Sisters Red

by Jackson Pearce

  "What is it, then?" I ask her before she speaks. She grins at me and lifts herself onto one of the bar stools that Silas salvaged, shivering as another draft sweeps through the apartment.

  "We go back. Figure out who they were before they were Fenris. Figure out why the ones who already are Fenris were capable of becoming Fenris."

  "Not before I've had eggs," Silas calls out, emerging from the bathroom slightly more shaved. He never truly gets rid of the stubble, though. I'm not certain he tries to. "Do you need help with breakfast, Rosie?" he asks.

  "Almost done, actually," I reply.

  "Next time, then," Silas says in the soft voice he usually uses with me only when Scarlett isn't around. I didn't even realize there was a special voice until now, but it makes me look at Scarlett nervously. She doesn't seem to have picked up on it. "So. The master plan, sergeant chief?" he continues, sliding onto a bar stool beside Scarlett.

  Scarlett glares, but her excitement takes over. "Okay. So the one that Rosie almost had a few days ago said he was

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  fourteen, and I don't think he was lying. I mean, I'm sure his Fenris age is older than that, but it looks like he probably really was changed at fourteen. And he said he's from Simonton. There can't possibly be that many fourteen-year-olds who have disappeared or died in Simonton. The place is hardly bigger than Ellison. It'd be in the papers, even if it was decades ago."

  "What if he was lying?" Silas asks.

  Scarlett shrugs. "He could have been. But he didn't really have any reason to, and... besides, it's not like we have anything else to go on."

  "Okay... so where are these papers?" I ask, sliding the eggs onto a single plate and tossing three forks down. There's not a lot of point in washing three plates when there's plenty of room to divide one into three sections, in my opinion.

  "On microfilm, at the library," Scarlett replies.

  The microfilm room is freezing, as though book lovers don't heat this space out of loyalty to real pages. We've been here for hours, so long that my mind is starting to spin with newspaper articles even when the machine isn't in fast-forward mode. Today was supposed to be the first day of my community center classes, but I've pretty much abandoned the idea in order to run through ancient pages of the Simonton Banner-Herald.

  I sigh, scanning through an obituaries page.

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  Joseph Woodlief

  April 8, 1973-June 23, 1987

  Joseph Woodlief, son of Ruth and Eckener Woodlief, passed away the evening of June 23 in his home. Joseph was an active church member and scholar recently accepted to the prestigious St. Martin's Boys' School. He excelled in rowing and was an avid lover of classical music.

  Joseph is survived by his parents, Ruth and Eckener; three aunts; seven uncles; maternal grandparents; eight siblings, Stewart, Katherine, Farley, Bradley, David, Todd, Benjamin, and his younger sister, Abbygale. Services will be private; the family will be accepting social calls of mourning the evening of June 30 beginning at seven o'clock.

  "Is this something? He was fourteen," I say through a yawn, pointing at my screen. The picture is blanched and hard to make out, and it looks as if it was taken when the boy was much younger, no more than five or six.

  Scarlett kicks the wall to roll her chair toward me. She studies the obituary carefully, reading each word.

  "It could be him. Face is similar, I think," Silas murmurs from over my shoulder, his breath on my neck dizzying.

  "That 'services will be private' part is somewhat

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  suspicious, since if he turned Fenris, they wouldn't have a body to bury," Scarlett adds.

  Silas nods in agreement. "What's the name? Joseph Woodlief? Hang on, I think I just saw that name," he says and slides his chair back to his microfilm machine. He spins the dates back and forth for a few moments, then points to the monitor. "A few months before he died--just after his birthday, actually--he got arrested for"--he spins the dial again to see the second page--"for attacking a girl at a neighborhood luncheon. She got away and told the cops."

  "Well, that's even more suspicious than the private services," Scarlett says, perking up. "It takes a while for the soul to die--I bet the wolf was starting to take over the body for a few months before the family issued the official obituary." A librarian peeks in the room, smiling warmly at us, and Scarlett looks at the wall to hide her scars. She looks back once the librarian is gone, then reclines in her chair, mental wheels turning.

  "So he... he was a Potential because... why?" We all turn and read the obituary again and again, until Scarlett sighs. "I thought there'd be something, some hint..."

  "Well, we have nothing to compare him to. Maybe we need more information on a second Fenris," I suggest. It was the wrong thing to say, I quickly realize, as Scarlett's face darkens in frustration.

  "A second Fenris will be near impossible. This one was young enough to be unique and told us where he was from. The others are just regular, nameless, placeless men. By the

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  time we hunt them down, the Potential's moon phase will be over."

  "I dunno, Scarlett... maybe it's nothing specific," Silas says. Scarlett shoots him a hard look and he shrugs. "Maybe there's no exact science as to who becomes a Potential. Maybe it's just fate or something."

  "No. There has to be a reason," she wheels back. I take her hand. I can't blame her. I wouldn't like the idea of its being my fate to lose an eye either.

  Silas glances at his watch. "We've been here for five hours." He gives me a meaningful look, one that translates into "you're supposed to be gone now." When did Silas and I learn to speak without words? I'd hoped he had forgotten about the classes and would let me off the hook.

  "I can't leave. I wonder... you suppose there's any truth to that whole silver-bullet-kills-werewolves thing? Or maybe... that attack happened right after his birthday--maybe it's something to do with that..." she says, then rises from her chair and hurries out of the microfilm room in the direction of the restroom.

  "You have class," Silas whispers as soon as she's out the door.

  "Silas, come on, we have a job to do."

  "Rosie, come on, you have class."

  I glare at him. "This is more important."

  "Scarlett and I are more than capable of handling this on our own. Go. Have fun. Experience life outside of hunting."

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  "If you say 'experience life outside of hunting' one more time, I'm going to knife you."

  Silas grins. "Go. I'll cover for you. I'll even come get you if we find anything that has to be acted on right away. You shouldn't be chained to this unless you choose to be."

  I stare at the microfilm, then at Silas, then at Scarlett's chair. I want to go to a class. I really, really want to go to a class, to not worry about hunting for just an hour, to see what life would be like if I were a normal sixteen-year-old.

  "If Scarlett finds out--"

  "She won't, unless you tell her. Go," he says, letting his fingers rest on my hand. He smiles as he looks at his fingertips on my skin. I want badly, so badly, to turn my hand over and intertwine my fingers with his.

  He's right. I should go. I press my lips together to hide a smile, then jump up, touching Silas's shoulder briefly before racing from the microfilm room. I dart out the library's front doors, gritting my teeth until I'm certain that I'm not going to hear Scarlett calling my name in confusion and anger.

  Fifteen minutes and a lot of running later, I burst through the community center's doors, getting a lot of annoyed glances from a class of pregnant women finishing up yoga in the dance studio across from the registration desk.

  I can't believe I'm doing this. I scan the class board, though there's no need; I've long memorized the course offerings. Something small, Rosie. Something simple, basic. Don't get too carried away--it's just a class.

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  I force myself to breathe and hand the lady at the desk my class card.

  "Which class, sweetheart?"
the old woman says, her hand shaking a bit as if my card is incredibly heavy.

  "Origami for Beginners."

  The old woman looks at me, a bit surprised, and then swipes my card through the machine. Origami. Simple, innocent--Scarlett can't get too mad over my taking something as lame as origami, can she?

  The pregnant women vacate the studio after lots of bowing to their instructor, and a few community center volunteers push in folding tables and chairs. We all take a seat. A woman with silvery brown hair waves me and the seven or eight other people taking origami toward her.

  "New faces today," she says softly, her voice steady and calm. She passes around brightly colored paper, perfectly square and flawlessly smooth.

  I spend the next hour making a rose, a crane, a ballerina. I anticipate that it will be stupid and boring, but instead... something fills me. It's not necessarily a love for origami, but rather, this amazing sensation of being normal.

  I listen to the teacher gently talking--fold here, flip here--the paper sliding beneath my fingers for no reason other than the fact that I want it to be so. It feels as if I'm more than I was before I walked into the class, more than just a hunter. I'm also something silly and pointless and wonderful, doing something that isn't my responsibility, but rather just my simple desire. Somehow I get lost in the folds, each one

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  chipping away some of the hardness that the years of hunting have built up, until I feel new and bare and wonderful.

  When I slip back into the apartment, I find Silas's eyes almost instantly, as though mine are drawn to his. He smiles at me slightly, more with his eyes than his lips. Scarlett looks up at me from a pile of notes and library books.

  "Hey, Rosie," she grumbles. "Look, I know you went grocery shopping and all, but I was hungry, so... we kind of ordered Chinese food." She points with a pen at the kitchen counter, where half a dozen little square boxes are lined up. "I'm sorry, though. Wait--did you go grocery shopping?" she asks, motioning toward the lack of bags in my hands.

  "I"--think fast, Rosie--"I forgot money, actually. Made an idiot out of myself at the register."

  Scarlett rolls her eye but smiles a little and retreats back into her notebooks.

  Grocery shopping? I mouth at Silas. He shrugs, then turns on the radio, shuffling the dial until he finds a pop music station. I raise an eyebrow at him and Scarlett snickers. It's cheesy, but I think we all feel it's a welcome reprieve from the news stations buzzing about more murdered girls and urging us to hurry, hurry, hurry.

  "It was the best I could come up with," he whispers a notch above the music, his back to Scarlett as he heaps white rice onto his plate.

  "What exactly was I supposed to say when I came home without groceries?" I answer, but I can't really get

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  angry. There's still some patterned-paper joy in my heart, I suppose.

  "You're smart. I knew you'd figure it out," he answers with a bright smile. "How was it?"

  "It was... nice," I say. I glance at Scarlett to be certain she's not looking, then place a folded pink rose into Silas's shirt pocket. My hand lingers on his chest, and I feel his heart beating. I smile and finally pull my hand away.

  "What's this?" he murmurs, removing the flower and inspecting it.

  "I took origami." I grin and turn to pick through pieces of sweet-and-sour chicken. Silas laughs under his breath.

  "Origami, huh? So you're going back?" he whispers.

  "Nope."

  He pauses and furrows his brow at me.

  I blush slightly. "I mean, I was thinking I'd do another type of class. That way I could, you know, try lots of stuff."

  He nudges me slightly. "See? Nothing wrong with a little freedom," he says and retreats toward Scarlett, tucking the paper flower back into his shirt pocket. I watch him go, thinking back on the utterly strange day that's now ending in a flash of brilliant sunset outside our apartment windows. I lied to my sister. I learned how to make a paper ballerina. And I can't be certain, but I think I might have officially fallen in love with Silas Reynolds.

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  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  SCARLETT

  SOMETHING IS DIFFERENT ABOUT ROSIE.

  Something small, something that I don't think anyone except the other half of her heart would notice. She picks up chopsticks and sorts through her Chinese food with an unfamiliar lightness that scares me. How is it possible that anything about Rosie is unfamiliar to me? She plops down on the floor and slides a book over, flipping through it between bites of sweet-and-sour chicken. Silas glances up at her from the book he's scanning for the second time. But I'm the only one making any headway, it seems, with a pile of notes beside me.

  I shake my head and turn back to the book I'm poring over: Myths! Legends! Monsters! by Dorothea Silverclaw. I somehow doubt that's her real name, just as I doubt she even

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  knows what a Fenris is. She calls them werewolves and draws them as cute little wolves that turn into hot teenage boys. She's all about the superstition aspect: garlic stops vampires, ghosts can't cross running water, the seventh son of a seventh son is cursed, faeries want to steal your daughters. Sure, Dorothea. I daresay that the things we learned from Pa Reynolds are far more helpful than anything I've found so far in the library's selection of werewolf lore.

  But though Silas and I have written down everything Pa Reynolds ever told us about the Fenris, and I've combined it with everything useful from the library books, we still can't pinpoint much about the Potential.

  "Maybe we're overthinking it," Rosie says, slamming her book shut.

  I sigh and throw down the stack of papers in my hand. "Maybe. Or maybe this is pointless. We have to go hunting again, even if we can't kill anything--maybe we can overhear, get some information or... something. Anything." Even I can hear the desperation in my voice. Now finding the Potential is always in my mind, like an addiction. The thought of having to go home empty-handed physically hurts.

  "Don't worry, Scarlett," Rosie says softly. She's used this same tone of voice to calm me dozens of times before: the first time I cried when I realized what my mangled face looked like, when we ran out of money and sold the first of Oma March's belongings, when I was certain wolves would overrun Ellison without Silas there. It's not what she says, but the way she says it--a way that makes me believe her,

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  no matter what might be true. "We'll go hunting tonight," she adds. I meet her eyes. The mysterious change is there, shielded by a gentle, comforting expression.

  Her tone is familiar, but that gaze in her eyes is still new, foreign. We need to go hunting again, and not just because we need information. Hunting brings back that feeling of oneness, the torn-apart heart recombining. Not that there's much point in it, with the Fenris being so focused, but it'll still make things right, not just with Rosie, but with Silas too--it binds us together no matter what sort of strange look is in my sister's eyes.

  "We'll leave early this evening, then," I say.

  "Okay--but I'm thinking, maybe we should change up our game plan," Silas adds, rising to set his plate by the sink. "I mean, we need information fast. This isn't a normal hunt."

  "Any ideas?" I ask. Things already feel more right--Silas and I planning a hunt, preparing to take to the night.

  Silas shrugs as he answers. "Well, we could split up. Cover more ground that way."

  I frown, but what can I say? No, Rosie can't handle going alone? That I wanted to hunt to strengthen the bindings between Rosie and me, Silas and me? I want to say no, so badly, but the truth is, it's a good tactic and people are dying. I sigh and nod in agreement.

  Several hours later, all three of us stand at the bottom of the stairwell. Light from the lampposts outside scatters over Rosie's and Silas's faces--for a moment, it's as if they're

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  scarred like me. Rosie looks nervous, but I know she'll never admit to it. You can hunt on your own in this city, Rosie. Probably better than I can.


  "Meet back here at what... three in the morning?" I suggest, running my finger along the handle of my hatchet.

  "Two," Silas says. "Come on, Lett, some of us sleep. And besides, if we haven't found anything by two, we aren't going to."

  I scowl at him but nod. "Fine. Two. Unless you know you're following one or something. In that case, stay with it. Rosie, if you find a group of them..." Rosie gives me a look of frustration and hurt. I don't want to say it--I know it hurts her to hear it--but... "Be careful, Rosie. Please." I feel a little better when Silas gives her a look that repeats my request.

  "I will," she answers us with a sigh, tightening her knife belt.

  "So, I'll go back toward the park where we saw that pack of three," I say, trying to hide the eagerness in my voice. Three... if only I could see those three again. I won't wait for them to transform this time. "Rosie, why don't you go down Seventeenth Street?"

  "That's all businesses--there won't be anyone there this time of night. What's the point?" Rosie gripes, but she nods when I sigh in exasperation.

  "And Silas..."

  "I'll take the north end of the city. Probably too ritzy for many Fenris to hang out, but they'll also be easier to spot

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  prowling, I imagine," he says, reaching back to check the ax handle and adjust his backpack straps.

  "Okay. And two in the morning, right?" I finish. They nod. We hesitate for a moment, each meeting the others' eyes, Silas's lingering on Rosie. Is he worried about her just like I am?

  Then we split. Silas heads in the opposite direction, and Rosie and I touch fingertips briefly before turning away from each other at the mouth of Andern Street. I feel her heart quicken as she walks away. One heart, which I'd hoped to reconnect with over a hunt. But not tonight. Don't be selfish, Scarlett. Dragonflies need you.