Page 28 of Everything She Does Is Magic (Fableview #1)
Darcy
Going to the haunted carnival on Friday night has always been my and Grace’s personal tradition.
Something about sitting through school during the day—giddy, restless—then spending hours getting ready afterward, putting on our best makeup and our cutest nonthemed clothes, is the height of sophistication to us.
The contrast is the point. A regular, boring day of school into a long, eventful night in the middle of a cornfield.
The carnival runs later than any other event on the Halloween schedule, open until midnight for the entire weekend. Staying out that late in public, with permission from everyone in the town, adds to the sophistication. Anything can happen at the haunted carnival.
That fateful year that Kyle Holtzenberg and I first got together, we held hands on the carnival’s Ferris wheel.
It was the most illicit, overwhelming thrill of my sixth-grade life.
The action of it—linking hands with someone else, declaring our connection in public—made the whole night sparkly and unique.
Even then I knew it had nothing to do with Kyle and everything to do with the fact that someone wanted to claim me too, wanted to hold my hand as we looked out at the dark together.
Friday nights at the carnival, with the smell of funnel cakes and the constant whir of rides and games, always take me right back to that hope.
Sitting on my couch at 4:57p.m. on the Friday of the haunted carnival weekend, waiting to begin a Halloween movie marathon with my parents, does not have the same excitement.
While this is the most benevolent grounding of all time since my parents are making me stay home so we can hang out and spend more time together, there’s so much pent-up longing inside me for all I’m missing—my last haunted carnival night as a Fableview student.
“I just got off the phone with Kathy Holtzenberg, who is beyond ecstatic to get the chance to fill in for us at the carnival this weekend,” Mom says, settling down beside me on the couch with a bowl of popcorn.
Dad’s already gotten out his candy stash, and he’s halfway into biting through his second sour straw when he responds with “You made it clear it’s a onetime thing, right?”
“Yes. I told her we needed some family time, just the three of us. She’ll swing by in a little bit to pick up our ghost costumes.”
“You really didn’t have to do that,” I tell them both. It’s a little awkward between us. I still feel hurt over how they’ve thrust everything upon me. But even I can recognize what a big deal it is that they’ve punted a task over to the Holtzenberg family.
Mom sticks the bowl of popcorn my way, knowing I like to have the first handful. “The haunted carnival is one of the easiest events of the entire season. It’s not a big deal to have Kathy and Kevin do it.”
Except it is a big deal. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone brings it up at the final planning committee meeting. Is everything okay with the Kellers? They let the Holtzenbergs do the carnival weekend.
“We’d rather be here with you,” Dad says, offering me a sour straw.
We’ve sat this way on our couch countless times in my life—Mom with her right elbow on the arm of the couch, Dad with his feet crisscrossed atop the coffee table. Me in the middle, hands squeezed between my legs, the only one of us who can stay awake for the duration of literally anything we watch.
Mom starts the movie, one we’ve all seen so many times, we can quote it.
Still, we watch in silence, pretending to pay close attention.
My parents want something more from this—I’m grounded, after all—but they’re not going for it right away.
They’re buttering me up with popcorn and treats and our favorite Halloween movies first.
“Can we just talk about it?” I blurt. “The anticipation is too much.”
Mom presses pause on the remote. “Talk about what, sweetie?” It only takes one look from me to get her to change tactics. “We wanted to have a nice evening with you first.”
“Before I sign the paperwork that transfers the title to Pam’s Paints over to me, complete with a name change to Darcy’s Dabbles or something,” I say.
That one gets a chuckle out of Dad.
“Before we tell you that you’re right,” my mom says, serious.
“I’m…right?”
“Yes. We’ve been perhaps a little too present in your life. We just…We love you.” At once, she begins to cry, and it’s so quick and unexpected that it startles her as much as it does me.
“Oh, Mom,” I say, wrapping her in my arms. For as sentimental as she is, she doesn’t cry much. “I know you do. I love youtoo.”
“I think…we hoped…you’d be…like us,” she says through sniffles.
“Fableview lifers,” my dad interjects.
“Neither of us ever wanted to leave here,” Mom adds.
Dad nods emphatically. “Never. We’ve loved it ever since we were younger than you. And we wanted a kid so badly. You know that. It took us a very long time to get you, and once we did, I guess we expected you to pop out liking all the same things we do.”
“We figured, if we showed you everything there was to love about this place, you’d never want to leave us.”
“I do want some of it,” I say. It’s important that I don’t let my sympathy turn into guilt. Their desires for me can be different from mine, and I don’t have to feel bad about that. “And maybe someday, I could even want all of it. But I also want a chance to know for sure.”
Mom’s still fighting hard to return to her dignity, one hand covering her eyes as if that might make the tears stop. “We should have asked you. Which seems very obvious now. But you know, for as old as we are, we’re still new to this whole being a parent to an adult gig.”
I’ve certainly felt like an adult more times than I can count, but I’ve never been called an adult before. It’s technically not even true yet, since I’m still seventeen, but it’s meaningful to have her say it—to recognize I am more than just her precious baby girl.
“Does this mean I’m not grounded anymore?” I try.
“It’s not that easy,” Mom says, letting out a laugh.
“Does it mean that I get to apply to more colleges out of state?” I try next, poking her in the rib. Even if I’m not making any real headway, I’m at least making her smile.
It’s Dad who laughs this time. “If I remember correctly, you informed us you’d already done that.”
“I applied to one ,” I admit, feeling guilty. “But I do have others I want to look at…”
Mom stands up, heading down the hallway toward her room. When she returns, she’s holding her laptop. She hands it over to me. “Show us. Tell us what you like about them.”
“I don’t know what I want to major in or even what exactly I’m looking for from a school,” I say as a preface, feeling strangely self-conscious as I place the laptop on our coffee table.
My parents don’t give me a hard time for not having a clear vision. They help me imagine a plan in more specific terms instead. For being Fableview lifers, they’re very good at knowing what I should look for. Probably because they’re good at knowing me .
In these last few weeks, it’s felt like they haven’t really seen me changing, like I’ve been sending up all these flares, and most have gone right over their heads.
But even with all the details they’ve missed, they still know my interests—the constants that have always been around.
We all agree I should find a school that supports my passions, which boil down to art, music, and language.
It seems obvious once we’ve settled on them, but it was something I couldn’t yet see, too distracted by my need to prove to them that I should be able to do this at all.
Our evening of movies becomes an evening of research, which wouldn’t normally be appealing, but it reminds me of our best past moments, like the time I came home sheepish, admitting to them that, whoops , I had an entire rainforest habitat diorama due tomorrow, and I’d forgotten to start it.
After a little bit of frustration—and more than one comment about how I should’ve told them sooner—we gathered up supplies from the art shop and started building, using glue and markers and Popsicle sticks and construction paper, winging it until we came up with a pretty impressive re-creation of the rainforest.
These are the parents I love the most. The ones who work with me, who help me when I can’t do it alone. Who find the answers I didn’t even know I was looking for. Who make something logical out of my mess.
By the time Kathy Holtzenberg has stopped by downstairs to pick up the costumes, we’ve whittled down my choices to four other schools, and we all seem genuinely excited by the picks, even Mom, who has always had the hardest time with all this.
I think about how she inherited the art shop from her mom.
She’s probably had this whole image in her head of the day she’d pass it down to me.
When she returns from giving Kathy Holtzenberg the costumes, I feel such a swell of affection that I hug her again. “Thank you,” I say.
“You’re still grounded for now,” she says from the depths of my squeeze.
“That’s not why I’m hugging you. I know this is hard for you. And I really appreciate the fact that you’re still letting me try.”
Without meaning to, I’ve started up her tears again. She grabs me back with a newfound urgency. “You can still go to the Fall Ball,” she whispers into my hair.
“Really?”
“ Really . If you want to go, that is,” she adds. “No pressure.”
“Mom, I still love all our town’s traditions,” I assure her, tilting my head up to see her. “I just think we should be able to, you know, change up our costumes every once in a while.”
“Don’t tell me you mean Ghostbusters and Grease ?” she asks, aghast.
“I mean Ghostbusters and Grease ,” I say.
With a little more back-and-forth, my dad throwing his hat in the ring for this discussion, they both agree to take the note, promising to look for new costumes with me— after Halloween is over.
“So we can get the best deals,” Dad says with a wink.
We’ve gotten so much accomplished that we’ve all forgotten about the movie. It’s me who suggests we commit to finishing it.
Mom presses play, and we make it no more than a minute before Dad claps his hands on his legs and says, “We’ve gotten everything else out in the open; why don’t you go ahead and tell us more about what’s going on with Anya?”
“Ew,” I say involuntarily, chucking a piece of cold popcorn at him.
He puts his hands up. “Hey now, I’m just doing my dad duty.”
“Honestly, we’re relieved you’re not still trying to hang out with Kyle Holtzenberg,” Mom whispers, as if Kathy might have followed her up the stairs.
“You guys are the ones letting the Holtzenbergs do the carnival,” I remind them, pivoting us away from talk of Anya.
Not because I wouldn’t tell them. This night of grounding has been unexpectedly nice.
But there are still so many complicated feelings swirling around in my head and my heart.
Talking about it with my parents before I talk about it with Anya doesn’t sit right.
“We shouldn’t have done that,” Mom agrees. “But we wanted you to know we’re serious about being here for you. And it’s too late now to stop Kathy. She’s probably driving seventy down the boulevard, laughing the whole way.”
When we finally continue the movie, Mom and Dad make it about thirty minutes before they’re asleep.
I could say I’d rather be at the carnival, but this moment is so sweet, so typical yet so endearing, that I really am glad they’ve grounded me. Because now that I’m officially allowed to apply for colleges, I know for certain that I’ll be leaving them soon.
Next October, I’ll be living in a dorm on a campus somewhere far from here. There will be no Halloween movie marathons with me wedged between them as they snooze.
So for now, I’m exactly where I want to be.