Sweetly

by Jackson Pearce

  “Any luck?” Sophia asks from the other side of the attic.

  “No, not yet,” I answer, scanning the room. There has to be something else here to tell me who the mystery sister is. I dash to a bookcase that’s full of photo albums. On the top shelf are pale pink baby books with names on the spine—Naida, Sophia. No Lorelei—but I do see the tablecloths on a chair in the corner. I grab them, but as I do so, I unclasp the chain of my necklace and let it slide down my shirt to the floor.

  “Got them!” I say triumphantly.

  “Awesome!” Sophia answers. She emerges from the other side of the attic. “I’ve got to stop putting stuff up here.” I hand her the pile of tablecloths and we head for the ladder, slipping out of the thick heat and into the cool upstairs.

  “Can you get the stairs?” Sophia asks as she balances the fabric against her.

  “Sure—wait,” I say, and bring my hand to my chest. “My necklace… I was wearing it this morning…”

  “Did it fall off?” Sophia asks, glancing around at the floor.

  “I guess so—hang on, I’ll go see if it fell off up there,” I say with a shrug, and before Sophia can object, I head back up the steps.

  “’Kay—I’ll take these downstairs, then come help you look,” Sophia says, and I hear her feet on the steps. I fly across the attic floor, snatch the necklace up, and halt in front of the bookshelf. Lorelei has a blanket—she must have a baby book up here somewhere… but no, everything other than Sophia’s and Naida’s books are outdated encyclopedias or ancient copies of National Geographic. I turn in circles, scanning the attic for any sign of her, listening carefully for Sophia’s feet on the ladder. Frustrated, I yank Sophia’s baby book off the shelf. Pictures, ultrasounds, hospital bracelets, stickers. No Lorelei.

  Naida’s book is crisper, used less. It’s mostly the same, just with fewer smiles and laughs noted—being the second child means there’s less thrill in a baby’s first smile, I imagine. I flip to the front, to the ultrasound picture.

  An ultrasound picture that doesn’t look entirely unlike the one in Abigail’s baby book back in Washington, before it was hidden away with everything else of hers.

  Medical typography is fading across the top, but I can still make out the faint gray dot matrix letters. 14 weeks.

  Baby A. And beside her, Baby B. Naida was a twin.

  I hear Sophia’s feet on the landing. I turn the page quickly. Only one hospital bracelet, only one photocopied birth certificate. Only one baby in the photo of Mrs. Kelly holding her newborn. Naida’s sister had vanished before she was even born.

  I swallow hard. Another missing sister, another girl hidden away in Sophia’s house. Girls who have vanished tucked under beds or hidden in attics. I feel shaky, as if I might collapse under the weight of the mystery, of the lies, of the secrets.

  Why, Sophia?

  “Did you find it?” Sophia’s voice calls up. I inhale sharply and thrust the book back onto the shelf.

  “Yeah,” I answer. I swallow hard again. “Yeah, I’ve got it. I’m coming down.”

  I make my way to the landing and lower myself; Sophia closes the attic, sealing up her family’s secrets once again. She turns to go back downstairs but finds my eyes.

  “You okay, Gretchen? You look sick.”

  “Just the heat, I think,” I say, shaking my head. “I’m gonna go lie down.”

  Sophia frowns. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have made you go into the attic of hell. I’ll get you something to drink and some crackers, okay?”

  “Sure,” I say, nodding, then turn and head to my room. No, Naida and Sophia’s room. What was supposed to be Lorelei’s room as well.

  You and Naida are mirror images. The twin who survived, the one who didn’t vanish—at least, didn’t vanish for a little while.

  You share the same destiny.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  It’s cat-washing day, the only upside being that I’ll have a chance to tell Samuel about Lorelei. And a chance to see Samuel for the first time since we kissed. It’s been a week—a very long week—but with all the festival preparations, I haven’t been able to get away inconspicuously.

  Samuel zips up on his motorcycle and pauses for me to get on. I swing onto the back of his bike and am not afraid to hold on this time—but not only because I want to be near him; feeling the grind of the motorcycle and the rhythm of his breath is grounding. I hide my face against his shoulders till I feel like Gretchen, not like a reborn Naida.

  When we get to Ms. Judy’s, Samuel lets me off and steps away from me.

  “Something’s wrong,” he says firmly.

  “Yes,” I answer.

  “If you want…” He pauses and plays with the motorcycle’s headlight for a moment. “We can pretend it never happened.”

  “What? No! No, not that,” I say, and take his hand. It makes my heart jump nervously, excitedly, and when Samuel’s fingers tighten around mine, I sigh and take a step closer to him. “Naida had a twin sister. Lorelei. She died before she was born.”

  “Before she was born? So you think she has something to do with Naida being the first?” he asks, eyebrow raised.

  “I don’t know, really, but it does mean Naida and I are even more alike than I thought. We both had twin sisters who vanished. That has to mean something, right?”

  Samuel shakes his head. “Maybe. Look, have you thought about leaving the Kelly place? Maybe staying at a hotel or something? You can stay with me—hell, Ansel can even stay with me—”

  “No,” I say quickly, so quickly that I feel a little bad. “Ansel wouldn’t leave her. And… I want to understand. I can’t leave until I understand.”

  Samuel sighs just as Noodles springs out from behind the hydrangeas, looking particularly surly.

  “Why am I more afraid of bathing that cat than hunting Fenris?” Samuel muses, shaking his head.

  I smile and carefully—a little nervously—rest my head on his shoulder; he responds by turning toward me slightly, pulling me against his chest gently. He kisses the top of my head, as though we’ve been doing this far longer than we have. I’ve got nothing to base it on, but I get the feeling it isn’t always this easy, this fast. My nerves slip away, are replaced with a glowing feeling.

  “You catch the cat, I’ll get some water,” he says.

  “How about the other way around?” I ask, looking at Noodles warily, but Samuel is already hurrying away from Noodles and me.

  Samuel walks to the side of the house and fills a giant silver tub with water while I spend as much time as possible gathering the towel and bottle of No More Tears shampoo Ms. Judy left out for us. Samuel heaves the tub of water into the backyard and gives me a pitying look as I throw the towel on top of Noodles. I scoop the cat up before she realizes what’s happening, but Noodles is still pretty quick on the draw—by the time I’ve heaved her over to where Samuel is standing, she’s started yowling and I’m pretty sure were she not in a towel, my eyes would be clawed out.

  “So, if you can hold her head down, I’ll do the soap,” Samuel offers.

  “Deal,” I say eagerly. “I’ll drop her in. One… two… three.”

  Noodles barely hits the water before she takes off running. She finds shelter underneath Samuel’s house—he crawls in after her and grabs her by the scruff of her neck, both of them emerging filthier than before, though only Samuel is bleeding. By the time we actually get her into the water, she’s too exhausted to fight anymore. I still have to pin her down, but her new philosophy of “just wait to bite them when it’s over” means her claws are no longer out and ready.

  Fifteen minutes later, I grab for the towel that’s already covered in cat fur, but the cat has no interest in being dried. She leaps over my shoulder and bounds away, finally stopping at the porch to give us a hateful look and lick her paw.

  “Done. I never want to be in Ms. Judy’s debt again,” Samuel says, tipping the basin of suds, water, and fur into the grass. He glances at the cut on my arm. “She
got you good.”

  “No joke. I need to clean it,” I say. “And,” I continue, pointing to the cut on the side of his forehead, “you need to clean that.”

  Samuel leads me through the orchard to his house. The sky is a strange shade of gray now; sunlight still makes it to the ground, but the wind is picking up. Samuel leaves the door open so the cool air can come in before the inevitable downpour starts.

  “Here,” he says, handing me a bottle of peroxide and a pack of Band-Aids that look as if they were made in the early nineties. “I’m going to jump in the shower, okay?”

  “Sure.” I grab a paper towel from the kitchen, then sit down in the doorway, watching the wind whip leaves off the peach trees and cause the Confederate flag on Ms. Judy’s porch to snap and pop. I tilt the peroxide onto the towel and grimace as I place it on my arm and the slow sting sets in. There’s a howl in the distance that makes me jump—no, just a dog. But still, my eyes wander to the forest behind the orchard. That’s where they are, watching, waiting for the festival…

  “You okay?” Samuel asks, walking back into the room. Lightning cracks, a bright branch of light in the dark clouds. I rise and Samuel shuts the door, though the sound of rushing wind seeps in through the house’s floors and walls.

  “Yeah,” I finally answer him. “I was just thinking about the festival. Sophia gave me one of Naida’s old dresses to wear to it.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding. That’s sick,” Samuel says.

  “I know. She won’t tell me anything—I’ve asked her why she keeps throwing the festival, given her the chance to tell me about Naida… nothing. I don’t know how to stop more girls from disappearing, short of hunting and killing all the werewolves we can in the next two days—the festival is this Friday, Samuel. How am I supposed to keep girls from vanishing if I can’t even figure out why some girls at the festival disappear and others don’t?”

  “I don’t know,” Samuel says. “But you didn’t know that when you killed the werewolf the other night either. Does it really matter?” The rain begins, ramming against the house’s tin roof like a thousand tiny rocks; the house darkens from the storm, casting Samuel and me in blue-tinted light. We sit together on his bed.

  I sigh. “Just to me. I just want to know why I’m still here.”

  “Because a crazy old woman made us wash her cat,” Samuel says, crossing his arms.

  I reach forward to playfully shove him, but instead my hand stays firmly on his chest. I can feel his heart beneath my palm, the beat quickening as my hand lingers. My fingertips slide up, to his neck, the side of his face, as though someone else is moving my body, some girl driven by desire and want and need. Samuel’s eyes drift shut and he inhales.

  The sound rushes me back into my own body—I pull my hand away and try to hide the blush that’s blossoming across my cheeks.

  “Sorry,” I mutter.

  “Don’t be,” he answers, and I note that the tips of his ears are red.

  “Um… I need to get back,” I say quickly.

  “Right, of course,” Samuel agrees too fast. He rises. “Only… it’s still raining. Give it another fifteen minutes—it’ll be over.”

  “Oh. Right,” I mumble stupidly. Samuel sits back down beside me, this time a few feet away. I want to kiss him, but clearly I have no self-control. Come on, Gretchen, think of something else to say or do or anything—

  “Seashells!” I exclaim loudly. Way to go, I groan at myself. I don’t even know if seashells are relevant to all this, but I had to say something.

  “Seashells?” Samuel says, confused.

  “I meant to tell you. Sophia gets these seashells. They show up on her porch and we don’t know who brings them, and she’s got boxes of them in the shed out back. You think it has something to do with the wolves?”

  “Fenris don’t deal in seashells.”

  “She freaks out when she gets them. It’s like they’re more than just seashells. I just don’t understand how they fit.”

  “Live Oak is close to the beach. Could just be customers,” he poses, clearly eager to have something to discuss. “Or it could just be Kelly finally cracking over guilt. People get crazy when they feel guilty.”

  “Always more questions,” I say. “Maybe if I wait this one out, the answer will be in Sophia’s attic again. It was almost easier when I was just scared of witches. The witch could have been anything, but with the wolves, there are… rules, and facts, and details and… I didn’t know anything before.”

  “You want to go back to that?” Samuel asks with a grin.

  “No,” I answer with a small laugh. “Not for the world.”

  The rain stops, gradually fading from a downpour to a few scattered droplets. There’s a rainbow outside, a faint streak of colors across the sky in front of the dark clouds. I climb onto the back of Samuel’s motorcycle, biting my lips as I circle my arms around him tightly—the feelings rush back, the longing for there not to be three layers of fabric between us…

  “Tomorrow night?” Samuel asks when we stop twenty yards down from the chocolatier—out of sight of the front porch.

  “What?” I ask, startled—my mind was still on each thread, each seam, that divided us.

  “Tomorrow night,” he repeats as I get off the bike. “We can go hunting again. If your death wish continues. Besides, the festival is the day after tomorrow, right? We don’t really have another chance.”

  “Okay,” I say. Samuel gives me a quick smile, then drives away.

  Two days to the festival. One night to hunt.

  And then we’re out of chances.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  When I come downstairs the next morning, there’s a glaring, obvious absence. The RSVP cards are gone, leaving an empty corkboard and rows of thumbtacks. I hear laughter outside and run to the screen door to see Ansel and Sophia sitting in the bench swing. Sophia is crying and grinning at once, with the thick stack of RSVP cards in her lap and my brother’s arm around her shoulders.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask, padding through the dew to where they sit. I lean on one of the fence posts, trying to figure out if Sophia is happy or miserable.

  “Oh,” Sophia sniffs, trying to pull herself together. “Sorry, Gretchen. I got the last of the RSVPs in. Just in time—twenty-three people are coming. I’m… happy,” she lies. Even my brother knows it’s a lie—he catches my gaze for a long time, shakes his head uncertainly. That said, there’s something like relief hiding in Sophia’s eyes. I take a step closer.

  “Are you sure, Sophia? You’re sure you’re okay?” Please, Sophia, just tell me about Naida. About why you throw the party. Tell me the truth. Let me help you.

  Sophia laughs, though it sounds a little more as if she’s choking. “Really, I’m okay. I’ll be okay.” She lifts a glass of orange juice up. “I made mimosas to celebrate. I won’t tell Ricky if you have one,” she says with a watery wink.

  “I’m good,” I answer, though I notice Ansel is sipping on one.

  “I’m going to go ahead and make the fudge and gingerbread today,” Sophia says thoughtfully, wiping her eyes with her hand. “That means I’ll just have the cakes to do tomorrow. Oh yeah, and I need to do the name tags. Will you help me, Ansel?”

  Sophia rises, thumbing through her RSVPs, and slips inside; Luxe follows, happily trying to weave between her legs. My brother sighs and looks to the sky, slowly standing.

  “Did she tell you what’s really going on?” I ask him quietly.

  Ansel frowns. “Kind of, but it didn’t make sense.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She started crying because she says I’m going to leave after the festival. I told her I wouldn’t—I promised I wouldn’t—but she insists I won’t want to stay. Said I wouldn’t stay for her the way I’d stay for you.”

  “What about me?” I ask, remembering Naida’s red dress, folded up in my dresser upstairs. “Did she think I’d leave too?”

  Ansel nods. “She said she’d miss you.
I don’t get it. I just want this thing to be over. After this festival, Gretchen, we’ve got to get out of here. You know that, right?”

  “Right,” I say, though my voice isn’t confident. “With Sophia?”

  “Yes.” Ansel shoves his hands into his pockets. “I don’t know how, but we’ve got to convince her. And if Samuel Reynolds wants to come too, that’s fine—we’ve just got to get out of this place. Sophia is…” But he doesn’t seem to know what Sophia is.

  I do: Sophia is lying.

  “What if we can’t save her, Ansel?” I ask quietly. “What if we can’t save her either?”

  His eyes flit to mine. They look wounded. “We’ve got to try, Gretchen. We can’t just leave her out here.”

  Not like we did to Abigail is the phrase I know lingers in both of our minds.

  “Of course not,” I say, because I can’t stand the look on my brother’s face—the look of worry, of concern, for someone else that he wore so often in Washington, when the concern was for me. I had thought that look was gone for good. I hate to see it again. “We’ll help her, Ansel. I promise.”

  I am not sure if I’m lying or not.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  I slump down onto one of the asphalt hills, the conversation with my brother from earlier in the day still roaming my mind. Saving Sophia. The way we couldn’t save Abigail from the witch. I turn to look at Samuel, who’s staring up at the sky beside me. The old drive-in is already almost engulfed in darkness; I wonder if this is around the time movies started, back when this place was open. I wish I’d been here. I wish I’d known Live Oak before it was full of For Sale signs and monsters.

  “It’s still not the werewolves I’m most scared of,” I say quietly. “It’s not knowing what will happen. Not understanding what Sophia will do tomorrow night at the festival. I thought everything would be fine once I knew what the witch was, but there are so many other mysteries now.”

  “You can’t save everyone.” Samuel’s words are so blunt that they surprise me, so opposite of my brother’s mentality that they feel foreign. He sighs and shakes his head. “I’ve been trying to save the girls in Live Oak for two years. Sooner or later, you have to realize—you can’t save them all.”