Melange

by Kristy Tate

  Lizbet nodded.

  “Do you want to take a gun?”

  Lizbet hesitated by the back door. Using the arm that wasn’t occupied with the balled-up sheet, Lizbet hugged her mom. “I don’t want to shoot anyone.”

  “Is a wolf an anyone or an anything?”

  Lizbet laughed. “Does it matter?”

  “I bet it does to the wolves.”

  She kissed her mom’s cheek. “Love you, Mom.”

  “Do you want to take my phone?”

  Lizbet shook her head.

  Daugherty planted her feet hip-distance apart. “I insist you take a phone!”

  Lizbet slowly turned. “You know, a few weeks ago, you didn’t even know cell phones were a thing.”

  “Thank you.” Daugherty smiled and dropped the phone into Lizbet’s outstretched hand.

  Lizbet slipped the phone into her pocket. She crossed the lawn, crawled through the split-rail fence and entered the pasture. When she reached the shelter of the woods she pulled the phone out and turned it off.

  We are all one child spinning through Mother Sky. – Shawnee

  CHAPTER 11

  The doorbell rang. Rufus ran to the front door, barking, but Declan didn’t look up from his laptop. He had to register for classes, and none of them were right. It seemed wrong to be studying organic chemistry when his mom had to learn how to use a fork with her left hand.

  “Your friends are here,” Gloria called. She turned off the TV, sat up in her chair a tad straighter, and patted her hair into place.

  Declan glanced out the window. Baxter, McNally, Nicole, Hailey, and Carly stood on the porch. The girls all waved and smiled when they caught his attention while the guys tried to be cool. Declan pulled away from his computer and went to let his friends in.

  “There’s a full moon tonight,” Nicole said in a singsong voice.

  “You know what that means.” McNally tipped his head back and howled.

  Baxter elbowed McNally, sending the smaller guy off the porch and into a shrub.

  “Hey!” McNally staggered out of the garden bed and brushed himself off. He played forward on their basketball team and what he lacked in height he made up for in aggression.

  “We’re going to play night games,” Nicole said, flashing a smile at Declan. “Want to come?”

  “Nah—,” Declan began.

  His mom cut him off. “Declan, go. I’m tired of you hanging around here like a puppy who’s lost his bone.”

  “I’m registering for my classes,” Declan said, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

  “You already did that,” Gloria said.

  Declan heard the questions in her voice, but he didn’t turn to look at her. “I’m making some changes.” Changes he didn’t want to discuss with her. At least not yet.

  “How long can that take?” Gloria asked.

  “You should come,” Nicole whined.

  “Without you, we’re outnumbered,” McNally said.

  Hailey winked at him. “Do you really want to be responsible for the girls dominating the guys?”

  All the girls were on the tennis team, athletic but not a serious match against the basketball players. Declan smirked. “I think Baxter on his own could take you all on,” he told the girls.

  “Hey!” Nicole cried.

  “Oh, yeah?” Hailey tried to push Baxter off the porch, but he didn’t budge.

  “What does that say about me?” McNally puffed out his chest and squared his shoulders.

  “It says you don’t need me.”

  “Of course we don’t need you.” Nicole reverted to her whiny voice. “But we want you to come.”

  “Declan, go!” Gloria demanded.

  Declan cast a glance at his laptop. He had to register soon before the classes he wanted were snatched up by other late-to-the-party freshmen and also before he changed his mind...again, but... ”Let me get my shoes.”

  MARIA AND MATIAS WERE just shadows waiting on their porch. Lizbet waved as she approached. Like her, they wore dark shorts, T-shirts, and sandals. Matias was chomping on potato chips.

  Lizbet pointed at the bag. “You can’t bring those.”

  “Why not?” He lifted the open bag to his nose. “They don’t smell.”

  “Maybe not to us, but a wolf can probably smell them from a hundred miles from here.”

  Matias looked unhappy, but he rolled the top of the bag closed and left it on the patio table. He brushed his hands together as if he were washing them. “Let’s go.”

  Maria balked. “Are you sure about this?”

  Lizbet nodded. “We’re just going to see if we can find them.”

  “That’s not what you said earlier. You said you wanted to catch a werewolf and hold it captive until daylight to see if it will shift back into human form.”

  Matias lifted his eyebrows and laughed. “You said that?”

  “Oh come on, you can’t believe I was serious. There’s no such thing as werewolves.”

  “You sounded serious,” Maria said. “So serious I did some reading. Don’t you think it’s weird that almost every civilization has a recorded werewolf legend? Just think about it. Why would the Chinese and the ancient Greeks both have werewolves in their mythology? The two cultures couldn’t have overlapped in anyway.”

  “You don’t know that.” Matias nudged his sister.

  “But what I do know is that that is one creepy moon,” Maria said, nodding at it.

  “It’s a strawberry moon,” Lizbet said, linking her arm through Maria’s and gently leading her across the lawn.

  “A what?” Matias asked.

  “Strawberry moon.”

  “Are there blueberry moons? How about huckleberry?” Matias joked.

  Maria relaxed against Lizbet until they reached the edge of the woods. “Are you sure about this?” she asked.

  “I want to see the wolves,” Lizbet said, “but if you don’t, I get that.”

  “She’ll still have me,” Matias chirped from behind them.

  Lizbet would rather not spend the night alone with Matias. Not that she didn’t trust him, but she worried what Declan would think if he found out.

  He wouldn’t care.

  He wouldn’t even know.

  But she thought of how she’d feel if she learned he went camping alone with Nicole. It would hurt. And she was already hurting. But she had no idea what he was feeling. Or thinking. Or who he was seeing.

  Maria heaved a big sigh. “I can’t leave you alone with this doofus. I mean, what if you really did see the wolves?”

  “Oh yeah, like we really need you to protect us,” Matias scoffed.

  “Three is better than two,” Lizbet said, trying to keep the peace.

  “So, why is the moon red?” Maria asked, obviously trying to infuse bravery into her voice.

  “Supposedly, it got its name from Native American tribes because it arrives in June, when strawberry season is at its peak,” Lizbet told them. “It’s supposed to signal the time to pick the berries. In Europe, it’s called a rose moon.”

  “Either way, it’s a freaky color,” Maria said.

  Matias nodded. “Like blood.”

  Maria whirled around to slug her brother.

  “Ow!” He rubbed his arm and glared at her.

  Lizbet had to stop herself from rolling her eyes. Maybe bringing the brother and sister team had been a bad idea. “Guys, we have to be quiet. I bet the wolves’ sense of hearing is a lot stronger than ours.”

  Maria wrapped her arm through Lizbet’s again while Matias trailed behind them. As they walked in silence through the dark woods, Lizbet listened for chattering squirrels, hooting owls, or scurrying fox. She heard nothing but their own footsteps and the gentle swoosh of the breeze playing in the trees. Shadows shifted through the forest. The light of the strawberry moon hit the ground in gray splotches. The world seemed as lifeless and flat as a black and white photograph. A chill that had nothing to do with the weather crawled over her.
/>   “In the forest dark and deep,” Matias said in a low, gravelly voice, “do not wander, do not sleep.”

  Maria twisted toward him. “How many times do I have to hit you?” she hissed.

  Matias met her hostility with a grin. “Don’t worry, I’ll protect you.” He draped his arms over Lizbet and Maria’s shoulders. Without his shirt, his skin felt hot and sticky. Lizbet flinched away. Maria pushed him.

  He stumbled before catching himself. “What was that?” he asked.

  “What?” Lizbet asked.

  “I heard it, too,” Maria said.

  “DOES EVERYONE KNOW how to play?” Even though Hailey was the smallest she had somehow become the ringleader. She’d led them to the deepest part of the woods and paired them up into teams. “It’s basically hide and seek in reverse. One team hides while the others search for them. Once one team finds them, they have to hide with the starting team until the last team also finds them. So pick a big hiding place.” She winked. “Or if you want to get cozy, pick a small space. We’ll shuffle teams after every round.”

  Declan ran a finger around the collar of his T-shirt and slid a glance at Nicole, his team partner. He now knew why they’d wanted him to come.

  McNally picked a stick off the ground and broke it into three pieces. “The short stick goes first,” he said as he turned around to adjust the three sticks in his grasp. He held out his hand to Nicole. “Ladies first.”

  She drew and Hailey followed. They compared their sticks, but they were similar in size. McNally grinned as Carly picked the short stick. “It’s you and me, babe,” he said.

  Declan, Baxter, Hailey, and Nicole stood in a circle, held hands and counted to a hundred, the numbers falling from their lips like a chant.

  “One. Two. Three...”

  Declan tried to tell himself he was having fun, but he just wasn’t feeling it. His thoughts wandered. Ever since his mom’s accident, he’d felt as if the world as he’d known had shattered. It was as if his life had been scribbled with marker on a sheet of glass and someone as a joke had dropped the glass and now he had to somehow put it back together so the scribbling still made sense. He had answers for the big questions: college, yes—but where? Was leaving his mom the kind or responsible thing to do? She had never really needed him before, but now she did.

  “Fifty. Fifty-one. Fifty-two...”

  Although, she would say she didn’t. She wouldn’t want him to readjust his life and dreams for her.

  And if he was going to think about rearranging his dreams for women, he’d have to think about Lizbet .who he’d been trying to put out of his head for days. Weeks. It seemed like years. How had she become so significant in such a short time? He had to admit that he’d made her the star he guided his life by. She was like the center of his storm—the quiet refuge he desperately needed when nothing else made sense.

  “Seventy. Seventy-one. Seventy-two...”

  And that made no sense, because if anyone was confusing, if anyone could turn him inside out, it was Lizbet. Anger and frustration gripped him all over again. If she would just tell him how she’d known about the accident...

  But maybe she couldn’t. Maybe she really did pick up on vibes. Maybe she really did have a hyper-spidey sense. Chills crawled over his skin.

  Nicole squeezed his hand, reminding him of the game. He opened his eyes and met her hopeful gaze.

  Nicole was Lizbet’s polar opposite: tall, blond, from a white-bread-and-butter upper-middle-class family. They were opposite not only in their backgrounds and appearances. Nicole didn’t have an imagination, and Lizbet was dominated by hers.

  And she was right a spooky amount of the time.

  Nicole tugged at him. “Come on,” she urged.

  He noticed with some surprise that Baxter and Hailey had already disappeared into the trees. He let Nicole keep hold of his hand, and she led him in the opposite direction.

  “You’re rethinking Duke, aren’t you?” she said without looking at him.

  “How did you know?”

  “Makes sense, what with your mom’s accident and everything.”

  He wondered if she knew the everything meant Lizbet. Even though they weren’t speaking, the thought of being on the other side of the country from her tore him up.

  “No one knows.”

  “Even your mom?”

  “Especially not my mom.”

  “You think she’ll try and stop you?”

  He nodded. “She’s so twisted. She fought my going to Duke before her accident, and now that she needs help, she’ll insist I go.”

  “She wants you to live your dreams.”

  “I can still have my dreams. The UW is a good school. The crazy thing is I wouldn’t have even applied there if she hadn’t insisted earlier.”

  “Do you think she had a premonition?”

  “No.” His words came out harsher than he intended.

  Nicole didn’t say anything for a long beat of silence. “I applied to Duke because of you,” she whispered.

  “You shouldn’t have done that.”

  She shrugged. “But I did.”

  “Nicole, listen...”

  “Baxter told me you broke up with Lizbet.” She spoke quickly, as if she was afraid he’d interrupt her.

  “It’s true, but—” He froze when he saw Lizbet wearing a pair of cut-offs and a black bikini top, standing in a shaft of moonlight. Two shadowy forms stood behind her. For a moment he thought he was hallucinating. “Lizbet? What are you doing here?”

  Her gaze settled on his hand clasped in Nicole’s and her expression turned hard. “What are you doing here?”

  Matias and Maria Hernandez stepped out from behind and flanked her like bodyguards as if they needed to protect her from him. Matias wasn’t wearing a shirt. In fact, all of them seemed scarcely dressed. What the hell?

  “That’s none of your business,” Nicole said, her voice as hard as Lizbet’s expression.

  “We’re playing a game,” Declan said.

  “Yeah, and we’re sure to lose now,” Nicole said.

  “So sorry to spoil your fun,” Maria said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

  Matias draped his bare arm over Lizbet’s slim shoulders. Jealousy, hot and intense, flashed through Declan forcing him to close his eyes.

  “Let’s go,” Matias said, turning Lizbet away. “Sorry we interrupted your game.”

  Maria faced him with her hands on her hips. “Are you sure you’re all legal to play?”

  “What does that mean?” Nicole asked.

  “Declan’s eighteen. Are you?” Maria shot back.

  “It’s not that kind of game,” Nicole said through clenched teeth.

  Maria responded by lifting one eyebrow.

  “What’s that?” Lizbet froze and pointed at a shadow running through the ferns.

  “Is it a wolf?” Matias asked.

  Lizbet squinted in the darkness. “I don’t think so. It wasn’t big enough.”

  Nicole elbowed Declan. “Was it Baxter and Hailey?” she whispered.

  “I didn’t see it,” Declan admitted, “but if it’s too small to be a wolf, it’s certainly not Baxter.”

  “Maybe Hailey?”

  “She’s little, but she’s still taller than a wolf.”

  Matias grinned. “Unless she’s a werewolf.”

  Lizbet kicked him.

  “What?” he asked, his voice full of laughter. “I’m just saying what everyone else is thinking.”

  “I wasn’t thinking that,” Declan said.

  “Yeah, no one wants to know what you’re thinking,” Maria said.

  And now Maria hates me, Declan thought. As well as Lizbet. This had to stop. Now.

  “Lizbet, can I—”

  “Tickles!” Baxter’s voice boomed through the dark forest. “What are you doing here?”

  “Tickles?” Maria’s voice went up on octave. She ran after the sound of Baxter’s voice.

  The others trailed after her. They found Baxt
er kneeling beside his dog, ruffling Tickles’ fur.

  Hailey stood beside him, frowning. “We can’t hide with your dog. He’ll give us away.”

  “We’ll take your place,” Matias suggested. He still had his arm slung around Lizbet.

  Declan imagined Matias and Lizbet pressed into some hidey-hole together and his gut tightened. He couldn’t be there anymore. He couldn’t pretend any longer. “I’ll take Tickles home.”

  “No, let me,” Lizbet spoke up. “There’s an uneven number. It makes sense for me to go. Without me, there’s an even number of girls to guys.”

  “What? Absolutely not,” Matias exploded. “I don’t want to play this game without you.”

  “It’s not that sort of a game,” Declan growled. “And you’re not playing with her.”

  Matias stepped forward, all laughter now gone from his voice. “And neither are you.”

  “Hey, guys, chill.” Hailey stepped between them.

  “No one needs to go because of the dog.” Baxter folded his arms. “If you guys want to play, we can tie Tickles up to a tree. He’ll be fine.”

  “He doesn’t even have a leash,” Hailey pointed out.

  “I don’t want to play,” Lizbet said in a small voice, ducking out from under Matias’s arm. “I’ll walk him home.”

  “In the dark? Alone?” Matias asked.

  “You’re so sexist!” Maria exploded. “You’re just like Dad!”

  “I’m not sexist! I’m just practical. She shouldn’t be walking alone in the dark.” Matias skated a glance at Declan.

  “Huh, guys?” Hailey tried to interrupt them.

  “Look, the three of us will go,” Matias said.

  Maria glanced at Baxter. “I want to stay.”

  “You should stay, too,” Lizbet told Matias. “That way there’s an even number.”

  “Guys!” Hailey called out.

  “What?” Declan asked.

  “Tickles is gone.”

  Listening to a liar is like drinking warm water. - Tribe Unknown

  CHAPTER 12

  Anger, white and hot, zipped through Lizbet. “Tickles!”