Crossover IV Poison Apple (Part I)

Chapter 12 In Mourning

Chapter 12

In Mourning

The beginning of the next week felt rather surreal to Aria. She spent every moment, hoping she was trapped in a dream and would soon wake up. The entire school seemed to be mourning the loss of Kendal Lewis. All the halls contained class photos, cheerleading shots, and just pictures of her with her friends.

Principal Sherman left. Aria had no idea if she had gone back to her own land and honestly did not even care. The queen likely figured that since her victim was already dead, there was no longer any purpose of being here. All this time, Aria had been too focused on this queen's plans she felt she failed to see the actual problem.

It was declared Kendal had passed away because her body went into cardio arrest due to complications from an eating disorder, bulimia. Aria wished all this time she had been more focused on this. It burdened her that she spent all this time debating with Kendal over how to protect herself against Queen Sahrissa when this queen was not even the reason she died.

During lunch, Aria did not join her friends, but instead, wondered aimlessly down the hall. She eventually leaned against her own locker before sinking to the ground.

"Aria?"

Aria barely managed to turn her head as she spotted Vanessa walking towards her. Her friend then slowly sat down beside her. For nearly a minute, neither of the girls spoke.

"This still doesn't even feel real," Vanessa mumbled, staring straight ahead.

"I know," Aria agreed, softly, and then clenched her fist, feeling her tears start to burn. "I should have done something. Maybe if I had talked to her or something then..."

"You can't blame yourself, Aria," Vanessa interjected, weakly. "I don't think anything you might have said would have done any... well, I don't know. I sometimes think the same thing. Maybe if I just... I don't know."

"We're her friends," Aria said, firmly. "How could we not see..."

"I think all the signs were there," Vanessa said, softly hitting her head on the locker. "We just didn't want to believe... I mean, she threw up after eating an apple that day... an apple!"

Aria crunched her eyebrows for a moment and then gasped in the realization. "She was eating apple pie that very night!"

Vanessa tilted her head towards her friend, shooting her a puzzled look. "What are you saying?"

Aria sat up straighter and turned to face her head on. "Think about it Vanessa! Every time Kendal got sick was after she ate something apple!"

Vanessa frowned and reminded her, "But she didn't always have apples with her lunch."

"No, but sometimes she had apple juice. In fact, the times she got sick, she was definitely drinking apple juice. I remember!" Aria declared. "This makes sense! We both know Kendal is the most confident person in this school. There is no way she would feel this insecure about her body to do this to herself. She did it to her! The Evil Queen cursed her!"

"But how would it work?" Vanessa wondered. "If she poisoned all the apples, wouldn't everyone who ate them be affected?"

"I don't know," Aria admitted, still looking excited, "We can get Myrtle to figure out the details of how the queen did it. The point is, since this is a curse from the evil queen, then true love's kiss should be able to break it!"