A pair of hands falls on my hips from behind. I scream, and a handful of nails tumbles from my lips.
“How’d you get here so fast?” a voice murmurs in my ear. I twist away, turning to stare up into the unnerving eyes of Harmon, the boy with the white streak in his hair. I don’t get many chances to talk to anyone, but through many whispered, two-sentence conversations with Elidi, I have learned this much.
Who’s that boy?
Which one?
The only one.
I didn’t have to say more than that. She knew. She laughed and told me his name.
“What are you doing here?” I demand. It’s more accusation than question.
“What are you doing?” he asks. He smells like sunshine and apples.
My insides twist, but it’s a different kind of hunger. I wish I hadn’t pushed him away so fast. I don’t think anyone has touched me in a year, and I want to take his hands and put them back on me, all over me. I want to be a kitten, cupped in the palms of his hands, rubbing my body against him.
“I’m building a fence. What does it look like?” I snap.
He takes a step back, recognition of his mistake dawning. And I know I missed my chance to revel in his touch. “It looks like you took on a big job for such a little girl,” he says, regaining his composure.
I could say a million things—that I’m not a little girl, not really, not on the inside. That I’ve grown up hard and bitter, like something growing around a stony tumor, scarred from touching it. I could tell him that I didn’t take on this big job, it was given to me by my mother, just like all the other jobs. Cleaning my room was just the beginning, and it hasn’t stopped since. Somewhere along the way, I accepted that it wouldn’t. It’s her way of keeping me from joining in with everyone else, becoming part of their nature cult or even our family. I am the crazy girl in the attic, not exactly a secret, but never mentioned in polite conversation.
But now one of the guys is standing right here, and she’s not around to stop me from talking to him. And though he doesn’t look thrilled that I’m not Elidi, he hasn’t run away yet. He hasn’t turned his face and pretended he doesn’t notice what’s going on right under his nose, in this house where I’m not much more than a slave.
“What are you doing here?” I ask again. “You like to walk through the woods like a creeper and sneak up on people when they’re working? You couldn’t, say, come to the front door and knock?”
“I’m not allowed to walk through the woods?” he asks with a smirk. “You think you own this land?”
“No,” I say, smacking the head the hammer lightly into my calloused palm. “I don’t own anything. But neither do you.”
“I can go wherever I want in this valley,” he says with a haughty tilt of his chin. “I’m going to be leader someday. You might want to remember that before getting an attitude.”
“Leader of what? Your freaky cult? Does it look like I care?”
“You should care.” He smirks down at me, and I try not to let my gaze take in too much of him. I’ve never been so close to him, haven’t seen him in person since last year. Since then, I’ve watched a dozen times from my window when he came to visit, a dozen more when he left. But now, in the flesh, I drink it all in—how his hair has grown a little longer, so it curls around his ears, and his shoulders have gotten wider since last fall. He might be even taller. His smooth, amber skin is still free of stubble on his square jaw, and his eyes still send a jolt through me when I meet them.
When our eyes finally do meet, he gives me a look that makes me remember I am a girl, that I once cared what boys who looked like him thought of what girls looked like. That I once cared what I looked like. Suddenly I feel ugly and exposed. I haven’t worn makeup since the day I got here. I’ve never needed to. I rarely see anyone besides my sisters and my mother. If company comes, my room is always suddenly and mysteriously a huge disaster that needs deep cleaning because I am such a worthless slob.
I drop my gaze and hunch my shoulders. “You shouldn’t be here,” I say. “I’m not supposed to talk to you.”
“Oh yeah?” he asks, cocking his head. “Why’s that?”
“I—I’m not really sure,” I say, daring a glance at his face.
He’s still smiling, but he looks more curious than haughty. “Huh. I guess it’s probably best,” he muses. “Don’t talk to strangers, right?”
When I see his teasing smile, I relax a tiny bit, just enough to manage a nervous laugh. “I guess so. You don’t look that scary to me.”
“You never know,” he says. “Maybe I’m the big bad wolf. I might eat you all up.”
I laugh again, but the way he says it makes me go hot all over, and it has nothing to do with the Arkansas afternoon.
“You’re blushing,” he says.
“I am not.”
“Are, too.” He reaches out and gives my hair a playful tug, just like a boy pulling a little girl’s pigtails.
But I’m not a little girl. A tingle spreads across the crown of my head, all the way down my spine. I slap at his hand, but he pulls it back before I hit him. He laughs unselfconsciously, with his whole body. Like he’d never worry about what I’m thinking about him. And why would he? I’m nothing but the house-slave of his friend’s mother.
“You should go,” I say, crouching to collect the fallen nails. “My mother won’t like it if she finds you here.”
“I’m not scared of your mother,” he says, with all the bravado of a good boy trying to prove he’s tough. He can’t be more than a few years older than me, and it’s obvious he actually is a little scared of my mother. “I’m going to be pack leader,” he adds. “She’ll come around then.”
“Pack leader?” I ask, giving him an incredulous look. “You may be the leader of your little posse, but I don’t think my mom is ever going to do what you say.” I don’t add that my sisters—and probably all the other girls—would.
“Of course she will,” he says, his broad grin melting over me like honey. He leans in, and again, I smell the warm apples he picked today, the sun beating down on his skin. “And so will you.”
“Never.” I raise my chin, my eyes flashing with a challenge. For a second, something primal stirs between us, an electricity that thrills and terrifies me. Suddenly, I’m breathless, and I have to drop my eyes.
When he walks away, he’s laughing, his arms swinging loosely, his whole body so alive with everything he does. I watch him, since he can’t see me looking, like I have so many times before. Not only admiring him, but envious of his self-assuredness, his freedom, his certainty of his place in the world. He has an air of confidence that belies his years, despite the little slips that show his true age now and then. Maybe he is going to be the cult leader. That might explain his confidence, the way he comes over whenever he wants, always sure that he will be invited in and fed. And he is. I know, because I listen from upstairs. I watch him go.
Okay, maybe I’m the creeper.
Just as I turn back to the fence, shaking my head to rid it of thoughts of Harmon, he stops at the corner of the house and turns back, grinning. “You’ve got black stuff all over your mouth,” he calls before ducking around the corner. His laughter trails after him as I swear under my breath and wipe at my lips. The nails must have stained them.
I try not to let that dampen my mood, to kill the buzz of energy running through me, like I’m an almost-dead battery that just got a charge. I try to remember the last time I felt alive.
Probably the last summer at home. It was the first summer Dad had let me stay home alone while he taught summer classes for half a day. He made sure to remind me each and every morning that I could run next door to Mrs. Nguyen if I needed anything. Mrs. Nguyen, who wore pastel sweatshirts with inspirational sayings, smelled like mothballs, and said “Oh, fudge-bucket” instead of swearing. Mrs. Nguyen, who stayed home with her cats and a bowl of those soft after-dinner mints, which she consumed continuously all afternoon while she read her magazines
and watched daytime TV. I knew, because until that year, she’d been my summer babysitter while Dad worked. But I’d finally convinced Dad that I could be trusted. After all, I was about to go into high school.
Emmy and I had gone to this modeling agency’s seminar at the mall earlier in the summer, and these cute guys had come over and hit on us afterwards. We were so excited—this is what high school would be like! Guys would flirt with us, ask for our numbers. We would be popular, “top of the pyramid girls,” as Emmy called them. I wasn’t allowed to date, but Emmy gave one of the guys her number and they went out a few times. Of course, she told her mom that he was a sophomore in high school, not college.
One day while Dad was at work, Emmy and her boyfriend came to pick me up. Another guy was with them, and Emmy was riding in the front seat, so I had to ride with him. I felt so incredibly immature that I didn’t dare start a conversation. I wondered if Emmy’s boyfriend knew she was only thirteen for two more weeks. She said they’d only kissed, and she wasn’t even in love with him. She just wanted a boyfriend with a car, a boyfriend in college, to boost her image. No other freshman girls would be dating college guys, she told me.
The guys took us to Bricktown, and we walked around in the heat and looked at everything—the record stores, the museums, a street named after the Flaming Lips, Dad’s favorite band. We ate huge platters of pasta at Spaghetti Warehouse and took pictures of each other on our phones at each new place. “One day, when we’re famous, they’ll hang this picture on the wall,” Emmy said as her boyfriend snapped a picture of us with a mermaid statue. “Autographed, of course.”
Somehow, we got separated from the guys while trying on earrings at a little bead and jewelry shop. We looked for them for ages, and Emmy kept texting, but we finally gave up. I remember Emmy saying, “Ah, fudge-bucket!” and we cracked up with laughter. We went into a bakery to cool off, and bought cupcakes and sodas. Secretly, I hoped we didn’t find the guys, because it was more fun with just me and Emmy. It wasn’t scary being in Bricktown by ourselves. It was exhilarating. I felt like I was free, like nothing bad could happen…
Until we had to call Emmy’s parents to come get us, and they called Dad, and I got grounded. But that afternoon in Bricktown with Emmy was the best day of my life. It was the first time I’d ever snuck out, but I had no idea it would be the last time. That I’d never get in trouble with Dad again.
Now, as the hammer slips and I smash my fingers and curse silently, it’s hard to believe that girl was me. That girl who ran off with some guys she didn’t even know, not a thought of safety in her silly head. How could I have done that to Dad? He must have been terrified when he got home and I wasn’t there. I never once thought about that. I was too mad that he’d grounded me for months, though nothing bad had even happened. Sure, her mom had been inconvenienced by having to come get us. But we hadn’t done anything stupid, like tried to hitchhike home.
Since then, I’ve learned to think about other people besides myself. I’ve learned to think of my mother, of how much she’s sacrificing to have me here. I’ve learned to think of my sisters, how they are so tired from their own chores that I should be happy to pick up the slack. I’ve learned not to make things awkward for my family, or anyone else in the community, by showing my face. What I still haven’t learned is why it’s so shocking. Maybe their cult thinks being an identical twin is a curse. Because I’ve also learned they’re superstitious about everything, constantly making that sign over their hearts to ward off evil and calling upon Diana the moon goddess for protection. Not even kidding.
A minute later, the voices of the others approach on the road. Ignoring my throbbing finger, I go back to work. Mother will be mad that I didn’t finish the fence today. She’s mad every day that I don’t finish. Zora, Elidi, Mother, and Harmon’s father turn into our driveway, pulling wagons loaded with boxes. Harmon leaps off the porch and runs to meet them, taking the wagon handles from both my sisters. I remain in a crouch, hoping if I don’t move, they won’t notice me.
It works. They pull the wagons up to the front step, out of my view, and I go back to work on the fence. I wonder, though, if Harmon’s dad is the cult leader. I don’t interact with anyone, so I don’t know all their politics and rules. Mother has her own set of rules, and those, I am well acquainted with.
After a while, Harmon and his dad leave, and Elidi bounds out the back door and into the outhouse. When she comes out, she spots me and ventures over.
“We got a lot of apples,” she says, still shy around me after all this time. We try to talk more often with our eyes than our voices, but I rarely understand more than the basic longing to be able to talk freely. The look that says, I have something to tell you, but I can’t.
Now she glances at the house before asking, “Did Harmon talk to you?”
“A little,” I say, then quickly add, “but not much. It wasn’t about anything. He just said hi on his way to the house. It was nothing.”
She gives me a funny look. “I don’t care if you talk to him.”
“He was looking for you,” I say. “I mean, he didn’t say anything about you, but…that’s why he was here.”
She sighs and rests a hand on one of the fence posts, leaning her head against it while she looks at me with that same longing in her eyes I know so well. I want to talk to her, too, more than anything. To have a friend again. She rolls her eyes towards the house to check, then back towards me. “I don’t like him, you know,” she says. “Not like the other girls do. They all want him to pick them. But I hope he never picks me.”
I swallow. “For what?” It feels like a betrayal of our mother to be talking so honestly, so long, with my sister. I relish it.
“For his mate,” Elidi says, lifting her head from the post. “What do you think?”
“His…mate?” I ask, trying not to sound too incredulous. This is obviously perfectly normal to these weirdos. “What exactly does a mate do?”
I have a feeling it’s not as dirty as it sounds.
“They get married, dummy,” she says, smiling a little. “We mate for life.”
“Um…okay. People don’t normally say that about humans. Just letting you know. Like, normal people. Out there. In the real world. We only say that about, like, birds and…whatever else mates for life.”
“Your people don’t mate for life?”
I laugh a little, but it’s more out of frustration than anything resembling happiness. But I am happy. I’m so happy I could scream Oh, fudge-bucket! into the sky. Because I’m talking to my sister, and my mother doesn’t know. Because even if she catches us and won’t let us talk for a month, she can’t undo these moments, these words, we’re stealing right now.
“Well, yeah, sometimes,” I say. “But it’s just called getting married. And it’s only for life, like, half the time. When you see an old couple who obviously will be together forever, it’s like aww, how cute.”
“I know what divorce is,” Elidi says.
“Oh. Sorry.”
“Mom told us about Dad.”
“She did? When?”
“I don’t know, forever, I guess. It’s just, we don’t do that here.”
I want to tell her that’s probably normal for cults, but more than that, I want to ask a thousand questions. I ask the first one that comes. “So what do you do?”
“Obviously, Harmon gets to pick,” she says. “Because he’ll be the leader. But see, if he picked me, I’d have to stay here forever.”
The door to the house bangs open and Zora stands there, her short dark hair messy and sticking to her face with sweat. “What are you doing, Elidi?” she calls, her voice sharp with irritation. “You said you were going to the outhouse. I’m in here working my butt off. Come help.”
“Coming,” Elidi says, shooting me a glance as she goes, another unreadable message in her eyes.
Don’t tell?
There’s more?
I sigh in frustration and, for what feels like the hundredth
time, go back to driving nails. But now I have so much to mull over. Not just Harmon, but the way their cult works, what part my sisters play in it.
My mother makes them work, too, but not as much as me. They are part of the family. I hear them talking, laughing, while I work alone in my room, building myself a bed, or alone in the kitchen, doing dishes and cleaning, or alone in the yard. I hear them being a family. I never hear Mother being cruel to them, telling them they’re lucky she gives them food at all, or how they are ungrateful and spoiled and lazy. I never hear the smack of Mother’s palm across their faces.
Compared to me, they have it pretty good. I hadn’t considered that they might not want to be part of this cult culture. But even with my inability to read my twin, my inability to telepathically communicate the way twins are supposed to, there’s no mistaking the meaning behind those words. I’ve known since day one that she has more sympathy for me than Zora does. I’ve known that she wants to know about the world out there, that she’s as curious about me and my life as I am about her and hers. But I thought it was a fascination with my life, wanting to know a person who shares your DNA so exactly that once, she was half of you.
I didn’t know she wanted to know about life out there because she wants to leave this place. Now that I know, I have something I haven’t had in a long time. Hope. Because if she wants to get out of here, then maybe I can get out, too.
2
The house smells like apples. Though I’m “allowed” to cook every fourth day, the same as the rest of my family, I have to eat in my room, in case anyone shows up during dinner. So I’m in my room working on building a bedframe, stomach growling in protest at the delicious smell, when a tap comes at the door. My heart leaps wildly against the cage of my ribs. I stand, taking a deep breath and preparing what I’ll say to Elidi when she brings my dinner.
Unlikely Magic: A Cinderella Retelling (Girl Among Wolves Book 1) Page 4
