Sweetly

by Jackson Pearce

  “I understand.”

  Sophia looks at me, surprised, and then seems to remember what I told her yesterday about my sister and how they blamed us. She inhales, looks down, nods. When she looks back up at me, her eyes are wet, just like mine. We blink away the tears simultaneously and smile. I understand her, and for the first time, I think someone other than Ansel might understand me. Whatever the chocolatier’s candy might do to make me happy, make me forget the forest, it’s nothing compared to the glow of the knowledge that I’m not as alone as I thought. The knowledge that if Sophia can be brave and confident and happy, so can I.

  When Ansel returns to the kitchen a few hours later, he’s sunburned and sweating. There’s a goofy grin on his face, though, and a hammer hanging from a loop on his jeans. I don’t know that I’ve seen him so pleased with himself in ages—maybe Ansel is trying to start new here too. It’s working.

  “Roof is done,” he says proudly.

  “Really?” Sophia smiles at him, but it’s not the smile she gives me—it’s different, gentler, softer, and makes me feel as though I’m being left out of something between them. “I’m impressed. Let me get you something to drink,” she says, swinging the freezer door open. The blast of cold air reaches me on the other side of the kitchen. She breaks apart an ice tray, pours Ansel a drink, then slides him a glass along with a few chocolates.

  “Do you think you have time to fix that break in the fence? I meant to ask you this morning,” Sophia asks.

  “Of course. That’ll be an easy fix.”

  “You’re sure? You might have to stay another night,” she says, glancing at me, as if I’m the one she really needs to convince.

  “It’s fine with me as long as it’s fine with Gretchen,” Ansel answers. He finds my gaze, pulls it away from Sophia. He looks pleadingly, longingly, and I can’t tell if it’s because the scent of the chocolatier has the same effect on him as it does me, or if it’s Sophia herself that draws him in.

  But the forest is still here, and it still frightens me—how long will Sophia’s candies stave it off? Surely it will be only a matter of time till I’m back to being a little girl, ready to run, quivering when the leaves tremble. I wanted to start over at the ocean, but…

  “How about this,” Sophia says, watching my and Ansel’s exchange carefully. “I’ve got to pick up some groceries. While I’m in town, I’ll get a board for the fence—you know the measurements I need, Ansel?” My brother nods. “And you guys talk about it, okay? I don’t want to split up siblings,” she says with a grin, and for the first time I find myself wondering if she has that power. My stepmother couldn’t, our parents couldn’t, but could Sophia Kelly pull us from each other?

  No, of course not.

  Sophia offers Ansel a coconut cordial, gets the fence measurement, and then takes off for the store. It becomes very quiet, save the rustling of the outside world and the occasional slam of the screen door being opened and shut by the breeze.

  “You don’t want to stay here another night?” Ansel asks.

  I think of the ocean for a moment, then shrug. “I guess. Sophia seems to like having us around.” I pause, remembering how surprised Jessie and Violet were by our presence here. “Is that weird? She barely knows us.”

  “She’s lonely, obviously,” Ansel says, waving a dismissive hand toward me. “Out here all alone? Wouldn’t you want someone around?”

  “Speaking of—Sophia’s father was killed here, in this house. They say it was wild animals. Rabid dogs, maybe.”

  Ansel’s eyes widen. “Right here?”

  I nod.

  “Poor Sophia,” Ansel says, shaking his head. I can hear it in his voice—he wants to save Sophia. That’s how Ansel works. Someone is in pain, and he wants to save her—he ran back into the woods after our sister, he became my rock. He didn’t give up on our father, even when Dad became someone Ansel and I barely knew—it wasn’t long after Mom’s death that he started drinking, and once he remarried it got worse. He couldn’t escape the guilt—over my sister, over our mother… Guilt ate him through the mouth of a bottle.

  But something actually ate Sophia’s father alive. Ansel’s right—poor Sophia.

  “I think this place is good for us,” he says quietly. “I feel… I feel like maybe getting out of Washington is what we needed. To get away from her.” It’s not clear if he means “her” as in our stepmother, or “her” as in our sister.

  I suspect both.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I don’t know how two nights became three. Or four became five. I just know that by the fifth night of sleeping upstairs in Kellys’ Chocolatier, everything seems normal, routine. I wake up to the sounds of Ansel working away on some new task Sophia found; I welcome the magic spell that is the chocolatier, the scent that deadens the presence of the forest outside. Luxe took to sleeping in my room by the third night; he makes it a habit of licking at my toes while I get dressed, then trots downstairs after me as I make my way to the kitchen. The Jeep is parked out front, repaired but used to haul things from the hardware store—neither Ansel nor I have mentioned the ocean in days.

  Even when I planned to start over, I always pictured my future alone, or perhaps just with Ansel. Now I have to wait for Sophia to finish showering in the morning, and the bathroom smells like her pomegranate shampoo when she leaves. I pass her in the hallways, see her and Ansel talking in the storefront. I talk to customers, even, the parade of people who seem to be coming as much to show their affection and support for Sophia as they do to purchase candies. The chocolatier feels a little like an island, a hideaway safe from witches and the glaring eyes of the rest of Live Oak.

  I am a part of something, however small, however far out in the country. I am not an obligation to my stepmother; I am not the girl without the sister or father or mother; I am not the girl who is missing half of herself. I’m not even “Ansel’s little sister.” I am wanted. I am almost new.

  That said, there isn’t much to do here. Sophia claims there’s even less to do now that I’m helping her sweep floors and do inventory. Most afternoons are just long pauses between customers—this one being no exception. We sit on the front porch, fanning ourselves and sipping on lemonade to stave off the climbing heat. Sophia talks casually, but I confess that I’m only half listening at this point. The temperature makes my mind fuzzy.

  “So they split apart the cocoa powder from the cocoa butter, and then the way they blend the two back together determines what kind of chocolate it’ll be,” Sophia says. I lift my legs to set them on the porch railing between two seashells. There are seven seashells total—I know, because I’ve been playing made-up counting games with them all morning. I stir around the mostly melted ice in my glass.

  “And… this is the most boring discussion ever, isn’t it?” Sophia asks with a smile. The lavender bandanna holding her hair back is freckled with sweat; she kicks her flip-flops over the side of the railing, letting them plop into the grass below. This is casual, fun Sophia. I’ve noticed that there are two versions of her—the sweet, bubbly, happy version, and the other version, the one I catch glimpses of only when she thinks no one is looking—a sadder, heartaching girl. I suppose the second Sophia could be just a result of being blamed for missing girls, loneliness, maybe losing her father—but there’s another layer to it, something I don’t recognize. Something that seems to go to her core.

  “No, no. Seriously, it isn’t boring,” I answer her, shaking my head and gazing up at the fan—it’s not doing much beyond stirring the hot air around. “I only know book things. And I’ve never read a book on chocolate making.”

  “Your school was seriously lacking, then,” she teases.

  I shake my head. “I left school in eighth grade. Ansel finished, though, last year. I just wasn’t… I wasn’t cut out for school. I never fit in.”

  “You left school? What’d you do?” Sophia asks with alarm.

  “Homeschooled. Kinda. Mostly me reading and my stepmother telling me I w
as turning the pages too loudly,” I say, giggling.

  “That’s right, books! I’d blocked out the memory of how heavy your suitcase was,” she teases. “I love reading. Probably should have studied English instead of philosophy.”

  “Why philosophy, then?”

  “I like thinking. Nietzsche was my favorite—that’s his quote on the wooden plaque by the door.”

  “The one about love?”

  Sophia nods, a little somberly. “ ‘There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.’ I love that quote.” Her voice softens, the other version of Sophia coming through. “It explains everything.”

  “ ‘Everything’ as in…”

  Sophia shakes her head and gives a weak grin, then snap, just like that, back to happy Sophia. “Just… everything. Everything goes back to love. Even Live Oak can understand that, and believe me, they aren’t philosophy fans. Those church ladies all think it’s one step away from atheism.”

  “Which is unforgivable here?”

  “Yep. Bible study Sunday mornings, tarot readings before bed. Somehow that’s justified,” she says affectionately. “That’s Live Oak. Or how it used to be, anyway. Now everyone is just… angry, it seems.”

  “I noticed—everyone was glaring at us in the diner the first day.”

  “Yep. You’ve got to earn trust around here now. And once you’ve got it, god help you if you lose it,” she says. She’s trying to brush it off, but I can hear the hurt in her voice.

  Sophia sighs and goes back to fanning herself with a folded-up piece of paper—a mock-up of the invitations for her chocolate festival. The real things are sitting inside, perfectly stamped and sealed like wedding invitations. Sophia said they were too important not to hand over to the mailman personally, so we’ve been waiting outside a half hour for him to arrive—even though she had no answer when I asked her what could possibly happen to them if we just left them in the mailbox. She takes her invitations seriously, it seems.

  “I’m beginning to think he already came today and just didn’t have anything to leave,” Sophia mutters.

  “We can catch him tomorrow.” I shrug. It’s not a question of if I’ll be here tomorrow. Everyone was right about this place—it has a way of trapping you. The only difference is that I don’t mind it. I lean down and grab a chocolate-covered potato chip and take a bite.

  “Mail only runs three days a week here now. We’d have to wait till Wednesday…” Sophia looks through the screen door of the shop nervously. “I really wanted to get them out today, but… ugh, I hate driving into town.”

  “Do you… want me to go?” I hear myself say. It surprises even me—go into town, by myself? Where I go, Ansel goes, yet I want to go alone. I need to go alone. I take another bite of the chocolate-covered chips.

  “You wouldn’t mind? You could take my car. It kicks a little when it changes gears, but you won’t break down on the interstate.”

  “Yeah, yeah, it’s the least I can do. Why do you hate going into town?” I ask as we rise. I chug down the remainder of my lemonade while Sophia answers.

  “Well, for one, I always seem to run into a member of the We Blame Sophia Kelly club—someone who gives me a mean look, then tells me I’m why their little girl left without notice,” she says briskly, then continues. “And if I don’t run into them, I run into someone who knows my family and wants to talk for ages… You know that sign when you first get to Live Oak, about the Acorns being the 1969 county champions?”

  “Yeah, Ansel made fun of it,” I rat out my brother. Sophia laughs.

  “I can’t blame him. My dad was the quarterback that year, though. So if people aren’t talking to me about my grandmother, they’re talking to me about him. It’s not mean-spirited or anything, it’s just that… sometimes I don’t want to be reminded of things… I can’t face them.”

  Once in the kitchen, Sophia scribbles directions down on the back of a receipt pad. They’re weird, things such as “take a left at the big tree with the giant broken limb” and “go straight until you can see the sign for Judy’s.” I gingerly take keys and pause in the storefront, then walk around out back to where Ansel is visible on the roof, where he’s methodically sawing dead limbs off the oak tree behind Sophia’s bedroom.

  “I’m going into town for Sophia,” I call out to him, shading my eyes with my hand. I mean to sound strong, but my voice comes out meek and worried.

  Ansel nods. “Give me an hour to finish this up?” He turns back to the tree.

  “I don’t think you need to come with me.”

  Ansel lowers his saw slowly, looks at me, as if he doesn’t believe me. But he doesn’t argue. Instead we stand and watch each other closely. There is a moment of silent communication, words exchanged in eyes and pressed lips: I think we’re safe here. It’s okay for you to go alone. It’ll be fine, don’t worry. Don’t be scared.

  Ansel and I have hardly ever been apart. And we’ve certainly never chosen to be—not like this.

  “Be careful, okay?” Ansel says cautiously. “Please.”

  “I will. Promise.”

  So when I get in the car, I know that I have to do this. I know that I am ready to do this.

  I leave all the windows rolled down—the AC in this car can’t compete with South Carolina’s humidity, and despite the temperature, the breeze is the most cooling thing I’ve felt all day. I drive just fast enough to keep the air flowing, and in spite of Ansel’s confidence, my eyes are trained on the tree line. I look for what I always look for, what has become a habit more than a remnant of mourning—her hair, her hands, yellow eyes.

  One time, a few years after she was gone, I walked into the woods. Alone. I didn’t tell anyone I was going, I slipped out of the house barefoot, and I padded into the trees.

  I wanted the witch to take me too.

  That way I’d be able to understand. I’d know what happened to her, I’d be free of my parents’ blame, I’d stop wondering. I would know.

  I sat down in the trees for more than an hour, jumping at each crack, each pop, waiting to see the yellow eyes and finally know what kind of creature they belonged to. I figured that if it took me or killed me, I’d be with my sister—I’d join the other half of myself and finally feel like a real girl again, even if I was dead or lost in the trees.

  It was selfish—I didn’t think about Ansel. It didn’t matter, because the witch didn’t want me. I slumped back into the house, unsatisfied and just as uncertain about what had happened to my sister as I was before.

  The trees here have as few answers for me as the trees in Washington. I speed up until they’re a green blur, until they’re nothing but scenery. They’re just trees, Gretchen. They can’t hurt you, not here.

  Still, I feel better when the pines become pastures—most of which have SEE ROBERT E. LEE’S RIDING BOOTS signs posted on their fences. Those give way to houses, which give way to the tiny, forgotten-looking storefronts. Live Oak is laid out a bit like a bull’s-eye, I realize—stores in the center, then houses in the next ring, then pastures. And then Sophia’s chocolatier, so far away from the target that I’m surprised she even considers herself a Live Oak native, and not just someone surrounded by forest and sky. I guess Live Oak was the closest thing she could call herself a part of.

  The post office would have been easy to pick out even without Sophia’s directions. It’s the only building on the block with the lights turned on and a car out front. I pull into one of the three gravel parking spots and walk inside.

  “Hello,” the graying woman behind the counter says, looking confused.

  “Hi. I just need to mail these,” I say, holding up the basketful of invitations. The woman gives me an uncertain look but takes the basket. She carries it to the back, and as my eyes follow her, they land on a row of photos lined up on the back wall. They’re of girls, happy, smiling, tan and sparkly girls, and above each are the words “Missing Person Alert.”

  The chocolate festival girls,
I realize instantly. My eyes widen; I scan across the names. Layla, Emily, Whitney, Jillian, Danielle, Allie, Rachel, Taylor—eight girls, eight people whom Live Oak—some of Live Oak, anyway—thinks Sophia made disappear. Now that I see their faces, I’m mesmerized. I keep hearing Jed’s voice in the diner: “People think she’s either the patron saint of candy or the first sign of Live Oak’s end days.”

  He said she was the former, the saint. I think she’s the saint. But it’s hard to shrug your shoulders at eight missing-persons signs. Eight girls who vanished into nothingness. Maybe it was the witch. Did they see yellow eyes before they went? Were they scared? Were they chased—did someone let go of their hand?

  But at least their families didn’t insist their names be forgotten, their pictures be hidden away, their memory be trotted out only on holidays and birthdays. At least they aren’t my sister. I stare at the posters carefully, memorizing the girls’ faces, their features. The clothes they were wearing when they were last seen—party dresses, all of them: Whitney in a cardinal one, Allie in cherry, Taylor in rose. Their scars, birthmarks, tattoos.

  I want to find them. The flicker of hope leaps around in my chest. What if I could find them, help them? I know it’s stupid, I know it’s ridiculous to even fantasize about being the one who solves the mystery, but it doesn’t stop me. I used to dream about finding my sister, what I’d say to her, what I’d say to my parents when I walked inside holding her hand. How instead of blaming me, they’d hug me, kiss me, cry for joy.

  What if I walked into Live Oak with a chain of eight girls behind me? I memorize their names, just in case my dreams come true.

  Layla. Emily. Whitney. Jillian. Danielle—the one with the bird tattoo. Allie. Rachel. Taylor. I recite the names over and over in my mind till the words become a blur of sounds. See? I won’t forget you. I won’t forget any of you.

  “You’re the new girl!” a voice cries, startling me. I whirl around to see I’m no longer alone. A new customer, a woman in her thirties, is looking at me with a huge grin. A little redheaded girl sits at her feet, playing with a Barbie as the woman peels stamps off a sheet and sticks them onto envelopes.