Sanguine Mountain

by Jennifer Foxcroft

  “Give it a go.” He peeks out from the under the hood. The motor turns over, but doesn’t spark. He frowns. “I think it’s still too hot. I recommend we wait before adding some water. Your radiator appears to have overheated. What are you doing out here?”

  Leaning against my car door, I look anywhere but at Rocks. The darkness helps me hide my secret. Like he’s going to know from looking at me that my parents are traitors and that I’m a liar—like them.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t pry,” he says. He steps backward, but I don’t want him to leave.

  “No, I’m sorry. It’s just, nobody knows.” My brain races through the possibility of finally sharing the biggest secret I’ve ever had to hide from my parents, my friends—everyone I know. I’m going to burst if I don’t tell someone soon. My eyes scan him from head to toe. He’s the perfect stranger that I’ll never see again with no ties to my parents or friends.

  My parents.

  Not really my parents, and the betrayal of discovering that secret has had me in knots all week. How do you ruin the last week of your summer vacation and your eighteenth birthday in one easy step? Open a letter with no return address that tells you your whole world is not what you thought, and the people you called your parents are big, fat liars. The letter revealed that I’m adopted and crushed my belief in who I am and what it means to be part of a family. I had no idea—not even the faintest clue. The letter was signed ‘your birth mother’ in neat cursive script. It warned me against searching for my parents’ identities because I’m apparently better off without them. What. Ever. Since I’m officially an adult now, I have the right to know.

  Before my brain can make a calculated decision, my mouth has spewed all of this and more at this stranger in the darkness. It feels amazing. The weight on my shoulders has lifted. I can breathe again. The only problem is that the floodgate is now open and it’s hard to hold anything back. My eyes twitch. I blink rapidly.

  They lied.

  They have lied to me my entire life.

  And I don’t know who I really am.

  “I just don’t know what to believe anymore. But it kind of all makes sense. My blonde hair and brown eyes don’t match their brown and blue,” I say, indicating my features. “In fact, I’ve always felt like I must have been some genetic throwback in every family portrait. I’m all round. They’re all long.” That’s when the traitorous tears fall—just two. I never trusted my own instincts, and now I don’t know who I am or where I come from.

  “Hey, now.” Rocks moves swiftly forward and lifts me up onto the trunk of my car. We are closer in height now. “Shhh, it’s okay.” He rubs my bare arms, and even though I feel like the biggest loser for crying, he doesn’t seem to mind. Most guys my age would head for the hills at the first sign of tears. Rocks pulls a linen handkerchief from inside his waistcoat with a smile. His hair flops over his eyes again, distracting me. Does he hide behind it? I wonder.

  “You’re the only one I’ve told,” I confess quietly. I’ve never known a guy to carry a handkerchief before. I smile as I wipe my cheeks. Talking to him is easy. The guys at school must be another breed. I usually choke when I interact with them, but Rocks is so calm it’s contagious.

  He takes my hand in both of his and just holds it. I know in my gut I can tell him anything. He doesn’t seem the type to judge, which is more than I can say for my school friends. What will they think? Maybe they already know I don’t belong to Chad and Kelly! Maybe I’m the only delusional one who hasn’t noticed.

  “Do you think you should tell your parents you know?”

  “What? They kept my identity a secret. They lied. How do you expect me to trust them?” I’m hurt. He might not be on my side after all. Maybe he is judging me. Maybe I shouldn’t be sitting alone with this stranger in the woods. I try to pull my hand away, but he holds on tight. He studies my face until I look away.

  “I understand.” He pauses, and I look up at him once more. “You can’t trust them because you don’t know what their motives are. They don’t want you to be the real you,” he states. I get the impression he’s not talking about me anymore, but it’s exactly how I feel. “That doesn’t explain how you ended up here,” he continues. “This is wild country. Nobody for miles around.”

  “Yeah, I’m pretty sure the GPS thinks I’m in Kentucky.” I shrug. It’s not like I can talk to my dad about it. “I was looking for my mom. My real mom.”

  This evening is hands-down the stupidest thing I have ever done. The adoption news sent me into a whirling downward spiral of emotions and confusion. The words in the letter hid something. Something dark and that makes me uneasy about who the heck I am. My birth mother said I was a gift that she hated to part with, but did anyway, for a better life. For me or for her? Why warn me to stay away and not look for them? Yeah, right. And since my adoptive parents think it’s fine to lie to me, I’m not going to worry about lying to them until I get some answers.

  “Hidden in my parent’s safe was my birth certificate, and I’m not gonna lie that it didn’t break my heart to see the name Josie Hendersen typed under mother. This was her address when I was born.” I hand over the scrunched piece of paper.

  Rocks studies it, and I’m amazed he can read in the dark. “You know you aren’t even close.” He smiles again, making my heart stutter. He flicks his hair back and I can’t look away as his eyes meet mine. We just stare at each other for a moment.

  “Really?” I finally say.

  “Really.” He’s quiet for a bit and rubs a hand up the back of his neck. His hair is short at the back and kind of at odds with the front but it works on him. “I coul—”

  “Do you—” We both speak.

  “Sorry,” I say. “You go.”

  “Um, if you want. I mean … I don’t know, but, I could go check this out for you.”

  I have no idea how to process his offer. It’s too kind, but I don’t know this guy. He’s supposed to be the stranger that keeps my secret and doesn’t know me. Horror Movie Girl floats into my head. Would I be screaming at her to get the heck away from him if I were watching from the safety of my living room? If the boy with the tattooed fangs had offered to walk me to my car, would I be this open with him too?

  Rocks immediately backtracks, and I worry my face has betrayed me again. “I mean, just, you know, to see if anyone lives there. I wouldn’t knock or anything, but I don’t have to.” His hair shield slips back into place.

  Help is what I need, and it might loosen the anvil that’s lodged in my stomach, but that’s not what grabs my immediate attention. Something felt off about that carnival and feeling so relaxed now has made me forget that fact. My brain can’t quite pinpoint what’s not adding up.

  “Hey, where are all the cars?” I look up and down the pitch-black road. Not one vehicle has driven past or has even been heard around here, and there are hundreds of people just behind those trees. “How did you all get here?”

  Shock crosses his face for a fleeting moment. “Um, another mode of transportation,” he says from behind his hair.

  “Such as?”

  “I got a lift.” He looks at me now, flicking his hair back, but his eyes have a hard look to them.

  I squint at him. I sense I’m missing something, but considering I’ve missed what has stared me in the face my whole life in my own family, my radar isn’t the most reliable.

  “Why were those guys so aggressive back there? I didn’t mean to crash your party.” I watch him closely. There are more secrets here than just mine, and I’ve shared way more than I should have already. The darkness I had forgotten is creeping back around me.

  Rocks looks over his shoulder. He looks up into the stars. I count the seconds. He’s buying time. My hackles rise, but finally he speaks.

  “It’s not you. Ash hates everybody.” He still won’t meet my eyes. “It’s complicated.”

  I snort and wait.

  “You’re not the only one who feels like they don’t belong—with their f
amily.” He looks at me and I almost wish he hadn’t. Pain. Hurt. I don’t understand what else I see, but I have no doubt he’s feeling as lost as me. I want to offer him the comfort that he has shown me, but I don’t know how.

  “Parents?”

  “Yeah, them. Siblings, friends, it’s … ” He kicks my back tire and meets my eyes for a second before his hair falls over them, shielding the pain I just glimpsed. “You ever feel like destiny is dragging you one way, but it’s all wrong. You want to dig your heels in and escape, but you don’t know how? You don’t even know where to begin.”

  I’m not sure I understand, but then maybe I do. I didn’t know where to begin a week ago. Until recently, my whole life seemed to fit, but now I find out it doesn’t. Maybe that hole in my chest is what he’s describing. “Yeah. It sucks and you feel helpless like someone else is pulling your strings. It makes me want to scream.”

  “I’ve got nobody to talk to about it.”

  “Me too,” I say, suddenly understanding why I feel so calm with my midnight stranger.

  He nods and takes a step closer to me—almost between my legs. He looks down. I cringe hoping he’s not staring at my disgusting muddy feet. His long fingers run up the seams of my pants on either side of my knees. He looks as lost and as sad as I’ve felt all week. The urge to hug him surges through my system. So I do.

  I’ve always ignored my gut—my sixth sense—and look at where it has gotten me. After opening that letter, I vowed to trust my intuition more. My gut told me to hug this boy and holding him isn’t weird or freaky. It’s calming and lets me breathe again. I pull him in closer and wrap my arms around his neck. His head falls to my shoulder, and he sighs. Maybe he can breathe again too. His hands stay at my legs, tracing patterns on my thighs, but he relaxes into me. The night surrounds us—and our secrets.

  We stay holding each other for a while and it’s nice. He’s warm. It’s so easy being with Rocks even though I barely know him. He smells of the forest or the moon. It’s weird to think he could smell like the moon, but his scent is clean and fresh. I bite the inside of my cheek and pray he can’t read my mind. The last teenage boy I was this close to didn’t smell this good.

  Rocks suddenly jerks back. He’s out of my reach. His eyes are giant and dark, full of fear and something I can’t describe. He grabs the fob watch from his waistcoat pocket and the silver lid clicks open. The noise seems loud against the night.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Shit.”

  “What?” My blood pressure is suddenly at ‘run, girl, run’ level again. Regardless of the connection I feel, I don’t know this boy at all.

  Anguish is the only word that I can use to describe the look contorting his features. I want to tell him he’s scaring me, but I think he knows. He grabs the back of his neck with both hands and looks up at the sky before squeezing his eyes shut. His muscles are taut in his arms as though he’s trying to hold on to something invisible I cannot comprehend. What the hell?

  He twists at the waist left and right, repeatedly. He’s breathing loudly in through his nose and out through his mouth. He folds his bent arms around his head, but the tension is still visible. Then he doubles over and takes a loud deep breath. When he stands, he flicks his hair back and looks deep into my eyes. I can’t breathe.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispers, and then he’s gone.

  2.

  Bats

  Rocks has vanished.

  He was standing in front of me a second ago; now he’s gone. Simply vanished into thin air before my eyes.

  I look around. No hot, Goth guy to the left, or right. Jumping off the car, I peek around the bumper, expecting to see him crouching in the darkness. But he has simply vanished—without a trace. This isn’t possible. Am I losing my mind? I’m suddenly aware again of the isolation of this dark stretch of forest road. My parents think I’m at Tiffany’s house painting our nails, and I just revealed a hell of a lot of personal information to a complete and utter stranger, regardless of whatever my gut was telling me. I can almost feel Horror Movie Girl’s disapproving glare.

  My chest tightens indicating a need for my inhaler, but my lungs aren’t wheezing. Where did he go? How could I be talking to a six-foot-whatever giant boy and have him disappear INTO THIN AIR?

  “Rocks? Rocks, please.”

  An owl hoots overhead.

  The cool air chills my skin. All I can hear in my ears is the hammering of my heart. I close my eyes and focus on my breathing. Something isn’t right. I need to take control, fill the water tank, start my car and get the hell out of here. Now that I’m still and a smidgen calmer, I swear someone is watching me. Spinning around, I’m convinced I’ll come face to face with Rocks. Mere inches from my face, movement catches me off guard and I scream.

  It’s an Academy Award winning performance. In fact, I didn’t know that my body was capable of making such a shrill, earsplitting noise. Horror Movie Girl would be proud. But the animal lover in me is devastated.

  Instead of coming face to face with Rocks, a flying bat was about to collide with me, and in my panic I screamed. What I didn’t expect and what never happens to poor, doomed Horror Movie Girl is that, about half way through my lungs and vocal cords alerting the world to my predicament, the bat drops to the ground like a lead weight. It’s lying on it’s back, wings spread wide at my feet, completely still.

  Could my night get any worse? I wonder.

  Where the hell is Rocks?

  My unconscious night visitor is too much for my brain to process. I need to get my car started and then I’ll work out what to do with it. Opening the door, I root around, collecting the half drunk water bottles that have been rolling around the backseat. For once, my laziness is paying off.

  Stepping over the bat, I fill the radiator bit by bit and slam the hood. Every noise I make echoes through the dark forest. The surrounding darkness that was giving me the creeps almost feels like it’s inching back away. Having a furry friend—even an unconscious one—is lowering my blood pressure back to a healthy level. I’ll be fine. I was just letting my crazy imagination get the better of me. Although, having a giant boy vanish didn’t exactly help. I push the thoughts of the strange boy I was hugging aside, but there’s something I’m missing, I know it.

  The bat is my next dilemma. I’m convinced that it’s not dead and that my scream knocked it unconscious. I don’t know how or even if that’s possible, but my gut says so. I need to listen to my intuition. Years ago, I noticed that I don’t resemble my parents, but I brushed aside the little voice asking why. My gut is telling me to rescue the bat, but should I start trusting it now?

  The bat hasn’t moved. Its wingspan is enormous, and I wonder, peering at its still body, what sort it could be. But the darkness doesn’t help me find any clues. If I leave it, some fox or coyote will discover this juicy meal before dawn. If my chinchilla, Feathers, was lying on the road unconscious, I’d call animal rescue if someone noticed and didn’t help her. I can’t leave the bat defenseless. My Animal Planet heroes would be ashamed if I drove off. It’s not like it actually tried to attack me. And if I’m being really honest, it’s my fault the poor creature’s flat on its back.

  My purple cardigan becomes a makeshift towel that I wrap around its body. I hope I haven’t crushed its wings when I tie the sleeves together loosely. The last thing I need on the strangest night of my life is for it to awaken and start flapping around trapped in my car on the highway.

  Taking a deep breath, I buckle up and turn the key.

  * * * *

  Thirty minutes later, the reset GPS has finally realized I’m in Georgia, and I’m back on a highway that actually has other vehicles on it. I’m headed home, but I don’t feel the triumph and exaltation I’d imagined I would be feeling driving home from finding my real Mom’s house. Deflated. Lost. Confused—even more so now, if that’s actually possible. Maybe I should just come clean to my folks at home.

  No. I need answers.

  To d
istract myself, my mind goes over the crazy events I’ve just witnessed: a medieval/Emo carnival in the middle of nowhere, a boy that I told my biggest secret to before vanishing faster than David Copperfield, and my snoozing bat passenger.

  Movement above catches my eye. Dark shapes are winging it across the sky.

  Bats.

  There are hundreds of bats flying overhead and my guess is that they’re buddies of the guy on my front seat. They’re gliding over the highway, and I wonder where they’re headed. The bright red glow of taillights illuminates the darkness and catches my attention. My brakes engage. The car stops with just enough space to avoid hitting the pickup truck I’m following. The other vehicles have noticed the swarm of creatures flying overhead and are rubbernecking too. A faint screech of tires comes from behind. After a few seconds, the bats all pass and the traffic returns to normal. This fella had better be able to find his friends when he wakes up.

  I don’t know a single thing about bats—except they come out at night and hang upside down in caves—or wherever they live. Are there colonies near my home? Animal rescue will know—but I can’t give them the exact location I found him or they’ll know I wasn’t at Tiff’s. I didn’t think this plan through. What the hell am I going to tell my parents? Not my parents. Those people who raised me. Lying is harder than I expected.