Lisa Smith: The Struggle

Elena was in a perfect position to view the little drama that occurred about halfway through lunch. Her heart leaped into her throat when she saw Stefan, looking casual, stroll by Caroline’s table.

He spoke to Caroline. Elena watched, forgetting even to play with the untouched food on her plate. But what she saw next made her heart plummet. Caroline tossed her head and replied to him briefly, and then turned back to her meal. And Tyler lumbered to his feet, his face reddening as he made an angry gesture. He didn’t sit down again until Stefan turned away.

Stefan looked toward Elena as he left, and for a moment their eyes met in wordless communion.

There was nothing he could do, then. Even if his Powers had returned, Tyler was going to keep him away from Caroline. The crushing weight squeezed Elena’s lungs so that she could scarcely breathe.

After that she simply sat in a daze of misery and despair until someone nudged her and told her it was time to go backstage.

She listened almost indifferently to Mayor Dawley’s speech of welcome. He spoke about the “trying time” Fell’s Church had faced recently, and about the community spirit that had sustained them these past months. Then awards were given out, for scholarship, for athletics, for community service. Matt came up to receive Outstanding Male Athlete of the Year, and Elena saw him look at her curiously.

Then came the pageant. The elementary school children giggled and tripped and forgot their lines as they portrayed scenes from the founding of Fell’s Church through the Civil War. Elena watched them without taking any of it in. Ever since last night she’d been slightly dizzy and shaky, and now she felt as if she were coming down with the flu. Her brain, usually so full of schemes and calculations, was empty. She couldn’t think anymore. She almost couldn’t care.

The pageant ended to popping flashbulbs and tumultuous applause. When the last little Confederate soldier was off the stage, Mayor Dawley called for silence.

“And now,” he said, “for the students who will perform the closing ceremonies. Please show your appreciation for the Spirit of Independence, the Spirit of Fidelity, and the Spirit of Fell’s Church!”

The applause was even more thunderous. Elena stood beside John Clifford, the brainy senior who’d been chosen to represent the Spirit of Independence. On the other side of John was Caroline. In a detached, nearly apathetic way Elena noticed that Caroline looked magnificent: her head tilted back, her eyes blazing, her cheeks flushed with color.

John went first, adjusting his glasses and the microphone before he read from the heavy brown book on the lectern. Officially, the seniors were free to choose their own selections; in practice they almost always read from the works of M. C. Marsh, the only poet Fell’s Church had ever produced.

All during John’s reading, Caroline was upstaging him. She smiled at the audience; she shook out her hair; she weighed the reticule hanging from her waist. Her fingers stroked the drawstring bag lovingly, and Elena found herself staring at it, hypnotized, memorizing every bead.

John took a bow and resumed his place by Elena. Caroline threw her shoulders back and did a model’s walk to the lectern.

This time the applause was mixed with whistles. But Caroline didn’t smile; she had assumed an air of tragic responsibility. With exquisite timing she waited until the cafetorium was perfectly quiet to speak.

“I was planning to read a poem by M. C. Marsh today,” she said, then, into the attentive stillness, “but I’m not going to. Why read from this —” She held up the nineteenth century volume of poetry. “—when there is something much more… relevant… in a book I happened to find?”

Happened to steal, you mean, thought Elena. Her eyes sought among the faces in the crowd, and she located Stefan. He was standing toward the back, with Bonnie and Meredith stationed on either side as if protecting him. Then Elena noticed something else. Tyler, with Dick and several other guys, was standing just a few yards behind. The guys were older than high school age, and they looked tough, and there were five of them. Go , thought Elena, finding Stefan’s eyes again. She willed him to understand what she was saying. Go, Stefan; please leave before it happens. Go now .

Very slightly, almost imperceptibly, Stefan shook his head.

Caroline’s fingers were dipping into the bag as if she just couldn’t wait. “What I’m going to read is about Fell’s Church today , not a hundred or two hundred years ago,” she was saying, working herself up into a sort of exultant fever. “It’s important now , because it’s about somebody who’s living in town with us. In fact he’s right here in this room.”

Tyler must have written the speech for her, Elena decided. Last month, in the gym, he’d shown quite a gift for that kind of thing. Oh, Stefan, oh, Stefan, I’m scared… Her thoughts jumbled into incoherence as Caroline plunged her hand into the bag.

“I think you’ll understand what I mean when you hear it,” Caroline said, and with a quick motion she pulled a velvet-covered book from the reticule and held it up dramatically. “I think it will explain a lot of what’s been going on in Fell’s Church recently.” Breathing quickly and lightly, she looked from the spellbound audience to the book in her hand.

Elena had almost lost consciousness when Caroline jerked the diary out. Bright sparkles ran along the edges of her vision. The dizziness roared up, ready to overwhelm Elena, and then she noticed something.

It must be her eyes. The stage lights and flashbulbs must have dazzled them. She certainly felt ready to faint any minute; it was hardly surprising that she couldn’t see properly.

The book in Caroline’s hands looked green , not blue.

I must be going crazy… or this is a dream… or maybe it’s a trick of the lighting. But look at Caroline’s face!

Caroline, mouth working, was staring at the velvet book. She seemed to have forgotten the audience altogether. She turned the diary over and over in her hands, looking at all sides of it. Her movements became frantic. She thrust a hand into the reticule as if she somehow hoped to find something else in it. Then she cast a wild glance around the stage as if what she was looking for might have fallen to the ground.

The audience was murmuring, getting impatient. Mayor Dawley and the high school principal were exchanging tight-lipped frowns.

Having found nothing on the floor, Caroline was staring at the small book again. But now she was gazing at it as if it were a scorpion. With a sudden gesture, she wrenched it open and looked inside, as if her last hope was that only the cover had changed and the words inside might be Elena’s.

Then she slowly looked up from the book at the packed cafetorium.

Silence had descended again, and the moment drew out, while every eye remained fixed on the girl in the pale green gown. Then, with an inarticulate sound, Caroline whirled and clattered off the stage. She struck at Elena as she went by, her face a mask of rage and hatred.

Gently, with a feeling of floating, Elena stooped to pick up what Caroline had tried to hit her with.

Caroline’s diary.

There was activity behind Elena as people ran after Caroline, and in front of her as the audience exploded into comment, argument, discussion. Elena found Stefan. He looked as if jubilation was sneaking up on him. But he also looked as bewildered as Elena felt. Bonnie and Meredith were the same. As Stefan’s gaze crossed hers, Elena felt a rush of gratitude and joy, but her predominant emotion was awe.

It was a miracle. Beyond all hope, they had been rescued. They’d been saved.