Two Tales Dark and Grim

by Christine Johnson

  Skye sighed. “She’s been wanting to come out here for months. Pretty much ever since Kimberly bailed. When she said she’d made the appointment, I offered to drive her.”

  In the sunlight, his black hair glinted nearly as blue as his truck. Skye was beautiful in that way that is almost girlie. Only the dark stubble lining his jaw, the veins in his forearms, the blunt width of his hands saved him from looking too pretty. He smiled at me, leaning back against his truck. The move did nice things for his arms. It also showed off the tattoo inked on the inside of his forearm. It was a key, one of those big ornate kinds you sometimes see in old movies. I’d asked him once why a key, but he’d only kissed the tip of my nose and said, “Why not?”

  “I wanted to see you today,” he said now, looking at me over the tops of his sunglasses. “And I figured this would kill two birds with one stone. Keep Milly and your mom occupied for an hour. So.” He reached out, his hand closing around my wrist, and pulled me to him. “Can we please get to occupying that time?”

  My palm pressed flat against his chest. “Not here,” I told him, looking around.

  Our trailer was at the very back of the park, and just beyond was the thick pine forest that gave Woodland Hills its name. Skye followed my gaze, squeezing my hand. “She paid for the whole hour,” he murmured low in my ear, and I shivered.

  With one more quick glance at the trailer, I wrapped my fingers tighter around Skye’s and pulled. “Come on.”

  The woods were thick and smelled like pine, dirt and that mossy, green scent of things growing. They were also cooler, the thick branches nearly blotting out the sun. We walked hand in hand until I couldn’t see the trailer anymore, and then, finally, I turned and let Skye wrap me up in his arms.

  We hadn’t had a chance to be alone in over a week, and as Skye kissed me, I felt like I was melting into him, like there was nothing else in the world except me, him and the forest around us, the sound of birds in the trees, the distant burble of the creek. His lips moved over mine, and my fingers twisted in his shirt.

  “I missed you,” he breathed when we pulled apart, and I smiled against his collarbone.

  “I missed you, too.”

  I always missed him. Even though I saw him every day at school, it wasn’t the same as this, being alone with him, kissing him, feeling his arms around me.

  Looking down at me, Skye pushed my hair away from my face. “Admit this was a good idea.”

  When he was holding me, everything seemed like a good idea, but I still wasn’t exactly thrilled that he’d come out here. Or, really, that he’d brought Milly out here.

  With that in mind, I stepped away from him, walking a little farther into the woods. He followed, and while I let him link his fingers with mine, I didn’t say anything until we were even deeper into the trees, the ground underneath growing harder to navigate. Vines and low bushes pushed against the trees here, and even though I could hear the distant hum of I-85, it was like being in the middle of nowhere.

  Once we’d reached the edge of the creek, I turned back to Skye and asked, “Why are we still sneaking around?”

  He raised his dark eyebrows, blowing out a long breath. “Wow. Okay. What brought that on?”

  There was a clump of dandelions at my feet, and I bent down to pick one. Twirling it between my fingers, I watched the fluff take to the air. “It’s just... Skye, are you ashamed of me? Of all this?” I flung the headless dandelion out in the direction of the trailer, and Skye immediately stepped forward, holding my arms with both hands.

  “No,” he said, looking into my eyes. “God, no, Lana. Never.” Skye’s fingers dug into the flesh of my biceps, almost a little too hard.

  “Then why?” I asked, hating the whiny note in my voice but unable to stop it.

  He pulled away, rubbing one hand up and down the back of his neck. He always did that. He’d done it the first day I’d noticed him in French class, back at the beginning of the school year. Skye had been new, and in a county where everyone knew everyone, that had been enough to make him exotic. And then of course there was the unusual name, the blue-black hair, that beautiful, golden key covering the pale skin of his forearm. I was hardly the only girl who’d fallen in love with Skye Bartlett back in August. But he’d fallen for Kimberly McEntire, and that had been that.

  Or so I’d thought.

  After Kimberly had skipped town, things had changed. Skye had started sitting next to me in class, and even though he spent every lunch period with Milly and the rest of Kimberly’s friends, he had always smiled at me. Then one day after French, he’d asked if I’d help him study at the library. He’d kissed me that night up against a shelf of reference books.

  Now I looked at Skye in the late-morning light and asked, “Is it Milly? Is there...? You spend a lot of time with her.” In front of people. In public.

  Skye dropped his hand. “We’re friends, Lan. I only drove her out here today because I wanted to see you.” He stepped closer and I backed up until my elbows dug into the bark of the pine tree behind me. It wasn’t that he scared me. It was that I was afraid if he stood too close, I’d once again forget to be angry, forget how crappy this whole situation made me feel.

  Forget what I’d seen in Milly’s head.

  “It’s just not good timing right now, Lana.” Skye reached out and brushed a sweaty piece of hair from my forehead, his touch featherlight. “Kimberly’s only been gone a few months, and it might look bad if I suddenly had a new girlfriend, you know?”

  Overhead, something rustled in the trees, and on the distant interstate, I heard the blast of a car horn.

  “Is that what I am?” I asked, folding my arms tightly across his chest. “Your girlfriend?”

  Skye lifted an eyebrow, a smirk twisting his lips. “Do you want a ring or something? My letterman’s jacket? I mean, I don’t play a sport, and I’m not even sure they make those things anymore, but maybe Goodwill would—”

  I shoved at his chest. “Don’t make fun of me.”

  Something flashed in his eyes, something dark and angry. But it was gone as soon as it had appeared, and when Skye took my wrist in his hand, his grip was light. “I’m not, I promise. But this is tough for me. I don’t want to look like the dick who doesn’t even miss Kim, you know?”

  This whole conversation was going nowhere, and suddenly I wished I’d never brought it up. We only had an hour, and we’d spent half that already, walking and arguing. Skye was right. There was enough weirdness about Kimberly’s disappearance, and we didn’t want to add to that.

  But then I remembered Milly, the images I’d gotten when I’d touched her ring. “Milly—” I started, and Skye’s fingers tightened around my wrist.

  “I told you, there’s nothing going on. She doesn’t even like me like that.”

  “Yes, she does,” I said before I could stop myself. “I saw it.”

  I hadn’t quite shouted the words, but they’d still come out a lot louder than I’d intended. In a nearby bush, a bird suddenly took wing, and Skye startled.

  “What do you mean you ‘saw it’?” There was a deep crease between his brows, and his grip on my wrist was tight enough to hurt now. I shook him off, irritated.

  “I...I can see things. When I touch people. Same as my mom.”

  Skye blinked, once, then twice, his whole body going still. “So...this psychic crap is for real? Because you said your mom just—”

  “I know what I said.” Shoving my hands into the back pockets of my jeans, I tilted my head back, looking up at the snatches of blue sky through the branches. “I didn’t want you to think I was a freak, but yeah, Momma can really tell a person’s future, and I can get...I don’t know, impressions. When I touch somebody. It’s not a big deal.”

  Skye had backed away from me now, his face pale. “Have you done that to me?” he asked, and I immediate
ly shook my head.

  “No,” I promised. “Never. I only do it to help Momma out before her readings. Anything else feels—” I shuddered “—gross. Like a violation or something.”

  Skye seemed to sigh with his whole body, the breath ruffling his hair where it fell over his forehead. “So when you touched Milly—”

  “She’s into you, trust me.” I left it at that. The longing coming off Milly for Skye had practically wavered there in the air earlier. True, I hadn’t picked up anything else. If anything had ever happened between them, I hadn’t seen it. But that didn’t mean it hadn’t happened.

  “I can’t help it if she likes me, Lana,” Skye said. His own hands were in his pockets now, almost mimicking my pose. “But I don’t feel that way about her. I swear.”

  When I didn’t say anything, Skye took a step closer. “When we kissed earlier... If you’d wanted to, you could’ve looked into my head, right?”

  “I told you I wouldn’t do that,” I snapped.

  Skye was watching me closely now, ducking his head so that he could see into my face. “Do you promise, Lan? Do you promise you would never do that?”

  If he hadn’t said that, maybe I wouldn’t have felt so tempted. But there was something so intense in his gaze, something that made the hairs on my arms stand up. And it was like any temptation, like Skye himself—once I’d been told I couldn’t, I had to.

  “Yeah,” I heard myself say. “I promise.”

  His expression softened. “And I promise Milly and I are just friends. She’s only hanging around me because we both miss Kim. That’s it.”

  He smiled at me, a dimple flashing in one cheek. In the shady woods, his eyes seemed a darker blue, and when he tugged me to him, I let him.

  When he leaned in to kiss me, I closed my hands around his forearms. The key tattoo was just there underneath my palm, and there was one brief moment when I tried to tell myself not to do it. That he had said there was nothing going on with Milly, and I needed to trust him.

  But another darker part whispered, Then why is he still keeping you a secret?

  He had asked me never to read him, and I had promised, but standing there in the woods behind my home, his skin pressed against mine, the temptation was too strong. Just a little bit, I told myself. So I can be sure.

  As always, it felt like opening a door, and I tried to keep the door opened only a crack. Just enough to see if he was lying to me about Milly.

  But the moment the door from my mind to his opened, it was like a hurricane blew through it. Skye kissed me as image after image assaulted my mind. Kimberly crying. Kimberly shoving at Skye’s shoulders. They’re in a field somewhere, and it’s dark, and she needs to shut up, just shut up, shut up. Skye’s hands around Kimberly’s throat, and she’s kicking him, but he’s stronger and her kicks are getting weaker and weaker, and sweat is dripping down his face as he wonders why she won’t die, would she just die already—

  My heart was in my mouth, my stomach rolling, and it took every bit of strength in me not to scream, not to push him away. But we were alone out here, far from anyone, and I’d told him I wouldn’t look. If he knew that I knew...

  We parted, and he pressed his lips to my forehead while I shook. Please let him think it’s from the kiss.

  I wasn’t sure how I managed to smile when he looked down at me. His eyes were so blue. Kimberly had looked into those eyes as he’d choked the life out of her. Kimberly, who had never left town, who had no glamorous future in L.A. Kimberly, who was probably at the bottom of a lake, or in a hole somewhere in that field I’d seen. Kimberly, who’d loved and trusted Skye like I had.

  We stood there in the woods, looking at one another, and I tried to force my heart not to beat out of my chest, tried to keep my breathing calm. All I had to do was get back to the trailer. Get back to Momma, and get away from Skye. I could do this. I could.

  And then Skye winced.

  We both looked down, seeing my hand where it still clung to his forearm. I may have slowed my pulse and steadied my breathing, but I hadn’t stopped my fingers from digging into him, hard enough to break the skin. My nails had pierced his flesh, and Skye and I both watched as a single drop of blood welled up just over the teeth of his key tattoo.

  His eyes met mine, and I knew there was no lie I could tell that would convince him that I hadn’t looked inside his mind. That I hadn’t seen. That I didn’t know.

  I was in the woods behind my trailer with a boy who’d killed the last girl who loved him. I could look off to the horizon all I wanted, but no one was coming to save me. Maybe I couldn’t tell the future like Momma, but in that instant, I swore I could see it. When her reading with Milly was done, she’d come out and find Skye sitting there. Maybe there’d be dirt on his knees, and he might be breathing a little hard. He’d tell her I’d left. Maybe I headed out for track practice early, caught a ride with a friend—no, he wasn’t sure who. And then maybe later, he’d come back to this quiet place in Woodland Hills, and by the end of the night, I’d find myself lying next to Kimberly McEntire, wherever she was. For just a second, I thought of taking one more peek, trying to see what he had done with her. But I was too afraid to look again, afraid that anything I saw might break what was left of my mind.

  Skye’s hands were tight around my wrists now, and I could feel that same dark anger I’d sensed earlier pulsing through him. Oh, Momma, I thought almost from a distance. You were wrong. I’m not going to track practice today.

  But as the bones in my wrists creaked and popped, I remembered what Momma had said.

  You are gonna run and run today. Fast.

  A laugh nearly gurgled out of my throat, high and hysterical. “You’re damn right I am,” I muttered. I reached out.

  I shoved.

  I ran.

  * * * * *

  THE BROTHERS PIGGETT

  BY JULIE KAGAWA

  This is a story about a boy in love.

  Once upon a time, there was a lad named Percival Piggett. Percival lived in a small, unnamed village on the edge of a forest. The forest beside the village was called The Haunted Wood and, according to suspicion, was home to all kinds of evil spirits—ghosts, goblins and the like. It was used in many an old wives’ warning tale: don’t go into the forest lest you be eaten by a wild beast, or fall under an evil spell, or become lost forever.

  Percival didn’t care about the forest, though. He was too busy being in love.

  The object of his affection, a girl named Maya Thornton, was a newcomer to the village and lived with her grandmother in a small hut at the edge of the woods. Her grandmother was a kooky old bat, reclusive and eccentric, and many in the village whispered that she was a witch.

  Percival didn’t care about Maya’s grandmother, either.

  Though he really should have.

  The problem with Percival was that he was painfully shy, and not a little on the chubby side. This couldn’t really be helped, as he did work in his brothers’ bakery and pie shop, and was subject to a host of tempting sweets every day. Piggett Pies was famous throughout the village, and Percival’s two brothers, Pedro and Peter, were constantly telling him he needed to eat more. “Some meat on your bones would do you good!” Peter was fond of saying before shoving a meat pie under Percival’s nose. He’d then thump his own impressive bulk and grin through his triple chins. “The ladies like a bigger man.”

  “If we don’t look after you, who will?” Pedro would often add, usually when Percival insisted that he really didn’t need a fourth slice of pie. “After Mama died and Papa ran off with that witch, we swore we’d take care of you.”

  And so it went, with Percival getting bigger and bigger, which in turn made him shyer and shyer. When his brothers made him go up front and help the customers, he’d stammer terribly, which made some villagers believe he was a little slow
. Most began to treat him like a not-so-bright toddler, with pitying looks and patronizing smiles, but some of the crueler village boys began picking on him.

  “Piggy Piggy!” they’d call when Percival left the shop for the day. “Percival Piggy, on his way home!”

  Percival would only smile benignly and trot home as fast as he could, but his tormentors would follow him to his little house with its thatched straw roof and shout insults through the door until he was curled up on his bed in tears.

  One morning, they were waiting for him when he left his home for work, and trailed him all the way back to the shop, squealing and throwing mud balls that spattered against his apron.

  Shaking with tears, Percival ducked inside the bakery, hoping to clean up before any of his brothers noticed. It was not to be. Peter took one look at him and turned a violent red.

  “What happened?” he bellowed, bringing Pedro out from the back. Both brothers glowered at Percival like enraged twin bulls, though their anger was not directed at him. “Who did this to you?” Peter demanded, all his chins quivering with fury. “No one hurts my little brother like that. Tell me their names, right now!”

  Percival sniffled. “I d-don’t know their names,” he stammered, futilely trying to rake mud from his straw-colored hair. “Just some v-village boys playing around. It’s n-n-nothing.”

  “Nothing,” Pedro growled, narrowing his beady black eyes. He shared a glance with Peter, who nodded grimly. “We’ll see if it’s nothing.”

  That evening, as they had done countless nights before, the boys followed Percival home. Percival, his arms overloaded with bread and pies Peter insisted he take home, ignored the jeers and cries of “Piggy Piggy Percival!” as best he could. In a fit of depression, he ate all the pies and most of the bread his brother sent home with him, and went to bed feeling slightly sick.