Chapter 8
Life was good
As it turned out, anime’s weren’t kidding when they spoke about the power of friendship, Kate’s many friends had given her all the power she could ever need.
Not only had the peasantry turned out to vote for her in the school election, but they generally liked Kate. While she did consider Taylor and Courtney friends, she always had a feeling that there was a certain element of fear in her relationship with them. Instead of running to get something to placate her, people would run to get something for her out of sheer concern which felt admittedly nice.
“I can live like this”Victoria thought as she walked into the girls dormitory for her daily reading “ even if I look like I’m going to start handing out copies of The Watchtower”
Victoria turned the corner into Kate’s room, and felt a deep horror fill every corner of her being, as if the Kate of this universe crawled forth from the abyss to truly become part of her as she looked upon the one person she didn’t expect to see
Mrs. Marsh
“MOM ?!” Victoria said in shock as she shrank in on herself, the deep stare of Kate’s mother boring itself into her very soul. Even as she cowered in her presence, looking upon a face that resembled the one she currently wore, Victoria could not begin to understand Kate Beverly Marsh’s relation to this absolute monster, mentally kicking herself for walking into this situation. If she had been paying attention, she might have noticed the sudden silence upon her entering the dorm, girls stopping their conversations to slowly turn and watch her as she made her way past, a look of pity on their face as she marched to slaughter. She may be able to do a good Kate now, but there are some things that she couldn’t fake, the most important being caring what the people around her are doing
“Yes it’s your mother” Mrs. Marsh said , reaching across the distance to pull Victoria towards her before closing the door behind her “The one you’ve been dodging this entire year while you were out being a floozey”
Victoria felt her heart beating a mile a minute as she fought to avoid looking her guest in the eye, hoping against hope that she wouldn’t be called out as a fraud by the one person that would know Kate best. She had thought she could keep the act up until Max came back and fixed everything, but now that she was being tested she started to absent-mindedly check herself over.
Did she know enough about Kate’s friends ? Had she memorized enough of the bible ? Was her tower of hair up to the towns code ?
Regaining her composure, Victoria looked into Mama Marsh’s withered gaze, trying to match her intensity with Kate’s sweet face “What are you doing here mother”
“I don’t like the way you’ve been acting since you’ve come here Katherine” Mrs. Marsh glared, pointing at duffel bags strewn across her bed “I’m taking you home”
“No”
Victoria did the only thing she could think of at that moment, and ran. “This isn’t happening” she thought to herself as she hurried down the hall towards the door, ignoring the angered shouts of the shriveled prune behind her. Even when she was someone else, her actions were coming back to bite her in the ass, plowing through the door to see people filing out of class for the day. Biting her lip, she walked into the crowd, making sure to weave around enough to lose anyone pursuing her. Victoria knew that if Max did appear to try and fix this, she’d be at Blackwell, and if she was caught she might not be here to go back with her
She’d be Kate forever