A crown wasn’t a requirement for starving, but most of us adopted it as a rule. We imagined the crystals as diamonds, the metal as silver, the weight of the circlet resting atop our hairsprayed updos the triumph we’d been chasing all seventeen years of our lives. Sequins and glitter look better against exposed hip and collarbones and stomachs that have started eating themselves because there’s nothing else to consume.
There were other rules, of course. Spray tans were on Thursdays. Teeth whitening strips during the nightly forty-five minutes of Pilates. No cheat meals during pageant season prep. Brittany Leigh’s mom would sell you the Fen-Phen she could still get in Mexico for five hundred or a Fenti bag if the Pilates wasn’t working. Pedicures once a week. A full set of acrylics too. Square tips. Not too long. French only. Wax every other week. Brows. Legs. Underarms. Forearms. Bikini. Facials at least once a month with full extractions. Doctor’s notes for the flu when you missed two or three weeks of school to recover from a nose job.
And the meetings. The last Sunday morning of each month, we’d meet in Amanda Thompson’s house to worship at the sanctified altar of her guest house with its private bathroom. Our tongues wrapped around the holy vomit that came after binging, and we’d hold each other’s hands and hair and give thanks for the glory that were our sanctified bodies.
We were a coven of beauty queens, and we moved through the world like Furies. Had we not had sashes, we would have gone looking for nooses to wrap about our necks. In our world, there were only the hot, glaring lights of a runway stage; the corseting of the ribcage so not even our breath would expand our bellies; the balancing on our Lucite heels as we savored the taste of perfume and hairspray on our tongues. We’d been anointed as the blessed few, and every pageant felt like an act of creation. A slippery birth.
So, when Brianna Palmer announced she wasn’t going to do the Miss Brunswick High Pageant, we called an emergency meeting.
“She said it’s sexist. That it’s demeaning to parade around onstage like that, and that it promotes body image problems,” Hanna Brinkley said and wiped the back of her hand across her mouth before checking her teeth in her compact mirror.
“I mean . . . she’s not wrong, but it’s like, we all know the game, right? Who gives a shit if it means you get a crown at the end of it,” Trina Jacobson said, and the group collectively nodded.
“She never came to meetings anyway. Said it was gross,” Ashlynn McGee said.
“Plus, she never even made top ten,” Tansy Vaughn said. “And her talent was that creepy puppet thing.”
“Ventriloquism,” I said, and we all rolled our eyes.
Jessica Evans didn’t say anything—she’d lost a bit too much blood—but we all knew what she thought. We were a singular unit—an entity born of a thirst that only few things could quench. There was no need to punish Brianna for her betrayal. She’d never known the truth of such transcendence. We could let her vanish back into the nothingness of high school and never suffer any sort of retribution. She’d only been set on the path. She hadn’t truly known.
“Whatever. Fuck her,” I said, and we all nodded. Even Jessica Evans managed to shake her brunette curls one time before letting herself droop onto Kayla Taylor’s shoulder.
Amanda Thompson placed the dagger back in its velvet wrap—it was her house, and she deserved such an honor—and we drifted back to our own homes, our lives that existed outside of the magic we’d created in that basement room. We did our Pilates, pushed our meals around on our plates before our parents were distracted enough not to notice us scraping them into the garbage, and we came together and apart each Sunday to consume what we needed—each of us offering up small parts of herself so that the group might be sustained. It was so little to ask when it meant we might know what it meant to have a crown placed on our heads. To know what it meant to be deemed the best. To be perfect.
We’d begun the descent into the final weeks before Miss Brunswick High, when Tansy Vaughn came to school minus at least five pounds. Her hair shone against cheekbones gone sharper, and her collarbone traced an elegant line above the cleavage that came courtesy of the boob job her father had paid for when she turned eighteen.
The rest of us had not lost any weight. We maintained. We toned. But we were no thinner than we were before our last meeting.
We cornered her at lunch, the table spread with our requisite La Croixs and Diet Cokes.
“How?” we said.
Tansy Vaughn shrugged her shoulders, but she was looking anywhere but at us, and we knew. She’d taken more than her share. We had sworn, in the beginning, that we would offer what we could, and in return, would not glut ourselves. To do so would upset the delicate balance of our group. It wouldn’t be fair.
That afternoon, we met without Tansy Vaughn, but not at Amanda Thompson’s house because she would guess that’s where we’d gone and show up anyway.
“Who gave it to her?” Kayla Taylor asked, and we all stared at each other in silence. It didn’t need to be said. We all knew it hadn’t been one of us. We would have all felt it.
“She couldn’t have taken it from anyone else. It wouldn’t work the same way. Not if they aren’t one of us,” Hanna Brinkley said.
“Brianna Palmer?” Trina Jacobson asked, but it wouldn’t be her. She’d never taken part in the meetings. If she’d known, she would have stayed.
“No,” Ashlynn McGee said, and every head turned. “She’s taking it from herself.” She stared down at her hands, and we all felt how much she wanted to tear at her cuticles, to taste the sharp tang of blood, because we wanted it, too. More than that, of course, but still, our mouths watered.
“I know because I did it, too. For the Miss Glow pageant. Just the tiniest bit. But I lost two pounds,” Ashlyn McGee said, and we fell into a stunned silence.
“How could we not have known?” I asked. We all leaned forward, our nostrils flared, our mouths still damp with want.
“Maybe because it was so small. But I never did it again. I swear it. I barely made top five anyway, so it didn’t even matter,” Ashlynn McGee said.
“Anyone else have anything they’d like to confess, since the rules apparently don’t fucking matter?” I asked, and only Ashlynn McGee shook her head. The rest of us had gone still, still, still while we listened to the hunger raging in our bellies.
We had been so good. Such good girls. Didn’t we deserve a treat? Didn’t we deserve a reward? Ever since that night, the night Maribel Harrington won Miss Teen Peach even though she’d never trained, not like we had; the night we cut our palms, scarlet drops against fake diamonds and silk, and sworn fealty to whatever would hear us if only we would be the ones to cry mascara tears, the rose’s thorns pricking our arms as we accepted the bouquet and the crown, since that night, the scales had dropped away from our eyes. We’d learned that the ritual for calling forth an entity doesn’t matter as long as there is need.
Whatever ancient creature we had woken thirsted in the same ways we did, but we were the ones with the teeth.
Once, she’d been a goddess. Worshiped. Feared. Had slept to the sound of screams like music, a river of blood flowing at her feet. She did not appear before us, but we felt her move through us and take root. She saw how we were worthy. How we moved through the world in the same ways she once had. How ravenous we were. And she showed us what we needed to know. How to rip and tear and eat so we might become what had remained hidden inside us—those last vestigial pieces filed away until we resembled marble. Without flaw. Without imperfection. Those worthy of the crown of both the living and the dead. We would take our places beside her, listening as the screams became sighs, and everything we’d ever desired would belong to us. Only to us.
For so long, we’d taken so little. Tiny slices stolen from our inner thighs, the lower parts of our stomachs that remained hidden under the waistband of our bikini-cut underwear, the insides of our arms. The meat of us then split into smaller and then smaller pieces until they were practically wafer thin. A communion to melt on our tongues as we invoked our holy goddess who’d granted us perfection. But first we would purge the unholy matter that was food. After, we ate of each other’s flesh, and it was good.
After that first time, we’d all placed. Four of us won crowns. We were golden daughters—shining totems of what it meant to have everything women were supposed to want. When the noises started—our heads filled with the delicate sounds of screaming—it didn’t matter. We were beauty queens. It had never mattered what was in our heads, after all, and we were grateful for our blessing.
So, yes. We deserved a treat.
Ashlynn McGee moved first, but Trina Jacobson was behind her and grabbed her arm, those French tips digging into the tender meat.
“Don’t,” Ashlynn McGee said, but we were already on her in a snarl of arms and legs and teeth. There was no need for the knife.
But we weren’t monsters. We didn’t kill her, and ate from the places no one would see. When she screamed, the sound joined the screams we carried in our heads, and oh, it was better than our fingers between our legs, better than heads turning when we walked down the hallways at school. Better than anything except the crown.
When we were finally finished, we all knew she wouldn’t compete again. Not in anything that had a swimsuit category. Or in a dress with a slit any higher than her knee.
We licked our lips clean while she sobbed.
“Don’t get any blood on the carpet. My mom will kill me,” Kayla Taylor said and tossed a roll of paper towels at Ashlynn McGee. She blotted at the reddish smears, and Kayla Taylor tore off another paper towel and wiped at her own mouth.
“You have got to learn how to cry pretty,” she said, and we all nodded. It was another rule. Crying was a requisite part of wearing a crown, but it should always be lovely.
“I will. I promise,” Ashlynn McGee said, and we all hugged her and licked the tears from her cheeks. She was still one of us.
We went home, and we all dreamed of roses, of crowns, of an audience with no mouths even though the air was filled with the sound of their screaming. We all woke with the sensation of meat caught between our teeth. We all woke thinner than we’d been the day before.
Tansy Vaughn didn’t wake up at all.
Her parents told the police she’d kissed them goodnight at 10 p.m. They’d heard music coming from her room for about thirty minutes, and then quiet. They’d gone to bed themselves around midnight, after finishing a second bottle of Pinot Grigio. Yes, they’d slept solidly. No, they’d not heard anything strange in the night. Tansy was well-liked. Popular. Pretty. A beauty queen. There had never been any strange incidents. No drug use. Never. Not their Tansy. No secret boyfriends. Only her pageant friends, and they loved Tansy. Loved her so much. They’d been friends since they were little girls. Everyone loved Tansy.
They searched the house and the woods behind the house, but they never did find Tansy. Told her parents it was likely she’d run away. So many teen girls did that. Met some guy on the Internet and took off to meet him. She’d either come home or she wouldn’t, but there was no evidence of foul play. Nothing they could do except pray. And wait.
But the next night, after the police had made their rounds to question all of us, Ashlyn McGee called and asked us to come to her house.
We settled into a circle on her cream rug, her porcelain dolls watching from above, her dress tossed carelessly on the duvet, as she stood in the center in bra and underwear. Her stomach, her thighs were completely smooth. The jagged indentations we’d marked her with had vanished.
“We ate her, didn’t we?” Ashlyn McGee asked, and the screaming in our heads became a satisfied hum.
“We were all asleep by that point. How the fuck could we have eaten her?” Jessica Evans said, but we all knew. We all remembered that slick, full feeling we’d woken to the morning Tansy Vaughn went missing. We’d all been there when Jake Mollien’s neck had practically broken when we walked into school right before the first period bell rang.
“How the fuck am I just magically healed then?” Ashlyn McGee asked.
“Maybe it was from before,” Kayla Taylor said.
“Put your clothes back on. We’ve all seen your tits,” I said, and Ashlyn McGee pulled her dress back over her head.
“Shouldn’t you be, oh, I dunno, grateful to be back to normal?” Amanda Thompson asked.
“I never said I wasn’t.”
“Then shut the hell up and enjoy it.”
“How long will it last? Now that we’ve . . . you know,” Kayla Taylor said.
“Miss Brunswick High is in eleven days. It’ll be long enough,” I said.
“You can’t know that,” Ashlyn McGee said, but Amanda Thompson had brought the dagger, and she held it out to us.
“We give back. Pledge ourselves again,” Amanda Thompson said.
“Exactly. She heard us the first time. It’s only right that we thank her for everything she’s given us,” I said and took the dagger from Amanda Thompson. Slashed a thin line across my palm. In the evening shadows, the blood glittered.
“I drink of you, my sisters. I drink of the screaming inside you. Of the sighs they will become. I drink of the crown. Both the living and the dead,” I said, and the words were a part of me I had never known. A part that had woken only recently, and I wanted it all. The voice, the screams that would become sighs. I wanted all of it.
One by one we opened ourselves—a living altar sanctified by blood—and we had never been more beautiful. If the judges could have seen us, they would have fallen to their knees and sobbed. We were an impossible decision.
None of us ate during those final eleven days. We would do nothing to taint our purification. Nothing to keep us from the sighs. From the crown.
We rose on the morning of Miss Brunswick High, our skin flawless, our bodies angular and sharp, our teeth like pearls, and together, we began. Hair appointments. Makeup appointments. Those middle-aged women fluttering around us, cooing over how pretty we were. We could hear them screaming inside their heads, and we sighed with the pleasure of it.
When we descended on the auditorium—our gowns in their clear, plastic coverings—we were legion.
They’d set up a picture of Tansy Vaughn beside the stage. In loving memory, it read.
“I told her she should have gotten her head shot airbrushed,” Kayla Taylor said when we passed it. “Her nose looks crooked.”
The few other girls who’d made the foolish decision to participate stared at us as we changed into our casual wear. They, too, bared their teeth into something that resembled smiles, but they’d not hallowed themselves. They knew nothing about screaming that would become sighs. Of the crown that was both the living and the dead. Our goddess would have looked upon them in fury for how little they could offer.
Backstage, we joined hands. Anyone who saw us would have thought we were praying. I suppose we were, in our way. But we were listening, the taste of blood and perfume on our tongues, as the screams built and built into an unholy shrieking.
“I drink of the crown,” we whispered, and then we were giggling, everyone hugging each other and dropping air kisses near cheeks as the emcee stepped onstage.
The applause ran through us like water, and we shivered as the lights hit our skin, as the audience gasped each time we stepped on stage. Every category was somehow better than the last, and when we stepped onto the stage in our evening wear, the screaming started. The clapping and shouts of appreciation a cacophony of sound that dropped over the auditorium like a dome, and us at the center of it, our feet placed perfectly as we executed our turns.
“Lovely. Just lovely. Aren’t they lovely, folks?” the emcee asked, and the crowd roared their appreciation, and we drank it in. Like blood. Like flesh. Like a scream become a sigh. Like an end become a beginning—the entrance of a goddess into a world that had long forgotten what it meant to wear a crown.
They had no need to announce the top ten, but they did it anyway. Of course, we were called forth, our hands clasped together as we smiled down. There were others among us, but they were inconsequential. They were detritus.
We answered our interview questions: what to do about lesser education in lower socioeconomic areas, how to address issues related to cyber bullying, what the role of natural preservation should be in our advancing world. The audience breathed as one as they listened—a collective sigh.
When the emcee announced the top five, we had not expected one of the others to remain. She should not have. Even the audience knew. When the emcee called her name, they went silent. No screams. No sighs. She tried to clasp our hands, but we were too tightly bound, and she was not part of us. She was an abomination. An obscenity. She was not for the crown.
It had been so long since we’d eaten anything, and she smelled of an optimism she did not deserve. We couldn’t help ourselves. We drooled.
Then finally, blessedly, the top three. Kayla Taylor, Amanda Thompson, and me. The other girl was banished back from whatever suburban cul-de-sac she’d crawled out of. We forgave her. It wasn’t her fault, after all.
But the judges . . . they had not screamed. Had not sighed. They were unworthy of their roles, but they held the crowns, and we would obey for as long as we needed to.
Amanda Thompson was second runner up, and she took her sash, her flowers, her smaller crown and blew kisses at the audience, and then it was only Kayla Taylor and I onstage, our arms wrapped around each other as we waited. So patient. So composed even as our stomachs screamed into the audience’s silence.
And then it was Kayla Taylor’s name called, not mine, and the audience rose to their feet as I stepped forward to accept the final crown, tears glittering prettily. We rushed together, our lips staining each other’s cheeks before whispering how hungry. How hungry.
We had pledged ourselves to a goddess, and hadn’t we always been building to an end? Hadn’t we always known that once we took the crown, she would also be able to step forward and reclaim what had been taken from her so long ago?
We descended and went among them. Those who would worship us, and those who would not. We’d denied ourselves for so long, but no more. The judges looked upon us in awe. In horror.
“You are not worthy,” we said in one voice, and then unhinged our jaws.
Screams and sighs, and it was an ascension into the beautiful chaos our goddess had promised. The crown of the living and the dead.
We were so hungry, and finally, finally, we would feed. And at the very end, the world would tremble at our feet.
Originally published in Shadows Over Main Street, Volume 3, edited by Doug Murano and D. Alexander Ward.
