by E. M. Fitch
“Oh, now she can climb,” Jon grunted, though Cassie could tell he was really amused. Rebecca laughed and hurried up the path to follow them.
Ryan hung back and snatched Cassie’s hand as soon as she drew near.
“Doing okay?” he asked softly, looking from the fairytale tower to Cassie. She nodded, smiling.
“It’s not our trail,” she said. He looked pleased, catching her eye and then looking to his feet.
“Our trail?”
“You know what I mean,” she said, laughing. “It’s not the trail we’ve been working on. But I like it a lot. Thanks.”
The view from the top of the tower was even more breathtaking than the view from the trail below. The stone structure peeked out from the treetops, setting the hikers above the forest. Ryan suggested they picnic on the top, which Cassie thought was perfect. The top of the tower was open to the air. Stairs rounded the interior all the way up to a tiny opening on the flat roof. It wasn’t a large roof, only about ten feet across. It was contained with a stone wall that enclosed the entire space. When Cassie stood against it, looking out at the miles of open space and forest that lay sprawled out at their feet, the stones came up to her chest. Benches were fitted along the wall, rounded, just like the stone wall was. Cassie and Ryan sat on one together, Cassie leaning back against his chest. Samantha and Rebecca claimed another bench while Jon lounged on the floor beside his girlfriend.
“They’ll lift the curfew next, sure thing,” Jon predicted, dropping a handful of chips into his mouth. A few errant pieces flew out as he kept talking. The crumbles of potato chips scattered about the stone. “They have to, don’t they?”
“Pig,” Samantha muttered, moving away from him. He smirked and jumped at her, sloppily kissing her thigh. “Eww!”
“You love it,” he said through a laugh, wiping his lips.
“No, I don’t,” Samantha mouthed to the girls, but she was smiling and didn’t move away as Jon leaned back against her. Cassie and Rebecca both laughed.
“The cops don’t think he did it,” Cassie said, turning the conversation back to Samuel Phillips.
“You mean Gibbons doesn’t think he did it?” Ryan asked. Cassie heard the words as she felt them rumble from his chest. She leaned back more firmly in his arms, loving the feeling of warmth and security he always brought.
“Of course Gibbons,” Jon said. “Who else follows her around like that?”
“He’s not—”
“It’s fine, it’s fine,” Jon said, waving her down. “Better we have someone to tell us what’s up, right? So, if they don’t think it was the freshman, who are they gonna pin it on?”
“Oh no, they’re charging him. He confessed,” Cassie said. “They’re not stupid though. They know it wasn’t him. C’mon, everyone knows it wasn’t him!”
“Everyone but my mom,” Samantha piped up. “I got the freaking third degree the other night. Do you know him? Have any classes with him? Who are his friends?” she said, mimicking her mother’s high-pitched voice.
“Who are his friends?” Rebecca asked. Samantha shrugged.
“How should I know? He’s a freshman!”
“The whole school loves him now,” Cassie murmured.
“Which is exactly why the little punk confessed,” Ryan added. “But the real question is, who did it?”
Silence swelled for a moment. A hawk circled lazily in the air just to Cassie’s right. He dipped and swerved before darting down into the trees. Jon snorted. “Well, we all know, don’t we? The carnies. Right, Cass?”
Cassie stiffened against Ryan’s chest. She could almost feel the glare her boyfriend shot at his best friend. Her throat felt dry and it was hard to swallow. Again, but for the first time that day, she felt on display.
“Right, Jon,” she murmured, keeping her eyes down.
“That’s her story and she’s sticking to it!” Jon quipped, laughing. He didn’t mean any harm. He was just tactless. Cassie tried to remember that.
The hike back down was easier than the hike back up, and not just because of the change in the incline. Cassie felt better. She breathed easier. Aidan hadn’t made an appearance, the roots hadn’t shot from the ground and grabbed at her ankles, no pit had opened through the crust of the earth to swallow her whole. She was fine, happy, alive.
For the first time in weeks, the fear that had clogged her throat loosened just a bit.
Cassie jumped in the shower as soon as she got home from the hike. Her parents weren’t there yet, so the house was empty when Ryan dropped her off. She insisted that he go straight home, exhilarated with her new sense of freedom from fear. For the first time in months, she wanted to risk her house alone. She was in the mood to push it tonight.
Cassie did lock all the doors and check all the windows. She wasn’t stupid. But Gibbons’ lecture on feeling afraid but not acting afraid was still spinning around in her brain. She felt emboldened by today’s hike, utterly careless as she stripped off her clothing and jumped into the steaming shower.
Such a simple thing, being alone. A wonderful thing, to be able to walk about unafraid, dress at her leisure. It was something she had been terrified of for far too long. It angered her now, how much she had let Aidan take from her, how much control she had just casually handed over. Gibbons was right. Constantly being afraid was no way to live your life.
She hadn’t been expecting the knock on the door. She was already in her pajama bottoms, her wet hair twisted up into a dark, auburn bun. Errant drops of shower water still dripped down the back of her neck, dampening the collar of her worn tee shirt. She padded in bare feet to the front door.
The bouquet must have been left on her doorstep while she was showering. It hadn’t been there when Ryan had first dropped her off. She hadn’t been expecting it now. She hadn’t been expecting him to knock either. When she opened the door, her boyfriend stood there, a confused expression on his face, holding the flowers, bark vase and all.
Her expression fell as she looked from the flowers in his hand to his face.
“These aren’t from me,” he said, watching her. Cassie noticed her backpack leaning against the porch railing by his feet. She must have forgotten it in his car. “But I guess you already knew that, didn’t you?”
“Must have been—”
“Save it, Cassie,” Ryan said, interrupting whatever lie she had been about to offer. “Who is he?”
“What?” Cassie asked, panic flaring. “Ryan, no. There’s no one else.”
“Sure, whatever you say.” Ryan thrust the flowers in her hand. For the first time, there was a tag attached. Her name was elaborately written in dark, red ink on stiff parchment paper. “The flower petals, those were him, too, weren’t they? And the bouquet you thanked me for? That was months ago!”
“No! Ry, please. Come in, let me explain,” Cassie begged, pushing the door all the way open. A cool breeze whipped in, ruffling the shiny petals of the bouquet. Pink, blue, and yellow, all woven together amongst green stalks.
“I don’t think so,” Ryan said, his voice cold. “I guess I wasn’t really expected tonight anyway. Wouldn’t want to ruin your evening.”
He turned and walked back across her yard. The sun had already set and it was dark. He would soon be swallowed in shadows. “Please, wait!” Cassie called out, running barefoot out onto her lawn. The grass was cold and moist; she was shivering by the time she reached him.
He stopped walking just as he got to his car. The outline of his vehicle was black in the darkness. Cassie could see the rest of the neighborhood lit up, the way it always was after dark, every house glowing in some way. All except the Blakes, of course.
“Has someone been sending you flowers?” he asked in a rough voice, his back turned from her. Cassie considered lying. Before she could even answer, he spoke again. “Your mother asked me the other day, you know, what florist I was using. She seemed surprised when I couldn’t name one. This has been happening
for a while, hasn’t it?”
“Yes,” Cassie whispered. “But I don’t want him. I want you.”
“That’s not enough, Cass,” Ryan bit out. He moved around the side of his car and threw himself in behind the wheel. Words froze in Cassie’s throat. Headlights flooded the still road with white brilliance. The engine sputtered to life. Ryan’s car took off into the night, a dark outline chasing two beams of light. He was gone before Cassie had recovered her breath.
Her parents had called when she was on the front lawn, watching Ryan’s red taillights fade into nothingness. She caught the end of their message as she came back into the house. They were going to another town hall meeting. They’d be home in a few hours. The house was suddenly dark and large and empty in the absence of other people. Each window felt like a mirror looking into another world, a world in which fairytale monsters were real, watching her, waiting.
She pulled her sneakers on, not even bothering with socks. Her pajama bottoms were already wet from chasing Ryan out onto the front lawn. She left the back deck light on, illuminating a path of sparkling green grass on the otherwise dark lawn. Lastly, she picked up a heavy, iron fire poker.
The heft and weight was comforting in her hand. It was long and solid, weighty, but not unlike the softball bat that was currently with her catcher’s gear in a dusty bag in her room. The fire poker had a pointed tip and a curl that flowed from the end, useful for hooking flaming logs. Also, hopefully intimidating in a fight.
She hoped it wouldn’t come to that, she didn’t want it to. But she would not let Aidan lure her away. She refused to become another victim like Jessica or Laney, refused to sit in her home, taunted by fear any longer.
The night air felt cool on her overheated, clammy skin. Her face was flushed and hot. She wouldn’t allow the tears to come and so they were trapped, hot points of moisture beneath her eyelids. She kept the fire poker extended from her side, ready to swing, as she walked casually toward the tree line.
The tall pines that hovered over her yard swayed like black brushes against a dark purple canvas. There were no stars; even the moon was having trouble poking through the haze of clouds that blanketed the night sky.
The snow had all melted from the yard. The ground looked half-dead, the grass flattened and withering in places. It was always like that in the spring. The lawn waited for life to be restored by her father’s rake and diligence with the fertilizer. A cut log sat upright at the edge of the lawn, a remnant of past summertime parties when Laney and Cassie would have the boys over to roast marshmallows over the fire pit her father had built. Cassie walked to the log purposefully, sitting on the round, cold surface. She laid the fire poker across her knee, waiting.
Cassie refused to think of Ryan, refused to think that their relationship was over. It couldn’t be. She cared for him too much. There were so many things they had yet to do together. She wouldn’t let that be taken from her. But in a way, Ryan was right. There was another. No one she wanted, but still, Aidan was there, ever present in her life and in her mind. She couldn’t allow Aidan to have any part of her, not if she wanted to move forward on her own.
Scattered at her feet were the remains of every bouquet she had thrown from her bedroom window. The blossoms were withered and brown, cracking from dead stems. The bark vases had unraveled and fallen, rotting pieces left to descend back into the earth. She should have brought the newest one with her, thrown it away with the rest. She didn’t though, it lay discarded on the hall floor, just where she had dropped it as she chased after Ryan.
It didn’t take Aidan long to arrive.
“You seem to love the graveyards,” he said. Her head whipped up toward the forest when she heard his voice, a dulcet whisper in the darkness. She saw his eyes first, reflective in the deck light, shining from the trees. “Look at all these lovely flowers, dead. A graveyard of sorts, isn’t it?”
She took a moment, her last, to decide if she wanted to respond. She couldn’t think of any other way.
“What do I need to do to get you to leave me alone?” she asked, watching the shadow solidify from the trees. He moved forward quickly, his eyes beaming in triumph, his mouth stretched in an impossible grin.
“You speak!” he crowed, delighted. “I’ve missed you.”
“I don’t see how that’s possible,” Cassie said, her tone cold. “You’re always here. I hate it. I want you gone.”
“But you see me,” he said, his voice softer now, glowing. “I knew you did. They told me no, but I was right.”
“Aidan,” Cassie said, being as firm as she possibly could be. “This has to stop.”
“Come with me,” he said in a rush. “Let me show you. It doesn’t have to end, never, not for an eternity.”
The thought was horrifying, an eternity of terror, of never-ending harassment. She stood, iron poker in hand. He eyed her cautiously, looking from her weapon to her face.
“Leave. Don’t come back,” she said, the words wobbling far more than she wanted them to. He shook his head slowly. The trees behind him seemed to echo his discontent, they weaved—thrashed—when his head turned back and forth.
“I can’t,” he whispered, a sorry tilt to his head.
“What do you mean, you can’t?” Cassie asked, standing. She kept her eyes on his face, the poker low and ready to swing. She couldn’t miss the heaviness that came to his expression, a furrow of his brow and a slight pull at his lips. He looked almost sad.
“I’m lonely,” he answered simply, splaying open palms in her direction with a gentle shrug of his shoulders. Agitation roiled up Cassie’s spine. Even if it was a sincere plea, even if he truly were alone, tired and despairing, he still had no right to do this to her.
“That is not my problem,” she said, straightening her spine and pulling her chin up. He stared, expressionless for a moment. Then his lips quirked in a nasty sneer.
“Then, I won’t.”
“You will!”
“Or what?” he demanded, standing tall. The forest keened. Cassie heard the distant sound of branches breaking, sharp and piercing in the night. The wind kicked up and swept around him, bringing a trail of dead leaves that danced about his outline. “What could you do to me? Nothing! But I, I could give you everything. And I will.”
Cassie kept her eyes on him. She adjusted her grip on the fire poker, bringing it back a bit, the better to swing it with should he step forward. For a portion of a moment, she thought she saw uncertainty glimmer in his blue eyes.
“Cassie!” The voice came from across the darkened lawn. Cassie looked back, a red glow, small, like a bead of blood from a pinprick, glowed on the Blake’s back porch. “Is that you?”
Cassie clenched her fingers around the warming iron poker, raising it unconsciously. Before she could yell back, Aidan whispered, “Soon,” and she heard his footsteps, light and quick, before the forest welcomed him home with a tremble of branches. Cassie moved back, her eyes on the tree line, her weapon raised. Waiting.
He seemed to be truly gone. Why, she wasn’t sure. Even if Mrs. Blake had seen her taken, what could be done about it? Cassie had seen Laney taken and nothing had happened. Laney was still gone, and Cassie was labeled crazy. Aidan could have had her now risking only a couple bruises, and that only if Cassie had been able to get a few whacks in before he subdued her. He had as good as told her he was immortal.
Immortal. Not possible. Yet, what about him was? Cassie moved back from the edge of her yard, walking backwards until she was sure that Aidan was gone.
“It’s me, Mrs. Blake,” Cassie called out as she got closer. She crossed property lines, walking toward Linda Blake with her make-do weapon firmly at her side. “I thought I saw something.
“So did I,” Mrs. Blake said, pausing to suck on the end of the cigarette she had lit, the red tip flared into the night. “That’s why I called. Oh, and don’t tell John. He hates it when I smoke.”
“I never knew you did,” Cassie
said, coming up the steps and leaning on the railing. Her gaze traveled out over the dark, empty lawns. The swings at the back of the Blake’s yard swayed in the breeze, creaking with age.
“I quit, years and years ago, before Laney—” she cut off, taking another drag and expelling smoke into the night air; it dispelled in wispy swirls. “Well, before Laney, that’s all. We should get rid of that swing set, shouldn’t we? It creaks all night long. Keeps me up.”
“Sorry,” Cassie murmured, not sure what else to say. Mrs. Blake hummed in acknowledgement. She brought her rose colored robe more firmly around her body. She looked skinnier than Cassie remembered.
“Lord, I miss her,” she whispered, her voice rough.
“Me, too,” Cassie said, clearing her throat against the sudden tightness there.
“I think I see her, you know,” Mrs. Blake said, her eyes on the trees. “Out there, in the woods. I keep thinking I’m being watched.”
“Maybe you are,” Cassie said, the words slipping out without her permission. She felt instantly horrified for uttering them, but Mrs. Blake only nodded.
“Maybe we both are,” she murmured back. “Get home safe, honey.”
Cassie left her there, staring into the world that had stolen her child, a black abyss she couldn’t clearly see through a haze of smoke and despair.
They were back.
It was nothing like Cassie had imagined. In her mind—in those twilight moments before sleep captured her brain, that time between the darkness of her bedroom and dreamland, where thoughts were all the more terrible and fearsome because they were still rooted in reality—Cassie had imagined this moment. She imagined hands, the skin cold on hers, the nails sharp and dirty, pressing against her body and dragging her away. She imagined her screams, the noise swallowed by the density of the forest she was pulled into, dirt and pine needles and dead leaves filling her mouth. She imagined Aidan’s wicked, smiling eyes, watching, seeing her come undone. His gaze cut through her, intrusive and possessive. She saw the rest of them smirking and smiling, beckoning her forward. In her most private dreams, she imagined Laney welcoming her with a warm, loving embrace, whispering into Cassie’s hair like she used to do, her breath warm on her neck.