Failing Fate 101

*to give credit where credit is due, I would never have gotten around to writing this if it weren't for the nagging efforts of my friend Aya, so thanks. (and you all should read Aya's posts as well.*


Lisa neatly sidestepped a book-laden freshman intent on finding his way to class on time on his first day at HHS. Haldren High School, home of the Haldren Hobgoblins, had just opened for the fall semester. Lisa smiled, knowing how overwhelming the large school might seem to incoming freshman. As a senior, she knew how quaint and small-town the school actually was, and allowed herself to laugh a little at the sober-faced freshmen who plowed their way through the crowd with single-minded determination.

Glancing at her schedule, Lisa closed her locker, and headed towards her first class of the new year. English. She grinned, English was her favorite subject, and this year she had Mrs. Harden, a teacher who was a notoriously hard grader and Lisa did love a good challenge.

She wondered as she struggled through the crowded hall, how it was that a place this jam-packed could be so easy to traverse without actually touching anyone. She slipped past a group of sophomores reuniting after the long summer and rejoined the traffic flow on the other side. It seemed to her that high school was an intricate dance, step here, step there, and you could avoid actually touching anyone.

Lisa sensed movement out of the corner of her eye and managed to dodge a hallway fight, just leaping clear of Tony Richards, who was currently being slammed into a locker by Rhys Hayden. I guess Rhys found out Tony was fooling around with Cindy, Lisa thought. She wondered why Rhys didn’t just go after Cindy; after all, she was the one who had wronged him. In a way she felt bad for Tony, because Cindy was very hard to say no to, not that he’d want to anyway, she was a gorgeous girl. Besides, the way she’d heard it, Cindy had gone after Tony, not the other way around, and she had it on good authority, as Cindy’s older step-sister was Lisa’s best friend, Dahlia.

“Lisa! Wait up!”

Speak of the devil. Lisa turned and scanned the hall for her short friend. Actually, ‘vertically challenged’ Dahlia’s preference to the word ‘short’, but Lisa’s friend Mark, considered that to be too big of a mouthful and she privately agreed. Finally she spotted the short brunette stepping around the fight that was now being broken up by two teachers. Giving them a look of disdain, Dahlia joined her.

“How primitive,” was her comment. “Well, I guess you’d have to be, to hang around with Cindy. Anyone with an ounce of brains in their head can tell she’s nothing but a pretty face and a manipulative personality.” Dahlia was not over-fond of her stepsister. Cindy was a Cinderella, and Dahlia got to play the role of ‘ugly’ stepsister. “It’s not just that she’s beautiful,” Dahlia often told them, “It’s that Mom’s so afraid of becoming and evil-step that she gives her everything she wants. I think spoiling a child is often worse than abusing one.”

Privately, Lisa agreed with this statement. Perhaps if Cindy did her share of the chores Dahlia and Ria did, she wouldn’t be so wasteful or snobby.

“Anyway,” Dahlia turned her attention back to Lisa. “When have you got English?”

Both girls pulled out their schedules and groaned. “Not a single class together?” Dahlia moaned.

“Hey, at least we have the same lunch.” Lisa shrugged helplessly.

“But I’m gonna need SO much help with English this year, you know how I am.” Lisa nodded. Dahlia didn’t know the difference between a semi-colon and a comma, but she was amazing when it came to either math or science.

“I’ll help you pull a B in English if you help me with physics,” She offered hopefully. She was not looking forward to a semester of science.

“Done deal. Oh, and good luck with your guidance meeting.”
Lisa groaned aloud. She’d forgotten about senior guidance meetings. At the beginning of every year, each senior met with his or her respective guidance councellor to discuss post-highschool plans. The problem was, most students were pressured to follow their fairy-tales, and being a Vasilisa meant nursing school or a maid service. She didn’t care what anyone said, she was NOT going into a career that involved science, nor was she picking up after others for the rest of her life.

“Oh god, do I have to go?” she asked rhetorically.

“Oh, it’s not that bad,” Dahlia insisted.

“Easy for you to say, you’re an evil-step. You can do anything you want to once Cindy’s story is over.” Lisa reminded her.

“Once again, must my world revolve around my stepsister?” Dahlia asked, more than a little annoyed.

Lisa apologized, and turned in the direction of her house office. The guidance meetings were posted on the door of each office, and she needed to find out what time hers was.

“Hey, this is where I split, I’ve got calculus first.” Dahlia stopped and turned to her.

Lisa shuddered. “Good luck.”

“Hey, it’s not that bad! I like math!” her friend retorted. “See you at lunch?”

Lisa grinned. “Definitely.”

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I remember my mother, or at least I think I do. I want to remember her, though it’s hard to distinguish her from all the others, the ones who have faded into the shadows of my memory. I want her to be different. I want her to have been stronger, brighter, truer- because I want there to be hope for me.

But in the end I know it’s all a lie. She was no different. She never stood up for herself or tried to stop him from hurting her. She was loving yes, I remember the smell of honeysuckle as she folded her arms around me. My father never hurt me, but he never hugged me either.

Back then Dad was different. Not better but different. I never saw him hit her, but there were the mind games. The endless mind games. ‘Curious?’ he’d ask. ‘You should be.’ He’d tease her, waving boxes in front of her face, telling her that she’d never know what was within them. She was a curious creature, they all are. Curiosity always got the better of her, and it was curiosity that killed her. Or at least that’s what he claims. He says it was her curiosity that caused the ‘accident’. There was no accident, only the proof of his rage.


Brogan Bluebeard stared at the words he had written for a moment, before tearing the page out of his notebook and setting his lighter to it. Lame, he thought as he dropped it to the pavement of the high school parking lot, watching the flames engulf it. Completely lame, but that was how all his attempts to write down how he felt ended up; so horrifically bad that he had to destroy them.

He shook his head and started back towards the school. Lunch period was ending, and he had physics to go to. Brogan never skipped class, though at times he desperately wanted to. Being a Bluebeard was like being a leper. All the guys in the school wanted to beat the crap out of him, and all the girls were terrified. The worst of it was that Brogan couldn’t even blame them. Even he hated and feared Bluebeards: he hated his father for the way he treated his wives, and Brogan’s greatest fear was that he himself would become another like his father.


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Lisa walked into her physics classroom that afternoon with some trepidation; she was not looking forward to a class built around logic. Give her an English or history paper she could bullshit and she’d be happy. Her stomach sank lower as she entered and saw Hailey Juniker sitting in the front row.

Oh dear god, could this get any worse? She tried to slink to the back of the classroom unnoticed, but Hailey jumped up and started calling her name. “Lisa! Lisa, over here, there’s a seat next to me, oh this is gonna be so great,” the girl chattered as Lisa reluctantly sat beside her. “I mean, I thought it was great that Sorcha and I had this class together and now you’re here too and we can have our own study group and-” Lisa waved at Sorcha who sat on Hailey’s other side. Hailey and Sorcha had been best friends for as long as Lisa could remember. There was some speculation that this was because Sorcha was mute, and Hailey had no competition in exercising her jaws. No, that was unkind, Lisa thought to herself, but couldn’t help adding, Unkind, perhaps, but true, in its own way.

It wasn’t that Lisa didn’t like Hailey, she did, they were friends, but she found Hailey to be one of those small doses people, and she knew that if she were forced to spend more than a few hours at a time in her company, she would go mad from the girl’s militant cheerfulness and excessive chatter. She knew that if she sat next to Hailey in this class, Hailey would talk constantly, and Lisa didn’t feel she could cope with constant interruptions in a class that demanded her full attention.

So it came as a relief when her teacher came in, introducing herself as Ms. Daniels, and asked them to stand so she could seat them in random order. Most of the time, Lisa hated it when teachers did this, but she knew it was only so they could learn their names more quickly. Besides, it served her purpose, and when Lisa was seated at a table in the back, she was able to fake a frown when Hailey turned from her new seat in the second row and signed her disappointment.

The class was small, and the room was set up with about ten tables, that sat two people each. Ms. Daniels announced that their table-mates would become their lab partners, and gave them a few moments to get acquainted with each other and exchange contact information.

Lisa looked at her new lab partner for the first time, and was mildly surprise to note that she didn’t recognize him. Of course, Haldren was a small school, but there were about 400 students in the senior class alone, so it was plausible that she’d never met him.

He was tall, sitting down he was still about a head taller than her, and that was slouching. His hair was so black as to be nearly blue, and his face was meticulously shaved. He wore a black Dark Prince of Destruction shirt, dark blue jeans, and she noted combat boots sticking out from under the table, his legs were so long they didn’t fit under the lab bench.

He didn’t say anything, just stared at her indifferently, so she stuck out her hand. “I’m Lisa.”

“Brogan.” They shook, and Lisa felt calluses on his fingers. Hm, guitar player, that’s cool.

There was a moment of awkward silence, he continued to stare at her for a little, then caught himself and shifted his gaze to his notebook. Do I have something on my face? Lisa thought. No, Hailey would have said something. He’s just being weird. Great, I got stuck with the weirdo lab partner.

Lisa ripped a page of out of her notebook, then ripped it in half and handed a piece to Brogan. She figured he’d need it as all he appeared to have with him was a pen.

He stared at it for a moment, then seemed to catch on as she began to scribble her phone number and email. When they finished, they slid the paper over the desk, avoiding contact. Lisa looked to the front of the room, but it seemed Ms. Daniels was content to let the class chatter for a few more minutes. Her eyes traveled to the clock. Ten more minutes until her guidance meeting. Lisa looked back at Brogan, and decided to try again.

“So, are you more of a science person, or an English person?”

“Science and math, I guess.”

She waited, hoping for him to elaborate, but he didn’t.

“I’m more of an English person, myself. Not that I won’t try hard in this class,” she rushed to explain, not wanting him to think his new lab partner was a slacker, or stupid. He just nodded, and the silence stretched so thin it seemed it would break apart. Her eyes flicked toward the clock again, she couldn’t help it, the situation was just too uncomfortable.

She gave it one last shot. “Good band,” she nodded, indicating his shirt. “You ever listen to Nightshade?”

That got a response out of him. “You listen to metal?” his expression was one of disbelief.

Wow, a whole sentence, she thought. “Yeah, I know I don’t really look the type. . .” she trailed off.

His gaze skimmed over her, taking in her appearance. She knew she didn’t look like she fit any category. She wasn’t gothic, or preppie, or even geeky really, though she knew at times she felt a little bit of all those things. There was also the side of her that was a metalhead, but you wouldn’t guess it from the way she looked. She wore a pair of faded bluejeans and a pale blue shirt. She usually just wore jeans and solid colors, nothing she wore ever really reflected her personality. Unlike Brogan, she owned no concert t-shirts, though she’d been to quite a few. Her clothes came from department stores, usually the clearance section. Her mother had left when she was 12, and her father, it seemed, assumed that clothes just appeared in the girls rooms. At first he’d given her money when she outgrew or wore down what she already had, but ever since she had gotten a job at the nursing home, he’d assumed she’d pay for her own clothes, hence the clearance section. Shopping for Suzy, her seven-year-old sister, also usually fell to her, and if she reminded her father, sometimes he’d give money to spend on her.

She was shaken from her reverie when Brogan offered a comment. “No, you don’t.”

He turned back to his notebook and began to scribble something. Lisa stole another glance at the clock. Five more minutes. Screw it, she thought, and packed up her books, pausing to give her excuses to Ms. Daniels before she headed out the door. Even a guidance meeting is preferable to a conversation full of awkward silences and one-word answers.

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Maggie Danforth sat in her tiny cubicle of a guidance office, and resisted the urge to bang her head against the desk in frustration. For one thing, it was unprofessional, and for another, there were too many papers piled on the desk to allow her to do a good job of beating her brains out. Too much padding? Or too much work? She thought, staring at the four walls of her office in dismay. They seemed to be closing in on her.

It was her first day on the job, and it seemed she was already in trouble.

Maggie, though she lived in a fairytale world, had not been part of a fairytale since she was a little girl. It seemed so long ago that she had lived through the horrors of a fairytale, though hers was so dark it had left permanent emotional damage. She had to undergo over a decade of therapy, and that was simply to rid herself of the nightmares. When she had gone to college she majored in psychology, as she already knew so much about it, and became a therapist in order to help others through the traumas of their tales.

It had become clear to her, after three years in the practice, that many of the traumas could have been avoided if society did not force their youth into the tales that seemed the most fitting. She had seen many unhappy Jills forced into gymnastics, cinderellas into domestic service, and princes into government, law, or political science when their talents and personalities were much better suited to something else.

When she simply could not stand it any longer, she cut back her hours and went back to school, this time studying to be a highschool guidance councellor. Maggie had found she could no longer simply deal with the afteraffects, she wanted to ensure that no one had to suffer unnecessarily. She had given her boss her two weeks notice, and started her new job here, at Haldren High School. Her boss, Dr. Teresa Sullivan (or Dr. T, to those who knew her well) had shaken her hand and wished her luck. “You’re going to come up against a lot of opposition, especially from other teachers,” she’d been warned.

Maggie had shrugged it off with a cavalier manner. She’d survived so much already, she could handle a little opposition. So here she was, where these problems often began, trying to stop them before they had a chance to form.
Her opposition, had come in the form of Dean Krantz, the dean of Beaumont house, whose slightly larger cubicle office was, conveniently enough, situated next to hers.
There were four house offices in Haldren High, Maggie had learned when she was hired: Grimm, Perrault, Anderson and Beaumont, her own house. There were two guidance counselors and a dean for each house, as well as a principal that reigned over them all.

Robert Krantz was in charge of Beaumont house, and he had already taken a dislike to Maggie. Harriet, the other Beaumont counselor had warned Maggie that Dean Krantz did not like change in general, and that he would probably be cool in manner towards any new employee. Of course, it hadn’t helped that Krantz had overheard her advising session with Mark Kerry, a senior with an amazing aptitude for graphic design. Unfortunately, he was also the youngest prince of his kingdom. Custom dictated that he go to hero school for two years, and then transfer to a larger university to major in political science or government. Useless in his own kingdom as a younger son, he was expected to play the hero, rescuing and marrying a princess so that he could rule her kingdom.

She suspected that Mark was not at all partial to this idea, and his words confirmed it. “The thing is,” he told her, quite shyly, “I was never very good at athletics, I was always more interested in the arts, and I’m completely at a loss when it comes to politics.” He blushed, looking down. “Frankly, I think any kingdom I ruled would be in an economic depression within moments, and I’d be dealing with a revolution before you could count to three.”

Maggie privately agreed with him and handed him a stack of applications for graphic design schools which he glanced through with far more enthusiasm than he showed for the either hero school or government. Despite describing his own political aptitude in terms of economic depression and almost certain revolution, Mark took those applications with him as well, explaining that he still wanted to keep his options open. “Besides, I’m not sure I want to let my parents down like that.”

Just make sure you aren’t letting yourself down, she thought, but said only, “you still have plenty of time to make a decision, don’t worry.”

He smiled his thanks and headed out, practically bumping into Krantz, who had been hovering just beyond the door.

Maggie shuddered at the thought of the dean, certain that the word ‘unctuous’ had been created with him in mind. His personality was as oily as the stringy ponytail that straggled down his neck, an attempt at compensation for the hair he lacked on top. He was thin and wiry, a fashion-inept ectomorph who looked as if he belonged in a used car lot, not a high school.

If his appearance could be summed up in the single word “oily”, then the same could be done with his personality: “stuffy”. Not only was he stuffy, he was suffocatingly so. One afternoon spent with the dean declaiming his morals had left Maggie with the feeling of oxygen depravation, and if she didn’t so pride herself on professionalism, she would have been clawing at the windows for air.

She had found herself staring at his despicable form standing in the door of her office, unable to believe that he had just eavesdropped on her advising session. She was supposed to offer her students professional discretion, and only interfere if she thought their health in jeopardy. She could not imagine why he would risk student trust only to ensure that the new guidance counselor was doing her job to his satisfaction.

Krantz’s shiny black shoes squeaked on the tile floor as he entered her office closing the door behind him. Some poor child was probably forced to labor for low wages to create that perfect shine, she thought uncharitably.

He got straight to business. “I couldn’t help but overhear your advising session with young Mr. Kelly,” he began. She nodded, outwardly calm while thinking, Sure, you “couldn’t help but overhear” I bet he had a water glass pressed to the door to enhance his hearing. “You gave him applications for graphic design school?” he stated, rather than asked this last.

“Yes, Mark is extremely talented when it comes to-”

“You realize Mark is the youngest prince of his kingdom?” he had interrupted then, a harsh note in his voice. “I know things can be difficult on the first day, perhaps you didn’t get a chance to look over his file-”

Maggie was shaking her head. Great, now he’s being patronizing. She hadn’t meant to get into trouble this early, in fact she wouldn’t have if he hadn’t been such a nosy parker, but now that she was, she had no intentions of backing down. “Yes I knew all that, but it’s not what Mark wanted.”

Dean Krantz stared at her for a moment in shock. “Ms. Danforth,” he began, sitting up stiffly in his chair (Maggie couldn’t help but wonder if he had to sit so straight because of the stick she was certain was lodged up his ass), “we are not here to discuss what Mr. Kelly wants. We are here to prepare him for his future. It is his destiny to marry a princess and if he does not go to hero school how will he rescue her? If he does not get a degree in suitable to governing how can he hope to lead her kingdom? This planning is not for his happiness, Ms Danforth,” he remarked sternly, glaring at her down his exceptionally long nose, “it is to help him along his fated way.”

“Surely there is a choice in all things,” Maggie began, but he did not hear her.

“I can’t have you mishandling the future of my students. If you continue to act in this brash manner I will have to report you.” He stood, giving her one last contemptuous glare before stalking out of her cement block cubicle.