by Nancy Holder
“I’m taking her home now,” Cordelia went on. “So we’ll be out of your hair.”
“We can manage dinner,” Justin said to her. He turned back to Katelyn and gave her a slow smile. His teeth were very white. “Welcome, Kat.”
Katelyn searched for words, but Cordelia had already grabbed her by the hand and was dragging her out the door before she could respond. As she climbed into the truck, Katelyn couldn’t help looking back. Justin stood in the doorway, watching them go. A trail of heat flashed up her back and spread across her shoulder blades. And before she knew it, Cordelia had eased the truck out and they were shooting up the driveway.
As the truck rattled along the dirt path, the spell slowly dissipated.
Cordelia was saying, “I’m sorry. Jesse is … special.”
Katelyn nodded. She was embarrassed that Cordelia thought she cared about that. But it was a good cover to explain how flustered she was by Justin. Just replaying the last minute or two gave her goose bumps. Good ones.
“He seems like a sweetie,” Katelyn assured her.
“Yeah. Jesse is great, but he’s never going to be able to be on his own. That’s okay, though. Family takes care of each other.”
Cordelia downshifted as they started up the steep grade. She flicked on an iPod, which Katelyn hadn’t noticed, and it began to play through the speakers.
Her brain hit an instant replay of what had just happened between her and Justin, and this time the memory of his scent penetrated her brain. He smelled like the ocean. Salty, plus that indefinable whatever-it-was she inhaled when she stood barefoot in the sand, closed her eyes, and lifted her face to the sun.
“Is the cheek kissing a family thing?” Katelyn asked, trying to sound casual. Now that she’d had a chance to process everything, she’d realized that Justin had been millimeters away from kissing her cheek, too. He’d stopped himself just in time.
Cordelia made a face. “I know it’s weird. We can be a bit touchy-feely sometimes. Sorry about that.”
So it is a family thing, Katelyn thought, disappointed. But it hadn’t felt like it. It had been too charged, too intimate.
“Please. I come from the land of the air kiss,” Katelyn said, struggling to mask her confusion. “And my mom was French.”
Cordelia clenched her teeth and smiled. “Again, sorry. I thought we’d have the place to ourselves this afternoon and you met half the family instead.”
“Your sisters are freakishly weird,” Katelyn admitted, wrinkling her nose. “Jesse is sweet and Justin’s … intense.”
Cordelia’s face darkened. “He’s always been that way, ever since we were kids. Since his dad died, though, he’s letting that side show more.”
So Justin had lost his father, too.…
“What about his mom?”
“Died when Justin was a baby,” Cordelia said, squinting through the windshield. “My mom’s dead, too.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Katelyn said, surprised. She hadn’t met many other people who had lost parents, like she had.
“I don’t even remember her,” Cordelia said quietly.
“At least you have your dad still,” Katelyn said, faltering.
“Yeah. Gotta love Daddy.” She cocked her head at something she saw. Katelyn tried to follow her line of vision, but the sun was in her way.
Katelyn’s mind wondered. She wondered how Justin had been coping with losing both of his parents and if he resented living with Cordelia’s family the same way she resented living with her grandfather. He was old enough to be on his own. Then she thought of Jesse and realized that he was probably doing it for him.
It gave her a tiny, momentary thrill that there might be someone else out here in the middle of nowhere who understood what she was going through.
“What happened to their dad?” she asked, then realized maybe asking was rude.
“It was a hunting accident,” Cordelia said simply, but she suddenly looked pale and she wrapped her hands tightly around the steering wheel.
Katelyn wondered how close Cordelia and her uncle had been and decided not to push any further. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.”
“No, it’s okay. I guess I haven’t really had anyone I could talk about it with.” Cordelia flashed her a shy smile, and Paulette’s warning came to mind.
Was she acting right now for Katelyn’s benefit?
“Funny how you can think you have a lot of friends, but when times are hard or you can’t really hang out, they just seem to evaporate like smoke,” Cordelia added, an edge to her voice.
Katelyn thought of Kimi. She didn’t want that to happen with them, but if she was honest with herself, she could admit already feeling the strain of the distance. Kimi was moving on, making new friends to do things with. Paulette’s dire warnings aside, Cordelia seemed like she could be a friend. But ever having the kind of closeness she had had with Kimi again was hard to imagine.
Tears stung the corners of her eyes but she was sick of crying, sick of giving in to panic and despair. It was time to stand on her own two feet. What would her dad say? Don’t be a victim. Although he himself eventually had been one.
“Oh, crap,” Katelyn said suddenly. “I was supposed to call my grandfather to tell him we’re on our way.”
“Use my cell,” Cordelia offered. She held it out. The cover was psychedelic-looking, with swirls of color.
“Cool cover,” Katelyn said.
“Don’t you love it? It glows in the dark.”
“Is there a signal here?”
“Yup,” Cordelia replied.
“Then I’ll use my phone. Thanks, though.”
“No problem,” Cordelia said.
Katelyn whipped her own phone out. Her grandfather’s number was programmed in now. She scrolled through her address book until she came to it, and pressed send, but instead of a “hello” on the other end, she got the answering machine. She told him they’d left the Fenners’ and would be home soon.
The sun was beginning to dip when they pulled up outside her grandfather’s cabin. The light was already fading, and it irritated her; it was a symbol of the boundaries of her new world.
“It gets dark quick around here,” she said, staring at the cabin.
“It doesn’t in L.A.?” Cordelia sounded amused.
Katelyn shrugged. “With all the lights it seems like it never gets dark.”
“I don’t remember that. I was really young when we took a trip out there.” Cordelia’s voice trailed off wistfully.
“After I move back, you should come visit,” Katelyn said, warming to the thought. It would be fun to show her around.
“I’d love to, but …”
“What?” Katelyn asked.
The other girl went very quiet. Something seemed to settle around her shoulders like a heavy burden, as if night was literally falling on her.
“Life’s just too complicated, you know?” she said.
“Have you met my grandfather?” Katelyn said archly.
The door to the cabin opened suddenly, startling her, and Ed appeared on the porch, staring right at them.
Katelyn sighed. “I guess that’s my cue.” She gave Cordelia a weak smile and grabbed her schoolbag.
Her grandfather stepped off the porch right as she opened the car door. She hoped that she wasn’t in trouble for not calling sooner. But he wasn’t headed toward her; he was walking toward the driver’s side.
Katelyn got out and shut the door. Ed gave her a brief wave as he bent down toward Cordelia’s window, and Katelyn stopped to watch. Cordelia rolled down her window and he shoved his hand through and they shook.
“Stay for dinner?” he asked.
“Um, sure,” Cordelia said, glancing over at Katelyn for approval.
She nodded, pleased and surprised that he had made the offer.
“Good.” He turned and walked back into the cabin, leaving the door open.
Cordelia got out and joined her, and they headed up the steps together.
“I’d rather eat with you guys than see what my cousins decide to call dinner.”
“Do you need to call and check?” Katelyn asked.
Cordelia shook her head. “I’ll be all right.”
Katelyn wondered if she was the only person not allowed out after dark. Cordelia had grown up there, so maybe that accounted for her greater freedom. And the Fenners didn’t live in town, but her house wasn’t as remote as the cabin—not deep in the middle of the woods. Must be nice. And normal.
As Cordelia came into her grandfather’s house, Katelyn wondered what she thought of it. The cabin was tiny compared to Cordelia’s house.
“Homey,” Cordelia said, smiling at both of them. She walked down the row of heads and paintings. “Very nice. Did you bag all these?” she asked Katelyn’s grandfather, who was standing at the entrance to the kitchen.
“I did,” he replied proudly.
“Wow.” She sounded genuinely impressed, and Katelyn had to suppress an eye roll. She just didn’t get the hunting thing.
“Want to see my room?” Katelyn asked, feeling a little shy. “Unless you need help with dinner?” she asked Ed.
“Go ahead.” He looked pleased as he disappeared into the kitchen.
The two girls went up the stairs. Cordelia paused to glance at the stained-glass window with the McBride coat of arms, then trailed Katelyn into her bedroom.
“It’s a lot smaller than yours,” Katelyn said as she dropped her backpack on the floor. Cordelia followed her lead while glancing up at the skylight. Then she bent over and dug out the library books.
“Now, before we were so rudely interrupted,” she went on, flushing to her roots at the memory of Cordelia’s cousin’s arrival, “I think we decided on the Madre What’s-it Mine as our subject.”
Cordelia sighed heavily, and Katelyn raised her brows. “Or … something else?” She couldn’t figure out why Cordelia was so unenthusiastic. It was a perfect choice.
There was a knock on the door. Then it cracked open. “Cordelia?” Katelyn’s grandfather said around the edge. “Carnivore or herbivore?”
“Carnivore,” Cordelia said.
“Check,” he replied, shutting the door.
Cordelia smiled at Katelyn. “Your grandfather’s a honey,” she whispered.
“Oh, my God, you didn’t just say that,” Katelyn moaned, grinning at her. She picked up another book, this one titled Legends of the Mountains. “Maybe we can find something else.”
“I’ll look, too,” Cordelia said, reaching for the legends book.
They began to root through a few of the books. As Katelyn ran her eyes along the pages, she couldn’t help slowing down whenever she came across a backwoods legend. There was one about the Banshee Lady, a woman who had drowned her children in the swamp in a fit of rage, and who wandered through the pines in the dead of night, shrieking with grief, searching for her lost little ones. There was another one about Tío Oso—Uncle Bear—an old mountain man who had gone off to live with the bears and actually transformed into one and could be heard roaring late at night.
She got engrossed in a really freaky story about Hangman Hank, a backwoods thief who would lean down from trees, dangling nooses made out of vines, to hang unsuspecting passers-by, then go through their belongings. She thought of the trees looming over the cabin and gave a quick glance up at the skylight. Cordelia had a point about not doing something supernatural; given that a girl had died in the vicinity of Wolf Springs, lurid tales of grisly deaths might not be the best thing to read about in a cabin cut off from civilization. Which made her return to the idea of the … What was it called? The Madre Vena mine. It was perfect.
“Girls?” Ed called. “Set the table?”
“Free at last,” Cordelia said, shutting the book she’d been looking through with a satisfied smack.
They found Ed at work in the kitchen. There was a pot of pasta bubbling and he had a jar of marinara sauce on the counter. He glanced at Cordelia over his shoulder.
“I cook on the rare side,” he said.
“You’ll get no complaints from me, sir,” Cordelia said with another grin.
Fifteen minutes later they were at the table, and Katelyn, sitting in front of a bowl of cheese tortellini, watched the other two dig into steaks. She mostly listened as they talked about the weather and local issues. It seemed that while not everyone in the area knew everyone else, they all knew of each other. So though it was the first time the two had met, they already seemed to share a familiarity that she found enviable.
“Do you want to do more work?” Katelyn asked when dinner was over.
Cordelia hesitated, pulling her phone out of her pocket and glancing at it. “I should probably get back home,” she said.
Katelyn was disappointed. Having her there had made things more bearable—more normal. She and Cordelia divvied up the library books, and Cordelia put her half into her backpack.
“We can look through them and see what else catches our fancy,” Katelyn suggested.
“I’m sorry I’m not more into the mine,” Cordelia said, smoothing back her hair.
“It’s no big deal,” Katelyn assured her, although in truth she was a little frustrated. She had some catching up to do in her other classes and she didn’t want to waste a bunch of time spinning her wheels on picking their topic. She couldn’t understand why Cordelia was being so particular.
When they walked to the front door, Katelyn saw that it was pitch black outside. She was about to walk down the stairs with Cordelia when Ed put a hand on her shoulder, restraining her just inside the door. She hunched her shoulders as anger bubbled up within her, and she looked apologetically at Cordelia.
“Sorry, he won’t let me step outside the house after dark,” she said, biting off each word, not bothering to hide her frustration.
“That’s smart,” Cordelia replied earnestly. “At least, until you get to know the woods better.”
“I see your father lets you go out.”
Her grandfather’s grip on her shoulder tightened. Then he moved past her and joined Cordelia on the porch.
“I was raised here,” Cordelia said. “Besides, I have a gun in the glove compartment.”
Katelyn opened her mouth to ask if everyone drove around with guns in their cars, but before she could, Cordelia added, “You should think about learning to shoot.”
“I’m going to be teaching her,” Katelyn’s grandfather said.
“Good.” Cordelia looked serious, but her expression passed almost too soon to notice and a bright smile replaced it. “Thanks again for dinner, Dr. McBride. See you tomorrow, Kat.”
Katelyn’s grandfather walked Cordelia down the steps, then lingered as she climbed into the truck. She waved as she got behind the wheel, and as soon as she had pulled away, Katelyn’s grandfather came back inside and closed the door.
“You could have at least let me walk her to her car with you,” Katelyn spat as soon as the door clicked shut. “It was ten steps away and you were right there. What on earth could possibly have happened?” She could hear her voice rising. She wasn’t used to living like this. It was crazy.
He stared at her for a long moment, eyes boring into her. “A lot,” he whispered.
Her heart stuttered. He believed what he was saying. “Like what?”
He just shook his head and returned to the kitchen to clean up. Katelyn looked at the door to her prison and wondered uneasily if it was meant to keep her in or something else out.
The next day at school, Katelyn walked from history to the gym with Cordelia and apologized for her grandfather’s medieval behavior.
“No need,” Cordelia said with a smile. “He’s just trying to protect you.”
Katelyn thought about the wolf and what had happened in Trick’s car. It just didn’t make sense. “I’d always heard that wild animals are more frightened of us than we are of them.”
; Cordelia cleared her throat. “There’s a lot of other dangerous things out there in the woods besides animals.”
Katelyn raised her brows. She didn’t mean Tío Oso or Hangman Jack, did she?
“That crazy wolf guy and all the executives,” Cordelia went on. She pounded her chest. “I swear, they could drum you into a frenzy.”
Katelyn sighed. She just couldn’t believe those guys would really hurt anyone.
The girls changed into their gym clothes and headed out to the gym proper to begin stretching out. Katelyn extended her legs in front of her and then easily grabbed her feet with her hands, bending until her forehead touched her knees. It felt so good. God, she needed a class.
“Wow,” Cordelia said. “You are all kinds of bendy.”
“The more you do it, the better you get at it.”
Cordelia snickered, and Katelyn mock-grimaced and rolled her eyes.
“You’re snorting like Mike,” Katelyn said.
Cordelia shivered theatrically. “I’d rather die than snort like Mike.”
As if they’d summoned him, a shadow was thrown over Cordelia’s face. She meaningfully cleared her throat. “Well, hello, Mike, honey,” she said in a singsong voice as she gazed at a place above Katelyn’s head. Katelyn froze, staring at Cordelia, as it registered that Mike was standing behind her.
“Are you talking about me?” Mike snapped.
“Well, of course,” Cordelia said, a purple flush crawling up her cheeks. “We always talk about the good boys.”
“Shut up.”
Katelyn remained silent and still, watching Cordelia until her friend relaxed, indicating that Mike had moved on. “I’m serious,” she whispered to Katelyn. “If I ever do anything remotely Mike-like, just shoot me.”
“Don’t know how,” Katelyn replied cheerfully.
Cordelia wrinkled her small, perfect nose. “You will.”
That afternoon, in the woods behind the cabin, Katelyn found out how serious Ed was about teaching her to shoot. He had set up a target on a tree fifty feet away and was standing next to her, expectantly holding out his wicked-looking rifle.
“It’s a gun,” she heard herself say. She wanted to be able to defend herself. Just not by shooting anything with bullets.