Bad Blood

by Carly Anne West

  “Enzo, that’s so great!” says Trinity, and Enzo’s ears go pink.

  “Way to go, dork,” says Maritza, smiling at her brother. “Oooh, do you think Dad would want other stories from kids? We’re starting a young inventor’s club.”

  “Sure, I don’t see why not,” says Enzo. “He’s amped about starting this whole section for student reporters in the paper.”

  Then Enzo turns to me, clapping a hand on my shoulder. “I have you to thank for the idea, you know,” he says.

  “You do?” says Mya, shifting an accusatory gaze my way.

  “No, you don’t,” I say to Enzo. “No, he doesn’t,” I say to Mya.

  “Sure, I do!” says Enzo. “If it weren’t for your suggestion that I go to my dad about writing a story, I never would have considered it.”

  “Wow,” I say. “That’s great. I’m such a genius.”

  “Yeah, brilliant,” says Mya like she wants to throw something at me. I can’t blame her. I want to throw something at me.

  “Anyway, my dad said he’d help me with some of the research,” says Enzo. “Hey, do you think your dad would be cool with being interviewed?”

  “NO!” Mya and I yell together, and everyone stares at us.

  “Uh—he’s kind of—it’s just that he’s—”

  “He’s really busy,” Mya says, and at least one of us is thinking fast.

  “Yup,” I say. “Busy, busy bee. That’s Dad.”

  “Ohhhkaaaay,” says Enzo, and for the first time today, I’m suddenly very grateful for Mr. Pippin because he shouts to the room that the tour has concluded. Honestly, I can’t tell who’s more relieved, Mr. Pippin or me.

  “All right,” Mr. Donaldson says, bracing himself for whatever he’s about to say next. “Let’s move on to the candy shop.”

  “Every kid for themselves!” someone yells.

  “Attaaaaack!” someone else roars.

  A stampede ensues, and while Enzo, Martiza, Trinity, and Lucy all link arms to stay together, Mya tugs me back by my arm.

  “Ow! Hey, we’re gonna miss out on the chocolate ones!”

  “You’re a moron,” she says.

  “I know,” I say.

  That’s not what she means, though. What she means is she’s scared. It’s what I mean, too, but I can’t let her know that.

  “Look, he’s going to lose interest in the story the second school gets harder, guaranteed. By the time we have our first quiz, he’s going to forget all about our grandparents and whatever else he thinks happened back then.”

  Mya leans in, looking down while she whispers, “What do you think happened? I mean, do you think … did they do something bad?”

  I swallow hard and hope she doesn’t hear the lump that sticks in my throat.

  “No way,” I say. “Not a chance.”

  She might know I’m lying. Honestly, part of me would be a little disappointed if she didn’t know; she’s smarter than that. I think we’re both happy to believe the lie, though, at least for a little while.

  So, I say it again for emphasis.

  “Not a chance.”

  By the time we pile back onto the bus, most of us are buzzing on sugar but otherwise exhausted. Trinity nods off on Enzo’s shoulder, and I think he’s going to burst with happiness. I think this may have been the best day of his entire life. I wish I could say the same.

  * * *

  Dinner that night is an opportunity. At least that’s what I’m choosing to see it as. If I can just get ahead of this story Enzo wants to write by learning that my grandparents were actually pretty boring, I can clear at least this one secret from my vault.

  Mya seems to have the same perspective because she’s the first one to strike.

  “Today was the Golden Apple factory field trip,” she says so casually, she actually has me fooled for a minute. Not an ulterior motive in sight.

  “Oh, right!” says Mom. “I completely forgot. Did you learn what the Halloween candy is going to be?”

  With trick-or-treating season just around the corner, the Golden Apple Corporation has been making a big deal out of unveiling their new mystery candy just in time for the big night. There was some speculation that we’d get a sneak peek on the tour.

  “No,” says Mya, “but we did get a look at the, um, theme park.”

  All eyes land on Dad, who manages to cut his chicken without so much as flinching. He’s looking at it like he expects it to come alive, though.

  “Made that public, have they?” says Dad, casual as can be.

  “I think your dad was planning to tell you kids the good news after he’d turned in all of his designs,” says Mom diplomatically, but she’s approaching with extreme caution. “Right, Ted?”

  Dad stays silent. He’s just slowly cutting his chicken away from the bone.

  “Everyone’s really excited you’re the one building it,” I say. Mya shouldn’t have to do all the work. “Especially because, you know, Grandma and Grandpa were such a big deal around here.”

  I clear my throat. That’s what people do when they’re speaking normally, right? “What was it you said they used to do again?”

  Dad cuts, takes a bite, chews, swallows, cuts. “Don’t recall that I did,” he says.

  It feels stiflingly hot in the kitchen all of a sudden. Did Mom leave the oven on or something?

  “Enzo found a passage in his geography textbook about how the Tavish Society was funding their work,” says Mya. Not exactly a sly approach, but she’s tugging at her shirt collar, so I think she’s feeling hot, too.

  “Who’s Enzo?” says Dad, his brow furrowed. His chicken must be the most fascinating thing he’s ever seen because he refuses to look up from it.

  “You remember,” Mom says. “His new little friend, and that sweet girl he was with.”

  “He’s not my ‘little friend,’” I say to Mom, because I’m not five.

  “Those kids who left you in the woods?” says Dad, and when he says it like that …

  “Ted, they didn’t leave him in the woods, for goodness sake,” says Mom.

  “Sure seemed like it to me,” says Dad, and I can’t help but feel relieved that he sounds grumpy and protective instead of all weird and defensive over nothing.

  “It must have been pretty interesting,” Mya says, bringing us back on topic. “The work,” she says when we get quiet.

  “Mmhmm,” says Dad.

  Enlightening. Thanks.

  This would all be so much easier if he understood I was just trying to help him. Well, okay, and myself and Mya and Mom, too, but seriously, all these secrets are just making it worse. If Dad thinks we’re giving him the third degree, just wait until Enzo, intrepid student reporter, shows up on our doorstep.

  My stomach curls over my chicken as I imagine the other people we’ve been worried about showing up: men dressed in black coats and hats, banging from the other side of the door, looking for answers about what happened at the parks in Australia or Japan or Maine.

  They started asking questions in Germany. We left before they could ask more.

  Suddenly, I feel like I might pass out, and it’s so hot in here, and I think the chicken might have been bad, and why won’t he just talk? Why won’t he trust his own family?

  “Aaron, are you okay? You look like you’re going to be sick,” says Mom, reaching for my wrist, and her hand is ice-cold. It feels so good, but I can barely hear her. It’s like she’s a million miles away.

  “Mya, get a wet rag for your brother,” says Mom, and Mya stares at me. I stare back. One of us has to do it.

  “Mya, do what I said!” says Mom, trying to maintain control, but we’re unraveling.

  “Why is everything such a secret?” I blurt, and Mya drops her fork onto her plate with a clink.

  Mom’s hand tightens around my wrist. “Aaron,” she hisses, like there’s any chance in the world my dad might not have heard.

  I stare at the top of Dad’s head. I wait for him to look up.

  �
�Why does everyone seem to know something about Grandma and Grandpa?” I say, doing everything I can to keep my voice even. It doesn’t work, though. It breaks right in the middle of my sentence, making me sound like I’m pleading. Maybe I am.

  Finally, Dad looks up, his head rising slowly. When his eyes are perfectly level with mine, he says, “I really wouldn’t know.”

  Never has such a bland sentence sounded so angry.

  Dad holds my eyes until I think they’re going to melt in my skull. Then, he slowly sets his fork down, shoves his plate away from him, pushes himself away from the table, and walks calmly down the back hall of the house to his office.

  I don’t realize I’m shaking until Mya finally gets up and gets me that wet rag. Mom lays it over the top of my head, a little trick she used to employ whenever I had a fever. I have no idea what I have now.

  Is there a cure for regret?

  I want to take it all back. I thought I was protecting Dad—the whole family, really—but all I’ve done is upset my mom and scare Mya and make my dad look at me like I’m some kind of curse, all for wondering why our family has to sew secrets up inside of ourselves. At some point, those seams are going to burst, and when they do, it’s going to be a mess.

  It doesn’t matter, though. Dinner is ruined, the night is ruined, and I think maybe my life is ruined, too.

  It’s so much easier to be sarcastic when you’re scared. It’s better than the alternative, which I’m pretty sure involves sinking deep into the floor and hiding from the rest of the world.

  That night, we all go to bed without saying good night. We take our separate corners, which we have now in this great big house; Dad is right about that. I can still hear everyone, though. I hear Mya brush her teeth and settle into her squeaky bed. I hear Mom sniff and blow her nose about a million times. Her nose runs when she cries. I hear Dad make his way to bed a lot earlier than he normally does. I hope he’s checking on Mom.

  I wait until all the creaking and nose-blowing and muffled whispers are quiet, and then I wait a long time after that. I’m trying to work up the courage to know what it is I need to do. I keep telling myself it’s not for me; it’s for Mya. That’s not entirely true, though.

  Then, as quietly as I can, I lower myself from the top bunk, change into regular clothes, and step lightly into Mya’s room. She’s flat on her back, arms splayed, nose in the air. She’s snoring, and I log it into my memory to tell her about that later.

  I nudge her shoulder, which only makes her snort louder at first, so I roll her halfway over until she finally startles awake.

  “Why were you snorting in my ear?” she says.

  Focus. This isn’t the time.

  “C’mon, get your jeans on. We’re getting some answers.”

  It only takes her a second to register what I’ve said, and another to decide she’ll do it.

  “This had better be good,” she grumbles as we sneak out of her room and down the hall.

  It isn’t. It isn’t good at all.

  The last thing I want to do is return to these woods. Even worse, to return to them in the middle of the night, equipped with nothing but a couple of flashlights we found in the basement, with my little sister in tow. Everything in me knows this is a horrible idea.

  But I’m protecting Mya from absolutely nothing by pretending that everything is hunky-dory. She already has Mom and Dad for that. What she needs—what we need—is the truth. If we can find it before the entire town of Raven Brooks does, maybe we can keep the worst of it from coming out.

  “The kids in class have told me things about these woods,” Mya whispers. The air is so still, I can hear her, even though she’s several steps behind me.

  “Get up here,” I say. “Don’t make me have to explain to Mom and Dad how I lost you in the woods in the dead of night.”

  I really, really don’t like the way the word “dead” sounded coming out of my mouth just now.

  “Then maybe you should just tell me why we’re out here. I swear, you’re just like—”

  “Don’t say it,” I warn.

  We reach the part of the forest where I got separated from Enzo and Trinity, and I realize that I have absolutely no idea how to make my way back to the weather station without sliding down the same embankment I rolled down the last time I was here. I can still make out the smooth patch of dirt where my foot slipped.

  “What is it?” Mya asks.

  “We have to get down there.”

  “But there’s a different way to get down there,” she says.

  I look at her.

  “Because you wouldn’t drag me down a hill full of blackberry thorns and poison ivy and who knows what sort of night creatures.”

  I freeze. Night creatures. I was so focused on getting back to the weather station, I somehow managed to forget what it was I was running from last time.

  “Forest Protectors,” I mumble, and Mya’s eyes widen.

  “Forest what?”

  I shake my head. “It’s nothing.”

  “Well, that makes me feel loads better,” she says. “Seriously, if you wanted to creep me out, you didn’t need to drag me all the way into the woods to do it.”

  “Let’s just go,” I say, grabbing her arm and coaxing her down the hill sideways. I go first so I can kick anything out of the way that we might trip over.

  It takes a lot longer to get down the hill when you’re not tumbling like a human barrel.

  When we reach the clearing, I have to beat back the paranoia that comes from standing in an open space.

  “Now where?” whispers Mya. If she’s still whispering, then she’s feeling it, too. Someone might hear us; someone or something hiding in the woods.

  I point to the other side of the clearing. “That way.”

  She gives me one pleading look, then takes off at a sprint, and I don’t catch up with her until we reach the other side.

  “Way to rip the bandage off,” I sputter while she barely struggles to catch her breath. “Through here,” I say, picking my way carefully now. This last leg of the journey is a bit of a blur, with me running for my life and all, but I try to blink that memory away because all I’d been hearing was Mr. Gershowitz, right? I keep my eyes open for the tower that seemed to crop up out of nowhere last time.

  I’m so focused on the task that I don’t even realize that Mya isn’t walking beside me anymore. She’s a few paces back, still as a statue, staring into the thick darkness to her left.

  “What’re y—?”

  “Shhh!” she warns, holding her hand up. She squints closer into the trees. “Did you hear that?”

  “What?” I ask, trying to stay calm, but she’s not making it easy.

  Mya doesn’t answer. Instead, she’s still for a second longer, then drops her hand and shakes her head.

  “Must have been my imagination,” she whispers, and neither of us believes that for a second.

  “Come on,” I say, hustling her in front of me. “We’re almost there.”

  Please let us be almost there.

  We walk the rest of the way in silence, Mya no longer pestering me about where it is I’m dragging her. When we finally arrive at the outbuilding, I watch her look up at the tower the same way I did—like it seems to have no place in this otherwise dense forest.

  I wave her toward the corner I rounded the last time, and there’s the door, just as I left it, slightly ajar with its lock broken off.

  “Is that … ?” Mya starts to ask, motioning toward the door.

  “Yeah, I might have done that.”

  “No follow-up questions, right?” she says.

  “No follow-up questions.”

  I take the lead now, edging through the crack in the door, but not without making it creak just enough to send a shiver through me, and once again, I’m staring down the expanse of a long, dark corridor.

  At least this time I sort of know where I’m going.

  “What is this place?” Mya asks, her voice echoing in a way I do
n’t remember mine doing the last time I was here.

  “Mr. Gershowitz says it’s a weather station.”

  “Mr. Gershowitz?” Mya asks.

  “Oh yeah. I might have, er, failed to mention the part where he sort of … I mean, it was actually kind of funny—”

  “He caught you snooping around here after you broke in,” says Mya.

  “Yep. That’s pretty much it.”

  “You’re on your way to becoming a legit criminal.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I mean, it’s cool and all, Aaron. I’m just not sure why you had to show it to me in the middle of the night. Tonight of all nights,” she says.

  We arrive at our grandparents’ old office.

  “This is why.”

  Mya steps into the middle of the room as I find the camping lantern to shed some light. I let Mya look around without saying another word.

  Eventually, she arrives at the wedding picture of our grandparents. She picks it up and studies it for some time before setting it down and looking at me, squinting past the lantern light.

  “They worked here?”

  I nod.

  “This was all theirs?”

  I shrug. “At least the stuff in this room, I guess.”

  Mya shakes her head, crinkling her brow while she continues to stare at the shambles of the office.

  “Why would this all be such a secret? Why doesn’t Dad want to talk about this?”

  “This is why you had to see it tonight,” I say to Mya. Because this is the night we learned that no matter what, Dad is never going to tell us what our family is hiding, what the rest of Raven Brooks is so eager to know.

  Mya continues to poke around, and soon, I’m joining her because I realize my first visit to the weather station got cut short.

  Sadly, there’s little more to discover now that I have Mya to help me and ample time to sift through what remains. There are old crumbling notebooks dated from 1960–1963, most of them containing words and references and calculations I couldn’t begin to understand, even if the ink wasn’t already smeared and faded. There are charts drawing lines to latitude lines and axis points, some with the little dents of a compass still present in the paper. There are permits and contracts with signatures and official-looking stamps, and piles of file folders, most of which are either empty or filled with carbon copies of pages too light to read anymore.