Okay, so, I was digging around through all of my old documents, and stumbled across this. I think I was...twelve when I started this? I can't remember. Enjoy.

Chapter One

Spread like Wildfire

The lights flared out, the walls creaked, screams filled the room, and a roar of thunder completed the scene. I could hear them running, clawing their way towards the door, tripping over discarded books and bags, long forgotten. I sighed heavily.

A shadow crossed the stage, and I peered closely at it. My silted eyes couldn't make out anything, perhaps it was just a shadow? I refused to stop looking.

The lights flickered and hummed to life. I turned to see Kerry still sitting next to me, an almost bored expression on her face. Kerry and I were very alike, while at the same time incredibly different. We both were quite tall for our age, had rather big noses, blue eyes, and stronger builds. Kerry was a little bigger than I, and my hair was slicked back, black and greasy. I hated my hair, people teased me about it. It wasn't fair. Kerry's eyes were almost a steel gray and had black streaks in them. They were triangular in a way and she had perfect twenty-twenty vision. My eyes were a soulless blue, misty and pale. My skin was white as cotton and rough as sandpaper. Kerry's skin was nice and tanned. I usually wore long black pants and a ruby red shirt on hot summer days, never leaving the foster house without my parasol. Kerry wore flip-flops and tank tops and short shorts. She was active in the community and pretty and all the things I wasn't. She was a soccer goalie, and everyone loved her. No one seemed to know she had a sister. We aren't blood sisters, but we've lived together for so long, we kinda grew on each other. Kerry plays the clarinet in school band; I play the violin, piano, and guitar.

My name is Jessica but everyone, well anyone who knows me well (and that's narrows that down to Kerry), calls me Cherry, because my favorite food in the entire world is maraschino cherries. I can eat buckets of that stuff.

"Ride on the bus with me?" I asked Kerry quietly.

"Nah, I have after school gym with Eric." Kerry replied, packing her things into her backpack.

"Which one?" I asked, wishing I had bitten my tongue. "Not that creepy guy right?"

"What, no, Eric Tomas." Kerry said, waving to Eric at the front of the auditorium. He waved back. I snorted. Eric Tomas, I was twice his size. He had messy blond hair and too large blue eyes. He was around the size of the popular girl Claudia. She was practically only four feet tall and was as fat as a twig.

"Well, see ya then." I mumbled, slinging my backpack over one of my arms. I knew that the weight would mess up my back, but I was beyond caring. I waited until the bell rang and everyone else had left the auditorium before I started making my way through the crowd towards my locker. It wasn't hard, people either completely avoided me or grouped up so I couldn't get past. I started humming unconsciously, not caring about the whispers behind my back followed by giggles. I didn't care anymore. They would all see. Someday, I knew I was going to be something big, something famous. And the only person who would share my fame was Kerry, because Kerry was the only person I ever knew.

The lockers in our school were small, so I don't have to worry about getting shoved into one. Even if they were bigger, I probably wouldn't have to worry, no one laid a finger on me, they probably thought I had some kind of disease. People avoided me like plague, and talked to me as if I would burst into tears with every word they said. They were so kind and pitiful. I grimaced inwardly. I hated being pitied. People asked me to dance at parties or play games or sports. I hated it. Hated it hated it hated it! I would much rather prefer to be alone, in a snowy castle, or garden or heck even a cemetery, and play my music. I was becoming obsessed with playing. There was a piano in the basement of the foster house I played in my spare time. If it weren't for school and studies I would do nothing but compose and sing and play notes on the piano. I was completely enthralled in music. It only made my day worse to see how the students had reacted when the movie we watched in chorus was over. I had loved it so much, they sang songs mockingly and teased and criticized it. I hated being so different.

After empting my locker, which only took a few seconds because I rarely ever used my locker, I headed towards the buses. I was usually the last person on the bus, along with Kerry, but today the bus was packed. I mean full. There were no free seats whatsoever, which bothered me because I avoided sitting next to people I didn't know at all times. I sat down next to Virginia Kley, a new girl as popular as they come. She had dyed blond hair in the newest style, mascara and eyeliner making her eyelashes droop from the weight, and an incredible annoying high pitched speedy voice that only a gossiper could possess. She shoved me into the window side of the seat and continued chatting with her followers.

"Ah!" A voice cried from in front of me. A boy was shoved into the corner of the seat ahead of me much like I had just been. I could make out his ear through the crack between the seat and the wall. It was almost gray, as if it hadn't seen sunlight for years. But it was the next thing he said that caught my attention.

"Fop." He muttered. My breath hitched. I was the only one I knew that still used that word. It was such an old word, I'm sure many people don't even know what it means.

"I don't know," I whispered through the crack. "He looked pretty poorly dressed to me." At this the boy whipped around and glared at me, but there was something else. After a moment or two, he stopped glaring and just studied my expression. His eyes were a light teal with amber streaked in them. His cheeks were hollow and his lips were split from lack of moisture. His dark hair hung unruly in his face. A very awkward silence followed before he turned around again, obviously hoping to ignore me.

The bus ride was long and agitating. When they finally pulled to my foster house I crept up the aisle like a phantom, my movements trepid and stiff. My eyes staring straight ahead of me, but I could still see the whisperers, I could still feel their eyes burning into the back of my head. There was one pair I felt over the others, though. It was the boy. I decided to call him 'Fop'. When I turned to exit the bus the chatter started again. Fop remained silent, his eyes never leaving me. When the door closed and the bus started to pull away, I glanced up only to see Fop was still staring at me. I gave a small, incredibly suttle wave. After a second or two he returned it, and the bus was gone roaring down the road.

The rain had stopped but the gravel road to the foster house was slippery and muddy. The smell of rain mingled with the overpowering pines. When I finally reached the Iron Gate to the house, my perfect black shoes were brown and caked with drying mud. I sighed inwardly and pushed the gate open. My foster house was quite old and looming in the middle of the woods. Its creamy walls were covered in ivy and the grasses of the front yard were overgrown to around my waist. There were stone remains of what I suspected to be a crumbled fountain covered in vines that trapped it into the earth. Behind the house was a small meadow with equally high grass and a small stream. There was also a scrubby looking willow tree that we hung a rope swing from.

I walked through the narrow stone pathway to the mahogany front door. I didn't bother to use the knocker, I just strode right through. I pulled off my boots, as soon as I was done studying I would clean them off. I would hate to ruin the smooth leather. I walked casually up the ancient spiral staircase until I reached the third floor.

"West hall, forth door on the left." I repeated to myself. I kept forgetting, there were way too many doors in this house for my taste. Many people could see me living here, (ironic because the only people that see me are the teachers and Kerry), but no one in a million years would believe that Kerry Walker lived in a Victorian foster house. The thought of it puzzled me for a moment. She deserved so much better than I.

I opened our door in the west hall. We had been living in this house for practically our entire lives, but I still needed to remind myself what door was ours. The room looked as if it had been split in two. Kerry's side was a light pink, the way the room had been originally painted, with posters of her favorite athletes, pictures of her friends, catties, bags, magazines, and clutter tacked to the walls and spread out of the orange and green quilt on her bed. My side had pale lavender walls. A thick black lace canopy was messily stuffed between the bed and the wall. Pictures drawn with loose ink were clumsily tacked to the walls and paints and quills and ink bottles were rolling out from under my iron bed. My bed spread was a crisp white, the curtain I had sewn together for Kerry and I was orange on her half and lavender on mine. We were so very different. I threw my black backpack onto my bed and sighed. I had come to the decision to skip studying for the night. Kerry made sure I studied every subject for an hour, long into the night. Tomorrow was the last day of school, anyway, and History was my best subject.

I walked back down the stairs and picked up my boots. The next thing I knew I was in the backyard scrubbing away at them with a sponge and a bucket of soapy water. I was never an expert at cleaning, but I didn't plan on wearing these boots much more anyway. The water would probably shrink them. They would still look nice in my closet, though.

Around the time I finished my first boot the late bus pulled up. I knew that Kerry took the time to wave to all the open windows where her friends hung out to wave goodbyes. I know she stops by Sally and Shelby Fitt's house to buy a new sparkplug for her collection. I knew she would side track through the mountain trail so she came up to the house from the meadow rather than the main road. I knew she would smell her favorite lilac bush just outside the back door. I knew she would smile at me before she walked in and made a peanut butter and chocolate syrup sandwich. I knew all this because we walked home everyday together, and she always followed the same route. Everyday. No matter what.

What surprised me is the fact that she sighed and collapsed on top of a weed covered apple crate and watched me scrub my shoes clean. Once I finished the last one and left it to dry I sat on top of an over-turned bucket and store out into the meadow. I saw a few deer, hiding in the long grass, and a tortoise slump over to the stream for a drink. Kerry sighed heavily.

"What?" I asked her finally. She groaned. "Are you sick?"

"No," She replied, standing up.

"Was it after school gym?" I asked. I noticed she didn't have a sparkplug in her fist or pine needles stuck to the bottom of her sneakers.

"No, after school gym was fine." She muttered. "It was after after school gym, in the locker room. I saw-"

"Cherry and Kerry!" A voice called from the house. Shirley Fammon, the most annoying, cat loving, cabbage smelling seventy three year old the world had ever seen, called for us. She was our foster "mother". The pure thought of that made me want to throw up.

I dropped the boot on the ground next to the bucket and stood up, following Kerry into the house.

"Wonder what Shirley wants…" I mumbled, running my hand along the faded wood table in the basement kitchen. Kerry didn't answer, which was odd.

"Hurry up!" Shirley screamed from the floor above. Kerry started scaling the stairs, and I noticed she was a lot slower today than usual. I would talk to her about it tonight.

Kerry opened the creaky old door and stepped into the velvet and cabbage smelling parlor room. A fine layer of dust had coated everything and the smell of pure old furniture and brandy lingered in the air. The cream curtains were closed and the ticking of the grandfather clock was maddening. I silently sat on the Victorian couch beside Kerry. I noticed she was shivering, and her skin looked a lot more like mine than usual. Pale.

I came to the decision that Kerry was sick, and in denial. There was no other explanation. There were a few creaks from outside the door leading into the parlor, but I knew better than to believe that someone was coming. I knew so much better than that now. I remember when I was little I used to tense at every old groan or creak the house made. I was stupid in my youth, though. Stupid and imaginative. I was more imaginative now though, dreaming up my own world all night long, but I kept it to myself.

Finally, two pairs of footsteps approached the parlor. The door opened and Shirley, and one of her cats, was followed in by a very tall man with curly brown hair and thick wire rimmed glasses perched on top of his crooked nose. I knew I wasn't going with him to a new home. I could feel it.

"Cherry." Shirley hissed. I stood. "Go now." She said, her shaking and crooked bony finger pointing back towards the door that led to the basement kitchen. I nodded and silently strode over, stiff as a board. I couldn't wait until this man was gone, Kerry and I usually studied down in the kitchen over a snack around this time, and Kerry would be very angry if we didn't study. She wanted straight A's for everything.

I started pacing, back and forth. Staring out the dusty window at the willow tree. A few crows came down over by my boot and fought over a crumb or something.

A minute passed. Five. Ten. Something was wrong. Interviews never took this long. Kerry knew that the man wouldn't adopt me, we shared that certain sense. She wouldn't dare.

"Cherry!" Shirley screeched. Finally, I thought, wiping an invisible drop of sweat from my brow. I hiked back up the dark staircase and stepped into the parlor, Kerry was no where to be seen. I felt my heart clench, but quickly dismissed it. Kerry probably had to…use the bathroom, yeah that's it. I thought quickly. I sat on the couch again, silently and stiffly as before. The man looked at me over the top of his glasses with a disapproving look in his eyes. I sighed inwardly.

"Your name is Cherry?" He asked suddenly. I nodded once, rather quickly.

"Why?"

"Sir, my real name is Jessica." I said quietly. "My nickname is Cherry."

"How long have you been here?"

"Fifteen years."

"What do you do for fun?"

Oh god... "I make music,"

"What are your visions of a good family life?"

"Quiet," I say, almost automatically. Gingy, Shirley's now present cat, hissed at me.

"How are you in school?"

"Quiet," I replied dryly. "High honors and Principals list."

"Are you active and sociable?"

"No."

"Alrighty," He said, clapping loudly, breaking the cold silence. Gingy hissed again. "I think we're done here." The man stood from the chair he and been sitting in and left the room, his footsteps squeaking behind him. Shirley stood up slowly.

"Miss Fammon," I began politely. "where is Kerry?"

Shirley sniffed and held her head up. "Packing." She replied.