by Janel Kolby
“I don’t know,” I say.
He leans his forehead to mine and takes a deep breath. “Oh, Rain.” He taps my cupped hands. “What do you have there?”
I open my hands and the hamster peers out. “He found me.” I close my eyes and rub my forehead against King’s.
He leans back. A space between us, his mouth open with no words emerging.
“I’m older than you think,” I say. “I’ve been kissed.”
His eyes harden. “What do you mean you’ve been kissed?”
“When you left me at that hotel. I was kissed. I didn’t want it, but there it is. I’ve been kissed, and I’m becoming.”
He tenses his jaw. “Who did it?”
“That boy. Carter. He kissed me and his breath smelled like mint.” King’s would be sweeter—like MoonPie.
He scoots his feet under him. “I’m gonna kill him. What else did he do?”
“Nothing, and you don’t need to kill him. I took care of it. I bit him.”
“Bit him? And then what?”
I come up to my knees and lean in. “And then I became a werewolf. What do you think?”
He’s not amused. “What happened?”
“Nothing. I went to the V.”
“Your first kiss?” He grinds his teeth. “It was, wasn’t it?”
“I don’t think it should count as such if you don’t want it.”
“Naturally,” he says.
“But I can’t forget, either. I don’t think that’s what it should be like. I know what it should be like. I should want the kiss.”
He stands. “We should head back.”
I stand with him. “You need to replace it.”
“What?” He’s not listening.
“Yours is the one I want to remember.”
“A kiss?” Now he’s listening. He backs up.
“How old were you when you had your first?”
He breathes out hard. “That’s a different matter.”
“It is for boys, isn’t it? They seem to have all the say.”
“Not always.”
“In my experiencing. He kissed me when I didn’t want it, and you won’t when I do.”
“You’re fifteen. And I’m—”
“I know what I am.” I step forward. “And I know what you are. I know you. Will you do it?”
He fists the hat and hits it against his thigh. “Dammit, Rain.” Takes another step back and examines me.
I know I must look a mess with my long hair gone wild and my dirty legs and feet. I pull the T-shirt down at the hem to make it more of a dress.
He steps forward and places his lips on top of my head. “There. Now you’ve had your second first kiss, you don’t need no more.”
My feet are warm against the cool ground. I tilt my chin up. “Let it be my first first.”
He breathes in deep. I breathe in shallow. My heart races my breath. And that’s all I am. Breath and heart. Heart and breath. The rest melts into the silver moonlit trunks of my Evergreens.
He lifts his finger to my bottom lip—and touches a parched ridge.
The trees whisper, More. Ask for more.
His eyes stay on my lips. “You need water.”
“So do you.”
“So do I.” He touches his own lips, and I can’t look away from them.
He drops his hand to my elbow and leans in.
His lips touch mine, and the trees sigh around us. His mouth parts, and his tongue brushes wet and light. Across my lips. All that I need. His hands move to the small of my back, and catch my hair in them. His fingers tug.
I pause, but then remind myself it’s King and reach over his shoulders. My T-shirt rises, and he pushes me away from him.
“Rain,” he says. Eyes like coal with blue around the edges. “Enough?”
No.
“For a first kiss?” His hands clench. “Is that enough?”
And because it’s him, I nod.
He begins to walk. “We need to get you some clothes. You can’t keep going around in my shirt like that. And some shoes. You need shoes. Why didn’t you grab some of my socks? I don’t know why he . . .”
I hate it when he turns like this. “Why what?”
“Nothing,” he says.
I walk after him, and a twig snaps underfoot. “Say it. He? My dad? Why he took my stuff? Is that why you were storming today?”
“Somethin’ like that.”
“You don’t need to take care of me. When my dad gets back—”
“He won’t.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because it’s true.” He squeezes the hat in his hands. “And I think you know it is.”
I hug the hamster to my chest. “Tell me what he said to you yesterday.”
King picks a loose piece of bark from a tree. “It’s not what he said. I saw it in his face. When I told him about you being safe.”
“Was he drinking?”
“No.” He bends the slice of bark in his fingers and matches it to one of the cross lines on the hat. “He was sober. I could tell he took it wrong. Was thinking you were somewhere better. I thought you were, too.”
The hamster settles into one of my hands, and I press a finger into the peeled-tender part of the tree. “That’s why he took everything, isn’t it? He thought none of it was good enough.”
He cracks the bark and drops it to the ground. “I should’ve told him you needed him. But I didn’t. I left him that way. On purpose. Because you deserve more.”
I rest my head on the tree, and a drop of water falls to my hand. Came from the tree. Not from me.
No. That’s an untruth. It did come from me.
He tries to put the hat on me, but I push it away.
He holds up the hat. “None of what I have is good enough.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Why not?” He pulls the hat on his own head. “It’s true. You belong in one of them fairy tale books you like so much. I think you’d jump in if you could. Hell, I’d push you in.”
“I don’t want that.”
“I’m not accusing. Your mind’s been a whole lot better in them books than fixing on the things around you. How we live.”
He starts to tear another piece of bark from the tree, and I press his hand down.
“You’ll kill it,” I say. “You taught me that.”
His fingers brush against mine. Then he pulls his hand free. “Used to be—living here was like one of them books, and we were making it up day to day. Our own world. Working our way to a good ending.”
The hamster wiggles in my hand. “We were.”
“No. Cuz you never told me. I never heard until tonight. What your mom wished.”
The hamster freezes. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Yes, you do. That’s what you said in your story. The one you told Jess. Your mom wished. What’d she wish?”
I hadn’t realized he’d paid attention. “I don’t know for sure. Only what I think. She wasn’t there even when she was. And then she made it permanent.”
He thumps the toe of his shoe on the tree. “Then I did hear you right. Her story, I mean. How come you never told me?”
I don’t have an answer. I didn’t know I had that story until this night.
He frowns. “Maybe Hamlet was right. You don’t belong here.”
His words, those words must be caught in the branches above us. They don’t belong to him.
“I’m doing all kinds of stupid to keep us going,” he says. “But you’re . . .” He rubs his lips together as if he’s smashing the words. “You called yourself Winterfolk.”
I close my eyes. I hear him kick the tree.
“You don’t belong here. And you don’t belong with me,” he says. “I was never meant to be your first kiss. You don’t know me.”
I open my eyes. “You mean the fire.”
The wind blows his hair across his face. “How do you . . . You talk to squirrels and trees. The Lady.”
/> “I’m not crazy.”
He pulls his hair back to look at me. “I didn’t say you are. I know you aren’t.” His hand digs into the bark. “She wants you to stay away from me.”
“I won’t.”
“You should.” The eyeshine is back in his eyes. “I convinced her—my sister. She didn’t want to leave him at the house alone. Drunk like that. He was mad as hell I took his knife. Didn’t know he’d fall asleep with that cigarette.”
I swallow hard.
He picks at the bark again, and I slap his hand. “You’re gonna kill it.”
He rips it off and backs away. The leaves shield his face.
“You were only trying to protect.”
He laughs. “You wanna know what Matisse said on the phone today when I went up the hill? Do you?”
I hold the hamster close to me.
“Cook.” The name is mucous as he spits it out. “He’s dead.”
“What?”
“I killed him. Yesterday morning. Like I thought I did. When I was getting back your boots.”
“But I saw him. We both did. He chased us. That doesn’t make any sense.”
He backs up. Gets blurry.
“Ghosts,” he says. “They’re goddamn real, aren’t they?” He takes another step away, and I don’t see him no more.
“King?” The hamster struggles, and I drop it to the ground. “King!” I go after him.
I push through the branches, and those branches are so near looking to the Lady’s vines. They scrape my arms and legs and snag at my feet, but I don’t let them trip me.
“King!”
I stand still to listen. A movement to my left turns my head. “King?”
POP-POP!
The air ripples, and I crouch.
POP-POP-POP-POP!
Then silence.
28
THE CHILL OF THE earth presses into my knees. I know I need to move, but the stars are dim behind the thick night clouds, and danger hangs on the trees. No reasonable creature moves under such circumstances.
“King?” I whisper in the dark.
“Shhhh . . .” He emerges from my left and stoops next to me.
“Was that . . .”
“It came up that way from our camp. I need to get you out of here. We gotta go down.”
He nudges my arm, but I push back.
“No,” I say. “Jessiebel is up there. We can’t leave him.”
“I’m not. I need to get you safe first, and then I’ll find Jess. You can stay with Heck. I know him good. He’s helped before.”
“You mean you want me out of the way. Too bad there’s no ocean here, or a storybook. Then you could push me into it.”
He looks hard at me. “I’m not gonna argue with you. We don’t have time.”
“I agree we don’t, so I’m going with you. You can’t make me stay in some guy’s tent while you find Jessiebel. You can’t do that to me again. We need to go, right? So let’s go.”
He turns to the hill. “I wish I did have an ocean.” Then he looks behind at me. “Well? Come on.”
I scramble to him, keeping low as he does. We step light through the trees, and listen for sounds.
“Who you suppose it was?” I ask.
“Shhh.”
I shut up only cuz I know he’s right, but I can’t stand the quiet. He holds up a branch for me to duck under, and then I hold it up for him. He knows his way along better than I do, so I follow close, wishing I still had my rock and stocking. I know he has his blade.
A commotion ahead stops us, and King tugs me down. It’s the same mindless sound I probably made running after the hamster earlier.
He pulls out his knife and looks sidelong at me. “Get ready.”
I don’t know how to get ready. I scoot back and am frantic for something on the ground I could use, but there’s nothing bigger than pebbles and twigs. Two handfuls are better than none.
I wait as the rustle of leaves gets louder. I squeeze the pebbles. Ready.
The tree throws out a being, and my legs tense as King secures his thumb over the handle of the blade. The figure flaps near—in the likes of a white peacock, with a plume of tail feathers and a crown on top his head.
Jessiebel.
King stands.
I drop the pebbles. “Stop.”
King doesn’t hear. He rises with grace while the figure gets closer—turning from peacock to prince. King lifts his hand. Easy.
“Stop!” I jump in front of King. “It’s Jessiebel!”
The white prince’s arm raises with a glint of silver, a gun, and King’s eyes dart quick to me. He can finally see. “Jess!” he says.
Jessiebel’s eyes are wild as he waves the silver gun back and forth.
I jump up again. “Jessiebel! Stop!”
Almost on top of us, Jessiebel points the gun straight. Then his eyes go wide in recognition. “Run!” he shouts. “Fucking run!” He sprints past us. His cape catches the wind.
Before I can think, King grabs my hand and pulls me, and I find myself scrambling after them. Looking only ahead, not at any of the shadows that may be looming behind. Gate after gate of branches opens to us, and I will them to shut after we pass and turn into a fortress. Grow! I command. Grow! My fingers slip in King’s, and I spring forward to hold them tight again.
“Turn right, Jess!” he calls out ahead.
We veer right, now on Jessiebel’s heels. King reaches out and grabs one of Jessiebel’s shoulders to hold him up. “This way!” We slip past him and Jessiebel follows us down. A steep part of the hill makes King’s shoes slide, but I brace against his back and push him up before he falls. We fly down the rest of the hill, down through the blue tents, King now pulling because I can’t keep all the way up, and we bound to the farthest one, where Sabbath sits alert in front of the tent. King cradles me down to the entrance and unzips. Jessiebel lands behind me. His hand on my back shakes while Sabbath licks my face.
“Heck! It’s King, wake up. They’re coming. Wake up.”
“Who’s coming?” I say.
“I told you he had friends, didn’t I?”
A brown hand pokes out and unzips the tent the rest of the way, and we all fall in—me over King, and Jessiebel over the both of us, tangling our legs. We scramble apart into the spaces, and breathe heavy.
King snatches the gun from Jessiebel in the dark and turns it over in his hands. “Where’d you get this?”
Jessiebel breathes quick and heavy. “I was out looking for you when these guys came to the tent, and there was a log, and I hit them with it, and one of them dropped the gun and I grabbed it and I started running and I heard them behind me, and Holy Mary, I started shooting and I don’t know if I hit them or not. I just kept running. I knew I could outrun them if I kept going. I was cross-country—three years straight regional champ.”
“Congratulations,” a rough voice says. Heck turns a lantern on low. Green eyes light up, and I teeter back. “Sabbath told me something was up. How many are there?” he asks. He hunches over himself. The web tattoo on his neck pulses.
“Two.” Jessiebel takes off his blanket. “And there’s no need to be rude. I’m a fantastic runner.”
“Sure,” Heck says. “Nice track pants.”
King opens the gun’s cylinder. “No more bullets.” He snaps it shut. “Did the other have a gun?”
“No, I don’t think so. I didn’t see it.”
“What’d they look like?” King says. “One tall? Bald?”
“Yes. The other was in a dark hoodie. I didn’t see his face. The bald one dropped the gun.”
King and Heck look at each other with recognition. They know the guys.
I hug my arms.
Heck reaches under a pillow and pulls out something large and sharp. Above it, softly lit words blacken the side of his tent.
THE SPIRITS BIND OUR HANDS AND FEET
AND CUT OUT OUR TONGUES
BUT OUR EYES STAY OPEN TO WATCH THE HORROR
O
F THE ONE WHO COMES.
Heck notices me reading. “The shit keeps coming, doesn’t it? We don’t have a choice.”
I keep my head still.
“No one ever asks to die,” he says, “unless the pain of being alive is worse than their fear of death. I’ve asked. Quiero morirme. It must be the same with being born. No one would ever ask unless they had to.”
Cold air chills me from the door of the tent. I scoot myself into a corner and pull the T-shirt over my knees and tuck in my chin.
King glances at the words and shakes his head in a way meant only for me. Not to worry, he says. But I am to worry, and I can’t believe King wanted to leave me alone with someone’s demons.
King crawls to the open door and looks out.
Sabbath whimpers.
King nods to Heck. “You ready?”
Heck nods. “Keep your eyes open,” he says to me. “Quiero morirme.”
They step out together. King pops his head back in the tent. “Stay in here,” he says. Then he closes it up, and Jessiebel and I are alone, and I’m reading those words again. I want to be outside.
“Heck is crazy,” I say.
Jessiebel shudders with exaggeration. “Creepy.” He smiles. “Who do you think it is? The one who comes?”
I feel numb. “Can’t be Cook. He’s dead.”
His eyebrows raise. “Dead?”
“Yes.”
“Well, good, I guess,” Jessiebel says. “That’s probably good.”
I rub my eyes.
“Hey, did you hear Heck say I have nice legs?” He’s changing the subject on purpose.
“He said you have nice track pants.”
“I’m sure he meant legs.” He stretches them in front of him. He’s barefoot. “Where did you and King go before? You scared me to death when I woke up and couldn’t find you. Well, not to death. Sorry, but you know what I mean.”
“Why are you barefoot?”
“I wasn’t expecting to be chased through the forest. My legs are sweating like crazy in this pleather, not to mention my butt crack. I wish I had my kilt. But I’m glad you and King weren’t there. If I hadn’t gone looking for you, I don’t know what they would’ve done. Do you think—”
Sabbath barks.
“What’s that?” I ask.
The foliage rustles on the outskirts of the camp, and King’s and Heck’s footsteps move away from the tent.