Chapter Text
Eda sometimes felt like she hated her parents, it wasn't that they were bad parents, they were actually quite lovely people, the problem was that they never understood Eda. Every time Eda did something her parents didn't like, she got an hour-long lecture about how a decent young lady doesn't behave like that. It was suffocating. Eda loved to run around the woods with the boys in her neighborhood, she loved the smell of the evening rain and the cold feeling of the mud on her pale skin, she loved to play role-playing games where she was a knight who rescued a trapped princess, that's just how she is, and she loves all the weirdness and craziness about herself. A classic wild tomboy is what she liked to call herself, and she wore the title of the school's freak with great pride.
But it was her own quirks that had brought her to this situation, namely, it had been the end of the school year, summer vacation was only a few days away, and the only obstacle that stood between her and freedom was one last book report, and Eda was sure that it would be a walk in the park as she had prepared thoroughly. However, this thoroughness proved to be her downfall, because when it was finally her turn to present the book she had read and when Eda released a muddy raccoon from her backpack, the hell broke loose around the school. Long story short, she ended up in the principal's office and her parents were full of holy wrath, and before Eda had a chance to stand up for herself, her parents had signed her up for summer camp, and it was no ordinary summer camp, but a religious summer camp. Eda wanted to scream in frustration when she heard this, as Eda didn't consider herself very religious, and usually, all this religious propaganda annoyed her, she didn't mind the idea of people believing in god and stuff, she thought that people can be whatever they wanted to be and believe whatever they wanted to believe, and she knew not to throw anger at the church but respected it as a historical part of their society, but the redhead didn't like how the school and her parents tried to force that faith down her throat. All of Eda's family were religious, they were not extremely religious and only went to church at Christmas, but still, her family lived according to the 'classical' family rules, her mother was a housewife and her father was the one who brought home money, and both Eda and her older sister, Lilith, were raised with the idea that one day they would find good husbands and then give up all their dreams and devote their lives to raising a family. Both Eda and Lilith hated it, but they never dared to say anything because they were afraid to disappoint their parents' expectations.
"Don't be dramatic, Edalyn, this summer camp is for your own good,” her mother said as she and her husband, Dell, drove their younger daughter to camp, their old Ford rumbling on the bumpy forest road.
"I had my plans for the summer!" Eda whimpered, her hard gaze was fixed on the window, where she had been watching for a long time how a small insect was trying to hold on to the car glass for its life.
"What plans? It's not like you have friends to make plans with," Gwen said again, her voice softening a bit as she realized the tone she had just spoken to her daughter, "Edalyn, honey, we're only sending you there because we are worried about you,"
"Your mom's right, Pumpkin," her dad added, "this camp is your chance to make real friends, you know, someone who isn't a wild animal, imaginary, or your sister,"
"Whatever,” the young teenager grumbled back, resting her head against the cool car window.
Sometimes, her parents' words hurt, she knew they meant it all in the best way, but their honesty was sometimes too sharp. They were right, however, Eda had no friends, as even those she once had are now gone, none of them could keep up with Eda's craziness. It was okay, Eda didn't need friends, her older sister and the family cat were enough for her, although if Eda is honest, sometimes she wishes she had a friend with whom she could get to do the things that her sister doesn't approve of, Lilith would never go with her to look for earthworms in the forest or to fish in the lake, Lilith would never help her paint the walls of the school building with graphite or release a whole bunch of wild frogs into the teachers' room. No, she was alone in all this, and that was fine, she was fine.
The drive to the camp was long, and the further they got from civilization, the more Eda wanted to escape. But every plan disappeared when she realized that she was too far from home and it would take her the whole summer to walk back home. She sighed heavily and looked out the window again, discovering that not only was the bug on the window gone, but that now something more than a forest was visible on the horizon, she saw a small village with what appeared to be a church in very poor condition in the middle. They drove past this village, following the signs that led to the lake, and it wasn't long before they arrived and Eda's father stopped the car. They had reached the lake by which the summer camp was located, the main building of the camp seemed to be old, the paint on the wooden house was worn in many places and the walls were covered in moss, a little further away from the main house there seemed to be some smaller buildings, they were also not in the best condition.
"Oh, isn't it beautiful here, Edalyn? Fresh air, lake, bugs, all the things you like really," Gwendolyn said as she climbed out of the car.
Eda rolled her eyes, and also climbed out of the car, a small smile appeared on her face when her sneakers stepped directly into the wet mud, at least maybe here she has a chance to be a little less 'proper lady'.
"Oh, hello there," came the voice of a strange woman, and when Eda looked up the first thing she saw was a very tall, thin, pale-skinned woman with puffy brown hair that reached about her shoulders, she had a narrow face with a sharp chin at the end, a few meters behind her was a thinly built man with oval green eyes and shoulder length black straight hair, next to this man was a blond girl who was about Eda's age and had probably the roundest face Eda had ever seen," I'm Miss Terra Snapdragon, I'm one of the leaders of this camp, welcome! And you must be Miss Edalyn,” this woman put her hand on Eda's shoulder, and the redhead felt her squeeze it a little too hard.
"I hope we weren't too late, we didn't expect the ride to take so long," explained Dell, who was taking Eda's things out of the trunk of the car.
"It's not a problem," said a black-haired man with a paper-made nametag stuck to his shirt that said 'Vise Camp Leader Bump', "The kids are just settling into their cabins, it's still a while until the official start."
"Oh, that's very good then,” Gwendolyn said with a relieved sigh.
Miss Terra gave Eda's parents a weird smile before she pushed Eda away from her parents and said, "Edalyn, meet Odalia, Odalia is the cabin manager where you are going to stay. Go with her and settle in, lunch will be at the main house in half an hour, "
And without any chance to resist, Eda grabbed her bags from her father and then followed this blonde girl, she didn't even stop to say goodbye to her parents, she was too angry and disappointed with them.
"It's your first time isn't it,” said the girl named Odalia.
"Hopefully the last one too,” Eda muttered in response.
The look Odalia gave her would have been comical to Eda if she was in any better mood, "So negative about something you've never experienced before? Better take it as an opportunity to reconnect your soul and body with the holy father,"
"Oh wow, sounds a bit like pedophilia to me,"
"You think you're funny, don't you?
"Terribly,” Eda replied, her voice almost serious, “I've been planning to run away from home and join the circus for years,”
Odalia turned around abruptly, putting all her attention on the redhead, "Hey you, stop it right now! I don't care if this is your first bible camp or not, but I will not accept disrespectful behavior in my cabin! If you start causing trouble and you are ruining my reputation and ruining my chance to win the title of the best cabin leader, I will personally drown you in the lake! Understood?"
"Love thy neighbor, heh? And calm down, blondy, I'm behaving,"
"Good, come on, we don't have much time,"
After about a minute, they got to the houses where the girls were staying, there were three tiny cabins, all these houses looked like their roofs were about to collapse and some not-so-great construction guy had tried to fix them with tape and branches, these cabins were about 800 feet away from the main building, and about a thousand feet further into the woods, there were three more small houses around which Eda saw some boys, and she assumed they were the boys' cabins, and in the middle of these two groups of cabins were washrooms and toilets.
Odalia let Eda into their tiny cabin, it was very lightly furnished, just one small table with two chairs, three bunk beds, and one large wooden closet, the only source of light was an oil lamp hanging from the ceiling, which burned very weakly.
"Charming,” Eda muttered to herself, looking around and encountering quite a few spider webs.
"It looks like all the other beds are full except for this one," said Odalia, pointing to the bunk bed that was far away from all the others.
Eda shrugged her shoulders, she absolutely didn't care where she slept, she moved her things to the farthest bunk bed, throwing her things on the top bunk, her eyes briefly stuck on the bottom bunk, on top of that neatly made bed was a violin case, a retro cassette player and a whole bunch of music cassettes, "Whose bed is this?" Eda asked with interest and was surprised to hear a very heavy sigh from Odalia.
"This bed belongs to the freak,"
"The freak?" Eda's brow furrowed, she looked between the bed and the girl.
"Hey just listen to my warning, okay? Whatever you do stay away from this freak, she lives in the shadow of the satan, so stay away from her if you don't want to go to hell"
Eda was still very confused but she didn't say anything, she had learned in her time not to pay attention to people like Odalia, because usually, they said everything because of the fear of the unknown, they often said confused, meaningless things just because they were afraid that if they do not say it then the God despises them. People fear the unknown, and everything they don't understand.
Suddenly, Odalia was in a hurry and tried to push Eda out of the cabin and drag her towards the main building, saying that the lunch was about to start. They headed straight for the house, which was almost entirely just one big hall with a bunch of tables, behind which a large number of children were already eating lunch and some others were still waiting in line. Eda and Odalia also went to the food queue and got a very sad-looking fried chicken on their plate, along with some potatoes and a little vegetable salad, and they were also offered pudding and a juice box. The blonde girl forced Eda to sit at the table with her, where three girls were already waiting for them.
"Edalyn, this is Helen, Heather, and Daniell, they are in our cabin," Odalia explained to Eda as she introduced the three girls to her.
"Nice to meet you, Edalyn,” Heather said with a smile.
"Whatever, and it's Eda," the redhead replied, sitting down at the table and starting to eat her lunch, that chicken was even blander than it looked.
She sat there half-listening to the other girls' conversation, but most of her attention was on the hall she was sitting in, her eyes looking at all the campers. Most of them were well-dressed, pale-skinned girls with their long hair tied neatly and tightly into ponytails or braided into strong braids. The hall seemed to be divided into two, one side with correct girls and the other side with noisy boys who seemed to be making stupid jokes, but still none of these boys could attract Eda's attention, they were just all so ordinary, polo shirts and light shorts, hair combed back. Eda sighed, she seems to have gone to hell, but suddenly her eyes noticed something interesting, at the very back of the hall, at an empty table next to the window, someone with short and slightly messy hair was sitting, and their hair appeared to be light blue, they were wearing glasses and their skin looked like the color of caramel candy, they looked so different.
"Who is this?" Eda asked the girls sitting next to her.
"Oh, that's Raine, my classmate from school," Daniell said, her voice getting grumpier after every word she said," Somehow she always has the best juice, and she doesn't share it with anyone!"
"I doubt you'd actually want her juice, Daniell," Odalia said rolling her eyes, "Who knows, maybe being a freak is contagious,"
The girls laughed as if Odalia had said something extremely witty, but Eda didn't understand why, and Helen then explained to her, "I heard she's one of those people who worship Satan, and because of that, her brain is messed up now, "
"My mom said it's because of the drugs she's doing," Heather said, "They've affected her hormones and that's why she's one of those people who...you know,"
The four girls next to Eda continued to talk and joke, but Eda didn't listen to them at all, she had already heard enough and knew she had to talk to the blue-haired kid. She didn't know why, but some force made her get up from behind the table and walk towards them. As she got closer, she noticed that their blue hair had grown out a few centimeters and the light brown roots stood out slightly, they were wearing clothes that would normally be worn by boys, but instead of being plain and boring, they were colorful and had bright patterns. There was a half-eaten plate of food in front of them, but it had been pushed away from them, and instead of eating, they were staring at some papers and they seemed to be deep in thought as they wrote something on it, their round glasses reflecting very little of what's on the paper, but not enough for Eda to understand what's written there, as Eda got closer, she heard them humming a song.
"Hey,” Eda called out, and the blue-haired teenager looked up sharply, their gaze panicked at first but then turned to surprise.
"Hey?"
"Can I sit here?” the redhead asked pointing to the chair across from them.
"Umm...alright,” they replied and Eda smiled at them as she sat down.
They sat in silence for a while, Eda drinking her apple juice that tasted like it was diluted a lot with water, while Raine continued to write something on the papers, but now they were trying to hide it with their hand so the redhead wouldn't see what they were writing.
"You have awesome hair,” Eda finally said, wanting to start a conversation.
"Thanks," came the very small reply, and a few seconds later they added, "I'm not very good at cutting hair,"
"You did it yourself? It's so cool, I have thought about cutting my own hair, but I'm afraid it would look like a bird's nest that's on fire."
Raine laughed a little, not saying anything at first, but when a few seconds passed they sighed and finally said, "Hey, if someone sent you here to talk to me as a prank, you can stop it immediately."
"Huh?"
"This isn't the first time Odalia has sent her friends to mess with me, spoilers, it never works, and you know why? Because I don't allow any bullies to get under my skin. Just go and find yourself another victim,”
"Okay, I don't know who you are but you are a riot, I like that," Eda rested her elbows on the table, leaning a little closer to them," And don't worry, I'm not here to mess with you,"
"Why are you here then,” the blue-haired teenager asked suspiciously.
The redhead gave them a friendly smile and replied," I just thought that maybe If I stick with you, I can actually survive this camp, you are the only kid that looks like they know how to have some fun,"
"You sure you want to be friends with someone people call 'the freak'?"
She nodded and held out her hand to them, "I'm Eda Clawthorne,"
"Raine Whispers,” they replied with a smile, shaking the girl's hand.
Maybe this summer won't be as painful as Eda had thought, but before she could go too far with that thought, someone's voice was heard that seemed to be trying to get the attention of all the children, both Eda and Raine looked towards the voice and Eda heard her new friend sighing very heavily as they saw Miss Terra who was currently walking into the middle of the hall, to give some kind of important speech, apparently.
Miss Terra cleared her voice and then said loudly so that the whole hall could hear her, "Welcome all Bible children, we are pleased to welcome you to our humble Bible camp. But before we start our annual fun activities, I must to tell you some rules. First of all, you are not allowed to go swimming without adult supervision. You are also not allowed to go outside the camp areas under any circumstances, you must stay inside the camp areas at all times. Lights must be out by eight and by then we expect that you're all in your beds and sleeping. All Camp activities are mandatory for everyone, so don't try to sneak away. And now, most importantly, no playing Romeo and Juliet, this camp is not about filling your sinful hunger, all female campers must stay away from boys' cabins and vice versa, and no use of toilets or changing rooms of the opposite sex, physical contact between boys and girls must not go beyond a handshake or a brotherly hug. You are expected to abide by all camp rules. If you do not conduct yourself in a proper Christian manner, you're not only offending your god but all of us, which is why we have the right to send you home if needed. In addition, if you have things with you that are not allowed here according to our rules, give them here immediately, and remember that our gamp managers have the right to check the bags! So that's it, I'll stop sharing information, all the rules are also on the walls of your cabins, with a full list of allowed and not allowed clothing, make sure you read them carefully. You can spend all day today settling in and making friends, but tomorrow at ten o'clock we start our activities, the list of activities and the schedule are also on the walls of your cabins. Thank you!" she walked away, leaving the hall.
"Wow, she is no fun, is she," Eda chuckled looking back at Raine.
Raine smirked at that and said, "Nightmare is a much more accurate word to describe her, ya will see,"
And strangely enough, Eda felt excited.