Chapter Text
The first original piece Jane ever published started as a short story that she wrote for a Junior year English assignment.
The unit was exploring “dark” themes in literature. They talked about the usuals; Poe, Stoker, Jackson, Orwell, Dostoevsky, and of course, Jane’s favorite, Mary Shelley.
In Jane's story her main character escapes a secret government lab that experimented on children with supernatural powers. She's never seen the outside world before, but stumbles into a diner where she meets a nice man. Before she knows it government agents are surrounding the place and she has to run into the woods nearby. She doesn't know where she's going, she just knows she can't stop. Right when she thinks she's lost them a bright light is shown in her face and she freezes. Instead of the bad men, she sees three boys, around her age, staring right back. They take her in and she helps them find their missing friend, who she realizes got taken into a portal that her powers helped open. After she helps bring the boy home, she has to go into the portal to close it for good, ultimately sealing her off from the world once more.
She purposefully left the ending ambiguous, although there’s a common conclusion that most readers can come to without the detailed ending she couldn’t bring herself to write. This however became the most common criticism among her peers and teacher. If Jane wasn’t going to write her a proper hero's ending, then she should at least give her something more worth losing. As though the first real friends she had weren't enough! If she teased a more romantic storyline then maybe it would feel more tragic, or give her something more to fight for. The last bit was always said as if they assumed she had more to write, but ran out of time. The truth of the matter was that she always intended her story to stop there. She never saw anything happening after, it was a short story after all.
When her teacher informed her of a writing competition for high schoolers, where the winning piece would be professionally published, she highly encouraged Jane to submit the story. After looking over the qualifications Jane saw there was a length requirement that she was just shy of. She thought about writing something else, a fresh story that no one had read yet, but she wasn’t sure she would finish it in time. Plus, it was already edited and she had feedback on what she could add to get the length she needed. Jane spent a week considering and eventually bit the bullet. She sold away her original message, but if she won this could mean everything. There was a $250 reward as well, and with her dad overseas and the lingering weight of Sara's medical bills, her family could really use it right now. Whether the publication leads anywhere after that is anyone’s guess, but at least there would be an immediate pay-off while Jane continues following her dreams of being an author.
And pay off it did.
After her piece was published in the magazine, Jane received a message from a well-known publisher, asking if she had any other pieces they could see. They seemed to like her writing well enough and offered her a chance to extend her short story into a novel. Although she didn’t plan to write anything more with those characters, there was no way she couldn’t jump at the offer.
By the time she graduated, she had written and rewritten upwards of 80,000 words, none of which she was satisfied with. It got so bad she started to think maybe writing wasn’t what she was made for after all. There was one night she laid next to Sara in her little twin-sized bed and told her as much. Sara, still young, but the strongest, kindest person she knew, wouldn’t hear of it. She reminded Jane that she had taught her everything she knew and never gave up on her, so she wasn’t allowed to give up on herself either.
That night before bed, Jane decided to take a shot in the dark. She applied to jobs all over the country. Jobs where she would teach children, as she had taught her sister for all these years. Jane was so passionate about education after being denied a proper one for so much of her childhood. If she could remember that passion, it would ignite her fire for writing once again. She was sure of it.
A month later, she found herself pulling her luggage out of a taxi in the California heat, rolling it up to the private boarding school doors. As she took the final step, the grand wooden doors opened before her. When she looked up, she was met with a burning fire.