song of Glooming Roze, the three-star idol keeping goth alive. My next target. I’m told that I don’t jump to conclusions- I pounce upon them.
No encore. I’ve heard enough.
Hang up and head out.
The city wants a second date and she wants it soon. She doesn’t care if I’m grounded. Naughty girls who act out and sneak around are just her type. Most of all, she loves a girl who can keep a secret.
Whoever was on the other end of the line wants me for who I really am. Not Helena. They want the nameless phantom with an axe to grind. Something resembling a smile cuts across my face.
This isn’t some cliched blackmail or banal extortion. Whoever found me out isn’t in it for something as useless as money or reputation. They’re playing the same game as me, the city’s game. And when the city plays her games, she expects her players to cheat. It’s half the fun.
We don’t need names to know who we are. We don’t need our faces to recognize ourselves.
Mahou Tokyo, I can be your perfect girl. A faceless, nameless phantom.
Just as long as you keep my Haven out of it.
-
I stop by a store on the way home to pick up some groceries and an alibi. Buy the shiny name-brand logos when I can. A banana with a cartoon sticker on it. Rainbow-hued toilet cleaner. A box of sugar with traces of cereal in it. Put on the good housewife act. Haven has no idea I’ve been out being bad behind her back. She just thinks I’ve been underage drinking. Downing prescription pills for kicks. Kissing strangers on the mouth. If only she knew the truth. I’ve been living in a world that good girls like her have never even heard of.
Walking home through the rain, I pass a wall that’s been plastered with posters on top of posters. A ghoulish patchwork of perfect teeth, stylish hair, googly eyes. An abomination of cuteness. One face sticks out in particular: Glooming Roze, her pretty, pale face framed by menacing flowers. Red mascaraed eyes stare into me with reptilian emotionlessness. Her sold-out concert is in a couple weeks. Dear patience puts on her happy mask. We’ve got a couple weeks to prepare for our big concert date.
It’ll give me time to figure out my own all-access backstage pass.
-
Haven and I are sharing dinner when I finally find my words.
“Listen, I don’t want you worrying. About me, about anything. I swear, I’ll clean up my act. No more sneaking out at night. No more looking for trouble wherever it can find me. I’ll talk about my problems instead of keeping them bottled up where they can tear me apart from the inside. And I know I’ve made that promise in the past, but this time will be different. I’ve grown since then. Reflected. And you deserve better. A better friend and a better sister. I’ve been terrible for so long and I’ll do everything I can to make up for lost time. This weekend, we can go to that new park that opened up in Triskelion Square or visit the aquarium down by the bay. You liked it there, right? I can save up a little money from odd jobs. Maybe we could take a trip somewhere quiet, outside of the city. Go someplace with grass and trees that weren’t planted by anyone. Someplace quiet, away from the bright lights. Yeah?”
It’s a mélange of truth and lies, blended thoroughly until you can hardly tell them apart.
Haven swallows a bitter bite. I can’t tell if it’s because of the crummy meal I cooked up or the word vomit I sprayed everywhere.
“Yeah,” is all she gives me.
After washing the dishes, I go to my room hungry.
I hate how easy it is for me to lie to her.
-
I turn in early for the night, much to the city’s disappointment. No dances for a while, Mahou Tokyo. You might never sleep, but us little people do. It’s been a long day in a long life and my head is about to unscrew from my neck if I don’t go horizontal for a few hours. My bed is too soft, like a whisper you only hear when you think you’re alone.
When I shut my eyes, the silvery notes ring through a mechanical hiss. A tiny dancer twirls, little dolly Roze, beautiful and perfect, perched atop her tiny music box. What part do you play in this scheme? Someone out there wants me to run into you. Who is our mystery matchmaker?
My dreams come tangled in needling briars that shackle my limbs.
One ankle is bound by Haven and her disappointed eyes. The other is bound by Peaches and Pretty Pirouette and their manic grins. One wrist is bound by a vulture with zoom-lens eyes and a flashbulb cry. The other is bound by a pay phone’s cord, spiked and blooming with bleeding roses.
They pull me taut in different directions. In this queendom, the punishment for high treason is death by medieval methods. I’m drawn and quartered for my crimes. What’s left is burned to charcoal.
Only one person comes to my funeral.
Dear patience. She stares with eyes that look like they’ve been pushed to emerge from a perfectly smooth and featureless surface of flesh. Dear patience knows best. She knows all.
-
The days pass me by like strangers in the street. I play my role. Keep my nose clean and my head down. Walk as straight as one can walk when drunk on secrets. Mouth the words to simulate conversation and humanity. Home and school, nothing in between.
Dear patience keeps me on a short leash, but I don’t want the city to get too jealous. Two weeks is an eternity to her- she measures eras in days. I tease her with glimpses of my future skin. A rendezvous in the crafts closet, a tryst in the cobwebbed sports supply. Duct tape and hard padding are this year’s pink, haven’t you heard?
When I get a moment to breathe, I try to trace the phone number to find out more about my mystery contact, but it’s a predictably dead end.
--
“-victim previously thought to be an innocent bystander is now under suspicion for ties to the radical terrorist organization Humanity First. The talent agency that employed him has declined to make a statement-”
The media never misses an opportunity to smear Humanity First, a group of boogeymen accused of the crime of standing up for themselves.
But enough about politics. Look, I’m on TV!
“-also bring you this photographed image of an unknown individual at the scene of the crime before authorities arrived on the scene-”
Vulture took a good snapshot of me. Black and blue and red all over. Hardly human. I look more like a cryptid or a scarecrow. The monster villain in a slasher flick, with an axe and a spiked bat for arms. Guess that’s how they know Peaches bit the dust. They don’t even show her face in the news anymore. Just three days after the fact and she’s all but forgotten. They’ve gone and replaced her studio quality headshot in the story with my blurry one.
They’re calling for my head on a pike. It’s flattering. I’m almost jealous of myself.
That part of me is at the bottom of a river with rocks stuffed in her shoes. She doesn’t even have her weapons. But when I look at the television, she’s alive and well in the eyes of the city. Breathing the fresh air of her autumn nights and feasting on her fears. Meanwhile, Helena is out here drowning on land. Starving in a world of frivolous abundance.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
-
One lunch break, I sneak out of school to call the television news station from a pay phone. Ask who sent in that lovely photo of me. The story they tell me is that it was submitted anonymously. A second dead end. I’m not surprised. Very few scavengers take pride in their grisly work. No matter. That vulture is still out there, still hungry. I’ll have to find something to feed her.
-
A week lives and dies. I spent so much time preparing for my rebirth that I forgot to do any research on Pretty Pirouette. I was about to ask for an extension on the project when Karin offered to help me out. Actually, she ended up writing most of my paper herself. I didn’t ask her to, but I didn't stop her either. Being the good friend she is, she was just glad to help.
“Give an inch, take a smile,” she says. It doesn’t make sense. Karin could be friends with anyone, but she chooses me. Couldn’t tell you why. I never bothered to ask.
I barely review the paper before presenting it to the class. There isn’t anything interesting to say about it. It could be about anyone, written by anyone. Not one original or educational aspect about it.
Allow me to paraphrase.
Quote. Pretty Pirouette. She’s a fabulous ice skater and a super talented singer. Pirouette is on a noble mission to help fight climate change, using her powers to restore the melting ice caps in the arctic. Want to support her cause? She’s got a new line of active footwear and a brand of semi-premium ice cream bars coming to stores near you. I want to be just like her someday. Pretty and talented and successful. A role model for impressionable young females around the globe. Thank you. End quote.
-
“...and I got a ‘B’. Everyone else in that wretched class got an ‘A’,” I say. “What am I doing wrong?”
“I don’t know,” Haven says. There’s that sad look from my dreams.
That’s a typical length of conversation for us now. This is me ‘opening up.’ I know I’m lousy at it, but it’s what I said I’d do. It isn’t my fault that she isn’t reciprocating. So why do I feel so guilty?
-
The next morning, the students stampede into the school halls to a work of juvenile art. Some vandal came and spray painted the lockers up and down the hallway. Glitter-gold from top to bottom, every last one of them. Except for mine, of course. Mine is clean black.
I open my locker door and a dozen empty spray cans clatter out. Classic frame-up job. So obvious, really. All eyes are on me, but I don’t feel the dread that usually comes with being seen. Why doesn’t this injustice make me feel anything? Dear patience doesn't rear her head. She doesn’t have to because she’s not needed. I don’t even bother arguing or trying to prove my innocence. It’s detention for the rest of the week, then. Whatever this is about, it’s off of my radar, a level of pettiness far below my concern. Alpha-wolf and her cronies might as well be bacteria on my boot heel.
My body is in school but my mind is in the real world.
I send a stark text message to Haven telling her why I’ll be a little late. She doesn’t respond.
-
Day one of detention.
Table for one.
Good time for a nap.
-
“I’m sorry, Hel.”
I blink.
It’s convenient that detention ends just as Haven’s last club activity lets out. I still get to walk home with her. One of the few moments of my life that makes me feel happy.
We’ve been joined at the hip ever since I swam through the sewers, though she’s been keeping me at arm’s length. I took her to the park and the aquarium over the weekend just as I promised. Made my feeble attempts to open up. But still she stayed upset. Distant. At the rate we were going, I thought she’d die mad.
But now she’s the one apologizing? I can’t tell if I’m flying or falling.
“There’s nothing for you to be sorry for,” I tell her.
“There is.”
“No, there isn’t.”
“Shut up. Yes, there is.” She’s insistent. Frustratingly, familiarly stubborn.
She stops in the middle of the street, so I have to stop too. The other students on their way home walk around us in a blur of uniforms. If they’re staring, I don’t notice.
“What is it you’re sorry about?” I ask, none-too-kindly. “You haven’t done anything wrong.”
“I haven’t done anything at all. That’s what I’m sorry for. For not being enough.”
What?
“What? Enough of what?” I ask.
“For not being strong enough, not supportive enough, not brave enough. Sorry for being a burden and being useless. I want to help you, Hel, I want to help you so much, but I don’t know how to. I’m sorry, just, I’m just so sorry! I- I-” It’s strange to see her like this. She’s usually so composed and calm. I don’t like this new, confused Haven being exposed to the world, so I wheel her over into an alley for privacy.
I open my mouth and echo my condolences. “I don’t know where this is coming from, but that’s not true. You are more than enough. Of all of those things and more. You’re not a burden, and you’re not useless. Don’t say things like that. Who says things like that? Who…?”
My chest feels like a volcano. Real words erupt from it. “Did someone say that to you?”
I don’t know if it’s the sudden intensity of my voice, but Haven goes cool. Taking off her thin-rimmed glasses, she stares me dead in the eyes. A mirror image of my own two orbs of cinnabar.
“You did,” she says. “That look on your face this past week tells me everything. I’ve seen you make that look before. Like a taxidermied animal. A thousand-yard stare.”
She gives me a measured look. “The way you used to look right after mom and dad-”
“I don’t see what any of that has to do with you,” I say.
She digs her nails into the armrests. Struggles to find the words, or the courage for them. Then they come.
“You treat me like a fragile princess who can’t lift a finger to help herself, and meanwhile you’re suffering in silence. You give and give and give, just, mindlessly. And I don’t give you anything back. Nobody gives you anything back because you’re too stubborn or unwilling to ask for it. So you have to go out into the world, alone, doing who-knows-what to find something to fill that void inside you. And- and because of that, you got hurt. Badly. And you tried to hide it. Now you’re getting bullied, and it’s because you won’t stand up for yourself because you’re too busy holding me up. It isn’t fair. Nothing in your life has ever been fair. And I’m sorry for that.” Haven deflates, fully spent.
I blink.
People think I’m the one who takes care of Haven, but really, she’s the one who takes care of me. She’s the reason I make an effort to come back home at the end of the day. She’s the reason I haven’t drowned myself completely in vice and violence. She’s the one thing in this dying world that I want to see grow. She keeps me human.
But I don’t tell her that.
Out of all my late nights out, I’d never come home beat up like that before. Like that night I killed Peaches and had a building dropped on my head. I must have looked like I stepped right out of Haven’s nightmares and in through the front door. Her own failure on two limping legs. No wonder I disgust her.
She isn’t mad at me. Of course she isn’t. She’s ashamed of how far she’s let me fall.
It hurts to see her tainted by something as cruel as shame. It hurts even more that I can’t tell her the truth. It hurts because right now, I don’t see my sister opening up her heart to me, I see an opportunity to get her off my back so I can have more personal time with the city. It hurts so much I want to die.
I’m not in control of my own words. I’m not Helena. I’m the girl at the bottom of the river. “We’re not going to bond over worthlessness and cowardice, if that’s what you’re going for. You can feel sorry for yourself all you want, but don’t you dare try and drag me into your pity party. And don’t tell me that I’m too weak to stand up for myself and be heard just because you don’t know how to deal with me when I do! I am not a coward! You don’t get to judge me, not after all I’ve done and sacrificed for you! If you want to talk about fairness, then you’d better start treating me fairly, and giving me less grief about what I do for us to get by!”
At some point, she started crying. I feel numb.
“Don’t be sorry. Just let me do what I need to do.” I hand her a clean, lacy handkerchief and she swats it away.
If you amputate a pained limb, it can’t hurt you anymore. Hopefully, I can reattach it later.
-
Another big news story: a massive typhoon hit the coast. One town in its path is completely wiped off the map. Thousands are dead or missing. Only a handful of survivors were carried to safety by everyone’s favorite Magical Girls. Cut to commercial break.
Haven doesn’t come out of her room for dinner, so I leave it by the door.
-
Day two of detention.
The teacher who is supposed to be supervising detention is taking what looks and sounds to be a desperately-needed nap. I could leave anytime I wanted to. Nobody would know. But the nearly empty classroom is climate-controlled and relatively quiet. A good place as any for scheming and planning. And brooding. Or, it would be, if not for my chatty cellmate. Honey Bee Hair Clip. What’s a nice girl like you doing in detention? She takes my silence as an open invitation for small talk. I hate small talk.
“Hi, Lena! Really enjoyed your presentation on Pretty Pirouette the other day,” Tsubaki says.
“Thanks,” I say.
“Karin sure did a good job writing it,” she says. There’s mischief in her daffodil eyes.
“She was a lot of help,” I say. “I’m not very good at doing research. Or writing speeches. Or giving them.”
Tsubaki smiles and leans in. She looks at me like I’m stupid, and it offends me even though I’m pretending to be stupid. I can’t tell if she’s looking past me or straight through. “Don’t worry. Your secret's safe with me. I won't tell anyone,” she says.
Tell anyone what?
"Tell anyone what?" she says in a mocking tone. “You’re sick of Magical Girls,” she says, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Or at least, sick of pretending like you like them.”
It dawns on me that at some point our small talk grew into something else. We’re not in a classroom anymore. We’re in a gladiator’s arena, trading blows in front of a raving audience with an insatiable appetite for violence. My body’s reflexive response is to snap to action and attack, but dear patience demands I play it cool. Take my time. I can’t blow my load before the big concert date.
“You think you know me, Honey Bee? Only Karin calls me Lena,” I parry.
“Oh, I didn’t mean to overstep,” she giggles. “But you’ve got a nickname for me! Honey Bee, huh? I like the sound of that. Buzz buzz!” She frames her eyes with finger ‘V’s.
She does her own sound effects. I’m stunned.
“It’s totes chill that you’re not into Magical Girls, though,” she takes advantage of my confusion. “I’m not crazy about them, either. If you ask me, the whole thing can feel kind of overblown sometimes, y’know?”
“I- I’m very grateful for what Magical Girls have done for society...” My footing is unsteady.
She stops me from falling over by putting me in a headlock. Metaphorically. “Please. You can drop the act. Unlike a lot of the other kids here, you’re actually kind of unique and interesting in a weird, outsider kind of way. But if the two of us are going to get along, I have one condition. I’ll be honest with you as long as you’re honest with me. I’ve worked with a lot of actors before, so I can give you good advice on how to fit in better. Deal?”
It’s not much of a choice.
“Deal,” I reply.
“Good. First of all, I could totally tell you were just repeating whatever Karin told you about Pirouette. Your speeches were basically the same with the names changed around. Hearing her words coming out of your mouth- it’s like listening to a Pitbull trying to ‘meow.’ Secondly, I can’t help but notice you’re always zoned out in Magical Girl history class. Everyone else is bug-eyed and drooling like they can’t get enough. I mean, you drool too, but you’re clearly not paying attention to the actual class. Then, when you have to put on the act, you really oversell it.”
My head is spinning, buzzing. Was my acting that bad this whole time? Has my most important mask been translucent? Transparent? I didn’t even notice we were in that class together. And she’s seen the drawings I made in my margins. Self-portraits of my many faces. So many mistakes.
I have to say something, fast. Anything to stop a killing blow.
“What gives, girl? Spill it! Who are you trying to impress?” Tsubaki says.
Dear patience is yelling, waving a red flag. But I'm not touching the brakes. I'm full speed ahead.
“I’m not trying to impress anyone. I hate Magical Girls,” I admit. It’s like admitting to murder. Nobody hates Magical Girls. It’s just not a thing people do. But Tsubaki doesn’t look at me like I’m a freak. She doesn’t call for my execution. We’re just two girls sitting in detention having a chat about our hot takes. It’s refreshing.
I can’t help myself from going further. I’ve lost sight of dear patience, but I can still feel her judgmental gaze upon me from the beyond.
“I hate how they make me feel weak and jealous. My whole life has been problem after problem that I can’t solve. I don’t even know where to start. I wish I could fly up in the sky and fix the ice caps or save the animals or whatever, but instead I have to worry about paying bills and struggling through homework I barely understand and taking care of my sister. It feels impossible and I have to do it all by myself.”
“I hate feeling helpless,” I sigh, “and they’ve never helped me. Not once.”
Those daffodil eyes probe my own. She’s searching for any hint of a lie, I can tell. Searching for the sign of a predator. But I’ve gone belly up, full submission. It’s perfect acting because it isn’t acting. Funny how easy it is to tell the truth to a girl I’ve barely known for a week. There’s just something oddly charming about her.
“Hey, Helena. Don’t get too down on yourself. You’re not alone in feeling that way.”
Wow. Is this what it feels like to open up? I should have done this such a long time ago. It feels like a million bucks. Nothing has really changed but I feel so unburdened. Hopeful, even.
“There are, like, programs to help you with that stuff. And besides, being a Magical Girl ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. It’s a lot of pressure and constant competition. Even magic can’t solve every problem. Take my word for it.”
“What do you mean?”
Tsubaki places her hand on my shoulder. She’s got a surprisingly firm grip.
“Don’t tell anyone this,” she checks to make sure the teacher is still asleep. He is. “I’m actually an undercover Magical Girl. Tsweet Tsubaki. The ‘T’s are silent.”
Dear patience saved me from myself. She tried to keep me tame, tried to keep me focused. But I chose to ignore her warning signs. I just kept going. She shrinks in the rearview mirror. I watch as she pulls off her serene mask to reveal the eyeless, noseless, skinless face of fear. She was fear all along. And she’s in the car seat behind me, choking me out with a belt around my neck.
I thought my eyes were wide before. A silent atomic bomb detonates in my head. My hopes are annihilated. My comfort zone is irradiated by the fallout. Three-star Tsweet Tsubaki. But the girl sitting next to me doesn’t look anything like her. No, I suppose she’s got the same eyes. Daffodils. She must have some kind of glamor charm hiding her true appearance. My eyes flick down to her finger, where she’s wearing a neat topaz ring with an unnatural shine to it. My eyes flick up to the honey bee hair clip that stays suspiciously anchored in place. It could be anything. It could be a toe ring for all I know. A tongue piercing.
She tiny-claps. “This is great, now we both know each other’s secrets, just like real friends!”
Stop thinking.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
“Oh,” she waves her hand dismissively, “some tramp tried to pick on me in the bathroom, so I yanked out her hoop earrings in front of her posse. You know how it goes. Want one?”
Kind of. “No, I mean, why are you undercover?”
“I can’t get into details, but let’s just say that it’s a matter of grave importance. Like, ‘if I told you, I’d have to kill you,’ important. Don’t give me that look, I’m just kidding!”