by Eden Beck
I take one quick glance and toss it back onto the mattress without reading any of them.
I hear my mom shuffling around in the living room. From the light that’s streaming through gaps in the window shade, it looks like it’s already sometime mid-morning. It takes me another few minutes to get my mental bearings.
The passing of time has been completely lost on me. I can’t even remember getting up to go eat or go to the bathroom in days, although I’m sure I must have. I do, however, have a vague recollection of being visited by a doctor.
It’s an unsettling memory, really.
I recall opening my eyes to the blurry scene of someone in a white lab coat kneeling next to my mattress and staring at me while a cold stethoscope presses against my chest. That part isn’t the strange part though, the strange part is that I think Romulus was there too, talking to my mom. He’s the only part of the memory that isn’t wrapped in haze. Even in the midst of my fever, I knew something was wrong. He didn’t belong here.
I sit up in bed and wait for the wooziness to pass before I attempt to stand up again. As if sensing I’ve woken, my mom appears in the doorway. Her face looks tired and worried.
“Oh, good, you’re finally awake. You must be starving.”
I nod my head and put my hand against my growling stomach. Starving sounds like just the right word for how I feel right now.
The smell of melting cheese makes me start to salivate as I wait at the little table for her to finish cooking.
“Hey Mom,” I say. “I had some of the weirdest dreams.”
“Yeah honey, that happens when you have a high fever.” She sets the plate and bowl down in front of me, and it takes every bit of my self-control not to shove the entire sandwich in my mouth at once. “You gave us all quite a scare. The doctor thinks you must have picked up strep or something in the river.”
I glance up at her out of the corner of my eye. “About that …”
She holds up a hand to stop me. “I’m not going to say anything. I know I should be angry … but …” here she trails off, and she glances out the window a moment at the pattern of tree leaves outside the window. “It’s good to see you acting like a teenager again.”
Her words don’t mean to sting, but they do a bit.
I drop my gaze back down to the grilled cheese in my hands. Even though my stomach rumbles, I feel my appetite wane.
I know what she means. She means before. When we lived with my father, the same man who’s invisible scars run far deeper than the physical bruises ever did.
I glance up at her, but she’s still not looking at me. I wonder if she regrets it, now, leaving. It hasn’t been easy, sure, but I thought it was still better.
I know it is for me. I always just assumed it is for her too.
“So, anything extra-exciting in your fever dreams?” she asks, seeing my face fall and quickly diverting the subject. I know I’ll have to ask her about all this eventually, but I’m grateful for now.
“Yeah, actually. I had this crazy dream about some creepy doctor, and you, and Romulus, of all people. You were all just standing around my bed when I was asleep.”
I wait for her to laugh and reiterate just how high my fever was, but she doesn’t. Instead, she looks kind of serious and confirms what I was dreading.
“That wasn’t a dream, sweetie. The town doctor and Romulus both came to see you while you were sick.”
Town doctor. Sometimes I forget how tiny this place is.
“What, why?” I set my soup spoon down and look at her more closely.
“Well, it was kind of strange actually, now that you mention it. Romulus showed up and asked about you shortly after your friends left. Said he’d call and ask the doctor to come check on you if we needed it.”
“That was strangely nice of him,” I say suspiciously.
“Yeah,” Mom says, “but that wasn’t the weird part. The weird part was what he said.”
I’m almost afraid to know what it was.
“Well,” I start, after she doesn’t elaborate, “what did he say?”
Her brow furrows. “It was so odd. I’m, here, give me a second to remember it correctly.”
I wait with bated breath while she screws up her eyes, her mouth wording something soundlessly to herself for a moment. When she opens her eyes again, her frown has deepened.
“He said something about how sometimes recovery is the more dangerous of the two options.”
“What the hell does that mean?” I ask.
“I don’t really know,” she says with a shake of her head. “But I really didn’t think about it at the time.”
Her face grows worried, and she looks suddenly unsure of herself. She stares off at the wall this time, her voice growing distant as she loses herself in thought.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have let him in.”
I know where this leads. The self-doubt is growing evident on her face.
She was like this a lot when we first left. I can’t let her slip back into that again.
Not when I still have so many questions.
“So, when I was out,” I start, then have to repeat myself again while she focuses back on me, “was there anything else? Did I say anything? Do anything?”
She blinks a few times, and then slowly starts to come back to herself. “Oh, yeah. I nearly forgot,” her voice has returned to its usual cheery self as she jumps up and starts rummaging around on one of the shelves behind her. “Those three friends of yours left you a gift when they came by.”
“By friends you mean …”
“The three impossibly attractive boys of Romulus’?” She eyes me sharply. “Yeah, I have eyeballs too, you know.”
Without a fever to hide my blush, I have to resort to sticking my face close to the steam from the tomato soup.
I wondered if that was part of the dreams too.
Nothing fools her, however. She grins at me with a sly smile as she hands me a small leather pouch.
I turn it over in my hand. It’s small, the tawny leather soft and worn.
“It’s a medicine bag,” my mom says. “One of the boys, Marlowe, I think, explained it to me.”
There’s a cord that wraps around the top part to pull the small opening of the pouch closed, and from the weight of it, there’s something inside. I loosen the top with my fingers and shake it upside down until whatever it is falls out onto the table.
I pick up the small green stone that tumbled out of the bag. It’s a piece of jade carved into the shape of a tiny wolf. My eyes immediately hone-in on it as the memory of the wolf-girl comes flooding back into my head.
“I think they said that part is a totem,” Mom says. “Though, I wasn’t really listening.”
She shoots me another one of those looks. “Who could, after all, with eyes like that.”
I ignore her comment just as she ignores the heightening color in my skin.
“A totem?”
“Yeah, little animal carvings. Supposed to protect you from evil or something. Like I said, I was only half-listening.” My mom laughs.
Great, I think as I roll my eyes. I have a tiny pretend wolf statue to protect me from all the real wolves. That should work out well. I stuff the trinket back into the pouch and pull the cord tightly to close it.
Despite myself, I keep the totem close.
After everything that’s happened, this isn’t the sort of gift that I’m about to refuse.
I take two more days off from school just to rest and eat and get my energy back.
I would have taken even more time if I didn’t think it would send half the local population into a frenzy. In a town of three hundred, it’s not hard to do.
Sometimes it seems like the only people who haven’t been texting my phone nonstop are Rory, Marlowe, and Kaleb.
At least they understand that I need time.
And they should. They’re also the only ones who understand why.
I know that at some point I’m going to need to talk
to them about what happened. When I do, I want to be ready to hear their answers. No more surprises. No more lies.
Finally, by Thursday, I’m ready to go back to school again. I’m sure that I’ll have tons of missed work to make up, and I haven’t even thought about all the work that still needs to be done for the Civilizations project.
On my way out the door, my mom picks my phone up from the kitchen table and starts handing it to me, only to stop and gawk at the count of unread messages on the screen.
“Holy cow,” she says as the screen illuminates for a second look. “A hundred and forty-four missed text messages? Are you running for class president or something?”
She laughs at her own joke.
“Hardly,” I snicker. “Some people just can’t take a hint.”
“If that comment was meant for Romulus’ boys, I think you should give them a chance.”
It’s my turn to snort. “No. Thank god. Those are mostly from Tom at school.”
I shudder inwardly, then shoot a sideways glance at my mom as I register what she just said. “What do you mean, ‘give them a chance’?”
She avoids looking directly at me by busying herself at the already-clean kitchen sink. “Oh, nothing. Just from what I’ve heard, at least one of them saved you down at that river.”
I shrug and pretend not to care. “And I’m supposed to throw myself at him in thanks?”
“No, but I’m just saying it wouldn’t hurt to, you know, let someone in a little bit.” She must sense I’m about to say something, because she quickly adds, “Besides, they looked so sad the last time they were here.”
That catches me off guard. It’s the first I’ve heard of it.
“Sad?”
I’d like to hear more, but just then the landline calls and from the shift in my mom’s tone, it’s work, and it’s going to take a while.
Great. Now I’m going to spend the entire day wondering what she meant.
This isn’t the case, however. I barely make it to the end of the dirt path driveway before I see Rory’s Jeep pull up, with Marlowe and Kaleb in tow. It’s like they could sense that I was just leaving the house.
Either that, or they’re spying on me. At least this means I might not have to wait long for some answers.
“How about a ride to school?” Kaleb calls from the open back.
I march right up to the car and put my hand on the side of the open window.
“What happened at the river?” I ask, ignoring Kaleb’s offer and getting straight to the point. I surprise myself with how blunt I sound. “Who was that girl … what was she?”
“We can’t explain that to you here,” Rory says. “Not now. Not without explaining a whole lot of other things first.”
I take a second to take a step away from the Jeep, and mime looking around the empty forest. When I look back at them, Rory is sucking on the inside of his cheek in agitation … but unless I’m mistaken, there’s a little spark in his eye that wasn’t there before.
“I’ve got time,” I say adamantly.
I refuse to back down this time. I want answers.
“What about school? Marlowe asks from the other seat.
“To hell with school,” I say, swinging my backpack over my shoulder and tossing it at a very surprised-looking Marlowe. “Take me somewhere we can talk. Really talk.”
The three of them exchange a look.
“I guess it’s as good a time as any,” Marlowe says.
A huge grin spreads across Kaleb’s face, and he reaches his hand down to me from the back seat. I take it, and he pulls me up with one swing of his arm. He’s amazingly strong. Of course he is.
“Hop in, then,” Kaleb says. “And we’ll do our best to give you what you’re asking for.”
Rory grabs a pair of sunglasses from the glove box and slides them up the bridge of his nose. “Even,” he says, “if it isn’t what you want.”
23
Sabrina
When the car slows to a stop, I look around and see that we’re in a dense thicket in the woods. I’m not even sure how Rory managed to squeeze the car between some of the trees to get back to this place.
The only answer I was given when I asked where we were headed was that it’s one of their favorite spots … whatever that means. Kaleb made sure I was practically swaddled in blankets so I wouldn’t catch cold again, then made sure to slowly inch me closer to him with each bump in the road until I just resigned to leaning back against his chest for the duration of the ride.
It was surprisingly nice. Even I can’t deny that.
Now that we’ve supposedly arrived, I hesitate to get up right away. Not eager to let my attention be monopolized by his brother, Marlowe is quick to appear outside the back windows with a hand outstretched to help me down.
The four of us walk a bit through the forest until the Jeep is entirely out of sight. I don’t ask where we’re going again because strangely, after everything I saw a couple days ago, I suddenly find that I trust these three. If they wanted to hurt me, they would have done so by now. And besides, I want answers, and this seems like the best way to get them.
The forest here is particularly lush and green for this time of year. This would be the perfect place for a wicked queen’s castle to hide, or a dragon’s cave, or even for Red Riding Hood to meet up with the wolf.
The wolf, I think to myself, and shudder at the memory of the wolf-girl.
I know I saw it, and I know I didn’t make it up … but I still can’t believe it was real.
How could it be?
I try to prepare myself for what the boys are about to tell me. I’m imaging one of two scenarios. Either I was drugged and hallucinating or … or …
I’m still struggling to wrap my head around the alternative. Because the alternative is so outrageous, so unbelievable, that if I hadn’t seen that wolf-girl with my own eyes, I’d already be preparing myself to punch one of the boys in the face for slipping me drugs.
We finally stop at a little clearing nestled deep inside the trees, about a ten-minute walk from Rory’s Jeep.
There’s a few giant, fallen tree trunks that look like they had been struck by lightning and toppled over sideways so that they now lay against the ground. They’re massive and wide enough to sit on, which is exactly what all three of the boys do. I follow.
“So …”
Marlowe silences me with a gentle look. “Please, Sabrina. Let us do this the right way.”
It isn’t until I glance at the other two, Rory and Kaleb, that I realize what he means. Kaleb looks anxious, his hands fiddling with the fabric piled at the ends of his knees. Rory, on the other hand, looks determined … though for what, I’m not certain.
We sit in more silence for a moment, everyone kind of facing each other while I wait for one of the boys to start talking. But instead of talking, something else happens.
The boys glance at each other again for a quick second, as if they’re making sure they’re all on board with what they’re about to do next.
Rory’s the first one to stand.
“At this point,” he says, “maybe it’s better if we show you.”
In the split second that it takes me to realize what he’s about to do, he lurches forward and his body contorts into an unnatural position. I scream as his spine look like it’s breaking through the center of his back, and in a moment, his face elongates into the shape of a wolf’s muzzle.
Fight or flight mode kicks in and I jump to my feet in what will probably be a feeble attempt at running away. Kaleb grabs me by the waist and pulls me toward him with surprising grace. Even as I stumble backward, he makes sure that I end up falling onto his lap.
“Let me go!” I scream, but he doesn’t.
“Sabrina, calm down. It’s okay. We’re trying to show you the truth,” Kaleb says, only gripping me tighter.
Behind me, wolf-Rory growls. I can’t bring myself to look at him.
Instead, I bury my head against Kaleb’s chest. After a
moment, I manage to choke out a few words.
“You’re the same as her. The girl in the woods.”
Unless I’m mistaken, Rory chuckles along with the other two, though it’s a decidedly more wolfish sound—throaty and rough.
I dare a peek through my lashes at him.
All I can see from beneath Kaleb’s arm around me is a flash of thick, dark, fur. My heartbeat quickens.
“It’s okay,” Kaleb says. I can feel him stroking the back of my head in an attempt to calm me. I can also hear his heartbeat in my ear, and from the way it picks up at my touch, he’s as nervous as I am. He has one arm wrapped around my waist while the other hand gently cradles the back of my head against his chest. “Sabrina, please. You can trust us, we aren’t the bad guys, I promise.”
Neither one of the other two boys is saying anything. I’m assuming Rory can’t talk, since he’s now some form of giant canine. I’m not sure why Marlowe is quiet, maybe because he always seems to be the one to sit back and watch what unfolds before he gets involved.
Out of the three of them, I currently trust Kaleb the most.
“You need to look up,” he says quietly, after a minute.
“No,” I say like a stubborn and frightened child. “I don’t want to.”
I feel his hand cup underneath my chin as he tries to gently raise my face off of his chest. When I look up at him, his face is so close to mine that our lips are almost touching. He stares at me with a look that seems almost desperate, the kind of look that someone has the second before they can’t stop themselves from doing something that they know they shouldn’t.
And I realize in that frozen moment of time how much I want him.
Before I have a chance to think about how troubling it is for me to be swept up in desire for Kaleb while there is a predatory—and up until now, fictional—animal standing behind me, Kaleb puts his mouth on mine and kisses me. And I am completely lost and overcome as I succumb to the moment.
Instead of preparing to run, I put my hands against Kaleb’s chest and kiss him back. He’s warm and the kiss so much more delicious than I thought a kiss could be.