Frank finishes off his ice cream and stands. “I’m more than willing to look for Jane again. I don’t want to believe she’s dead any more than you do. Maybe tomorrow we can go out together. You might feel something stronger in the forest.”
I stare at him, shocked into silence. He’s offering to take me out into the forest with him?
“Would you like that?” he asks.
I nod vigorously. A chance to go to the forest without having to sneak, without fear of being caught? Yes, obviously, absolutely.
To look for Jane, of course.
Not to feel that magic again.
“Yes,” I say. “Yes, I would. Thank you.”
That night, I lie awake telling myself that I don’t need to go to the forest tonight. There’s no reason to go other than to look for Jane, and Frank is taking me with him tomorrow to do just that. It’ll be safer with him.
I’ve nearly convinced myself to stay when there’s a quiet knock on the door. London peeks in.
“Can’t sleep?” I ask. She shakes her head. “Do you want me to come read you a story?” She shakes her head again. “Then . . . ?”
She glances toward the window, and I understand. I smile. “Of course. Is Olivia already asleep?” London nods. “Then it can just be us.”
Jane keeps the two candles in a box under her bed. Candles are the only thing she ever asks for on her birthday. Her strongest memory of her mother is that she loved candles. She owned them in a thousand shapes, sizes, and scents. When she needed to relax, she lit candles and breathed in the scent.
Frank only gets Jane plain, unscented white candles. A couple years ago, he gave her a set that smelled faintly of vanilla. We were pretty sure it was an accident, and no one mentioned it.
The scent doesn’t matter. The candles are a symbol, and symbols aren’t exact recreations. All that matters is that the flickering flames send Jane back in time to the family she misses, and now they can send London and I back in time to Jane.
I place them on the windowsill, in the faint rings of wax left behind by many nights of this ritual being played out. London kneels. I light the candles, sitting cross-legged next to her. We stare past the candles up into the night sky, and I imagine we have the same wish.
Please let Jane come home.
Afterwards, I walk downstairs with London. I sit on the edge of her bed and she puts a small chapter book in my hands. I read in a soft voice that won’t wake Olivia, and minute by minute, London’s breathing slows. Before she falls asleep, she whispers, “Do you want to know what the word means?”
“What word?”
“Tenebrous.”
I’d completely forgotten. I smile. “Tell me.”
“I memorized it. Dark; shadowy or obscure.”
Goosebumps rise in a line up the side of my body facing the tunnel.
“Good word,” I whisper.
I sit with London until she falls asleep, and then I open the wall and head back to the tenebrous forest.
8
There’s no hesitation walking into the trees this time. I’m where I’m supposed to be. I press my forehead against a tree and magic sings in my veins.
“Hello.” I’m not startled by the voice this time.
The girl is back and instantly, so is the fear. Why the fuck did I think I was overreacting before? Looking at her is like looking at a hole in the universe and the only thing you can do with a hole in the universe is run and hope it doesn’t catch you.
I squeeze my eyes shut. Come on, I admonish myself. Get over this. She hasn’t actually done anything to you. If being kind of spooky but harmless was a reason to abandon someone, my siblings would have left me, Winnie, and our absurdly vast combined mental library of ghost stories and urban legends a long time ago. Me especially, considering the way I can’t stop myself from saying the scariest thing that pops into my mind when we’re trying to sleep. One of the first sleepovers we had in the living room involved me, lying in the dark, whispering, “Doesn’t the ceiling fan kind of look like a body on the ceiling?” and Irene whacking me with a pillow.
I do a round of square breathing. Mediocre results for magic, much better ones for anxiety. When the adrenaline of pure terror fades, I carefully open my eyes.
The girl is still there, still a little too motionless. This time, though, she cocks her head to the side as she watches me. It would be like a confused puppy, but her neck bends too far and it’s more like an owl.
I remember the shadow and its owlish eyes from the night Jane disappeared, and I have to close my eyes again.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“I’m sorry,” she says.
Eyes still closed, I shake my head. “No, it’s me. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” There’s got to be something wrong with me—why else would I be so scared of her when there’s no real reason to be?
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she says.
I open one eye. Her mouth keeps moving for a couple seconds with no sound. The jolt of fear isn’t as intense. I’m getting used to her. Acclimating. That’s a good word. Frank has this book about climbing Mt. Everest, and it talks a lot about how important it is to get acclimated to higher elevations. It’s a slow process. You climb to a higher camp, spend a little time there, then go back down. You repeat it until you’re ready to go to the next highest camp, and then you go back and forth.
That’s what I’m doing. Acclimating.
I look at her with one eye and ask, “Can you use your own words?”
“Own words?” she repeats.
I open the other eye. With slow, careful steps, I circle her. Her head swivels to follow me until she has to turn her body. At least that part isn’t like an owl. If she turned her head all the way around, all that acclimation would be ruined. I’d be gone in a flash.
“I’ll take that as a no.”
“No.”
“Okay, well . . .” I stop circling her.
“Okay, well . . .” She stops her swivel, and watches me.
“I have to find my sister,” I say.
“I have to find my sister.”
“I’d ask if you’ve seen her, but I’m guessing . . .”
“I’d ask if you’ve seen her—” I wave my hand, interrupting, but she finishes the sentence anyway. It’s like she can’t control it. She’s compelled to repeat my words.
“Find me.”
It takes a moment to realize what she’s said, because I’d tuned out when she started repeating me. But it was her—the girl who only repeats words—and I didn’t say that.
Screw acclimation. I get up close to her. “Have you talked to Jane? Have you heard her?” I demand.
“Have you heard her?”
I shake my head, flexing my hands in and out of fists to fight the anger surging up through my gut. It’s not her fault she can’t communicate the way I want her to. Chill out.
“Okay, you can’t talk to me, but maybe you can show me the way?”
“Maybe you can show me the way?” she repeats, nodding. She gestures for me to follow her. I do.
There aren’t many parts of the forest that look familiar. I haven’t spent that much time in here. There’s just one area that’s seared into my brain. Once I realize what path we’re on, I can feel the warmth of blood on my hands. I can feel Jane shaking as we walk away from the clearing. I can hear her promise no one will know.
“No,” I say, stopping in my tracks. “She’s not going to be that way. The only thing that way—”
“Is dead.”
My throat tightens until I can’t breathe or move.
The girl turns to me. She’s learning her own words and she’s moving more naturally. She’s got a crooked sort of smile that reminds me of Winnie’s—closed mouth, almost more smirk than smile. She looks past me, over my shoulder, at whatever’s footsteps I hear now.
I don’t look. It’s not a person. I know it’s not. It’s going to be that shadow with the owl eyes.
I
close my eyes tight, as if not seeing it will mean it doesn’t see me. The footsteps draw closer. They aren’t quite footsteps, though, more like the steady rustle of leaves.
An image flashes into my mind—tall, standing on two legs. Antlers reaching up to the sky. Made of shadows and lightning bugs. It should be insubstantial—ephemeral? Better word—but I know it’s solid, solid, solid. Solid enough that if it reached out, I’d feel it.
It doesn’t. It only stands behind me. It inhales deeply, and so do I. We exhale together.
Its breath is hot on my neck.
I turn, and there’s nothing there.
“Run,” the girl says. She hasn’t moved. “But come back.” She glances toward the clearing, then to me, that crooked smile still in place. “She’s waiting.”
I don’t need to be told twice. I run.
I’m already shaky when I get back to the house. I need to go to bed. I need sleep.
I don’t need to walk into the little twins’ room and find Elle, hands on her hips, a glare on her face. She looks me up and down, pursing her lips, then spins on her heel and walks out.
Well.
Fuck.
I close the tunnel and follow her out into the living room. Her arms are now crossed over her chest and she’s looking at me like a mother about to scold her child.
“What in the world were you thinking?” Elle hisses.
“Oh, please, like we don’t know how you and Irene sneak out to night swim,” I whisper angrily.
Elle pales, then shakes her head. “We’ve only done that a few times, and at least we went together. You went out by yourself. What if something had happened to you? What if you got injured and you couldn’t get help and the wound got infected? What if—” She puts a hand over her mouth, and her eyes sparkle with tears. “We already lost Jane to . . . something out there. What if it had taken you?”
I soften. “It won’t.”
“How can you know that?”
I shrug. I can’t answer that, because the honest answer would be that I don’t know. What I do know is that no matter if I’m scared, no matter if I’m not safe, I’m going back.
She’s waiting.
“What were you even doing out there?”
“I thought I saw something from my window,” I lie. “I thought it might be Jane, so . . .”
Elle looks doubtful. “I’m guessing you didn’t find her.”
“I must have imagined it. I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to go back to sleep.”
She opens her mouth as if to push the subject, then closes it and shakes her head. She follows after me. As we cross to the stairs, Elle glances down the hallway toward Frank’s rooms.
‘You won’t tell him, right?’ I ask, signing because we’re a little too close to his door for comfort.
She looks back at me, startled. She shakes her head.
She was considering it, though. I can tell. His trust means everything to her, and she’s told on siblings in the past to stay on his best side. Not on big things. She’d never purposely get us sent to time-out. She tattles about the little things, like having windows open, or neglecting to practice our magic. Things that prove she knows the rules.
She won’t tell Frank I snuck out. She’d have to tell him about the tunnel, and that would implicate her.
So I nod, holding her gaze until she turns away first.
“Let’s go to bed,” I whisper. I hold out an arm, indicating for her to go ahead of me. She glances back down the hallway, but quick, so quick I almost miss it before she raises her head high and ascends the stairs.
I pause, staring down the hallway the same way she had, thinking about Frank asleep in his rooms. He’s lived here for a long time. Long enough to make this house into a self-sustaining home and raise us.
The forest has always been off-limits, because it’s too easy to get lost, too easy to stray from his sight and into the sight of someone who would hurt us. Those are the reasons he’s always given. I don’t doubt them, exactly, but I wonder.
Does he know what really lives in the forest?
9
“Sorry, you’re what?” Winnie asks, except she has her toothbrush in her mouth, so it’s muffled and takes me several seconds to translate.
I don’t answer right away. I continue brushing while Winnie glares, and I give her a look that says I’m too dignified to talk with my mouth full of toothpaste foam. We take turns spitting into the sink. I reach for my pill caddy, and Winnie nudges me hard enough that it’s almost a push. Her little pet poltergeist rattles the other toothbrushes on the bathroom counter. I reach out to steady their holders.
“No, seriously,” she says. “You’re what?”
“Frank’s taking me out to the forest.” I successfully claim my pill caddy and pop open today’s box. Two pills sit inside, both white, one a thin oval and the other a thick circle. The orange bottles Frank uses to refill our caddies every week say buspirone and bupropion, and one’s for anxiety and the other’s for depression, but I always mix up which is which. I fill my mouth with a handful of water from the sink and swallow the pills.
Winnie, a show-off, swallows her pills dry.
“Or at least he says he is,” I amend. It feels a little too good to be true that Frank would really take me out to the forest with him, so I don’t want to act like it’s a sure thing. I think he’d take it away if he knew how badly I wanted it.
“Why?”
“To look for Jane.”
Winnie frowns. “I thought you both thought she was dead.”
“I did,” I say. “I don’t anymore.”
For that, Winnie smacks my arm.
“Ow!”
She rolls her eyes. “That didn’t hurt. I barely touched you. Why didn’t you tell me you think she’s alive? I’ve been over here feeling like I’m the crazy one for hoping.”
“Sorry,” I say. “I kind of feel like the crazy one, too. I don’t . . . I mean, I don’t have a good reason to think she’s alive. I don’t have proof or anything, so don’t get your hopes up too high.”
“Too late. Hopes up. Hopes in the stratosphere. What changed?”
“Well.” I lean back against the sink. “We all searched the forest and didn’t find a trace of her.” That’s a good place to start, I think. With facts. “No body or anything. Surely someone would have stumbled on her.”
“Unless she ran away and isn’t in the forest anymore.”
“I know you don’t believe she’d do that. None of us do.”
“Fine. Then maybe someone took her.”
“Who would take her? No one comes here.”
“Do you know how far the forest goes? We never reached the other side of it while we were searching. For all we know, the forest goes for miles and miles and miles and has campsites eventually. Hikers.”
Blood on the ground, Jane’s hands over her mouth, my hands held out in front of me, trembling.
I scoff in a way that I hope is believably incredulous. “I think we’d know if hikers ever got this far. Besides, if one did, why would they take Jane?”
Winnie holds up her hands defensively. “I don’t know about you, but I feel like if anyone would have the bad luck to encounter the one serial killer among whatever hikers find our forest, it’d be us.”
“She’s not dead,” I say firmly. “It’s not just the lack of a body. I can . . .” I groan. It feels even sillier saying this to Winnie than it did to Frank. “I can feel it. When we were in the forest, I felt it. She’s alive. She’s out there. We just have to find her.”
Winnie doesn’t respond immediately. She stands there, looking at me as if she’s trying to figure me out.
“You mean it?” she asks. I can hear it now, the hope in her voice. “You feel her?”
“I do.”
Winnie nods. “Okay. You’re not usually one for intuition and crap, so, if you say that you feel she’s alive . . . I don’t know.” She needlessly rearranges and neatens the lines of toiletries on the cou
nter. “I believe it.”
My heart squeezes. I’m not used to a Winnie that’s this kind of vulnerable. Even the Winnie who lay in my bed with me a couple years ago and confessed that she was asexual hadn’t been what I’d call vulnerable. She was excited, maybe in part because Brooke had already claimed the word. It made the identity more accessible, made claiming it for herself feel safer. The only nerves I saw were in little glances my way, because, well, she told me right after kissing me.
That was back when we were more like two girls living in the same weird boarding school, not sisters. Becoming sisters took years, and there was a brief crush phase on the way. Never serious, never more than a few awkward kisses.
When I reacted positively to her announcement—because what other way is there to react when someone tells you a profound way to understand them better?—she launched into eager babbling, and any hint of that vulnerability dissipated.
I should tell her what I’ve been doing in the forest. I should tell her I’ve gone out by myself more than once, and tell her about the girl, and about the antlered something whose breath I can still feel on my neck. She believes in me. She trusts me. I should return that. I want to return that.
But my vocal cords are paralyzed, and instead of joining Winnie in that frightening vulnerability, I smile and take her hand and we walk downstairs to join the others for breakfast.
Frank is at the head of the table with a newspaper. It’s one of the things he comes back with every time he leaves—a stack of newspapers to catch up on. They stay in his rooms for the most part. He doesn’t think we should read them. It would be too stressful, he says, to worry about what’s happening in the wider world.
So all we see are glimpses when he brings one to a meal. Headlines that we have no context for, pictures of people we don’t know. There was a time when it felt like torture, being so close to knowledge of the life I left behind and yet unable to access it, but now? Now I barely glance at it. He’s right. I have enough going on without taking on the troubles of people that would hate me for being an alchemist.
A Dark and Starless Forest Page 8
