[Jade Summers]: 362.Everybody's Fool

I don’t mind living with the Forrest twins around. In my house, miles away from any other, completely surrounded by woods, a little bit of company isn’t bad at all. The two are useful, after all; Charlotte Forrest has helped my gardening greatly, and Christine Forrest is an even greater cook than my mother. And, as I’ve never asked them to go and never asked them to leave, I’ve formed a strange bond with my friends.
They’re not mean people at all.

When they first arrived, I will admit, I was startled. I was stretched out in my back yard, feeling the sunshine creeping through the trees a few inches from the top of my paperback novel. I remember that it was the particular storyline that tempted me to retreat out to my favorite patch of grass. Just what was written in the three-dollar romance, I’m sure I’ll never quite recollect, but the fact remains that I was, in a comfortable state of mind, lazing in my backyard twelve miles away from any house, when a shadow crossed over me.

Looking up, I gasped loudly and quickly sat up. Before me stood two elderly women, both holding hands like childhood playmates. Needless to say, their sudden appearance was a shock, as I’d never – not once – had a visitor in my six years of living back in the woods.

“Hello,” I said, as cheerful as I could be, “you frightened me a bit – I didn’t hear your car.”

“Oh, I’m sorry dear, we didn’t drive,” the taller, younger looking one said as I got to my feet, “You do have such a lovely garden, I couldn’t help but come see it.”

“You walked?” I was amazed. By the looks of the two, both slightly hunched and slow-appearing, I couldn’t believe on their best could have walked an entire twelve miles to see a dying son, let alone my garden. “Please, come in and sit down, you must be exhausted! I’ve got fresh lemonade.”

“That’s a lovely offer dear,” the shorter woman said, smiling so sweetly I felt a fondness for her immediately, “I believe my sister and I will take you up on your offer.”

I couldn’t stop the eerie chill that crawled up my spine as I rushed ahead of them to clear my kitchen table. I’d always been a very neat person, but six years of not expecting anyone had led me to rest notebooks and other odds and ends on the table in my kitchen, as I barely used it myself. In my nervous hurry, I just barely made out the taller woman’s words to her sister, “Such a lovely girl. It’s a shame she doesn’t have any friends.”

I did not comment, not wanting them to know I’d been eavesdropping. There wasn’t anything to say anyway. The woman was right – I had absolutely no friends. The people of the town never ceased giving me odd looks of disdain on my weekly ventures, and despite my best efforts to be kind to them, they’d never stopped treating me as an outsider.


“This is delicious, dear,” the taller woman, Charlotte I had learned, said as she sipped a bit of the lemonade I poured for her. I blushed as her sister, Christine, nodded in agreement.

“It was nothing really,” I said, ”I love fresh lemons, and it comes out in the lemonade, I suppose.”

“And these cookies are scrumptious,” Christine said, taking another of the chocolate chip cookies I’d made on a whim the night before, “I don’t think mine are ever this good.”

“You learn easily when you don’t have anything else to do,” I replied, my face red from their compliments, “I work at home, and I don’t go out.”

“Don’t you dear?” Christine asked, and I could already tell she was the more talkative one, “Why, a beautiful girl like you doesn’t go out?”

“Call me stereotypical, but I’m a reclusive artist,” I replied, leaning back in my chair, “I only ever go to town if I need to draw something busy. Besides, I’m not welcome around here much.”

My wariness of the twins had all but vanished as we sat exchanging small talk. I admitted my love of people, and the town that was determined to never like me. I believed it was because they were too normal, and I had my head too far in the clouds. “Anytime I try to strike up conversation with them, They talked in length about their two sons, both living nearby, but too busy to come on the visit. Charlotte’s son, Gary, had a wife and no kids, and Christine’s son, David, was single but happily enjoying his youth alone.

“I would so like for him to settle down, though,” Christine said, a faint smile on her face, “He never has learned how to separate his laundry correctly.”


I said goodbye to the twins an hour later, only after they had accepted to join me again for tea the next day. It meant I would be able to talk to them again, and I was starving for human attention. It also meant a trip to town for teatime necessities, but that was a price I was more than willing to pay.

I pulled my Jeep into the parking lot of the local grocery store, taking a preparing breath before getting out. As was my luck, the square was packed today. Children were playing in groups of five, adults were talking at the fountain in the middle of town, and everyone stopped when I climbed out of the Jeep. All the kids looked at each other, as if they suddenly didn’t know what to do with the jump rope in their hands. Adult simply stopped their conversation and looked at me.

Wondering just what merited me this staring observation, I shuffled into Gerald’s Grocery as quickly as I could. The checker, Shirley, stopped herself in the middle of her conversation, and the middle-aged woman she’d been talking to stared with a frown on her face. I couldn’t get away from the bad looks, it seemed.

“Someone having a party, Miss Shirley?” I asked, piling my groceries onto the table.

“No,” Shirley replied, pricing the items with a well-practiced ease, “why?”
“Seems like there are a lot of people out there.”

Shirley looked up, “No more than usual.”

“Really? I never realized how many kids were around,” I said, “I don’t come around much though.”

“Why are you here,” Shirley asked, though her voice had lost some of its edge, “If I recall correctly, you just came in to town last week.”

“Oh, I’m having the Forrest twins over for tea tomorrow,” I said, grinning, “they’re such sweet old women.”

Shirley dropped my half-gallon of milk on the counter at my words, causing me to jump back in alarm. The woman beside her didn’t flinch, I noticed.

“The Forrest twins? Charlotte and Christine?”

I nodded.

“You mean,” she said, “you can see them?”

“Yes.” I asked, narrowing my eyes at her, “Miss Shirley, are you all right? It’s awful hot in here.”

“Can you see her?” Shirley asked frantically, ignoring my question and pointing at the woman beside her.

“Yes, Miss Shirley, I can see her just fine, and I can see the Charlotte and Christine just as easily. Who can’t?”

“Until now, you, dear!” Shirley cried, beaming so suddenly that I moved away from the counter in eerie alarm.

“W-what are on about, Shirley?” I stammered, glancing at the door.

“I mean, everyone but you has seen all those kids outside every day! They’ve always been there!”

I reached in my pocket for my keys, hoping to make my escape as soon as I could. Shirley’s yelling was drawing a crowd, and I wanted to get out of there before something bad happened.

“You’re crazy, Shirley,” I said calmly, “It must be the summer heat getting to you.”

“It’s true,” the woman beside Shirley said.
“We didn’t like you because you didn’t belong yet, you didn’t have the right to see them. But now you can. Now you can!”

Shirley’s words, confusing as they were to me, frustrated me even more. “The right to see who? Shirley! Why wouldn’t I be able to see people?”

“Them, her!” Shirley cried, pointing out the window to the gathering throng of people, and the small woman beside her, “Honey, you couldn’t see them, or the Forrest twins before, because they’re dead!”

Everybody’s Fool by Evanescence
Perfect by nature
Icons of self indulgence
Just what we all need
More lies about a world that


Never was and never will be
Have you no shame don't you see me
You know you've got everybody fooled


Look here she comes now
Bow down and stare in wonder
Oh how we love you
No flaws when you're pretending
But now I know she


Never was and never will be
You don't know how you've betrayed me
And somehow you've got everybody fooled


Without the mask where will you hide
Can't find yourself lost in your lie

I know the truth now
I know who you are
And I don't love you anymore

It never was and never will be
You're not real and you can't save me
Somehow now you're everybody's fool