by Isobel Bird
The path led deeper into the woods. It clearly hadn’t been heavily trafficked in a long time, as the growth on either side was threatening to obscure it completely and the bits and pieces of trash that littered its length had been dropped there long ago and were now faded and disintegrated.
They turned a corner, emerging from the trees, and came to a stop in a clearing of sorts. It was a wide, grassy circle perhaps a hundred feet across. In the center of it sat what could easily have been mistaken for a dilapidated Greek temple, complete with pillars on all four sides and a series of marble steps going up to an open doorway in the front. One of the columns had fallen or been knocked down, graffiti covered the sides, and vines were consuming a portion of the roof, but still it was impressive.
“How did this get here?” Annie asked, staring at the building.
“Don’t get too excited,” Sasha replied. “It’s just a shell. It was built to hide a water pump.”
The girls approached the building and walked up the steps. Sasha entered the darkened doorway. When the others hesitated, she turned and put her hands on her hips. “It’s okay,” she said. “Trust me.”
“I don’t know who we’re meeting in here, but I don’t like it,” said Annie as she, Kate, and Cooper followed Sasha inside.
Just as Sasha had said, the inside of the building was plain old cinderblock. Empty beer cans, broken bottles, cigarette butts, and food wrappers were scattered around, and the smell was less than refreshing.
“Kids use this place to party in,” said Sasha, picking her way through the debris.
“Apparently,” Kate said, sniffing and looking at the floor with distaste.
“And how did you know about it?” asked Cooper.
“From my runaway days,” replied Sasha. “I met some kids who were living here. They let me stay with them for a week or so until I went to the shelter.”
Annie, Cooper, and Kate exchanged glances. None of them could believe that their friend had actually stayed in such a place. It was another reminder to them that there was a lot they didn’t know about Sasha. And a lot we probably don’t want to know, thought Annie.
Sasha led them through the big main room to another door. There they saw a set of stairs going down into the earth.
“We’re going down there?” asked Kate nervously.
“It’s okay,” Sasha told her. “There’s nothing dangerous down there.”
She walked down the stairs with the others behind her. They were surprised to see that the stairway was illuminated by dirty lightbulbs strung on a cord that ran overhead. Still, they didn’t look too closely at the stained walls—or at the things that crunched beneath their feet as they stepped.
“This place is a really great hideout,” Sasha told them as they walked. “Some of the street kids started a rumor that it’s haunted, and that keeps most of the people away.”
“That’s not such a hard story to believe,” commented Cooper as she brushed a spiderweb out of her hair and saw its former occupant scurry across the wall.
They were in a short hallway, and up ahead they could see flickering light. “That’s the pump room,” explained Sasha.
Suddenly a shadow detached from the wall and loomed in front of them. “What are you doing here?” said a threatening voice.
Annie gave a shriek, causing Kate to do the same, while Cooper immediately moved to stand beside Sasha, her fists raised.
“It’s okay,” Sasha said, putting her hand up to keep Cooper from doing anything. Then she looked at the person still hiding in the shadows. “Mallory, it’s me. These are my friends.”
“Why did you bring them here?” said the voice again. It sounded anxious and edgy, as if the speaker sensed some kind of threat.
“I think it’s time you met them,” Sasha said. “Let’s go back there and talk.”
The figure stepped forward into the grimy light, and the girls saw that it was the strange girl Sasha had spoken to on Saturday. She looked even dirtier than she had in the sunlight, and she was still wearing her dark glasses, even though Kate, Cooper, and Annie were having a difficult time finding their way with the help of the lightbulbs.
The girl didn’t say anything, but she turned and walked away. Every couple of steps she turned and glanced quickly at them, as if she was trying to catch them sneaking up on her. Sasha stayed several feet back from her and motioned for the others to do the same. They weren’t sure why she was treating the girl so carefully, but they followed her lead and hung back.
When they entered the room at the end of the hall the girl turned to face them. “Okay,” she said, addressing Sasha. “Introduce us.”
“This is Kate, Annie, and Cooper,” sad Sasha, indicating each of her friends in turn. “They’re my best friends. They’re the ones who helped me when I was on the streets.” She looked at her friends and then nodded toward the girl. “This is Mallory,” she said.
“And just who is Mallory?” asked Cooper, an edge to her voice.
“Nice to meet you, too,” Mallory said angrily. She looked at Cooper defiantly, her hands thrust into her pockets.
“Mallory and I go way back,” Sasha told them. “We met when I first ran away from home. She’s like a sister to me.”
“You still haven’t told me why you brought them here,” said Mallory, not sounding very sisterlike. “This could blow everything.”
“I brought them here because I think they can help,” Sasha said gently.
Mallory snorted. “I don’t need any help,” she said. “I was doing fine on my own.”
“You call breaking into my friends’ store doing fine?” Sasha shot back. She turned to the others, who were looking at Mallory with various degrees of surprise and anger.
“You broke into Crones’ Circle?” Cooper asked.
Mallory didn’t say anything, but Sasha nodded. “She needed money,” she said. “She’d seen us go in there. She didn’t know.”
“Didn’t know what?” Cooper said, her voice rising. “Didn’t know that taking things that belong to other people is wrong? Didn’t know that breaking a window and doing your shopping in the middle of the night is wrong? What part of that didn’t she know?”
“Hey,” Mallory said, advancing on Cooper. “I don’t need this from you. Who the hell are you, anyway? You’re all rich kids whose mommies and daddies buy them everything they want. So why don’t you just get off my case?”
She was right in Cooper’s face, pointing a finger and speaking loudly. Cooper’s hands were balled at her sides, as if any second she was going to haul off and send Mallory flying backward. The silence in the room was suffocating as the two of them faced one another. Then Cooper’s hands relaxed and she looked at Sasha.
“Maybe your friend here is right,” she said, clearly trying to control her temper. “Maybe she doesn’t need our help. But I’ll tell you one thing—she’d better return everything she took from that store.”
“Don’t worry,” Sasha said. “I’ve got all of it. Well, most of it,” she said. “That’s what’s in the bag that you found in my locker.”
“I couldn’t get anything for that junk jewelry anyway,” Mallory said. “Keep it.”
“How big of you,” snapped Cooper. “Come on,” she said to the others, “let’s get out of here.”
“Cooper,” Sasha said. Her voice was soft, almost pleading.
Cooper turned to look at her. “Please,” Sasha said.
“Let her go,” Mallory said, her voice dripping with derision. “And don’t go bringing your friends around here anymore. I don’t need anyone else knowing where I am.”
Cooper looked at Mallory, then at Sasha. “I’m out of here,” she said.
She stormed down the hallway. After a moment Kate and Annie followed her, with Sasha bringing up the rear.
“You guys,” she said. “Wait. We can’t just leave.”
“Why not?” asked Cooper as she continued to walk.
They went back up the stairs and emerged into th
e slightly less hazy atmosphere of the main room. Cooper walked through it quickly, going out into the afternoon sun. She stood on the steps of the building and waited for the others to join her. When they did, they all stood together awkwardly, nobody saying anything.
“I know this looks bad,” Sasha said finally.
“Looks bad?” Cooper retorted. “It is bad. That girl broke into Crones’ Circle and stole all that stuff.”
“I’m giving it back,” Sasha said pleadingly. “I was going to leave it in a bag outside the store tonight.”
“Oh, so you’re not even going to tell them who did it?” Cooper snapped. “You’re just going to let her keep living here at the Beecher Falls Hilton and bring her food?”
She and Sasha glared at each other for a moment. Then Sasha said quietly, “She’s in trouble.”
Cooper snorted. “I’ll say,” she said. “Pretty big trouble once the police find out what she did.”
“I thought I could trust you,” Sasha said, sounding hurt. “That’s why I brought you here. Not to prove to you that I didn’t steal that stuff. I thought maybe we could do something for Mallory.” She paused. “The way you did something for me,” she added.
Cooper looked away. “She doesn’t want our help,” she said.
“Neither did I when you first offered it,” Sasha said. “It’s because she’s scared.”
“Why is she here?” Annie asked when nobody else spoke. “How did she find you?”
“I told her I was coming here,” explained Sasha. “We hung out together in L.A. I wanted her to come, but she was all wrapped up in this guy, so I came by myself.”
“So why is she here now?” asked Kate.
Sasha took a deep breath. “Because of that guy,” she answered. “He’s kind of after her.”
“Why?” said Annie.
“Because she knows too much about him,” Sasha continued. She hesitated. “When you live on the street you do some things you aren’t really proud of,” she said softly. “Mallory isn’t a bad person; she’s just had a really rough time.”
“What is it she knows about this guy?” asked Cooper, sounding a little less angry than she had earlier.
“I don’t know the details,” Sasha replied. “I didn’t ask and she didn’t tell me. All she said was that she needs to stay out of his way for a while.”
“Does he know where she is?” Kate inquired.
Sasha shrugged. “He’s in tight with the street community,” she said. “It’s possible word has gotten out that Mallory came this way. She doesn’t know. She’s only been gone a week or so. She hung around downtown until she saw me on the street one day. I couldn’t believe it when she came up to me. I thought she was just another panhandler, and I started to give her some change.” She smiled and laughed slightly. “It’s weird thinking that I used to be her before I met you guys. When I realized who she was, it all came back to me—the begging, the hunger, the fear. So when she asked me to help her, I had to say yes.”
“So you’ve been bringing her food,” said Annie.
Sasha nodded. “I tried to get her to come home with me, but she’s too scared still. She won’t go to a shelter or anything like that. She thinks she’s better off trying to take care of herself.”
“I don’t get it,” said Kate. “Why wouldn’t she want to be somewhere where she was protected?”
“It’s hard to explain,” said Sasha. “A lot of kids on the streets are there because they were thrown around by the system that was supposed to help them. They don’t trust anyone. Even though it seems weird to outsiders, they’d rather be the only ones responsible for themselves than risk getting hurt by asking for help. I know how that feels.”
“Okay,” Cooper said. “What can we do for her?”
Sasha hesitated. “You can start by not telling Sophia or anyone else who really broke into the store,” she said.
“Fine,” said Cooper after a minute. “As long as whatever she took goes back, we won’t say anything. Agreed?” She looked at Kate and Annie, who nodded.
“Agreed,” they said in unison.
“What else?” asked Cooper. “Are you just going to keep bringing her food?”
Sasha nodded. “There’s not much else I can do right now,” she answered. “I’m hoping that as she starts to trust me more she’ll agree to come home with me or something. But right now food is about the best I can do.”
“I can probably help with that,” said Kate. “My mother brings a lot of leftovers home from her catering jobs. I can get some of that.”
“Thanks,” said Sasha. “I appreciate it.”
“I can make some stuff,” Annie said. “I’m always cooking anyway, so nobody will notice.”
Sasha nodded. Then she looked at Cooper.
“Don’t expect me to cook,” said Cooper. “I can’t even make soup. But I’ll help you bring it down here, how’s that?”
“Perfect,” Sasha replied. “Thanks, guys. I can’t tell you how much this means to me. And to Mallory,” she added. “Even if she can’t admit it yet.”
The four friends left the clearing and walked back down the path, not speaking. When they emerged again into the area around the fountain, they stopped. It felt like being in a totally different world, one with clean, fresh air and a bright, shining sun overhead.
“I feel like Persephone,” remarked Kate. “It’s like we went down into the underworld and came back again.”
“Except that not all of us got to leave,” said Sasha.
“Well, let’s hope she won’t be there much longer,” said Annie, putting her arm around her friend. “After all, spring is coming, right? That’s when Persephone returned home to her mother.”
Sasha looked around at the trees, which were still wrapped in their bare winter skins. “It can’t come soon enough,” she said sadly.
CHAPTER 8
Kate took one of the heart-shaped cookies from the plate that Meg was carrying around and looked at it. It was a sugar cookie, delicately iced with pretty pink frosting, and written across it in red icing were the words BITE ME.
“What does yours say?” Kate asked Sasha.
Sasha held up her cookie. She had already taken a nibble, so that the cookie now read love me no.
“It said ‘Love Me Not,’” Sasha explained, noting Kate’s puzzled expression.
“Ah,” said Kate, nodding. She turned to Cooper, who had just joined them. “Nice work on the cookies.”
“Who said I had anything to do with it?” replied Cooper defensively.
“Who else would think of anti-Valentine cookies?” Kate asked.
“They are pretty cool, aren’t they?” said Cooper, raising her eyebrows and smiling. “I always hated those little candy hearts with the dumb sayings, so I thought I’d make my own statement.”
“Out of all of us, shouldn’t you be the one who is celebrating Valentine’s Day?” Sasha asked Cooper. “Where’s your boyfriend?”
“He and Schroedinger’s Cat are playing some dance over at the college,” answered Cooper. “He’s taking me out later this week. We didn’t want to make it look like we were buying into all of this Hallmark made-up holiday stuff.”
“Then all of this bitterness is just to make us nondating losers feel better, is that it?” Sasha said.
“Pretty much,” said Cooper. “Is it working?”
They were standing in the living room of Annie’s house, waiting for everyone to arrive. In addition to the four of them, they had invited Tara, Jessica, and Jane to get together for dinner and fun—none of it involving boys, cards, or flowers. Their weekly Wicca study group had been canceled for the night so that the participants could indulge in whatever Valentine’s Day activities they had planned, and the girls had decided to protest the whole holiday. “Romance is strictly off-limits,” Annie had told everyone.
The doorbell rang and Kate went to answer it. Standing on the doorstep was Jane. She was dressed totally in black, and she was carryinga bag.
> “I got the videos,” she said, holding up the sack. “Nothing but downers. My rule was: Someone has to die horribly.”
“You rock,” said Kate. “Come on in.”
As Jane was greeting everyone the bell rang again. This time it was Tara and Jessica. They greeted Kate with big hugs. “We brought the music,” Tara announced as the two of them swept into the house. “And not a happy love song in the bunch.”
Tara headed straight for the CD player and started putting in discs. Moments later the sound of a woman’s plaintive voice emerged from the speakers.
“It’s Billie Holiday,” she said. “Old jazz singer. Very tragic. All her songs were about how awful her boyfriends were. It’s perfect.”
As Billie Holiday sang, the girls joined Annie in the kitchen, where pots and pans covered every available surface and the room was filled with steam.
“I hope everybody likes pasta,” she said. “We’re having penne with goat cheese, sun-dried tomatoes, and pine nuts. Also, pear, blue cheese, and toasted walnut salad. And there’s lemon meringue pie for dessert.”
“Who died and made you Martha Stewart?” Jane asked as she helped Annie drain the pasta.
“It’s all really easy,” said Annie confidentially. “I just put out lots of pans to make it look like it was a big deal.”
As the girls all helped carry bowls and plates and silverware to the table, Annie stopped Sasha. “I saved some for Mallory,” she whispered. “We can take it to her tomorrow.”
Sasha laughed. “I’m sure she’s been dying for pear, blue cheese, and toasted walnut salad,” she said jokingly. “Thanks.”
When the food was all on the table, everyone pulled up chairs and sat down. As they were getting settled, Annie’s aunt walked in. When the girls saw how dressed up she was they whistled and clapped. Aunt Sarah did a turn for them, showing off the gorgeous red dress she was wearing.
“Got a hot date?” Cooper asked her.
“As a matter of fact, I do,” Sarah answered. “I’m picking up my honey at the airport and we’re going out to dinner. He decided to surprise me with a little visit.”