Through the Woods

by Cassandra Johnson

  “I promise I will Julie, and yes, please call off the cops.” She laughed softly. “I don’t want to be hung up at the airport because of a little misunderstanding.”

  Hah, a little misunderstanding. This was so much more than a little, but there was no way that Elle could tell Julie everything that had happened even though she desperately wished she could.

  “Okay, I will call you later once we’re in Arkansas. I promise that I will keep in touch.” Elle said before giving her goodbyes to Julie and hanging up the phone before she fell onto her back on the bed breathing hard.

  “Well, at least that’s one crisis averted,” Elle said as she gave Danita her phone back, feeling Marik’s broad palm gently caress the small of her back as she sat up once more and caught herself exhale for the first time since she read Julie’s emails.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  It was seventy-two degrees and sunny when the Delta flight touched down at Memphis International Airport, and Elle retrieved Gregory from his kennel, he was not pleased and got them a rental car.

  “Why is it so hot?” Gallen asked, shrugging out of his jacket before climbing into the passenger side of the Cadillac Escalade. Elle couldn’t stop herself from laughing softly as she cranked the A/C up on high.

  “When I was little, my grandma used to say, ‘If you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes,’ because honestly? By tomorrow it could be in the fifties. It doesn’t really begin to get cold here until about mid-December. Our winters are considered mild compared to up north.” Elle explained with a smile.

  From Memphis Tennessee to West Memphis Arkansas it was a fifteen-minute drive over the Dolly Parton bridge, and Proctor was only a short distance from there.

  Elle found herself traversing those old roads from memory as if she never left them and in another fifteen minutes she was parking the Escalade in front of her childhood home, the house looked exactly like she’d left it a year and a half ago. Seeing it now she didn’t know why she ever wanted to go, but fate or the universe or God, whatever you wanted to call it, it had a way of taking you where you needed to be when you needed to be there.

  Shutting off the engine Elle watched as Gallen peered up at the house through the windshield.

  I’m sure some things need to be repaired, but I left the water and power on, my neighbors also helped me with hiring people to take care of the yard and things like that.” She told Gallen as she pushed the driver's side door open and hopped out bringing in a lung full of warm air.

  Shutting the door, Elle walked up the porch steps listening to the old boards creaking underfoot. A sound that always played inside of her mind whenever she walked up or down the set of steps at her home in New Haven. Stretching onto her tiptoes, Elle got the key from the eve of the door and opened it up, coughing slightly from the smell of stale air that caught in her throat. Pushing the door open all the way she entered the house and went to one of the living room windows that faced the front of the house and began to pull the curtains back and raise blinds and windows to let air into the house. Gregory instantly bounded straight into the kitchen, as if he thought that a special someone would be waiting for them.

  Frowning, Elle followed him and paused by the threshold caressing the guardian's fur.

  “I know sweetie. I wish she were here too.” Elle whispered before she took a deep breath and pushed the tears back. Now wasn’t the time, like most southern women with guests in her home she needed to prepare it to receive but being as she hadn’t been able to do that she went around putting all of the windows up, checking the lights, the water, dragging cleaning supplies out of cabinets and closets.

  “Uh, Elle? What are you doing?” Marik said looking at her going into a frenzy before they had even taken their bags from the SUV, not that they honestly had that much to bring inside.

  “Well, given that we are going to be here for a while I need to get this place cleaned up. We’re going to need food. I gotta put fresh sheets on the beds, I also need to call all of my neighbors and let them know that I’m here, so they don’t call the cops or show up at the door with a shotgun because they think some stranger or run-away bank robbers are squatting in the house.” Elle paused to take a breath before her eyes went wide. “Ah, shit! The phones are turned off. That was the one thing that I didn’t leave on when I moved. I didn’t figure on showing up without preparing ahead of time. I’ll have to walk all the way down to Mrs. Pritchett’s just to use her phone to get that turned on.”

  “That accent’s getting thicker by the second,” Gaerik said stepping into the kitchen, his eyes twinkling slightly. He was smelling everything, taking in his surroundings while he investigated the house.

  “Is this your height chart?” He asked pointing to small pencil markings in the door post.

  Elle glanced back at what Gaerik was pointing at and nodded before going to the fridge and looking inside. Yes, she cleaned it out before leaving, but within its cavern, she was making a mental list of all the things that they would need.

  Marik came up behind her and closed the door, turning her to face him.

  “Elle, take a breath. Make a list of the groceries and Gaerik, and I will go pick them up,” Because Marik sure as hell wasn’t leaving Elle alone with Gaerik. “You and dad can stay here and get the house cleaned up. You’re a southern lady, you should know how to boss men around.” He laughed somewhat and before even thinking about it, he placed a kiss on her forehead.

  Elle looked Marik in the eyes, it was an awkward sensation, staring up at him while she could literally feel the other brother scowling behind her.

  “Elle, we have a visitor,” Gallen called as he walked stiff-legged into the kitchen with his hands in the air –he was being nudged forward by the barrel of a twelve-gauge shotgun.

  Marik turned, his head tilting at the peculiar cylinder.

  “You creeps think you can just come in…” Molly Pritchett was on the other end of the shotgun and in high form. She was still in her housecoat even though it was noon, it wasn’t any surprise that she did drink a little, but she was what her neighbors called a sociable drunk.

  The aged woman had stopped dead in her tracks staring straight ahead at Elle. Molly was sure that the man was lying when he said that they were there with the homeowner, you couldn’t put anything past people these days. Every now and then she would collect the mail that the postman had dropped into the Marshal mailbox by mistake and tuck it away. It was never anything significant, usually junk mail, so she naturally assumed maybe there was mail in the box that she hadn’t caught, and this man was just the type of sly snake to use that to try and make her go away, but Molly knew how to use that shotgun, and she wasn’t easily fooled. Even if they were what they were.

  “Elle?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Elle nodded up and down quickly before slipping past Marik and carefully taking the gun from her and sat it up against the wall.

  “What in the world are you doing here? I wasn’t expecting you.”

  “No one was, the trip was kind of a surprise,” Elle told her, trying to explain without going into detail about their circumstances.

  Molly stared at her critically for a moment, her shrewd eyes taking in Elle and the three men that were inside her house not only that, but the Collie mutt was back as well.

  “Y'all are running from something, ain’tcha?” She asked hitting the nail right on the head.

  Elle could hardly keep a secret from this woman even when she was a little girl, that trait never changed as she got older. The Pritchett’s moved in down the road when Elle was about ten, they raised their own grandkids after their oldest daughter died from breast cancer. Lucas, Shaye, and Elle grew up together, their summer vacations spent running in and out of swinging screen doors.

  “Yes ma’am, we kind of are.” She admitted it would have been like looking her grandma in the eyes and telling a bold face lie.

  “What do you need?” Molly straightened up, she wasn’t as old as Elle’s grandmother wa
s when she passed. Molly Pritchett married young and became a young mother, then a young grandmother. She looked closer to Gallen’s age than her grandmothers, but the two women had gotten along remarkably well. Grace Marshal was never very much interest in people in general, but Grace and Molly had been the neighborhood grandma bad-asses in their day. Nothing got past them.

  “Mrs. Pritchett, I don’t want to involve you in this. It’s dangerous, and I couldn’t live with myself if you got hurt somehow because of the situation we’re in.” Elle said squirming internally.

  Molly’s green eyes narrowed softly, she was thinking, and Elle was familiar with that look. It was the very same one that Molly had in her eyes the day that she caught her grandson Lucas making out with Hazel Mackin one Sunday in church. At the time, Elle wasn’t sure what was more embarrassing, getting caught Frenching in the first place or having your grandma see you doing it, in church, on a Sunday. Molly had nearly lost all her religion that day, dragging Lucas out of the church by his ear. From that day on all of his friends called him the Squealer because the sound that he made as he was being pulled out of the church, ear first sounded like a baby pig. It was a nickname that he still held to this day in certain social circles. Now, anytime Lucas and Hazel locked eyes, they both turned beet red in the face.

  “Young lady,” Oh no. Molly was going to lecture her. It was coming. “I think that you highly underestimate my abilities to hold my own. I did marry one of their kind after all.” Molly said, gesturing towards the three men standing around her kitchen.

  “What?” Elle almost rocked backwards, but Marik was right behind her suddenly, the warmth of his torso radiating against her back.

  Chuckling Molly shook her head. “I guess there’s still a whole lot you’re learning about yourself and your family. Werewolves and guardians have always been drawn to your people. It’s something in the blood. I’m guessing I’m much the same myself although I wouldn’t call myself a gypsy, like you. Clearing her throat, she straightened her spine to her full height. “Now, what do you need me to do?”

  ~

  Elle made a list of necessities to get from the store for the twins, sending them off with the GPS on the Escalade to help them get to the Wal-Mart while Elle, Gallen, Molly, and Gregory stayed behind at the house. Together the three tackled each room, while Molly told her how she’d met her husband, about being one of those humans that for whatever reason just drew werewolves to them and vice versa. The truth of it was, as Molly explained it to her, it wasn’t that strange. Wolves were pack animals, they yearned for safe places to raise their young and to congregate together with other wolves where humans were also like that although men of science didn’t like to call it that. Humans were social creatures. They had basic needs and desires and namely in most cases that was a yearning to find love, settle down, and have families.

  When it was put that way, Elle saw very little difference between them it was only out of both creature’s nature, a lust for blood at times, that the two had been separated. Humans were the enemy, they feared what they didn’t understand and often sought out ways to destroy it, while wolves were just as untrustworthy and reckless at times.

  “So, did ya’ll move here on purpose because of my grandma?” Elle asked as they were fanning freshly washed and dried sheets onto the last remaining bed.

  “I often have asked myself that same question, and I think it was a little bit of the beacon that you and your grandma were and a little bit of fate. You see, Sam and I didn’t know that you and your grandma were here in this exact location, but there was something about our house that we fell in love with when we saw it for sale. There was a quality to the air that said this place was safe and it would be a safe place for Lucas and Shaye to grow up, we knew that we didn’t need to be afraid here.” Molly said, straightening out the edges of the top sheet. “Then, of course, Grace being Grace she came over to welcome Sam and us, and I immediately knew what she was, and she knew what we were too. This place just felt right and when we met your gran, and you well we knew that we’d made the right choice. We’ve looked out for each other for many a year, and here we are, still doing it.” Grace chuckled slowly, that low, husky, throaty laugh that Elle remembered when she was a little girl.

  “Anyone need a break?” Gallen poked his head into the last bedroom of the house, the three of them had been hard at work for the last hour, and it seemed that the house was almost in order, all they needed was food and a working landline.

  “I could use a good drink and a cigarette,” Molly said as she finished straightening her side of the bed and turned to Gallen.

  “I found some old tea bags in the cabinet, I’ve never heard of tea going bad.” He mused for a moment before chuckling. Never in his life would he have imagined he’d be having this kind of conversation, but he supposed that there was a first time for everything.

  “But we don’t have any sugar.” Elle straightened, holding her back before nodding at the bed. Her side was a little sloppier than Molly’s, but this was Elle’s room and all the other beds and been made to perfection. Hopefully, her gran wouldn’t be terribly disappointed in her. Elle never liked making beds anyway.

  “Spoilt.” Molly laughed at her as they both rounded the bed. “How about I walk down to the house and grab us all some beers?” Molly’s eyebrows creased up quickly as they went back downstairs. With the windows, open and a breeze coming through it didn’t feel nearly as warm and stifling as it had on the second levels, but Elle was sure that they would all be sleeping with the air conditioning on tonight if Elle didn’t haul off and turn it on once Marik and Gaerik were home.

  “A beer sounds good,” Gallen said, looking around the clean-living room. It seemed entirely different with all the sheets pulled off the furniture, the place looked like home now, and he could imagine Elle as a little girl doing her homework at that very coffee table while she watched TV after school.

  “I’ll go get them then.” Molly went into the kitchen and grabbed her shotgun and took it back home with her as Elle and Gallen slowly stepped outside on the porch. Gregory had been sitting there for the last two hours. He always hated it when her grandmother went into one of her cleaning frenzies, all the animals did, and they’d end up spending that time outside.

  “She’s very interesting,” Gallen said as he settled into a rocking chair on the porch.

  “Molly? Yeah. She’s never gotten along with the normal conventions of society, I guess none of us have. I never would have guessed in a million years though.” Elle eluded as she sat down.

  She usually wasn’t a very heavy smoker at all, but she was itching for Molly to come back, she should have put cigarettes on the list that she gave to the boys.

  “How long has her husband been passed?”

  “Probably about five years.” Elle mused slowly, leaning her head against the back of the rocker. “He was a huge guy. Even after I grew up, Sam still seemed like this giant of a man.”

  “As big as…Marik?” Gallen wasn’t sure if Elle understood where he was going with this, but he’d let her think on it.

  “No, Sam was even bigger than him if I remember correctly,” Elle replied watching Molly now trotting back down the road with a shopping sack in her arms. Elle could even see the plume of smoke that escaped her lips as she took a drag from her cigarette.

  Molly reached the porch, waving the sack slightly before she sat down in the last remaking rocking chair and began to hand out beers, she’d also brought over some soda pops just in case it was a while before the boys got back from Wal-Mart which in their town a simple errand like that could take four hours. Passing Elle her pack of Pall Mall’s over.

  Taking a cigarette from the pack, she looked out at the neighborhood. It hadn’t changed very much from the last time she’d seen it, but she could find subtle differences. A mobile home a little further down the road, new cars in old driveways. Lighting her cigarette, she inhaled slowly as she sniffed a bit before Gregory got up and laid his head
on her thigh. He knew what she was thinking probably just as well as Molly did. Elle had missed this place more than she ever allowed herself to while living in Connecticut and now that Elle was here she knew once all of this was over, she was coming home and staying home. Elle could write here just as well as any other place in the world, but this was the place she would hang her hat.

  “I wonder how the boys are getting along at the store.” She wondered idly, quickly rocking back and forth while she drank her beer and looked out at the sun, it was already starting to get dark, and it was only a little after two in the afternoon.

  “Hopefully they aren’t fighting.” Gallen chuckled under his breath.

  “Why would they be fighting?” Elle looked up slowly.

  Molly leaned forward in her seat and looked over at Gallen, there was a specific knowledge between the two that they were sharing with each other merely by staring into the other’s eyes.

  “Is someone going to tell me what’s going on?” Elle asked, her tone becoming slightly annoyed.

  “She doesn’t see it,” Molly said directly to Gallen, ignoring Elle for a moment which earned Molly a throaty laugh from Gallen.

  “Let’s just let fate run its course,” Gallen told Molly before he leaned further back into his chair.

  Elle was mystified with this turn in the conversation.

  “You never did elaborate on how you all came to meet and end up here,” Molly said changing the subject of the conversation entirely.

  Elle pursed her lips in thought for a moment. She didn’t like the way the topic was being skirted around her question she wanted to know why Gaerik and Marik would be fighting. She was only distantly reminded of earlier in the evening the night of the fire. Elle literally had to tell herself that it was maybe only about fourteen hours ago, but it didn’t feel like it at all. Those hours had passed by so quickly that it was all a blur, the three of them well five of them when you counted Gregory and how could she not had been through a lifetime in the last fourteen hours, give or take an hour or two.