Unleashed

by Nancy Holder

Just the wind, she told herself.

  The wind. And the drums.

  The wind.

  And the drums.

  And her heartbeat.

  The wind.

  And the plink … plink … plink …

  The click … click … click …

  … of nails … click … click …

  She was asleep, and she wasn’t. She knew she was asleep. But it was coming. She could hear it panting.

  Click, click.

  Coming closer.

  Click, click.

  She couldn’t move. Terror enveloped her, heavy, warm.

  It had stopped beside her bed. Her eyes were closed—because she was asleep—but she knew it was looking at her with its blue …

  No, not its blue

  Leaf-green

  Tree-brown

  Silvery-moonbeam

  Golden-yellow

  Her eyes were closed, but its eyes were wide open.

  She couldn’t move. Couldn’t whimper.

  Click.

  Click.

  Click.

  Wake up, wake up, she begged herself. Save yourself.

  If you go into the woods tonight, you’d better go in disguise.

  But she wasn’t in the woods. She was in her bed.

  And It was here … leaning over her. Saliva dripped on her cheek.

  Wake up, wake up.

  Just the wind.

  And the drums.

  “Hey there, Katalicious,” Trick said when he picked her up in the morning. Katelyn was tired from being awake half the night, jerking out of sleep, replaying the images of the wolf attack over and over in her mind, hearing things.

  The sun was just beginning to rise, and he stood on the porch wearing a black T-shirt and black jeans, cowboy boots, and a black cowboy hat. Also his leather bracelet. He smelled like freshly washed cotton, soap, and coffee.

  She herself felt gross, having fallen asleep without brushing her teeth or washing her face. Then she’d rushed around to get ready. A hot shower and her electric toothbrush had power-washed away the grime, but still. She wore a black gauze baby doll top embroidered with gold thread over ripped, faded jeans and her Mary Janes. Her blond hair was coiled into a pinwheel-like messy bun with two black-and-gold chopsticks.

  “ ‘Katalicious’? You really didn’t just say that.” She looked at him askance as she handed him a coffee mug and a piece of toast.

  He dipped the toast in his coffee and took a bite. Balancing her toast on top of her coffee mug, she moved onto the porch and shut the door behind her. The air outside was hot and muggy, as if it had been conjured from the steam in their cups.

  “Katalicious,” she grumbled again. “That’s so lame, Trick.”

  Trick raised his brows as they headed for his car. “Heavens to Betsy, just how shallow are they out there in Hollywood?”

  “What is it with you and my grandfather and the corny sayings?” she asked, glancing up at the cloudy sky, wondering if she should bring an umbrella.

  He tapped his head. “Brain transplant. I share the thoughts of the grandfather. That was what the surgery was for. You look good,” he added. He smiled, really smiled as he held the Mustang door open for her.

  “Thanks.” She dipped her head and climbed inside, drinking down her coffee so it wouldn’t spill when they drove over the bumps and dips in the dirt road. Anxiety fluttered in her stomach. She was trying not to admit to herself that she’d been waiting for him to show up that morning and her mood had lifted when she’d heard his car.

  “It is a joke, right? The brain surgery.”

  His triumphant smile made her feel foolish for asking.

  “I never asked you what you did last weekend,” she said, to change the subject.

  “Volunteered at a homeless shelter, helped my cat give birth to kittens, wrote poetry.” He grinned at her as he shifted into drive and peeled out onto the road. Her head whipped backward. “Drove like an ass.”

  They raced toward the trees with the finesse of a roller coaster. She gripped the armrest and clenched her teeth. “Twenty-five percent of what you just told me is true.”

  “Fifty.”

  They careered into near darkness. He punched on his car stereo. That day it was Bon Jovi’s “Blaze of Glory.” She felt the bass rumble through her bones and loved the beat, the energy, the “take no prisoners” sense of possibility that rose inside her. A smile cracked her mood. She’d get back to L.A. She’d get back into dance and gymnastics and maybe even acting, and she’d figure out what to do with her life.

  And she hadn’t heard anything growling or felt anything staring in at her from the skylight the night before. It was just nerves.

  “You do drive like an ass,” she said.

  “Just outrunning ’em, Kat.” He grinned at her, then growled playfully.

  With pleasure, she suspected.

  “Hey, I had a nightmare,” she said without thinking.

  “I’m not surprised, after the day you had. Care to share?”

  She paused, realizing she didn’t want to. Sharing might make it seem more real and she’d rather forget it. “I don’t really remember it. At least, not enough to explain.”

  “And they call me crazy,” he said, smiling at her to take the sting out of the barb.

  “You’re mean,” she said, pouting.

  “I’m smart,” he retorted. “You try being smart among the ignorant masses. It would make you snarly, too.”

  “As far as I can tell, it just gets your tires slashed.” She realized what she’d said after it had already come out of her mouth. “Oh, God, Trick, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to say that.”

  He sighed. “Don’t you have some texting to do?”

  “It’s too early.”

  “If she’s your best friend, she won’t care.”

  She pulled out her phone, glad to have somewhere else to focus her attention. She was embarrassed. She’d been trying to joke around but knew she’d gone too far.

  “Tell her hi.”

  “Sure will,” she said, flushing.

  But Kimi didn’t reply.

  They got to school early and parted ways. Trick said he had something to take care of. She wondered if it had anything to do with slashed tires.

  In hopes of having some topic suggestions for her project with Cordelia, she headed for the library. It was a small dusty room inside the main building, and it smelled of mold. Dim light filtered over wooden bookshelves, books crammed in them every which way. There was a desk with a sign that read LIBRARIAN but no actual librarian sitting at it, and no evidence one sat there regularly. It was as dusty as the shelves. Maybe no one used the library at this school. Katelyn hunted for a computer, hoping for a digital database of the library’s holdings, but there was nothing that twenty-first century. She didn’t know why she was surprised.

  There was, however, an old-fashioned oak card catalog, complete with little white cards and smudged typed titles, authors, and subject headings. She flipped through the cards until she found WOLF SPRINGS: HISTORY. According to the catalog, there were two books in the library on the subject.

  She jotted down their call numbers and wandered over to the stacks. One of the books was missing. The other, a thin volume with a tattered gray cloth cover, nearly came apart as she pulled it free. Carefully opening it, she glanced at the table of contents. Spanish Settlers. Outlaws. The Hot Springs. Lost Dreams. The Wolves of Wolf Springs. Bingo. She flipped to the indicated page and began to read the section about the wolves.

  Hated and feared by settlers, the red wolves native to the Ozarks were thought to have been eradicated throughout Arkansas by the early 1900s. However, Wolf Springs locals have reported seeing packs ever since the first Spanish settlers arrived. The priests who founded the Catholic Church of Our Lady of Mercy wrote of the local wolves: “They remained aloof until winter, when lack of food compelled them to raid our barns for chickens and lambs. For ourselves, we had no fear of them, and they never attacked us.�
��

  She grunted. Maybe the nice wolves had died out along with the Spanish priests.

  Aware that the hallway outside the library was filling up with students, she read the last two lines on the page:

  “However, another creature dwelled in the forest. This one, we feared with all our souls.”

  And the next page was missing. Tattered, jagged edges were held by unraveling stitching, but the page itself was gone. She kept reading, in hopes that the mystery creature would be revealed.

  “And thus it remains that our good company shuns the wooded hills.”

  “Crap,” she said out loud.

  The bell rang, and she quickly paged ahead. Apparently that was it for the wolves and the scary thing in the forest, but she still wanted to check out the book. There had to be something useful in it.

  “Hello?” she called.

  When no librarian appeared, she looked around to make sure she was alone and semi-guiltily dropped the fragile book into her backpack, then slipped out into the hall to join the rest of the student body.

  In history class, Cordelia told Katelyn that she’d checked out a ton of books from the public library. She approved of Katelyn’s find and explained, with a laugh, that all she had to do to officially check out books from the school library was show them to Mrs. Walker, who kept a list in the office. After the last librarian had moved, they hadn’t replaced her. It seemed that Mrs. Walker was the go-to person for everything you needed at school.

  Katelyn was relieved to see that Mike was absent from gym. Maybe a day away was all it would take for him to forget that she’d embarrassed him. She suited up and stretched out. She enjoyed the strength and elasticity of her muscles as she went through her routines. And she knew that without regular workouts she’d lose it. The familiar dizzying anxiety hit her in the chest as she remembered that all her costumes, all the videos she’d saved on her laptop of her performances, were gone. I got out with nothing but me. And there are times when I’m not even sure I got out with that.

  At lunch, Cordelia introduced her to a few girls, including those Wolf Springs High cheerleaders who were still speaking to the girl who had made them lose their big competition—versus the ones who were pretending Cordelia Fenner no longer existed. Boys circled their table, some of them really cute, and Katelyn had to answer a lot of questions about L.A. It was clear that Dondi—the girl with the gold fingernails—and Maria, at least, still wanted to be friends with Cordelia. And Cordelia had plenty of guys swooning over her. But Cordelia herself was sending out vibes that she wanted—or needed—to be left alone.

  Trick stayed away, watching from a table of gothy kids dressed in black. But there was something about him that kept drawing Katelyn’s attention, and she felt a warmth in the pit of her stomach every time their eyes met. Maybe it was the green of his eyes, or the arty, interesting company he kept. His friends obviously doted on him. He was the center of their attention.

  Or maybe she liked it that she was the object of Trick’s attention. Each time she tried to dart a discreet glance his way, he was looking at her. He intercepted every one of her looks, each time, and his smile got bigger and bigger. At first she was mortified, and then she just laughed.

  “What’s so funny?” Cordelia asked her, and Katelyn shifted her focus back to Cordelia and her friends.

  “Nothing,” she assured her.

  Trick was good with the afternoon off. On the morning drive in, Katelyn had announced that she had plans after school and wouldn’t need a ride.

  But now she was a little sorry that they wouldn’t be riding home together.

  Then it was time for art, and the girl in the sweatshirt smiled at Katelyn again. When Katelyn smiled back, the girl picked up her sketch pad and a piece of charcoal and moved to the empty chair beside Katelyn, directly beneath the ticking school clock.

  “I’m Paulette,” she said by way of greeting. “How’re you doing?”

  “Pretty well,” Katelyn replied.

  “For someone who had to move from L.A. to here,” Paulette said with an eye roll.

  “It’s not so bad,” Katelyn replied, but her voice cracked, and they both smiled.

  “Look, I know how bad it is.” Paulette offered her another friendly smile, then looked down at her sketch pad and drew a long, curving line.

  Katelyn let her shoulders sag. “It is kind of … um …”

  “Rustic? Quaint?”

  “Wolf Springs is quaint.” Katelyn decided to try to draw a wolf. How to start? A triangle for the head? She thought about the little town, with its old-fashioned streets. “It would make a great tourist attraction.”

  “Too hard to get here,” Paulette said. “Too far from civilization, and bad roads. So.” She glanced at the parking lot. “You’re driving in every day with Trick.”

  Katelyn wasn’t surprised by the comment. She figured people were speculating about her. “Yes.”

  Katelyn looked up to see her reaction and was jolted to see that Paulette had gone all blushy.

  “Lucky,” she said shyly.

  Katelyn was caught off guard. It was the opposite of the reaction Cordelia had had. And if Paulette was crushing on Trick, that meant he wasn’t a total outcast. She felt a flare of jealousy, then was surprised at herself.

  I hardly know him.

  “Do you know who slashed his tires?” Katelyn asked.

  “No. Do you? Did he tell you?” Paulette stopped drawing as she waited for Katelyn’s answer.

  “No idea,” Katelyn confessed. “But I don’t know who anyone is around here anyway.”

  Paulette nodded. “It was probably Mike Wright. Trick had a run-in with him and his friends a while back. They’re such jerks.”

  Katelyn shivered. She was right about Mike. She wished she’d stayed off his radar.

  “Not Trick, I mean. Trick’s not a jerk.” Paulette sighed wistfully and went back to sketching. “You eat lunch with Cordelia Fenner.”

  Katelyn nodded, feeling a little creeped out. Yes, she was the new girl, and yes, people were curious about her, but she was beginning to feel a little stalked.

  “Never liked her,” Paulette said, biting off the words. “You should be careful.”

  Katelyn’s brows rose in surprise. She hadn’t expected her to say anything like that about Cordelia.

  “She acts so sweetsy-sweetsy. And I stress the acts,” Paulette went on. Then she gave Katelyn a slow, measured look. “She and Trick can’t stand each other.”

  “Why not?” Katelyn was struggling to make sense of everything she was hearing.

  “It might be something that happened in kindergarten, for all I know. People around here hold grudges. Maybe it’s because there’s not much else to do.” Her eyes went unfocused then, as if she were gazing at a faraway place. “I’d give anything to live in L.A. It must be so … different.”

  “Well, after you graduate, you can move there,” Katelyn offered.

  “Maybe. Most of the kids here will wind up living here. Some of us get out.” She shrugged. “Anyway, take it slow. Sometimes it’s hard to separate out the phonies, you know what I mean?”

  “Okay. Thanks for the advice.”

  “I just don’t want to see anyone else get hurt,” Paulette said. She looked hard at Katelyn. “Because Cordelia Fenner will hurt you, if she feels like it.”

  Katelyn had no clue what to think about what Paulette had told her, but it weighed on her for the rest of the day. As soon as the final bell rang, she headed for the senior parking lot. Cordelia had beaten her there, and stood waving to her from beside a black pickup truck. Katelyn hadn’t pictured Cordelia as the truck type, although she shouldn’t have been surprised, given the large ratio of trucks to cars in the parking lot. As Katelyn climbed inside the cab, she noticed that it was sparkling clean and smelled like cinnamon.

  “Nice truck,” she managed to make herself say.

  “Thanks!” Cordelia said. Her voice was upbeat, as usual, but her expression was strange�
�tense, almost—her smile fake. Katelyn thought about what Paulette had said about her. She couldn’t agree with it. Cordelia seemed genuinely nice. And now she was genuinely upset about something—and trying to hide it.

  She’d thought about telling Cordelia about the wolf attack. But Cordelia didn’t seem to want to chat. Maybe she was sorry she’d invited Katelyn over.

  “This is okay, my coming home with you, right?” Katelyn asked.

  “Oh, yes, sure,” Cordelia blurted, too quickly and too brightly.

  She pulled out of the parking lot and in silence they drove through the town and turned onto the narrow road that climbed into the mountains. Like Ed, Cordelia’s family lived far outside town. When they turned off the main artery into Wolf Springs, there were no paved roads, and Katelyn couldn’t distinguish one twisted Snow White tree from another. Cordelia focused on her driving so intently that Katelyn remained silent, suppressing the urge to fill the space with chatter. Her mind wandered and she found herself thinking about Trick. She thought about asking Cordelia to tell her more about him, partly to see if it was true that she didn’t like him. But Katelyn didn’t want to seem too curious about a guy Cordelia clearly didn’t approve of. Or maybe it was that she didn’t want to admit she liked him to anyone—including herself—just yet.

  They turned down a winding trail and Cordelia sighed softly. Katelyn glanced at her just as Cordelia’s eyes widened like she’d seen something in the rearview mirror, but all Katelyn saw when she glanced at it was Cordelia. Shadows slid over the truck hood, then across the windshield. The trees seemed closer, denser. They slowed down.

  “We’re he-ere,” Cordelia announced in a singsong voice, mimicking an old horror movie. Katelyn couldn’t remember which one.

  It took a moment for Katelyn to take the structure in completely. She had seen a program on television once where wealthy people into “living green” had built a house around a tree. Cordelia’s house reminded her of this, but at the same time it was nothing like it. A rambling structure of redwood, stone, and stained glass seemed to rise naturally from the earth, twisting and sprouting with turrets and bay windows like the limbs and trunks that grew around it and even through it. Leaves the color of flames swirled in eddies in what appeared to be open-air patios. Set at the top of a large stone staircase, situated on a massive stone porch, the front door was a double arch of redwood interspersed with panes of frosted glass. There were window boxes containing pretty purple flowers. Katelyn had seen plenty of mansions before but nothing near the majesty of this place.