JellyFish Part 1, Chapter 1: Growing a Spine



There was, in the oldest of days and ages and times, a magic. That magic lived an moved and breathed through every living thing that was. But the universe, they say is ever-expanding, and as time moved on the magic spread and grew so thin, that it began to fragment. Before the magic was torn asunder, it gave birth to magical creatures. Some were good, some were not so good, but they were all connected and the magic gave them all one purpose: to hold the Earth together and keep a trace of the magic alive. As ages past, and Earth expanded, so did her people, and the creatures grew further and further apart. They became legends. As centuries became millennia, those legends, passed faithfully from grandmother to granddaughter, became nothing more than cradle stories. Trifles. Things that only babies believed in.

But sometimes legends are not born millennia ago. And now that I have told you what is past, I have told you what is coming. Once… not too very long ago, there was a truly great friendship that went horribly awry…


Gillian Marsh had been just another girl of middling popularity, her high school was just about like any other, and it came equipped with a hallway probably not very much different from any other school hallway you’ve seen. Her friends (though she didn’t feel she had many) called her Jelly.
Significant mornings often begin fairly blandly, and the morning our story begins is no different. Just after she arrived at school, Jelly had, in fact, sighed to herself and thought that this day would be pretty much just as the previous three days had been; slow and uninteresting. At about 7:43 A.M., Jelly locked up her bicycle and made her way into the blocky red brick building. She made it successfully 2 feet past the door before she was bumped into 7 times in quick succession and her feet had been stepped upon at least twice. Just as the bell rang she slipped herself into the bathroom and into a stall to hide for a moment and pulled her feet up— terrified that someone would catch her there. She at like this, holding her breath until she heard the chattering and shuffling of feet die down and her left leg began to cramp up.

When she was fairly certain everyone had made their way to class, Jelly peered out from under the door. When she had made absolutely sure the coast was clear, Jelly swept stealthily out into the hallway and looked down at the list of locker numbers she had fished out of her pocket. She had plotted it out on a map and now all that was left was to take the most efficient route to her classroom without getting caught. She reached into her backpack and drew out a bundle.

The hardest part of this whole ordeal was making sure your shoes didn’t squeak and draw the unwanted attention of a teacher. Not that it mattered much if they did see her. Because she was practically invisible, Jelly never really got in trouble; they just threatened her and told her to get back to class. Still, she was scared witless of being found out. She looked down at the bundle in her hand and carefully untied the silk handkerchief holding it together.

Jelly hoped desperately that the hand-written notes she cradled gingerly would have the effect she wanted. She hugged them to her chest and closed her eyes for the briefest of seconds. So far, she had found the entire high school experience to be a a lonely and desolate one. Friends, true ones, seemed to be hard to come by and she sometimes even wondered about the one she had. When your best friend doesn’t have time for you, you begin to feel quite a bit less than spectacular. If you want to know the truth of it, Jelly was actually quite spectacular but no one around her seemed to know it, least of all her. She was the kind of spectacular that is so afraid of looking silly that it cowers down and blends right in with all the normal around it. That is the thing with greatness, you know, the truly great are usually the last people to see it in themselves. If someone does know that they are great… and they tell you so, loudly and often, it’s a good bet that they are, in fact, bluffing.

Jelly had seen that kind of posturing often in her more popular classmates and sometimes wondered if that was the way to get on in life, if everyone eventually was supposed to act that way, but she was sure that other people must feel the less than spectacular feeling that she did from time to time— she couldn’t be the only one. Having heard once that you should do for others what you would have them do for you, Jelly had decided on a plan of action. She wished desperately to have someone notice her, so she would notice other people— and maybe that would bring her some kind of karmic bonus. She would let those people know that they were special and cared about without making a fuss and maybe, just maybe, that special feeling would make its way back to her.

So, she had been writing anonymous notes of encouragement for about 3 months now. She liked the warm feeling it gave her to sign the cards in a special swirly script with “Love, Undercover Angel.” It was so sweet it almost turned her own stomach when she thought too much about it. She would have been mortified if anyone knew this (so don’t tell her I told you, please). It was her most favorite part of the regular Tuesday routine. She had chosen Tuesdays because her schedule started with Mr. Vermillion’s class. He always gave the kids a little extra leeway at the beginning of the day and didn’t lead off on a quiz, or important lecture, or a test or anything heinous. Today, so many people had been lurking around in the bathroom before class that she wasn’t sure she’d be able skate in and ride low in her chair to avoid getting into trouble.

If you were the sort of person who liked to snoop around and had slinked around schools acting like a creeper and asking personal questions about teenage girls, its a good bet that (were anyone actually to answer you) no one in Jelly’s school would have said that they really knew anything about Jelly or that thought of her as part of any particular group. Neither would they have said that anyone really hated her either.

The most common response you might have gotten was a straightforward and honest, “Who?”

Like I said before, Jelly was a nice comfortable medium sort of popular- the kind where everyone knows your smiling face, but no one knows your name. Sometimes, in fact quite often, Jelly would wonder exactly what people thought of her. She would try to read their expressions, try to decode the things they said to her by obsessing about them down to the last detail, but mostly they were mystifying to her. The most she could come up with was that they thought she was a “nice girl.” Deep down in the very depths of her soul, that really cheesed her off. She didn’t want to be a boring person who people tolerated- she desperately wanted to be admired. She envied others for their gifts and things that made them stand out, but she had no band, no sport, no activity to really define her or give her life meaning— And because she had never had one, it might be sort of weird to suddenly have a place to belong like that.

That’s the thing about being comfortable in your mediocrity as Jelly was. No matter how much you might hate your situation, if it has gone on long enough for you to become “comfortable” and nothing ever happens to shock you out of it, then you are well and truly doomed. And boy, was Jelly ever comfortable. She got straight B’s without really trying, and so, was not known as smart or dumb. She skated along in the slightly uncomfortable middle just hoping to escape the notice of the truly popular, and therefore truly evil.

“But!” I hear you cry,” Did you just say she wanted to be popular?” No, in fact, I did not. I said she wanted to be admired. That is not the same thing at all. Popularity was not what Jelly envied. In all honestly, it had never been something she aspired to— after all, what was the point of simply being popular? After you graduated and moved on to another school or another life, all of your hard work would have come undone. No, Jelly was smart enough to know instinctively that popularity was nothing special. But knowing with your head and really knowing with your heart are sometimes very different things.

It is true that any Joe Schmo who puts in enough effort trying to please everyone can be merely popular, it was just that putting in that kind of effort seemed like an awful lot of work for very little return on Jelly’s investment, so she kept her creative pursuits and secret dreams of someday greatness to herself. She smiled when smiled at, and only talked when someone talked to her. She was not rude or hateful but she laughed at all of the jokes, even if she didn’t find them particularly funny. She was a nice, normal, average nothing.

In those wonderful magical moments at night, just before she drifted into sleep, when she was lying in the dark and gazing out of her window at the stars, she wished for one single solitary thing: to be beautiful. To be beautiful was the real goal. The beautiful were the admired. Like both the stars in the sky and on the screen, everyone looked up at and admired their great beauty. She would often think in those times of how lucky the stars were that they were naturally beautiful. They didn’t have to try. They didn’t have to pretend that “beauty equals pain,” or that “fashion is king,” or that getting a bad haircut was the worst tragedy that in all the world. It would be the ultimate happiness to be pretty without all of that fuss. There were few things in life, she would think, that would make one as blissfully happy as being truly beautiful.

The Beautiful People (that’s beautiful with a capital B. When she thought the word, it always came out with a capital letter) never had to look for a seat in the cafeteria. They never had to agonize over getting a date for a stupid school dance, or do any of the other boring everyday things that the un-pretty had to toil with from day to day. Jelly especially felt the effort of that toiling quite keenly. Once upon a time she could remember not worrying about it. She had been happy and carefree and had never once given a thought to whether or not she was pretty. She just felt pretty when she made herself a crown of flowers, or spun around in a particularly twirly dress, or climbed up a tall tree. She felt more than beautiful in those moments, she had felt powerful. Like she could do anything. That was the real reason she desired to be capital-B beautiful- because it brought with it a feeling of tremendous power, and she wanted that feeling back.

The Beautiful always walked around their heads swollen with that power. They possessed the confidence that comes with knowing that everyone already loves you by virtue of your perfectly shiny hair, stunningly high cheekbones, and dazzlingly flawless skin. She knew from what her parents had always told her that beauty was only skin deep, but (despite her lecturing left-brain and the teaching of her parents) a secret, tiny, niggling voice in the back of her head that told her things like that were what ugly people told themselves to help them not feel so bad. And despite repeating that particular aphorism to herself over and over again, “beauty is only skin deep,” it only felt like a cliché, and didn’t give her much hope at all. Something inside her just cried out to be told she was beautiful. She wanted it more than she could put into words, and that desire was hard to live with. And yet, the hardest part about not being one of The Beautiful People was knowing that, while you were not in any way close to being beautiful, your best friend most definitely was.

“Gillian! Nice of you to join us!” Mr. Vermillion was her favorite teacher but the last thing she wanted today was to have anyone, let alone him pay attention to her. Her face flushed and she pushed her way into her seat. Jelly spent hours dreaming of Mr. Vermillion's beautiful crystal clear blue eyes and his totally adorable half grin. He was always so quiet and relaxed and confident— everything that she wanted to be but just could not seem to pull off. She hadn’t meant to be late for class but she had important work that had to be done.

Oh. Where was I? Oh yes, then, after all of her hard work, not only had she had turned up late for class, but she had been noticed coming in late. I don’t think I need to tell you that Jelly spent a lot of her time being mortified about things no one but she cared about. She had made it however, and they were discussing a particularly hideous novel they had been given to read called “McTeague.”
“So, now that we have the whole class here,” he began with a flash of mischievous grin at Jelly, “Tell me about this guy McTeague. What kind of a dude is he?”

“Why he’s just the biggest meanest bully I ever read about in any book!” shouted one of the girls from the middle of the class. Jelly rolled her eyes as she plopped down in her seat. Poppy Jones was a know-it-all and a suck up, and there was nothing Jelly found more irritating. Poppy was a Freshman who had gotten special permission to be in this particular class. She was so obviously younger than everyone else that the other people in class sniggered about her behind her back. They made fun of her for being a goodie-two-shoes and a know-it-all. Jelly could not imagine what would possess someone to do something stupid like that. If her parents had given her the option of skipping a grade, she would have laughed at them and told them, “No freaking way,” and probably have slammed a door in their faces. Slamming doors was so satisfying when you had no other way of conveying your feelings. Putting yourself out there like you would have to do when skipping an entire grade was just the kind of thing that would lead to ridicule and possible banishment… or something. And here was Poppy Jones as absolute living proof! Who in their right mind would open themselves up to that?

While Jelly had been staring at Poppy giving her a weird look, other people had taken up the discussion. They shouted from around the room “He’s ugly and fat!” “He’s pretty stupid if you ask me.”

Jelly slouched further down in her chair. Personally, she had felt sorry for McTeague. He was a poor dentist who kept making all the wrong choices and leading him further and further into a stupid sort of madness. She felt a prickle on her neck as Mr. Vermillion's eyes turned on her. “Anyone else have any thoughts?” Jelly quickly looked away from him and stared at the notebook on her desk and hoped with all her might that he wouldn’t call on her. “Maybe you saw something different in our dentist?” The only thing that could be more mortifying than being a know-it-all was being called on when you were a know-nothing. For one terrifying moment she thought he might actually ask her directly to speak but he didn’t. She took a quick peek up and sure enough, he was still looking at her, this time with a twinkle in his eye and a half-grin. Then he looked around the room at everyone, sort of daring them to say something.

“Okay. Well, then, if no one has anything to say it’s time for a pop quiz!” As he said the words, “no one,” he turned back and looked directly at Jelly. She sighed. She could not win for losing. Mr. Vermillion had his rules and one of them was that he only inflicted the dreaded pop quiz on the class when they refused to discuss what they had read. She could have stopped it and saved the whole class that particular misery but she just didn’t have it in her. All in all, Mr. Vermillion was a pretty decent guy, but Jelly did wish that he wouldn’t try so hard to make her speak up.

The entire class groaned as they pulled out their notebooks and numbered their papers from 1 to 10. Gillian snuck a look at the teacher. Whatever she had expected to find there, she saw only a quick flash of disappointment before he gave her a wink and one of his full-on, drop-dead gorgeous smiles. The quiz turned out to be exceptionally easy for her and Jelly was pretty sure she had gotten at least a respectable B.

“And now,” he announced after the quiz had come and gone, “We have an exciting project coming up.”

As he described what was to be their end of semester project Jelly could feel herself getting excited. She listened carefully to exactly how he phrased his instructions and scribbled down notes in her notebook so that she would not have the opportunity to forget. He seemed to her to be adding a strange emphasis to specific words and phrases. As his silky smooth voice rolled over the class, scathingly brilliant ideas popped into Jelly’s head unbidden and his words made interesting connections in her mind with things she had been reading in books, seeing on T.V., and over-hearing other people talk about. She began to get more and more excited as she scribbled each one down in the margins of her notebook.

“And up on the screen,” he concluded, “Are the breakouts for our groups. You’ve got 20 min to discuss. Good Luck! I can not wait to see what you come up with!”

Fifteen minutes later the enthusiasm that Jelly had developed for the project had entirely wained. She slouched in her chair and had begun to doodle in her notebook. In the worst of those boring moments, she looked around at all of the groups chattering and laughing and generally having a good time. She cast them wistful longing gazes before turning back at her own boring, lame, awful group. When they had first teamed up, Jelly had been bursting at the seams with what she had thought were great ideas. She had begun by trying to share them with the whole group, timidly at first but her voice had risen and grown louder with her enthusiasm. She tried to keep it in check by stopping after the first of her ideas and had been brutally disappointed when she had not been greeted with cheers of joy and perhaps at least murmurers of agreement. What she had actually been greeted with were blank stares and one vicious glare “That’s uhm… one idea, how about you go over to that trash can over there and get out another one?” The group erupted in giggles.

Jelly had started to say something after that but Emily and Ash had steam-rolled right over her. She had wanted to point out that Mr. Vermillion had been very specific in what he had said. His instructions had been intentionally vague, she would have pointed out, but in the end, they would have just looked at her like she was crazy, “Which,” she thought, “Let’s face it, I probably am.” If the other people in the group wanted this then she was not going to waste her time arguing, They were probably right anyhow. Since the rest of the group had all decided while Jelly had been pouting and licking her wounds, they had all agreed on a course of action and now they were deciding now what needed to be done and dividing up responsibility. She figured that was probably better in the end. If they had spent time arguing they wouldn’t be nearly as far along. As they all talked, she jotted down the long list of materials and things that needed to be done. She chewed the inside of her cheek to stop herself from jumping in. No point in telling them what she thought if she was wrong and they were clearly not going to listen because… she must be wrong. It would just start an un-winable argument. No one liked arguments…

“There is no way we aren’t going to get an A! This is awesome!” Squealed one of the girls.
Jelly closed her eyes in an effort not to roll them to the heavens. It was a bad habit that her mother often scolded her for. The feeling that she was not wrong, and was, in fact the only one of them who was right gnawed at her as she read over the teacher’s words again and again. How could they not see that their idea was boring, trite, derivative and not what the teacher was looking for at all? The instructions had been left intentionally vague for a reason and it was so completely obvious. Sadly, though, when she had tried to mention this fact 10 minutes ago, everyone had jumped all over her. They had totally shut her down and she hadn’t had the heart to argue her point fully. It irked her a little that her grade depended on this stupid group project but she could imagine no way out.

A noise somewhere in the room tickled her ear. She turned and looked pointedly at each of the other groups. They, too, were bubbling with excitement just like her group. She wondered if they were all making the same boring plans. Only one group didn’t look as if they were enjoying the assignment. That must have been what grabbed her attention. They were seated on the opposite side of the room from Jelly but a gap in the other groups let her see clearly without being seen. They were all arguing with one another.

Jelly noticed that the one speaking most vehemently was a boy with pale (slightly doughy) skin and a deliciously cute accent, “I do not think you understand,” said the cute guy, “The instructor has left the instructions intentionally vague. He wants us to think outside of the box. Think about it: if you were a teacher and you had to grade papers and things all night year after year, would you just want your own opinion spewed back at you or would you want something interesting and different that challenged your own perceptions.” Jelly couldn’t help but feel a tiny stomach flip. Why hadn’t this guy been assigned to her group?

“My mum is a college professor,” He continued, “and she talks about this kind of thing all the time. If we want a good grade then we are going to have to push a little bit harder. We can not go the easy way.”

Jelly smiled. His eyes were so green- And he was so solid and sure of himself. How could she have thought of him as “doughy”? She rested her face on her hand and tried not to smile. Maybe she wasn’t entirely wrong, not if she wasn’t the only one who thought that way. She wished again that she were in cute guy’s group. She hadn’t ever noticed him before but he certainly seemed like a kindred spirit. She turned back to her own group.

“This is going to be easy!”

“Word for word! This is totally what my sister did last year in this class.”

Jelly winced.

Great.

Not only was the idea not original, it was an exact copy. She turned back to look at Mr. Green Eyes who hadn’t yet convinced everyone in his group but was sticking to his guns and then back to her group who was all in one accord. She supposed that avoiding the argument was worth the B they were going to get. Who wanted to waste time with an argument?
“Yeah it’s exactly what he said to do.”

When she turned back to spy on Cute Guy’s group, those who had been arguing with him now seemed less like they wanted to punch him and more like they were seeing his point. Most of the group was smiling and nodding and a few moved to sit with their heads closer together. Only two of the people in the group still looked non-plussed. Their voices had quieted though, and Jelly suspected that it was Mr. Green Eyes who had won out in the end. She wondered what having that kind of power felt like.

“All right, class. That’s almost all the time we have to devote to this today but, I will give you some time over the next few days to work on your projects.” Mr. V’s baritone voice snapped her back to the present. “Make sure that in these last 5 minutes you split up the responsibility among the group. When you are done, you can go. I’ll see you tomorrow! Leave those quizzes on my desk.”
Jelly had been staring out the window but a tickle ran up the back of her neck and she felt the eyes of the group all on her.

“Hmm?”

“So, Jelly, we were just all thinking,” Emily had clearly been chosen as the spokesperson for the group and she looked Jelly directly in the eye as she spoke, “Since you sort of like this kind of thing, you could like, take our notes and compile them. Since I have dance team with Ash, and Kevin has football and Keisha has band and all…”

“You were thinking that since I didn’t have anything that I should just go ahead and do it all?”
Jelly bit back a few choice snarky comments.

“Exactly! We all knew you would be the best choice. Thanks so much!”

And with that, the whole group rose almost as one and made their way out of the room. Jelly blinked. Had she agreed to that? She sighed. When she swiveled out of her desk to leave, she knocked over her bag. It spilled onto the floor and by the time she had picked everything up and shoved it down to the bottom, she was the last one to lay her paper on Mr. Vermillion's desk.
“Gillian, do you have a moment?”

“Oh, I… uh… sure,” she said hesitantly.

“I was a little disappointed that you didn’t have anything to say about McTeague. Did you enjoy the book?” He turned his sparkling blue eyes on her and she was sure she was going to babble. She could feel the stupid rising up from somewhere around her stomach region. “Not really,” she finally blurted out before she could stop herself. “I thought it was so sad the way he kept making bad decision after bad decision. If he had just, you know… had someone to stop him or something- you know like wake him up or hit him on his big dumb head or something it could have saved him all kinds of trouble.” By the time it had all tumbled out it was too late to shrug, put her head down and slink out. Next thing you knew, she was going to be sitting in the center of the class raising her hand at every question and being silently hated by everyone else. She had to think of a way to get out of this… If you never stand out you can never be cut down any lower than anyone else.

“But… you know I mean I was probably the only one that thought that so… no point in bringing it up.”

“I always love hearing what you have to say, Gillian.”

He paused and looked at her again, “Are you excited about your group project? You didn’t seem engaged with the rest of your group.”

“Oh yeah, sure… well… I mean, at first I thought you meant something else but they convinced me that I… or… you know… that they had a good plan so, I was just taking notes.” She showed him her notebook, the top page filled with her notes but moved it back into her bag quickly before he could decipher her margin notes riddled with words like, “derivative” and “uninspired” . She tried not to think about the fact that all of the tasks they had jotted down now fell to her.

“So, you didn’t stick to your guns there either?”

Jelly’s eyes widened in indignation. “No, I mean they were right so it would have been stupid to argue. It’s not like… I mean this is just how we are doing things.”

“Gillian, you have a unique perspective and it disappoints me that you do not share that with the world. You weren’t true to yourself today. I could see you had something to say but you just sort of bent your head and drew inward. And if you are letting the other people in your group steamroll you…”

Jelly felt her cheeks heating up and her throat closing tightly so she interrupted his lecture, “I can take care of myself, thanks. It’s really not a big deal.”

He didn’t look as if he believed her.

“Really. We all agreed and it’s going to be great.”

She smiled to reassure him.

He pressed his lips together and took a deep breath.

“I didn’t mean to upset you, Gillian, I just think you should try coming out of that shell every once in a while, okay?” He ruffled her hair. People were always ruffling her hair and it drove her crazy— especially when Mr. Vermillion did it. She supposed it was because it was shortish and that people thought she was “cute.” Somehow she knew that it was really his way of saying that she was just a kid.

“Uhm… okay.” She started backing her way out of the room. “Yeah sure. I’ll… uhm… yeah I’ll speak up more.” And with that, she bounded out of the classroom as fast as she could without seeming rude.

Sometimes, Jelly wondered if there were any emotions inside her except flustered and embarrassed. She knew, of course that she felt a good many things but sometimes she felt so helpless and hopeless she was not sure she could hold any other feelings inside. She scampered off to gym class to face rope climbing and chin ups with what she hoped was dignity.

Gym class had never been her strong suit. It was not that she was not athletic or anything, she was strong, and could be fast, but she had the reflexes of a drunk elephant. Most sports and activities in which they were engaged during gym class involved having reflexes that were a good deal faster than hers. Rope climbing however tested another one of her weak areas and that was upper body strength. Her legs were like oaks but her arms were like limp noodles. It was always an embarrassment to have everyone watch you try (and fail) to climb your way to the top of the rope. Even a personal record (like today’s six feet) paled in comparison to what most people could do.

Nothing prepared her for the snickering and whispered comments and they were an inevitability. In the wake of the giggling and commenting she always breathed deeply and imagined herself the heroine of a movie— juvenile as it was she was most often a princess with long flowing golden hair. Someone who looked like that would never be bothered by what others said. So Jelly would just smile and try to think positively about all the things she could do.

Positive self-talk was what she needed. Just thinking positively made great things happen, everyone said so. If you think good thoughts, good things will happen. If you have confidence, you can own the room! You can make everyone like you! Just put yourself out there and… the door took her right in the face but her butt falling on the floor was what hurt the most, as long as you didn’t count her ego.
The boy who helped her up looked and sounded apologetic and Jelly did her best to make him feel better. “It’s okay. I should have looked where I was going… I do not, I mean… I mean I am always running into things.” He smiled. Her knees gave an involuntary tremble. She looked around to see who he was smiling at but there was no one else looking back at him. He must have been on his way in the door and she ran into the door, and now, contrary to all logic and reason he appeared to be smiling at her.

He was pretty good looking in just the sort of way Jelly like. His hair was a bit on the floppy side and unkempt but clean. He didn’t wear glasses but had the look of someone who did- maybe he wore contacts. His untucked shirt was straight out of the ThinkGeek website. She had just worked up the courage and was about to introduce herself when she felt a hand grab her arm and pull her through the door to the courtyard outside.

Jelly had, for as long as she could remember, been best friends with Ashley Spires. From the moment they met at the Little Tykes Sunshine Place day care center they had been inseparable. In the first grade they had begged their mothers to let them sleep over every night. In the second grade they joined the Brownies, the fifth grade started a band… Jelly could hardly find a memory that did not somehow involve Ash. More and more, however, Jelly noticed that she was being out-shined by her bestie Ashley.

Ash was everything Jelly was not. Where Ash was tiny and slender, Jelly was tall, gangly and plump. Ash was willowy and blonde and graceful, while Jelly was swarthy and awkward and frizzy-haired and loud. But most of all, AshleyAshley Spires had become somebody. She had turned into somebody the year before when, as nature dictated, Ashley had blossomed into womanhood and was graced with what can only be described as ginormous boobs. They were especially tremendous when compared with the rest of her frame. A D-cup on a size 0 was something extraordinary and there was no one who could help but notice.

Jelly had not really thought much of it at first, but as time went on, the magnitude of the differences between her and Ash began to pile up building an insurmountable wall between them. How in the world could you confess the secret shame of the pain of your thighs rubbing together in a skirt to your next-door-to-a-goddess bestie whose thighs were milky and perfect and who never thought about such vulgar things as long, sweaty hallway walks and chaffing. As time went on, they just had less and less to talk about.

Once they would have begged their mothers to let them spend all weekend together chattering and giggling over boys, and music, and clothes, and whatever else they could come up with to talk about. But now Ash had more in common with her other friends.

They, like Ash, were beautiful and perfect and seemed to have it all. Their beauty got them out of rope climbing in gym, and got them seats saved on the bus by all of the football and basketball guys and even got the higher grades in classes like debate where the mere fact of their beauty was persuasion enough. More than anything Jelly wanted that kind of attention and adoration.

That sort of thing is hard to command when you still carry around the nickname your little brother had given you because he could not pronounce your name. It was a little like Jennifer Grey in Dirty Dancing being called “Baby,” except that she could not imagine a dashingly sexy and sweaty Patrick Swayze saying something swoony like, “Nobody puts Jelly in a corner!” Somehow, it just didn’t have the same ring to it.

That afternoon Ashley and her three cronies (Meena, Jessalyn, and Jayden) had pulled Jelly into their “conference room,” to discuss something important. The “conference room” was what the quartet had dubbed their semi-circle of silence that they formed whenever they wanted to talk about something “private.” Usually it was about as private as a public shower but Jelly didn’t mind. Often the things they talked about were so inane she had no idea why they ought to be considered “secrets” in the first place.

Jelly assumed that it would be something about some boy who did something to someone else but really all the time he was trying to get Jesslyn’s attention. All of Ash’s stories seemed to end up that way lately, with Ashley being the center of them. Some boy was always hitting on her or flirting with her or generally doing something to get her attention. Jelly wondered if any other motivations had ever occurred to Ash, or if she just thought every boy did everything just for her.

Jelly had let herself be led by the arm into the middle of the courtyard in front of the school everyone milling around and laughing and talking. Their loose circle around her left just enough room for people around to hear what they were talking about so it must not have been super-secret or anything.

“So, Gillian,” Ash never called her Jelly anymore, just ‘Gillian’ she said ‘Jelly’ made her sound like half of a sandwich. Jelly never told her, but it sort of hurt. It had been Ash who had really picked up the name in the first place after all and Jelly had always worn it as a sort of badge of honor. She had never thought it childish until AshleyAshley had started poking fun at it.

“We have to talk.” Jelly felt tendrils of charm creep around her suddenly. Maybe this was serious after all and not just something stupid about boys- this felt more like AshleyAshley wanted something and she wanted it bad. “You see… the thing is that… well…”

“We wanted to talk to you, see?” Jessalyn broke in, “And this is, like, so right now.”
“What Ash is trying to say, Gillian, is that this is about you.” Chimed in Meena.

So they did want something. Jelly anticipated the inane request. It would be money to get something or maybe Ash wanted her to drive her and her crew to a movie for a non-parent sanctioned date. “The thing is, beauty is about proportion. And YOU are totally proportionate!” said Jayden.

Now Jelly was really confused. She was not able to follow this conversation at all. Was Jayden saying she was beautiful? That really didn’t make sense. “I’m not sure I follow…” she began but Ash cut her off. “I mean proportions are everything and you would, like, totally be hot if you lost like, 30 pounds.”

Jelly stared at her friend and felt like she had been plunged into the deep end of a very very cold pond. She heard someone behind her giggle and turned around. There were several groups looking at her and stifling laughter. AshleyAshley and the others kept chattering all around her but Jelly could not really hear them. It was as though she heard them from under a great deal of water. She started to feel dizzy and realized she was not breathing. All of the will to breathe had been swept from her when her best friend- her only real friend- had said this horrible thing to her- in front of everyone. She turned around and saw the cute boy there, just staring at her and her friends and the humiliation was just too much to bear. She turned and ran away as fast as her fat little legs would take her.

"Fine, I'm fine," she lied a million times before reaching homeroom. Only 10 min into her school day and she was already exhausted. After depositing her books into her locker, she slipped into the old music room that no one ever used to sit down and catch her breath. Homeroom was just three rooms down and she still had 5 minutes to get there. She could just wait and then when the time was right, she would slip out and down the hallway. She took a deep breath and wandered out into the hallway teeming with life.

Sometimes as she pushed her way through the crowd, she felt alive and energized but today she felt as though each person were stealing a little bit of her soul. Edging her way the few doors down to her classroom, she lost a great deal of her will to push on. The ring of the bell jolted her out of her revery and back into reality.

The cute guy was sitting in her regular seat and Jelly suddenly was throw into a tizzy for an entirely different reason There was no way that she would be able to concentrate on calculating the something something of pi with the adorableness of cute guy so close to her and yet, he exerted his beautiful people inexplicable gravitational pull on her and she made her way down the aisle to sit caddy-corner to him. He was too beautiful to be believed. He tossed his floppy hair out of his eyes and flashed her a shy-ish, nerdy-ish, swoon-inducing smile. She felt a flutter in her stomach and could not help but giggle softly. She looked away from him because he was just too beautiful.
Jelly mentally examined his features.

This was often a good way to distance yourself from a crush, she knew. She had done it often in the past few years. Just focus on their flaws and VIOLA! Suddenly the crush would begin to fade. Since she didn’t know of any character flaws (having not actually had a conversation with him) she focused on the physical. Consciously, she knew that not everyone would think him as handsome as she did and so she tried to focus on what it was that would not be handsome.

First, his hair was not floppy because he had a fashionable haircut. It seemed to be growing wild and was a mass and tangle of curls sprouting from his head. Today, he wore the glasses that he hadn’t before and while they were not cheap frames, they were hardly fashionable. His cheeks didn’t quite have a dimple and his teeth weren’t movie star white. Unfortunately, Jelly could not really find anything that stood out. His face was just a plain sort of normal.

She had tried her best but he remained a special kind of beautiful to her. She switched her focus to figure out just what it was that she did like about him. She sneaked a glance over her shoulder and his eyes met hers. She held her breath and he gave her a questioning look. She whipped back around and hunched over her paper. She knew it. It was his eyes.

The eyes always did her in. They were luminous. It was like his very soul was crying out to her and beaconed her come closer. It was a special mystical connection and… and… with that thought she realized that she was WAY over-reacting. He hadn’t said more than a few words to her and already she was imagining a connection between them. She wanted desperately for him to feel the same way but without actually having a conversation with him it was going to be difficult.

But, conversations were hard to have in class and she didn’t have his phone number to text him. She decided to go old-school. She coughed and surreptitiously pulled an old Starbucks receipt from her bag. Squinted her eyes in the teacher’s direction and nodded as though she were actually paying attention to her lecture.Then, when she felt she had convinced Mrs. Zerendill that she was paying attention, Jelly pretended to be taking notes and tried not to sound like a lunatic.

“Hey, sorry we got interrupted before. My name is Jelly, what’s yours?” She coughed again to mask the sound of the folding paper and then reached down as if going for a tissue in her bag. She had never, as of yet, actually passed notes in class. She usually found it distasteful and was always afraid she would get caught. Being called out by the teacher for doing something bad would have literally made her die of embarrassment.

The fear-visions and daymares that she conjured up usually convinced her to wait for her conversations until after class was over. This time, however, she felt a sense of urgency that over-rode her natural preservation instincts. This had to be done and done quickly before she lost her nerve. She pressed hard and broke the led of her pencil on her paper and turned around to cute guy and asked him for a pencil. As he handed it over she slipped him the note. And felt the thrill of being bad. It sent waves of exhilaration clear to her toes. She felt suddenly like a spy. This was awesome. She should pass notes more often. Then she looked up at Mrs. Zerendill and changed her mind.

The teacher was giving her awkward look.

Jelly decided to take notes for real until she got a reply from cute guy. That was her plan at least but she began doodling on her page. The subject matter was bland enough and boring enough that she only had to tune in every couple of minutes or so. She looked dow at her paper, riddled with stars and noticed that the tiny things had worked themselves into a pattern. She blinked. The constellation she had drawn was shaped like a jellyfish. This was getting out of hand. She had become obsessed. She plunged her hand back into the depths of her bag and fished out a compact. Flipping it opened she peered surreptitiously into it at cute boy in the seat. He looked straight at the mirror and laughed at her. Now she was going to die of embarrassment.


Evan had been “dating” Jelly in secret for a few months now. She called it dating. Although most people would hardly call it that. What she called “dating” was more or less Evan taking her someplace dark and secret and making out with her and not taking her out on anything remotely resembling a date. She squirmed as she thought about the secrecy of it all. It was not a situation in which she felt comfortable. He had been the one who had invited her here to hang out with all of these people she didn't know. She didn’t drink coffee and she could not have hot chocolate anymore since the doctor had told her about her diabetes and he knew that. She stared down at her sandwich bag of almonds and popped one into her mouth. Once again she found herself shrinking back. She supposed that if it was what he wanted she would just disappear.

She thought about the last time they had "gone out." He had picked her up from school and taken her to his brother's apartment. That same uncomfortable feeling had assailed her then. In the middle of the steamy make out session they had engaged in on the porch, she had pulled away and looked him in the eyes. "Evan, what are we doing?" He looked a little like she had woken him up from a nap. He squinched his eyes and shook his head as though he needed to clear away the cobwebs. "I thought it was pretty obvious." He made a move for her neck and began nuzzling and nibbling it. Just as she was about to melt into him and forget whatever it was she was going to say, the feeling tightened her stomach.

"No!" She squeaked, "I'm serious." She was sort of glad that he was focusing on her neck as that left her free to speak... Then again... He was very skilled, so maybe it wasn't such a... He mumbled something into her ear that stopped any fuzzy romantic feelings. Her voice was so icy it might have stabbed someone had they wandered by unawares.

Jelly wondered now why he always said that. She popped another almond into her mouth and turned a napkin dispenser around to check her reflection. She hoped the memory of when he had last said it wasn't causing her to make that sour look. It felt like he would say that he loved her but then turn around in the next minute and prove otherwise with his actions. He was always doing this kind of thing. And this day was no different. Jelly decided to try and sneak out the door. No one noticed her leaving the table but as she did, she spotted Evan sliding his arm around a girl named Brittanie— who was obviously into him. She had her hand on the inside of his thigh and was rubbing it. Gross. There was no way that Jelly would ever do something so obvious and slutty.

Evan leaned over and whispered in Brittanie’s ear making her giggle. Jelly looked down at her shoes. The pinky toe on the righthand side was wearing a hole through the fabric. She tried to focus on it rather than the feeling of betrayal that crept up her spine and made its way to souring her stomach. She snatched her phone from her pocket and whipped off a quick text to her mother that she was done and ready to go home. Her mother was only 8 min away and soon this would all be over. She looked back to Evan and Brittanie and saw their faces locked together at the lips. She wanted to throw up.

Stung was not the right word… this... this was like a knife in the gut. Not even the decency to do it behind her back. He was the most selfish and self-involved person she knew. It was silly for her to cry over someone as worthless as he but she could not help herself. She had loved him— she did love him, she supposed. Otherwise why would she even want to cry. She wished desperately to be cold and hard and calloused.

“Oh hey, are you taking off?” Evan said. She was surprised he had even noticed her existence. She should have turned and kept walking out but the whole display had paralyzed her. Now she had to actually say something. All of his professions of love and worship and adoration had always been in private and he had never once in public acknowledged her existence. How was it possible to be that different than the tender self he showed her in secret?

“Yeah, I’ve got a lot of stuff to do. There’s this project for Mr. Vermillion's class and it’s kind of a big deal so…”

“Oh well thanks for coming,” he said, “And, uh,” he lowered his voice and whispered so that only she could hear, “Thanks for being a sport.”

He hugged her then. She blinked rapidly trying to process what he had just said. He might as well have slapped her in the face. She could feel nothing and her arms hung limply and lamely at her sides. As he drew back she looked at him blankly. She blinked twice, turned around and before she could start crying, she strode slowly but purposefully away.

Well. Now that was over. Her heart was broken and she supposed it was time for her to move on. She fought the urge to turn and look back. There was nothing to be gained by that. He had lied to her. He had chosen someone else over her, and most of all, he had broken her. She hoped that her will to carry on living would soon return. She had a sneaking suspicion, though, that it would end up feeling a little like bringing the feeling back into a leg that had fallen asleep— it would get a whole lot worse before it started to feel normal again.

She wondered how anyone really had it in them to lie. Her own conscience stopped her from telling the most benign of lies… even lies of omission seemed abhorrent to her most of the time. She was by no means perfect and innocent, but any lie that might hurt someone or cause them inconvenience at the least was not something she could live with. She found herself telling the absolute truth in the most inopportune of moments.

She really did have to get going. She had a lot of work to do for the group project. Once she was a good distance away from the coffee shop she plopped down on a bench to wait for her mother to come and pick her up. She fished her notebook out of her bag and looked at the list of things she had to do and sighed. Well, no time like the present, she needed to get to work.

Jelly rinsed the grease and grime off of her hands and picked up the sprayer and sprayed the suds that were clinging to the sink down the drain. She actually hated doing dishes, if the truth were told, but Joan didn’t have a dishwasher and Jelly knew that her legs were weaker now than they had been in years past. Every time she did Joan’s dishes and vacuumed her house Joan protested but Jelly could not help herself. When someone needed help as badly as Joan did, she just had to help.

The timer buzzed and Jelly turned to take the cookies out of the oven. They were macaroons, Joan’s favorite. Jelly didn’t like coconut but they always made Joan smile. Joan worked double-shifts at her hospital and almost never got home before midnight so Jelly had plenty of time to make everything just right. It was only 11:25 and the cookies were just now done. She flipped on the vacuum cleaner and let it’s hum carry her away.

She imagined herself on a golden stage surrounded by a million twinkly fairy lights. “Thank you so much for this honor,” she heard herself saying. “I never would have been able to be chosen as Best Actress if not for the little people.” And in her mind as she left the stage the men were almost as entranced watching her leave as they had been to see her smiling face. She loved the thrill it gave her to know that she was desired. She flicked off the vacuum and the silence that filled the room created a pressure that was almost too much for her. Jelly didn’t like to be alone, especially to be alone in a dark house. She double checked to make sure the oven was off and turned the CD player on so that Joan would be greeted by her favorite songs.

Jelly had so much to do yet this evening. There were cards to write and she still had to make Devon’s vocabulary flashcards. She had been secretly tutoring him in English for the last 6 months. He was the Junior class president and didn’t want anyone to know he had dyslexia. Jelly was so in awe sometimes of his ability to fake his way through classes. None of his teachers even suspected that he had trouble reading. She let a yawn escape her lips as she sat down at the kitchen table. She made a list of things she had to do. She loved lists, even if she usually lost them before she had checked everything off.

When the cookies had cooled enough to put them on a plate, Jelly abandoned the homework and the card making. She arranged the cookies on the plate so they were just so. She heard Joan’s garage door opening up. She quickly finished washing the cookie sheet and left it in the drainer.

Their late evening talks were the best part of Jelly’s week. She loved hearing stories about Joan in the 70’s. She had been totally scandalous— sunbathing nude, protesting the war, and generally being everything that Jelly wished she could be. When she became an old lady, she hoped she would be one like Joan, who still tried new things and loved being around people and did not end up all emotionally bereft and sad and lonely like most of the other old people she knew.

If Jelly could pull that off she would somehow feel that her life had been worth it. Joan had a spark inside her that would not give into the wind that blew all around her. She had lost her husband, her son, and had even once lost a house, but she had pushed through and laughed about all of those hard times now. That kind of spunk was what Jelly desperately wished for.

Joan laughed as she entered the kitchen, “I might have known my little brownie would visit today,” she boomed, “I had a crappy day at work. Thanks for your thoughtfulness, sweet.” She gave Jelly a kiss on the top of her head.

Jelly walked into her living room and sat down on the couch with her stack of double-stuft Oreo Cookies and her glass of skim milk. She picked up the remote control and flipped on the T.V. And prepared to veg.

“…is like being stung repeatedly by an enormous…”

Click.

“I just… like… I can not stand just leaving it all out there, you know, like, totally unsaid. So I just tell it like it is. That’s what’s wrong. Other people just can not handle the truth. If someone thinks you are ugly, they should just come out and say it because what the heck? They might as well know what you think of them.”

Jelly dipped an oreo into her milk and watched tiny crumbs float away and the bubbles stop dribbling to the top before popping it into her mouth and letting the squashy goodness wash over her tongue. The reality bimbo was right. You had to tell it like it was. It was just that the right thing to say always escaped her in the moment of truth. She always wished that she was the sort of person who could throw out zippy comebacks to horrible things people said to her.

Even now, hours later, she was not sure what she should have said to Ash. Called her a bottom-dweller? Made fun of her overbite and the fact that she had to wear a retainer each night (a fact which she kept well-hidden from the “crew” she hung with), or… something else? There was just nothing to say, even now she could not think of anything. Her eyelids became heavy and started to droop. Just as she was about to nod off she heard a voice.

“Hello Jelly,” said a creepy little voice behind her. She jumped. Her entire body pulsed for a moment with the adrenaline that comes along with being frightened out of your gourd. She took several deep breaths and tried for force her heart to stop its ridiculously wild pounding. It had to be her brother. Rolling her eyes, she took a deep breath and set her mouth in a familiar sneer/ pout that she had perfected over the past three years of being a teenager. “Shut up, Mark. Leave me alone. I am trying to watch a show. So sick of you interrupting all the time.”

To be fair, as little brothers go, Jelly did have quite a bit to deal with. But she was tired and worn out by the day and didn’t have anything left to give. He had no care for anyone but himself. He didn’t understand what he was doing, she knew that, but sometimes it just didn’t help to remind herself about his Asperger’s. She had lost patience with her little brother for the last time.

She popped another Oreo into her mouth and flipped to different channel. She turned back on “ignore mode.” She had gotten very good at ignoring her little brother over the years. Mostly he did nothing but barge into her peaceful quiet existence with non sequiturs and questions about hypothetical realities that held absolutely no interest for Jelly or, like now, he tried to frighten her by sneaking up on her. She had been ignoring him for two months solid now and she saw no reason to break her streak.

“Oh, dear, I see we’re going to have to do this the hard way then.”

There was a loud pop and the T.V. emitted a spray of sparks and hissed as smoke poured out of it and into the living room. Jelly flinched. That was most definitely not Mark.
“I say, again, Hello, Jelly. This is the part where you say, ‘hello back.’”
Jelly’s eyes squinched in confusion. She had though that that was her brother’s voice but now she was certain it was not. Peace of mind was worth breaking her streak she supposed, “Uhm… Mark?”

“No, indeed, Sugar Plumb. I am not your Mark. But, I am here to do as much mischief as he, I think.”

Jelly slouched down into the soft cushions of the couch and ninja flipped around to peer up over the back. As she slowly rose up, she heard the voice giggle and then a clank as the person… thing… knocked over a jar. It crashed to the floor and she supposed it was the one that she held all her pocket change in to save up for a sewing machine of her own. She heard the loose change it held clatter to the floor and looked to where it had landed all the coins mingled with broken glass. She looked back up to the shelf and rubbed her eyes to make sure she was not hallucinating. When she opened them again, he… or it was still there, still cackling madly and rolling about on the mantle. It seemed to be a tiny man but man was the exact wrong word to describe it.

It had wizened eyes, tiny wrinkles around its eyes and mouth as though it had spent centuries laughing. Its long arms and legs and fingers sprang out grotesquely from its trunk but that didn’t make it ugly. Somehow, it was strangely beautiful with its too big eyes and it’s too big lips. It was clothed all in a deep shade of crimson. A terrible choice, she thought, when you considered his shockingly red hair. She tilted her head to the side and leaned in and the thing stopped laughing.

“What are you looking at?”
“I’m not sure.”
“No need to be smart, missy-thing. I happen to be a creature that you ought to fear!”
“Oh,” she said lamely. “How did you… get in here?”
“Do you know what you ought to have said to her, perchance?”
His question took her off guard. That was hardly an appropriate way to answer a question.
“To who?” she asked, honestly confused.
“To the Ashen one.”
“The…Who? Oh. Ashley? Do you mean Ashley?”
“Aye, that is what she is called, my pet. The Ashen one.”
“What about her?”

“Do you now know what you should have said to her? Or do you still find yourself without a spine even now?” As he spoke he danced about in excitement and Jelly had to twist and turn to follow him.

“Hey, now. I have a spine. I would have said something but I could not think of anything to say. Anyway… she was just trying to be helpful. She totally meant well. I do need to lose some weight.”
“Lies. You had a million things to say.”

He jumped off of the shelf and onto the table below and strolled toward Jelly, punctuating his words with his foot steps. “Your problem,” he sang, “is not that you did not have words, but, my treasure, that you had far, far too many. You lack the backbone that is needed to really be a whole person.”

“Hey now! I am a whole person! I am worth just as much as anyone!”
“Do you really think so?” His hopping around slowed and an ominous smile crept across his tiny face.
Jelly hesitated. “Yeah… of course I do.”

“Then why did you not say something to that effect to your friend? And why did you not speak up in class, or say to your teammates that they should do as much work as you? And why when you know that you demand perfection from your self, do you not expect at least decency from others?”

Jelly scrambled but could once again think of nothing to say to that. She had wanted to yell or scream or blurt out something witty or mean or bitchy in each of those situations but nothing she thought of seemed smart enough or clever enough or… right. Either she would be wrong, or ignored, or worst of all laughed at.

The little red man continued his speech, “You did not because you do not think that you deserve to say it- that no one will love you if you do- that they will not see you as beautiful and special and kind. But they do not see you so because you cannot see these things in yourself. I like you. I think you are good— all too rare in your kind. I think you deserve every happiness. To that end, precious, I will offer you a gift.” At this, he floated up from the table and hovered in front of her face, his legs crossed as though he had not a care in the world.

“If within 1 year’s time you can grow a backbone, I will grant you a boon, dear one. I will make your wildest dream come true. I will make you beautiful.”
Jelly started to say something but he ran right over her.

“The problem is that I’m not sure this will be enough of an impetus to get your sorry behind on the job. I’m sure you can do it but… If, after all that time, you still cannot say the things you know must be said, then I will make you what you truly already are.”

The room grew heavier as he spoke. With his face now so close to hers, she could see the tiny horns peeking out from beneath his hair and she felt another wave of fear wash over her.
“I will turn you into a jellyfish and cast you to the sea to live as those without a spine.” As if to punctuate his sentence, rain began to pelt the window.

Jelly blinked. She almost laughed. A Jellyfish? This was too much. This was little man was crazy. She had to say something.

All she could muster was the startlingly witty, “What?”

“You heard me true, sweetling. I’ll not repeat my words.”

Jelly froze with her mouth open, poised to speak. She felt dizzy, like all of the oxygen had been sucked from the room.

Just as she was about to tell the horrid little thing what she thought of it and kick it out of her house, she heard a roll of thunder and rain begin to pound mercilessly on the roof. She looked up to the ceiling as the earlier pitter patter of rain turned into a torrential downpour.

The weather report that morning had mentioned not a drop of rain. Her eyes fall back to his red clothes and wrinkled lips and twinkling green eyes and his lips curled into a smile and she all she could do was stare. The supernatural appearance of the man, the exploding television, and the unexpected storm all weighed on her. She did not think this would end well, but could think of nothing constructive to say. Finally, she could bear the silence no longer.

“B-but… Y-you can not do that, you… you are just a little thing, how could you possibly…”
“Choose carefully your next words, precious,” the thing’s words took on a more menacing tone, “Or they may be your last.” Thunder boomed and shook the glass cabinets in the room. “You wished, perhaps, to thank me for my kindnesses to you, yes?” And a peal of thunder rolled across the night. She jumped.

The house lights flickered and went out for a moment but the red man’s eyes glowed in the darkness. The occasional flashes of lightning threw grotesque shadows against the walls.

Jelly swallowed hard and she was finding it hard to breathe but what she still wanted to say was, “Hell, no, I won’t thank you, are you crazy?” but she was cowed by the glint in the faery-thing’s weirdly glowing eyes. As the lights flickered back on, she coughed and cleared her throat. For a long moment she wondered if he were just pushing her buttons. If maybe it was a test. In the end though, she just nodded, “Yeah… uhm… I was gonna say, ‘you can’t do that, it’s… too… generous of you.’ I could not possibly accept a gift… of that magnitude! I… ”

“You do not fool me girl. I can see what you think of me. It’s written all over your face. You think you are so clever hiding your emotions away, but people know. They can see.”

“How am I supposed to believe the things you’re saying? A little thunder and lightning don’t scare me. That could just be… be a coincidence.”

“Could, but ‘tisn’t. Let me spell it out for you, real slow you’ll catch it. This is a turning point for you, girl. This is your chance to change your life for the better. Take the chance girl and run with it.”
As he talked the thought occurred to her that maybe the thing could be bargained with. Maybe if she convinced it she didn’t need its help then she wouldn’t be cursed. Then again, why should she have to convince it? It’s not as if magic were real. She had gotten herself all worked up over a figment of her imagination and now she was convinced that it was going to hurt her.

No. This was not really happening and… he had stopped speaking to her and had started mumbling an incantation. His hands waved in delicate and intricate movements, his fingers tracing glyphs of light in the air. Jelly backed away from him, eyes growing ever wider. The air around her began to hum. She clambered backward off of the couch and as much as she wanted to run, she could not. Her feet were now glued to the floor. Energy pulsed through her and her breath came in quick shallow gasps. His voice was low and raspy as he called out to her over the noise of the storm,

“I scry a wishbone there,
Where a backbone ought to be,
Your days are sown with fear beware,
And hearken child of Eve to me!”

Jelly’s feet were frozen to the ground and the glyphs he had traced in the air floated toward her and absorbed into her skin. They were shades of pink and blue and green and just before they disappeared into her they flashed a bright yellow.

“If thou wilt be thought fair of face,
Shadow will hang over thee,
Keep your courage tucked up near
And soon disaster you will see.”

She felt a cool tingle on her arms and legs and one glyph came floating toward her. It was the opposite of light and it’s darkness frightened her more than anything that had happened thus far. It touched her forehead and Jelly braced herself for the tingle. Instead this glyph felt like warm honey, and the warmth became almost too hot to stand. It spread out and covered her whole body and hardened instantly like a shell.

“My curse upon you, hear me well,
Within the span of year and day,
Thy path wilt lead to heaven or hell,
Oh what have those four seasons to tell!

If fire burns within your heart,
And you’ll no bend your knee,
Then beauty you shall ever have,
And peace, and love, my sweetest pea.”

Then abruptly, the fairy thing extended his palms toward her and shot a burst of purple almost fuchsia flame directly at her forehead and knocked her back. She slammed her head against the corner of the coffee table and, as she lost consciousness, she could hear the thing’s voice again almost singing to her, “Grow a spine, little JellyFish. Grow a spine…”

She felt his leathery hands touch her cheek and the last thing she heard was his disturbingly horse whisper, “Oíche mhaith, codladh sámh.”