Sophia laughs it off, though the humor doesn’t reach her face. “Yeah, yeah. But your brother is different from any boy.”
“He’s more annoying than the rest of them combined?” I tease.
“Nah. He’s serious. I mean, I think he just thought I was a pretty face at first, but now it’s like… he wants to help me to help me, not to get closer to me. I don’t know that I can explain it.”
“I think I get it,” I say. “But keep in mind I’ve never had a boyfriend. So I know nothing.”
Sophia laughs. “Seriously? Never?”
“Not one. I was too… preoccupied to date. And I was always the weird girl who used to have a twin…” I drift off, and Sophia gives me a gentle look.
She twists the wire around her fingers, chews on her lips. “You’re way more than just a pretty face too, Gretchen. You just have to find someone who knows that.”
“How very motherly,” I tease her gently, and Sophia laughs and finally meets my eyes again.
“Yeah,” she says, “I’m contractually obligated as the oldest person here to say things like that to you. But I’m good at giving advice! You should believe me!”
“Here,” Ansel says, stepping out of the storage shed. My mind flickers to the extra bed and the seashells in there, and I wonder about mentioning them to Sophia, but before I can say anything, she’s off, sprinting toward another tree. Ansel watches her, grinning.
“You’re staring,” I tell him.
“Yeah, well,” he mutters, face turning dark red even underneath his tan. “Can you blame me? She… gets me. She gets you too. Most people don’t understand either of us, much less both.”
“True,” I agree, and turn to run the wire to the opposite end of the yard. I manage to find the hook on another tree without Sophia’s help, and before long, Ansel, Sophia, and I are standing in the middle of the yard, staring up at the X the wires make above us.
“Well, that’s done,” Sophia says. “This is all a million times easier with help, just so you know. It usually takes me twice the time.”
“You know we’re happy to,” Ansel says.
“Well, then,” Sophia says, dusting her hands on her pants. “More to do, more to do. If I show you those tables from last year, will you help me refinish them, Ansel? Although I really should make sure I’ve got enough solid milk chocolate bars for the Fourth of July first…”
“Sure,” Ansel says, springing up. “I bet you’re dying to help, right, Gretchen?” he adds, tugging my ponytail.
“I’d love to, but I have some very important hair washing to attend to,” I joke.
We enter the chocolatier and Sophia immediately busies herself with checking on how a tray of truffles is setting. I hurry to my room to kick off my pajamas—blades of grass cling to my legs and fingers when I try to brush them off. It’s hard to appreciate hot showers when the air outside is so warm, so I run the water on nearly cold and get out as quickly as I can.
The sound of Ansel and Sophia’s grappling with some new task outside rises to my ears as I dart to my bedroom. I tug on shorts, then grope around inside the top dresser drawer for my brush but come up empty. Holding my hair into a ponytail, I hunt around—and then see it. In Luxe’s mouth.
“Luxe… here, boy,” I call, patting my free hand on my leg. Luxe takes a step forward… then two steps backward, tail wagging.
“Luxe, come on, bring it to me,” I scold. Luxe prances, then crouches, his body tense. I dash for him; I’ve barely moved before he’s bounding out the doorway. He takes a sharp left into Sophia’s bedroom, already inside before I’ve even made it to my own door. I groan and round the corner of the dark room.
It’s always the same, almost as if she doesn’t actually sleep or change or anything in here. Bed made, pillows fluffed, thin shades drawn, and the oak tree’s branches casting crazy shadows across the floor. I see Luxe’s tail twitch, sticking out from under the dust ruffle of Sophia’s bed. I creep across the hardwood floors, then dive.
Luxe thrashes and kicks as I grab his hind legs and drag him out from under the bed. He wiggles happily, licks my hands, then bounds off again—without my hairbrush. I roll my eyes and duck under the bed to find it.
Naturally, Luxe dropped it almost dead center under the queen-size bed; I lie flat against the floor and stretch my arm as far as it can go before my fingers finally grasp the handle. As I’m inching it into my palm, I raise my head a touch too far and ram it on the bed frame. I wince and withdraw, rubbing the stinging on the back of my head just as something under the bed clatters to the floor.
Eyes watering from the sharp pain, I duck down to see what part of the bed I’ve broken. To my surprise, what fell is actually a picture frame—it lies facedown on the floor, as though I’ve killed it. I reach down and gingerly lift it, cringing as I hear bits of glass clink together. I turn it over—the glass is shattered.
I scoot away from the bed and hold the photo up to the pale sunlight. It’s two little girls who look almost identical—I’d believe they were twins were it not for one appearing a few years older. They both have dark blue eyes and soft brown hair, and they’re crouching over a sand castle at the beach with silly, happy-little-girl smiles on their faces. The youngest one waves an orange shovel at the camera; the older clasps her sandy hands together at her chest.
The older is Sophia. The fact hits me suddenly, and even though this photo was taken long ago, I’ve got no doubt it’s her. Something in the eyes. And the younger one? I have no idea.
“What are you doing?”
Ansel’s voice startles me, so much so that I almost drop the frame all over again. I shake my head and stand.
“Luxe ran under her bed with my hairbrush. I knocked this down while I was getting it, but…” I trail off as Ansel steps over to look at the photo in my hands. He grimaces and looks away.
“You broke it?” he asks.
“The floor broke it. I was just chasing a dog,” I argue. “Who do you suppose the little girl is? Cousin, maybe?”
“It’s…” Ansel shuffles his feet and then sighs. “It’s her sister.”
A forgotten sister, a girl without a name. I swallow as I think about my sister, and from the look in Ansel’s eyes, I can tell he’s doing the same. I shake off the memories.
“Sister? Sophia hasn’t ever mentioned a sister,” I tell him.
“I know. She told me about her only a week ago.”
“So what, one afternoon she just said, ‘Hey, Ansel, did I mention this secret sibling?’ ” I try to suppress the hurt that Sophia would tell Ansel something she kept from me, that my brother would keep her secrets—they know everything about me. I told Sophia about my sister the first day I met her. I try to keep the pain from my eyes, but it doesn’t work. Ansel gives me a pitying look.
“Well, not exactly,” Ansel says. He starts to sit down on the edge of Sophia’s bed but seems to remember he’s sweaty and dirty at the last instant. “One night she came into the living room and woke me up, crying. Then she asked me about you, weirdly enough. Said that I would understand because of you. Actually, she said I had to understand and that I was the only one who could.”
“Understand what?”
Ansel frowns. “I’m not sure, to be honest. It was weird. She told me about Naida and then after a few moments seemed to snap out of it. Told me she was just emotional because her sister’s been at college in Charleston and never comes home to visit. She’s been gone three years, I think—she left right after their dad died.”
“Just in Charleston? That’s two hours away, tops. Why wouldn’t she come home from Charleston in three whole years?”
“I asked the same thing,” Ansel says. “I even offered to go pick Naida up, bring her back here. But Sophia said no. Something about not wanting Naida to get stuck here again, like she is.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask, and am frustrated to hear the hurt that has seeped into my voice again.
“It just… it feels so much like her,” Ansel says,
shaking his head. “When she disappeared and Mom pretended everything was okay when it wasn’t. You’ve been doing so well here—you’re a whole different person than you were in Washington. I didn’t want to upset you.”
He’s right. It does feel like her. It feels exactly like her—the charade, the pretend smiles, the hope that one day the girl who disappeared from the forest will disappear from your heart too. Does Sophia hate herself, the way I sometimes hate myself, for wanting her gone?
Ansel clears his throat and continues. “Look, I’ll tell her I broke it—chasing Luxe, right? But don’t tell her you know about Naida. She… trusted me.”
“Why cover for me? I’ll just tell her I broke it—”
“No,” Ansel says hurriedly. “I don’t want it to cause any problems. Besides, it isn’t really a big deal—she says her sister is in Charleston, and I don’t see any reason for her to lie to us. It’s just a little odd, but it’s not… it’s not worth…” But he never completes the sentence to tell me what Sophia’s secrets aren’t worth.
“Okay…” I sigh. “Okay.” Ansel trusts people. When people told him there was no witch in the forest, he believed them. When Sophia told him her sister is just in Charleston, he believed her. No matter what his gut tells him, Ansel goes with his head. With reason. With the people he trusts.
My brother walks away, leaving me with nothing to do but wander back into my bedroom. I sit on the edge of the bed and focus on the empty space across from me. The wannabe-symmetrical bedroom—I get it now. The bed in the shed—it must have been on the other wall. This wasn’t Sophia’s childhood bedroom, it was their room. Sophia and her own sister.
Yet now, all traces of Naida are hidden under mattresses or shoved into the back of sheds. Not like the other girls of Live Oak—her picture isn’t up at the post office. I don’t have her name and date of birth and last-seen location memorized. She truly vanished, just like my sister did. I count back years—if Naida left three years ago, it means Sophia started throwing the chocolate festival the year after her sister vanished.
Maybe she’s just lonely, a voice in my head argues. Maybe she throws the festival to have people over, because Naida is gone.
Maybe.
But try as I might to convince myself, I know that something isn’t adding up.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
You’re late,” Samuel says when I finally arrive Monday afternoon, but he doesn’t sound mad. He smiles at me.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I say hurriedly. “But only by, like… five minutes. Sophia is freaking out over making enough cookies for the Fourth of July thing this weekend—”
“Right.” Samuel cuts me off, shaking his head and rising. “So, this is a slightly larger rifle. Go ahead and aim, but don’t fire just yet.”
“It’s heavier—why am I trying this one? I just got used to the other one, the twenty-two or whatever it is.”
“Because it’s good to see what gun you’re best on.”
“Sure, sure,” I murmur, trying to peer down the rifle. The added weight keeps it from rocking around so much, but I know I won’t be able to hold it up for long.
“Check your hands,” Samuel warns. I move my left hand back a little and push my elbow under the rifle. “And get your head down lower,” he adds. I oblige.
I fire. Seven, eight, nine, ten times, while Samuel covers his ears.
“Not bad,” Samuel says. His face seems lighter now, less intense, but I can’t tell if it’s because that’s actually the case or if I’ve just stopped noticing the harsh lines and bitterness that I saw before.
“So what am I supposed to do with a moving target?” I ask as I set the gun down. Samuel and I weave through the long grasses toward the target to circle my hits.
“Planning on shooting at me?” Samuel asks, smiling as he pulls the marker out of his back pocket.
“Maybe.” I grin. “But actually, I’m just thinking—nothing that wants to hurt me stands still.”
“You just move your aim. Quickly.” Samuel shrugs, sweeping his hair out of his eyes as he circles my shots. They’re not bad—a few crazy outliers, but most of the group is together, clustered around the gray man’s head.
“How am I supposed to practice that?”
“We’ll get there, trust me,” Samuel says. “It takes practice. Maybe we can give it a try tomorrow.”
“How much practice did it take you?”
“I…” Samuel frowns. “I don’t know. It was just something I was good at and then just got… better at with time.”
“So.” I pause. “Do you hunt nonwerewolf things? Deer, rabbits, raccoons?”
Samuel looks down. “Not exactly.”
“All this, it’s just for witches—Fenris?” I correct myself.
“And target shooting. It’s fun.”
“So why not other things?” I ask as we turn and trudge back to where we were standing.
“I don’t like it,” Samuel says gruffly. “I had other people to handle that, my older brothers and father.”
“You just”—I suppress a small smile—“you just don’t like shooting at cute things?”
“No, I don’t need to shoot those things. Besides, there are Fenris to kill.”
“Why not go home, then? I mean, there are werewolves there to destroy, right, wherever you’re from?” I ask as I flip the safety off, then carefully aim. I try to imagine long, sharp canines on the gray man—it helps. I fire three rounds, then pause to readjust. In the silence, Samuel answers.
“Well, I… she…” He drifts off. Layla—that’s why he’s still here, I realize, and there’s a strange pang in my stomach. Samuel kicks at the dirt and sits down.
“She’s been gone two years, right? Since the first chocolate festival?” I ask delicately, trying to hide the odd feeling of envy that comes with Layla’s name.
“Almost two years. It’s not that I expect her to come back,” he adds quickly, though I’m not sure I believe him. “It’s just… someone has to protect everyone else. Where I’m from—Ellison, in Georgia—they have people to fight the wolves. But Live Oak… if I go…”
I gaze at Samuel, then look down at the gun in my hands. I understand. I don’t want just to not vanish—I want to keep other girls from vanishing. No, not just vanishing—from being killed. From being stalked, from being a monster’s prey. I say the names of the eight Live Oak girls silently, tacking on Naida Kelly’s name at the end.
Naida. Should I tell him? Am I pushing him too far? He’s just a few meetings shy of being a stranger… but still, I need to ask. “Did you know Naida Kelly?”
“Naida Kelly?” Samuel asks, raising an eyebrow. “Who is Naida Kelly?”
“She’s Sophia’s little sister,” I answer.
“I didn’t know she had a sister.”
“Me neither. I found a picture under her bed. Sophia told Ansel that Naida has been at college in Charleston for the past three years and doesn’t want to come back.”
“From Charleston? That’s just a few hours. And that’s also the story half the town has about their missing daughters or sisters or girlfriends, all the people that take off after the chocolate festival,” Samuel says bitterly. “The people who don’t want to admit those girls are gone for good, when you can tell they know it’s true, that they’re in mourning. But they still don’t want to hold a proper memorial or anything.” He spits the last sentence out, and I can tell he’s talking about Layla’s family.
I hesitate, trying to find an appropriate response, when something occurs to me, something I can’t believe I didn’t notice till Samuel talked about Live Oak in mourning. “She’s not dead.” Samuel looks at me, confused. I continue. “The others might be dead, but Naida’s not.”
“What makes you say that?” Samuel says, and he sounds a little disappointed—as though if Layla is dead, Naida should be too.
“Sophia isn’t mourning,” I say slowly. “I know mourning. I’m practically a pro at mourning. I watched our parents m
ourn our sister, then my father mourn my mother, then my stepmother mourn my father… and Ansel and I mourned everyone. Sophia isn’t mourning.”
“Just like she isn’t canceling the festival,” Samuel answers darkly. “She’s…” He stops himself, starts anew. “She doesn’t care about those eight girls. And she clearly doesn’t care about her own sister either.”
I ignore him—whatever Sophia may be guilty of, whatever she’s kept secret, I can’t see her as a witch. “But why Naida? Why Layla? What’s so special about those nine?”
Samuel gives me a cold look.
“Not like that,” I say with a sigh. “But why not Sophia or Jessie or Violet? Why not every girl in Live Oak?”
Why not me? It’s a silly question, but one I’ll never stop turning over in my mind. Two little girls, mirror images of each other, two halves of the same person, and the witch chose her. Why her? Why the others?
“Tell me about Layla. Please. Maybe we can work out why it’s them and not girls like Sophia.” The words fall from my mouth before I’ve thought them through, and I cringe at the look Samuel gives me as he shakes his head. Part of me is relieved, I admit—I don’t want to hear about her. I don’t want to know about the girl he still aches for. The girl who vanished, whom—I know from experience—he still probably sees if he closes his eyes long enough.
But I have to know. I have to know why Layla was special, because maybe knowing means no one else has to vanish. Maybe knowing means I can help stop girls from fading away. I can make up for letting go of my sister’s hand in the forest.
I inhale. “Maybe we can keep other girls from vanishing, Samuel.”
He looks up at me. He bites at his lips and drums his hand on the side of his pants for a moment.
“I told you about my brothers,” Samuel begins slowly, “about growing up with them. Everything was a competition, and then my dad got sick, and then… it was all too much. Some of my brothers moved far away, across the country. But I wasn’t quite that bold, so I just trekked around the southeast. I ended up in South Carolina one day, and I met Layla.”
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