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    We Are All So Good at Smiling
    We Are All So Good at Smiling
    We Are All So Good at Smiling
    Ebook260 pages1 hour

    We Are All So Good at Smiling

    By Amber McBride

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    They Both Die at the End meets The Bell Jar in this haunting, beautiful young adult novel-in-verse about clinical depression and healing from trauma, from National Book Award Finalist Amber McBride.

    Whimsy is back in the hospital for treatment of clinical depression. When she meets a boy named Faerry, she recognizes they both have magic in the marrow of their bones. And when Faerry and his family move to the same street, the two start to realize that their lifelines may have twined and untwined many times before.

    They are both terrified of the forest at the end of Marsh Creek Lane.

    The Forest whispers to Whimsy. The Forest might hold the answers to the part of Faerry he feels is missing. They discover the Forest holds monsters, fairy tales, and pain that they have both been running from for 11 years.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateJan 10, 2023
    ISBN9781250780393
    Author

    Amber McBride

    Amber McBride estimates she reads about 100 books a year. Her work has been published in literary magazines including Ploughshares and Provincetown Arts. Her debut young adult novel, Me (Moth) was a finalist for the National Book Award, and won the 2022 Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe Award for New Talent, among many other accolades. She is a professor of creative writing at University of Virginia, and lives in Charlottesville, Virgina.

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      Book preview

      We Are All So Good at Smiling - Amber McBride

      Narrator (Interlude)

      A Fairy Tale rarer than Middlemist’s Red blooms—

      a Conjurer & a Fae, soaked in sorrow,

      a Forest holding a Garden

      filled with stories & magic

      where memories unweave

      unravel & (sometimes)

      trap us in lies.

      Make us

      want to

      die.

      { PART ONE }

      THE WILTING

      The ancient Bennu bird of Egypt, often associated with the soul of Ra, resembled a heron with a white crown. It sat atop the Benben Stone—the Mound of Creation the only solid ground in a universe not yet created.

      It sat soundless in darkness—

      alone, waiting & (perhaps) wilting.

      Call Me Magic: Call Me (Whimsy)

      This is what I know:

      my name is Whimsy & magic is real—

      a fine glitter hovering in the air.

      It doesn’t matter that most can’t see the energy (the ashe)

      like a woven spell stringing through & connecting all things.

      It doesn’t matter that some don’t believe in magic, they still inhale it.

      They are still part of the plucked heart-thrum of life.

      You see,

      the non-magical look & look & don’t see.

      Still, there are things that cross magic lines.

      Sadness can seep into anything, even trees

      especially the weeds—perhaps (even)

      a soul.

      This is something true:

      ever since I was three feet tall

      I’ve had the same uniform—

      a pair of Converse shoes, black with little white skulls kissing the tops,

      a pair of black jeans worn at the knees from kneeling in the weeds.

      A black T-shirt never tucked in, always lazily hanging,

      a tiny necklace with quartz at the center that Grandma gave me.

      I wear black sunshades that hold back unspun licorice curls

      & leather gloves on full moon days

      to hide my glowing palms.

      Last, always dirt & my Fairy Tale

      notebook in tow.

      This is something difficult:

      I am here (again) in the hospital,

      & my uniform changes—

      no jewelry (they took my quartz necklace).

      White shirt (they confiscated my black one).

      White pants (my black ones had too many pockets).

      White shoes (that show too much dirt).

      Gloveless, bookless, dirt-less & moonless.

      Feeling less, less, less.

      This is the thing,

      sometimes it gets bad, roots mingle with a strange soil

      & you don’t trust your hands with your skin.

      Sometimes that means you are admitted to a hospital.

      To be watched & watched & watched & watched.

      To talk & talk & talk & talk—

      to sometimes break.

      It’s like Grandma said to me when I sat, legs crossed

      like cherry stems, at the edge of the Forest where toothy fog

      had already begun to seep into the soil—

      Hoodoo is real, witches & Fae people too.

      Fairy Tales are real,

      magic is real, but, careful, Whimsy,

      sometimes your own mind will unroot you.

      This is what I think:

      I am (Whimsy): I am magic just like my name.

      But I am not whimsical (anymore).

      PROLOGUE

      HOSPITAL

      THE WHIMSY GIRL

      Ashe Child:

      A child loved by the supernatural

      & glittering with magic. In Hoodoo,

      ashe is the magic in all things.

      Outside My Hospital Window

      It’s cloudy (inside me) & outside the window

      with bars & netting that basically yell,

      Don’t even try escaping.

      It all started with a 3-day hospital stay

      then Mom & Dad (Jill & Jack) moved me

      to a private facility for extra care

      for 2 more weeks—14 days.

      Day 1: busy schedule from 7 a.m.–7 p.m.

      Day 2: same thing with an evaluation & new meds.

      Days 3, 4, 5, 6 & 7: same schedule, less hazy

      on the (inside) & outside.

      Here’s the thing,

      my hands have not handled

      the earth in 7 days, which is a different

      kind of sadness.

      It’s 6 a.m. & I wake from the usual nightmare

      that even sleeping pills don’t dull—

      the one where I try to play the goddess

      & make dead things more alive. The one where

      a shadow crams dirt down my throat & twigs replace

      my hands & some Ursula has taken my voice,

      so none of my spells stick to the air right.

      I look down, my palms glow amber-golden

      on account of the full moon. It’s strange to still glow—

      days after perhaps, maybe, wanting to die.

      Car (Silver) Like a Broadsword

      In the distance an engine purrs

      & my feet hit the ice-cold hospital floor

      thinking Mom & Dad might be here early, for their visit.

      Beyond the window with steel netting

      a large gray owl & a smaller white one

      sit perched on a slim tree limb—

      looking wiser than even the stories claim.

      I worry the branch might break with their weight

      but then again, I worry about breaking a lot.

      The parking lot is dim & I watch

      the horizon gently run golden

      fingers through the darkness.

      It looks difficult, the night (departing) & day (arriving)—

      I imagine them begging

      to hover together in this moment (forever & Fairy-Tale-ever),

      never wanting to fall out of touch.

      The engine revs closer.

      I spot a silver car, the same hue

      as a broadsword, backing into a parking spot.

      The door swings open & a boy with mint-green hair

      like just-birthed forest moss

      steps out (one long leg at a time).

      The deep V-neck of his shirt reveals

      the bloom of a flower tattoo

      (creeping thistle)

      I think.

      I watch the sunrise rush forward

      like it wants to touch him,

      like it wants to hug him

      & perhaps, maybe, love

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