This is not a story about fairies.
Okay, this is not only a story about fairies. There are other magical creatures in the world, you know. Or maybe you don’t. Apparently, there are people in the world who don’t know that magic is real, that fairies exist, and there’s this whole other life going on behind the “reality” they think they know.
This is a story about that life.
My name is Hailey Cafelle Deal…well, actually, it’s Hailey Cafelle Fortenbrass, but I didn’t know that until I was sixteen years old. You might think that one small change to your name isn’t that big of a deal (no pun intended), but it turns out that when your parents change their last name to try to protect you from your destiny, it’s a BIG deal.
I’m sure Mom and Dad thought they were doing the right thing. There are other people who disagree (I’m looking at you, Hannah.) but since I’m telling this story, you’re going to hear it from my point of view. Aunt Chrys says writing this all down is gonna help me process everything that’s happened, so I’m gonna give it a shot.
Let’s start over, okay?
My first name is Hailey. My middle name is Cafelle. My last name is negotiable, I guess. I’m gonna start with the day that Hannah and I found out our last name wasn’t Deal.
It was a Tuesday afternoon. We’d gotten back from school maybe an hour before and were supposed to be doing our homework upstairs in our bedroom, when Hannah hissed at me between her teeth and waved a hand frantically for me to come join her on her bed.
At first, I shook my head at her. “What?”
Hannah didn’t say anything, but she did look up from her phone and waved at me again, this time with a frown.
I sighed, put down the Algebra homework I’d been slogging through and tip-toed across the room to where she was staring down at the screen of the phone in her hand.
You have to tip-toe in our bedroom because the house is old; like, a hundred years old. So, the floorboards creak, even with a rug thrown over them and since we were supposed to be doing homework, Cady would come and check on us if she heard movement of any kind. It’s not that we couldn’t talk or anything, and Cady isn’t rude about it, but she is super strict about homework time. We’re not supposed to be on our phones, we’re not supposed to talk to each other about anything except homework, and we’re not supposed to get up except to go to the bathroom or something like that.
I managed to avoid the creaky floorboards and got to Hannah’s bed to see what she wanted. Some days, it’s just easier to give in to her rude demands than to fight it. Especially during homework time.
Hannah held up the phone to show me an old picture of a family I’d never seen before. I was confused for a sec.
“Is it a meme?” I asked. There wasn’t any writing on it, and there wasn’t a caption or anything, so I didn’t think it was.
“No.” Hannah hissed. “It’s the Fortenbrasses. Well, it’s the Fortenbrasses from, like, thirty years ago.”
I looked harder at the photo. The Fortenbrasses looked like a nice, sort of old-fashioned, family. The mom and dad sat in front with their three kids standing around them. Everyone had those weird, stiff smiles that you see in formal pictures. The photographer says, “Smile.” And everyone shows their teeth to the camera.
I’ve always been kind of glad that we never had to do that kind of thing. I mean, we’ve got family pictures and stuff, but they’re just from our phones. We weren’t the kind of family that took formal pictures.
The Fortenbrass family was the kind of family that took formal pictures. Hannah spread her fingers over the screen of the phone to zoom in on their frozen faces. The mom and dad looked nice, but normal. The dad wore those weird half-shaded glasses you see guys wearing in old 70’s movies. His tie was pink with blue stripes and he was wearing a pink, plaid, button-down shirt under a dark blazer. He had dark hair, with a few streaks of gray at his temples. The mom had on a sleeveless dress and her hair was short and permed.
The two girls in the back were so different from one another, it was hard to believe they were related. The taller girl looked almost a foot taller than the boy who stood next to her. The other girl was about the same height as the boy. The tall one had dark brown hair that was super straight. She wore so much make-up it was impossible to figure out what she really looked like. Her face was super pale, and her eyes were outlined with thick, black eyeliner. Her lips were black too and I counted about twelve different piercings. She wore a dog collar and a long-sleeved, slinky, black dress covered in lace.
The other sister’s hair was a lighter shade of brown, although next to the goth girl she looked almost blonde. She was wearing a dark blue dress that looked more like a nightgown to me. She also wore a small cross around her neck and although her make-up was darker than anything I’d wear, it wasn’t nearly as thick and dark as the other girl’s.
I turned my attention to the boy in the center. Hannah was interested in him too because she shifted the picture around so he was in the center of the screen. I took in the light brown hair, the brown eyes, the slightly chubby cheeks, and the too large ears that stuck out on either side of his head.
“He looks exactly like Joe, doesn’t he?” Hannah whispered, confirming my own thoughts.
“Not exactly.” I hedged. There was a twinkle in this boy’s eyes, despite the rigor mortis smile, that was missing from our brother’s expression.
“Close enough, though.” Hannah insisted. “I’m, like, 90% sure that’s Dad.”
90%. I thought. That’s pretty good. On the other hand, there was still that 10% that said she could be wrong. I really, really wanted to believe she was right, though.
“So, does this mean we’ve found Dad’s family?” I asked, still keeping my voice just above a whisper.
“Yeah. I found a bunch of stuff on them too.” She pinched the picture back to its original size and scrolled up the page. “Look.” The picture was part of a news story from a place I’d never heard of.
At the top of the web page the banner read:
“The South Deer Island Herald.”
Below that was the headline:
“Local Civic Leaders Killed In Car Accident”
I couldn’t read the article below because the font was too small, and I was too far away from the phone.
“Who died?” I asked, praying it wasn’t the kids.
“The mom and dad.” Hannah scrolled down the page. “Cafelle and Ned Fortenbrass were killed Sunday, August 19, in a head-on collision with a drunk driver on the mainland. The Fortenbrasses were on their way back to the island after a day of sight-seeing in Portland.” She scrolled a bit more and then stopped to read the last line in the article. “The Fortenbrasses leave behind their three children, Chrysantha (21), Alberta Jean (20), and Jacob (17).”
Neither of us spoke for several minutes while this information sank in. I sank onto Hannah’s bed, propping my chin on her shoulder. The mom’s name was the same as my middle name. I mulled that over for a bit. It’s not like Cafelle is a common name.
“Dad was my age when his folks died.” Hannah murmured after a minute. Her voice was low and I wondered what she was thinking. Not for the first time, I wished I could read her mind the way she could read other people’s.
She isn’t psychic or anything like that. She says it’s not like she can hear other people’s thoughts, she just gets these pictures and colors in her head, so it’s not like she would know what you were thinking if she just walked by you on the street.
“I’m just thinking about how weird it is that his folks died when he was young. Like, history repeating itself.”
Did I mention that it’s kind of annoying when she can tell what you’re thinking? I’ve learned to suppress my irritation, but sometimes she can sense it anyway.
She turned around to face me and I shifted away from her.
“Look, it’s not my fault I can tell what you’re thinking.” She snapped.
“I didn’t say it was.” I shot back.
“Girls?” Cady’s voice drifted up from the first floor of the house. “Are you doing your homework like I asked?”
I rose from Hannah’s bed and eased my way back to my own.
“Yes, Cady.” Hannah called in a sing-song voice. She shifted again, drawing herself up onto the bed fully and leaning back against the wall. “We’ll talk about this later.”
“Oh goody.” I muttered as I picked my Algebra book back up and got back to the simpler world of equations.
The South Deer Island Chronicles 