by Sarah Cross
“I’m serious. What’s she going to do for you? She can’t protect you. You need to be somewhere safe.”
“Like the underworld? My prince has a bedroom reserved for me.”
“Yeah, I’ve got a coffin reserved for him. The glass one downstairs.”
“No, that’s mine. Didn’t Regina tell you? I figured she would have covered that during one of your chats.”
“Get up. We’re leaving.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“Do you think I have a special murder spot picked out? If I wanted to kill you, why wouldn’t I do it here? I’m not worried about traumatizing your stepmom. I don’t think that’s even possible.”
“My chipmunks would bite the shit out of you. You might not want to risk it.”
“Get. Up. Right now. Pack a bag if you want. If I have to carry you out, all you’re going to have is the dress you’re wearing.”
“Where are we going?” she asked, getting up to pack, not wanting to call his bluff.
“Somewhere the Huntsman won’t look for you. Somewhere he’ll regret looking if he does.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
THE BARKING STARTED as soon as they pulled up in front of the farmhouse—a rapid-fire assault that cracked into Viv’s skull like the start of a headache. Then one of Elliot’s monstrous dogs, its eyes as big as dinner plates, came charging into the dusty glow created by the truck’s headlights. It halted at a sharp whistle from Elliot, who was standing on the porch in jeans and a white tank top, holding his tinderbox as if he might strike the flint and make a wish any minute. His blond head was shaved and he had lines around his eyes. He was eighteen, but looked twenty-five. Murdering an old witch tended to carve the last bloom of youth off a person.
“I thought animals were supposed to like you,” Elliot said as Viv got out of Henley’s truck.
“Animals, yes,” she said. “Enormous demon dogs, no.”
“That’s not very nice.” Elliot leaned down to scratch the folds of skin at the back of the dog’s neck. Then he nodded to Henley—“Jack said you were coming”—and went into the house, leaving the bug-eyed dog to stand guard.
The yard was pitted with holes, and here and there the knobby joint of a giant’s bone stuck out of the earth. Anytime Jack killed a giant, something had to be done with the remains, and it was easier to let Elliot’s dogs tear it apart and bury the bones than to dig a grave large enough to hold the corpse. Viv felt like she was walking through a cemetery with zombie limbs jutting up ready to grab her.
A boxy air-conditioning unit was wedged into the front window and over the churning noise she could hear a TV and loud voices.
“They’re not having a party, are they?”
“Jack didn’t say.”
Viv could barely deal with Jack Tran and Elliot; if she went inside and found herself surrounded by Red Riding Hoods and Bandit Girls doing body shots she would walk right back out. “I should just go to Jewel’s. I can’t actually stay here.”
“Tonight you can. It’s the safest place for you. The Huntsman’s not getting past those dogs—or Jack and Elliot.”
“Maybe we should look harder for some dwarves. Seven. Seven dwarves. Power in numbers.”
Henley sighed. “Come on.”
Inside, there were about a dozen more people than Viv had expected, but it wasn’t exactly a party.
Jack Tran was sprawled in an armchair like it was his throne, wearing shorts and a black shirt that showed the green vine tattoos twisting up his arms. Jack had that sinewy look common in guys who made a habit of climbing beanstalks, robbing giants, and then running like hell. Out of all the Giant Killers, he was the best. Lots of Giant Killers died; Jack Tran hadn’t so much as broken an arm falling off a beanstalk. He’d stolen more treasure than any of them, but he never hung on to it. His golden-egg-laying hens had a habit of getting turned into fried chicken by vindictive ex-girlfriends. The money, he spent. He was a live fast, die young type, and he reigned over his ring of thieves like the Royals ruled Viv’s social circle.
Beth Teal, who’d gone to school with Viv before her Wild Swans curse forced her to drop out, was sitting cross-legged on the couch, knitting nettles into jackets while a mixed martial arts match played on TV. Beth’s phone rested on the coffee table in front of her; every once in a while she would pick it up and text something, since she wasn’t allowed to speak. Her curse required seven years of silence. If she said one word before the curse was broken, her brothers would die.
Beth’s hands, wrists, and forearms were covered with hives from the nettles, but she went on knitting like a little machine. She’d been doing it for a few years already, camping in the woods or sleeping on people’s couches, occasionally texting friends to ask for a ride to a graveyard to gather more nettles.
The Teal brothers, with their dirty feather-colored hair and gloomy expressions, drifted between the living room and the kitchen, beer bottles or shot glasses in their hands. During the day they were cursed to live as swans, but by night they were human. Viv had seen them at parties before: they would show up anywhere there was free booze, wearing the swim trunks Beth kept for them in her backpack. And then by day they would angrily chase people away from whatever pond they were floating on. If normal swans were ill-tempered, swans with hangovers were that much worse—but there was nothing like an alcohol-induced blackout to make you forget you’d transform into a bird in a few hours.
The more guilt-ridden brothers hung behind Beth like an entourage, drinking and mumbling apologies, sorry that their sister’s every moment was spent knitting the jackets that would break their curse. The brothers who just wanted to forget were getting hammered in the kitchen, and two others were begging Jack to hook them up with a hot girl before daybreak.
“First off,” Jack said, slurping the last dregs of a lime-green slushie, “I don’t know any girls who like swans. Second, your sister’s over there knitting, not talking so you don’t die … and you can’t be celibate a few more years?”
“You don’t know what it’s like,” one brother whined.
“Beth doesn’t mind,” the other insisted.
The Teal brothers had names, but Viv didn’t remember them. She refused to memorize all of the names of siblings in any family that had more than six kids. There was far too much of that going on in Beau Rivage and there was only so much room in her brain.
She sat down on the arm of the couch, since a partially finished nettle jacket was spread across the cushions. Beth nodded hello. Henley went to discuss the arrangements with Jack. They spoke in low voices; she couldn’t hear what they were saying over the hum of the air conditioner, the loud TV, and the spontaneous vomiting noises in the kitchen.
“It’s time for Swans, party of twelve, to go home!” Elliot shouted. “Clean that shit up or I’ll feed your bird asses to my dogs!”
Beth stopped knitting long enough to type a message on her phone. Viv read it to Elliot. “She says they don’t have a home. Also, she’s tired of sleeping in the woods. Sadface.”
“You can stay,” Elliot told Beth. “Although, the house is getting crowded.” His eyes shifted to Viv.
“Sorry,” Viv said.
Elliot headed to the kitchen to give the Teal brothers their last-call warning. Beth resumed knitting an itchy green sleeve. Viv watched a fighter on TV get punched in the face until blood gushed into his eyes, and wished she were at Jewel’s—even if Jewel didn’t know how to kill people. Finally, Jack got up, tossed his slushie cup on the table, and motioned for Viv and Henley to follow. “I’ll show you your room,” he said.
Viv checked out other rooms as they passed—she’d never been inside the farmhouse before. In the kitchen, Elliot stood with his arms crossed while the Teal brothers scrubbed regurgitated pond weed and booze off the floor. In Elliot’s bedroom, a dog with eyes as large as saucers stood guard on top of a padlocked footlocker.
When they reached Jack’s room, all three went inside. It was spare, whit
tled down to the essentials. There was a bed with a dark green bedspread, a hardwood floor worn down by decades of footsteps, a TV mounted on the wall, and a few shelves where Jack kept assorted treasures. Two windows faced the backyard.
“Don’t worry, I changed the sheets,” Jack said.
“I’m sure they needed it,” Viv said, because thanking him felt too weird.
Jack’s hand went to the knife at his belt. There was a leather pouch there, too—for magic beans, supposedly. “How old’s that Huntsman? Fifty?”
“Forty, fifty,” Henley estimated.
“Don’t worry about it, then. I’ve got you covered.”
Viv dumped her bag on the floor, and Jack circled around in front of her.
“If you want to stay here,” he said, “I’ve got a few rules. You’ll have to clean the house, get your animal friends to do the dishes, and bake some pies. Not apple—I’m not sadistic—but something all-American. Oh, and sing a song while you’re at it.”
“Sounds fun. Too bad this is only for one night.” It was dark enough in the room for Viv to be able to see out the window, past the transparent mask of her reflection. She watched as the Teal brothers trooped across the lawn: eleven boys in swim trunks, drunk off their asses.
“We won’t kick you out tomorrow if you need to stay longer,” Jack said. “But you can’t have my bed forever.”
“I think tonight will be enough.”
“Let’s see how this goes,” Henley said. Viv and Henley hadn’t really talked about where she would go after tonight. She wasn’t sure he should even be part of that decision.
“I’ll be on the couch,” Jack said. “Yell if you need something.” He pulled the door shut after himself, leaving Viv and Henley alone.
Viv sat down on the bed, still gazing out the window. Henley sat next to her and she let herself sink against him, watching their reflections as his arm went around her. His hand traced a nervous path over her hair.
“I have to think about what to do,” he said. “I know I used to tell you I would kill the Huntsman. That I would never let him hurt you. I promised you that. But if I killed him now, unprovoked … I don’t know if I could get away with it. I’d have to hide the body. The evidence. I think I could do it, but …”
“Regina would use it against you. You’d end up in prison. I’ll hide somewhere.”
The laws in Beau Rivage favored curses. If you were fated to kill someone, you wouldn’t be prosecuted for the crime. But that was the extent of the amnesty.
“Do you think you’ll go back to the underworld?”
“To hide? No … but I’m taking Jewel to the club tomorrow night. She wants to see it.”
Henley was silent and Viv wondered if he was hoping for an invitation.
“I can’t bring you,” she said.
“Because I’m the Huntsman?”
“Because—”
Because I love you.
“That, and everything else.”
In the window glass they looked hollow. Like ghosts. An unhappy couple who haunted each other, but couldn’t let go. Henley’s eyes were downcast, his mind occupied with thoughts of murder. Neither one of them smiled. Even during the good times, it felt like they were trying to hang on to something temporary before it slipped away. Always anticipating loss or betrayal.
Viv closed her eyes. She slid a hand across his chest, her fingers pushing at his shirt. “Do you want to stay with me?” She could feel his heart beating beneath her palm and her own beat a touch faster, anticipating something other than loss.
“I don’t know if I should, Viv.”
“Don’t you want to?”
“It’s not that.…”
“Then stay. We almost never get to stay the night together.”
She knelt up on the bed, ran her fingers lightly across his neck and jaw, and his head tipped back, his eyes closed, and he sighed and wrapped his arms around her waist. She leaned her weight against him as if she could topple him, and kissed him, kissed the film of salt on his skin, the taste of summer, like so many summers before.
He lay back and pulled her down with him, the bed giving one righteous squeak, his eyes warm and dark and focused on hers. And suddenly she was aware of the limited time they had left—how many more moments like this would there be? And she felt like she needed to make the most of it, to give and take as much as they both had left.
She wanted to engrave her name on his heart, but she’d already done it; she wanted to press down harder, retrace all the lines. She wanted to be the one he loved the most, forever.
She pushed his T-shirt up; it snagged around his head for a second before he raised his shoulders so she could pull it off. And then she was unzipping her party dress, shedding it, the loss of the dress making her feel powerful, steady, like reverse armor. She lay against him, hot skin against skin, feeling the thrill of being near him, and also, the rightness of it. Sometimes they could be magic again. The curse ceased to exist, and there was just the two of them.
“Viv,” he said, “what happens tomorrow?”
She traced a fingertip down his side. “Tomorrow? I could be poisoned tomorrow. Killed by—”
“No.” He grabbed her hand and held it. She kissed his knuckle where their hands were joined.
“Let’s not think about tomorrow. We’re here. Together. We have to live for the moment.” Her voice was playful, trying to keep this from getting serious, because serious for them was so often dark, the first step to ruining a good thing. But maybe if she’d let some emotion—her need for closeness—into her voice, he wouldn’t have felt the need to say it. He would have understood.
“You never live for the moment,” he said. “You’ve been living for the future since the day I was cursed.”
“That’s not true. I do—sometimes. If I couldn’t do that, we wouldn’t be together at all.”
“So, are we together? What is this? You want me to stay. Does that mean…?”
“What?” she whispered.
“Does it mean you’ve decided—”
She lowered her head to kiss him, but he wouldn’t let her dodge the question. He caught her face in his hands.
“Do you know what you want, Viv?”
It hurt, the way he looked at her. This was her chance to make everything better. All she had to do was say you, and make him believe it. I want you—and seal it with a kiss.
She couldn’t.
She couldn’t even look at him. She let her gaze drift, focused on the curve of his shoulder, the seam of the bedspread, anything but the hope she was about to crush. His hands were warm against her cheeks, and she couldn’t take it—that tender, patient feeling—so she pulled away, sat up, straddling his waist. Just a few feet of distance, but it was everything.
“Henley … it doesn’t matter. I can’t make any promises.”
He rose up on his elbows. “Why? Why can’t you? I would promise you anything.”
“Yeah, and it would be a lie. Because you don’t know. You don’t know what you’ll do. The fairies have a pretty good idea—”
He lifted her off him, and got up quickly, anger rippling through him as he stood.
“That again.” He half turned toward the door, fists clenched, and then turned back, spreading his arms wide as if to gesture to everything, the entire mess. “What moment are we living in now? The one where I’m trying to protect you? The one where I love you? The one where I’ve never done a goddamn thing to make you think I would kill you?”
His voice got louder as he went on, and the dog across the hall started barking. Harsh, choppy barks, and Viv flinched with each one. Henley had never hit her, never hurt her, never broken anything she couldn’t buy at the store—but an instinctive fear reared up in her when someone that big and loud was angry with her.
“This should be fun when your friends show up,” she said, her voice calmer than her heart. “At least you know they’ll be on your side.”
Henley picked up his shirt and pulled it on
. He didn’t bother to respond.
“You’re leaving?”
“I don’t need to be here talking in circles, having the same fights with you. I need to think about what to do next.”
“Henley—” She reached for him, but he eluded her grasp. “I don’t want you to go.”
“No, you want to be the one who leaves. That’s how it works, right? You go whenever you’re ready. And to hell with what I’m ready for.”
“You’re making me feel like shit.”
“Welcome to my life. You make me feel like shit all the time.”
He slammed the door as he left and she hugged her knees to her chest and started crying, pressing her face against them so she wouldn’t be loud. “Screw you, then,” she said. But it didn’t make her feel better. The time they had left together—that precious, fading time—maybe he didn’t even want it anymore.
She changed into pajamas and then lay in bed with her back to the door, one tear after another sliding sideways down her cheek. She waited for the sound of Henley’s truck starting up, but there was only the drone of the TV, late-night commercials and action-movie explosions. Jack’s voice, Elliot’s voice, definitely not Beth’s. After a few minutes the bedroom door opened, and she listened to the heavy tread across the floor until she was sure Henley’s shadow was falling over her, but she didn’t open her eyes to see whether that shadow held a knife.
He laid his hand on her shoulder. Whispered, “Viv?”
She didn’t answer. The bed sank as he sat down behind her, and she had to resist rolling over and clinging to him to keep him there.
“I don’t want you to think I’m not going to help you. I will. I’ll do everything I can. Okay?”
She shrugged, smushed her face into the pillow, furtively drying it.
“I’m not staying. I just wanted you to know that.”
He stroked her hair back from her face. Let his fingertips linger on her cheek. Waiting for something? But she gave him nothing. She didn’t know what to give.
“ ’Night, Viv,” he said finally.
“Good night,” she said.
His steps were softer as he left. He closed the door, and she touched her face where he’d touched it, knowing she wouldn’t sleep for hours. Because he was gone.
