“Do you feel anything yet?” I whisper.
He nods once, then goes back to whatever meditation he’s doing. Maybe trying to concentrate on transitioning. I don’t know how it works. I return to my spot under the window, where I haven’t been in a week. It already feels different, strange. As the light fades outside, Harmon shifts restlessly on his blankets. I think about what he said. That I’m different now, that this is who I am now.
It’s true. I can’t unsee the things I’ve seen. My mother, as a wolf, about to rip my throat out. Harmon’s father, slammed to the ground like a side of beef. A hatchet, thrown from my hand, hitting his skull. A mountain lion closing its jaws around the throat of the boy I’d just kissed. A wolf pup sailing through the air and landing in a raging fire. Harmon’s skin ripped open, the muscles in his back exposed and sliced open. His repulsive, distorted features as he waits, trapped between man and beast, to see if he’ll ever be able to claim his rightful place in the pack.
After seeing that, how can I care about the girls on the glossy pages of fashion magazines, about makeup pallets and this season’s sandal?
I don’t want to spend the rest of my life looking backwards, wondering what might have been, wishing for childhood to come back and capture me. I want adult things, too. When Harmon talks about marriage, about his kids calling him a good dad, I know I want that one day, too. And I know I can’t have it while I’m here.
And so, I wait. I listen to Harmon’s breathing grow shallow. I hear the first snap of something inside him, and the intake of breath, the hiss as he breathes through his teeth, through the pain. And then I climb the ladder. I pull up the basket and untie it from the thin rope.
I start to saw at it with the butter knife I stole. After a while, my arms are tired and I’m only halfway through.
“What are you doing?” Harmon asks from below.
“Nothing,” I say, peering down into the shadowy spot under the ladder. He’s lying curled up on his side, shuddering like someone with the flu.
“In the bathroom,” he says. “Ask to see your father, and you will.”
Sensing a trap, I don’t react. Instead, I go back to sawing. Nothing can distract me from my task. At long last, when it’s completely dark out, I make it through the rope. Ignoring the grisly popping noises his body makes as he tries to change into a wolf, I descend the ladder. He’s not going anywhere tonight.
Outside, the clouds have broken up, and the moon periodically escapes cover and lights the spot below the window where I used to sleep. But in this end of the room, I can barely make out my own hands, clutching the thin rope. I creep towards Harmon, my heart beating hard. He groans softly, and a meaty snapping sound gives away his location. Swallowing the urge to gag, I step closer. At last, I can make out a shadowy mound where he lies under his blanket. As I kneel beside him, his head snaps back, then forwards. A shaft of moonlight falls across the floor, and I can see the cords in his neck standing out, straining. He’s breathing hard, his shoulders hunched.
Slowly, I peel back the blanket.
“What are you doing?” he asks again, his voice an uneven groan between shudders.
“It’s okay,” I say. “Don’t worry. Just relax. Here, lift your shoulder a little.”
He’s the worst prison guard ever. He does exactly what I tell him, and then, I have the rope around him. He’s so out of it, I don’t think he even knows what I’m doing until he’s halfway immobilized. I push away any pity I feel. If he turns into a wolf, he’ll be able to chew his way out. But I’m pretty sure that’s not happening. The fur on his back is thick and coarse as ever, but he’s still talking, which means he’s still human.
He barely struggles when I bring his hands behind his back. But when I pull the rope tight, he strains, thick strands of muscle standing out along his arm. I start losing my grip, and panic wells inside me. Now that he knows what I’m doing, he’ll never let me get away with it. But before he can pull away, another round of convulsing wracks his body. While he’s preoccupied, I yank the rope tight and quickly tie it.
“Stella,” he moans, his head lolling towards me. “What did you do to me?”
“You’re fine,” I say. “You’re going to be fine. I told you, just relax and go with it. You might be mad at me now, but tomorrow, you’ll be glad. Because I’ll be gone, and you won’t have to feel guilty, or make any decisions about me.” While I reassure him, I loop the rope around a rung in the ladder and pull it tight.
“Don’t leave,” he says, his eyes bleary as be peers up at me in the darkness. “I need you.”
“I’m sorry.” And I really am. Something squeezes in my chest, behind my sternum, and I think I might cry if I stay longer. I lean down and kiss his bristly cheek.
“Stay,” he whispers. “Stay with me again, like last time.”
“I can’t,” I say, taking a deep breath before rising to my feet. “But I forgive you. I might not be part of your pack, but I think I understand enough to know why you did what you did. I’m not going to carry around hatred for you when I’m gone. I’m going to forgive you. So you don’t have to feel guilty. And neither do I, for leaving you here like this. Goodbye, Harmon.”
“Stella,” he groans. His voice is a horrible, twisted thing like his body. I turn away. “Stelllllaaaaaa…” The word is slurred, and it sends a shot of fear through me. If he transforms into a wolf right now, he’ll be out of his ropes and at my throat in a second. He won’t kill me. But he won’t let me go.
I back away and hurry to the bedroom. This time, I don’t bother with extra clothes. I take only my fork, my butter knife, and a crudely sharpened broom handle. The door next to the bathroom is unlocked, like he promised it would be, so I can go outside. He has no idea how far I’ll go.
21
Before stepping through the doorway, I pause. Because as awful as it would be to stay in the basement with Harmon forever, it’s something I know. I know his moods, when to leave him alone and when to invite him to play cards. Food will be delivered every day. I’ll have clothes to wear, and someone to read plays with me and make silly voices for different parts until I laugh and, for a moment, forget how small my life is.
Out there, life is big.
It’s also unknown. It could be even worse than a basement prison. I’ll be free, but what then? Freedom isn’t predictable or guaranteed. Freedom isn’t safe. As if to remind me of that truth, a distant howl finds its way to me down in the basement.
There’s a full moon. Somewhere out there, they will be doing their bonfire dance and transitioning. If I don’t get out of here before they all make the change, I’ll never get out at all.
“Stella,” Harmon calls. “Wait. Before you go…”
I wait, listening for sounds of struggle, but I only hear his harsh breathing. After a minute, he speaks again. “Are you still here, Stella? Check the bathroom. Check the mirror.”
A chill works its way over my skin when I think of the wolf definition of mirror—a body snatcher. Or does he mean that my sister is here, my identical twin? The thought of her makes my stomach lurch. I don’t know if she’s a friend or an enemy, but my blood calls me to her, a silent voice vibrating along our twin bond. Part of me is sure this is a trap, that I’ll open the bathroom to find something too grotesque to imagine—a portal to my mother’s attic prison, a wolf waiting to rip out my entrails, my father’s dead body.
Finding my father’s body once was more than enough.
And yet, I can’t seem to stop myself from stepping towards the bathroom, away from freedom. Maybe I’m stalling for a moment, being a coward, unable to face the solitude of freedom. Warily, I push the bathroom door open with one foot, standing aside as I do so, in case the trap is cruder, like a foot clamp. When nothing happens, I reach in slowly, my fingers trembling as I extend them towards the light switch. I squeeze my eyes closed, sure something will rip them off at any moment.
Instead, the cool plastic plate around the switch meets my fingertips. I hit the switch and yank
my hand back. The bathroom is empty. But my gaze immediately fixes on the one thing that’s changed. In the spot above the sink, where the mirror hung before Harmon shattered it, hangs another mirror. It’s a familiar one, and my stomach knots at the realization of how far Harmon went to get it for me. He had to leave his house, show his hideous face to the others in the community. He had to convince my sister, somehow, to relinquish her hold on it. She loved the mirror, and I can’t imagine what Harmon could have traded her for it.
But it’s not enough. Sure, he’s making the prison homey for me. That doesn’t change the fact that it’s still a prison.
I start to turn away, but just as I am about to step out of the bathroom, a movement in the mirror catches my eye. Heart hammering, I twist around, sure that someone is behind me. But the bedroom is empty. When I step closer to the mirror, my image blurs with another face, one I know well. Harmon promised we’d see my father, and here he is. In the mirror, my father’s face appears haggard, his long hair disheveled.
“Dad,” I gasp. “Are you okay? Where are you? What happened?”
But apparently magic mirrors don’t work like Skype. He doesn’t answer, and after a second, my view recedes and flickers.
“No,” I cry, grabbing the edges of the mirror. The image crystalizes again, coming into sharp focus. Dad is sitting on a bed. A bed that I made.
Fury explodes behind my eyelids. I’d recognize that loathsome attic anywhere. I barely left it for three years.
If I was angry before, if I hated my mother before, there is no word to describe the feeling that slams into my chest when I see my father’s chained wrists. For years, my mother acted as my jailer and tormentor, and she must have gotten a taste for it, because now she’s acting as his. She probably told him I was dead. After all, she went along with the others, telling me my father was dead all those years. She even watched me grieve, used it as an excuse to keep me locked away, all the while knowing he was alive.
Everything she has done up until this point might have been forgiven. But there is no forgiving this.
“I’ll get the key,” I say, remembering the necklace of keys hanging from her neck. I don’t care what I have to do to get it. I’ve been a prisoner in that attic for too long to sit back and let someone else suffer that way. And my father, of all people. My sweet father, the gentle giant who stayed up late talking to old ladies and pasted Dora the Explorer Band-Aids on my scraped knees when I was a kid, is now stuck in a barbaric prison.
A tear spills down my cheek. Though I know he can’t hear me, I speak to the mirror anyway, my fingertips skimming its cold surface. “I’m going to get you out, Dad. I promise.”
I reach for my weapon, the broom handle tucked into my waistband, and steel myself. It’s probably the stupidest move I’ve ever made, but some unknown bravery takes hold of me. My father needs me, and I can’t let him down.
Sneaking close enough to the bonfire to steal a key from my mother’s discarded skirt with only a rough-hewn stake for protection against a pack of wolves is about as stupid as a turtle crossing the path of stampeding elephants, counting on its shell to save it. But it’s what I have.
A thread of doubt follows me away from the mirror. What if I get there and he’s gone? What if the mirror was some kind of trick, a trap to lure me back into my mother’s clutches? But I have to believe he’s there. I have to believe I can save him, even though I’ve learned how dangerous hope can be, how it can keep a person going but no more than that. It’s like the crumbs that keep a starving man from dying—never enough to feed him, but never letting him succumb to the peace of death.
Fighting back the dark thoughts, I step into the light that falls across the bottom of the stairs and freeze. A vicious snarl comes from the bedroom. A chill races across my skin, up my back. Harmon doesn’t sound pitiful anymore. He sounds as angry as I am. “Stella,” he bellows from the basement. When I hear something wooden crash and splinter, the chill turns to a hot, liquid fear in my gut. I race up the steps to the door, fling it open, and dash into the yard—straight into a pack of wolves.
22
I stop dead in my tracks, sucking in a long, loud gasp. A dozen heads turn my way. All eyes fix on me, catching the scant light from the house and reflecting it back like dozens of tiny moons.
Slowly, I take a step back. It’s a trap. They’re all waiting for me. But who set it up? My mother? Harmon? It must have been him, sending some telepathic signal. There’s no bonfire, no celebration. Just wolves pacing the yard, waiting.
My skin crawls with fear as I slowly creep backwards, not daring to take my eyes off them. The second I do, one will launch itself at me. Suddenly it strikes me that I know these people. There is the glossy golden wolf that tried to rip my throat out—my mother. There is the soft white wolf, my twin sister. There is the three-legged brown wolf that is my sister’s half-brother. Two young grey wolves who are my sisters’ friends.
“Don’t hurt me,” I say, holding out a hand, as if that would ward them off. I stare at the blunt stake protruding from my fist as if I’ve never seen it before.
My mother growls and lowers her head, advancing a step.
“I’m not going to hurt anyone,” I say. “And I didn’t hurt Harmon. I’ve kept him company the last two months. I helped him through the last full moon.”
Where were you? I want to add, but I don’t. My mother snarls, the skin on her nose wrinkling as it draws back, baring her gleaming teeth.
“All I want is to leave in peace. I’ll never tell anyone about you, never breathe a word. I’ll sign a contract if you want. Swear an oath. Whatever will make you trust me. I just want to leave. I don’t want to be a burden to your community, don’t want you to feel responsible. You let my father leave once. So let us leave again. I’ll take him with me, and you’ll never hear from us again.”
My mother lunges at me. I scream and bring the stake down on top of her head, but it’s the wrong end. She draws back, circles around the pack. Did that just happen? I warded off my mother with nothing but the dull end of a broom handle. But just as my confidence grows, two wolves begin to twitch and shudder and spasm. After a few seconds, they stand upright. I recognize the two men who threw me down the ladder when I tried to escape before.
One is Fernando’s father. My mother has also transitioned back into human form, her pale skin glowing eerily in the moonlight. “Put her back where she belongs,” she says, her voice cold and commanding. She points to me like I’m a pesky dog that keeps getting out of its crate.
“Mother, please,” I say. “All I want is to leave. Just let me leave. I know you don’t want me.”
And then she says the thing she’s been saying to me every day since I arrived. “It’s for your own good.”
“It’s not for my own good,” I explode, jerking away when the men try to grab me. “It’s for your good. It’s for your sick sense of revenge. You’ve always hated me. I’ve never done anything to you except come to live here against my will. If you really wanted to do what was good for me, you’d let me leave with my father like you did when I was a baby. That’s the only thing you’ve ever done for my own good.”
She flicks her wrist like I’m not worth the effort, and the two men seize me. I’m suddenly very aware of their nakedness, their animal heat, the scent of their sweat on the warm night breeze.
“Let me go,” I scream, digging my heels in, arching my back. But they grip my arms and drag me backwards, towards the door. I turn my eyes to the fuzzy white wolf standing at the edge of the pack. “Elidi, help me. Get me out. I just want to go home.”
She lowers her head.
Before I can get another word out, the men hurl me through the door and down the back stairs. This time, Harmon is not there to break my fall. My shoulder smashes into the dirt wall, my body tumbles down and down and down. My head slams against a wooden step, and darkness swallows me.
23
The first thing I hear when I wake is Harmon raging. It takes a
moment to find my bearings, to remember where I am. Slowly, I drag myself down the last few stairs. My ankle is on fire, flames shooting up my leg. My head weighs a thousand pounds. I curl up on the cool dirt floor for a few minutes, drifting along the current of consciousness.
“Stel-la,” Harmon roars from the other room. I push myself up to sitting, and my head swims. Afraid I’ll pass out if I stand, I crawl into the bedroom and kick the door to the stairs shut behind me. For another minute, I lie on the floor.
Then Harmon starts up again. “I know that’s you, Stella. I know your smell.”
Through the haze of pain and dizziness and thick-headedness, fury blazes up bright and clear. “It’s your fault,” I snarl back at him. “You called them here.”
“What are you talking about?”
Something jabs into my side when I move, sending pain streaking up my torso like an infection. I reach for it without looking. My stake is gone, but my fork remains, protruding from my pocket with one of its tines driven deep through my skin. With gritted teeth, I ease my jeans down a few inches, lowering the fork with them. It comes out smeared with blood.
I grip it in one hand and crawl on my elbows towards the basement room, like that starving man who’s lived on crumbs for too long. My body is ready to give up. But my fork is ready for more than crumbs.
Pain flares in my leg every time I move, but I continue forward, determination driving me on even as warning bells begin to go off in my mind. Something is happening to me, a pain that has nothing to do with my injury. Holding back the pulsating panic in my mind, I drag myself forward.
But I know this pain. Aching joints, undulating light at the edges of my eyes, distorted vision, as if seeing through a wavy glass. I stop and lower my head between my hands for a minute. Ironically, I’ve had these fits since I was a kid, when I—no joke—fell down a flight of stairs. My dad always told me we moved to Oklahoma to be near Dr. Golden, who specialized in traumatic brain injuries. Now, I don’t know if any of that was true. All I know is that I had these strange fits when I was a child, but they stopped until last year, when I had one in my mother’s attic.
Beastly Beauty: A Fairy Tale Retelling (Girl Among Wolves Book 2) Page 14
