When I was eight, I wanted a playhouse in the backyard, and Dad said he’d only build one if I’d help. And when we finished, and I’d stuck it out through nail shortages and clamp deficiencies and two days of cancellations due to rain, I was happier about his bragging on me than I was about the playhouse. Maybe Mom will be the same way. If I can call her that. I’ll wait until the room is clean, and then I’ll ask.
After all, I have nothing else to do. I’m going to be here all the time, since I won’t have to go to school. Instead of being happy about that, a heaviness builds in my stomach. I will be homeschooled. I will use an outhouse. I will pee in a kettle.
6
For two weeks, I clean. I pull covers off furniture and dust it. I organize a line of appliances under one side of the eaves behind the small stack of two-by-fours. I stack boxes beside the door, dragging the heavy ones full of books and lifting the lighter ones full of clothes.
The first day, I pick up a box and a spider runs at me and scurries up my leg. I scream and drop the box, slap the spider off my leg and leap onto the couch to catch my breath while my heartbeat slows. I can still feel it crawling on me. When I finally stop shuddering, I get up and gingerly lift the box and drop it on the huge brown thing. Lifting the box again, I peer underneath, ready to throw it at the hideous creature.
The spider is nothing but a harmless-looking tangle of broken-twig legs now. I find the vacuum and suck it up. Only then do I stop feeling its little legs on my arms, my neck, my back. With a last shudder, I go back to moving boxes. I vacuum a hundred times or more. I push furniture around. My mother was wrong—the couch does not extend into a bed. But it’s long enough for me to sleep on if I prop my feet up on one end. She even brings me sheets, the cotton worn soft with age.
While I clean, I try to block out the sounds below. The sounds of laughter, of family. I try not to think about it. I put every effort into getting the room done, working until my muscles ache so bad I can hardly move when I wake up in the morning. When I need to get out of the room, I go downstairs to the outhouse, ignoring my sisters’ stares. After a week, I barely remember a toilet that flushes.
At night, my sister brings me food before darting out, never staying to talk. My mother brings me books to study for school and tells me I can supplement with the ones in the boxes. But I’m too tired to read. Each night, I collapse in exhaustion, sometimes before dinner. I lie on the couch and pull the sheet over my face and breathe it into my mouth, imagining what it feels like to smother. To just stop breathing, like Dad did when he had his heart attack.
It’s on one of these evenings, as I’m lying in a heap of exhaustion and aching muscles, that I hear laughter outside the house, on the path. Already I can tell it’s the laughter of boys, boisterous and too loud, somehow turning a laugh into a brag. Some instinctive reaction tugs at me, a remnant of the life that seems to have been the dream. This is the bleak reality.
I find myself standing at the window without knowing how I dragged myself there. If I lean in all the way, press my cheek to the streaked pane, I can see the path through the thinning rust and gold leaves of the trees. And then I hear that sing-song voice from the ancient past.
“El-lee ba-by,” it calls out.
I rest my fingertips on the pane and watch the group approach. This time, it’s only three—the nerdy guy, the Asian girl, and the guy with the white streak in his hair. As if he can feel me watching, his eerie eyes rise to the window and lock onto mine. He smiles, and starbursts explode down my spinal cord. A puff of air leaves my lungs, bursts from my lips, fogging the window. When I blink, he’s gone, blocked from view by the front porch. Did I imagine that?
Of course I imagined it. He can’t see me in this dim, dismal room when it’s still light outside. I watch the sky above turn a golden pink, coloring the swollen belly of clouds like a big round peach. Within minutes, it’s gone, leaving only a deep pink gash behind the trees. I wonder if Elidi saw that. If he saw it.
A chill wraps itself around me and I step away from the window, hugging myself. When I look down, I see the same hoodie I’ve been wearing for days, the cuffs blackened with dust, a hole in one sleeve where a nail snagged it. I’ve let myself go, too busy cleaning and organizing to pay attention to little things like makeup and…showers.
I can’t go downstairs now, to appear in front of Elidi’s friends looking like this. I dig out my makeup bag and start taking off my nail polish. The scent of the remover stings my eyes, fills me with a hundred memories—convincing Dad to let me paint his nails when I was a kid, going to the store with him afterwards, where a saleslady had to help us find “something to get it off.” We didn’t know what nail polish remover was called. When I was older, I must have tried a hundred new shades with Emmy, painting each nail a different color, enduring the epic failure of each and every do-it-yourself nail art tutorial we found online.
Before I can get myself together, I hear them outside again, retreating. I examine my nails, straggly and broken down to the quick, ringed with dirt and grime. I don’t recognize my own hands.
A tap sounds on the door, and I stuff my polish remover into my bag like I’ve been caught doing something forbidden. Elidi opens the door a crack and peers through the gloom at me. “What’s that smell?”
“That?” I say. “Oh, cleaning supplies, I guess.”
She pulls the door open further and stares in at me. “We’re going to eat at the community center. Mother said I should make sure you have everything you need.”
“Can I come?” I ask, standing up from the couch.
Her gaze travels the length of the room, settling on anything but me. The boxes are stacked neatly along the walls, the floor swept, the random items organized by use. “I don’t know. I could ask…” She doesn’t look happy at the prospect.
“It would be good to get out of here for a little while.”
“The room looks good.”
“You think she’ll like it?” I ask, shoving my hand in the back pocket of my jeans.
Elidi shrugs. “Maybe.”
“Should I get ready? Is it everyone in the community, or just you and your friends?”
“Everyone,” she says, her face growing more animated. And her eyes…her eyes are not gold like mine, like Mother’s. They are a dark brown, almost black, sparkling with excitement. “And my friends.”
“Should I dress up? Is it a party?” The thought gives me more life than I expected. I haven’t touched most of my clothes since I got here.
“It’s a lunar meeting,” she says, as if I should know what that means.
“What’s a luna meeting?”
“A lunar meeting,” she says, her tone as impatient as if I asked what clothes were. “Because it’s the full moon…?”
She’s got to be kidding. “You have a meeting every time there’s a full moon?”
“Well…yeah.”
“A party. For a full moon.”
She nods and bugs her eyes at me, an expression as familiar as my own face. This is weirder than I thought. But it’s starting to make more sense, all the things our mother has said, how I’m not one of them and I don’t understand. She’s right. Because I am normal, and normal people do not worship the moon.
This is a cult.
Before I can ask more questions, Mother appears in the doorway. “What are you doing?” she demands.
“I was just telling her about the lunar meeting,” Elidi says, looking guilty.
“I told you, you can’t talk to her,” Mother snaps. “She won’t understand the simplest things about us.”
“Can I go, too?” I ask, gesturing at the room. “I cleaned up.”
“What about the windows?” she asks, striding in and pointing to the far window, then the skylight. “What about the floor?”
“I vacuumed…”
“Get her a bucket,” she says to Elidi, then turns to me as Elidi slips out. “It needs to be scrubbed. You can spend the evening getting it cleaned up right. And do
n’t even think about coming out until it’s spotless. This isn’t the city. We don’t have maids here.”
“But look how much I’ve done,” I try.
“I said it’s not good enough,” she says, her voice rising. Her golden eyes have gone dark too, flashing with sparks warning me to back away before I get burned. Are they on some kind of drug?
“So I’m just supposed to stay here and scrub the floor forever? When is it going to be good enough?”
“Don’t argue with me,” she snaps. “I’ve had enough of you!”
“But—”
Before I can argue further, she raises her hand and brings it across my cheek in one quick, sharp blow. A flash of shock precedes the pain. I reel backwards, my fingers flying to the burning skin of my cheek. My mother spins on her heel and stomps out, slamming the door behind her. My eyes sting with tears. No one has ever hit me before, not even another kid, and certainly not an adult.
I sink onto the couch and try to absorb what just happened. All this work, all this time, and she’s no happier with me than the day I arrived. And I have no idea what to do about it. If I waited until they were gone, I could run. But I don’t know where I would go. I don’t even know how long it would take to get to the next town—probably days, and I’d never make it through the woods on my own. Not even if I did imagine all those crazy scenes my first day here.
When Elidi brings the bucket and scrub brush, I can’t look at her. Mother hovers in the doorway, guarding to make sure we don’t speak to each other. She meets my eyes, daring me to challenge her again. When she closes the door this time, I hear the jangle of keys, and the click of the lock as she turns the key in the old-fashioned knob. I couldn’t go anywhere if I wanted. And I’m too humiliated to try.
7
I watch out the window as my new family walks away from the house, up the slight slope of the driveway to the wider path that runs through the little group of cabins. I can hear my sisters chattering excitedly, can see Zora’s hands moving as she talks. And then they are gone.
I race for my phone, fumbling it off the charger, praying before I switch it on that this will be the day I will have service. Closing my eyes, I press the button and wait for it to gear up. After a minute, my apps blink into place.
Zero bars.
I sigh and drop it with a clatter onto the floor. My forehead drops to my knees, and for a long time, I don’t move. Finally, slowly, I get to my feet and go to the bucket of soapy water. I stare into it without moving for five minutes, ten, before going back to the couch. After peeling off my dirty sweatshirt and jeans, I crawl under the blankets and curl into a ball and cradle Dad’s necklace in my palm. The day was warm, so they didn’t light a fire downstairs, but now it’s cooling down. I shiver and huddle closer into the musty couch.
When I wake, it’s dark outside. A few insects are still brave enough to sing even though it’s October and chilly out. For a minute, I wait, listening. Something woke me.
It comes again, a lonesome, mournful howl somewhere out in those woods. It’s so close the hairs all along my arms and back stand up. I hug the blankets tighter around me, my blood turning to ice in my veins. I wonder if my mother and sisters are home yet, and what time it is, but I don’t want to get out of the blankets to get my phone. I know it’s silly and stupid. Whatever is howling outside isn’t going to grab me if I get out of bed. But I wouldn’t get up for anything in the world, especially when an answering call sounds, this one closer still.
Chills run through me as I lie staring blindly into the darkness. My fingers cramp from clutching the blanket so tightly, holding it up around my neck like a kid scared of monsters. Only these monsters are real, and they’re right outside my window. I didn’t imagine them. Which means the mountain lion was real, too, and the murderous forest.
When I hear a scraping sound and the snap of a branch breaking outside, I have to bite back a scream. Wolves can’t climb, but cougars can. And who knows what the snaking vines can do. My heart is pounding so hard that’s all I hear for the next minute as I lie, stiff as a corpse, waiting for it to break through the window and come for me.
The next sound is a lonesome howl a bit further off, and the answering cry is further still. An owl hoots, and I clutch the blankets tighter again. Something is coming for me. I can feel it. Something in that forest.
I don’t sleep again until morning, when the birds begin singing and the light creeps into the sky, long after the howling has ceased. Until I hear the murmur of voices outside on the path, and the front door closing as my mother and sisters come stumbling in sometime after dawn. That same boisterous, boy laughter taunts me from the path leading to the other cabins. My frosty mother is laughing downstairs after being out all night. If this is a cult, they sure know how to party.
8
The jangling of keys outside my door wakes me. I open my eyes, not sure if I’ve slept more than a few minute or half the day. Rain is slapping the windows, drumming on the tin roof.
“Did you get your room mopped?” Mother asks, striding in.
I push myself up on my elbows. “No.”
“So you just lazed around here all evening, and now you’re going to sleep the day away? I told you, we don’t have a maid. I’m tired of the princess act. Get out of bed and get busy.”
“I’m sick of cleaning,” I say, sitting up and throwing off the blankets. “I didn’t even live here when you got all this junk. This isn’t my mess to clean up.”
“It’s your room, isn’t it?” Mother says. “You’re lucky I took you in at all. I never asked for this. You should be grateful I agreed to it.”
“Well, I’m sure you wouldn’t have if they’d given you a choice.”
“You spoiled brat,” she says. “I can’t believe how entitled you are. Coming in here and expecting us to clean your room for you.”
“I don’t expect you to clean my room for me,” I say, my face hot with anger. “But I’m not your slave. After all I’ve done in the last few weeks, you could have let me go with you last night. It’s not like you were working. You were out having a good time. I heard you get home this morning, so don’t even deny it. So how come I have to stay home and clean while you go out and party all night?”
She takes a deep breath, her face reddening, too. “You’re not like us,” she says. “I don’t expect you to understand.”
“I’m like Elidi,” I point out. “Exactly like her.”
Mother sighs, her shoulders slumping. “One day, I’ll tell you why it has to be this way, and you’ll thank me for keeping you safe. You’ll thank me for sending you away with your father. For right now, Stella, you’ll just have to take my word for it. It’s not safe for you to go traipsing around with the people around here. You can’t trust them.”
“Then how come Zora and Elidi can?”
“You’ll just have to trust me,” she says again. “I don’t want you wandering around in the woods, getting lost or…anything else. I may not have asked for you to come here, but I don’t want you getting killed on my watch, either.”
“Is it because of the wolves?” I ask, my anger forgotten. A crack of thunder sounds outside, and I shiver, though I’m not sure if the storm is the cause, or the memory of the hair-raising howls the night before.
“What did you say?” my mother asks, her eyes intense.
“I heard howling,” I say. “When I woke up last night.”
She regards me with narrowed eyes. Golden eyes. What the hell? Did I dream that her and Elidi’s eyes changed to black? At last she says, “Yes. There are wolves in these woods. We wouldn’t want you to get hurt.”
A horrible thought forms in my mind then. If I keep smarting off to her, she might throw me out. And whatever is in those woods is a lot worse than a mean mother.
“Okay,” I say, slumping in defeat. “I’ll wash the floor. Sorry I didn’t get to it last night.”
“Good.” She turns and walks out, closing the door. This time, she doesn’t lock it
. I get up and start washing. When I drag a roll of carpet aside, a mouse darts out and I scream. It dashes under an old bureau and crouches there, regarding me. Slowly, I lower myself to the floor, staying far enough away that I’ll have time to jump up if it runs at me.
But it just sits there, its whiskers trembling, its black eyes shining. “Hey, little mouse,” I whisper. In an instant, it disappears behind a stack of boxes. I search for it, but it’s gone. I push up my sleeves and go back to scrubbing, wondering if, when this is done, Mother will let me join them for meals. If she’ll let me meet the others, if I’ll be best friends with the rocker-girl playing Frisbee, the black girl with the beautiful curls, or my own sister. I wonder if Talia will let me date, and who I would date. The boy with one arm, or a boy in skinny jeans, or the tall boy with the strange eyes. I shiver again, but this time, it’s not an unpleasant sensation.
Part Two
Fifteen
1
I pluck a nail from the row clamped between my lips and try to hold it, and the plank I’m nailing, with my left hand while swinging the hammer with my right. I give the nail a good whack and it sinks into the pine. Now that it’s partially through, I hold the hammer with both hands and give it one more good blow. It sinks completely. I tap the head to make sure it’s not going to snag someone who brushes up against the fence by accident. Mother tolerates only perfection.
I drop to one knee and brace the next plank with my thigh while I get the nail ready. This is really a two-person job, but Mother and my sisters have gone apple picking. I squint into the sun, shaking my hair out of my eyes, and drive the next nail in. Standing, I brush the hair off my damp forehead with the back of my wrist. It’s warm, a day that feels more like August than September, and the sun beats down, burning my skin. I hardly notice. For me, there’s been no sun for a long time.
Unlikely Magic: A Cinderella Retelling (Girl Among Wolves Book 1) Page 3
