She walked to the French doors and grumbled… it was still snowing. There were four-foot high drifts, broken twigs lacing the ground, and snow covering the evergreens and the bare branches of the oaks. She couldn’t see past the garden; the wintry atmosphere wept and blew an ashy haze. Yawning, she picked up her suitcase, which Diesel had brought in the night before, and went to the restroom down the little hall in the foyer.
Scarlet put her hair up into a high ponytail and sank into the hot water she had drawn in the claw-footed bathtub. She closed her eyes and pretended to be in Mexico. As soon as she finished her bath, she would put on her bikini and meet Diesel down at the beach. While she drank margaritas, she would soak in the sun and watch Diesel make sandcastles. Afterwards, they would splash, play and make out in the cool, blue waves.
She reluctantly opened her eyes. “Nope, still in the creepy Andrews House.” When she’d first started dating Diesel, the kids at school had asked: “You’ve been inside? What’s it like inside ‘The Creepy Andrews House?’” Apparently, out of the thousands of girls Diesel had dated, she had been the only one he’d brought home. People didn’t build very many new houses in Kingwood; they restored old ones and kept them up. But even Scarlet’s house, which was actually older, didn’t look like Diesel’s house—like it actually hadn’t been lived in for two hundred years.
According to the weather, she would be staying at Diesel’s, creepy or not, for at least another day. Nevertheless, after a good night’s sleep, things were brighter, clearer; Diesel’s mom and his granny had both bit the dust. The reign of the Andrews women was over. Sure, Diesel still needed some time to finish grieving—she figured it would take a week or so—but then it would be all over. They could stay in Kingwood just long enough to sell the house. Finally, she had Diesel all to herself.
It seemed like the only thing that stood in her way was the small matter of the dead old lady upstairs. “Think,” she told herself, shivering and putting on her clothes. She smiled as the obvious solution popped inside her head. Now to get Aiden to play along, like a good little boy.
When she walked into the kitchen, Aiden sat at the breakfast table eating. “There’s more,” he said and nodded toward the stove. “I’m afraid I’m not much of a cook. The bacon is burnt and the eggs are too runny.”
“Exactly how I like it,” she said.
“When the electricity goes out in my house, we can’t cook or anything because it’s all electric. We do try and eat everything out of the fridge though, so it doesn’t go bad. It’s so cold in here we could probably open the refrigerator door and everything would keep.”
She grabbed a plate out of the cabinet, rinsed it, and shoveled some food on it. “I should probably wake Diesel about the fire. The storm’s not finished, and it’s only going to get colder in here.”
“I’m not used to storms being so quiet. Do you think we’re going to be able to get out of here soon?”
She took a bite before making it to the table. “It doesn’t look good,” she said, sitting down. “It actually looks worse. I think we’re going to have to hunker down.”
“Great.”
“I hope you’re not too pissed at me for what I said last night. You have to understand why I wanted to get Diesel away from here. Even before all this weird werewolf/Granny stuff, his mom’s death did something to him. I’m not just talking about the normal grieving stuff either. He blamed himself for her death.”
“Really? Why would he blame himself? Didn’t she have a heart attack?”
“Yes, she did. But he thinks she died because he gave her the evil eye. You know, he was angry. He gave her the evil eye.”
“Right, I’ve heard that expression before. It’s some superstition or something.”
“Right, and get this, people with deep-set, uneven, and different colored eyes are said to be especially powerful.”
“But that’s crazy. You can’t kill someone by looking at them.”
“Thank you! I know, but they actually believe you can. He and his mom had an argument the day before she died. Apparently, during the fight, she started screaming at him and accusing him of giving her the evil eye.” She crunched on a piece of very crispy bacon and watched as Aiden seemed to process everything.
Aiden pushed his plate away and grimaced. “This place is so weird.”
“So of course, after she died the next day, he believed that that was exactly what killed her. But finally, I had all that nonsense out of his system. We were going to go away together… and then this happens.”
“What did happen? I was there, but I don’t believe it. I mean, what’re we going to tell the police? Maybe the werewolf gene or mutation is in her system or something. If we all tell them the same story about what happened and give them the Silverweed—”
“We tell them that, and they’re going to think we’ve been smoking weed, all right. What? Do you really think they have a werewolf tester? No. Normal people don’t believe in werewolves. We’ve got to come up with a believable story. And I have an idea.” She wiped her mouth with a paper towel. He nodded his head, waiting for her to reveal her plan. “Maybe… we could say that it was self defense, which it was. That in her weak state of mind, she thought you were an intruder, and so she tried to kill you, and you had no other choice but to use self defense.”
“You’re crazy!” Aiden stood abruptly. “I’m not taking the blame for this.”
“Shhh.” Scarlet held up her hand. She heard voices in the other room.
“I’m going to tell them exactly what happened. What I saw happen. I don’t understand why you keep trying—”
“SHHH!” She stood up and walked out of the kitchen and into the living room as Diesel walked into the living room from the foyer. “Who was that?” Scarlet asked with excitement. “Is someone here?”
“No, no one,” Diesel said.
Scarlet turned her heard toward the door when she heard a motor.
Aiden had walked out of the kitchen and darted through the living room. “It’s someone on a four-wheeler,” he yelled from the foyer.
Diesel ran after him, and Scarlet followed. As Aiden opened the front door, Diesel grabbed him by the back of the shirt and yanked him back inside the house.
“What the hell are you doing?” Aiden demanded over the wind and snow that blew inside the house.
“What’s going on?” Scarlet pushed past both the boys and walked outside into the storm. She barely caught a glimpse of the ATV at the top of the driveway before it disappeared into the whiteness. There was no use running after it. “What’s going on, Diesel?” She pushed the door shut against the wind. “Who was that?”
“Mr. Long from down the street.”
“Is he going to get help?” She tried to remain calm to give him a chance to explain himself. But her tears didn’t wait… they were angry! “Is that it?” she said hopefully. “Is he coming back with help or something?”
“No,” Diesel said and walked back into the living room. They followed. “I told him we were fine.”
“You did what?” Aiden asked. “Why would you do that?”
“I have to figure this out.” Diesel put his fingers on his temples and closed his eyes. “I need time to think, to plan. They’re not going to believe me. They won’t be able to help me. They’ll lock me up.”
“We were there, too,” Aiden said. “We can tell them what happened.”
“Really,” Diesel said. “We can tell them… what? My grandmother turned into a wolf? They are not going to believe us. I killed…” He choked up. “I killed my mother and now my grandmother. This is my punishment.”
Scarlet said, “This isn’t just happening to you! We’re all stuck here with your dead granny upstairs! We’re all scared!”
“I need to think. We can’t tell anybody about any of this until I have a plan. It has to all stay a secret. I have to figure out what to tell them because I don’t know what to do. I need some more time. I need more time to figure out what to do.�
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“This isn’t happening.” Scarlet knew the signs. She was losing Diesel again. She glanced at Aiden, who had his arms crossed and leaned against the living room door frame, his right leg bent, jittering up and down. Useless. But she didn’t know what to do either, not really. Although she did know Diesel would be a complete nut if she didn’t calm him down soon. But maybe it was all for the best. It could work to her advantage. If the neighbor had been alerted to dead Granny, they wouldn’t have had time to come up with their story.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “You’re right. We need some time to figure this out. You did the right thing.”
Diesel wiped his face on his shirt sleeve.
She needed to get him alone so she could discuss everything with him. Since Aiden wouldn’t cooperate, they had no choice but to gang up on him. It would be their word against his, a stranger to the town. Her idea was really the only sane way to play it. They would look like freaks if they told the authorities Granny had turned into a werewolf, or Diesel would look like a murderer. Not going to happen.
“Don’t worry. I already have a plan,” she whispered as she smoothed Diesel’s hair behind his ear. When she brought her hand down she felt something wet. Staring down at her hand, it took her a second to realize it was blood.
Diesel’s deep stare waited for her.
“Let me see,” she whispered.
He licked his lips and brought a shaky hand to his throat, moving his hair.
Too much had happened for Scarlet to deny what her heart pumped up to her brain. She stumbled backward. “Oh, Diesel, oh crap, Diesel…”
“What?” Aiden asked. “What is it?”
Her words caught in her throat, but she backed away from him until she stood in the doorway next to Aiden. She put both of her hands over her mouth.
“What the hell is wrong?” Aiden demanded.
Diesel’s eyelashes fluttered, and his face balled up like he wanted to burst out in tears. Instead, he ran toward them with long strides. Scarlet screamed and grabbed onto Aiden. But Diesel didn’t stop; he ran past them.
A door slammed upstairs. Scarlet stayed pressed against Aiden’s chest. He kept asking what was going on, but he held her just the same. Finally, she was able to compose herself long enough to say, “The bitch bit him.”
Chapter 10
He Devoured Her
Diesel looked in the restroom mirror and faced his problem once and for all. The wound was deep and undeniably a bite mark. He dabbed it with a washcloth, wondering if there was anything he could do to prevent the bite from turning on him. He knew he should have tended to it earlier—yesterday—but hadn’t been able to face it then. It was just too surreal.
Although he had been taught from a very early age how to keep bad things from happening and how not to disturb the balance of the world, his views had changed. He wasn’t sure when he’d started laughing at all his mom’s fears instead of making sure no clothes were on doorknobs, taking care not to step on her shadow, and never shooing the birds away. He even wondered if he had looked at her coldly just to scare her; just to prove to her, once and for all, that it was all bullshit. Did I give her the evil eye on purpose?
He heard Scarlet at the door. “I’m coming in. You okay?”
She looked beautiful with her hair pulled away from her face. Her clean skin seemed to glisten, and he wanted to touch her face and kiss her pink lips and tell her he was sorry. Instead, because he felt so ashamed, he turned from her.
“I looked for a first aid kit,” she said, “but couldn’t find one. Is there one in here?”
“I found these under the sink. I used to love Scooby.” He tried to hand her the Scooby-do Band-Aids.
“I would help you but… eww.”
He opened one of the bandages, realized it was way too small, and threw it in the trash. He took off his t-shirt and tore a strip from it, wrapping it around his neck and the wound.
“Aren’t you going to put something on that so it doesn’t get infected?”
“There’s some ointment that my mom made in the pantry.” This made Diesel remember gardening with his mom. She had taught him all about the herbs and how to tend to them from seed to plant. After they were dry, he’d help her grind and mix them together for teas, liniments, and medicines. He felt a stab of sadness when he realized there was no need to build her that new greenhouse in early spring. Instead of her being the one planting things in the ground, she had been the one who had been buried. But for her there would be no germination, no flowering in the spring, only decay. He winced at the thought of her eventually rotting away in that coffin, her skin eaten away by time, leaving only bone.
“I’m sorry about in there.” Scarlet turned to the mirror and smoothed her hair. “I know it doesn’t mean anything. I don’t know why I freaked out. It doesn’t mean that what happened to your granny will happen to you. Whatever the hell did happen to her. That letter from your mom you mentioned, what did it say, anyway?”
“That Grans could turn into a werewolf and that there’s only about one week a month that this could happen, the week of a full moon when the moon is at least 90 percent full. That is unless she had her muffins. She assured me that everything would be fine, that all I needed to do was give her the Silverweed muffins—every day without fail. She also let me know where to find the dart gun, just in case things got out of control.” Heaviness filled his head when he remembered that it also had said to use only one dart.
“Did she say what happened to her? Did it say why she turned into the werewolf?”
“No, but I grew up on shape shifter stories: Lycanthropes, vampires, and selkies. According to them, you have to be bitten by a werewolf in order to turn into one.”
Scarlet shot Diesel a look in the mirror. “I’m trying to stay calm here. That’s ridiculous. Werewolves are just myths. Storybook and movie stuff. They’re not real. I think something else made your grandmother turn into that creature. I think your mom played with her potions a little too much.”
“You’re willing to believe in magic potions but not werewolves.” He was done talking to the brick wall. He walked out of the bathroom and across the hall to his bedroom. After grabbing a shirt out of his closet, he put it on and then pulled up the collar.
He plopped down on his bed, and as soon as he saw Scarlet at his door, he said, “We have to face this. I have to face this. She was a werewolf. She bit me, so that means I’m going to turn.”
“NO! You’re not.” She stomped the distance to his bed. “There’s something else going on. We’ll find help. Everything’s going to be okay.”
“No, Scarlet.” He grabbed her arm. Even though he saw the fear in her eyes, he kept them prisoner. She had to understand what the two of them now faced. She couldn’t stay in denial. “It’s all real,” he whispered. “I am a monster, just like Grans.”
Scarlet jerked her arm away but not before Diesel saw her eyes shift and her tight jaw tremble. Finally she asked, “What do we do?”
“The Silverweed. Obviously it does prevent it from happening. I never saw Grans turn into a werewolf. Not that I can remember. That means my mom must have figured it out. The muffins must have kept her from turning, so that’s why it happened, because Aiden didn’t give her… I mean, because I left. It’s my fault. I left when I was supposed to stay here and take care of her. I ignored the letter. I ignored my gut.”
After a moment of staring at this wall and then another, Scarlet shrugged her shoulders and walked to the door, saying, “I’ll go make some muffins.”
Diesel touched his wounded neck and fell back on his bed. He tried to discern if he felt different. He imagined his blood boiling and bubbling inside his body and looked at his hand wondering if the change would hurt.
His eyes felt heavy, and soon he slept. He slept soundly, and the dreams came immediately. He saw his mom the way she had looked when he was a little boy, her long, frizzy hair tied back in a ribbon with a few long wispy pieces around her pink-complecte
d face. Granny sat on the lawn, chains around her ankles and wrists. His mom put a needle in Granny’s arm and looked at him and said, “This is your fault. That girl is a siren. I warned you. You know all about sirens.”
The scenery whirled; colors and images mingled together then slowed and resolved into the dense woods on a cool, fall day. He ran, crunching the red leaves beneath his feet, chasing Scarlet through the trees. She glanced back at him and giggled, teased, and smiled, before vanishing. He ran faster, and the trees whooshed by, the crisp air filling his lungs. He felt free and alive. Scarlet reappeared in front of him but was no longer smiling; he could hear her heart as it thumped in her chest, and she began to scream. The wind carried her scent to him. Diesel felt an overwhelming sense of euphoria and happiness. She smelled so delicious… like roasted lamb and strawberry jam.
“Diesel!”
He jerked awake; his eyes flew open, and he sat straight up.
Scarlet gave a short scream that cut off suddenly.
He wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. He looked away from Scarlet, who stared at him with her head cocked to the side.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
He nodded.
“Aiden already had some muffins made. Do you want one now?”
“Yes,” he said. “Now.”
“Do you want me to bring them to you?”
“No, I’ll be right there.”
“Okay.” She frowned slightly but left him alone.
Tears gathered at the corner of his eyes as he acknowledged the remains of his dream’s desire. He thought maybe he should have told his neighbor, Mr. Long, everything. Even though he hadn’t meant to kill Grans, he thought he still needed to be locked up forever. He didn’t want to hurt anybody else. Especially not Scarlet.
Silverweed: a supernatural fairy tale Page 6
