The Alchemy of Being Fourteen

By Leah Williams

Winter and Arden Allister are two teenage sisters who've just moved from Memphis to San Francisco, and their interracial family is thrust into the bourgeoisie of San Francisco’s elite once the girls begin the year at an exclusive private school. But when Winter starts having problems with a boy at school and Arden continues to suffer inexplicable and terrifying blackouts, each must follow a separate strand of fate out of their close-knit identity as sisters in order to unravel an arcane ancestral mystery. Once their futures are disentangled, Winter and Arden discover that destiny has drafted them both into the same magical battle of monsters and dominion—but placed them on opposite sides.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Leah Williams
• Release date: Sep 16, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311395658

Leah Williams

Leah Williams splits time between Fort Worth, Texas and Edmonton, Alberta. She was born and raised in Oxford, Mississippi and attended Hofstra University for Film Production.

Book preview

for Cori

Foreword

Leah and I met three years ago after exchanging Tumblr messages. Both unhappy in LA, we discussed feeling lonely with few friends and crushed by the cost of womanhood.

The night we met, we closed out the bar. Leah tells harrowing tales of femininity like no one else. If violence is the center of the burden of womanhood; its periphery is exclusion. Where we see and feel darkness, Leah finds sacred space.

We sat in an Echo Park yard with two other women to discuss our supernatural encounters. Emma admits that at a scared-straight juvie boot camp for teen girls, she found a bird’s talon on a hike and used it to scratch a bully who attacked her. Her bully’s wounds became infected and people left her alone. After enough wine I admit that one night in college, I burned the letters I received from my childhood rapist. One week later, I learned he died.

Leah and I treat our time in California like summer camp—a chance to be friends, deeply and entirely, while we still can. We eat midnight breakfasts. I sample perfumes in Rite Aid to kill time. She surprises me in the parking lot with a nicked bottle of the lavender one I liked so much.

One night, she tells me a breaking story from Anaheim: an unarmed Latino man was killed by police. Where he was shot in broad daylight, neighbors gathered and stayed for recourse. She turns to me and we jump in her car, taking swigs of whiskey to embolden ourselves on the hour drive. Police shoot rubber bullets and release dogs at crowds that included children. We broadcast it all into the cloud.

Despite the bruises on her body left by Anaheim’s finest, Leah tells our story. She arms herself with metals—brass knuckles and a silver tongue. Leah is fiercely protective of me in the scuffle, her transmutation evident in her body. We survive scrappy and bloodied, the way only someone who has been a teenage girl knows how.

If women lack logic and strength, our projected skills must lie in being nurturing and kind. Women’s intuition is a sword we wield without a hilt. It is our value, yet it’s intangible and without proof. We are explained away, our abnormality accepted. Women are supernatural in this way—who would know better what it’s like to have a body both monstrous and alluring?

Leah’s book is a courageous and nuanced portrait of abject bodies and identities. It is a leap into the liminal space teen girls inhabit out of circumstance and necessity. Her words have moved me back to life; she is a necromancer in her own right. The Alchemy of Being Fourteen is named justly—Leah Williams has struck gold.

—Sara David, Writer

CHAPTER ONE:

DESPITE

Winter Allister’s eyes shot open the moment she heard the soft squeak of her bedroom window opening behind her. She blinked a few times, coming alive, and squinted out into the grey darkness of pre-dawn light to the twin bed across from hers. As her eyes adjusted she made out the lump that was her little sister, buried under the comforter and still sleeping.

The window creaked again and was followed with another heavy pause.

Winter, wide-eyed and frozen, strained to hear any other human movement. Maybe it was only a single-minded gust of wind? This was an old house but it was new to them;  full of foreign noise and strange wooden sighs as it settled each night.

A third small squeak of the window came as it was hitched open even further.

Winter’s heart began to race. Someone was breaking into her bedroom, and they were either a burglar of cautious discretion or paramount etiquette—they moved with deliberate slowness and silence so they wouldn’t wake anyone.

Too late, Winter thought, slowly reaching under her bed for an old softball bat. She didn’t make a sound. Her groping fingertips found the cold metal and she paused.

She waited until she heard the muted thump of someone softly landing on the floor inside her bedroom.

Winter whipped the covers back and jumped to stand on top of her bed. Fielding the fleeting wish she hadn’t chosen to sleep in tiny turquoise satin pajama shorts that night, she reared the bat back and took a mighty swing at her bedroom intruder.

Her very small bedroom intruder.

What the fuck, Win! Arden Allister furiously hissed, ducking beneath the bat as it whistled through the air above her head.

Whoops, Winter stumbled a bit from the force of her swing. My bad. She let out a weighted exhale as her heart rode through the wave of adrenaline and retreated from her throat.

She dropped to the floor and advanced on her little sister, pointing the bat squarely into her chest and nudging her backwards with it. That’s what you get for breaking and entering.

"Well if I’d known you’d be armed, I would have texted first! You’ve never done that before, holy shit."

I sleep closest to the window! I thought I was the only thing standing between you and a cat burglar! Winter exclaimed.

Arden had nothing to say for herself.

"You woke me up," Winter added after a moment, now sullen with hindsight.

Arden shrugged. Sorry.

Winter didn’t think her sister looked sorry at all. She was covered in filth like she’d been romping around in it, and her short brown hair was damp and falling into her eyes. She had a boy’s haircut, where the sides of her head were shaved but it was longer on top. Usually she wore it slicked back like men had in the 1920's.

Arden pushed her coarse, dark hair out of her face and smoothed it back with one hand as she trudged over to her bed. She threw back the covers with a sarcastic flourish to display the artfully arranged pillows for Winter and quirked her eyebrows.

Usually, you don’t wake up, Arden helpfully explained.

What the hell, Arden. We’ve only been here a month, and you’re already starting up again? Winter asked, folding her arms across her chest. I thought you were gonna quit this ‘rebel teen sneaking out’ bullshit back in Memphis.

So did I, Arden said, flat. She pulled an incongruously clean t-shirt off over her head and dropped it to the floor. She didn’t bother explaining more. She was wearing oversized boy’s basketball shorts that Winter had never seen before, strange, new, and too-clean as she stripped them off and revealed how muddy her legs were. She left a trail of dirt across the gleaming hardwood floor of their new bedroom as she padded with mud-encrusted feet to the en-suite bathroom they shared. Winter heard the spray of water as the shower started up and then Arden closed the door, twisting the knob until the lock clicked.

Winter sighed into the new stillness. She finally disarmed, dropping the bat with a light clunk, and rolled it back under her bed. Before she could collapse back into bed, she heard the sleepy, shy squeak of her pet rat Brad from inside his cage so she crossed to give him a gentle scratch behind the ears, just the way he liked. This was how they said good morning each day, even when this little critter sat in a small crate cradled on her lap during the thirty hour drive from Tennessee. They mirrored yawns; Brad’s sweet one only about as wide as Winter’s thumbnail. She gave him a yogurt treat, which Brad happily accepted, and tucked against his stomach as he drifted back to sleep on top of a soft tangle of yarn.

She glanced at the glaring alarm clock on the nightstand between the beds and grimaced at the too-early hour. Tucking her long strawberry-blonde hair behind each of her ears, she flopped back down on her bed and splayed her arms wide. She was so full of bundled nerves that she’d had trouble falling asleep last night, and now there was this taw, tightly-bound space just behind her eyes. She felt the odd hollowness that accompanies sleeplessness, but welcomed it—who could’ve slept before a day like today, anyway?

Downstairs, Winter’s stepmother Angela Mackie was fussing with a waffle maker. Angela was already dressed for work in a tailored navy pantsuit, her gleaming black hair pulled back into a polished chignon. Her stepmother was a gracefully beautiful woman with dark skin, a wide smile, and almond eyes with irises of such a deep, dark brown they were almost black; they were infinity eyes, and always sparkling.  She tilted her head when she saw Winter come in.

You’re up so early! Angela said, surprised. I was going to make us all some waffles for you guys’ big day, but— she gestured at the waffle maker, thwarted.

Waffle maker had other plans? Winter asked.

It’s an evil mastermind, Angela scrunched her nose at the device before smiling apologetically at Winter. She pressed her sharp heel down on the trash can lever to lift the lid, and down went burned waffles.

Winter’s stepbrother Michael Mackie was sitting on a stool at the kitchen island and digging into a bowl of cereal. He shared his mother’s same dark skin, wide smile, and warm, dark eyes—though at the moment, Michael’s eyes were puffy from just waking up. He was blinking at a thick paperback book next to his cereal bowl, and blearily squinted up at Winter when she sat down at the counter next to him.

Nerd, Winter casually informed him, reaching across him for the cereal box.

Says the girl who modeled her school uniform in our mirror last night, Arden retorted as she thundered in, wet-haired and dressed in her own uniform. Michael snorted milk onto his book.

Angela leaned against the kitchen sink and watched them with a small, secret smile on her lips. The clarity of morning light flowing in from the window behind the sink had given their mother a small, haloed glow as a feather of delicate steam unfurled out of her coffee mug. She reached for a slim tablet sitting on the counter, illuminated screen still gleaming with a breaking news story that included a grisly, looped GIF of police lights flashing on a dark street where a single, diminutive figure in a hoodie lay facedown on the pavement. Winter tore her eyes away. Seeing that kind of thing could ruin her day, and it was way too early to throw her whole day off track—especially today.

Angela sipped her coffee and flicked at the tablet display, dark eyes scanning other breaking stories as she scrolled. Winter watched and wondered if part of being a grown up was getting strong enough to stay conscious of all the world’s events at one time, like Angela. She used to think that once she got older she’d just magically start caring about current events and would finally be able to have an informed conversation about them, but Arden and Michael had gotten to that point long before she had. And Arden was a year younger.

Arden plunked down opposite Winter, across the kitchen island. She unfolded a newspaper and went straight for the comics section. Her sister’s damp hair was drying into the soft, cherubic, short curls she hated and would most likely flat-iron and slick back before they left.

What? Arden shot a sharp look up at Winter.

Did you sleep well? Get enough beauty rest? Winter asked, making her voice all cheer and sweetness.

Yes! Arden answered with an equal measure of brightness, Thank you.

Nothing, not even a flicker of aggravation on Arden’s face betrayed her irritation. What a pro, Winter thought. She raised her glass of orange juice to her sister in a mock-toast, and only then did Arden’s golden-brown eyes narrow. Slightly.

Winter’s eyes were glacial blue, just like their mother’s eyes had been. Arden had been adopted into their family when Winter was about five or so and Arden was four, but their mother had passed away shortly after. Winter knew Arden could hardly recall anything about their mother, or even the years before being adopted. Arden probably remembered about as much of Tawny Allister as she did of her actual birth parents. She didn’t know much about them, but she did know that her dusky brown skin and freckles came from what she now, jokingly, referred to as being Blaxican; half-Xicana, half-Black. Arden was mixed-race. (Arden also liked to tease Winter about being as white as her name.)

Arden finished her breakfast and hunched over her phone, scrolling with her thumb. She paused, eyes fixed, to press something on the screen, and within two seconds was covering her mouth with a palm to stifle snorting laughter.

What is it? Michael asked, looking up from his book.

Arden flipped the phone around to show them both a video of a cat in a shark suit riding a robotic floor cleaner.

Oh, you’ve already shown us that one, Winter said, disappointed.

"Because it’s never not funny," Arden answered.

Lunches packed, Angela absently rubbed Winter’s shoulder as she checked her watch. She looked up at her children. Half an hour to go, kids.

What!? Winter squeaked. School doesn’t start ‘til eight!

Yes, but you guys have to go early for student registration, Angela explained with a raised eyebrow.

That’s not enough time for me to get ready! Winter whined.

Arden ruffled her short brown hair and with an impish look, pursed her lips at Winter’s long, coppery hair. It was a low blow. Winter felt like her long hair was the one feature that made her pretty, whereas Arden could still look stunning with short hair, almost to a startling degree. She was only fourteen, but was starting to get catcalled and stopped on the street by men three times her age, something that unsettled both the girls.

Now you have twenty-nine minutes, Michael chuckled, stretching his arms overhead. He was already dressed in his school uniform too, khaki slacks and a white Oxford shirt. As he shifted, the bright red crest of their school emblem blinked from the pocket over his heart where it was steadfastly stitched.  

Arden, inelegant, extracted herself from the stool, and stood next to the counter, her hands already smoothing back her hair. It would only take her sister another ten minutes to finish getting ready, tops.

Winter huffed at the indignity of it all and rushed upstairs.

The moment Winter stepped out of the car and stood next to Michael, she could feel the stares emanating from other students. Self-conscious, she tugged the hem of her uniform skirt down, wondering if she’d asked Angela to trim it too short. Will I get in trouble for it?

Arden, with a muttered curse, gracelessly clambered out of the backseat behind them. Like their brother, Arden had chosen khaki uniform pants to wear with the crisp white Oxford shirts. Winter had opted for the little red tartan kilt paired with knee socks. She’d thought it was cute. But as she looked around and saw a daunting sea of khaki, it was a decision she was regretting.

Michael pressed the car lock button on the key fob with an affirming honk. The three siblings paused for a moment to take in their school.

Dang, Michael surveyed the scene, shoving his keys into his pockets. Why are they staring? They’re stone cold flagrant about it, too.

Michael was tall, athletic, amiable, and a senior this year. He’d been a competitive swimmer at their old school and had even made the Varsity team, so Winter wasn’t worried about Michael fitting in.

Is it that obvious we’re new? Arden frowned, crossing her arms over her narrow chest. I mean. We’re all dressed exactly the same.

Arden was now a freshmen. She hadn’t been popular in middle school, mostly for being what Angela delicately referred to as abrasive, but what Winter knew meant "fighting, like, all the time." (So Winter was definitely worried about Arden fitting in.)

"I mean. Y’all are, at least. I’m the lone dork in a kilt. Winter glanced at the time on her cell phone. We’ve only got about ten minutes before classes start. We have to go to the main office to register. Do you guys know where..." she trailed off when she looked up. Michael and Arden were walking way ahead of her, already reaching the entrance steps of the school.

HEY NERDS! She jogged to catch up with them.

Not you, she said to a student who’d glanced up when she yelled. I mean, maybe, whatever, I don’t know your life, she added as she rushed past him.

She caught up with Arden and Michael in time to enter the school together.

I feel like I’m in a John Hughes movie, Arden said, and swung her messenger bag onto the other shoulder.

What, because we’re pariahs? Michael snorted.

What’s a pariah? Winter asked.

It’s like an outcast, Michael told her. Someone who’s alienated.

Winter frowned.

I’m surprised she didn’t ask who John Hughes is, said Arden, shooting a sly grin at Michael.

"Oh my god, are you kidding me? Breakfast Club is like, my life," Winter clasped her hands dramatically to her chest, to which Arden raised her eyebrows and nodded her appraisal.

Winter trailed just behind them and observed her school to the best of her ability—permitting casual gazes only, since swiveling her head to stare up in every direction would probably throw off a hick vibe.

St. Sebastian's Preparatory Academy looked like an ancient and imposing cathedral. At some point in history, it likely was. Back in Memphis she’d googled her new school after learning she’d actually been accepted—not just Arden and Michael—but her too, with her below-average test scores and bad grades. She’d felt an unexpected jolt of excitement as she clicked through picture after picture of towering spires and stained glass windows. It looked like the kind of school she’d only ever seen in movies. Buildings this old were torn down regularly back home, paved over for something new. Winter had never lived in a place where buildings were allowed to age, and oddly enough, antiquities were now a novelty.

When they walked under cracked granite gargoyles etched in mid-growl, Winter felt a twinge of unease. St. Sebastian’s wasn’t excessively large and there were only about half as many students as her old high school, Winter thought the building had to have been around since before the city was even settled as she eyed stone snarls. She was used to being older than school buildings, not the other way around.

Funny, I don’t remember getting my Hogwarts letter in the mail, Arden said, looking up.

Right? Winter agreed. "What is this place, even?"

Ivy-league college acceptance letters, if the web ads can be trusted, Michael mused.

There’s a joke about capitalism in there somewhere, Arden added.

There were tall, narrow windows that ran glowing slits from floor to ceiling, casting solid stripes of pale morning light across the hallway and blinding her every few steps. Winter ran her fingers through her hair and toyed with the straps of her backpack.

In the harried moments before they’d finally left the house, Winter had felt close to confident while still standing in front of her bathroom mirror. She’d tousled her long, copper-colored hair, deciding to wear it loose and wavy. She still had her summer tan, which helped camouflage the generous spatter of  freckles dusting across her nose and cheeks. Foundation helped obscure the rest.

The closer they drove to school, though, the more slippery her confidence. In the passenger seat of the car she kept holding out her hands to check her nails, which she’d painted ballet-pink the night before. She’d opened her compact twice to inspect her complexion. She’d reapplied her raspberry lip stain. She’d anxiously yanked up her knee socks enough times that Arden reached up from the backseat with a gentle smack for Winter’s hand.

Even then, walking close behind Michael as he navigated their way to the school office, Winter was stifling an urge to whip out her compact mirror to find the volcanic zit that surely everyone was staring at. At first she just assumed it was her own insecurity and that she was just imagining all the heads that turned to track them as they walked, but then she noticed Michael’s amused expression as he glanced around them. He answered the students’ stares with his own easy grin.

Arden was scowling back at them all.

How to make friends, Winter thought. The Allister way.

It’s because I’m so pretty, Michael cheerfully declared, acknowledging the gawking students.

"Judging by my super scientific study of those guys, it might be Winter attracting all the attention." Arden’s sharp gaze focused ahead on a doorway where a blond boy was leaning, and he was flanked by two mean-looking guys who definitely had to have been held back a couple years. The blond boy had sandy-colored hair, a deep tan and a cleft in his chin. He was actually cute, Winter mused, and would have been more attractive if he hadn’t been staring at her in a way that just made her want to be invisible.

The blond boy straightened up as Winter neared, eyeing her with obvious appreciation. It left Winter with an unpleasant sensation, an oil film floating atop her skin. He bit his lip and groaned at her as she walked past, and his two buddies sniggered behind him.

Arden’s hand twitched. She started to turn around and say something, until Winter grabbed her wrist. She leaned down to her sister and whispered, Not yet please. Maybe at the end of the day, if you can last that long without decking this douchebag?

Asshole’s pretty fucking ballsy if he thinks he can pull that shit in front of us. Like...look at me! Michael made a vague gesture towards himself.

"What, people should tremble in fear of your superior swimmer muscles?" Winter scoffed.

Well, I was thinking that homie looks like he’s only seen about four black people, total, his whole life but sure, Michael retorted.

Five now. Five and a half, technically, Arden said.

I have no plans to die a virgin, you know, Winter muttered lightly to them. At some point you’re both going to have to drop the protective-sibling thing long enough for me to get laid.

Nope. Never. Arden frowned.

"And ew, Michael added, Please don’t talk like that."

He put his hand on top of Arden’s head and spoke over her to Winter, puffing out his chest with self-importance. Yo, as the oldest, I can say that both of you are to legally obligated to stay away from all boys. For-ev-er. There’s a handbook, right? Laws in place to ensure this? he turned, asking a passing student at random, who shrugged noncommittally and scurried away.

Michael nodded and continued in a grave tone, "Serious laws with serious consequences. He dropped the grave act and gave a grin, pointing to Arden’s face. Especially for you, freshman!"

She dismissed him with an eyeroll, but Winter could tell she was suppressing a smile. They’d grown up with Michael, and as soon as his mom had married their dad—Michael Mackie had become their brother. Along with the teasing and stupid pranks, he always looked out for them.

They reached the main office and signed in, each of them receiving a new student packet with rules and guidelines Winter knew she’d stick in a desk drawer and never look at again. As they compared their schedules, a slender woman with immaculate golden hair whisked in. She wore tall Louboutins with a weapon-sharp stiletto heel and a blood-red silk blouse tucked into a fitted black pencil skirt. The woman ignored them, possibly for the best since she had a beauty so severe that it made Winter nervous. Watching her pinched and taut expression, Winter wondered if the woman had gotten some Work Done. She studied the woman’s face as she spoke in low, imperious tones to the office attendant