Ladybird, Ladybird . . .

by Abra Ebner

  I bit my lip, feeling every ounce of my body concede to his coax. I placed the bridle on the branch as my answer. I wasn’t worried that Axon would leave. He simply wouldn’t risk abandoning his bounty of wheat to the deer.

  “Come on. We’ll make a fire. There’s plenty of fish in the creek. It’ll be like camping. This is my property, and I know how to live off it. You’re safe here,” he insisted again.

  Making the decision for me, and only me, lifted a weight off my shoulders. I took a deep breath, a flutter of excitement pulsing through me. For a long time, I’d known that I could take care of myself. This was finally my chance to do so. I had to let go of the guilt that bound me to my miserable life. I was old enough to make these decisions. Even if for one night, I was going to get a taste of freedom.

  SIX

  “See? Perfect.” Leith handed me a piece of fish.

  I looked at it with a crooked frown.

  “I can’t believe you’ve never had fish,” he chuckled.

  I shrugged. “My meals consist of whatever crumbs I can find lying around. I’m a milk-and-cereal girl.”

  He laughed. “Well, stick with me, and you’ll finally get some protein.”

  I smiled, gingerly rotating the fish in my hand to inspect it. I was hungry—that was certain—but trying something that smelled like this felt inhuman. Leith watched me, urging me with his eyes.

  I finally took a bite . . . chewed . . . swallowed.

  “Well?” He lifted one brow.

  I shrugged. “I guess it’s all right.”

  Leith looked excited by my answer, as if his opinion of me depended on it. “It would be better fried with tartar sauce but it’s okay.” He took another bite of his own fish.

  I watched him happily. At least a couple of hours had passed since he had convinced me to stay. He hadn’t dared get as close to me as he had before. I guess in a way, to him, finding me was like finding a wounded dog in the middle of the road. Of course you embrace it right away and caress its paw because you’re trying to make it feel better. It was a weak analogy but gave his actions reason beyond liking me. I was trying not to get my hopes up.

  Leith grunted and leaned back against a log. I watched as he drew in a long, deep breath. His chest rose then fell low as he exhaled. He leaned his head back, pinching the bridge of his nose and squeezing his eyelids closed. He stayed like that for a moment.

  I watched, wondering what he was doing. “What’s wrong?”

  He dropped his hand and opened his eyes. “Just the smoke making my head hurt.” He smiled. “It only lasts a moment, and then it goes away. No big deal.”

  “Oh.” I smiled sweetly in return, continuing to eat the bites of fish Leith had given me.

  He sat up, poking the fire with a branch he’d snapped off the tree. “This is fun, isn’t it?” I could see the boyish excitement light his eyes.

  I laughed sarcastically. “Yeah, Leith. It’s great.”

  He stared at me, smiling slightly as he thought.

  I wanted to know what he was thinking. Looks such as that weren’t innocent. “What?”

  Both brows rose this time. “It’s amazing that you can be as disheveled as you are and still look . . .” he paused, shuffling words, “so . . . beautiful.”

  I snorted, heart fluttering. I shifted completely, not knowing what to do or say in return. “I’m a mess. You’re just saying that to be nice.” I couldn’t find a comfortable position, so I rose to my feet to avoid his gaze. It was too powerful for me to allow in. I was used to being alone. I was used to the idea of a boy falling for me, not actually having it happen. I’d spent all my time obsessing over how to convince a boy that I was safe. I had neglected planning how to handle it past the first touch. I was like a raft without a paddle at this point.

  Leith looked discouraged.

  I pulled the hem of my shirt out in front of me and looked at it. I really was a mess. Dust covered every inch of my once black T-shirt. At least it was black. Going to school in the morning was going to cause even more embarrassment than the bruise on my cheek would alone. I looked like a bum.

  “I need to wash my shirt,” I said to change the subject, turning back to the fire.

  Leith couldn’t have hidden the glint of hope that returned to his eye.

  My own eyes narrowed. “So, turn around.”

  The glint died.

  He nodded politely and turned away from me, playing with the stick in the dirt. I stared at the back of his head, burning a hole in the buckle of his baseball cap with my eyes. Feeling confident that I had secured some privacy, I removed my shirt and found my way to the creek where I dunked it in the water. I scrubbed the whole of it, not sure just where the dirt was in the dim firelight, but content with the assured progress. I shivered slightly but quelled it. It was going to be a chilly night under a cloudless sky, and now my shirt was wet. I hadn’t thought this through.

  I looked back over my shoulder in time to see Leith twist his gaze away from me and back to the fire.

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Want my shirt?” he offered.

  I snorted. “No.” I kept scrubbing.

  “You should take it,” he insisted.

  He had helped me enough, but before I could reply, his shirt landed in a heap beside me.

  “I promise I don’t stink.”

  I laughed. “All boys stink.”

  I gingerly lifted his white shirt off the ground and tugged it over my head. Pulling it down over my body felt heavenly, like wrapping myself in the hug he had given me earlier. Swimming in the length of it, I tried to bunch it into the back of my jeans. It was cleaner than mine had been, still warm, and it didn’t stink. His pleasant scent enveloped me, like the smell of a grain store, sweet, rich, and soft like baked bread.

  “Well, do I?”

  “Do you what?”

  “Stink.”

  I pulled my shirt from the water and turned back toward the fire. I wasn’t prepared for what I saw. I was taken by the arch of his bare back, firelight dancing across tanned skin. “No,” I murmured, tongue twisted.

  I tried to hide my faltering, forcing one foot in front of the other until I’d successfully reached the edge of the fire. I diverted my gaze, looking anywhere but directly at him. Laying my shirt over the low branch of the nearby tree, I poked and adjusted the fabric unnecessarily. I was pretending not to care about the luxury of his bare skin and the mental images of mine against it. Finding there was no more smoothing I could possibly do to the fabric, I sat, pulled my knees up to my chest, and wrapped my arms around my legs. Eyes fixed on the fire, I said and did nothing.

  A few silent moments later, Axon whinnied low before lifting his back leg and falling into sleep. He had broken the silence.

  “Sure is quiet out here,” Leith began. “You forget what that’s like sometimes. We forget how to connect to the Earth.”

  I nodded, still keeping my gaze away as though there were a wall preventing my eyes from turning in that direction. “I know. I like the silence because it’s there that I feel I can talk to my mother.” I felt myself blush. “I really do talk to my mother,” I said insistently.

  “I bet you can hear her too. I believe in ghosts myself, even if they are just the ghost of a memory. Being haunted is a very real thing.”

  “You’re right in so many ways,” I agreed. Haunted to me, though, was certainly much different from haunted to him.

  “So your mother died in childbirth, I take it?” he dug.

  I nodded. “I figured that was common knowledge by now. I’m the girl born under a full moon who killed her mother in the process. That’s a wicked truth—like a curse in a children’s fairytale. I’ll spend a lifetime living that one down.”

  “I’m sure there are plenty of children born under a full moon,” he rationalized.

  I nodded. “Oh, plenty! But in this town, I’m the only one. Unless . . . you were . . .”

  Leith shook his head. “Nope, just a regular, sliver of a
moon on a regular, Tuesday night, or something like that.”

  I laughed, forgetting myself enough to look at him. My laughter stopped, frozen by the sudden lump in my throat. He had one knee bent up toward his chest, one arm casually slung over it, the other slightly behind him, propping him up. This made his shoulders look masculine, the natural build of a farm boy a blessing to my untrained eye. I forced myself to try to look at his face but found that the juxtaposition of a head clothed in a hat to a bare torso far too stimulating for my virgin mind.

  I coughed to break the spell and looked back at the flames, feeling like a fire myself.

  Leith snickered discreetly under his breath, and I knew he was laughing at the way I had just reacted. “So anything else interesting I should know about you? I can see you like to ride horses, and based on the fact you’ve never had fish, I can deduce that you’re not much in the kitchen . . .” his voice trailed, suggesting I continue the list.

  I giggled.

  He went on, “Oh, and you have an omen over your head, and the whole town thinks you’re a burning witch. But come on, there’s got to be more to Sam Jenkins than that.”

  “Plenty more,” I mumbled, brows high.

  “So spill. We have all night.” I could hear him biting back a comment in the tone of his voice, only to give in with an intake of breath. “Unless you’re planning to start kissing me, which I can see would be far too complicated for you. So you better start talking. You see, I pride myself on being a patient man, but my patience is wearing thin. Talk . . . or I may just have to force you to do the other.”

  My jaw dropped and I gawked at him. “Excuse me?” I sputtered.

  He shrugged. “Just saying. I’m fighting some serious demons in order to stay planted where I am instead of wrapped around you, and I’m going to need some pretty interesting stories if you plan on keeping it that way. Just want to warn you. I’m afraid my demons can be pretty convincing at times. When they taste blood in the water, watch out.”

  My eyes grew wider. “Geez, you really were raised to tell the truth.”

  He shrugged again.

  I shook my head. There was no way I could just fall right into something like this. No way. “I like to draw,” I blurted.

  “Okay,” he said. “What do you like to draw?”

  I was completely flustered. I shut my eyes, trying hard to think about my drawing. I wasn’t good at it, but I’d gotten really good at being bad at it. Wasn’t that what art was anyway? Consistency? I had that. I also now had a distraction for this suddenly awkward moment. “Clouds,” I admitted.

  “Clouds are pretty easy to draw,” he stated just as plainly as before.

  “Sometimes. But have you ever really thought about it. I mean, really picture a cloud in your mind, and then try to envision drawing that.”

  “What happens in the summer when there are no clouds?” He laughed.

  I laughed too.

  “This is good. I like this.” He shut his eyes, calming his laughter to be more serious. “I guess I could see the challenge in that.” His eyes shot open, piercing mine. “What else?”

  This kind of rapid-fire answering wasn’t going to last long, but I still had bullets. “I collect keys.”

  He tilted his head. “Wow, interesting.”

  “Yeah. I’ve done it for a really long time.”

  “Are there many keys to find around here?” he asked skeptically

  I nodded. “You’d be surprised.”

  He pushed out his bottom lip. “I guess I am surprised. So why do you collect keys?”

  I tried to think of a reason other than because my mother sends them to me and they open a secret, magical box under my bed. My mind quickly threw an idea together. “I like the idea of finding new worlds, as I’m sure you can imagine. Escaping my real life is a necessity if I plan to make it to my twenties with my sanity intact.” I was surprised with myself. This was sounding believable. “I like to imagine where each key would take me and what that place would be like.” It wasn’t a bad lie, and I actually made a note to remember to say this next time. It could be fun.

  “Like finding this place, right?” He motioned to the canopy of leaves overhead, illuminated by the firelight.

  I nodded with enthusiasm. “Yeah, I suppose this could be a place like that.”

  He smiled. “What kind of key would you imagine to open a place like this? Describe it to me.”

  I really liked this game. Keys were something I knew, backward and forward. “Well, I guess I would imagine it to be antique, the hilt rusty, round . . . definitely solid.” I narrowed my eyes, trying to see it. “The key end would be organically shaped, not cold and square like most, not pointy to suggest fear, but not boring and round either.”

  Leith nodded, face animated with interest. “Would you put a heart on the end? Would you perhaps consider this to be the one place where a thing such as your heart could be safe?”

  I bit my lip, trying to hide a smile that I couldn’t. “I would. I like that.”

  Silence fell over us again, and I felt my heart pound harder with each second.

  Leith chuckled again to himself. “You know I’m just having fun here, right? I want you to know I really won’t try anything. It’s just amusing to see you squirm a little.”

  I nodded to indicate I understood, though I didn’t.

  “I mean, in a way I guess I am testing the waters, but these are waters I’ve never tested. I’m not really one with the ladies. I’ve never been in a situation like this.”

  I nodded again, eyes wide this time. “You sure act confident about it—like you’ve been here before.”

  He dropped his arm from his knee then crossed his legs and leaned forward. This made me look him in the eye. “Seriously, Sam. I like you. I do. Confidence and truth are the two things that make a good man, and I want you to know that I possess those things.”

  “Well, I see them,” I said sarcastically.

  Leith ignored my nervous retort. “For a while I’ve felt something for you but always from a distance. Seeing you today, though, and having you open up to me like you have, now I can’t help but feel compelled to protect every inch of you, not from a distance.”

  I liked the fact that, given his words, you would think he’d try to make an advance, but he stayed planted opposite the fire from me.

  “This can be your safe place, and that key you just described will always be there for you. That is something no one can take away.” He looked back to the fire. “I wish you could see yourself from my perspective. You look so scared, frightened, and beaten down by the world. Never, ever, would I prey on those weaknesses. Instead, I’d work to make them stronger. That, Sam, is what I’m trying to do.”

  I simply didn’t know what to say. Those words had floated around in my mind before, said by a man I did not yet know, a man that had been molded from a hundred heroes in storybooks I’d read. But here he was.

  Leith pushed at the fire once more, the stick in his hand smoldering. “You don’t have to attempt an answer.” He smiled to himself, but I saw it anyway. “Your body answers for you. It’s pretty easy to see.”

  I suddenly didn’t need the fire in front of me to keep me warm. I was hot enough already. I thought that, if I had been wearing my wet shirt, it surely would have dried from the warmth of my body by now. In truth, I was lucky that I hadn’t become a fire hazard, but no matter how hot I got or how much I burned my victims, I was yet to set something aflame. Fevers such as this were rare, deep, and alluring, often brought on by a dream in which happiness was involved. These fevers had never come from the real world, where happiness had never truly existed for me. Setting something aflame was actually becoming a concern. How, though, could Leith not feel my fire like every other blistered hand I’d been to blame for?

  He changed the subject. “Should we go to sleep?”

  For some reason those words disappointed me.

  “It is a school night, after all. At least for you.” He winke
d. “You can stay over there, and I’ll stay here.” He tossed me my backpack to use for a pillow.

  I caught it, resting it on the ground beside me before sliding across the dirt and lying down, still facing him. “What about you? Do you need a pillow?”

  Leith shook his head. “I’m a man.” He patted the log he had been leaning against earlier. “I’ll be fine.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  He snorted and turned, laying his head on the leaves that covered the ground, tipping the bill of his hat over his eyes and face.

  I sat and watched him for a while, his chest rising and falling, his breaths deepening. I couldn’t help but feel that twang of disappointment linger, but it was for the best. Before today, Leith Buckhead had no first name. There was no need to rush into things.

  SEVEN

  A branch snapped and I woke up shivering. The heat from my emotion had faded. My personal fire had died. I heard Axon draw in a deep breath then exhale comfortably from where he stood in the tall grass under another, smaller tree. I, on the other hand, was not so comfortable.

  When I opened my eyes, they were met with what I feared—nothing but darkness. I let my whole body shiver uncontrollably. Cold leaves had dampened my jeans and Leith’s shirt that had once warmed me. Shutting my eyes, I tried to concentrate on falling back asleep. There was nothing out there and nowhere to go right now.

  Another branch snapped right beside me. I quickly rolled away from the sound. Looking up from the ground, I could see nothing but shadow. I breathed deeply, wanting to scream but not able to gather the necessary means. The shadow moved, a shiver rolled down my spine, and a warm hand grabbed my arm. I tried to scream again but another hand quickly clamped over my mouth.

  “Shh . . .” Leith whispered. He dropped his hand.

  I couldn’t see him, but I felt him lie beside me. Arms wrapped around my shoulders, and he pulled me against him without permission. He didn’t need it, given the cold. His heat overcame me, and my sudden heat added to the fire. He gently nestled me into him, my head resting on his arm instead of the cold backpack. He smoothed my hair with his hand then rested his nose in the crook of my neck, where his breathing tickled my skin. It was moist, enchanting, and real.