by Tara Kelly
I found myself running, not out of urgency. Just to think. Sometimes it was the only way I could.
I took the Neahkahnie Park Trail, one of the more heavily used trails in town. It was all paved and pretty with those doggy waste stations, compliments of Steve De Luca. I preferred the softness of mud under my feet, the smell of wet leaves…the unknown. But right now I wanted to stick with the known.
Usually this trail was filled with older couples and people walking their dogs. Today it was quieter than a snowy night, not even a squirrel rustling leaves.
As I headed into the shade of evergreens, a prickling sensation inched between my shoulder blades. Every now and then I’d get this feeling of doom as I ran. Usually nothing happened. But one time I swore I heard humming, a soft female voice echoing all around me. I was sure it was the Shadow Lady.
Out of all the tales Gramps told me, her story scared me the most. She was a powerful healer who lived east of town, right on the Nehalem River. She fell in love with a white man, the son of a ship captain. They had to sneak around to be together. But his family found out. They convinced him that she was a dangerous witch. That she’d be the death of them if he didn’t kill her. So…he did. He sneaked up behind her, whispered I love you in her ear, and slit her throat.
They say she haunts the woods around here, looking for someone with a weak heart. A coward, like her lover. If you see her shadow, it means she’s marked you. And once she’s inside you, there’s no going back. You’ll be forced to carry out her revenge again and again. Until she’s done or you are. And she’s never done.
A branch crunched behind me. There were definitely footsteps behind me now. Thick. Clunky. Getting louder by the second.
“Where’re you going, bunny rabbit?” a familiar deep voice called. Matt.
“What do you want?” I didn’t stop. He wouldn’t be able to keep up forever.
“You ever going to talk to me?” He fell into step beside me. His fight with Alex was still evident on his face, from his discolored nose to the deep purple skin under his left eye.
There was a part of me that felt bad for avoiding him. After all, he didn’t start that rumor. But he was still Jenika’s best friend. I let him way too close to me that night. Said too much.
There was a time I thought he was a little sexy, not that I’d admit that to anyone. Ever. He had an odd mix of features—a wide nose and rough skin. Big brown eyes and blond curls. There was something about his voice, too. It was sleepy, like some fictional rock star. Throw in the whole bad-boy thing, and he didn’t exactly have problems getting laid around here.
But that wasn’t what drew me to him that night. It wasn’t something I could explain…or even wanted to think about.
“What is it that I did to you?” he asked, his breath getting thicker.
“You tried to jump my best friend?”
Matt grabbed my arm, forcing me to stop. I jerked away from him, but his fingers dug into my skin.
“Alex started that fight,” he said. His clothes smelled of burning leaves, just like before. I liked it then. Now it made my stomach turn.
Matt could be the stalker type. But I didn’t see him writing letters, and I definitely didn’t see him collecting flowers and seashells.
“Let go of me. Now.” My fist balled up, preparing to give him a matching set of black eyes if I had to.
Matt dropped my arm and took a step back, holding his hands up. “You didn’t really answer my question…”
I turned and walked away, hoping like hell he wouldn’t follow. He didn’t.
Alex’s sky-blue double-wide wasn’t as bright or alive as it once was. I remembered the day his grandpa painted it that color—we’d all helped. Alex wanted to paint a giant sun on the side, but Cindy, his grandma, said if we did, it’d be over her dead body.
The orange and yellow flowers on the stoop had turned brown and curled inside their pots. Even Megan’s cactus looked pale and withdrawn. Their grandpa’s moon and star chimes still made music, though. They gave me hope he was looking out for them, wherever he was now.
I tried knocking on Alex’s window first, but there wasn’t any answer. Cindy never liked me much, mainly because of my mom’s lifestyle. She called us a riffraff family, as if she had room to talk. But lately she’d been downright hostile, so I tried to avoid seeing her whenever possible.
Megan answered the door, rubbing her eyes like she’d just woken up. And knowing her, she probably had. “Alex is out getting eggs,” she said. “Grandma ran out.”
I glanced over my shoulder, only just realizing their grandpa’s El Camino was gone. It had almost become a fixture in their carport with its cherry paint and black racing stripes. “She let him take the car?”
Megan’s eyes shifted down toward her feet. “He kind of just started taking it…” she mumbled. “It’s not like she can drive it.”
Cindy never got her license. She’d gotten accustomed to her husband driving her anywhere outside walking distance.
“I can’t believe he didn’t tell me,” I said. He knew I was dying to take that first ride in it—even if it was just to the store.
“If you’re selling something, we’re not buying!” Cindy called out.
“It’s me,” I said.
“Oh,” Cindy said, before mumbling something I was sure I didn’t want to hear.
“What’s she making this time?” I asked Megan.
Cindy had three types of days—bad, worse, and baking binges. The baking binges seemed to be happening more often, but that wasn’t necessarily a good thing.
“Oatmeal cookies for the Saint Francis bake sale.” Megan leaned toward the screen. “She’s in one of her paranoid, shit-talking moods,” she whispered.
“It’s okay…let me in.” It wasn’t, really. But I was going to talk to Alex, even if it meant holding my tongue while I waited.
Cindy was one of those people who were racist without realizing it. One minute she’d be shaking her head at some hate crime on the news and saying “God loves people of every color” and the next she’d be talking about how certain “types” of people were driving the U.S. into the ground.
Then there was her son Joel, the only sane family member in Alex and Megan’s life now. Cindy kept insisting that his attraction to guys was a phase—something he’d get over—despite his being thirty years old. She wouldn’t even let Joel bring his boyfriend to his own father’s funeral, claiming it was disrespectful. But Megan and Alex’s grandpa would’ve wanted him there either way. He hadn’t completely accepted Joel being gay, but he was at least trying to.
The musky smell of prayer candles smacked me in the face as soon as I stepped inside. Two sat on the kitchen table, one holder featuring a picture of Jesus, the other just a white candle in clear glass. The odor always made me queasy, reminding me of the one and only time I went to church with Alex. It was cold and dark. And I couldn’t stop thinking about death.
Their home was always cramped, especially with three bedrooms in such a small living space, but I’d never seen it look this bad. Laundry took up the old red couch in the living room, and the plants on the coffee table had gone into eternal slumber. Empty bottles of blackberry brandy and whiskey covered the floor around their overflowing trash can.
“Hi, Nova,” Cindy said, her pale blue eyes giving me the usual once-over. You’d think she’d be done sizing me up after eight years. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”
“It’s busy season at the diner. Been working a lot.”
It was hard seeing her now. Bags under her eyes, ruddy skin. It seemed like she’d aged about five years since the funeral.
She came out from behind their cracked plywood counter, which was covered in flour. “How’s your family?”
“Good.”
Riff, their black Lab, bounded up to me with a hearty bark. He sniffed around my legs and plopped down, staring up at me with wide brown eyes.
Cindy reached for what looked like a glass of pineapple juice, bu
t chances were it was half whiskey. “Must be hard for Gavin. Having his dad away all the time.”
“He deals,” I said.
“He’s a growing boy. He needs his daddy.”
I nodded, folding my arms. We’d had this conversation before. There was no reasoning with her.
Cindy brushed Megan’s hair out of her face. It wasn’t a warm gesture, more rough and hurried. “Your hair looks terrible,” she said. “Why don’t you brush it more?”
Megan ducked away. “Stop.”
Riff squeezed himself between them and barked up at Cindy.
“Oh, be quiet.” Cindy nudged him with her slipper. “You’ve got such a pretty face,” she continued, reaching toward Megan again. “Put it back in a ponytail, at least.”
Megan turned away, closing her eyes. “I like it down,” she said, softly.
“You kids dress like hobos.” She took a sip from her glass, wincing the slightest bit. “That’s why your brother can’t find a job. You don’t go asking for job applications wearin’ a rock band T-shirt.”
“Actually…” I began, aching to tell her it wasn’t 1965 anymore. Even in Emerald Cove. There weren’t any jobs to be had around here.
“You know what they’ve been telling him?” She talked over me. “They say, We don’t have any applications. You need to get one on the internet. That’s a line if I ever heard one.”
“It’s pretty common,” I said. “Most people apply online now.”
“Well, I shouldn’t be surprised.” Cindy shook her head. “You got Generation Lazy and Generation Lazier running things. Most of ’em grew up wrapped in cotton wool, completely reliant on computers. Something goes wrong and you’re all gonna be running around like headless chickens.” She pointed at Megan, her blue eyes going sharp. “Be thankful you were raised different.”
If she meant how a Pace family vacation was survival camping in the Cascades, I doubted Megan or Alex would be thanking her anytime soon. They dreaded those trips, especially when their grandpa tried to teach them how to hunt.
The oven beeped. Cindy scurried back into the kitchen, nearly bumping into the counter.
We used that moment to escape down the hall. Riff trotted after us, his paws clicking against the vinyl floor.
“Don’t disappear for too long, Megan!” Cindy called. “I need your help cleaning up.”
“Okay!” she said. “Let’s go in Alex’s room. Mine’s a mess.”
“You just want an excuse to snoop again.”
“Maybe…” She pushed open his chipped wooden door. It still had remnants of tape from their Uncle Joel’s posters.
Everything looked the same. Alex’s gray-and-blue plaid comforter and sheets were a twisted mess on his bed. Parts for a computer he never got around to building still cluttered the small desk he’d made out of reclaimed wood. The stout bookshelf in the corner overflowed with books on the quantum theory, his latest obsession.
But the air felt warmer than usual, even with the window cracked. And it smelled overwhelmingly sweet, like candy apples. I noticed a couple red candles next to his iPod speakers on the windowsill.
There was the hint of stale cigarettes, too, but the bikers next door were chain-smokers.
Megan wrinkled her nose. “Gross. It’s like the Pottery Barn exploded in here.” She opened the window wider.
“No kidding. What’s up with that?” I sat on his bed. Riff hopped up and nuzzled next to me. I ran my fingers through his coarse black fur.
Megan opened his closet and knelt down, digging through a pile of clothes. “I’m guessing he hasn’t called you back?”
“Nope.”
“He’s been weird since his fight with Matt. Hasn’t really talked to me either.”
“I’m sorry…” Alex ignoring me was bad enough, but Megan needed him more than ever. What the hell was going on with him?
She pulled a black shirt out of the pile. “I knew he stole this back. Liar.”
“I’m worried about him.”
“I know.” Megan balled the T-shirt in her hand and stood, avoiding eye contact.
“You do?”
“Yeah, I mean…you always are.” She plopped down in his computer chair and pulled her knees against her chest.
“He just seems so different…”
She yanked out threads from the hem of her jeans, not responding for a few seconds. “Did you hear about Amber?”
I nodded, not surprised by the subject change. That was her solution for every conversation that made her uncomfortable. “You saw her at the party, right?”
“Yeah. She had a fight with Zach and then got really drunk.”
I waited for her to say more, but she nibbled on her thumbnail. That had to be what it’s over meant. She and Zach broke up. ”What did they fight about?”
She shrugged. “They went off by themselves for a while. And then they split up when they came back. It was pretty obvious she’d been crying.” Her brow crinkled. “She said some stuff about you.”
“Like what?” I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear it.
Megan gave me a look that confirmed I didn’t. “She said you were spying on her in the diner bathroom. That you tried to attack her. I told them that didn’t sound like you, and she was like, were you there? No.”
“If by ‘attack’ she means stood there and looked at her? Yeah. Guilty.” Part of me didn’t want Amber to come back. Not that I wanted her to be dead or anything. Just gone. Hell, I wanted all of them gone.
“Amber’s a drama queen,” Megan said. “Even her friends don’t buy half the stuff she says.”
“When was the last time you saw her at the party?”
“Well…” She blew out a breath. “Grandma sent Alex to pick me up. And by then Amber was wasted. She was, like, Hey, where’s your slut friend?” She paused and waited for my reaction, as if she expected me to freak out.
“And?”
“Alex flipped her off. She called us dumb hicks.” Megan looked down. “Then we left.”
I wound my hair around my finger, pulling tight. “You think she ran away?”
“That’s what some people think. She did once before, I guess.”
Girls like Amber didn’t hit the road by themselves without somewhere to go and someone to go with. She wasn’t exactly bred for the streets. “Wouldn’t she have told someone? Like Holly?”
Megan shrugged. “How would I know?”
Maybe Holly was covering for her. Or she didn’t want to be found. But why? What could be worth scaring the hell out of anyone who cared about her?
Then I had another thought. One that involved her walking down a dark road, drunk and alone. Some psycho following her.
“Amber asked me if I’d ever eaten deer meat,” Megan continued. “Everyone else ignored me.”
“It’s what they do, babe. They’re jerks.”
“Gabi’s not,” she said. “You know she gave me some of her old clothes?”
If someone offered me their old clothes, I’d be insulted. Megan was poor, not homeless. “Just be careful, okay?”
She looked at me then, her eyes accusing. “Because she couldn’t actually want to be my friend.”
“That isn’t it. I…” I wished I knew how to tell Megan I was afraid for her without pushing her away. Or making her feel like she wasn’t good enough.
“I don’t know why you guys are so against her,” Megan said. “She’s never done anything to you.”
“It’s not her. It’s who she hangs out with.” Somehow I doubted Gabi would have Megan’s back if a situation called for it. And the cakes had a lot of situations.
I scanned the floor, my mind still focused on Amber. That’s when I saw it. A torn shiny wrapper lying on the carpet behind Alex’s trash can. My mind tried to make it into something else, anything else. But there was no missing the word “Trojan” across the top.
My mouth dropped open, and I stopped breathing. The candles, the disappearing act, his sketchy behavior—it all added up. Alex
does have another girl in his life, a girl he’s having sex with, and he didn’t even tell me. He was going out of his way to hide it.
“Are you okay?” Megan asked.
My head jerked up. “I’m fine. I thought Alex was just going to get eggs.”
“That’s what he said.” She craned her neck to see out the window, and her eyes widened.
“What?” I got up and looked outside. I’d heard the rumble of an engine, but I thought it was the neighbor’s car idling. It wasn’t.
The red El Camino sat at the end of their lane, the passenger door open. A girl with unevenly cropped blond hair climbed out and waved before walking in the opposite direction. Jenika. She glanced over her shoulder, as if she could sense me staring at her.
I moved back out of sight, my heart pounding. Megan watched Alex pull into the carport, but there wasn’t a trace of surprise in her expression.
“How long have you known?” I asked.
Her gaze shifted from the window to the thumbnail she was still picking at. “Since last weekend… Grandma was at church and I heard laughing—I thought it was you. I came in here and Jenika was sitting on his window ledge.”
Jenika had to be the girl he was hooking up with. Why else wouldn’t he tell me?
“Are you mad at me?” Megan asked.
I shook my head, but I couldn’t speak. There were too many thoughts running through my mind. My skin felt like it was on fire.
The front door closed.
“I saw that, Alex!” Cindy yelled.
His footsteps stopped. “Saw what?”
“You must think I’m blind and dumb,” she continued. “I saw that girl getting out of my car.”
“Her name is Jenika, and she needed a ride home.”
Megan moved from the desk chair to the door, turning the knob slowly. Silently. She pulled the door open a crack, enough to hear better.
“When you hang out with lowlifes, you’re seen as a lowlife,” Cindy said. “Is that what you want when you’re trying to find a job? It’s bad enough you’ve got that black eye.”
Alex mumbled something I couldn’t make out. I joined Megan, pressing my back against the wall.
