by Alessa James
“It’s just me and my dad.”
“Divorce?” Will asked, his tone again curious.
I shook my head and stayed quiet.
“Oh.”
His voice was soft, and when I looked up at him, Will’s expression was the same as it had been when I first saw him in class—melancholy. Without warning, Darcy strained at the leash, causing me to stumble as he lurched toward the woods. I felt goose bumps break out on my arms and caught Will scanning the woods. Without a word, we both began walking faster, and sooner than I expected, we were in front of my house. I paused. What would my dad think if I came back home after dark with a boy? I frowned. Boy. What a silly description of the person standing in front of me.
“Thanks for walking me home,” I said, trying to think of something more interesting to say, but nothing came. “I guess I’ll see you in class.”
He nodded.
“Until we meet again.”
It suddenly felt like I was in an old movie and had forgotten my lines. Suddenly Will’s manner of speech seemed too formal, too perfect, but it sort of matched everything else about him. Even his clothing—just a black shirt and faded jeans—seemed formal on him. I fumbled as he looked down at me in the same unnerving way, and before I could say anything else, he turned and was disappearing down the block. I stood, dazed, for a few more moments before rushing up the steps.
My dad was in the kitchen, his expression unworried. He probably hadn’t even noticed it had gotten dark. He was listening to one of my favorite Radiohead albums while he chopped garlic. How to Disappear Completely was playing. Strange, I thought, since this was the first time it felt like anyone other than Sean had noticed me—in a good way—since we had moved to this place.
“Enough garlic?” my dad asked, fanning his hand over the accumulating pile.
“Plenty!”
I turned and opened the door to the back yard. The air had cooled considerably, but I had barely noticed during the walk back to the house with Will. An owl hooted from somewhere deep in the woods. Remembering the rabbit I had seen at the edge of the park, I irrationally hoped that he wasn’t on the menu. But then the owl had to eat, too.
Picking over the last of the herb garden left behind by our house’s former residents, I watched through the kitchen window as my dad chopped tomatoes for the sauce. When I stepped inside again, the smell of garlic hit me. I could hear the sizzle of oil from the saucepot on the stove, and I breathed in. Garlic made almost anything taste better—at least in my opinion. Still, my dad swore his students would drop his classes if he ate my sauce and then went to school the next day. That was why we always had it on Fridays. To give him the weekend to recover, he teased. I looked up from the counter and noticed he was watching me.
“What’s wrong?” I asked suspiciously.
“Good walk?”
“Yeah, sure. Why?”
“You look … happy.”
I hadn’t realized that I had looked not happy before, but then, my face rarely hid what I was feeling—even when I tried. I was like my mom that way.
“I’m just glad it’s Friday,” I said brightly, keeping my eyes down.
I turned away from him and opened the cans he had left on the counter before adding the tomato sauce to the simmering garlic and olive oil. Picking up the cutting board with the tomatoes, I nudged them into the pot with a knife before rinsing and chopping the herbs. My dad retreated into the living room with his book, and I added a healthy dose of pepper and other spices to the sauce before leaving it to simmer.
Pulling out ingredients for a salad, I began rinsing vegetables. My dad always walked over to Mrs. Hendrix’s house before dinner, and every time she said he was making too much of a fuss on her account, but I knew she secretly liked it—being picked up for a date.
As I finished up dinner, I thought over what Sean had said earlier about the party and Jason Everett. According to the girls in my English class, Jason was supposed to be every girl’s ideal, and I had to admit that he was good looking, except he had this look all the time, like he was judging people less worthy than he was. Plus, he was loud and seemed to enjoy the worship he got. Conceited—that was the word that came to mind when I thought of him. Overall, his presence had never made me anything more than uncomfortable. The truth was that up until Will Kincaid’s arrival in class I hadn’t really noticed any of the guys in school. Back home hadn’t been any different.
Setting the water on the stove to boil, I called into the living room for my dad to go pick up Mrs. Hendrix. A loud crash made me jump, and I felt adrenaline shoot through my bloodstream. The back door had swung open and slammed into the wall. The lock tended to stick, and the door never shut properly. It was another one of our new house’s quirks—and part of the reason I found myself lying awake at night listening to every creak and shudder, certain I was going to be victim of a small-town horror movie plot.
Darcy jumped up, barking madly and ran into the yard to investigate, and I closed the door behind him. He would scratch or whine at the door when he was done poking around. A few minutes later, my dad appeared with Mrs. Hendrix, and we sat down around the kitchen table. Taking a bite of the pasta, Mrs. Hendrix declared dinner a smashing success. But she said that every time she came over. As soon as everyone finished, I did the dishes while my dad went to light the fireplace in the living room.
By the time I joined them, Mrs. Hendrix had already brought out her tin of toffees. I smiled and took one. Even though they always stuck to my teeth, I never passed them up. I leaned back and listened sleepily while they talked. I was staring into the fire mulling over my strange run-in with Will Kincaid when Mrs. Hendrix mentioned something about the woods. I leaned forward.
“It’s awful, Aaron. The newspaper said it might have been a pack of wild dogs on the loose, but I’m afraid for my poor Angel.”
Mrs. Hendrix’s voice caught in her throat as she looked over at Angel, who was curled up in my dad’s chair. I watched uneasily as my neighbor fidgeted, her eyes clouding over. She looked ahead unseeingly, preoccupied by some distant memory.
“I was just a young girl then, and town was much different. Before the fire, folks never locked their doors. Then they began finding the animals … and that poor young man from the Thompson house.” She stopped and shook her head as though to erase the memory of something distasteful. “I suppose it’s silly to bring up old stories. It was a long time ago. And those of us who were alive back then are too old to go digging up the past.”
I shot a look at my dad as Mrs. Hendrix kneaded the blanket he had set on her … like she was afraid to let go of it.
“Well, I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m ready for some tea and then bed,” my dad said with an exaggerated yawn.
He nodded to me, and I took his cue and went into the kitchen to put on the kettle and find the chamomile tea. I listened as he tried to reassure Mrs. Hendrix, telling her that he was sure it was nothing to worry about. But she continued to sound rattled about whatever it was she had read in the paper that had brought up some obviously unsettling memories from her childhood. I tried to imagine Mrs. Hendrix as a young girl, but I couldn’t quite do it. I made a mental note to find a copy of the paper. The kettle whistled, and I had just poured three mugs of steaming water when I heard a mournful howl from the back yard.
I groaned and hurried to the door. I had forgotten Darcy. Again. Opening the door, I noticed a small scuff mark where the doorknob had banged into the wall several times in the past few weeks. My dad kept saying it was on his list of to-do items to get the lock fixed, but I knew it wasn’t going to happen any time soon. After all, he joked, it wasn’t like Winters had a skyrocketing crime rate.
Across the yard, Darcy sat staring up at the trees, but he came reluctantly when I called him. The night air smelled damp, and a blast of cold air made me want to run upstairs and wrap myself in my blanket. Instead, I carried the mugs of tea back to the living room. Mrs. Hendrix looked like she had recovered, bu
t the mug shook in her hand as she took it from me.
Returning to the kitchen to get my mug, I skipped my usual milk and sugar, burning my tongue as I sipped the hot tea. Distracted, I listened while my dad and Mrs. Hendrix talked about gardening. Then, as soon as I finished my tea, I rushed into the kitchen and deposited my mug in the sink before returning to the living room and giving Mrs. Hendrix a hug and a kiss on the cheek. Her finely wrinkled skin had the texture of cloth that had been handled many times over several decades, and I wondered, as I looked into her watery blue eyes, what it was like to be that old—to look back across an entire lifetime. Pecking my dad’s cheek, I turned toward the stairs with Darcy right behind me.
The newspaper lay on the entryway table as I passed. I tucked it under my arm as my dad helped Mrs. Hendrix with her coat. In my room, I locked the door behind me, switched on my desk lamp, and opened the paper, scrutinizing the headlines.
Spike in Wildlife Deaths Baffles Authorities
A spate of unexplained wildlife deaths—ranging from several deer to the rarely seen but impressive predator, the mountain lion—has puzzled local wildlife experts and law enforcement.
The deaths came to a head last week when a dairy farmer found the body of the large cat (Felis concolor) at the edge of his property. Wildlife experts were called to perform an examination and cited tissue damage as their preliminary finding.
“I can’t say I’m disappointed the cat never made it to my herd, but still I bear no ill will toward these creatures,” said Bill Davis, owner of the property. “They help keep nature’s balance. Honestly, I can’t think of anything that could have done what happened to that cat. I won’t get the image from my head for a long time to come.”
Before the creature was found, local officials at the Department of Game and Wildlife had recorded a spike in the percentage of reported deaths of large game—mostly deer—in the region. Hikers and hunters stumbled on most of the remains. The department has performed several necropsies, but the results have remained inconclusive, according to Alfred Montague, head of the regional office.
“Our department maintains meticulous records of any fluctuations in the native populations to guard against the possible migration of invasive nonnative species or unusually virulent pathogens,” Montague said. “However, at this point in time, we have made no determination regarding a relatively moderate increase in reported deaths.”
Montague added that it was unusual to find reclusive creatures like mountain lions so close to densely populated areas. He declined to comment on the nature of the predator’s injuries.
The police department is asking that residents in the surrounding areas, especially those with property adjacent to the woods, keep all pets and young children indoors well before sunset.
“We’re certainly not discounting the fact that recent events could be linked to a roving pack of dogs,” said Winters Sheriff Robert Greenbauer. “Residents are asked to make sure their pets are accounted for and to check all fences and restraints before leaving the premises.”
Authorities ask that community members contact the Sheriff’s Department at (541) 455-1018 if they come across a dangerous animal.
A knock at my door sent me flying out of my chair.
“Aven, I’m back. Are you going to bed?” my dad called.
“Uh, not yet. I’m going to take a shower.”
I opened the door, hoping my dad hadn’t heard me unlocking the door before I turned the knob.
“Is she all right?” I asked, still unnerved by the frightened expression in Mrs. Hendrix’s ancient eyes.
“Oh, I think she’ll be fine. She’s just shaken up about some story in the paper. Dogs getting loose, that’s all. She’s worried about Angel. I think that little dog is all that keeps her going most days. That and your spaghetti sauce. I think I saw her sneak a couple of antacids before dinner.”
He paused.
“You know, honey, I think we’d manage all right if you wanted to go out with your friends one of these nights.”
I tried not to wince at his optimistic use of the plural when it came to the word friends.
“Thanks, Dad.”
He patted my head before heading down the hallway toward his room. I raced to get ready for bed, desperate to tell someone about Will Kincaid—even if my confidante was an inanimate object. As soon as I finished with my shower, I hurried back to my room and turned on my new computer.
I opened a blank document, and the empty page stared back at me. I suddenly felt ridiculously self-conscious, like someone was looking over my shoulder as I tried to think of something to say about Will Kincaid. I barely knew this person, and yet I couldn’t get the image of his face—his eyes in particular—out of my mind. He was unquestionably dazzling in a movie star kind of way. And like a movie star, he was indisputably out of my league. But there was something else about him. A strange intensity that made my blood rush.
My reverie was interrupted when my phone buzzed with a message. There was only one person, other than my dad, who had my new number. Sean. He was working late at the bookstore. I opened his message and laughed at the picture he sent—him with a goofy sad face and a message: Come with tomorrow night. We’ll have fun. Promise. S. I sent him a note back: Okay. You owe me.
Sitting down at my desk, I typed the words: I met Will Kincaid today. Then I saved the document and shut down the computer before switching on the lamp next to my bed. Darcy was already asleep when I turned out the light and laid my head on the pillow. I groaned at the unwelcome realization that I needed to find something to wear to the party I had just agreed to attend. But that could wait until tomorrow. I closed my eyes and tried to relax. But sleep wouldn’t come. I rolled over, staring up at the ceiling, the image of Will Kincaid stubbornly swimming in my head.
Snapping awake, I looked around the room, half expecting to find someone looking back. I shook my head groggily; other than Darcy’s snoring, the house was quiet. Apart from my mom’s desk, the newly acquired furnishings around my room created an unfamiliar terrain as a dull twilight-gray light filtered through the blinds. It was either very early, very rainy or both. I couldn’t remember having fallen asleep, but the digital display on my clock read a little after six. I never woke up this early on weekends. Rolling over, I tried to go back to sleep, but seconds later Darcy, sensing someone was awake, arrived at the side of the bed and nosed my hand.
“Yeah, yeah. Good morning to you, too.” His tail thumped on the floor when I acknowledged his presence. I yawned. “All right. I’m getting up.”
Almost every Saturday since we had moved, my dad and I went to the bakery in town for breakfast. It was the same routine each time. I got decaf Earl Grey tea with a healthy dose of cream and sugar, and my dad always drank a straight shot of espresso. I had made the mistake of taking a sip of his once. Bleh. It tasted like rocket fuel. My dad had laughed and said, “It’ll put hair on your chest.” I had responded with a quick, “Thank you, no.” Usually on these mornings when I managed to wake up early enough, I tried to summon the motivation to take a jog before we left. I smirked. Six o’clock was certainly early enough by my standards.
My goal was to stay in reasonable shape now that I wasn’t running cross country. I had never been fast, but I still enjoyed running. There were a couple of girls on the team back in Irvine who I had hung out with pretty regularly, but after a few e-mails and texts over the summer, none of us had much to say. For me, that part of my life had stopped evolving.
Dressing in my sweats, I drifted downstairs and peeled a banana while Darcy crunched on a bowl of dog food. The house was so still that my ears began to ring. My dad would be asleep for at least another hour and a half, giving me ample time to run and shower before we left. I decided not to text him so his phone wouldn’t wake him up. Instead, I left a note on the counter reminding myself to tell him about the party with Sean.
I figured most kids my age had better things to do on Saturday mornings than go to breakfast with
their dads. Then again, most of them had licenses, social lives, and places to go. Still, it didn’t feel like I had the luxury of skipping out on the little things—because there wasn’t always time to go back and change things later.
At five years old, I had asked my mom what happened after we died. Her ancient gray cat, Popcorn, who had been named for his habit of eating popcorn straight out of the bowl, had died in his sleep that summer while sunning himself on the back porch of our house. More philosophical than religious, my parents had struggled to provide me with the answers about death that I had craved so badly at the time.
Years later, when I had asked my mom again, she had said that death was an inevitable part of life. Then she had admitted that she couldn’t say definitively what happened after we died. Her answer had caused me quite a bit of frustration, causing me to envy anyone whose parents subscribed to one religion or another. Eventually I had settled on my mom’s answer: I was just never going to know for sure what happened after we died.
After losing her, thinking about my own mortality became both an obsession and a punishment. I dreamt of seeing her again, but on nights when I couldn’t sleep, I would stare up at the ceiling, feeling my breath come in and out. In those moments, all I ever felt was a sense of panic, a desperate need to hold onto that single moment, before it was gone.
By the time I stepped outside, quietly closing the front door behind me, I could see just enough light behind the clouds to indicate that it was morning. A thick layer of fog crept down our street as I stretched, and I pulled up the hood of my sweatshirt to ward off the cold. I had just gotten to the street when I noticed Darcy was still on the front steps. I waited for him to join me, which he did, after a moment’s hesitation. Suddenly I remembered that I had agreed to go to Jason Everett’s party, and my stomach clenched. Chances were good that I wouldn’t know anyone, except for Sean, and what were parties other than a chance to hang out with a bunch of people I didn’t know? In other words: torture.
