Ancient. That was what this new house was. So thought Jade Lucas as she cast an unimpressed eye over the front hall.
Absolutely ancient.
And she mentally stressed the house part, because it couldn't be a home. Not yet. She happened to be thirteen years old and the first thirteen-year-old girl to occupy the house since the Seventies.
Not to mention the bedroom.
Of course, Jade didn't know that. The word Lisbon meant nothing to her, although thirty years before it had caused boys to shiver and girls to smoulder with jealousy.
It was the one house on the block that wasn't brand new. The Lisbon house was some kind of landmark- when old alumni of the girls' school visited home they would often saunter by at sunset, imagining a backlit Lux sunbathing on the front lawn and waggling her fingers in greeting, not daring to sit up properly in case she disturbed the tanning process.
Someone stood in the upstairs hall late that night. Barefoot, she shied from side to side, considering the stairs. She seemed angelic. Her dark blonde hair lay in an obedient mat on her shoulders, and her worn, ripped wedding dress that was her usual attire looked... starry in the blackness.
Jade's eyes snapped open.
The girl's pale hand snaked up to her neck, where they found a string of rosary beads. She wound them in a figure eight around her fingers, one of which had a small bump from having held a pencil. The thin wrist had a bulky bandage tightly wrapped around it. Her eyes flickered and she smiled. Her other hand was a fist in her soft pocket, holding a nickel she'd forgotten about.
The other hand, wrist also bandaged, found a pocket and she teetered, clearly undecided.
There was a creak as Jade scrambled out of bed, snatching her glasses from her bedside table and putting them on.
Jade was heard. The saintly blonde girl stepped forward to run down the stairs, removing her hands from her pockets and raising them to the moonlight-
She disappeared before her foot touched the step. Jade darted around the door and found nobody.
There was only a 1969 nickel lying discarded on the floor.
Jade picked up the nickel and slotted it into a crack in the doorpost where she had put a secret letter from her UK penpal. She had a feeling it was important. Then she slept.
It was three days later when another sighting was made. Or near sighting. Whatever. Point was, Jade sat doing her homework and looked up out of the window a second.
She thought she saw a blonde girl dancing circles on the lawn.
The girl looked young, and for a second as she halted her pirouette she gazed back at Jade.
She thought she saw a black girl sitting in the living room and writing something.
That's impossible, thought the blonde girl, twirling her hands over her head and watching the secondhand sunlight shine through them as it struggled through the leaves. She doesn't live there. I do. That's my house.
The blonde girl imagined her sister dancing next to her- then another and another until there were five on the lawn, dancing. They all wore shorts and jerked around in a characteristically trendy fashion. She was the only one who danced through the grassy dew and watched her skirts fly about her ankles.
But she couldn't make them real. She couldn't make them dance there with her. For the millionth time she wondered where they had got to, and why she had these bandages on her wrists that could not be removed. One minute they'd been in the basement, at the party, not missing her in the least- the next, the house contained an ethereal haze and not one sister, or human being for that matter, remained. She'd wandered from room to room, inspecting the possessions that somehow didn't feel real in her hands.
"Lux?" she'd called, hardly noticing that it was suddenly glorious daylight and silent. Her voice echoed awkwardly. "Where are you? Mary? Bonnie, Therese, come here! Mom, Dad?"
She vaguely remembered having done something to separate herself from them... but was sure it had been nothing. After all, SHE was still there. Alone.
She wanted them.
Jade gaped in shock and knocked her textbooks off the table in her haste, speeding outside and skidding to a stop on the front porch, gasping for breath.
Nothing. The blonde girl had disappeared.
It was June suddenly, and Jade was sifting through the wreckage of various belongings that previous occupants had left behind in the attic, which stank of dead wood. She had nothing better to do and her little brother, who was terrified of the dark, had left a toy up there during some grade scholarly hijink with his new best friend. He'd begged her to retrieve it for him.
Grumbling, she shoved a cardboard box out of the way and spotted his toy plane jammed into a low point of the rafters. She went on tiptoe to snatch its cracked wing and suddenly looked down, as though an invisible force had guided down her head.
Almost embedded into the floorboards was a single photograph. Jade bent low and peeled it off the chipped wood to inspect it in the dim light.
It showed a schoolgirl of around twelve, maybe older, giving a fake lip-twitch of a smile to the camera. She slouched in her seat and meshed her fingers through each other, her eyes downcast.
She looked miserable.
And it was at six-thirty on Saturday morning when the blonde girl made her last stand. The Lucas family did not rise before ten on Saturdays.
Jade rubbed sleep from her eyes and blinked, sitting up straight in her bed. She could've sworn she'd heard someone talking in the hallway.
"Cecilia..."
"We missed you..."
"We've got so much to tell you..."
The voices of girls resounded through the household now given to laziness.
Jade stiffened. She snatched the picture from where she'd placed in on her bedside table, underneath her clock radio. One by one, letters of black bloomed across the Technicolour image.
MY NAME IS CECILIA LISBON. I USED TO LIVE IN THIS HOUSE. AND ONE NIGHT I DIED IN THIS HOUSE.
Jade ran for the door again and saw her up close this time, in the same hallway where she'd appeared for the first time since the Lucas clan had moved in.
Four angelic girls stood, out of breath with windswept hair calling to Cecilia, who strode toward them with purpose. What looked like the oldest girl extended a hand, which found Cecilia's in the morning light and held it as though Cecilia Lisbon's hand was meant to stay there for all time.
There was a small shimmer and the bandages on Cecilia's wrists disappeared, revealing virgin skin. With nothing short of wonderment she held up her wrists and inspected them closely. She looked up, eyes shining.
Laughing in delight, the older girls swooped upon their young sister, talking excitedly.
One girl put her arm around Cecilia Lisbon's shoulders and began to escort her down the stairs, surrounded by the other three. Jade stepped forward to follow-
Therese, Mary, Bonnie, Lux and Cecilia Lisbon vanished forever from their home. Desperately, Jade examined the picture as more words picked themselves out under the first ones.
BUT I'M WITH MY SISTERS AGAIN, AND WE'LL BE VERY HAPPY.
The message faded to reveal one last change in the legacy of Cecilia Lisbon. Her image was now different.
Cecilia gave a frozen smile whose joy shone from beyond the limits of life.
* * *
DISCLAIMER: 'The Virgin Suicides' and all characters thereof are the property of Jeffrey Eunicides and, um... Paramount Pictures? I don't know! Jade Lucas and her nonexistent family are mine, though.
NOTE: I've done it. I've finally done it. I've written a VS fic, and I'm rather happy with it. I've seen the film a great many times- it happens to be my favourite in the world. I'm sorry if Cecilia's character is wrong. She's the Lisbon I identify with the most and I've been dying to write a fic on her. I have never read the book, but I want to. It isn't in shops over here. If she is wrong, please notify me and I'll try to edit the fic.
Absolutely ancient.
And she mentally stressed the house part, because it couldn't be a home. Not yet. She happened to be thirteen years old and the first thirteen-year-old girl to occupy the house since the Seventies.
Not to mention the bedroom.
Of course, Jade didn't know that. The word Lisbon meant nothing to her, although thirty years before it had caused boys to shiver and girls to smoulder with jealousy.
It was the one house on the block that wasn't brand new. The Lisbon house was some kind of landmark- when old alumni of the girls' school visited home they would often saunter by at sunset, imagining a backlit Lux sunbathing on the front lawn and waggling her fingers in greeting, not daring to sit up properly in case she disturbed the tanning process.
Someone stood in the upstairs hall late that night. Barefoot, she shied from side to side, considering the stairs. She seemed angelic. Her dark blonde hair lay in an obedient mat on her shoulders, and her worn, ripped wedding dress that was her usual attire looked... starry in the blackness.
Jade's eyes snapped open.
The girl's pale hand snaked up to her neck, where they found a string of rosary beads. She wound them in a figure eight around her fingers, one of which had a small bump from having held a pencil. The thin wrist had a bulky bandage tightly wrapped around it. Her eyes flickered and she smiled. Her other hand was a fist in her soft pocket, holding a nickel she'd forgotten about.
The other hand, wrist also bandaged, found a pocket and she teetered, clearly undecided.
There was a creak as Jade scrambled out of bed, snatching her glasses from her bedside table and putting them on.
Jade was heard. The saintly blonde girl stepped forward to run down the stairs, removing her hands from her pockets and raising them to the moonlight-
She disappeared before her foot touched the step. Jade darted around the door and found nobody.
There was only a 1969 nickel lying discarded on the floor.
Jade picked up the nickel and slotted it into a crack in the doorpost where she had put a secret letter from her UK penpal. She had a feeling it was important. Then she slept.
It was three days later when another sighting was made. Or near sighting. Whatever. Point was, Jade sat doing her homework and looked up out of the window a second.
She thought she saw a blonde girl dancing circles on the lawn.
The girl looked young, and for a second as she halted her pirouette she gazed back at Jade.
She thought she saw a black girl sitting in the living room and writing something.
That's impossible, thought the blonde girl, twirling her hands over her head and watching the secondhand sunlight shine through them as it struggled through the leaves. She doesn't live there. I do. That's my house.
The blonde girl imagined her sister dancing next to her- then another and another until there were five on the lawn, dancing. They all wore shorts and jerked around in a characteristically trendy fashion. She was the only one who danced through the grassy dew and watched her skirts fly about her ankles.
But she couldn't make them real. She couldn't make them dance there with her. For the millionth time she wondered where they had got to, and why she had these bandages on her wrists that could not be removed. One minute they'd been in the basement, at the party, not missing her in the least- the next, the house contained an ethereal haze and not one sister, or human being for that matter, remained. She'd wandered from room to room, inspecting the possessions that somehow didn't feel real in her hands.
"Lux?" she'd called, hardly noticing that it was suddenly glorious daylight and silent. Her voice echoed awkwardly. "Where are you? Mary? Bonnie, Therese, come here! Mom, Dad?"
She vaguely remembered having done something to separate herself from them... but was sure it had been nothing. After all, SHE was still there. Alone.
She wanted them.
Jade gaped in shock and knocked her textbooks off the table in her haste, speeding outside and skidding to a stop on the front porch, gasping for breath.
Nothing. The blonde girl had disappeared.
It was June suddenly, and Jade was sifting through the wreckage of various belongings that previous occupants had left behind in the attic, which stank of dead wood. She had nothing better to do and her little brother, who was terrified of the dark, had left a toy up there during some grade scholarly hijink with his new best friend. He'd begged her to retrieve it for him.
Grumbling, she shoved a cardboard box out of the way and spotted his toy plane jammed into a low point of the rafters. She went on tiptoe to snatch its cracked wing and suddenly looked down, as though an invisible force had guided down her head.
Almost embedded into the floorboards was a single photograph. Jade bent low and peeled it off the chipped wood to inspect it in the dim light.
It showed a schoolgirl of around twelve, maybe older, giving a fake lip-twitch of a smile to the camera. She slouched in her seat and meshed her fingers through each other, her eyes downcast.
She looked miserable.
And it was at six-thirty on Saturday morning when the blonde girl made her last stand. The Lucas family did not rise before ten on Saturdays.
Jade rubbed sleep from her eyes and blinked, sitting up straight in her bed. She could've sworn she'd heard someone talking in the hallway.
"Cecilia..."
"We missed you..."
"We've got so much to tell you..."
The voices of girls resounded through the household now given to laziness.
Jade stiffened. She snatched the picture from where she'd placed in on her bedside table, underneath her clock radio. One by one, letters of black bloomed across the Technicolour image.
MY NAME IS CECILIA LISBON. I USED TO LIVE IN THIS HOUSE. AND ONE NIGHT I DIED IN THIS HOUSE.
Jade ran for the door again and saw her up close this time, in the same hallway where she'd appeared for the first time since the Lucas clan had moved in.
Four angelic girls stood, out of breath with windswept hair calling to Cecilia, who strode toward them with purpose. What looked like the oldest girl extended a hand, which found Cecilia's in the morning light and held it as though Cecilia Lisbon's hand was meant to stay there for all time.
There was a small shimmer and the bandages on Cecilia's wrists disappeared, revealing virgin skin. With nothing short of wonderment she held up her wrists and inspected them closely. She looked up, eyes shining.
Laughing in delight, the older girls swooped upon their young sister, talking excitedly.
One girl put her arm around Cecilia Lisbon's shoulders and began to escort her down the stairs, surrounded by the other three. Jade stepped forward to follow-
Therese, Mary, Bonnie, Lux and Cecilia Lisbon vanished forever from their home. Desperately, Jade examined the picture as more words picked themselves out under the first ones.
BUT I'M WITH MY SISTERS AGAIN, AND WE'LL BE VERY HAPPY.
The message faded to reveal one last change in the legacy of Cecilia Lisbon. Her image was now different.
Cecilia gave a frozen smile whose joy shone from beyond the limits of life.
* * *
DISCLAIMER: 'The Virgin Suicides' and all characters thereof are the property of Jeffrey Eunicides and, um... Paramount Pictures? I don't know! Jade Lucas and her nonexistent family are mine, though.
NOTE: I've done it. I've finally done it. I've written a VS fic, and I'm rather happy with it. I've seen the film a great many times- it happens to be my favourite in the world. I'm sorry if Cecilia's character is wrong. She's the Lisbon I identify with the most and I've been dying to write a fic on her. I have never read the book, but I want to. It isn't in shops over here. If she is wrong, please notify me and I'll try to edit the fic.