by Penny Alley
“One, please,” she said, when one of the two female attendants behind the counter came to stand opposite of her. “Pepperoni if you have it.”
Wiping her hands on her black apron, the woman—a girl, really; barely older than Neoma—looked from her to Scotty and back again. She didn’t move for the longest time, and at first Neoma didn’t notice. By the time she did, the girl was fishing a pastry from the hot case and Neoma could no longer tell if there had been an actual pause or if she’d imagined it.
“Can we have that one?” Scotty pointed to a well-cooked pizza pocket near the front window. The crust was darker than the others, the edges being almost burnt. Neoma didn’t relish the thought of having to gnaw her food, but he’d always been a fan of crunchy and so she nodded. Switching pastries, the attendant slipped it into a foil-lined bag and took it to the register.
“Buck fifty,” she said, a frown pulling at her mouth. She and her companion behind the counter exchanged grimaces.
Neoma passed two dollars across the counter. “May I have an application too, please?”
Both attendants stared at her, and this time there was no mistaking the pause that preceded the first girl’s mean bark of laughter. “Sorry,” she said, as if unable to believe what she’d just heard. “The position has been filled.”
Slapping Neoma’s change down, she gave the deli bag a toss across the counter. Neoma’s reflexes were the only reason it didn’t fall off the other side onto the floor.
Silence, broken only by the low hum of the refrigeration units and the rhythmic grinding of the slushy machine as it churned, filled the store. Neoma looked from one attendant to the other, both girls staring back at her with thinly-veiled animosity. And they weren’t the only ones. Seated at a row of tables by the front window, two old men ignored their coffee cups, their unfinished game of checkers, and each other, but never took their eyes off her. Even the patron at the pumps outside was staring, a sour twist pulling at his lips as if the smell of her all the way across the lot were unbearable.
She looked from one glaring accusation to the next, her chest tightening until all she could feel was the constricted thump of her heart beating against her ribs. She grabbed Scotty’s hand. He grabbed the pastry, otherwise she’d have left it behind. “Come on.”
Leading him from the store, she was so caught up in getting out—getting away—that she ran straight into the one person in all of Hollow Hills that she could have gone the rest of her life without ever seeing again.
Not watching where she was going either, Karly jerked back just before they collided into one another. “Oh!” Her startled laugh sounded far more genuine than the attendant’s inside, but keyed for meanness, that was all Neoma heard. “I’m sorry. I didn’t see you.”
The constant squeeze inside Neoma became impossible to breathe around, and yet she still managed a low growl.
Karly shrank another step back, her smile faltering.
“Ow,” Scotty protested, but she dragged him away without softening her grip, walking as fast as she could without looking back until they reached the far corner of the building. The chevolak was still standing at the door, watching her go but not following. Ducking around the corner, she hid them both from Karly’s sight and waited for her frantic heart to calm back down.
“We’re still eating the pizza pocket, right?” Scotty asked, trying to hide his disappointment. She saw the employee break area then, fenced in by chain link interwoven with privacy strips, some of which were missing. Although no one was there now, a half-filled ashtray on a metal picnic table hinted at frequent use. Scotty wasn’t looking at the table though. He was looking at the dumpster beside it.
Hot shame flushed up through her chest to burn her cheeks. It wouldn’t have been the first time he’d seen her dig through garbage in search of food.
Neoma took a step but caught herself, on the verge not of pulling something out, but of throwing the pastry pocket she’d just bought away. It was silly. She’d been standing there the whole time, watching. There was no way the attendant could have done anything detrimental to their food. There hadn’t been time. But habits were hard to break, and trusting food that came from people Neoma knew disliked them was an old habit finely tuned over many years.
“Can’t we just check if it’s okay?”
Neoma looked down at Scotty, then behind them, but the chevolak hadn’t followed. No one had. A security camera on the roof, however, kept her within its glass sight. The attendants were likely watching them inside the store right now. Her hand itched to throw the deli bag away all over again. Softening her grip on Scotty’s arm, she drew him away from the store, heading out across the parking lot toward the rear of the feed store. “Let’s eat back here.”
A vacant lot of grass and shade trees extended the length of all three stores, and butted up to a high fence that surrounded the school and playground. No children occupied it right now, allowing them to find a quiet spot under a towering evergreen in which to sit. Opening the deli bag, Neoma inspected the pizza pocket. The cheese and sauce were extra hot and gooey, burning the tip of her finger when she broke it open to sniff the contents.
“I’m not a baby anymore, Mom.” Scotty held out his hand. “I can do it myself.”
Neoma relinquished the larger of the halves, but not before she was convinced it was safe to eat. “It’s hot.”
Plopping down cross-legged beside her, Scotty copied her caution, sniffing carefully. “It’s good,” he announced, but waited to take his first bite until she nodded. Hissing, he sucked air through his teeth to cool what he was trying to chew. “If we knew how to make these, we could eat them all the time.” Scotty brightened, red sauce dotting the corners of his mouth. “We could get a job at the Hot Pockets factory.”
“Both of us, huh? What about school?”
He shrugged, but didn’t look at the playground. “You didn’t go to school.”
“Yes, I did.”
“You didn’t finish,” he argued, not looking at her now either. “Besides, if we both get jobs, then we can eat twice as much food and we’ll always have some. Then you won’t have to say you’re not hungry anymore when we both know you are.”
“Neither of us will be hungry anymore because I’m going to get a job,” Neoma said firmly. “Things are different here. They don’t work like they did in Scullamy, and you are going to go to school.”
“What if all the jobs are filled?”
“I’ll keep looking until I find one that isn’t.”
The school bell rang, signaling the start of recess. Within seconds, the yard was filled with laughing, shouting volka children. Scotty didn’t watch any of them play for long. “We don’t have any clothes.”
“We’ll get some.” She had no idea how or where she’d get the money, but she’d find it somewhere. “I’ll figure something out. I promise.”
Eating only a bite or two more, Neoma passed the rest of her pizza pocket to Scotty and waited until he finished his lunch. She watched him lick every bit of sauce and crumb from his fingers and then the inside of the foil-lined deli bag. His belly rumbled; hers answered. She should have bought two.
“Come on.” She stood, brushing pine needles from the seat of her jeans. “Let’s get the shopping done.”
“No tuna fish,” Scotty begged.
“You’ve sauce on your shirt,” she told him, making no promises.
He needn’t have worried. At more than a dollar a can, tuna fish was twice as expensive here as it had ever been in Scullamy. Neoma switched to Plan B: cheap peanut butter, bread, pasta noodles and rice. Nothing was name brand. It was all starch and without fruit, vegetables and very little protein, but if she was careful, what she got might last a week for no more than twenty dollars. If she spent another twenty on secondhand school clothes, that would leave them with a tight—not frightening; frightening was nothing at all—monetary cushion in case it took more than a week for her to find employment. She’d spotted another help wanted sig
n in the grocery store window. That offered slim hope, but after her embarrassment at the gas station, Neoma wasn’t optimistic.
“Don’t touch anything,” she told Scotty as she stepped into line at the only open register. Studying the candy bars, he slipped his hands in his pockets without reply. Neoma barely noticed. She was more concerned with how quiet the rest of the store had become.
Only a handful of other customers were shopping the aisles. It was amazing, how they all seemed so preoccupied whenever she glanced around and yet, as soon as she faced forward again, their collective stares burned into her back. A complete lack of additional conversation made the soothing music flowing over the speaker system sound too loud. A rapid beep-beep at the register marked time as the counter clerk tallied the items of the man in front of her. They were taking turns looking back at her. She dropped her gaze so she wouldn’t have to see the hard accusation in theirs, and then an all too familiar scent hit her: the chevolak.
“And, here we are again.” Karly stepped into the checkout line behind her, a package of bologna and bread in her hands. She smiled at Neoma and then waved to Scotty. “I guess we’re all running errands today. We should have gone together.”
Snatching for the back of Scotty’s shirt, Neoma yanked him to her and quickly faced forward again. Her nerves firing and afraid, she put herself between the human and her son. Her fingers fidgeted with his collar. She tried to calm down, but all she felt was trapped in a hostile environment she couldn’t get out of. Because leaving Hollow Hills wasn’t an option and leaving the store meant no groceries, no job application, and having to spend the rest of her life averting her eyes, backing down, running away. This was supposed to be different, damn it. This was supposed to be her new life; the one in which she didn’t have to live constantly afraid.
Finished paying for his goods, the male in front of her gathered his groceries, gave her one last look and then spat on the floor. The middle-aged woman at the register didn’t say one word of censure to him. It was a relief when he left the store.
Setting her basket down in front of the clerk, Neoma stepped up to the register. She fished her money from her pocket, nervously straightening the folded bills while she waited for the groceries to be tallied. “I’d like an application too please.”
The store clerk didn’t move, not to get an application or to ring up Neoma’s goods. As if the contents were a contamination, she edged from the basket. “We’re not hiring right now.”
Of course not. Neoma swallowed twice, struggling to keep her voice calm and steady in front of the chevolak. “You have a sign in your window.”
“We haven’t had a chance to take it down yet.”
Dropping her eyes, Neoma swallowed again. She almost got angry. She could feel it, the hot flush of temper filling up her belly. Her breaths short and shallow, she kept her mouth shut until she could trust what poured next out of it to be neither antagonistic nor pleading. “I see.” She forced herself to smile, but her face felt too thin to bear the strain of it. “Thank you anyway.”
The older woman behind the counter made no move to ring up Neoma’s purchases. Open hostility mounting, she folded her arms across her chest. Her eyes were hard, angry. Her voice, when she spoke, quavered. “There’s a grocery store in Grady, about fifteen miles up the road. You can buy your groceries there.”
“Oh, whoa.” Too humiliated to speak, Neoma hadn’t said that. It was Karly, blue eyes wide with surprise, who stepped up to the counter. “Come on, wait a minute now…”
“No!” The woman raised a silencing hand. “We reserve the right to refuse service, and I am refusing this.”
“Norma!” Karly said, appalled.
The woman slapped the countertop. “I mean it, Scullamy,” she said, her trembling voice rising in volume. “If you need help finding the door, I’ll be happy to point the way!”
Abandoning her groceries, Neoma grabbed Scotty’s hand and hurried from the store. Her face burned the entire walk back to Gabe’s house. Neither she nor Scotty said a word until they got there.
“Is everybody mad at us?” Scotty asked first, but Neoma didn’t answer. She passed him through the unlocked window, paced until he opened the front door and then walked straight into the bathroom. Locking the door, she grabbed a towel and sat on the edge of the tub. Smothering her breathing in the soft terrycloth, she waited. Her eyes burned and blurred, but she didn’t cry. Honestly, what had she expected? To be welcomed into the community with opened arms? She should have known better.
What had it been…twenty years since Deacon’s last invasion attempt and the death of Hollow Hills’s longest-reigning alpha? Were there years enough in anyone’s lifetime to erase that kind of animosity? Apparently not. So…so much for a job. So much for starting over in a place where Scotty could grow up and she didn’t have to be afraid.
Fifteen miles to Grady? How was she supposed to do that with her arms full of groceries? She held her breath, refusing to breathe until her bottom lips stopped trembling. She wouldn’t cry. She refused to. Her sensitive ears kept picking up the soft rustle of Scotty waiting just outside the door, his equally sensitive ears listening back. Crying would distress him. Things were bad enough without that.
At least they were out of Scullamy. It was a sad mantra. One she kept falling back on, and although it still held a small ring of truth, that ring was getting harder for her to hear.
Hanging the towel back up, Neoma straightened it for minutes longer than the terrycloth required. She couldn’t sit here all day in Gabe’s tidy little bathroom, doing nothing. That was for women who either had money or didn’t have children, and half a hot pocket each wasn’t going to keep the hunger at bay for long.
“Are you okay?” Scotty asked, when she finally opened the bathroom door.
“We’re going to be fine,” she assured, determined that at least one of them should believe it. The residents needed time to get to know them, that was all.
“Maybe Mr. Michaelson can buy our food for us.”
She’d rather swallow her own tongue than ask, but that kind of pride was also for women with money and no children. She had to find a way to survive here. As scary as that was, if it meant coming to some kind of arrangement with Gabe, then that was what she would do. Her stomach pinched in, only this time it had less to do with hunger than it did anxiety.
“My tummy’s making noises,” Scotty said with a sigh.
Hers too. Tomorrow she would try her hand at hunting—squirrel or rabbit, whatever she could find in the forest around the house. For tonight, though, the only thing she had access to were the steaks in Gabe’s fridge. She didn’t feel right about taking them, but maybe he wouldn’t mind so much if she paid for it.
Trying to negotiate her way through someone else’s kitchen was a strange sensation. She found the pans, the salt and pepper and a can of green beans in a closet-style pantry. Scotty watched from the doorway, licking his lips while she cut two wedges off the smaller steak. Leaving a crumpled ten dollar bill in the fridge, she fried them up.
“I hate green beans.” Trailing her to the kitchen table, Scotty climbed onto a chair.
“Five bites.” She set a plate in front of him. His preference for vegetables being almost as legendary as his enjoyment of tuna fish, she’d only put five beans on his.
“That’s all of them,” he said with a groan.
“Want to make it ten?” Choosing the empty seat beside his, she cut his meat into bite-sized pieces until a knock at the door froze them both.
“Is that Mr. Michaelson?” Scotty asked, the first dreaded green bean halfway to his mouth.
Somehow, Neoma doubted Gabe knocked before coming into his own home. Her knuckles whitened as her grip tightened on the silverware.
Lowering his voice, Scotty whispered, “Is it Alpha Deacon? Is he going to make us go home now?”
He wouldn’t knock either.
“Stay here.” Ears straining to pick up the slightest sound, Neoma set everyt
hing down except the steak knife. That she tucked up against her side where hopefully it would not be noticed. If it was Deacon, it wouldn’t help her, but it did lend just enough courage for her to risk approaching the door.
Keeping her foot braced against the bottom to prevent whomever from forcing their way in, she cracked the door a cautious few inches. It wasn’t Deacon. Rather, it was the only other person in the world she feared almost as much.
“Hi.” Karly raised a grocery-bag-laden hand. “I hope you don’t think this is presumptuous, but I wanted to help.”
For a moment, all Neoma could do was stare at both bags. She could see the weight of the contents, bulging out the sides. Her stomach tightened, tensing, hurting to be fed. But not from a chevolak hand. She knew better than that. She’d grown up knowing better. The chevolak had been killing volka for centuries. They were the villains of every fairytale and nursery rhyme. They were the boogeymen parents used to scare little pups into obedience. Everyone in Scullamy knew better than to accept help from a human. But more than that, when it came to food, it wouldn’t be the first time Neoma had been poisoned by someone just ‘wanting to the help’.
And yet, this was the Alpha’s Bride. A woman destined to be her next door neighbor.
“I just…” Karly tried again to offer the groceries. “I thought you might want these back.”
A shudder rippling up her back, Neoma shut the door. She braced her whole body against it, her fingers aching from the strain of her grip on the knife, her hand trembling.
“What does she want?” Scotty asked, his voice low and his face somber. He was far too young to be so grown up. She had to stop doing this, before what she taught him was to be as afraid of everything as she was.
Neoma glared at the door, her fingers tapping nervously at the old wood. Tension twitched in the muscle between her shoulders. She rolled them, struggling for a courage she didn’t feel and calm enough to quiet the trembling in her hands.
“Look, I’m sorry,” Karly said through the door. “It’s not my intent to insult or…or upset you. I just want you to know, I don’t think what happened to you at the store is right. So I…I’ll leave these here and I’ll go.”
