Work Text:
Savannah Callahan's Journal
I need to write down things that are true before I forget them. Or start thinking more wrong things again.
My family is made up of superheroes. My mother saves the world and hunts monsters. People underestimate my dads (I have three of them) but they really shouldn’t. My bio dad is Nathaniel Graison. I have black curls like Jean-Claude, but that’s only because I got my mom’s black curls. I get my surname is a gift from Micah. My eyes are blue because Nathaniel has eyes like cornflowers and my mom’s dad had blue eyes. My mother’s eyes are brown. I’m tiny like her. Nathaniel is a dancer and a stripper and he does more traditionally mom-like activities like cooking and baking cookies. My dad Micah helps new shapeshifters and he travels a lot for work as part of the Therianthrope Coalition. Jean-Claude is in charge of American vampires and he is a businessman who owns nightclubs. He and Nathaniel are fashionistas. Mom likes boots that look like she’s planning on kicking down doors today and leather jackets. My mom is the Prince in her story. But in my story, I am quite happy to mostly be a Princess. As long as I get my way. When I was small someone said I was “like a tiny tank” and it made me happy cause I got that from my mom. Nathaniel is nurturing. Micah is laid back and relaxed.
My family prioritizes keeping me safe.
I have guards all. Of. the. Time. There are also Rules. The Rules and the guards keep me safe. My mother is afraid of monsters eating me or nefarious shadowy groups or something (I don’t know). I’m more afraid of my archnemesis The Floor because I am not as graceful as my parents. I’m human for one thing and a gawky teenager for another. Micah and Nathaniel are wereleopards. Jean-Claude is an ancient vampire. My mom is a kick-ass monster-hunting necromancer who slays dragons and rescues princesses and whatnot. My guards are ancient battle-honed warriors who can move so fast my eyes can’t keep up with what they are doing. The Rules keep me from getting kidnapped (again?) and eaten.
When I was seven I think I remember being attacked by a ghoul. Ghouls are crepuscular creatures (my mom’s degree is in biology) and they are normally more active at or right before dawn and at or right after dusk. They don’t like the sun but they don’t burn in the sunlight like vampires I don’t think.
I woke up earlier than I usually would one night, like in the middle of the night. I was homeschooled so I didn’t have the same schedule as everybody else. Back then I used to spend time at the Circus of the Damned at night so my schedule included sleeping in after staying up late but we don’t really do that anymore. I looked outside and the evening and the house were unusually quiet. I snuck out, which I shouldn’t have done, (Against The Rules). I wanted to play outside in the blue darkness that comes before sunrise. I just wanted extra time to play and I knew if I woke up any of the adults they’d probably put me back to sleep. The whole world seemed like it was saying hush.
I heard a noise, a pitiful sort of whine, while I was outside trying to figure out if I could play hopscotch without chalk or if I wanted to do something else. I went looking for the noise cause I was a dumb seven-year-old.
I got grabbed on the leg by the ghoul. It might have bitten me. Ghouls eat flesh; they don’t drink blood like vampires. Ghouls happen when a cemetery becomes unhallowed ground and the bodies buried inside might start crawling out of their graves. They are mostly scavengers.
I tried to scream or shriek but all I got out was a tiny sound. It didn’t matter. All of a sudden Wicked Truth (that’s two of the guards) were just There. They moved faster than my eyes could track and the ghoul was immediately dead. They saved me. They made me safe.
I don’t know what exactly happened to them after that night. I think they left to go do vampire things in Europe but I don’t know what or why.
I’m fifteen now. I just started my period. It’s been more than seven years since I last saw Wicked Truth. I’m wondering if they are back in St. Louis or if they will be back soon.
I’ve been really sad lately. Some things happened at school (I started going to public school) but I don’t know if the bad things at school are the reason why I’m sad. I think I’m sad more than the things at school can explain.
I have been feeling lately like I am forgetting things that are important. Or like there are things I don’t remember that I should. I also feel like I have thoughts in my head that don’t make sense.
I know my family loves me. I love them. Aside from being good parents (they try really hard) they are also really cool, badass people. I have more love than anybody could reasonably earn in a single lifetime and I’m just a dumb teenager. I’ve been giving them a hard time recently. I don’t know why. I want to be a good person and a good daughter. I know The Rules keep me safe. I know my family makes me safe. I know I am safe.
I also have thoughts that directly contradict what I know. Like I keep thinking that Nathaniel (who campaigned for me to be born) just wanted a baby, any baby, like a rich lady wanting a designer purse or a painting that matches the living room. I don’t know where that thought comes from (it's mean). I know he loves me. It’s like I also know he only loves me conditionally which he doesn’t. I feel like something is wrong with me.
I want to ask him if a body can have a memory from something other than repetitions. I know he’s a dancer and he practices routines so that he has physical memories of the moves and steps. You can do something so many times your body remembers the position and the feeling of it. I wonder if a traumatic memory can create a physical memory even if your mind doesn’t have or can’t remember the mental memory. I have a dream that isn’t like a normal dream. Like my body is having a memory that my mind doesn’t have.
In the dream, my left arm is stretched out and it hurts. I have a bracelet my mother gave me (which doesn’t make sense, she’s not a jewelry person) but it’s too tight, like a vise, around my arm near my wrist. My hand feels like it's going numb. My skin and body feel hot like they are on fire and my heart is beating really, really fast. I can’t move or I’m not moving at least. I feel nauseous. I don’t understand what this is from or why it's happening.
I don’t know why I’m forgetting things. I feel like I’m forgetting who I am, losing important things about the memories and experiences that make me who I am.
I think something is wrong with me.
At school, I had a friend group. They all dropped me and now I’m entirely a social pariah at school.
When I started school people figured out or knew who I was right away. I might have told them, but I don’t remember. Anyway, I had one girl who I would have wanted to be friends with. She reminded me of myself a little bit. She said two sentences to me that I couldn’t have related to more: “My mom said I’m not supposed to talk to you but I just Have To Know One Thing. Do you get to do the forbidden boop at home?” I know what its like to want so badly to do what your mom tells you to do, to want to follow The Rules, but there’s just this one thing that’s so shiny you can’t help yourself. I told her “Yes!” and opened my mouth to tell her about murder mittens and giant toe beans. But she didn’t let me, she was going to follow her mom’s rules except for that one thing. I like her even if we can’t be friends.
My friend group at school was the kids at school who were willing to talk to me. They were mostly kids who either didn’t have rules at home (a concept that just blows my mind) and kids who spectacularly do Not Follow Rules. They wanted to be my friend for the wrong reasons I think. Once people get to know me I think I might be more boring than they expect.
One of The Rules is that if I’m going to go to a social thing or an event then there has to be noticed. The security that I have needed to approve it and they can’t do a full-on war council---they don’t call it that, it’s just what it feels like---if they don’t know who, what, where, when, and whatever else. Mostly it's about working out a guard schedule.
That meant that when my friends would talk and plan during lunch or during shop class about meeting up after school that day for Boba tea later That Day then I couldn’t go because it wasn’t on the schedule. It sucks that for things like that, the answer has to always be No. Once they had a party that they told me they could not invite me to. It was a casual thing, just a few friends, for a birthday but it wasn’t like a Birthday Party because we’re teenagers, not kids. I don’t think all of my friends' parents even knew what was going on or happening. I told my mom anyway but I knew the answer would be no. A typical teen wouldn’t be allowed to go to a party that didn’t have Responsible Adult Supervision, especially not an overnight one.
I was with my friends like usual one day at lunch and one of the girls whipped around and angrily asked me, “Why are you following us?”
I said, “Because you’re my friends?”
The sort of ringleader of our group told me that since I was "So Important" (she didn’t say it nicely) I couldn’t ever really hang out with them and that I wasn’t really their friend. They stopped hanging out with me after that and I heard a rumor going around school saying I was a snob who thought she was better than everyone else. I might be a snob but I don’t think I’m better than everybody else. I do think my family is better than everybody else’s but that’s just facts.
I might be a snob because I am mostly around grown adults who are supernaturally gifted and everybody lifts weights and practices fighting. My mom has husbands and boyfriends and they are all at least a 10 and up on the hotness scale. Other teens are overexposed to violence but I am overexposed to hotness.
When I got to school I thought that all of the boys at school looked like babies with noodle arms. I wanted to get a boyfriend though and so I had a conversation with one boy who was less noodley than the rest. I asked him if he lifted weights or had taken martial arts, what his interests were, and what his name was. If I was older and suaver I might have started out by asking his name first instead of last (that was dumb of me). And asking if he had a girlfriend at all. In high school asking a boy with a girlfriend if he lifts weights equals trying to steal her boyfriend. (Spoiler Alert: He did have a girlfriend, an angry one.)
He said he was interested in fashion and I got excited about that for a second. Then he started talking about sneakers like Air Jordans and I CANNOT!!! I don’t think I can lower my standards that far. I keep forgetting to tell Jean-Claude about him. I found out later he only answered my questions and talked to me because he was afraid of me. Apparently, he told his friends he almost peed when I marched up to him and his friends told my friends.
He told me how much he lifted, it was only in the double digits. He mistook my expression for me being impressed instead of shocked at how low the number was. I realize---because I’m not totally dumb---that the numbers for weightlifting that I’m used to hearing about are unreasonably higher than what is possible for a human teenager. I need to calibrate my standards to be developmentally appropriate for my age. On the other hand, I have overheard some of the boys at school complaining about their moms making them carry in the groceries. If you can’t carry groceries how am I supposed to trust you to sweep me off my feet?
I feel like I’m the kind of person who always gives up on things but I don’t think that’s true. I feel like I don’t ever get a say in my own life or any freedom because of The Rules. I know that’s not true though. I feel like my parents don’t really love me, they only love the kid they want me to be, but I know that’s not true. I feel like I can’t ever get free of them or get away but I don’t want to give up my family, I love them and I wouldn’t trade them for anything. It’s really frustrating.
I worry that I’m having a mental breakdown. I worry that I’m crazy. I worry about whether or not I have a future. Most teens who have strict parents like mine get to go away to college when they turn eighteen and cut loose away from home. But The Rules aren’t there because I am under eighteen and they won’t go away just because I legally become an adult. The Rules will always be there for my entire life. I worry I won’t be able to go to college because it will be too risky. I worry that my family prioritizes my heart beating over it breaking, that my life is more important than my happiness. I worry that my happiness and interests don’t matter to them, only my safety. I worry that they are trying to keep me a child or a baby forever like Nathaniel would have preferred it if I never got too big to be out of a bassinet. But I also have a grim sinking, sick feeling in my stomach that those things aren’t my real problem.