“Oh, yay, mail time!” Sophia says excitedly. Luxe bounds out the back screen door while Sophia rubs her hands on her apron and springs into the storefront. She grabs a bag of milk chocolate mouse-shaped truffles as she cuts through the shop and onto the porch.
I can hear only her half of the conversation with the mailman: “For Jenny! I know—she said she loved the kitty-shaped ones so I thought I’d give these a go with her. Oh, yes! Thanks, Paul. Have a good afternoon!”
Sophia walks back in, flipping through the mail in her hands. I lean against the glass cases and take a long drink of lemonade. “How many?” I ask.
Sophia blushes. “Three. Just three…” She sticks them up on the RSVP board beside the others. Sophia gazes at them. She runs her hand across them and I see a flicker of unhappiness cross her face before she steps away. Yet another secret Sophia keeps that I still don’t understand.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
When I come downstairs the next morning, Sophia and Ansel are bowed over the sink. The water is on full blast.
“Why didn’t you take it off?” she scolds him.
“Because I never take it off! And didn’t think I’d need to—you’re going to rip the skin off my knuckle if you keep doing that. Twist it or something.”
“I can’t twist it—your finger is too fat.” Sophia laughs.
“And who’s the one handing me candy all the time—”
“What’s going on?” I interrupt. Sophia and Ansel turn to me; the front of her apron is soaked. The scent of lemon dish soap drifts to my nose.
“My class ring,” Ansel says, nodding to his finger. “It’s stuck.” Sophia has one hand wrapped firmly around my brother’s wrist and tugs on the enormous ring with the other.
“Maybe lay off the chocolate-covered potato chips,” I tease him, trying to ignore the fact that he looks a little less than pleased that I interrupted them. I pour myself a cup of coffee as Sophia and Ansel continue to wrestle. Finally, with a yelp from my brother and a victorious cry from Sophia, the ring slides off.
Ansel rubs his swollen finger while Sophia cuts off the water, then turns to me. “I made eggs!” she proclaims, pointing to a frying pan of scrambled eggs that look overcooked. I raise my eyebrows. “Don’t judge me.” She pouts. “Candy is different from real food.”
“So if you could douse eggs in chocolate, you’d be golden?”
“Probably so. We’re going to a movie today, to a Lake City theater. Want to come? Tuesday matinees are cheap!”
She seems genuine. I think she really wouldn’t mind if I went with them and crashed their date. But I don’t even have to look at my brother’s eyes to know he’ll do anything for me to say no, to guarantee him alone time with Sophia.
“I’ll stay here,” I say with a shrug. “Driving from Washington to South Carolina was enough of a road trip to keep me away from long car rides for a few years.”
“Okay, but I was thinking that I could teach you to make that Coca-Cola gingerbread later tonight? Or tomorrow, maybe?” Sophia says.
“I’d like that,” I say, and she grins.
“It’s a secret family recipe. Seriously secret. People used to come from Lake City to buy it from my grandmother—I think it has some sort of ‘come and get me’ magic power. You have to promise you won’t let anyone in Live Oak know I shared it.”
“Then why share it with me?” I ask. “And how much do you think they’d pay for it?”
She laughs. “A lot, probably. I don’t know—I don’t have any other family in Live Oak. You’re all I’ve got,” she teases, poking me in the ribs. It’s such a quick phrase—it bounces from her lips as though it’s nothing—but I smile. We are family now, I suppose, in the oddest way. Sophia is like my sister.
Well. My other sister.
A few hours later I watch Ansel and Sophia drive away; Luxe chases their car down the drive. I lock the door behind them and convince myself to read a few pages of one of Sophia’s books while waiting for two o’clock to roll around for lesson number two. My second and last lesson. I haven’t learned much, but I guess it’s better than nothing.
Not even Little Women can keep me engaged enough to ignore my anxiety for the upcoming lesson. I look at the time. I’ll walk slowly—I have to get out, have to move; the excitement is too overwhelming for me to sit still. I tie my hair up, lock Luxe inside the house, and trot down the front steps. My mind races through everything I learned yesterday.
As I get close to the field, I’m surprised to see Samuel is already there; I’m sure I’m early. I wave slightly as I approach, but he hardly acknowledges it and begins speaking as soon as I’m within talking distance.
“We’ll do the same thing as yesterday,” Samuel says without looking up. “Only this time, I won’t tell you what to do.”
“I can handle that,” I say, hoping to sound more confident than I feel.
Samuel hands me a rifle, and I go through a mental checklist, flip the safety on, and begin dropping rounds into it. Samuel watches me carefully—he doesn’t seem quite as imposing today. Something about the light makes the shadows under his eyes disappear. I realize that when you’re a part of the task at hand instead of getting in his way, he doesn’t seem nearly as irritated with you. I close the chamber and look up at him for approval.
Samuel nods. “So,” he says, waving at the rifle, “do you actually have a gun?”
“Well… no,” I say. “Not exactly. But… I thought I could get one eventually. When I have money—I don’t have any at the moment. And if not, there’s one over the mantel at Sophia’s. It was her dad’s, so I don’t think I could really practice with it, but… it’s there.”
“Better than nothing,” Samuel says, though he looks annoyed that I didn’t mention this before. He pauses. “Then again, they don’t go into houses. Not here, anyway—unless you count Sophia’s father.”
“You think werewolves got him?” I hadn’t questioned the story about the wild dogs and now feel stupid for not making the connection.
Samuel shrugs. “I’m not sure what to think. It doesn’t make sense that they would go into Sophia’s house, kill a man, and never come back. I can’t explain it. I think it really might have just been a freak accident.”
I bite my lip, aim, and fire. “Why come here, then? If they aren’t going to attack people unless they tromp through the woods looking for them?”
Samuel stares at the target ahead as though he’s reading off cue cards. “I have a theory.”
He pauses until I put a hand on my hip.
“I think they wait. Until after Sophia’s chocolate festival. Girls go and get the idea to leave town—I don’t know if they get it on their own, or if those people in town are right and she convinces them—but either way, they sneak off in the night after the festival and in the nights following… and the wolves pick them off as they leave town, one by one.”
It’s suddenly very quiet, as if everything has stilled for my curiosity, my pity. I lower the gun to look at Samuel. “So you think that’s what happened to Layla? She was last seen on Main Street—she was leaving town, and they…”
Samuel’s face darkens and the world’s noises pick back up, flocks of crows and grasshoppers screeching in discord. “Who told you about Layla?” he demands, with the same forceful tone he used with me the first time we met.
I swallow. “Sophia—”
“You told Kelly about us?” he snaps.
“Calm down!” I answer defensively. “I didn’t. I just thought maybe you two had dated and had a bad breakup or something, so I mentioned your name. She said you blame her for Layla and went into some bar drunk…” I drift off, unsure what kind of answers I want from him.
Samuel shakes his head and looks down. “They always leave after her festival. They go and see her, and then they sneak off without telling anyone, without… saying good-bye. I tried to tell Kelly about them. I tried to tell everyone about the wolves—I just made the poor decision of trying to tell them in a ba
r. All it got me was a reputation for being crazy, even when other people started to suspect Kelly.”
“No one believes you,” I say softly. It’s a statement, not a question, and a sentiment I know all too well. No one believes a little girl about witches; why would they believe a boy about werewolves?
“Of course they didn’t believe me. But belief in the Fenris or not, Kelly knows the girls disappear. Even if she doesn’t know about the wolves, even if she isn’t convincing girls to leave, they still vanish without a trace. And Kelly doesn’t care.”
“She does. Really,” I answer defensively. “Sophia acts happy and bubbly most of the time, but she’s sad—I mean really, genuinely sad—about something. I think part of it is that girls keep disappearing and people are blaming her.”
“Then why keep throwing the festival?”
I don’t know what to say—Samuel is right, but then, I still can’t bring myself to blame Sophia, to think she’s the first sign of Live Oak’s end days. Sophia can’t know about the monsters—she wouldn’t live alone in the forest if she did. She must really think the missing girls are just skipping town. She has to be innocent.
No one just lets girls vanish. At least, not on purpose.
I grimace and fire nine more times.
“Better. Kind of. Try again.” His voice is still angry.
I reload the gun and aim, but end up shaking my head and lowering it. “Someone I love disappeared too.”
Samuel scowls at me. “What?”
“My twin sister. I’m just saying, I’m not asking about Layla because I think you’re crazy. I’m asking because I get it. One day my sister was there, and the next she wasn’t, and I never even knew why until that wolf chased me here. I just knew there was something with yellow eyes chasing us, and then she vanished.”
Samuel looks at me, as though he thinks I’m tricking him into giving up something. “What was her name?”
The question startles me, throws me off balance. We don’t say her name. It upsets your mother—just don’t say her name. Though in the end it didn’t matter—not saying her name couldn’t keep our parents alive. But still. We don’t say her name.
Layla. Emily. Whitney. Jillian. Danielle. Allie. Rachel. Taylor. They all get to keep their names. Some little part of them, however small, never fully disappears. But half of me is forgotten.
I’ve hesitated too long; Samuel sighs and looks away, and it tugs at something in me, anger and sadness at once.
“Look, I don’t want to go home thinking you’re all mad because I found out about Layla,” I say, trying to sound bold.
He folds his arms. “Why do you care?”
“Well”—I stumble for words—“I just… I don’t want you to be mad at me.” Samuel is the only one in Live Oak who knows about the monsters. The one who saved my life in the forest. The one who believes me about witches when even my brother doesn’t. I don’t want that person hating me.
Samuel meets my eyes for a long time, as if he’s hoping to find more information. He sighs and takes the rifle from my hands.
“I’m not mad,” he grumbles, checking the gun to make sure the safety is on.
“Promise?” I say, shoving my hands into my shorts pockets.
“Sure,” Samuel says sarcastically, but then continues in a gentler tone. “Besides, it’s hard to be mad at someone with clown-colored hair.”
I exhale and smile a little as we walk toward the target. Samuel pulls out his marker and circles the bullet holes.
“Not bad. Three odd shots,” he says, motioning to three bullet holes on the bottom left of the target, “but the rest of the group isn’t bad. Close to the center, anyway.”
“Better than yesterday?” I ask.
“A little. You might as well start aiming for the head now, though,” he says, drawing a line through the bullet holes.
“The head?” I look at the small gray space between the gray man’s line-drawn ears. Far smaller than the center of his chest, where I’d been aiming.
“That’s where you have to hit them. Square between the eyes.”
“To kill them, though, right? Can I slow them down if I just manage to hit them?” I ask as we walk away from the target.
“Not really,” Samuel says, shaking his head. “They hardly even notice. Maybe if you managed to get your hands on some sort of machine gun, but last I checked, those were a little out of your price range. Your best bet is to aim perfectly and hit them on the first shot.”
“Between the eyes.”
“Yep. That’s why I use a rifle. I can aim best with a rifle. Aim is worth more than size.”
“Great,” I mutter as we approach our starting spot. I pick up the gun and prepare to fire—Samuel reaches forward and adjusts my arm. Ten more shots, aimed between the gray man’s ears. I already know I did a lousy job before we even go to check it out—one hit him, and not even centered. I groan and start to complain, but Samuel shuts me up and I try again.
In a few hours, I haven’t improved—I think the prospect of hitting such a small target is psyching me out. I glumly gather my things and prepare to start back toward the house.
“Monday, same time?” Samuel asks as we cut through the field.
I look at him in surprise—he had said one or two lessons. I thought I was lucky to get the second lesson out of him, much less a third. I’m not stupid enough to point that out, though, so I nod and pretend as if a third lesson isn’t unexpected.
“So,” I ask, because I want to change the subject before he remembers the two-lesson promise, “are you going to the Fourth of July block party?”
“Me?” Samuel looks surprised. “No. I went once with…” He stops, and I silently fill in the name: Layla. He sighs and continues. “But not anymore. I told you—everyone in Live Oak thinks I’m a lunatic. You’re going, I assume?”
“Yeah. Sophia does a booth or… something. I heard it’s a big deal,” I say, feeling a little guilty.
“It is,” Samuel agrees. “The tourists love it. People hit up Live Oak on the way to the beach; it’s all small-town feel with fireworks and American flags on all the storefronts. They try to make the town look like something out of the fifties instead of mostly abandoned.”
“Do you at least watch the fireworks?” I ask.
Samuel shrugs. “Yeah. But from the roof of a building near my house. It’s just as good a view without the snide remarks from Live Oak’s finest. But have a deep-fried Snickers bar for me.”
I’m not sure if I should feel bad for Samuel or not—he’s not exactly the most welcoming person I’ve ever met. I imagine some of his reputation is warranted.
But then, the same people who hate him are the ones who aren’t killed by monsters because of him. And if he’s right about the monsters killing the missing girls, he fights them only to watch the festival happen again and again, girls happily skipping to Sophia’s house to eat candy while monsters lurk. No wonder he’s so angry. I watch him, looking for any indication of self-pity, but he walks with self-assuredness, solid footed, eyes straight ahead. I’m not afraid of him, but I understand why some people are.
We reach the edge of the field and Samuel turns and walks away, toward his motorcycle, without saying good-bye. Just like last time.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Sophia is hanging on to an oak tree limb.
Luxe is not pleased about this.
She’s perched near the top with the confidence of someone who has climbed this particular tree many, many times before, but that doesn’t make me any less nervous. Or Ansel—he paces below it, ready to catch her if she falls. Luxe is running in circles around the tree, golden hair flying, barking angrily at Sophia to get down.
“Okay, Gretchen, can you tighten that wire?” Sophia calls between Luxe’s rants.
“What do you mean?” I ask, squinting into the sunlight that looms behind her.
“Just run toward that corner of the yard with it,” she says, swinging off the branch. I think she’s
going to fall, but no—she’s completely sure-footed, even twenty feet off the ground.
I take the wire to the far corner of the yard as Sophia reaches the bottom of the tree. Ansel moves to help her down, but she just jumps, landing squarely in the dirt right beside him. She jogs across the yard toward me, dog at her heels. She’s fully dressed—I’m still in pajamas that are now covered in morning dew. Apparently all this setup is easier with more people, and Sophia woke me by bounding onto my bed and begging for help. The festival is still about a month away, but Sophia seems determined to make sure she’s well prepared—the more she gets done now, the less she has to do the week of the festival, according to her.
“There’s a hook on that tree… somewhere,” she mutters as she arrives at a birch tree and scans its trunk. “Here!”
“So this is for…?” I ask.
“Lanterns. Paper lanterns,” Sophia says with a breathless grin. “Because I put a table right at that tree, so it’s like the lanterns are sliding into the table.”
“No expense spared, huh?” I ask, struggling to come up with an enthusiastic response. It’s hard to be excited about the chocolate festival after hearing Samuel’s theories on how it relates to the missing girls.
Sophia shrugs. “It’s fun. I don’t get to do all the things most girls do, you know? Like… I don’t expect I’ll ever get to plan a wedding. So instead I plan this.”
“Why do you say that?” I ask as Ansel ducks back into the storage shed to get another loop of wire. I bend down to scratch Luxe’s belly when he flips over and wiggles in the grass.
Sophia smiles a little. “I don’t know. Who’d want to marry me?”
“Says the girl who’s dating my brother,” I remind her. Sophia blushes.
“In the end, he won’t want me,” she says softly.
“Don’t be stupid,” I say, nudging her gently. “Any boy would want you.”
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