But then I pull back, a fresh wave of fury ripping through me. She let me go on believing he was dead, even when she saw it destroying me. Did they bury his body and then dig it up once I was gone? I understand that my father couldn’t come home because he was trapped, but she knew all along that he wasn’t dead. She could have told me the truth, or at least tipped me off somehow. Instead, she watched me suffer and did nothing. If even the mothball-scented cat lady next door can betray me, who can I trust?
A scraping sound draws my attention, and I turn back to see the little door in the corner of the basement opening.
“Now she’s a shifter,” Harmon says.
Before I can ask what he means, a figure appears, stooping to come through the door before straightening. In the dimness, I can’t make out more than the shape of a woman, her hair in two long braids. A memory tugs at me, but it doesn’t fully form until she strides over to me with a bag in one hand. Up close, she looks just like…
“Dr. Golden?” I whisper, unable to believe what my brain is telling me.
“I hear you’re having a problem with your ankle.” Though she must be in her mid-forties, her soft, childlike voice makes her seem young. The same voice I heard through the walls the other day, when Harmon was screaming.
“Who—what are you doing here?” I blurt out, shrinking away from her.
“I’m here to look at your ankle,” she says. “Can you walk?”
“Uh…kind of,” I say, glancing at Harmon. “But why are you here? Is my dad here? Is he okay?”
It’s her turn to glance at Harmon. “We’ll worry about that later.”
“No,” I say. “I want to know. I don’t care if Harmon knows. Why won’t anyone tell me anything?”
“Just let her look at your ankle,” Harmon growls from under the ladder. “She’s a doctor in just about every culture.”
Ignoring him, Dr. Golden gives me an encouraging smile. It’s hard to imagine her inflicting pain on anyone. “Have a seat, and I’ll make sure it’s not broken.”
After a second, I relent. I hobble back to my spot under the window and sink down in relief. While Dr. Golden gently prods at my ankle, flexes my foot, and asks me when it hurts, my mind goes back to the moment when she walked in.
She’s a shifter.
That’s what Harmon said.
“Is…is Emmy here?” I ask, not daring to hope that my best friend from my old life will appear next. If my dad is here, and Mrs. Nguyen is here, and Dr. Golden is here, couldn’t she be here, too? Maybe she’s a fairy princess. It wouldn’t be any more unlikely than the rest of this nightmare.
“Who?” Dr. Golden asks, not looking up from my ankle. She sets my foot down and opens her bag, which looks like an old-fashioned doctor’s kit. I flinch at the sight of a scalpel. That could make someone howl like Harmon did.
“Emmy,” I say to distract myself from visions of her slicing open my ankle without anesthetic. “My best friend.”
“I don’t know that person,” she says.
I sink back in disappointment. Of course not.
“So what about my dad?”
She leans forward and lowers her voice so I can barely hear her. “I’ll see what I can find out.” Then she stands and says in a normal voice, “It’s sprained, maybe fractured. I’ll get a brace on it and it’ll take care of itself. Try not to put weight on it.”
I sneak a glance at Harmon, wondering why she doesn’t want him to know if my dad’s alive. Wondering why I’m always the last to know everything.
“Is anything else hurting?” Dr. Golden asks. “I can give you a further exam, if you need one.”
“No, I’m fine,” I say. “Can you get us out of here?”
“That’s a nasty bruise,” she says, crouching down again. She touches my sore cheek. In the time I’ve been here, I haven’t once thought about how I look. For all I know, I’m as hideous as Harmon.
I allow Dr. Golden to move my head back and forth, answer her questions about whether my neck is sore. “You really shouldn’t be sleeping on the floor,” she says.
“Yeah, thanks, I’ll book a room at the Hilton tonight.”
She pats my knee. “I think you’ll be okay,” she says. “At least your lovely sense of humor is still intact.”
I wrack my brain for memories of her, for all the times I’ve gone to see her. Dad called her the witch doctor, which is a bit ironic now that I know there actually are witches. She gave me tea for the blackouts and migraines and nightmares I developed after falling down a flight of stairs. I try to remember that incident, but like usual, it’s veiled in darkness.
“Wait,” I say, grabbing her hand when she goes to stand again.
“Where’s your necklace?” she asks, her gaze falling to my neck.
My hand goes to my throat, but the necklace is gone. The last time I saw it, Dad was slipping it into Mrs. Nguyen’s pocket. “You remember my necklace?”
“Of course,” she says. “I was there when your father bought it.”
While I’m still mulling this over, she stands and walks out, leaving the little door standing wide open. I look at Harmon. He looks at me.
I wonder where that door leads. He’s been out there, so he knows. But I don’t. And I don’t have time to ask him. I feel a little bad making a run for it and leaving him. But they won’t kill him. They can’t. He’s too important. I’m not important, which makes me expendable. And before they can realize that, I’ve got to get out of here.
Besides, Harmon’s injuries are too severe. It’s bad enough that I have to limp and hop the whole way to the little door. If I had to help Harmon, we wouldn’t make it ten feet past the door. I duck through the opening and knock my head on a dirt ceiling. I’m in a little tunnel, no taller than the door. It ends about ten feet ahead, but my ankle is not going to cooperate. I drop onto hands and knees and attempt to crawl through, which is made incredibly difficult by the long skirt of my sister’s gown, which I’m still wearing.
When I make it to the end of the tunnel, I crawl out with relief, only to find myself in a small, cozy room that resembles someone’s personal library. A low wooden table and four padded leather chairs with low backs and armrests sit in the center. Two candles burn in the center of the table, along with a vase of tiny white flowers. Beside the door from which I emerged, and on the wall opposite, are bookshelves lined with books. The third wall, beyond the table, contains stacks of dusty board game boxes with broken corners, a shelf of records and an old-fashioned record player, a lamp, a globe, and other odds and ends crammed there for easy storage.
After a cursory glance, my gaze falls on what I’m looking for. Directly opposite the door I emerged from is another doorway, this one normal sized.
I rush to it and dart through, only to find myself in a bedroom. It’s dim and damp, but in the light filtering in one tiny window, I can make out a patchwork quilt on the bed. All this time sleeping on the dirt floor, and I could have been here, in a real bed. Instantly, I wonder who has been here. Who sleeps down here, just through a sitting room and a little tunnel to where I am?
Before I can think too much about it, a door swings open and Dr. Golden steps out, wiping her hands on her pants. “Oh, hi, Stella,” she says, as if this is perfectly normal. “I didn’t know you could walk this far or I would have had you come in here for the exam.”
Without a word, I charge. It’s not a very powerful charge, since I have to hobble the whole way, but I catch her by surprise and barrel past her, through the door from which she emerged.
I find myself in a windowless bathroom.
I start to laugh, and I can’t stop. I laugh until I’m crying, until my sides hurt. I’m stuck here, underground, like a mole. My great escape brought me not freedom but a toilet.
Still, when my hysterics end, I decide I could really use a shower. It’s been at least a week, maybe more. Dr. Golden stands in the doorway, looking at me like I’m insane, which might be partially true.
“Can I
take a shower?” I ask.
“I don’t see why not.” She hits the light switch, steps out and closes the door, and I’m alone. I drop my dress and underthings and throw them aside before stepping into the shower stall. My feet are black against the white tile, and the warm water rushing over me feels like life itself is flowing over my body, like I’m a plant being watered by the rain.
Even if Dr. Golden is a shifter, and therefore, allied with my captors, I am grateful to her for now. For this small blessing that suddenly seems so momentous. There is no way out of the bathroom—no second door, no windows—but just being clean makes me feel more human. I hadn’t realized how dirty I was, with blood and dirt caked on my knees and ankles, scrapes that by some miracle didn’t get infected from the dirt crusted into my scabs, my hair hanging in tangled, greasy clumps.
When I climb out of the shower at last, I stop short. I left my dress and dirty undergarments strewn where they fell. But now they are gone. Sitting on the closed lid of the toilet is a towel and a neatly folded stack of clean clothes. It’s a little creepy, but I just hope it was Dr. Golden who came into the bathroom while I was showering, not my creepy cousin or any other shifter guy.
I pull on the pair of jeans, almost groaning with the pleasure of wearing something that’s not stiff with dirt. They’re not nice new clothes, but I don’t care. The jeans are worn soft with age, and the small tear in the knee looks like it ripped naturally instead of for the sake of fashion. I pull on the t-shirt and then the sweatshirt, zipping it up and snuggling into it. They’re all a little too big, but so much better than the dress that I’m suddenly and inexplicably tearful with gratitude. The only thing missing are socks and shoes, and I cringe a little when I step out of the bathroom onto the dirt floor of the bedroom in my bare feet.
Dr. Golden is sitting on the bed with her kit all laid out. Immediately, I’m on edge, remembering Harmon’s howls. “Will this hurt?” I ask.
“It shouldn’t hurt much,” she says, patting the bed. She pushes her two long, blonde braids back and gets to work setting my ankle as soon as I sit down. As she works, I look around the tiny, bare bedroom. Besides a bed, there is a small dresser and a side table and a door. At first, I don’t dare hope. It must be a closet.
But Dr. Golden didn’t come through the door above the ladder. She had to get in somehow.
When she finishes the brace, she has me stand. The brace is unwieldy and cumbersome, and I have to limp around, but it didn’t hurt.
She closes her bag and stands.
“What about my dad?” I ask quickly.
“I’ll see what I can find out,” she says, glancing at the door. “I haven’t seen him. There were so many who were injured in the attack—on both sides. If your father hasn’t called me, I can only assume he’s fine.”
“Can you find out for me?”
She sighs. “You should really talk to Harmon.”
“What would he know about my father?”
She looks like she’s going to say more, then shakes her head. “Honestly, Stella. I’m just a doctor. I don’t play politics.”
“Not just a doctor,” I point out. “Harmon says you’re also a shifter.”
For a second, she eyes me, as if waiting for me to say more. When I don’t, she nods. “I am a shifter, among other things. My calling is to help people, no matter who or what they are. That comes first.”
That gets me. She’s the one who felt Dad’s pulse, told me he was dead. “Like when you helped Mrs. Nguyen pretend my father was dead?” I ask.
“I’m sorry about that,” she says, looking genuinely pained. “I know it doesn’t matter, but I told them I didn’t want to be in on it. I didn’t think it was right. But your father insisted you would be fine once you arrived here. And Yvonne gave your mother’s contact information to the state, stayed until you were safely here.”
Suddenly, I remember seeing a mountain lion in the woods my first day in the Three Valleys. Was that my dad, making sure I arrived safely? And if it was, why didn’t he come and get me then?
“Why didn’t he have me sent to him?” I ask.
She looks uncomfortable, but offers me a small smile. “You should talk to him, Stella. I’m sure he had a reason for sending you to your mother. Maybe he thought you could benefit from getting to know your mother.”
A snort escapes me. “Have you met my mother?”
She smiles sadly. “I have.”
Without another word, she holds up a hand, makes a quick excuse, and walks back towards the tunnel. I want nothing more than to chase after her and trap her here until she explains away all their betrayals. But more than that, I want to lie on this soft bed and sleep for a hundred years. After a minute or two, I start to get that creeped out feeling like I’m in someone else’s bedroom, which I am. I rise from the bed. As soon as I hear Harmon and Dr. Golden talking, I jump up and try the door next to the bathroom. Locked.
Of course. Just because they sent a doctor down, and she’s nice, doesn’t mean they’ll let us walk out of here. With a sigh, I hobble back through the library room, and through the tunnel, and push the little door. At first, I think it’s locked, but after a few seconds, it gives and swings open.
“Well, look at you,” Harmon says from his spot under the ladder. Dr. Golden is kneeling beside him, checking his bandages.
“Yeah, look at me,” I say, suddenly feeling a little awkward in my too-big clothes.
“You were just complaining you wanted to get out of that dress.”
“I never want to see a dress again,” I say, stopping at one of the support poles and leaning against it.
“I didn’t think you’d be back,” he says, rolling over so Dr. Golden can see his back. She doesn’t look up from what she’s doing, but I don’t want to give anything away in front of a shifter.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” I ask carefully.
“You found the shower,” he says. “You must have seen the bed.”
“Yeah…”
“So you should sleep there.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s a bed,” he says. “And you’re sleeping on the floor now.”
“Why don’t you sleep there?”
“You’re a girl,” he says. “You should have the bed.”
I laugh, then catch myself and stop. Nothing about this is funny. “You’re important,” I say. “You should have it. Plus, you’re injured.”
“I’m fine here,” he says sharply.
“So am I,” I say, pushing away from the pole and hobbling back to my spot. “And besides, I don’t know whose bed that is. What if someone comes down to sleep there and finds me. I’d rather be here.”
“Right. Because I’m going to be able to protect you so well.”
“I don’t need protecting,” I say. “I have my broom.”
Harmon makes a sound that might be a laugh, but it’s bitter. “How do I fix this?” he asks Dr. Golden.
“I can’t lift another witch’s curse,” she says. “Let’s hope you’re okay by the next full moon.”
“That’s in two weeks,” he says. “I don’t think I’ll be okay by then.”
“You have three moons to heal,” she says. “That’s plenty of time.”
His face goes still for a second, his eyes hardening. “Until what?”
“You’re a wolf,” she says, standing. “You know what.”
Even I know what. If they don’t transition into their wolf form for three months, they lose the ability forever, something my sisters said is a fate comparable to death.
“I’m sorry,” I say when Dr. Golden goes back into the tunnel.
Harmon rises unsteadily to his four feet. He does have a tail. I look away in disgust, trying to hide my expression. But he’s not worried about my reaction. He lurches out of the room, leaving the little door open behind him. Just as I relax against the wall, a giant crash sounds in the other room. Harmon howls, but this time, it’s not a pained howl but one of rage. I wrap my arms aro
und myself and huddle against the wall, glad he’s not in this room as he tears around out there, throwing things and screaming.
I wish he’d stop, though. When the shifters come down and see what he’s done to their basement rooms, they’re not going to be happy. But I’m not going to go out there into the line of fire.
At last, Harmon wears himself out and limps back into the room, where he flops down under the ladder with his back to me. He must have torn open his wound again, because a spot appears on the clean bandage as I lay there watching him.
“Are you okay?” I whisper after a while.
“No,” he says. “I’m not okay. I’m a werewolf who can’t turn into a human or a wolf. I’m a monster.”
“But it’ll get better, right?” I ask. “Maybe when you transition into one or the other at the next full moon, you’ll get…unstuck.”
“You wouldn’t understand,” he says.
“What don’t I understand? My sisters told me what it was like. That it’s like missing half yourself if you can’t transition. But Dr. Golden said you have three months to get better.”
“It’s not three months,” he says quietly. “It’s three full moons. And next month, we have a blue moon.”
A blue moon. Two full moons in one month.
I sink back to the floor and try to think of something good to say. “That’s only a few days less,” I say. “The full moons are still twenty-eight days apart.”
“And what if this time counts, because I couldn’t transition back to human?”
I don’t have an answer for that.
8
The days pass with agonizing slowness. Upon visiting the tiny bathroom the next day, I discover the mirror shattered into a million shards of glass, glittering and crunching underfoot. I don’t mention it to Harmon. I try to stay out of his way in the following days, to occupy myself and ignore his presence as he paces the basement, scowling, or trying to figure out his limits, his balance, his strength.
After a few days, the glass on the bathroom floor disappears, but the frame hangs there with a few broken shards stuck in the edges, like a cruel reminder.
Beastly Beauty: A Fairy Tale Retelling (Girl Among Wolves Book 2) Page 5