Young Writers Society

The name sounded familiar. She had never really researched cults before, and didn't plan on touching any one of them that operated outside of her city. But she still felt a sense of unease that she couldn't really describe as she looked over at Amy. She tried to push it away, but it refused to disappear. Something felt different about Amy, and Wren couldn't help but panic at not knowing what that something was.

"I'm sorry," Wren quietly said. "That must be a lot to process..."

Amy took a deep breath. This was the first time she'd talked about it to anyone other than her family. It's not even like it was a total shock. Amy knew Claire had given birth young, at twenty. She knew it had been out of wedlock. She knew her father was twice her mother's age. She knew her father's actions had no reflection on her, even if she did half of his DNA.

Even if there were certain aspects of her personality that she shared with him, even if she didn't really look like him, at first glance but if you looked at her further you could see they had the same eyes and same nose.

Once her mom had explained everything, how it all had happened, she didn't even blame her for loving the person she thought he was. But the worst part about it all was that she'd been lied to for twenty-five years. Amy realized how easy it would have been for her mother to pass Larry off as her real father, and she'd at least not done that.

"When I was a kid I used to write letters to him, hoping he'd come find us one day and maybe he and my mom would get back together." She laughs emptily. "You know how kids are. I didn't really understand at the time. I just didn't understand why everyone else had two parents when I had one."

Amy pursed her lips and walked over towards the closet to find the spider. She hated spiders and hated how squeamish people were about killing them. She took off her moccasin slipper, prepared to strike.

But there was no spider. She looked around for it for a while, but didn't see it.

"There's no spider in here. Just some clothes." She shrugged. "Holler if it comes back."

She put her moccasin back on and rejoined the others.

Hablex had a feeling she should recognize the name of Amy's biological father, if she was from this world. All she could do now in the face of Amy's past and Wren's actual magical power was remain calm and try not to give anything away.

She didn't know what to say either, let alone try to provide comfort to Amy, despite practically being strangers. Hablex did reach out to grab the other girl's shoulder, smiling faintly.

"I'm sorry, Amy. I never really knew my parents, but, that's tough, I imagine."

“I never had parents either,” Wilson added, though she was pretty sure she was a unique case. It wasn’t like her parents abandoned her. She just never had any family to begin with.

Wren couldn't relate.

She was trying her best to, but she just didn't know how. Her gaze dropped down to her lap. She still had both of her parents - neither one of them had ever left. They were always there to love and support her. They were the ones who gave her special treats from the cafe when she was little and too hungry to wait for dinner. They were the ones who helped her when she was struggling to make friends in school - even when she didn't, they comforted her. And when she found out she had powers straight out comic books, they were the first people she told.

Her life was picture perfect.

Her life was simple.

Her life was...

She raised her head.

Amy hadn't commented on the clothes in the closet. She had barely noticed, but the realization came crashing down on her now. Taking a deep breath, she got back to her feet and approached the closet.

She opened it.

The outfit was gone.

She blinked and stared.

...Why was it gone, and why had it appeared in the first place?

Amy noticed Wren had gone back to the closet.

"I'll get it if it comes back, Wren," Amy said. "Don't worry." She'd never had a problem killing spiders. Or flies, cockroaches, or any other vermin for that matter. "Once, my sister and I were babysitting our brother's kids. I killed a mouse that had gotten in."

She swallowed, realizing how that must make her sound after she'd just told the rest of the group who her father was. But killing spiders and mice wasn't the same thing as killing people.

Adam had a temper and a penchant for alcohol.

Amy would hurt a fly. And according to her mother, could soak up the life in the room.

And Tara? Tara was quiet and sweet, but she could get angry. Angrier than most people knew. And she always held it in.

That didn't mean they were like their father. That didn't mean they were destined to follow the same path she did.

The others were about as kind enough as they could be. Still, she walked back over to the closet and saw clothes. Different winter clothes, but ones made just for Amy. A white and black snowsuit, like something Nancy Kerrigan would have worn to ice skating practice.

Nancy Kerrigan. She knew she was more of a Tonya Harding in real life, even if she didn't want to be. At least the universe was letting her pretend she was Nancy. Because she wouldn't have clubbed someone's knees like that.

There were ice skates sitting beside the outfit, and almost on cue, a large, perfect, frozen pond beckoning to her. It had been a long time since Amy had been skating. At one point in her life, she'd harbored her own Olympic dreams. But it had fallen to the wayside in teens.

She walked outside without telling anyone. It was perfect. She glided on the ice and for a moment she forgot about everything. Just then, a song from Les Miserables began to play in her head. This time, she didn't resist it. She even began to hum it softly.

Who am I?
Can I conceal myself for evermore?
Pretend I'm not the man I was before?
And must my name until I die
Be no more than an alibi?
Must I lie?
How can I ever face my fellow men?
How can I ever face myself again?

Obviously she wasn't a man, but other than that, the song was perfect. She jumped up in the air, only a single axel, but she landed it without a hitch. And the adrenaline rush made her wonder why she'd stopped in the first place.

Hablex blinked at the sight of Amy somehow gliding across the randomly appearing ice. She wasn't expecting to see something like that happen, but then again, there had been some ice forming at a few of the lakes near the outskirts of town.

Her favorite activities to this day consisted of simple things: drawing, writing, and creating. Anything that involved her hands and could let her brain go quiet for a minute without having to pay attention to anyone.

She could appreciate skating, the quiet, the graceful moves, but Hablex figured she would never have the balance for it.

Since Wren and Amy had looked at the closet, she wanted to as well. Hanging there as an innocent outfit was something she remembered her grandmother wearing - a pale blue dress complete with a dark blue scarf draped over it.

A bittersweet smile crossed her face. It was something she couldn't run away from, but the constant reminders of the war brought nothing but pain and dark feelings. Always there, in the back of her mind, on the shelf, and apparently inside this closet.

Everyone around her was rather peculiar, but so was she, so she felt at home. She stayed by the fire, leaning back in her seat.

"Did you find the spider?" she asked Hablex, who'd gone to check out the closet too, now.

When Amy left the cabin, Wren didn't immediately follow her. She lingered by the closet, staring at where the outfit should have been but wasn't. When she finally got over her shock - and temporarily pushed aside her worry - she walked over to the window and looked out at the scene beyond the cabin. Amy was ice-skating on ice she didn't remember being there before, wearing an outfit that hadn't been in the closet when Wren had checked it last.

Her gaze lingered on Amy as she landed. Ice-skating wasn't something Wren wanted to do. It wasn't that she couldn't do it. She probably could, after all of the balancing she'd done as part of her job. But ice-skating felt like the kind of thing you did for other people to watch; Wren liked sledding a lot more.

As if the thought had conjured it into being, a sled suddenly appeared right underneath the window. Wren stared down at the little tip she could see through the glass. It was just like the one she had as a kid - plastic and bright red. It was bigger than hers had been then.

She waited for a moment.

Then she took a deep breath and headed back out. She grabbed onto the sled and searched for a hill to sled on, but there wasn't-

She stopped glancing around.

There was a hill.

It hadn't been there, but it was there now. Feeling a pit growing in her stomach again, Wren hesitantly approached the hill.

Amy had noticed Wren had come out and started to sled out of the corner of her eye. Still, she didn't pay her much mind. She was too lost in her old world. She enjoyed being back on the ice far too much. Maybe she had to get back into it. Sure, she was twenty-five, which was practically ancient in athlete years, but maybe it would be okay.

She let herself hum the soundtrack of Les Mis more, thinking if she was ever competitive again she could use this as her set. She'd only seen it for the first time earlier that year, when she had gotten to see Adam's son, her nephew (she still had to get used to that) as Gavroche at the Pantages. With Adam's blessing, she had invited her mom, and it ended with both of them crying messes.

Her mom had seen the original broadway run in '86. It was her mother's favorite musical, and now she could see why. She was Fantine and Jean Valjean all at once to Amy's Cosette. Amy hummed through a few songs as she turned figure eights, and ultimately settled on In My Life. There was a section in that song that was maybe the resonant of all. She softly sung it to herself now.

There's so little you say of the life you have known
Why you keep to yourself
Why we're always alone
So dark, so dark and deep,
The secrets that you keep
In my life-
Please forgive what I say
You are loving and gentle and good.
But Papa
Dear Papa
In your eyes I am still like the child
Who's lost in a wood
....
In my life
I'm no longer a child
And I yearn for the truth that you know,
Of the years,
Years ago

She changed out Papa for Mama as she sang, landing another axel she concluded. She was done for now, she thought. She wanted to go back inside and go back in her pajamas. She skated to the edge of the pond and saw Wren, sitting in her sled at the bottom of the hill.

Staring at her. All right, this was it. She was tired of the awkwardness. She put the guards on her skates and walked right over to Wren.

"Hey!" she said. "Do you have a problem with me?"

Hablex looked up at Wilson after the girl's question. She oddly didn't see any spiders, but there was a cricket, quietly rubbing its wings together to make a soft chirp.

She shook her head, but waves her hand towards the closet.

"There's actually a cricket, of all things."

Tugging on the scarf because she felt a strange chill, Hablex walked away towards the table once more. She put her tablet down on her lap, drawing out the first thing that popped in her head.

Amy skating painted a really stunning picture, so she wanted to draw her silhouette if she could manage a bit.

Most of Wren's attention was directed towards the sledding, but her gaze kept landing on Amy when the sled reached the bottom of the hill. She didn't mean to stare. She just couldn't shake the feeling that something was different, and also couldn't help but think there was something beautiful about Amy ice-skating, too.

She hadn't realized that she was staring so badly until Amy came over and asked. Eyes widening in alarm - and also worry when she realized she probably should have been paying more attention - Wren ducked her head down in embarrassment. Her cheeks were flushed, but she couldn't tell if it was from how she was feeling or the cold.

"I...I don't," she quietly said. She reached up and grabbed her glasses, fiddling with them out of her habit. "I just thought you...um...looked really nice ice-skating. I didn't meant to stare."

Her hands shook as she slipped her glasses back.

"And, um...something feels...different about you," she admitted.

"Ooooh, crickets are nice. They sing little songs," Wilson commented, before scooting a little closer to Hablex to see what she was drawing.

She glanced out the window at Amy and Wren outside.

"How long have you been drawing?"

"Something feels different about me?" Amy spat. She was tired of this. Tired of being in this place and not knowing why. She was probably being a little too harsh to Wren, especially considering that Wren was seventeen and Amy was a twenty-five year old adult, but in that moment she couldn't stop herself. "And what exactly might that be?" She chose to not to acknowledge what Wren had said about her looking beautiful on the ice because she had no idea how to respond to that.

Her whole life, she knew she'd been different. A month ago, she'd found out why that was. She could help who her father was. The least people could do was stop judging her for it.

Hablex couldn’t keep a small smile off her face when Wilson moves closer. She never had the opportunity to really be friends with a fellow girl in her town, since Malker was male and the other women were mostly all older.

“I’ve been drawing since my birth. My first few years of attempts weren’t really art, but I’ve improved.” She shrugged, thinking back to the rather hideous color messes she used to make.

“Do you draw? Or write, or something else?”