Boy from the Woods (9781311684776) (3 page)

“No.
I’m staying here,” she said softly.

“Too bad,” he
replied flatly. “Oh well, maybe I’ll bump into you
somewhere later. I have to go now before the
music store closes, okay?” He leaned over and gave her a
meaningless kiss on the cheek.

“Okay, s-see
you,” she stammered at his back. He wasn’t even listening anymore.
One of Michael’s friends emerged from the alley, enthusiastically
thumping him on the back before dragging him along to the Old Town
of Salzburg.

And then he
was gone.
Julia fell back against the
wall, taking a long, steadying breath. Of course she should be
relieved to finally know where she stood after a nerve-racking
week, but she wasn’t. Frankly, she couldn’t feel anything. She got
on the bus on auto-pilot, lowering herself onto her usual seat in
the back.

Reality
was harsh. She didn’t
mean
anything
to him. For two years she’d been staring herself
blind at someone who was blind to her.

This time,
the realization
hit her in the gut. Julia
closed her eyes and tried to hold back her tears, but his
indifferent reaction to her words was too painful to forget. The
way he’d impatiently looked past her while she was talking to him,
so eager to get away. The way he’d looked past her at school all
those years until she turned out to be easy prey at the party. What
a bastard. Who the hell did he think he was?!

By the time
the bus reach
ed the end of the line,
Julia’s sadness had turned to anger. Instead of going home, she ran
into the woods, trying to outrun the rage thudding against her ribs
by heading straight for her meditation spot. When she finally
slumped down against the old oak tree in the forest, hot tears were
running down her face.

“You idiot,”
she sobbed. “You silly, stupid
cow.”

Mostly, she
was angry with
herself
now. How could she have been this
naive?

It was
high time to get her act together. Julia
resolutely wiped the tears from her eyes. Time to say goodbye to
all the dreams she’d had about the two of them, because she’d
obviously been dreaming in vain.
Dreams didn’t come
true.
Life was not a
fairytale.

It was time to grow up.

“There
you are,” Ms. Gunther
called out indignantly from the kitchen when Julia came home that
night. “You’re late, young lady. I had no idea if you’d be joining
us for dinner. I thought maybe you’d eat at Gaby’s.”

“I’m sorry,
M
om.” Julia went into the kitchen to hug
her mother. “I should have called, but stuff happened and I was
distracted.
What are we having?”

“Macaroni.”
Her mom stroked her head sweetly. “And I made
some salad.”

“Tuna salad,” Anne piped up with disdain. “I
don’t like tuna.”

“You change
your culinary likes and dislikes every week.” Julia rolled her
eyes. “How on earth is Mom supposed to keep up with
you?”

Anne
shrugged. “I’ll put up a list,” she replied donnishly, trying to
look as venerable as possible with all of ten years under her belt.
Julia grinned impishly at her sister and suddenly Anne erupted in
giggles.
“Don’t look at me like that!
I’m just a fussy eater. Gran always says so,
too.”

“We’ll visit
G
randma this weekend, so maybe you should
give me that list soon,” their mom admonished her with a chuckle.
“So I can let the poor woman know what food to steer clear of when
she’s cooking for us.”

They sat down
at the table. Julia loved the small household she was a part of.
Even though she missed her dad sometimes, it was much better for
her mom that he lived somewhere else now. The tense atmosphere that
had pervaded the house in the years before their divorce was gone
for good. Their mother had started a new and better
life.

Julia’s gran
lived in Eichet, close to the suburbs of Birkensiedlung. Her
mother’s mother was like
a second parent.
Her grandpa had passed away a few years ago, leaving his wife by
herself. When he had still been alive, Julia had visited her
grandparents every Sunday afternoon to play songs for them. She
loved their antique piano. At home, she only had a keyboard to
practice on.

She
used her Yamaha to write songs in her room,
including the song she’d written for her finals in Music Ed – and
secretly, she’d written it with Michael in mind. He had never been
far from her thoughts when she composed it. Every time she added a
new line of melody to it, she imagined playing it in front of an
audience of students in the large auditorium at school. In her
fantasies, an enraptured Michael had always been in the front row,
gazing up at her in admiration.

In reality, he hadn’t even been there.

Julia munched
on
a bite of tuna salad, trying to fend
off the memory of Michael’s handsome face and green eyes.
She had to stop thinking about him. He wasn’t handsome at
all.
He was a low-life bastard who used
innocent girls like Kleenex, and she’d been too blind to recognize
him for what he really was.

“Julia!”
H
er mother’s voice snapped her out of her
inner rant. “Are – are you
crying
, sweetie?”

Startled, she
looked up,
wiping away a few tears
rolling down her face. Anne gaped at her from across the table in
distress.

Smiling
feebly,
Julia rubbed her cheeks once
more.
“Sorry. It’s just...
I’m feeling a bit lost. School has ended, everyone’s
leaving, my life will never be the same... it all feels so final,”
she lied.

“Well, Gaby
isn’t going anywhere, right?” Ms. Gunther put a loving hand on her
daughter’s arm. “She’ll be here for you. And what about Axel and
Florian? They’re going to college at Salzburg University too. Your
old friends will still be around, won’t they?”

Julia smiled.
Her mom was sweet, and
more importantly,
she was right. The people who really cared about her would be here
for her. Chances were, her life would be better now that she wasn’t
just focused on Michael. Up till now, she had never taken notice of
all the
other
cool guys in her hometown.

Time to
ope
n her eyes to new possibilities and
stop throwing herself a pity party.

When Julia
emerged from her bedroom after donning new jeans and a T-shirt
later that evening, she was fully prepared to make her life take a
one-eighty spin. It was a beautiful evening and she was going to
enjoy her friends’ company at O’Malley’s, their favorite
pub.

“Julia,” Anne
called her from the room
next door. “Will
you read me a story?” Her sister tried to sound like a toddler on
purpose. Nowadays, Anne claimed she was
way
too grown-up to be read
to, but she also said Julia was the exception to the rule because
her big sister was just too good at reading fairytales.

“I’m coming!”
With a smile, Julia entered the room. She sat
down on the edge of the bed, combing her fingers through Anne’s
hair. Her baby sister was mock-sucking her thumb, clutching a
cuddly toy under one arm and batting her eyelashes at Julia while
pushing her storybook about the enchanted forest toward
her.

“The
Prince of Trees
,” Julia intoned, opening the book at chapter four. She
didn’t even have to look – she knew it by heart. Her grandmother
had always read her stories from this book, and when Anne was born,
Gran had gifted her the book. “It’s your turn to read fairytales to
your little sister,” she’d said.

The storybook
was chock-f of Austrian legends, fairyta
les and traditions from ancient times. One part was even
dedicated to folklore that pre-dated Christianity – pages full of
descriptions of dark creatures of the Alps, living in forests and
mountains. The
Krampus
was the wild spirit of the forest who taught
young men to survive on their own. Only after the church had
established their rule in the country of Austria had the
Krampus
been turned into an evil monster, taking naughty kids away
to his lair the evening before Saint Nicholas Day.

Next to that,
t
he book also featured modern fairytales.
Chapter four about the Prince of the Forest had always been Julia’s
favorite, and Anne liked it just as much. In her best storyteller’s
voice, Julia recounted the story of the young prince who fell in
love with a fairy living in the forest. The fairy princess would
sit down on the branch of his favorite tree whenever she needed to
take a rest from flying. Anne glanced over her shoulder to look at
the beautiful illustrations in the book. When Julia had reached the
end of the story, Anne crawled into her lap and flung her arms
around her big sister. “You know, I don’t feel like growing up that
much,” she confessed in a small voice.

“Why not, sweetheart?”
Julia caressed Anne’s dark-blonde hair.
Her sister was going to a new school after summer as
well.
Her time at elementary school was
over.

Anne shrugged
her thin shoulders. “You’re a grown-up
now too, and you don’t look as happy as you used to.
Sometimes, it’s like you don’t believe in fairytales
anymore.”

Julia bit her
lip to stop herself from making a
tart
remark. What was the point in telling Anne that fairytales didn’t
come true? No need to bother a little girl with her own
embitterment. “You’re right, I don’t feel that happy right now.
I’ve run into a few too many big, bad wolves lately.”

“Oh. In the
forest, you mean?” Anne
asked
half-jokingly, looking up at Julia with big, blue eyes.

Julia couldn’t help
smiling. “No, not in the forest.
In the
dark streets of Savage Salzburg.”

Anne giggled. “Are you sure you want to go
out tonight, then?”

“Sure. Axel
and Gaby will defend me if we run into more wolves or
Krampus
-monsters.”

“But Axel
wears
glasses
,” Anne objected, as
though her cousin’s bad eyesight ruled him out of a job as reliable
defender.

“Well, Gaby doesn’t.”

“True.”
Anne nodded solemnly. She was always a bit intimidated by
Gaby and her black outfits whenever Julia’s best friend came over.
Apparently, being a Goth made her a good protector in Anne’s
books.

“So, I’m leaving.” Julia
got up.
“See you tomorrow
morning.”

“Don’t stay
out too late,” Anne said, suddenly sounding too motherly for her
age.

Julia chuckled.
“I won’t.” She bounced down the stairs, almost
bounding into her mom in the hallway when she stepped out of the
kitchen.

“Do you have
the house key?”
Ms. Gunther asked. “I’m
turning in early tonight, so I’m locking the door before you come
home.”

“Check. And
my travel card, and my wallet, and my cell phone, and my pepper
spray, and my very best mood.”

Julia pressed
a kiss to her mother’s forehead and
walked out the door whistling a tune. Still humming, she
strolled down her street and onto the Birkenstrasse leading to the
bus stop. The bus wasn’t there yet, so she sat down on the bench
inside the shelter. The half moon illuminated the night sky, the
trees in the forest across the bus stop whispering mysteriously in
the summer breeze. For just a moment, it reminded her of the
fairytale she’d just read to Anne. Almost inaudibly, she muttered:
“Hello, my prince. How are you doing?”

Wouldn’t it
be fantastic to fly around on fairy wings, looking at the earth
from above? She’d sit down in a treetop and watch the world go by,
waiting until the chaos and madness of humanity’s hustle and bustle
faded away and the era of the nature spirits dawned on earth. She’d
end up with a handsome, mysterious hermit for a lover who lived in
a house deep in the forest, writing poems about the trees, the
flowers and his love for her every day.

In the years
past, she’d observed Michael for hours on end during the
mind-numbingly dull maths and physics classes
she had to sit through. She’d made the best out of them by watching
Michael, seated two rows in front of her to the left. Sometimes,
he’d sketch in his notebook while Mr. Brunner was pouring his soul
into explaining yet another complicated quadratic equation, and
she’d always wondered what it was that he was drawing. One day,
Michael had accidentally left the notebook on his desk, and she’d
peeked into his notes to look at his doodles. The last few pages
were littered with drawings of trees and flowers, and that had made
her happy.

Maybe she’d read too much into it.

In the
distance, she could see the
bus’s
headlights approach. Julia got her travel card from her bag to show
to the driver. As she was boarding, her phone buzzed in her
pocket.