SORROW WOODS (8 page)

of me that wants to let him in. I want to hear what he has to say. I want to know why he’s back, but then I remember what he tried to do to me, and a part of me wishes he had a gun so I could snatch it and shoot him.

“Can I come in?”

I shake my head.

“I just want to talk,” he says. “I want to explain things to you.”

“You can’t,” I say, leaving no room for argument.

“Why not?” he asks. Does he need it spelled out for him?

“Because of what you did.”

He nods. “I’ve come to say sorry.”

“So say it and leave.”

He unhooks his arms and starts to rub his hands together. “It’s not that simple. I want to say

sorry, but I also want to help you. Look,” he says, opening his coat and patting down his clothes with shaking hands, “I have no rope, no gun, and no knife.”

“It still doesn’t feel right,” I say because I don’t trust him.

“Please, Serena,” he says. “I’ve been walking for hours. I don’t think I’ve ever been so cold in

my whole life.”

“What did you mean you say you’re a gatherer?” I ask, ignoring his complaints. I lean on my

tiptoes and look over his shoulder, but don’t see anything other than the big, white moon that

hovers above the dry grass and dusty sands.

“What are you gathering out there in the dark?”

His teeth start to chatter, but I still can’t bring myself to let him in. One half of me knows that I shouldn’t do it, and the other is just damn right curious about him and the things he knows and has seen.

“I’m so cold I can’t think straight. I’ll try to explain everything if you just let me in,” he

pleads.

My hand tightens around the door. “I don’t trust you.”

He suddenly stops dithering and blinks up at me. “That’s why I’m here. I want to get to know

you. I figured you have loads of questions that you want to ask me, and I can tell you some of the stuff that I know. I’m not going to hurt you, Serena. I promise.”

“Why would you do that?” I ask skeptically.

His face crumples into a confused frown. “What do you mean?”

“Why have you come all the way over here to let me ask you questions?” I clarify.

He sighs and leans against the doorframe. I hear it squeal in protest. “I feel bad about the

other night. This is my way of showing you that I’m sorry.”

“How are you gonna show me?”

He shrugs. “I’m not sure. I was thinking of hanging around with you two for a few days and

trying to see how you live so I can understand you a bit more. While I’m here, you can ask me as

many questions as you want.”

I let his words roll around in my head. He’s going to let us ask as many questions as we want.

Elodie would love that. “Are you gonna try and take me again?”

He shakes his head. “No. I promise.”

Do people always keep their promises? Not in the books I’ve read they don’t, but then again,

how real are the things that I read in books?

“Are you gonna try and hurt us?” I ask, watching his eyes closely for any sign that he’s lying to me.

He smirks. “I wouldn’t dare after watching you in the woods. You can trust me, Serena.”

I take a deep breath. “My Mother said we should never trust anyone other than ourselves.”

“Your Mother hasn’t exactly been honest with you,” he says, matter-of-factly.

I frown at him. I don’t like the tone he takes when he talks about Mamma. “Don’t talk about

my Mother like that.”

He huffs and pushes a bare hand through his floppy black hair. “Are you not the least bit

curious? Don’t you want to know who I am and where I’ve come from and what it’s like there? If

you’ve really been in this shack for your whole life, wouldn’t you like to know what it’s like in the city?”

“It’s not a shack,” I remind him.

He looks behind me and huffs. “Sorry.”

I do want to know those things. It’s all I’ve ever wanted, but why is he so intent in making

me listen to him?

“Even if I do want to know those things and you tell me, it won’t change anything, will it?” I

ask.

“That depends,” he replies, cryptically.

“On what?”

“You.”

I sigh. “I really don’t understand any of this, Kaiden. I don’t know why you’re here. I don’t

know why you wanna tell me about all this stuff, I don’t know why you tried to take me the other

night, and I really don’t know why you bothered to bring me back here, when you were so intent on taking me away in the first place.”

“You’re beautiful,” he blurts out.

My eyes snap onto him and I blink. “Is that your answer? Is that the reason you tried to take

me?”

He shakes his head. “It has nothing to do with that.”

I sigh, not fully understanding what he’s talking about. “Well, I’m still not letting you in.”

“Please, Serena. I’m seriously cold. I will tell you everything else that you want to know, but

please don’t ask me to tell you that yet. I’m not ready and neither are you.”

I raise my eyebrows at him.

“You’re just going to have to trust me, Serena. Just on this one thing.”

I take a deep breath. “You scare me,” I confess, “and I
really
don’t understand why you’ve come back.”

“I couldn’t just forget about you. You got stuck in my head and you were all I could see when I

closed my eyes. I had to come back and see you again, just to make sure you were okay. That’s why I’m here. I’m not here to scare you or to take you, and I’m not lying to you. I’m here to be whatever you want me to be. I figured I owed you that much.”

I look up into his eyes. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about him either. I’ve replayed

what happened that night over and over in my head. Yes, he tried to take me, but he claims he had a reason for it. I saved his life and he probably saved mine by bringing me back, but he wouldn’t have had to carry me all the way home with an injured shoulder if he hadn’t have dragged me into the

woods in the first place. He’s promised he’s not going to hurt me and I think I believe him. Maybe I can learn to trust him. Maybe I can get all the information that I crave from him.

I take another deep breath and step back, opening the door as wide as I dare. He blinks at me

for a minute before slowly stepping forwards. He tries to smile at me as he passes, but he’s too cold and it just sort of slips off his face. I shut the door behind him and pull the piece of cloth across that keeps the draft out, directing him towards the sofa.

I hover on the edge of the room, not daring to be near him now that I’ve let him in.

“Do you want a drink?” I ask, trying to be hospitable.

He nods. “Please. Can I have a hot one?”

I grab the canister of water from under the sink and pour some of it into a pan to boil it. I

glance over to where he’s sitting, but he hasn’t moved a muscle. He seems to be gently rocking in an attempt to warm himself.

“I’ve only got tea bags. No milk or sugar,” I tell him.

He flicks his eyes over to me and I watch the corner of his mouth pull up at the sides. “Black

tea is fine.”

I plop a tea bag into a mug and pour the boiling water over it. I grab a spoon and squeeze

the tea bag before throwing it to the side, ready for the compost heap. I take three careful steps back into the living room and silently hand him his mug.

“Thank you,” he says, sounding sincere.

He’s not the same boy that we met in the woods or the one that lied to get me to follow him

thirteen days ago. He’s different, but I’m not sure how or why. He’s calmer. He’s not so frightening now and he has a sad sort of look about him.

“I take it your Mother is still away?” he asks, his teeth still chattering.

I nod and sit down on the other side of the sofa. “She’ll be away for another week.”

“If your Mother isn’t due back for so long, will it be alright if I stay here tonight?”

I shift uncomfortably on the sofa. I’m not sure I feel okay with him being in my house again.

Not all night anyway. I think about telling him to leave but before I can open my mouth, he walks across the room and lies down in front of the log fire and stretches out, making the bottom of his t-shirt slide up his stomach. I stare at his muscles. They’re like mine, only the lines are carved deeper.

My eyes travel down a line of hair that runs from his belly button down his stomach before

disappearing underneath his belt.

“I’ll just stay right here the whole night,” he says. “I promise.”

I just sit and stare at him. I watch his chest rising and falling. I see his eyelids drop the way Elodie’s do when she’s trying to not fall asleep. Seconds later, I hear his deep, laboured breathing.

He’s fallen asleep before I can give him my answer.

I sigh and leave the candle burning above the fire. I creep into the bedroom that Elodie and I

share, silently slipping into our bed and sliding my knife underneath the pillow.

Lying on my back, I stare up at the wooden ceiling. Everything around us is made of wood. I

wonder if the house that he lives in is made of wood. I’ll ask him in the morning. I squeeze my eyes shut tight. I can’t believe he came back. I can’t believe he’s in our house and that he’s asleep in front of the fire.

Kaiden

When I open my eyes, I’m facing the cinders in the fire and I can hear the two girls whispering

behind me. I don’t think they’re in the same room as me, but they’re close enough that I can hear them. I smile when I hear Elodie asking if she can throw water on me. Serena tells her no. Not

because it’s rude, but because they don’t have water to waste.

“Kaiden?”

I roll over and find Elodie’s face inches away from mine.

“What are you doing here?” she asks.

She knows what I’m doing here. I heard her ask Serena earlier this morning. “I’ve come to

see you,” I say.

She prods her finger into my arm. “Serena told me what you tried to do to her.”

I nod and then look down at the floor. I wasn’t ready for that. I never once thought that

Serena would tell her little sister that I tried to take her away from her. How am I supposed to gain Elodie’s trust now? I already know she’s going to be much more difficult than Serena. “That’s why I’m here.”

She nods. “We have five knives, two guns, and a big hole.”

I look up into her innocent blue eyes and try not to smile. “Erm, okay.”

“If you do anything bad, I will shoot you and put you in the hole.”

Aah. Now I see why she was rattling off the inventory.

“Little girls shouldn’t be talking about shooting people and burying them,” I tell her.

“They should when they’re talking to the person that tried to kidnap their sister!” she

exclaims.

I sit up and rub my face with my hands. I can’t believe that I just fell asleep on the floor while I was in the middle of a conversation with Serena. I’m actually a little surprised that they haven’t done something to me whilst I slept. I look back up at Elodie and let my eyes trail down her long black hair that falls down her shoulders and cascades down her back.

“I’m really sorry, Elodie. Sometimes people do stupid things. This was one of those times,” I

say, trying to explain myself without really giving anything away.

She stands back up and narrows her eyes at me. “So why are you here?”

“To help you,” I say simply.

“How?” she demands.

“I can tell you whatever you want to know.”

She grins at me. “I guess I won’t need that gun after all.”

I feel my face wrinkle up into a smile. “Okay. Can we be friends now?”

She shrugs. “We’ll see. Do you wanna have some breakfast?”

I look around but there’s no sign of Serena. I wince at the sight of their sparse kitchen.

“What sort of food do you eat for breakfast out here?” I ask, not certain if I really want to

know the answer.

She blinks at me. “What do you mean? Doesn’t everyone eat the same sort of things for

breakfast?”

I shake my head. “People eat different things, especially people that live in different

countries.”

“What country do we live in?” she asks, curious.

I take a deep breath. I knew they wouldn’t know as much as I do, but I at least expected

them to know what country they lived in.

“You live in America.”

Elodie’s bright blue eyes widen. She jumps up from the floor and runs over to the bookcase.

She drags a battered piece of coloured paper over to me and unfolds it. Then she points to America on the really old map.

“Is this where we live?” she asks excitedly.

I nod. “Yes.”

“Where do you live?”

“I live in America too.”

“It looks big,” she says, “compared to this country.” She moves her fingers over the ocean

and points towards the British Isles. “This here is England,” she says. “Serena told me that they have a Queen in England.”

I nod. “They do indeed.”

“So do you live in the city?”

I shake my head. “It’s a little more complicated than that, Elodie.”

She shoves the map into my hands and looks up at me with the most curious pairs of eyes I

have ever seen. “Will you tell me about it all?”

I nod. “Can I get a drink first, please?” I ask. “And I need the toilet.”

She points towards the window at the side of the shack. “The toilet is behind the outhouse.

You go and do what you gotta do and I’ll get you a drink. Deal?”

“Deal.”

I step out into the blazing sun and shield my eyes with my hand. I can’t believe the difference

in the temperature between night and day here. I remove my coat and scarf and leave them hanging

over the veranda rail. I peel my hoodie over my head and smooth my white t-shirt down over my

belt. I wish I’d brought shorts.

I walk across the orange-coloured, dusty ground and around the side of the house. I have to

duck under the wet clothes that drip from the washing line connecting the two buildings. I find the