Some Kind of Animal

by Maria Romasco-Moore

  I walk over, reach for the glass.

  He looks up.

  Shit.

  The pastor’s eyes go from me to the glass and then back to me.

  “Bring me another,” he says, looking back down at the Bible. “Wild Turkey.”

  I speed walk the glass back to the kitchen, slurp the burning brown liquid at the bottom, slot the glass into the industrial dishwasher. This night is going pretty well, I decide. I feel good. I feel fine.

  I’m not allowed to pour drinks, but I relay the pastor’s order to Jessi, who puts it on his tab. I carry the whiskey back to his table.

  He gestures for me to sit, so I do. He puts the Bible down, leans forward across the table. The bar is crowded enough to be noisy now. Sheila laughs loudly over by the pool table. There’s music on the jukebox. Some song about the Blue Ridge mountains, a place I’ve never been. I’ve never been anywhere but Ohio, though at least I’ve gone a little farther than Aggie ever has thanks to away track meets.

  “I would have killed him if I’d gotten the chance,” the pastor says.

  I blink at him. “What?”

  “Logan Cantrell,” he says. “I could have killed him for what he did.”

  “Oh.” I’d been expecting a lecture about Jesus and livestock management, was prepared to sit through it meekly in exchange for the whiskey, but now he knows how to get my attention. He’s doing the same thing he was at Minnie’s, pushing the one advantage he’s got. I should resist, but curiosity gets the better of me again. “Why didn’t you?”

  The pastor shrugs. “A group of us went out there in the middle of the night once, but he must have seen us coming.”

  “You wouldn’t actually have killed him,” I say. He just wants to sound cool. Tough. “You’re bluffing.”

  The pastor leans back in his chair. “Maybe you’re right. I don’t know. After he got busted, some of us went out there again. The little brother had skipped town, so we burnt their trailer down.”

  “No way.” I vaguely remember hearing about this, actually. The trailer burning down. Suspected arson. Nothing proved. Not that the police would have tried too hard. But the pastor?

  “Right hand to God. We’d all had too much to drink. I guess we were lucky the whole forest didn’t catch.”

  I try to imagine him out there: young, drunk, splashing kerosene into the dark, lighting a match. For a second it almost makes me like him.

  “We dug up the ground underneath it, too,” he says. “Just in case.”

  I get a little shock when I realize what he means by that. Just in case. They were looking for her body.

  “Did you find anything?”

  “No.” He takes a long sip of his whiskey. His cheeks are slightly red, and I wonder if he’s drunk.

  “So you knew him, too? Logan?” I’m hooked again. I can’t help it. No use even pretending I’m not interested.

  “No. I mean, I knew of him. Everybody did. He was a few years older than me, though.”

  “You think he did it?”

  “Oh, absolutely. He put his own brother in the hospital twice. The man was a fucking monster.”

  I’ve heard this kind of thing before, but it’s still a little hard to take. I try not to think of him as my father. I don’t have a father. I’ve got Aggie.

  Still.

  If half of my DNA comes from a murderer, a monster, what does that make me?

  The pastor must have seen something in my expression because he actually reaches across the table and puts one hand over mine.

  “She wouldn’t have gone down without a fight, you know,” he says. “Jolene was tough.”

  He’s got this funny look on his face, sad but hopeful, and I want so badly for him to say it. Say, Just like you.

  “Jo,” says Aggie, “get back to work.”

  I jump, nearly fall off my chair. Aggie’s standing right behind me, arms crossed.

  “Sorry, Aggie,” says the pastor calmly. “We got chatting about Jesus’s time in the wilderness.”

  “Did you now?” Aggie looks like she’s never heard anything more ridiculous.

  “Certainly. Jo here thinks Jesus was being, what was the word you used?” He turns to me. I just blink at him, my mind still full of fire in the night. Of Mama. “Oh right, a ‘total pussy’ for refusing the devil’s trials.”

  Aggie snorts. The pastor is a pretty smooth liar, I’ve got to hand it to him.

  “I was thinking,” says the pastor, “maybe Jo could come with me to the service tomorrow. Sheila’s getting baptized. Jo said she’d like to see it.”

  “Really?” asks Aggie, looking down at me. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see the pastor raising his eyebrows meaningfully and I think I understand. He’s making a deal. He’ll answer my questions about Mama, and he won’t tell Aggie about the whiskey, but there’s a cost.

  “Yeah,” I say. “I would. Sure.”

  Aggie shrugs.

  “I need to go over to Savannah’s house,” I add, before she can turn away.

  Aggie snorts again. “You think I’m stupid?”

  “I really need to talk to her. I need to apologize.”

  “I’m not letting you out of my sight until you prove you can be trusted.”

  I want to ask how the hell I’m supposed to prove that if she never gives me the chance. But I’m not actually trying to convince her. I’m negotiating terms.

  “Please, Aggie, please, just let me go talk to Savannah. Just for an hour. I’ll come right back.” I glance over at the pastor, just for a second. “Please, she’s really upset. I need to talk to her.”

  “I could take her,” says the pastor, and it takes great strength of will for me not to do a fist pump. “I can wait in the car.”

  “You don’t need to do that,” says Aggie.

  “I don’t mind,” says the pastor. “Really, I’d be happy to.”

  He smiles at me and I give a small, hesitant smile back. Deal.

  * * *

  —

  Savannah is not happy to see me.

  “Why are you here?” she asks, her head poking around the door, the noise of the TV and the voices of her family mingling from within the house. I was hoping maybe she’d actually apologize to me as soon as she saw me. Say she didn’t know what came over her earlier, but now she’s seen the error of her ways. Jack is an ass. She’ll never let anyone treat me that way again.

  “Can I come in?” I ask.

  “No.” She’s giving me a look like I’m scum. Like we haven’t been friends nearly our whole lives. It hurts.

  “I won’t stay long,” I say, desperate. “I can’t stay long.” I point toward the car, where the pastor is fiddling with the radio.

  “Gross,” says Savannah, and her mask of anger slips for a second. I see a glimmer of the old Savannah. My friend is still under there.

  “Please, Savannah. I need to tell you what happened.”

  She frowns. I want to scream at her, but I take a deep breath, try to see things her way. She feels like I’m lying to her. And I am, kind of.

  “I need to tell you what really happened,” I say.

  “Fine,” she says, “but you got to be quiet, there’s a couple of babies staying.”

  I wave at the pastor as I go inside, grinning with relief. He waves back.

  There are three babies total at Savannah’s house. One belongs to her aunt, one to her sister Dakota, and one to Dakota’s friend Jaclyn. Two out of three babies are crying. A guy with a mustache is bouncing one of them on his knee. I’ve seen him around before, but I can’t remember if he’s an uncle or a cousin or somebody’s husband. Savannah’s got so much family I honestly have trouble keeping them all straight.

  As we make our way through the living room, one of her little sisters goes racing across our path, pursued
by a nephew holding a popgun and shouting, “ ’Sassination! ’Sassination!” which sets off the third baby crying, which sets off Savannah’s mom, who is getting her hair colored in the kitchen by Jaclyn, to scream at them both to knock it off.

  “Am I being quiet enough?” I ask Savannah when we are safely in her room with the door shut, hoping she’ll laugh or take it as an opportunity to start complaining about her family instead of about me. But she just slumps onto the single bed in the corner and crosses her arms.

  The room, which she shares with two of her sisters, is carpeted with stuffed animals and books. One of the walls is almost entirely covered with stickers, another with taped-up pictures Savannah has cut out of magazines. Like Myron’s room, except the pictures are of celebrities and the inside of fancy houses—orderly, gleaming, full of bright white expanses and plenty of empty space.

  “Have you heard anything more about Henry?” I ask.

  She looks like she’s debating whether to answer or not, but she relents. “Yeah. Jack says he’s stable or whatever. They released him from the hospital.”

  “That’s good.” I feel a little guilty that part of me is honestly more worried about what Henry might be saying than how he’s doing. But I’m glad he’s okay.

  “Jack also says I should stay away from you. He says you’re dangerous and insane.”

  I lean back against the ladder of the bunk bed across from her bed. I know she’s just trying to hurt me, to get to a rise out of me. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “He says you’re probably a compulsive liar.”

  “Jack can fuck off.”

  Savannah shrugs. “You do lie a lot.”

  I cross my arms, kick at a stuffed dog by my feet. She’s got me there.

  “Jack says—” she starts, but I don’t let her finish.

  “What’s wrong with you?” I push myself away from the bunk bed. “Why are you on his side all of a sudden? You hardly even know him.”

  Savannah flops sideways on the bed, shoves a pillow over her face, embarrassed. But I already know the answer, even though I wish I didn’t. She’s fallen for him. He’s lit golden in her mind now. New and exciting. I’ve seen it before. Savannah’s relationships always burn bright and hot. Flame out fast. I march over and yank the pillow away.

  “Hey!” she yelps.

  “Savannah,” I say. “Jack doesn’t know me. You do.”

  She tries to grab the pillow back, but I throw it on the floor.

  “Do you really think I would attack Henry?” I ask, standing over her.

  “No.” She frowns up at me. “I don’t know.”

  “You’re my best friend.” I want to scream at her, can feel the anger making my face go red. “You should be on my side.”

  “Well, you should tell me the truth.”

  “I am!” I shout, desperate. I didn’t attack Henry. It’s not fair.

  Savannah sits up. “No, you’re not. You said you’d tell me what really happened. Well, fucking tell me then. Who attacked Henry? I saw someone. When I came out of the woods. I saw someone running. Why are you protecting them? Who was it?”

  “Savannah—” I start, but I don’t know how to finish.

  She scowls, scoots farther back on the bed, picks at a picture of a country bungalow decorated in nothing but shades of blue. She looks like she’s holding back tears.

  In first grade we only had a single basketball for the whole class, and one day this girl Jessa got to it first at recess, but instead of shooting hoops she stuffed it under her shirt and then pretended to give birth. She named the basketball Bobby Jr., after a boy in the class. The boys declared war.

  For the price of one penny, I switched sides. Savannah did it for free.

  She distracted the girls and I ran in and snatched Bobby Jr. right out of his crib of sticks. We were supposed to deliver him to the boys, but Savannah and I changed our minds, spent the rest of recess as renegades, keeping the ball away from the whole class, tossing it back and forth.

  The two of us against everyone.

  I take a deep breath. There’s no good option here. I’m betraying someone either way and there’s a good chance Savannah still won’t believe me. But I’ve got to tell her something. Why not the truth? She’s my best friend. She deserves that much.

  “It was my sister,” I say. It’s such a simple word. Sister. But it feels strange on my tongue now. Feels like a swear word almost. “She’s the one who attacked Henry.”

  “Goddammit,” says Savannah. She sounds disappointed, not surprised. “Not this shit again.”

  “I don’t know why my sister was at the bridge,” I say, all the details tumbling out now that I’ve started, “but she was. She’s the one who wailed. That was the cry we all heard. I think she must have followed us somehow. I think she was watching us at Henry’s house.”

  “You don’t have a sister,” Savannah says flatly.

  I knew this was the most likely outcome, but now that I’ve come out and said it, I feel like she has to believe me. It’s a big deal. I haven’t breathed a word about my sister for years. I’ve been holding it all in, keeping it a secret. It feels oddly good to let it out. “I do,” I say. “She lives in the woods.”

  “Stop lying,” says Savannah, her voice rising almost to a whine.

  “I’m not lying. I have a sister. Lee. She attacked Henry.”

  “Stop it.” Savannah sounds like she’s going to cry again.

  “Here,” I say, “look.” I sit on the bed beside her, push my sleeve up, show her the bite mark. I’m surprised myself to see how red and swollen it still is.

  “What’s that?” Savannah leans forward, frowns at my wrist. She can’t deny this.

  “She attacked me, too,” I say. “She bit me.”

  “Why would she do that?”

  “I don’t know. I was trying to stop her and she freaked out. She was probably scared you’d see her.”

  “No,” Savannah says quietly, leaning away again. “You’re crazy.”

  “This is the truth, Savannah, I promise.” I know it’s probably hard for her to accept, but there’s no taking it back now. She has to believe me. I’ve got to make her understand. “It’s why I go running at night. I run with her. I was never lying, when I used to tell you about her. I wish you could have met her, but she wouldn’t come to Margaret’s yard because she was afraid.”

  “You’re crazy,” Savannah says again. “Jack was right.”

  I want to reach out and shake her. She’s only sitting a few feet away from me on the bed, but she’s looking at me like she really thinks I might be crazy, and the distance between us feels like miles.

  “Did Henry say anything?” I try, a little desperately. “At the hospital? Did they ask him what happened?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “He saw her up close. Just ask him.” He must have seen her. Before I hoped he didn’t remember, but now I hope he does. Maybe we can call him up. I’d do anything at this point.

  “No,” she says. “This is insane. You don’t have a sister. I know you don’t.”

  “I’ll prove it,” I say. I need her to believe me. I need her back on my side. “Come with me right now and I’ll show you.”

  I stand, cross to the window, push it open. I turn back to Savannah. She’s squished into the corner, arms wrapped around herself.

  “You’re crazy,” she says in a tiny voice. She sounds like a little kid, like she’s trying to convince herself monsters don’t exist. It isn’t fair. “Jack says you’re crazy.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Something snaps inside me. Jack, Jack, Jack. I’m sick of hearing his name. She won’t even give me a chance.

  Savannah’s phone is sitting on top of the blue plastic drawer unit that serves as her bedside table. I grab it.

&nb
sp; “What are you doing?” she asks, straightening up.

  “I’m just going to borrow it,” I snap.

  I shove the phone into my pocket and slide out the window, drop softly onto the grass below. Savannah jumps up from the bed.

  “Give me my phone,” she shouts, angry again. Her phone is her lifeline to Jack. Without it, how will he text her about what a crazy bitch I am?

  “I’ll bring it back,” I say. “I’m going to take a picture of her. Then you’ll see.”

  I take a step backward, stumble over a plastic dollhouse sitting in the dirt, its first floor flooded with dead leaves. The sun is going down already and Savannah’s yard is dark, her bedroom window a buttery square of light.

  “Come back,” says Savannah, sounding desperate now instead of angry. “Please, Jo.” She reaches a hand out the window toward me, into the dark.

  I turn and run.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  You’re supposed to grow out of childhood fears, but my sister never did. If anything, she grew into them. I thought it was progress when she started coming into town, that summer after Aggie and I moved to the bar. But it didn’t last.

  Somebody saw us. It was bound to happen eventually I guess, no matter how careful we were. We were chasing each other through someone’s backyard when the back porch light flicked on and a man came barreling out, shouting at us to stay away from his goddamn tomatoes. Lee ran so fast I couldn’t keep up. I didn’t see her again for a month.

  I went out night after night, alone, to search for her. I was scared. She’d never stayed away from me for that long before, unless you count the first five years. Maybe it’s because she came into my life so suddenly, but there was always this fear, at the back of my mind, that she might just as suddenly be gone forever.

  I was sure that if people found out about her, I would lose her, but there were dangers to keeping her secret, too. What if she got hurt, out in the woods alone? Hurt worse than scrapes and scratches and bruises? What if a wild animal attacked her or a hunter mistook her, from a distance, for a doe? What if she got sick? I’d never seen her with worse than a cold (which she also faked having a few times, I’m pretty sure, just so I’d bring her cough drops, which she ate like candy), but that didn’t mean it couldn’t happen. I knew about Lyme disease, made a point to pull ticks off her when I spotted them, but I doubt I got them all. If anything happened, I’d have no way to find her in all those miles of forest.