Hungry Ghost

by Allison Moon

  “Alrighty,” Renee said. “You ready?”

  Lexie looked at the white device in the grass and made a face. “Sage, you’re benched for this one.”

  He looked at her, another question. “Go inside the house,” she said.

  He nodded and trotted into the house.

  “Christ, it’s like talking to a robot,” Lexie said.

  “Or a puppy,” Renee laughed. Lexie muttered assent.

  Lexie eased the vibrator between her legs. She looked up at Renee. “Can you give me some privacy, too?”

  Renee gestured to the Octopus control box. “Should I just … ”

  “Turn around.”

  Renee turned. Lexie took a breath and turned on the vibrator. Immediately it sizzled through her skin, a force like twelve of Randy’s motorcycles battering at her nerves.

  A moan escaped her throat before she could catch it, and she gritted her teeth against more overt vocalizations.

  The Octopus worked against her chest and skull but she barely noticed, the jackhammer vibrations through her skeleton obscuring any and all other sensations. Another groan escaped as the sizzles became tiny claws, racing up the surface of her skin in fierce bursts. Restless pinpricks dug in and sprang away, running up her belly, along her chest, her neck, her face. They leapt from the crown of her skull like violent splatters of rain.

  Lexie clenched and released, trying to let the vibrations carry her brain away, but it wouldn’t be budged. She could feel the back of her brain monitoring everything, like an overeager cockpit with dials and gauges she didn’t understand.

  She drew the wand from her and leaned onto her hands, panting.

  Renee turned and grabbed her chin. “You can do this,” she said.

  “How? By clenching real tight? It’s not fucking working!” Lexie threw the vibrator and tore the Octopus from her chest.

  “It will work. You have to stop running away. You did this once before. You almost did it twice. You can do it again.”

  “I don’t know how it happened before!”

  “You freaked the fuck out, Lex! That’s how! Now sit your ass down, and let’s crank this shit out,” Renee said.

  “I can’t.”

  “You have to.”

  “Why don’t you try?” Lexie spat.

  “Stop being a spoiled brat and get your act together.”

  “What?!”

  “You’re taking up too much space. You’re holding us back.” Renee’s anger rose with each shake of Lexie’s chin. “You have to pull your fucking weight and stop acting like some princess who doesn’t have to earn her keep.”

  “I’m putting myself out here to help!” Lexie shouted. “I’m fucking jacking it naked in the frozen grass for you.”

  “Bullshit,” Renee shouted. “You’re doing this for Archer. You don’t give a shit about the Pack or this town.”

  “What? How can you say that?”

  “Because we’ve all been living with it for months.” Renee raised her voice, her frustration moving through her forehead and down her shoulders to her hands. “Your misery is SO LOUD!” She pushed Lexie away from her, and Lexie balked, never having felt Renee’s hands on her like this.

  “I can’t help it,” Lexie pouted.

  “The hell you can’t. You can grow the hell up, starting right now.”

  “How?”

  “Change.”

  “I can’t,” Lexie whimpered.

  Renee whipped her palm across Lexie’s cheek, bringing forth a yelp and a welt.

  Lexie brought her hand to her cheek. She tried to back away, but Renee’s long reach connected again with her face. WHAP!

  Lexie yelped again and shouted, “Stop it!”

  “You stop it.”

  Lexie fell back, holding her face. Renee closed the gap.

  “You’re nuts,” Lexie said.

  “And you’re weak.”

  “I’m not.” Lexie glowered, tears swelling in her eyes.

  “You’re small, stupid, and naïve,” Renee said through gritted teeth.

  “I’m not!”

  “You are. You are so small you don’t even fight back. Not without your girlfriend to come rescue you. But your girlfriend isn’t here anymore. Smart woman left you, just like your mother did. Like everyone will, because you’re unlovable. Ineffective. Stupid. Worthless.”

  “Fuck you!” Lexie spat.

  “Words are for ladies and cowards. Show me your teeth.”

  Renee scooped up the fallen vibrator, pressing it hard against Lexie’s groin. Lexie yelped. Renee gripped the scruff of her neck, yanking her body while grinding the wand harder against her. Lexie didn’t, couldn’t, resist. Her eyes were blurry with tears and her ears burned with the prick of a thousand needles.

  “Show me you’re not just a baby, some kept woman, some toothless little virgin.”

  Lexie whimpered. Renee caught her wrist and yanked Lexie’s thin frame into a half-crouch. She spat in her face, and Lexie flinched, her tears turning to sobs.

  “No wonder your mama chose a bunch of strangers over her own blood. If she had been a wolf, she’d have left you alone in the woods to starve.”

  Renee squeezed the back of Lexie’s neck. Lexie’s legs began to fail, and she quavered in Renee’s brutal grasp.

  The claws on Lexie’s skin became rain, which became a torrent. The wolf was searching for an out as Lexie searched for breath, and she couldn’t deny one any more than the other. She needed to push back against Renee’s attacks, defend her mother, defend herself. The wolf no longer paced; it clawed at her from the inside for its freedom. All she had to do was let it out, let it fight on her behalf. Part daemon, part animus, she had no control over it, and yet it fought for her.

  She found a tiny lock upon a tiny door that existed at once in her sternum, throat, and belly. Like a door to a secret room in her house that appeared only in a dream—when she found it she realized she had known where it was the whole time. She didn’t even need a key.

  The door flew open, and Lexie’s voice spilled forth upon the back of the deluge, a gurgled, howling shriek.

  Lexie roared. Her vision drained, like a cinematic version of death. Her ears filled with static, and she experienced a sensation like falling or sinking, a weightlessness before the shock of impact. A gray space followed. And a black one. The same color in this hazy dark.

  The static in her ears abated and her senses returned to the sound of her own pulse, even and forceful. She found herself staring into Renee’s face from the wrong angle, from below. She looked down at her paws, digging into the soil.

  Lexie gagged and stumbled, her balance off, her body wrong. Her heavy head pulled her off balance. Another sway sent her teetering in the opposite direction. Her throat trembled and hacked. She coughed and tasted bile.

  The cough became a hack. Lexie retched, a great heaving expulsion that shook her heavy frame. The wolf form struggled to keep its tenuous hold. Renee rushed to Lexie and sucker-punched her across the snout, yanking the wolf into sharper relief. Lexie snapped, and Renee jumped away.

  She swayed back again, the world rolling around her, her muscles struggling to find equilibrium.

  Lexie’s human form flashed in and out, pushing her center of gravity up and down her frame, like a magnet trying to find true north. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to hold onto the wolf even as it was wrenched away. She opened her eyes to catch sight of Sage running toward her just as her human body fell backwards to crack the frozen ground. Her ass hit first, then her skull. False lights dazzled at the periphery of her vision.

  Renee crawled over, pressing her face to Lexie’s. The icy grass on one of Lexie’s cheeks mocked the warmth of Renee’s face pressed to the other.

  “There you go,” Renee said. “Hold onto that. Whatever that is, seize it with both hands. Let your heart bury roots there. We’re going to use that righteous rage for every drop it’s worth.”

  38

  Lexie awoke on the floor of the
living room, wrapped in her quilt, a crackling fire her company.

  When she sat up and stretched, Jenna swooped to her side with peppermint tea and a warm hand on her back.

  “How do you feel?”

  Lexie stuck out her tongue, a quasi-zombie face. “Queasy.”

  “Like food poisoning?”

  “Like period cramps.”

  “Ooh!” Corwin shouted. “Now I can help!”

  She ran upstairs and returned with a tin lunchbox embossed with a picture of She-Ra. Inside was a small glass pipe, a metal grinder, two lighters, and a jar full of marijuana.

  Lexie laughed weakly and let her head fall back onto the pillows.

  “You’ll be alright,” Corwin said. “This too shall pass.”

  She packed Lexie a bowl and left her to it.

  “You need anything else?” Jenna asked.

  Lexie shook her head, remembering every time she was sick and her mother sat at her bedside. She wanted to ask for a song or a back scratch, but she didn’t. Instead, she smiled.

  “You want me to carry you to bed?” Corwin asked.

  Lexie shook her head. “I’m liking the fire. I’ll be good down here.”

  Jenna swept her fingertips across Lexie’s forehead and down her cheek. Renee’s quick footsteps thudded down the stairs. She replaced Corwin and Jenna at Lexie’s side.

  “How you doing?”

  The orange firelight made Renee’s face glow like polished rosewood. Her expression was stoic but gentle. The hurt of Renee’s words dissolved in the wake of the truth she had forced Lexie to face.

  “Will you scratch my back?” Lexie asked, meekly. Renee smiled and eased to her elbow, tracing her fingertips against Lexie’s skin.

  “We’re going to bed, Lex,” Mitch called from the kitchen. “Just holler if you need anything.”

  Renee stayed next to Lexie for a long while, until the house echoed with the whispers of girls slipping into sheets and the heavy breath of sleep.

  Finally Lexie said, “We’re out of time.”

  Renee shook her head and stared into the flames. The same fire had danced in her eyes when she stood over Blythe’s bloodied corpse.

  “The Crow Moon is in three days. They’ll come for us. We know they will.” Lexie curled herself around the pillows on the floor as if they were a lover, or at least a friend. Lexie sighed and leaned back on the pillows. “I think I’m bleeding.”

  “Band-aid?”

  “Tampon.”

  “That doesn’t bode well.” Renee went to the downstairs bathroom and returned with a small box. “I don’t like not knowing what all this electro-mess is about.”

  Lexie cracked her knuckles one by one. “Me neither.” Then, after a long pause: “Are you going to try it?”

  “Of course,” Renee said.

  “Can I be mean to you then?” Lexie asked.

  Renee chuckled. She sat again, but she left a space between herself and Lexie. She stared into the fire and scratched her head. “I’m sorry that I went there. You okay? For real?”

  Lexie shrugged and rolled onto her back, facing Renee, who loomed above her. Their position reminded Lexie of the autumn, when the scariest question Renee could ask was Can I kiss you?

  “I guess that’s what people call ‘tough love’?” Lexie asked.

  Renee replied with a grunt.

  “I didn’t really have that growing up. The love I got was quiet and passive. Sulking, almost. Not tough.” Lexie grabbed a tampon from the box and weaseled it under the blanket and inside of her. She edged toward Renee to curl up tighter next to her body. Renee combed her fingers through Lexie’s hair, scratching her scalp.

  “Tough love was the only kind my father seemed to know about,” Renee said. “My mama, too, in a different way.” Her fingers stilled in Lexie’s hair. “I guess that probably says a lot about me.”

  Lexie chuckled and nudged her head against Renee’s hand, demanding the other girl continue the dance of fingernails over her ears and cheeks.

  “Does that mean you love me?” Lexie asked, hiding the vulnerability of the question behind a playful tone.

  Renee cocked an eyebrow. “What do you think?”

  Lexie nodded and edged the blanket up to her chin, giggling. Maybe she was being foolish, but she didn’t care.

  “Of course I do,” Renee said, tickling Lexie’s neck, playing back. She cupped Lexie’s neck in her hand, coaxing Lexie to stillness. “You think you’re nothing special, Lexie. Sometimes that makes you distant and cynical. But you gotta let yourself be loved if you want to have a chance at loving anyone else. And you have to start it off with believing you’re worthy of it.”

  Lexie wrapped her fingers around Renee’s lean forearm. “It feels so unsafe. Like I’ll look weak or something.”

  Renee shook her head. “Big difference between being strong and being tough. I learned that a long time ago. Toughness is just a layer—the leather on a couch or the bark on a tree. You’re strong. You’ve proven that over and over again. And you’re going to have to keep proving it as long as you want to walk this world. But strength means pliability, tenderness. The willingness to wear your insides on the outside and to change, mold, and move.”

  Lexie released Renee’s arm and hugged her pillows tighter. It made sense. It also sounded exhausting. And terrifying.

  And maybe just a little bit exhilarating.

  Renee sighed and rubbed her forehead. “Try to get some rest. Big days ahead.” Renee put her hand on Lexie’s belly. Her fingers swept to Lexie’s hip and down her leg. Feathers danced on the surface of Lexie’s skin. She smiled up at Renee.

  Renee left, taking the stairs two at a time, and Lexie watched, contemplating her lithe frame, her wiry muscles, her firm skin—layers of tender strength.

  All things must change/ To something new, to something strange.

  Lexie stared at the fire for a long while. The fluttering in her belly steadied and roiled in turn, over and over again. She tracked Renee’s footsteps from her room to the bathroom and back, the whisper of the sheets as she pulled them over her body, and the heavy sigh as she tried to ease herself to sleep. Moments later, Lexie heard the click of Renee’s desk lamp and the rustle of pages.

  Lexie took a puff from the pipe and let the smoke find the crevices in her chest that needed sloughing. Like a creeping incense, the smoke filled everything and made her feel clean.

  Outside, the moon waxed gibbous inside a rich blue halo of clear sky. She felt it tug on her chest, silver threads snaring like spider silk, seducing her into the woods. But she resisted. Out there was Sage, were Morloc, were a million things she didn’t want to face. Inside there was a fireplace and food and marijuana. Fuck the woods. Just fuck ‘em.

  Lexie let her mind wander, watching the firelight and letting all the trauma and worries dribble out her ears. The tendons in her neck relaxed, as did the tiny muscles behind her eyes. She took a deep breath and let her jaw dangle open. This body. She would learn to love it, even if it killed her. She snorted at her gallows humor.

  She brought the pipe to her lips and flicked the lighter, holding the flame to the herb and inhaling. Smoke filled her mouth and lungs. The firelight flickered against her skin, and she saw her second form appear and vanish. Her wolfish hands held the pipe and lighter, translucent claws curled around the curved glass of the bowl. Half-swallowed by her large paws they might be, but the two tools were still held firm between her dexterous fingers.

  Lexie lowered her hands, held her breath, and considered. She raised them to the light again, squinting, capturing her secondary form in her vision. She wiggled her thumbs.

  “No shit,” she whispered. “Thumbs.”

  39

  The phone had been ringing for thirty seconds without going to voicemail. Lexie sat at her desk, wrapped in her mother’s quilt. Frost clung to the outside of her bedroom window, and fog clung to the inside. Finally, when Lexie was two rings away from hanging up, Lorelei Koda picked up. Her voice was
small, a whispering monotone. At Lexie’s request, she put on her husband, George. Lexie hadn’t seen him since the day Archer killed Hank Speer.

  “Mr. Koda?” she said.

  “Hello, Alexis Clarion,” George said, friendly and frank, as was his way.

  Lexie tried to make small talk, but George wasn’t the loquacious type and she ended up feeling stupid.

  “Mr. Koda,” she finally said. “I have a big favor to ask.” She wanted to sound matter-of-fact, like her father, like there was nothing weird at all about asking a buddy to borrow his pump-action shotgun.

  She wasn’t sure of the words she used, but she tried her best not to stumble over the request, like a neophyte telemarketer desperate to close. There was a long silence at the other end of the phone. Lexie strained to hear George breathing behind all the static and squeals of the telephone connection.

  “Alexis Clarion,” he said. He always used her full name in a mystifyingly patriarchal yet endearing way. “What are you getting up to?”

  “ Hunting,” she squeaked.

  He sighed like he was accepting a great burden. “I don’t really know. I remember what happened the last time I saw you.”

  Lexie walked to her window and saw Sage in a circle with the women, leading them through movements that looked like Tai Chi.

  “It’s not like that, Mr. Koda. My friend and I. We just want a way to defend ourselves.”

  “I can respect that. But why aren’t you asking your father?”

  Lexie bit her lip, wondering if the truth might be useful in this scenario. “We’re not talking,” she said.

  Another interminable pause. “Come by around dinnertime. Mrs. Koda will be here. She’ll loan you a pair.”

  Lexie’s next breath came in a half-squeal, half-scream. “Thank you, Mr. Koda,” she eked out.

  “Mm-hm,” Mr. Koda sighed. He caught her before she could hang up. “Alexis Clarion, I trust your father so I trust you. You understand?”

  “Yes, Mr. Koda,” Lexie said, her ears growing hot. He hummed again and hung up.

  Downstairs, Renee was sipping coffee, watching Sage and the girls through the kitchen window.