“Why are you yelling Shakespeare at me?”
“I told you I was losing my mind,” I say. “But you wouldn’t read the play with me. So I’m doing it myself. Now stop asking questions, you’re ruining the effect.”
Harmon shakes his head and lies down with his back to me again.
I take a deep breath and go on. “Four days will quickly steep themselves in night; Four nights will quickly dream away the time; and then the moon, like a silver bow new-bent in heaven, shall behold the night…” When someone exits, I slip behind a support pole, then enter as four different people, which requires skipping back and forth behind the support. But Harmon doesn’t see it, so I just go with it.
Harmon sighs and sighs.
After about fifteen minutes, he turns to face me again.
If I felt stupid before, reading to his back, I can hardly go on now. I lose my place, and Harmon smirks. I read in a man’s voice and he rolls his eyes and shakes his head. I have to pretend to sleep and squeeze flowers on my eyelids as someone else at the same time. Harmon snorts. When I finally read, “Either death or you I’ll find immediately,” and duck into the tunnel to end Act Two, I’m kind of hoping death will find me immediately.
But I won’t let him win. I refuse to let his sulking and mockery kill me. I’ll pretend I don’t even hear his flat, sarcastic applause. After a few deep breaths, I step back out and announce proudly that Bottom, Snout and Starveling are entering. I ignore his snickering as I deliver such gems as, “What sayest thou, bully Bottom?”
But he can’t keep it up as long as I can. I read, and read, and read. I do all the voices. I lie on the floor, I jump to my feet, I crouch over the invisible person where I was lying. I put on the hat, I take off the hat, I hold up invisible lanterns. I stab myself with a broom handle and die…repeatedly. I lose my place, skip lines, repeat lines, have to stop in the middle of my song and dance routine to find the next line.
Harmon isn’t laughing anymore, though. I’ve outlasted him. He sits on his blanket, watching me intently. I can’t tell if this is part of his plot to throw me off, but I go on, anyway. I go on until the last lines, when I approach Harmon where he sits, and hold out my hands, palms down.
“Give me your hands, if you be friends, and Robin shall restore amends.”
For a second, I think he’s going to scoff at my outstretched hands and turn away. But after a beat, he puts his hands under mine, palms up. He closes his big hand around mine, and I close my fingers around his paw. And then I just stand there, the silence in the basement suddenly stupendous. I need more lines. I don’t know what to say now that I don’t have them.
Harmon tugs at my hands, and I sink to my knees beside him. “Stella,” he says softly. “That was…amazing. I’m amazed. Speechless, in fact. And you…” He gives my hands a little shake. “Are completely mad.”
“I warned you.”
And then he laughs, and I laugh, a bit hysterically. “I can’t believe you did that,” he says, shaking his head. His eyes move over my face, my eyes, my cheeks, my lips. My lips. My lips.
Something trembles along my spine, settles in my lower belly.
I pull my hands away and stand. “I should put this stuff up,” I say, gathering the book and the hat.
“Yeah,” he says. “Definitely. Here, let me help.” He stands and shambles over to me, taking the props from my hands without looking at me.
Something weird just happened, weirder than me doing a one-man Shakespeare play in a dirt room prison. While he puts up the things, I straighten the basement. The broom handle, the head of the broom, some onions I used, a t-shirt I danced with as if it were a partner. I try to think about something besides Harmon, like how those men the other day seemed familiar, and how Mrs. Nguyen’s body disappeared. I don’t know if it is some of the magic or if someone snuck down here and removed it while I was in the shower one day. The thought makes me shiver.
“You got something,” Harmon says, returning from the other room with a box. It’s like the other one, the one my clothes came in.
“Where did this come from?” I ask, taking the box.
Harmon shrugs and returns to his blanket, but he sits watching me instead of lying down like usual. Slowly, I sit down with the package. When I pull back the tape, my stomach is heavy and thick instead of weightless with excitement. I remove the crumpled paper inside and lift out a garment wrapped in clear plastic. It’s some kind of dress, a pale eggshell color. My throat tight, I work to swallow.
“Is this a wedding dress?” I ask. My mind goes back to the night of his failed coronation. The night of the attack, when we were thrown in here. And I remember my sister saying that she didn’t want him to Choose her, that she wouldn’t have a choice if he did.
“Why are you asking me?”
“I don’t know,” I say, slowly peeling the plastic down off it. The silky fabric cascades over my arm. I sigh with relief when I see that it’s not a wedding dress—too short and poofy. I turn it around and hold it up. “Wow. This is nice.”
“Let’s see you in it,” Harmon says, smiling like a kid playing dress-up. Which I guess is kind of what we are, except I’m the one dressing up. He’s already in his Wild Thing costume.
I duck out of the room and through the other rooms to the bathroom. Still, I can’t shake the weird feeling as I pull it on and smooth it down over my hips, again wishing Harmon hadn’t broken all the mirrors.
“That is nice,” he says when I return to the basement room. I stand there, curling my toes against the grainy dirt floor.
“I have to tell you something,” I say, darting in and dropping to my knees beside him. “It’s going to sound crazier than me reading a play all by myself.”
“Okay.”
I lower my voice to a whisper and lean in. “I think we’re being watched.”
“Really?” Harmon asks, pulling back to look around.
I grab his shoulder and pull him back to me. “Stop being obvious,” I whisper. “I think they have cameras somewhere in here.”
“They don’t have cameras,” he says with a little laugh.
“Thanks for blowing our cover,” I say, climbing to my feet. “You didn’t have to tell them we knew.”
“Stella, come on. There’s no cameras.”
“Then how did they know I was just talking about a prom dress the other day? And then there was the pizza, and the times I talked about new clothes, and voila! New clothes.” I grab the poofy, knee-length skirt and shake it to illustrate my point.
“Maybe they’re trying to take good care of you.”
“Yeah, right,” I say, searching the ceiling for glints of a lens. “Easy for you to say. You’re not the one they’re probably watching undress.” I remember the time I got out of the shower and my clothes were right there, and I wrap my arms around myself.
“Right,” Harmon says bitterly. “Because no one would ever want to look at me.”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” I say. “But you’re a boy.”
“No, it’s fine,” he says. “You’re right. I’m going to have to get used to it. This is how I look now. No one’s ever going to want to look at me unless they absolutely have to. Like you.”
I curse myself under my breath. I almost had him, almost got him out of his stupid hidey hole under the ladder. But now he’s lying back down, turning away.
“Don’t make me get out the Shakespeare,” I threaten. “I only read one play. There’s, like, twenty in there.”
“I’ll read one with you later,” he says, pulling the blanket over himself.
17
A week later, I wake with a start, my name ringing in my ears. “Harmon?” I whisper, pushing myself up.
“I’m right here,” he says, his voice close.
I grope across the gritty floor, searching in the darkness. “What are you doing?”
“I want to show you something.”
“What?”
“Just come,” he says, his human han
d finding mine. He stands, pulling me to my feet. Chill, damp air settles around my bare legs, and the day comes back to me. I’m wearing the pale prom dress that came last week. We read The Tempest over the past three days, one act each day. Harmon has come out from under the ladder every day. But he hasn’t had an idea, had anything to show me, since the day we arrived. The excitement coursing through him finds its way from his hand to mine, curls up my arm. This is something. Something new. Big.
It’s not the kind of excitement that might lead him to punch a shifter in the face and run for it, but it’s something. I’ll take it.
He squeezes my hand and pulls me through the tunnel, then stops. “Okay, put this on,” he says, handing me something I can’t quite make out in the dark. “Or let me.”
“What is it?”
“Turn around.”
He drops a cloth over my eyes, pulling it tight and tying it behind my head. “Okay, this is weird,” I say. “I feel like I belong in some kind of kinky kidnap movie.”
“Maybe just the kidnap part,” he says. “Now seriously. Don’t take it off. Okay?”
“No promises.”
He takes my hand and laces his fingers through mine. His hand isn’t furry now, but totally human. And so big it swallows mine as he guides me forward. At last, I hear a door open, and his arm snakes around my waist. I reach for the blindfold, but he catches my hand with his paw. “Not yet.” I shuffle forwards. “Now step up.”
Suddenly, my stomach is shaking. My legs are shaking as I take another step up, and then another. “Are we getting out?” I whisper, my eyes suddenly damp behind the blindfold.
“Just wait. You’ll see.”
We step up and up and up. At last, he stops, and I reach for the blindfold again. Again, he stops my hand. A door scrapes. Dust tickles my nose. And then I feel it.
Air. Real air, from outside. It’s damp, but not in the stale way the basement is damp. It’s damp with dew, with mist, with fog and the smell of rain on the air. It’s thick and chilly as it caresses my cheek, as solid as fingers. I can hear frogs singing somewhere close by. I can smell the roses.
“Just a few more steps,” Harmon says, but this time, I don’t let him stop me. I reach up and tear off the blindfold.
The night is bright around us, nothing like the dark basement. The blades of grass shine with the blue moonlight reflecting off their wet surfaces. Each tiny white rose glows as brightly as if the moon has fallen from the sky and fractured into a hundred thousand pieces, each one stuck in the thorns. I step forwards, my bare feet thirsting for the dew clinging to the cold grass. I have to fight the urge to throw myself into the thorny bushes, to roll in them and anchor myself to their thorns so I can never be dragged back to that dungeon.
“What—what is this?” I ask, finding my voice at last.
“They’re multiflora roses,” he says, as if that answers my question, as if that’s what I wanted to know. He reaches out and carefully selects a thin stalk, twists the green tendril-like branch until it tears free. With a smile, he hands me the sprig. I breathe in the sweet smell, closing my eyes. The moonlight caresses my skin like a hand, so heavy after so much time in the dark. When I open my eyes, Harmon is watching me, his face inscrutable. My heart catches, and for one wild second, I can’t breathe. I can’t swallow. I can’t look away from his hungry gaze.
He drops his eyes and turns away, and the spell is broken. A twinge of disappointment flickers inside me, but I push it away. What am I thinking? Just because he kissed me once, when he thought I was Elidi, doesn’t mean he’d ever want to kiss me again. Not the way he did that time. And why would I want to kiss him anyway?
“Come on,” he says, pulling me forwards. We step onto a narrow path through the bushes, overhung with heavy, flower-laden branches but passable still. Under my feet, the tiny white petals that have fallen are soft as silk. Harmon leads me forwards, ducking under heavy branches, following the winding path through the briars. At last, we stop. Across a wide strip of tangled brambles, I can make out a crumbling cottage, its stone walls intact but the doors and windows gone.
“Has your mother told you about this place?”
I’m snapped back to reality like I’ve been caught daydreaming and had a bucket of ice water thrown in my face. “My mother? No. What is it?”
“It’s this old cottage,” he says. “Your mother grew up here, too, you know.”
“No, I don’t know,” I say. “Just assume that I never know anything.”
“Why are you getting mad?”
“Let’s just go,” I say. “We’re outside.” I’m not dreaming this, no matter how dreamlike and sedating the sweet roses are.
“You want to go back already?”
The sprig of delicate white roses and wicked green thorns drops from my fingers to the ground. “No, I don’t want to go back. I want to get out of here. Let’s go. Now. No one caught us, Harmon. We need to run, not stand around smelling flowers.”
I grab his paw and pull him through the maze of winding paths, ignoring the hesitance in his step. When we finally reach the entrance to the briar patch, he pulls away. “What’s wrong?” I ask. “Why aren’t you excited about this?”
“I’m not going anywhere,” he says quietly.
“What do you mean you’re not going? You got us out. We’re free.”
He shakes his head, his eyes fixed on the millions of star-like roses lighting up the night as much as the half-moon overhead.
“Harmon, this is our only chance. You found a way through that door. They won’t leave it unlocked again.”
A frown furrows his brow, but he just shakes his head. “I’m going back in, Stella. I’m not leaving. I can’t. I belong here.”
I open my mouth to argue, but then I stop. Slowly, I turn to look at the house. And even though I’ve never seen it from the back, I know. Even though I never knew so many roses existed, even though I’ve never seen anything like this, and it is incredible, I can’t see it anymore. All I see is Harmon, his odd face with the sloping forehead and the fur where human hair should be.
“You’re not leaving,” I repeat, backing away. “You didn’t want to leave because these aren’t shifters. They’re your people. You were never a prisoner. This is your house.”
18
Harmon can’t answer. He can’t even look at me. My mind reels with everything I should have known, should have seen. The way he never wanted to escape, never talked about it or tried. The way the doctor came to take care of him. The familiarity of the men who threw me back into the basement when I tried to escape. Harmon’s lack of concern over whether the wolves would come for us. The way the clothes and food showed up when I talked about them.
Before he can come up with an inexcusable excuse, I turn and run. It doesn’t matter who imprisoned me. I’m free now.
“Stella,” he calls sharply, but I don’t stop. I race across the narrow stretch of grass, across a wide, worn footpath, and into the shadowy forest. As soon as I’m under the trees, the moonlight disappears. I’m in the Enchanted Forest, where trees snatch people up, give them false hope, and thirst for their blood. But what choice do I have? It’s this or a basement prison.
I continue forward, arms outstretched. Suddenly the eerie, ominous feeling of the forest at night closes in on me. With a shiver, I step forward. My toe rams into a rock, and I fight back a yelp of pain. But I don’t have time to stop and nurse it, so I step forward again. Five steps later, I bark my shin on a fallen branch. Next, my legs get tangled in a thorny vine, the barbs biting into my bare skin.
A warm arm circles me from behind, and I scream and throw an elbow into his gut. This is not a strong, capable man, like the one who threw me down the stairs. This is an injured half-human creature, twisted and deformed and hateful. I have a chance.
With all the force of my anger, I stomp my heel down on the bridge of his foot. I feel a sickening snapping under my heel, and this time, he’s the one who cries out.
“Stop it,�
�� he growls through clenched teeth. I dig my nails deep into the flesh of his forearm, the one across my middle, and draw a deep breath. I scream into the black forest, send my ear-punishing shrieks echoing and bouncing off trees, a sound with the sharpness of fangs and the depth of betrayal.
But no one comes to help me. They knew I was trapped in my mother’s attic all those years. Why suddenly care that I’m trapped in someone’s basement? What’s the difference to them? They must know I’ve been there all along. Like always, I’m the only one who didn’t know. I thought he was my friend. I thought he was actually giving me real answers at last.
With renewed fury, I throw my elbow into his gut. “You liar,” I scream as we stumble forward, both of us trying to throw the other off balance while keeping our own footing.
“I didn’t lie,” Harmon says, squeezing me harder, so I can barely breathe.
“You lied about lying!” I yell, crushing his foot with my heel again.
With a loud curse, he releases me, and I go sprawling. A sapling crunches under my weight, its splintered end jabbing into my flesh and tearing skin. I scramble forward, trying to ignore the pain. Just as I gain my footing, Harmon crashes down on me. I scream and kick at the ground, flailing under him. I dig my fingers into the leaves, scrabbling for something solid to hold onto, but all I find are loose rocks and dead twigs.
“I didn’t lie,” he growls, wrestling to get my arms under control without being able to grip anything with his wolf paw. “If you’d stop a minute, I’d tell you what happened.”
“You mean you’d tell me more lies?” I say, my voice harsh and bitter as my mother’s. Harmon grabs my shoulder with his good hand and in one motion flips me flat on my back. Before I can roll away, he grabs both my wrists in his big hand and pulls my arms over my head, letting his full weight pin me to the ground. His twisted, grotesque face looms over mine, illuminated by the moonlight streaming through a break in the canopy.
“Stop fighting,” he barks in my face. “You’re not going anywhere.” He may not be fully human, but he’s still bigger than me. I writhe to free myself, but it’s no use.
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