Violet Ink by Ramisa R (good books for high schoolers .TXT) 📕

“I’ll tell you again; whatever past you speak of, I have no clue,” Sebastian says, tilting his face away.

Using excessive force, he kicks ground and energises the next flight into the air. The swings in the park may be getting smaller, but the childish aspect of his personality is ignited; he flies into the air, glasses off, and a startled expression on his face.

However, this starry eyed expression is no excuse for his reluctance to inform me of my own past.

My teeth grit and I grab one of the ropes. He immediately stops, the swing jerking in the process, and leaving an unhappy Sebastian. “Quit using passive voice. It’s freaking pretentious.”

“I’ll use whatever voice I desire.” He always sounds extra snobby when he’s annoyed, feeling awkward or both. It just happens to be one of those times. “If you don’t mind, miss Theresa, could you kindly leave me to be?”

“Not until you tell me my past.”

“Stop bugging me, okay?”

Despite the situation, the intensity of my missing past and pieces of unknown jigsaw puzzles, I grin.

Sebastian could’ve easily inserted long, memorised words which haven’t been in use since last century. But his annoyance prevented him from doing so. Thinking up the words “halt” to replace “stop” and “irritating” in place of “bugging” could’ve been simple for a recent bookworm like him; yet, I’ve pulled on his strings too hard. He’s left, wordless and lacking verbosity.

It makes me smile, knowing my influence over a single human being. Perhaps this would be the beginning of a new revolution where my words alone can manipulate the world. What an edgy, disturbing yet exciting thought.

These thoughts, however, won’t extract an answer from him. I need more. There are numerous techniques I can attack with; the notorious, “I know what you did last night” to draw fear; painful violence to literally draw blood or the last resort option, which is to threaten to stalk him.

None of these seem fitting for sagacious Sebastian. Inhaling a sharp breath, I say aloud the one thing I never, in a million years, imagined myself voicing: the truth. “I think I’m adopted.”

He stops the swing. “Do you have any proof?”

“I literally look nothing like my parents. Or my grandparents. Or my sister, my uncles, my aunties; I don’t look like any of them. Not even a little bit.”

I’m surprised to find him snickering. Rage boils inside me. I shoot him my most threatening glare until he stops.

“Sorry. Just… first world problems.”

“Says the boy who cried last year in class ‘cause his father bought him the wrong thousand-dollar action figure.”

His face immediately darkens. “And the girl who has absolutely no talent with words, but wins international writing contests –over people who actually deserve them– because her plots are morbid, gruesome and somehow brainwashing.”

I don’t say anything. After a long silence, Sebastian finally says, “You claim I know something about your past.”

“I know you didn’t say the words themselves. But I want you to help me understand why I thought you somehow did.”

I remember the discovery with my violet pen. Renee and Sebastian didn’t speak those words as I’d assumed; it was a deception played by supernaturalism, a warning reminding me stories I write can apply to myself. I am never out of the equation.

Yet, there’s a reason Renee and Sebastian were in that hallucination. No matter how misty and surrealistic it feels, there’s a reason for their presence. Why would their faces be on these people, telling stories of my past, a conversation which may never have happened? I’m choosing to believe there is hidden symbolism.

“So I was in this, uh, daydream… and you’re wondering why?”

I nod. “There must be some hidden meaning.”

“Or maybe there is none at all. A flaw of the human mind is the inability to properly recall an event.” Sounding conceited again. But I listen anyway, and am relieved when he begins speaking normal English again. “Memories you once had have been, and always will be, changing themselves. So I think that maybe you heard this conversation, but don’t remember the people having it. You used me and Renee and substitutions for no apparent reason. But the memory lives with you.”

This clicks something in my mind. He’s right. Renee and Sebastian may not serve as a symbol, but a substitute for abandoned memories. There’s a real message carrier, the initiator of this conversation and the replier, yet I can’t recall any memory of  them. My job is to go ahead and find them.

“Thanks, Sebastian,” I say quickly, jumping off the swings.

Just as I’m about to run off, determined to uncover the mysteries of my unknown past, Sebastian calls out, “Wait. Have you ever read Anne of Green Gables?”

“Nope.”

“Who am I kidding? You and the words ‘books’ can’t be in the same sentence,” he mutters under his breath, but I hear him anyway. He clears his throat before I can retort to this insult. “Theresa, you have a perfect life, perfect family, perfect friends. Yeah, there are the occasional people who’re hostile towards you, but rumour says you stabbed one of them in the hand with a pen.” He pauses. “I’m honestly curious; did you actually–?”

“Get to the point, Sebastian,” I interject, having no patience for whatever judgement he’d enforce after I reveal the sudden spontaneity of that attack. Even if I explain I was someone else in that particular instance, I doubt he’d offer anything more than disapproval.

“What I’m saying is, you’re already Anne of Green Gables. You might be adopted, yeah, but who really cares? Your life’s perfect the way it is. I don’t know anything about this secret past of yours, but I doubt it’s something positive. Is it really worth knowing something that can potentially damage you?”

*

I start by writing a story. Another simple story, nothing significant or life-changing, yet every word etched onto paper feels foreign. A story of hope, not murder; dreams, not cynical viewpoint of the world and an environment of two characters, a mother and daughter searching freedom; not the fantasy-based ghouls haunting their house.

They are running away. This doesn’t set them apart from the rest of society, or the world itself, but their determination and passion shines through. Their faces, clad with dirt and hair frizzy with the lack of hygiene, they adventure through the world, looking for empathy in those at a higher social status. Escaping poverty, starting anew and making dreamy ideals become reality.

Nothing will stop them. Especially the ending, a simple, “And they never had to experience such tragedy again” which may also be on the cliché side, is completely different from my usual writing style. Just re-reading the story makes me feel sick.

But when I feel a tiny zap in my forearm, something minor and almost microscopic, I am aware this story has transferred from fiction to reality. This is a story somebody in the contemporary world, a person I may never know, can tell with utter confidence. I may have changed the course of path for struggling parties and made a change.

It might not change the whole world; yet, it changed theirs. And their stories are also altered, which they’ll undoubtedly tell for generations to come. There’s warmth surfacing such a sensation. I suddenly feel glad I wrote this, despite how my fingers itched to scrawl lines of something more sinister.

“You’re Tessa, right?”

I’ve almost forgotten where I am. A boy, undoubtedly half my height, leans again my table and observes me. The scar on his right cheek gives his identity away. Everybody knows how he got that scar and who caused it. Yet, it’s so much more entertaining when he says it himself.

“Ouch. That scar looks like it hurt.” I point at my own cheek. “How’d you manage to do that?”

Immediately, that inquisitive nature disappears. The gaze which confirmed I was somebody he barely met, may have recognised or was trying to piece together, shatters. What’s left is a defensive posture, initiated by the sudden staggering and the folded arms, and narrow eyes which said more about his emotions than words.

“None of your business.”

“It was from Sebastian, right? You guys used to be best friends. I’d never see you guys separated, and now, you guys are total strangers. It must hurt, right, Flynn?”

The composure, previously in shambles by my ruthless accusation, repairs itself. A step forward, the twitching of his eye set to a minimum, and even his buck teeth appears menacing. He audibly inhales and then turns to me, a slight smile on his face. “You won the short story contest.”

It’s not a question. Therefore, I take it as an excuse to remain silent. Not that it’d deter him from what he intends on voicing aloud.

“You are good at writing horror stories,” he continues. “At first, I thought it was just something of a whim –a one-off, if you’d prefer. But after seeing your previous entries, all of the same genre, I can’t stop noticing the effort you put in.”

“So?” The word escapes my mouth before I intend. Since the single word is already said aloud, already hanging on a thread and dangling in front of Flynn’s dumbfounded face, I elaborate. “So what if I’m good at writing horror stories? I’m not gonna write a script for you and nor am I going to help you out in any way, shape or form for your own entry. So whatever ‘effort’ you saw me having, I have no intention of putting it under your name.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Oh. Then sorry,” I say, not really sounding apologetic. “Everyone who wants me to ghost-write their stories start off with the same sentences. Couldn’t really see how you were any different.”

He stands there for a while. There’s nothing particularly scary about Flynn, yet the mere physical appearance of him makes me shiver. All his childlike traits –the buck-teeth, the slight lisp and overly late growth spurt– mould together to create a horrifying recreation of the stereotypical child, but not in an adorable manner.

When he opens his mouth again, I feel cold all over again. “See, I have a proposal. My parents want to sell our house so we can move to Italy, because it’s the only valuable asset we have. But I don’t wanna go. Inspections are now being held and everything, and a lot of people are interested in buying it. I don’t wanna leave, though. I like it here.” He clears his throat, probably noticing my sleepy posture, and speaks extremely fast to get his point across. “And here’s where you come in. I’ll set up fake inspection times and I want you to go across and point out negative things about our house so they don’t buy it.”

“Thanks, but no. Sorry.”

I turn to my piece of paper, ready to write another optimistic story to “broaden my writing abilities,” when Flynn says in a quiet voice, “Would you do it for a price?”

Instantly, I drop the pencil. “Name it.”

“You want to know about your past, don’t you?” When I give him a look which betrays my feelings of utter shock, he adds, “I know everything about everyone. Don’t feel targeted.”

Actually, this makes me more uncomfortable, but I keep silent about such trivial matters. My emotions are nothing without advancement into my past. And if what Flynn says is remotely true, then that’s the missing puzzle piece I’m searching for.

“You know about my past, do you now?”

“I know more than you do. That’s a fact.”

I sit there for a while, contemplating the situation in my mind. There are many things which may divert into a separate, worsened path; he might not know anything about my past, and all this big-talk is nothing short of lying.

But I have my violet pen with me for situations like that. Karma or the concept of “what goes around, comes around” no longer is infinite; I control exactly what happens, when it happens. Maybe it won’t go according to plan. In that case, I’d be extremely specific about the choice of punishment, whom it’s inflicted upon and the time. Supernaturalism will never betray  a good cause.

“If I