7
We eat our biscuits, her talking about everything, me talking about nothing. After the meal, I pack up two and brew Mr. Leland his coffee.
An idea sparks in my head.
"Do you know Mr. Leland?" I ask, eyeing her from the kitchen as I brew the coffee.
"I don't," she responds, looking over at me, brushing her long nails through her knotted hair.
"He's an old man who lives not too far away. He can seriously talk your ear off if you let him. Do you want to come with me to meet him?"
She has a hesitant look in her eyes, so I quickly add, "One thing he loves to talk about is hair care. He knows all the remedy to any hair damage."
Her eyes light up. Got you. She nods and leaves the room to go get ready.
I write a quick note on a pad of paper and fold it up, palming it in the hand I hold the coffee. She returns quickly, and I smile brightly. "Let me get my shoes."
-
We make it to the old man's house, and I knock loudly twice, holding two biscuits in a bag and the coffee in the other. Despite the freezing wind, sweat still manages to bead on my forehead. I hear stirring on the other side, then his daily, "Coming!"
He opens the door with a grin, then sees Natalie with me, and smiles even brighter. "Oh, hello there!" He says enthusiastically. "Willow, whose this?"
"This is Natalie," I say, smiling. "She made biscuits." Dog stands wagging his tail behind me.
He greedily takes them, and I step through the threshold, shoving the paper in his open hand with an urgent look in my eyes, then cover it with the coffee. He looks confused, but the look in my eyes must tell him that it's important. Natalie follows after me, and Mr. Leland hands me yesterday's thermos.
I take the seat facing the room, forcing Natalie to take the one facing away. I see Mr. Leland open the paper, then fold it up and place it in his jean pocket.
"So, Natalie, you know I'm kind of a hair care expert around here, yeah?" He grins and leans against the wall, then feigns a hip pain. I immediately stand and offer my seat.
I sit through listening to Natalie talk about everything hair, Mr. Leland listening, when I announce I have to go chop firewood if we want to stay warm this winter. Mr. Leland winks, and I wink back.
I slip out of the door with Dog, and the second we're out of sight of the house, I whisper to him, "Find Chris." I put the thermos down on the edge of the porch. I'll retrieve it tomorrow.
He seems to know what I need and trots away, toward the graveyard. "Fast," I tell him, and he begins to walk a little faster, until I'm practically sprinting behind him.
He stops first at my family graveyard, where the footprints enter and exit. Dog stands at the exit. He never goes in. I always believed he could feel the spirits there, and didn't want to disturb them.
The graveyard is quiet, and I follow the footprints back one row, all the way down to the end. Juniper Shade. The footprints stop, then retrace. The woman whose room he stayed in. Why did he come here?
I exit the graveyard, and Dog immediately picks up the pace again, bounding through the snow again. The footsteps lead toward the lake, pause, then sharply turn towards the woods.
By the time he stops and sits, we're just past the edge of the tree line, and I see a figure pacing in the trees not too far from me. "Chris!" I call, and his head snaps up to meet my eyes.
I walk to catch my breath, and then examine him. "Tell me what happened the night you disappeared," I say, slightly breathlessly.
His eyes fill with something I can't identify, and his jaw feathers as he enters thought. "I'm not one-hundred percent sure," he says, "But I think someone got hurt, and I think it was my fault. I think I ran away to-to save myself." His eyes are filled with panic as he retells the story.
Confusion slaps me, and I look at him in disbelief. "What do you mean?"
"I heard some of the guys talking. They were saying how they couldn't believe the camp covered up both disappearances. Two boys went missing, and I'm one of them. And all I-I remember is—" He's breathing so fast now I think for a moment he might explode, but he catches his breath and continues, looking me dead in my eyes. "All I remember is the lake. There were three other boys with me, and a girl. And then I pushed him and then-and then—" he lets out a frustrated yell and hits a tree with his fist, cursing. "I don't remember. I think I may have pushed him in the lake. And then fled to save myself."
I can't say anything. I stop breathing all together as I look into his eyes, his eyes with the forest in them. His voice shakes as he whispers the next sentence, and he breaks his gaze. "But I don't think they were my friends."
"You killed somebody? You-you drowned somebody?" I ask, and I feel myself shaking. My memory flashes to Aspen. The ice cracking.
The split-second scream before she went under.
That's why Natalie seemed nervous when I mentioned Chris. He had killed somebody. He had killed somebody.
I looked at this boy who I had enjoyed the company of, who I had let sleep in my house for two nights.
"I-I—" But I run out of words to say. I take three steps back, and he takes one forward, reaching out his hand. Just like the first night we met. The night I let a killer into my house.
"Willow, I'm sorry. Please, you're all I have right now. Please." His voice cracks and breaks, and tears fill his eyes. "I'm scared."
I almost laugh in disbelief, tears threatening to come out at any given moment. "You're scared? You're what I should have been fearing all this time. You're a monster!" Before I know it, I'm running as fast as I can out of the woods, into the clearing. My heart feels like it's going to explode out of my chest and Dog runs to me, knowing something is seriously wrong.
Something is seriously wrong.
I collapse on my knees and the tears are spilling before I can stop them. Aspen drowned because of me, and another boy drowned because of Chris. The thought chilled me to the bone. We are both killers.
I hear footsteps running after me, and I sharply flip, now facing him but still on the ground.
"I don't know what happened that night, Willow, but I'm not a monster. You're the only thing I know is real right now, I feel like you're the only one who knows me. Those people I was with weren't my friends."
I'm breathing fast, tears silently falling, and I'm trying to stop thinking about her. But as I look at him, keeping his distance so he doesn't scare me, pleading with me with his eyes, I believe him. The boys at the camp are cruel. It might've been a dare, like what happened with me. And my breathing calms.
"I want to believe you," I say quietly. "I really do." I say.
"Then believe me!" He says quietly, with a strange desperation in his voice.
My lips seal into a line. I think it over. If he ever tried to hurt me, Dog would rip him in half without a second thought, and expect head rubs for the act. "Okay." I finally say. "I believe you."
He looks like he's about to collapse from relief when he slowly walks over to me, offering me his hand to stand up. I take it, and his fingers are ice cold.
"We need to get you to the cabin," I say. "You're freezing." He pulls me up, and for a moment, we're so close I can see the flecks of brown in his eyes, so small you wouldn't notice from a distance. My breath escapes my chest, and I feel myself flush. I take a quick step back, releasing his hand. "Thank you. One more thing," I add as we begin walking, "The girl staying at the house...I think she was with you the night of the storm."
His face drops and his jaw feathers as worry creases his brow. "She's bad news. I can feel it."
"She acted weird this morning when I asked her if she had seen you," I explained, eyeing him to gauge his reaction. But he's just looking, brows drawn at the ground, as though he's trying hard to remember. But he shakes his head.
"I wish I knew why she was bad news, but I can't remember."
I take his freezing hand and give it a reassuring squeeze. Partially to make sure he's real. Partially to see if under those caring eyes, there's a killer hiding. "It's okay. It will come back eventually."
I smile up at him, and he returns it, but I can tell his lack of memory is worrying him. Please don't be a murderer, I say to myself.
I need to come up with a plan to get Natalie out. I need to hide Chris in the meantime. I hope she hasn't returned from Mr. Leland's house yet, or everything will blow up.
We reach the cabin, and I tell him to wait a few paces away while I yell for Natalie into the cabin. No response.
"Okay, Chris, come on," I say. He hurries inside, and I follow, shutting the door tight.
The fire has died and the only light in the room is from the window. Frantic tapping begins to beat on it, and dread fills my chest. They're back.
I look at the butterflies through the window, one black and one white. Chris follows my gaze. "Woah," he says in awe. "They're beautiful."
"They're an omen of death," I say, my breath catching. "Yin and yang, perfectly balanced. One cannot live without the other. Light and dark, always at war. We live in light under the sun. If they follow you, then so does death. So does dark."
A frown creases the corner of his mouth. "And they're following you." A statement, not a question.
I look back at him, and suddenly the ground is being swept out from under me again, and I stumble, catching myself on the windowsill. He moves to steady me in an instant, placing his icy hands on my waist.
I look into his eyes, and they stabilize me. They bring me back to the present. "Yes." He removes his hands from my sides as quickly as he put them there.
I look to my right, back out the window, and see a figure fast approaching. "Shit!" I shout, shoving Chris hard on his shoulders so he's out of view of the window. I hope she didn't see him. "My room. Now. Go!"
He obeys immediately, and he runs, taking two stairs at a time.
He flashes just out of vision as the door is thrown open. "Willow!" She sings in a happy voice, a huge smile on her face. "That man is the sweetest man I have ever met. He made me hot chocolate and told me about all sorts of natural remedies for my split ends! Oh, he wanted me to give you this," she said, handing me my thermos. I smile gratefully and take it.
"Thank you." I need to get her out.
I need to get her out now.
Because the floorboard in my room just creaked.
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