Sweetly (9 page)
I groan and finally nod. Ansel grins and proceeds to throw open the windows behind the couch. I duck into my bedroom and grab a magazine, and Ansel elbows me softly as I head downstairs.
“Seriously, Gretchen. Thanks,” he says.
“Be quiet. I’m trying to think of how you’re going to repay me for this.”
Sophia is stocking orange caramels in the storefront. “Reading the latest on makeup styling from”—she pauses to peer at the magazine in my hand—“ooh, six years ago. I should throw those things out—not like we have those fancy stores that carry the models’ clothes out here anyway. Or I could find you a book, if you want? Surely you’ve finished all yours by now.”
“Don’t worry about it. Besides, with hair like this,” I say, motioning to my rainbowed tips, “advice from six years ago is probably better than none at all.”
Sophia laughs as she pulls out a candied lemon and takes a bite. “My grandma said these give you courage,” she explains with an embarrassed chuckle. “It’s a southern thing. We love our food.”
“Understandably. But if that gives you courage, maybe you should take a few to Ansel,” I tease her.
“Trust me, I haven’t been on a date in… I don’t know. And then it’s
Ansel,
and I just… You really don’t care? I’m scared you care and just aren’t telling me,” Sophia says so anxiously that I understand why she needs courage. “I don’t want you to be mad. If it makes you mad, I won’t do it. Really.”
I smile—a little forcefully—and shake my head. “No. It’s fine.”
“It’s just… he asked me out and I was afraid that if I said no, he’d leave and
you’d
leave and I just… I kinda freaked out. I mean, I like him and all, I just…” She chews her lips nervously.
“It’s fine, Sophia. I’m just going to read for a while, I guess. Care if I drink that last can of Coke, by the way?” I ask as I dip into the kitchen.
“Nope, help yourself,” Sophia answers. I hear her shut the glass display case and the creaking, groaning sound of the stairs as she walks up to meet my brother. I grab the Coke from the fridge and coat myself in bug repellent, then head to the porch to slide down into one of the rocking chairs.
The yard is brightly lit from the porch lights that stream out over the grass and fade to darkness where the forest begins—I keep my eyes away from the trees. I’ve been practicing being close to the forest without panicking, but at night it’s scarier, trickier to convince myself that those are fireflies and not yellow eyes looking back at me. I can hear the murmurs of Ansel and Sophia talking, voices drifting down from the upstairs windows. If the date goes well, what happens if they eventually fight? Break up? Stop talking?
I peer through the screen door and up the stairs. The steady rolling sound of the rocking chair on the wooden porch, the gentle clicking of the fan, the cries of locusts, swarm my senses. I gaze through the yard, between the trees. The fear in my chest spikes, but I smash it down, stomp it deep into my heart.
I don’t have to be this way. I don’t have to hide anymore.
We didn’t have a choice before, my sister and Ansel and I. We didn’t know the witch was really there, didn’t know it would chase us, didn’t know
it
would get a choice: which of us to take forever.
I shut the magazine.
I have a choice now.
The words are half joy, half sigh. I have a choice now, and I need to make one.
I rise and set my magazine down on the porch floor. I am not Layla, Emily, Whitney, Jillian, Danielle, Allie, Rachel, or Taylor. My name is Gretchen, and I am starting over.
There is nothing in the forest to scare me, to make the remaining half of me vanish. There are no witches. I duck into the chocolatier, open the display case, and snatch a lemon peel from inside. I chew slowly, focusing on what I want to do, while the tart flavor explodes along my tongue. I hope Sophia’s right about the courage.
I slip into the kitchen, where I rustle around in a junk drawer for a flashlight. I flick it on and off a few times to be certain it works, then whistle sharply for Luxe. The dog bounds into the kitchen and looks up at me eagerly.
“We,” I say quietly, “are going on an adventure.”
The first step from the front door is the hardest. Then the next, to the front of the porch. Down a step, another step, another step.
There are no witches, there are no witches,
I mentally chant. I step gingerly across the lawn; Ansel just cut the grass, and my sandals flick the clippings up against the back of my legs. I ignore the itching it causes—I have to keep moving forward because if I stop, I know I’ll run back to the safety of Ansel, the safety of the chocolatier, of Sophia.
The forest seems to begin with two large oak trees; their branches arch overhead like cathedral doors. I hold my breath as I step through them. My feet crunch against the ground as soft grass is replaced with fallen leaves.
And then I’m in.
Luxe bounds forward, nose to the ground and tail in the air, as I shine the flashlight through the trees. I duck under low-hanging branches and the limbs of saplings. The chocolatier’s lights grow smaller, broken apart by trees until they’re scarcely any different from the fireflies that blink on and off around my head.
It’s cooler in here, under the canopy of leaves, though the heat of the day seems to rise from the damp ground below. Luxe trots back toward me with a pinecone in his mouth, and my nerves calm. There is nothing in this forest—nothing but the fireflies, Luxe, and me.
Maybe a squirrel,
I think as I hear something clatter around the trees ahead. Raccoons, possums. The other half of me is not here, nor is the thing that took her.
It is safe.
I take a right turn, with newfound confidence in my ability to decide where to go. I hear the trickling of a creek ahead and use it as my guide—I’ll go to it and then return to the chocolatier. Mosquitoes ignore the repellent and nip at my arms and ankles, and I struggle to pull my hair off my neck. The noise of the creek grows louder, until it manages to overtake the sounds of the trees, the insects, and the crunching of leaves under my feet and Luxe’s.
I finally reach the creek. Moonlight pours down into the little crevice that the water carves through the forest. It’s serene, beautiful; I carefully lower myself to sit on a patch of mossy ground beside it. The moss is like fabric against my bare legs, and I feel drowsy. I inhale the night air, then lift my eyes to gaze at the stars above.
Luxe barks, sharp and bold against the peaceful wood. I shush him without even looking his way, letting one of my feet dangle into the chilly creek water. It’s freezing—far, far colder than I would have anticipated given the dense southern air.
He barks again. I whirl my head around to glare at him for interrupting this moment of solitude.
His fur is on end, his front feet braced against the forest floor, his teeth bared. I tap a hand on my leg, concerned, and Luxe slinks toward me, tail between his legs. When he reaches me, he curls up against me, pressing his body against my calves.
He’s shaking in fear.
Suddenly the creek seems deafening as I rise and strain to listen to the forest. Something is out there, something to scare Luxe, but I hear nothing. I turn in circles, eyes scanning the trees. The rational part of my brain tries to convince me that it’s something harmless and that Luxe is just a wimp, but no—I sense something, something no amount of lemon peel will let me ignore. Dread creeps up from my feet and begins to overtake my body; my hands tremble and my throat tightens.
Luxe peeks his head through my legs. He lets out a low, dark growl. Something rustles, something large enough that I hear it over the creek’s rapids. I blink hard and stiffly turn to see whatever it is that Luxe is growling at. Whatever it is that’s moving. Whatever it is that’s waiting for me on the other side of the creek.
It’s a man.
And he has yellow eyes.
“Oh, hi,” the man says, smiling. Perfect white teeth, sweeping blond hair that’s only a shade or two darker than mine. “Didn’t mean to frighten you.”
He’s just a man—I want to believe he’s only a man—and yet the
eyes
. Those are the witch’s eyes. They stall my breath and make my fingers tremble. My chest aches, as though my heart is pounding so hard that the skin may tear, and yet I can’t run. I can’t run now.
The man in front of me is the witch. And I can’t run from him again.
“Miss?”
“Where is she?” My voice is hoarse, and I can’t believe I’m speaking to the witch after all this time.
“I’m sorry?” he asks, and now he sounds different, partway between a growl and a mutter. He takes a step toward me, and I catch his scent. He smells like something dead.
“My sister. What did you do with her?”
He
just
smiles.
The witch jumps for me, long arms outstretched. My brain reconnects with my legs. I dash through the forest. The flashlight slips from my sweaty fingers. Trees fly by me, limbs slice at my face ruthlessly, I feel as if I’m a little girl again. Lost in the woods without a trail of candy and running running running. No hands to grab on to, no hands to let go of. Luxe dashes ahead, a golden ball of fur that cuts under brambles and around trunks faster than I can. I stumble. Twigs and branches cut into my palms, sting and grind, but I ball my hands into fists and keep going. I look behind me.
He’s there, only not. The man is different now, his shoulders hunched forward and his jaw too long for his face. Teeth break out of his gums like bloodied white mountains, his fingers are curled and ragged, but his eyes—his eyes are the same, golden suns in the darkness, watching me, chasing me, toying with me—
Did she see his eyes before she died too?
Run. My chest aches, begging for water or rest, and my legs tingle and weaken. I don’t remember walking this far. The lights—I should be able to see the lights from the porch. But all I see are fireflies, and Luxe is gone, far ahead of me. The witch—the man—the monster—says something I can’t hear over the wind whistling through my ears.
Faster, Gretchen, faster.
I stumble again, and this time my head slams against the trunk of a tree. Everything swirls and the corners of my vision go red. I hear his feet getting closer, an inhuman gait. I use the tree to haul myself to standing.
“Now, now, miss. Let’s not be careless,” he says, the final sound a groan. I blink, trying to stop seeing the same man three times, and my vision clears. His blond hair is gray and brown, dungy and matted. Skin mottles with bits of fur, and he takes another step forward. His nails break off his fingertips, and claws ooze out of the skin.
I grab the wound on my head, feel sticky blood, run. My feet move, but I can’t see—wait, I can see. There’s moonlight ahead, intense moonlight. The backyard of the chocolatier. Which means the windows will be open, Ansel and Sophia will hear me…
The witch laughs, and suddenly the sound of two feet on the forest floor becomes the sound of four. Get to the backyard, get to Ansel, get to my brother. I don’t want to be a girl on the Live Oak post office wall.
My feet hit pavement.
It’s not the backyard; it’s a road. A road with no cars, no houses, no anything in either direction.
I swallow hard; my body refuses to continue running. I turn around, trying to stop the trembling that ripples through me.
There is no man behind me. Just a monster. Head slung low to the ground, teeth jutting up through hanging black lips. His ears are plastered back on his head. Each time he takes a small, careful step toward me, his claws click and scratch at the pavement. The yellow eyes are locked on me.
The monster’s breathing grows more labored, hungered; he extends his nose toward me and inhales. He’s close now, so close that the stench of his body suffocates me. He circles me, eyes running up and down my body, surveying his catch. I hear him lick his lips, sloppily and hungrily.
Something in the woods crashes.
The monster and I both snap our heads toward the sound. Another witch? Ansel, maybe? It doesn’t matter—the monster is distracted. I force my deadened feet to move. Anywhere, any direction.
Go, go, faster
. My sandals clip against the pavement, my arms pump, air flying behind me.
I hear the claws. Walking, running, faster and faster. I keep moving but lock my shoulders, bracing myself for impact. Where will he bite first?
Please don’t let me disappear.
And then the shot screams out.
The claws stop, and I hear flesh hitting the pavement. My body keeps moving, keeps running forward, but I dare to glance behind me. The monster is on the ground, slumped over a heap of fur and blood. Someone emerges from the woods—a man. A
real
man. He trudges forward slowly, as though he’s not worried that the creature will spring to life.
The stranger stands over the witch’s body, fiddling with something on what I realize is a gun of some sort.
And then the monster explodes into darkness. Shadows dance away from the pavement, terrified of being exposed over the asphalt. They skip off into the forest, leaving nothing but the bare moonlight and a puddle of blood.
I should feel relieved, but I can’t—I can’t feel anything. Too many emotions, and my body has shut down. Where was the man with the gun twelve years ago? Why did he save me, and not my sister?
Why do I get to survive?
“You!” the man’s voice cracks through the night. I snap my head up. “Who are you?”
He lifts the gun and aims at me.
