I awoke to soft light, shining upon my feet. The windows were caked with grime in this place, but as I blinked, waking, I saw that the one above me had been wiped clean. Puffy, white clouds moved across a bright blue sky. Morning.
“Hey.” Her voice was soft and warm. I turned to see Kara waking beside me. Her eyes reflected the blue of the sky as she opened them to see me. She smiled wide, beautifully. I pillowed my head on her shoulder and realized I was happy.
“I love you,” she whispered then, voice soft. She seemed to search my eyes for a long moment, as if she wanted to tell me something. But she didn’t. Her face changed, smoothed, and then, with a soft smile, she murmured: “I believe you love me, too, Megan.”
“I do,” I said, breathless.
“I keep you safe,” she said, taking my hands in her own. Nedra had something something about that last night, hadn’t she? Safe? It was so strange. I looked into her eyes, tried to see the secrets within, but they were shut to me. And then she gathered me into her arms and held me.
I kissed her brow, I kissed her eyes, I kissed her lips...and between us came nothing more than truth and love. My heart quieted as we embraced and believed. It was enough.
A throat was cleared, and I drew rags about my naked body as Ledo stepped around the boards, looking down at us with a lopsided grin. Kara sighed.
“I was just wondering if our lovely guest was going to be staying for breakfast,” he grinned, “and what she would like with her eggs.”
I sat up suddenly, rags clutched to my chest. “Is this Friday?”
“Of course it’s Friday.” Ledo's grin didn't falter.
“I have work!” I moaned, trying to find my clothes in the mass of fabric.
“I'll miss you,” Kara sighed as Ledo ducked away, giving us privacy. I slipped on my bra, clipping it behind me. Kara put her chin in her hands as she gazed at me, sighed. “You'll go up to your grandmother's tonight, right? When will I see you again?”
My grandmother's. I paused with my shirt half over my head. I had gone to my grandmother’s house every weekend since I'd moved down from the mountain, but it was amazing how frequently I forgot. Now. Now that I had her. Kara.
A strange idea came into my head, and I turned to her then, grinning widely.
“What if you…well, what if you come up with me?”
Kara appeared surprised. “Me?”
“Of course!” I was back beside her, in her arms, kissing her. “Please, Kara! You're all I ever talk about to her--I'm sure she would be absolutely thrilled to meet you!”
Kara looked uneasy, though nodded. “If you want me to, Megan. I'll go up with you.”
“Meet me outside of the library at closing, okay?” Another kiss. She smiled up at me.
“Get going, you'll be late,” she said, with no small amount of remorse.
I pulled on my wrinkled skirt, my heels, and dashed down and out into the sunshine, heart light.
---
Kara came at closing time, moving into the library with snow on her hair and her hands deep in her pockets. She smiled at Sally and Sharon and Rob and proffered her arm to me, a sweep of her hair over one eye.
It made my heart beat much too quickly as she grinned at me.
We stopped at the grocery store, then drove up to my grandmother’s house. The trip didn't take nearly as long as I thought it would. We talked a little, listened to classical music, stared out the car windows at the pristine winter night. The moon was low and long over the mountain, casting shadows on the trees and on the road.
A few times, I thought I saw shadows move beneath the trees. But when I looked closer, there was nothing there.
When we came upon the cabin, I stole a glance over at Kara to see what she’d think of it. And really, my grandmother’s house looked so ideal on a moonlit night in winter. It was a frosty evening among the tall, languid pines, and there were the lights of the stars overhead, and there were the lights in the perfect log cabin. It was a picture out of a fairy tale as we pulled up the driveway, as I dimmed the headlights, as I turned off the car. The pines stretched themselves around us, up to the glorious stars overhead. I stepped out of the car into the welcoming crunch of snow, bringing my jacket closer about me, seeing my breath crystallize in the air. Watching Kara.
She still wore no coat, yet she never looked cold. She slammed the car door behind her, startling a branch-load of snow to fall in the yard. She watched it clump onto the ground, turned her eyes to me. She didn’t smile, her face bore no expression...which was strange for Kara. I reached out a hand to her. I didn’t want her to be nervous about meeting my grandmother.
“I love you,” she murmured to me, a surprise. She drew me close and embraced me, there in the cold, beneath the trees, the stars. We remained that way for a moment, and then the spell was broken. The door to the cabin opened, and my grandmother stood there, silhouetted gracefully by the light.
“Megan!” she called, “you'll catch your death!”
I wouldn't, but I smiled and gathered bags from the back seat. Kara helped, and together we wound our way through the beaten path (beaten by my grandmother's worn boots) and then we were at the door, and in the half-light from inside, my grandmother kissed my forehead and smiled warmly at this stranger.
“Kara,” she said with a grin: “I was expecting you.”
For this moment, it was all like old times. I was a child again, a child with a treasure to show my grandmother, and she was pleased as punch. She ushered us inside, and she was smiling and Kara was smiling, and I was happy, I thought I might burst.
“Megan is always too good to me,” Gramma was saying, taking the grocery bags that Kara proffered. “She does all my shopping, all my errands--she's just too good.”
We followed my grandmother into the kitchen. It smelled like oatmeal cookies. Candles lined the kitchen sink, and only one light bulb burned. Memories came flooding back, and as I set my own bags on the counter, I felt a strange sense of de ja vu. Perhaps it was just nostalgia, but Kara and Gramma trading pleasantries…it wasn’t awkward, far from it. It was as if they’d known each other all their lives. I got a glass from the cabinet and poured myself water from the pitcher. The candles danced, and I drank deep, watching my two favorite people in the world talking.
“Megan, show Kara upstairs to your room.” Gramma waved a hand to shoo us. “I'll put away the groceries, and then serve up dinner--you both must be famished.”
The old banister felt freshly polished beneath my hand as we ascended the stairs my great-grandfather made. Everywhere I looked were pieces of my family, there a portrait, there a carving. We were born and bred from the woods, and my ancestry had made these forests their home. I pointed things out to Kara, explained their origin. She only smiled.
“This is it,” I said, then. We’d reached the landing. The cabin wasn’t large, but the first room on the right had always been mine, to do with as I would. Now, I flicked on the light and let Kara by. She stepped into the center of the floor and stared.
“I know it's small,” I apologized, “and it's just a twin bed, but I know Gramma won't mind if we share it...”
She still said nothing, staring up at the wall and ceiling. I followed her glance and saw her taking in my drawings. Her face was still carefully guarded.
“Oh, these...” I said, clearing my throat, “they're my art... remember?” Now I was chuckling, but she still said nothing. “...Kara?”
“These are beautiful.” She said it with conviction. I stood and looked at her as she carefully took her eyes from the drawings, placing them on me instead. “They're absolutely beautiful, Megan.”
“Now I know you're stretching the truth.” The smile came easy to me, but left after she didn’t return it. She looked serious, very serious.
“Why did you stop,” she asked, then, “creating art?” I had no good answer.
“Megan! Kara! Dinner!”
Obediently, we filed down the stairs, me behind her, taking in the wisps
of hair that lay gently against her neck. I had never seen her so serious. It was such a silly little thing, that my art was good, but she’d meant it.
Stew and fresh baked bread. Kara and Gramma made polite noises back and forth to one another, and I buttered my bread thickly as we told Gramma about the snows we’d gotten in the valley. Finally, it was time for bed. My grandmother kissed us both on the forehead and shooed us upstairs once more, as if we were little children, about to have a sleep over. If Kara thought this was a little bit strange, she made no mention of it. I brushed my teeth beneath the same flickering light I’d brushed my teeth under when I was a kid.
This was a little weird for me.
Moonlight spilled in the window, making shadows of branches and panes across the floor. Kara propped herself up in my small bed, looking up at the drawings. I felt self-conscious and flicked the light switch off, climbing into bed beside her. It was so small, but it would make do. We pressed against one another, I beneath the covers, her on top. She pillowed her head on her hands and made no move, so I turned, ready for sleep.
“Megan,” she said after a moment. The word was small in the darkness, small against my back as she turned and molded herself along my form. I pretended I was asleep.
“Megan,” she hissed into my ear. I grumbled and turned a little. Her face was close to mine.
“Yes?” I whispered.
“Your grandmother is very nice. I thought you should know.” Her voice was quiet in the dark. The shadows played tricks with her eyes, and I saw shapes in them, around her face. I tilted my head and watched the darkness and light fold and compress, elongate and shift.
“Yes, she is pretty nice,” I said after a moment, after she blinked a few times thoughtfully. I put my arms about her neck and drew her down to me for a sweet kiss. It was light, soft as down; she brushed lips against my own and then against my cheek, against my forehead, against my eyes. Long, languid movements that made me shiver. I wasn’t really cold.
Moonlight drifted across the floor as stars shifted in the sky, and our bodies shifted beneath them. We stayed silent, though our breath came quick. We moved in rhythms both ancient and wise, wild and unknown. I learned to breathe in the darkness, as we touched and trembled. I closed my eyes and could still see her shape above me.
We moved together.
---
I'm in Gramma's kitchen – I'm playing with her wooden spoons--she has several. I line them up in size, I make shapes with them, sometimes, if I think she can't hear me, I bang them on pots and pans. It makes a delightful sound that echoes through the kitchen, and I know she really can hear it, but she's never admonished me yet. I think she likes my music.
There's a knock at the door. I get up to answer it, straightening my overalls as I run, pellmell through the kitchen and the living room and the hallway and then there's the doorknob, and Gramma already has it in her hand, and she's opening it, and now she is admonishing me, but only with her eyes, and I know it's because I ran through the house. I'm not allowed to.
“Good morning, Clyde,” says my Grandmother, squinting up through the morning sunlight at the hulking figure in the doorway. I've always thought of Clyde like a big brown bear. I'd seen one in the woods, once – it moved slow, lumbering along through berry patches, snuffling through the thorns to the sweet fruit. I look up at this bear now, take in his hands, as big as paws, and his face, as thick as a snout. It's smiling down at me.
“Good morning, Molly! Good morning, Megan!” and then he hands me a small bunch of meadow flowers. They are the first flowers that anyone has ever given me, though I've seen them given as gifts in storybooks. They delight me, even though I could have gone and picked my own. He took the trouble to bring me flowers!
I laugh, happy, and take them up to my room. I put them in a tin cup on my bedside table, and, in my haste, spill the water from the cup over my latest drawings. It's a sudden motion, and there was nothing I could do to stop it (Gramma would have said that I shouldn't run through the house). But one moment, the water is in the cup on the windowsill, and the second, it's splashed over the floor and the rocking chair and my sketches. I stare, horrified, as girls and horses meld together to one ugly entity, as brown as mud, as dirty as hide.
“Megan!” Gramma calls up, from the living room. “Clyde is staying to dinner! Come down, you must help me with the cooking.”
There isn’t a thing I can do. I cram the flowers in the cup hurriedly, and then I glance about, wondering where I can put the mess. I wad up the papers (sticky, messy papers), and crumple them as small as they go, and then they are under my bed.
Lost forever.
Chapter 9
I didn’t know if I slept, or if I stayed awake, lulled by a bone deep exhaustion I could hardly feel. But suddenly I was awake, and Kara was not with me. Had she been gone a moment? An hour? I placed my hand on the indent in the mattress she’d made with her body. Cold.
I gathered my clothes and slipped them on, moving quietly to the bathroom in the darkness. She wasn’t there. My blood pounded in taut ears as I made my way down the steps, avoiding each creak by heart as I moved from plank to plank with nimble feet. She wasn’t in the living room, not in the kitchen. And the door to my grandmother’s bedroom was closed.
My heart pounded faster now, harder. Kara was gone, as if she had vanished in the night. I tried to remain calm, tried to think logically, but in the darkness, my fears were all real. I stared at my reflection, lit by moonlight, in the window, my eyes too wide.
That's when I saw it. The kitchen door was slightly ajar. I crossed to it and peeked around the corner, out into the night. Still, white snow spread across our backyard; moon and stars made it seem like day.
There, in the snow, were footprints. They looked like Kara's boots, and they set off in the direction of the deep woods. Was she sleep walking? She didn’t know her way here... Even I could get lost in these woods. They were wild, untamed. There was nothing dream-like about them in the dead of night, when animals are half-starved from the winter.
I didn’t think that Kara could take care of herself in the woods at night. I knew little of her past, her upbringing, but what I did know consisted of a woman who lived in an abandoned factory. This could hardly be suited for a winter's night among trees and beasts. I shook my head and darted to the entryway, slipping my bare feet into winter boots, arms into coat, head into hat. I didn’t think about it for a second, but slipped myself out into the night.
It was so cold, but so clear. As I set off after the boot prints, I began to feel a little foolish, but still urgent. Anyone could follow boot prints, and anyone could follow boot prints home. But Kara...had she ever been in the woods? What was she doing? She could get lost anyway, couldn't she? I was afraid, and I didn’t know why, but I crunched through the snow quickly, ignoring the cold, cruel beauty in favor of my inner worries, now dark and distant. Where was she?
I followed her tracks until I couldn’t feel my hands any longer. I stuffed them into coat pockets and realized I couldn't feel my nose, couldn't feel my feet. It didn't matter. Stubbornly, I continued on, placing boot into boot print, watching the long, sharp shadows, taking in breaths and letting them out to cloud the night. As each step moved, as my body followed, I became more and more afraid. I couldn’t think of anything but finding Kara, nothing but seeing her long, lank form ahead in this half light, half darkness. But I didn’t see her. I kept walking.
Gradually, the strides lengthened, and though I struggled myself, I couldn’t duplicate the stride. I sighed and followed them as best I could, down a hill and then up another, between tall, dark trees. Finally, I crested it, following the footprints down into another knoll.
I stopped.
The footprints ended here. Or, the boots did. They disappeared in a circle of disturbed snow, kicked up and altogether displaced. I stared stupidly at the circle, stared stupidly at the tracks I now could see.
Wolves.
The hair on the back of my neck s
tood up, and though I was so cold, a sudden sweat rose on my skin, making the fabric cling to my body. I shook, staring at the tracks, staring at the silent snow. I shook and I couldn’t stop.
In the silence of the woods, my heart hammered against my chest. Clouds scuttled across the moon, and the brilliant reflection of white on snow eased, replaced by darkness. Darkness and then light, darkness and light. I shook, and my heart hammered and I didn’t know what to do. I was too afraid to breathe, too afraid to lick my lips, frozen in the night. But I managed to, managed to wet them with a stiff tongue, running over the chapped surface without feeling it. There was a rushing in my ears.
Kara had been mauled by the wolves. Then why wasn't there blood? Kara had been taken by the wolves. Wolves don't take anything. Kara had been killed by the wolves. There was no body. And there were no wolves. Strange thoughts seeped through my brain like running sap and I tried to remember the truth, and as I stared at the circle, lost in a haze of rampant fear, I almost didn't hear the movement, didn't hear the branches breaking or the crunch of snow. Didn't hear the panting in the darkness. But I turned, because I had heard it, and on the brink of the hill, I saw the wolves, and my heart came up into my throat, and I thought I was dying. Terror, deep and dark, opened up a hole beneath me and swallowed in a single bite.
They were long and sleek, dark and sharp, shadows that moved within the darkness and fading moonlight like nightmares. I watched them move, watched them circle at the top of the knoll, and I knew that if they wanted, I would be theirs. I would die in the cold, in the snow, in the winter, and my grandmother would never find me.
No one would ever find me.
I must be dreaming this. It was a delusion, like the kind my grandmother got. I watched the largest beast step down the knoll, watched the snow slide from beneath large paws. The yellow eyes seemed to glow in the darkness, and it moved toward me as if in a dream, slinking quietly. Stalking me.
But it was no dream. I was too cold, the moon was too bright, and I could hear the wolf breathing.
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