He clicked it back on. “If the story scares you—”
“I’m not scared.” But maybe she was. Her dad always said “Snow-white” was only a make-believe story and could never happen in real life, but Clara wasn’t so sure. Snow-white’s mother was dead. So was Clara’s. Snow-white’s father remarried, as had Clara’s. The Queen gazed in the enchanted mirror and wanted to know who was the fairest in the land. Clara’s stepmother—she looked in the mirror too, pushing back her hair to study her forehead, her arms and legs, even in between her fingers and toes. For hours, it seemed to Clara, who watched from behind the big blue armchair in the living room.
“I think you’re frightened,” her dad said quietly.
“I don’t like it when Snow-white gets lost in the woods. What if she gets eaten by animals?” She didn’t want to admit to the other stuff.
“Are you afraid of getting lost?”
“Maybe.”
“You’ll never be lost as long as I’m here,” he promised her. “I will keep you safe and sound.”
Clara didn’t know what it meant to be “sound,” but if it was anything like “safe,” it was fine with her. “Go on,” she said.
“We’re done for tonight, love.”
“No, I mean you can leave now.”
Clara lay in a pool of light surrounded by dark edges.
CHAPTER 13
Only a couple of months later, on a cold but brilliantly sunny November morning, her stepmother came into her room and gently shook her awake. “I have terrible, terrible news,” she said. “I can’t think of any way to say it except to say it.”
But Clara already knew her dad was dead. What other news could be so terrible, terrible? The smell of lavender—her stepmother’s soap, so sticky sweet—made Clara sick to her stomach. The sun’s glare off the heart-shaped pendant hurt her eyes.
“Phil was in the kitchen last night. He had what’s called a heart attack,” her stepmother said. “An ambulance came. I went to the hospital with them while Mrs. Moore from upstairs sat here in case you woke up.”
Clara hadn’t heard a thing, or even stirred in her bed. She would never again sleep so heavily, or through the night, or without her bedside lamp on.
“I’m so sorry,” her stepmother said. “There was nothing the doctors could do.”
Clara shut her eyes tight, put her hands over her ears, and pressed hard. Oh, her stepmother was evil. Evil Lynn, Clara would call her from now on; Evil Lynn—bearer of terrible, terrible news. Clara vowed on the spot never to talk to Evil Lynn again, or only when she absolutely had to, and never about her dad, not one word.
There was a crowded service. Kim and her parents came, and lots of other kids from school and their parents. Kim had long hair that glowed with light. She put her arms around Clara, and Clara gave her a big hug. But then Kim said, “Good thing your dad remarried.” Clara couldn’t believe she’d said that—Kim knew how Clara felt about Evil Lynn. Come to think of it, Clara realized, every time she had said something mean about her stepmother, Kim had said, “She’s not so bad,” or “Your dad seems really happy with her.” Clara had always thought it was just Kim trying to seem grown-up by saying things that sounded mature, nothing to pay much attention to. But now those remarks made Clara question her choice of best friend.
Clara wriggled out of Kim’s grasp and said, “You better sit far away from me. I’m getting sick and don’t want you to catch it.”
Clara didn’t know most of the people there. Her dad’s friends from the TV production company showed up, and there were a lot of them—camera operators, sound mixers, dolly grips, boom operators. Some made a point of telling Clara what a nice guy her dad had been and how much he’d loved her. Others were sobbing, some loudly, some quietly; still others sat in silence. It was like they were demonstrating many ways for Clara to feel. But Clara began to feel something else. She could see and hear, but everything seemed distant, muted, as if she were behind glass, like Snow-white in the glass coffin. It was almost pleasant. This was a place she could stay, like Snow-white, for a long, long time.
Several months after Clara’s dad died, Evil Lynn took Clara to a psychologist. He had wispy hair and thick black glasses.
“When someone you love dies, there is no right or wrong way to react,” he told Clara.
Clearly Evil Lynn thought differently, or why drag Clara here?
“You are angry,” he said. “Every child is angry at the parent who died. How could your father have done such a thing, leaving you like that?”
Clara was well aware that her dad had done such a thing. I will keep you safe and sound, he’d said. He’d broken that promise, big-time.
“You are terrified, the terror of a child who fears she can’t survive. Such feelings may intensify as the anniversary approaches,” he said.