Sweetly

by Jackson Pearce

  “Why didn’t you come get us?” Sophia asks, looking almost hurt. “I bet that’ll leave a scar! Hang on, I have some Neosporin, I think…”

  “It’s not that big a deal—”

  “Are you crazy? You’re way too pretty to have a big scar right on your head,” Sophia says, rolling her eyes. She dives into a drawer and pulls out a basket of medicines. Before I can stop her, she’s slathering ointment on the mark. “Seriously. You should have come and gotten me.”

  I laugh nervously and go to the refrigerator. “I was told not to interrupt the hot date.” Sophia blushes a little and turns to the stove, where she stirs a double boiler filled with slowly bubbling chocolate.

  “Want to help?” Sophia motions to the chocolate and rows of empty molds. “It’s not as boring as regular mold filling. I’m making shells for the truffles I serve at the chocolate festival, since a lot of the Fourth of July stuff is already made—except those toffee bars. Don’t let me forget those. Anyway, the truffle ingredients should come in today, so I thought I’d get a head start on the shells. That way things aren’t too frantic. Just… mostly frantic.”

  “Sure,” I say, happy to see the way my answer makes her smile. “What do I do?”

  “Take these,” Sophia says, digging through another drawer until she emerges with what look like two small paintbrushes, “and just paint along the insides of the molds using what’s in the boiler.”

  “I can do that,” I say, nodding. She’s right—it isn’t as boring as filling. It’s satisfying, covering the inside of the molds with milk chocolate. Sophia pulls out a mixing bowl and stirs crushed almonds in with some of the chocolate. She’s making something similar to her specialty, the gingerbread chocolate that made me feel so safe.

  I think back to last night, the lemon candy, how they were supposed to give me courage. No more, I decide firmly. If there are witches here, and the candy is what made me brave, I can’t keep eating it. I have to be focused.

  “You okay?” Sophia interrupts my thoughts, and I realize I’ve been staring at a truffle mold for several long moments.

  “Yeah,” I say quickly. “I’m fine. Sorry. Spaced out.”

  “It’s the thing about me dating your brother, isn’t it?” Sophia says with a grimace. “I knew it would bother you. I’m sorry—”

  “No, no, not that. Seriously, Sophia, I just blanked. Besides, if I’m bothered about anything, it’s worrying that you’ll decide you’re done with my lame brother and kick us out,” I tease, loud enough so that Ansel can hear. He sighs in response from the next room.

  Sophia grins and shakes her head. “Tell you what—if I decide I’m done with your lame brother, I’ll just kick him out. You have to stay. There hasn’t been another girl in this house for a long time. I have to confess I’ve missed it.”

  I laugh as I put the double boiler back onto the burner for a moment to soften the chocolate a bit more. Sophia nods approvingly. “Who was the last girl that was here?” I ask, leaning against the counter.

  Sophia studies one of the molds intensely and pauses before answering. “Just my mom. That’s all. She had cancer, died a long time ago.”

  I move another finished tray over, think about our mother dying. It was the grief—the doctors said it was a myriad of things, but I know it was the grief. She watched the forest like I did, waiting for the missing half of her daughters to stumble from the trees, until she faded away.

  But I didn’t die. Not in the forest, not after, even though I was afraid. Terrified that the witch would come for me, terrified of vanishing. Terrified the exact thing that happened last night would happen.

  And it did. But I didn’t die.

  Images flash back to me: Samuel shooting, Samuel taking down the wolf with a bullet. He didn’t run from the monster—he walked up to it. And shot it. That’s all it took to destroy everything I’ve been afraid of for twelve years, everything that could make me disappear.

  I’ve never fired a gun before—never even considered it—but what if I could? I lean over to look with awe at the gun mounted over the fireplace mantel. I wouldn’t have to be afraid anymore. I wouldn’t have to be afraid of anything ever again. I swallow guilt that has strangely bubbled up in my throat—guilt over wanting to defend myself when my sister had no choice. I feel as if I’m cheating somehow, figuring out yet another way to survive when she’s gone. Now that there’s a potential solution to my fear, being afraid feels like the only thing that connects me to my sister. The moment in the woods so long ago, when we were both running for our lives, scared.

  But still. I want to learn. I don’t want to be scared. It doesn’t mean you don’t love her, just because you want to change. Staying like this, being the victim—that won’t bring her back.

  There’s only one person I know that could teach me.

  In bed that night, I try to shake from my mind the idea of shooting werewolves, loosen it from the corner of myself that it’s wedged into. He’ll never agree to it. He’ll never teach you. He hates Sophia, for whatever reason. He thinks she’s the witch.

  But then, he hates the werewolves too. And I’m the only one he’s met who knows about them, who believes they exist. Surely there’s some desire, some longing, to talk about the monsters. To have a kindred spirit. To help someone. His eyes are as lonely as Sophia’s, as lonely as mine—it’s just that they’re rimmed in bitterness instead of self-pity. He’ll help me.

  The idea itself feels ridiculous—Samuel Reynolds doesn’t strike me as the type to long for epic conversations. I turn to face the empty side of the bedroom and picture the conversation I want to have with him playing on the blank wall, as if I’m watching a movie.

  “Hey, can you help me learn to shoot a gun? I want to protect myself,” imagined-movie-me says brightly.

  “Sure! I’d love to!” Samuel says with a grin. Or at least, what I think would be his grin—I’ve never actually seen him smile. I sigh.

  I can’t be afraid any longer. I won’t be afraid any longer, won’t wait for the next time I see yellow eyes in the trees.

  The only solution is to ask him.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The problem with wanting to ask Samuel to teach me doesn’t begin with “he’ll probably say no.” It begins with “where the hell is he?”

  Every time I run errands for Sophia—which I confess has become a little more seldom, since now I know for certain what’s waiting in the forest—I scout out Live Oak, waiting to see his motorcycle parked outside one of the open stores. People still treat me as a stranger—but a few talk to me. Unfortunately, it’s mostly totally unhelpful. The clerk at the drugstore scoffs and asks why I’d want to “find that jackass anyway.” I can’t exactly blame her—if Samuel is as charming to the rest of the world as he was to me, his attitude leaves something to be desired.

  Five days after I was attacked—and four sleepless nights in which I was sure I heard a werewolf’s claws on the front door—I head into town for groceries. I stall at the Piggly Wiggly, hoping to see Samuel in the cereal aisle or at the checkout counter. No such luck, though.

  I wheel my cart toward the only open checkout lane—the others must be seldom used, because they’re piled high with broken buggy parts or dented cans. The elderly cashier smiles and waves to a man in overalls as he exits the store, then turns her eyes toward me. The lipsticked grin fades, and what I thought were warm brown irises now look brittle and cold. I give her a feeble nod and begin unloading the groceries.

  The old woman—Dorothy, according to her name tag—manhandles my purchases into plastic bags and punches in a code on the register so intensely that you’d think the machine had personally insulted her. Just when I thought a few people were starting to come around to me.

  “Seventy-three twenty-two,” she tells me.

  “Okay,” I answer, and hand over Sophia’s credit card. “I’m living with Sophia Kelly,” I explain quickly. “She gave me her card to use.”

  “I know who you live with,”
the woman says bitterly. “And you can tell her my granddaughter got her invitation, and we threw it straight into the garbage.”

  “So… she’s not going?” I ask, unsure how else I’m supposed to react.

  “I won’t have that woman convincing my baby girl to leave her family. Giving her money and God knows what else—who the hell knows what she puts in that chocolate, what kind of witchcraft she uses. I don’t care if Sophia’s grandmama was my friend—two years in a row is enough to convince any sane person to lock their little girls up tight the night of her party,” she says.

  “She doesn’t… she isn’t giving them anything.” I stumble over the words, unsure how to even begin defending Sophia to someone clearly insane—especially now that I know without a doubt that it’s real witches, real monsters, who took those eight girls, not Sophia. Their names tear through my mind again, shouting at me, desperate not to be forgotten.

  Dorothy puts her hands on her hips, daring me to argue more. “Don’t think you can just show up and understand how things work right off the bat. Secrets sink into this town and get stuck way down deep, deeper than some outsider can know in a couple of weeks. You want to stay in Live Oak, sweetheart, you’d best align yourself with a better crowd.”

  My mouth opens, but no words come out. Dorothy sniffs unhappily in my direction as I begin to load the groceries back into my cart; a bag boy finally comes over to help. He rolls my cart out to the car and accepts a dollar tip graciously.

  “Watch out when you leave,” he calls back over his shoulder as he walks away. “Ricky is set up behind that big sign. He’s pretty much gotta pull over everyone in Live Oak to meet quota. Newcomers are easy targets—no one’ll get mad at him for pulling you.”

  “Thanks.” I climb into the car and hesitate. Dorothy seemed so normal. A perfectly normal, kind lady, who suspects Sophia. Do the people of Live Oak really just need someone to blame that badly? I frown and back the car out of the parking spot.

  I nod congenially at Ricky as I drive past the massive SEE ROBERT E. LEE’S RIDING BOOTS sign—he looks disappointed, then goes back to his newspaper. I take a right, down a residential street. If I can get off this strip, I can get out of Ricky’s sight and speed back up. Antebellum houses line either side, most with For Sale signs stuck into the lawn, followed by freshly mowed pastures and, finally, the start of the forest.

  They’re in there, in the trees, somewhere… I watch the edge of the road, plan what I’ll do if a werewolf emerges. Watch the breaks in the trees, wonder if the paths are worn by humans or—

  I slam on the brakes. Throw the car into reverse.

  On the edge of the road is an overgrown gravel drive, so narrow that I’m not sure a car could make it down without hitting low-hanging branches. The drive itself isn’t anything notable—there are dozens like it. But just inside the drive, sitting in the shade of the trees, is a motorcycle. Samuel’s motorcycle.

  I inhale. I pull the car off the road, onto the grassy shoulder. Slowly get out, stare at the drive that seems to disappear into the trees. Samuel is back there. He has a gun—it’ll be fine even if there is a witch. Besides, if he isn’t afraid, why should I be?

  Before I can talk myself out of it, I trudge down the drive, keeping my eyes straight ahead; if I look into the trees on either side, I’ll get scared again. Gravel crunches under my feet and I sidestep a few old puddles, then finally emerge in a large, paved clearing.

  Wait, no, not just a clearing. The paved area is the size of a baseball field, with a steplike formation—every fifteen feet or so the concrete drops down lower. On either end is a giant white billboard-type screen, both graying and partially collapsed. Encircling the whole area is the forest, the tree trunks like cell bars, locking us in.

  And in the center of it all is Samuel.

  He’s sitting at the edge of one of the steps, staring at a screen with a lost look on his face. He looks different in the sunlight, or maybe it’s because the hard lines of his cheeks and eyebrows are relaxed. I take another step forward, accidentally sending a rock skittering across the asphalt.

  Samuel leaps to his feet. Hard lines return, fists tighten. He looks ready to fight me for a split second, but then when he realizes who I am, he exhales and relaxes. He rolls his eyes at me and turns away, shoving his hands into his pockets.

  “Hi,” I say firmly, as though I’m completely assured of myself. I walk toward him.

  “Hey,” he answers over his shoulder, tone withering.

  I stop a few yards from him, rocking back on my heels. His back is still to me, and I’m not sure what to say. I glance at the screens, fiddle my hands. “What is this place?”

  “Once upon a time,” Samuel begins sarcastically, “this was a drive-in movie theater. The only drive-in theater Live Oak’s ever had.”

  “Oh.” I’ve never seen one in person, but now concrete steps and screens make sense—stadium seating for cars. “So, um… why are you here?”

  “To think. Clear my head. Why are you here?” he says, finally turning around. It’s doubly clear I’ve interrupted something, now that I can see the dark look in his eyes.

  “I, um…” I shake my head as a breeze rustles the forest, and a small piece of one of the screens tumbles to the ground. “I want you to teach me to shoot,” I finally say, as though it’s a line rehearsed for a school play.

  “No.”

  The answer is confident, in a not-to-be-argued-with tone, and Samuel brushes past me toward the drive. I blink, trying to analyze what just happened, as Samuel storms away. I shake off my frustration and hurry after him.

  “Why not?” I shout; my voice is loud and invasive in the quiet of the drive-in, and I feel guilty, as if I’ve been disrespectful. When he doesn’t answer, I repeat my question in a normal voice.

  “I don’t teach people,” he answers from the mouth of the drive. I jog to catch up to him before he makes it back to his bike.

  “Just one lesson,” I beg.

  “Why?” he asks without turning to look at me.

  “Because I want to be able to defend myself.”

  Samuel stops so quickly I almost run into him, then turns to face me. His eyes look even greener when he’s framed by so many summer trees.

  “You think taking aim at a Fenris isn’t a faster way for you to die? Right now you’re just a meal to them. If you’ve got a gun, they’ll kill you quick. No chance to run like last time,” Samuel hisses.

  “I don’t care. I don’t want to be afraid anymore.”

  “Is this about Sophia Kelly?” he asks. “Did she tell you to ask me this? Is she trying to make me look stupid?”

  “Of course not. I’m just sick of feeling helpless. I’m sick of thinking I’ll end up like my sister or the girls who disappeared here.”

  Samuel studies me for a moment, as though he’s trying to find something in me. He tries to hide the loneliness, tries to push it to the back, but it doesn’t work—not on me. I try to pull it out of him, try to appeal to it. Come on, I mutter to him silently. Please. Don’t pretend there are loads of people asking to spend time with you.

  Samuel grimaces and bites his tongue. “Fine,” he finally says. “I’ll teach you. Once, maybe twice. I don’t have time to be your own personal gun tutor.”

  “When? Where?” I say. I manage to stop the excitement from bubbling into my voice but can’t prevent myself from bouncing up on my toes.

  “Nowhere anyone will see us,” he mumbles. “There’s a field off Old Eighteen. You can see it through the trees if you’re looking for it—used to be a tobacco farm before the Mitchells foreclosed. It’s walking distance from the candy store. Meet me there tomorrow at, say, two o’clock.”

  “Walk there? Past the woods?” I instantly curse at myself for how fragile my voice sounds, but it’s hard not to think of the wolves in the trees.

  “You managed to get into the drive-in just fine,” Samuel says, waving a hand at the trees that surround us.

  “Okay… do I need
to bring anything?” I ask as he turns and hurries to his bike.

  “Yeah,” he says without looking at me, swinging a leg over the seat. “My sanity, if you can find it.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  I used to read to escape.

  No matter what the characters in a book were going through, their stories had a final page. A conclusion. I knew the mystery and adventure would end, and it was so much more appealing than the constant wonder about my sister, the constant fear, the constant worry.

  But right now? I’m reading to kill time. Because the only thing I can think about is learning to shoot. My mind fills in the rest of my story a hundred different ways: I learn to shoot, and then a witch comes for me and Sophia and I kill it. I learn to shoot, and I trek into the forest and pull my sister out. I learn to shoot and walk up to a witch, instead of running from it.

  On top of that, reading is a nice break from watching my brother and Sophia. It’s not that I mean to stare, it’s just that I’ve never witnessed the breathy, floaty look of first romance in person before. But that’s clearly what it is—I recognize all the signs from books and movies. Hands brushing against one another, conversations that end with long stretches of eye contact, the sweet, soft way they talk to each other. I am mesmerized, though I’m not sure if it’s in a good way or not.

  When one thirty finally rolls around, I lie: I tell Ansel and Sophia I’m going for a walk, lace up my tennis shoes, then take off down the road. They don’t argue, and I suspect it’s because they either are tired of me staring or are happy to be alone for a little while.

  I walk quickly—I’m afraid to run. Running feels as if I’m being chased. I stare down the trees as though they’ve offended me. Samuel wouldn’t have suggested I meet him here if the wolves were around, right? At least, that’s what I say to try to convince myself.