creepy hollow 05.5 - scarlett (2 page)

“Did you do this?” she asked, looking back at him through the lattice of leaves and twigs.

“Remember I said I was busy last week?”

“Yes. I didn’t see you the whole weekend.”

He stooped beneath the branch before letting it fall back into place behind him. He beamed at her. “Now you know where I was. Keep going,” he added, urging her forward.

Beth continued along the newly formed path, being careful to avoid the sharp edges where Jack must have hacked his way through the branches just days ago. After several more careful steps, she came to a clearing right beside the water. A picnic blanket lay upon the uneven grass, with a basket beside it and jars of candles all around. “This is that spot,” she said in amazement, looking out across the water to the opposite shore. “That spot we always see from the other side but have never been able to get to.”

“Yes,” Jack said. “Happy one year anniversary.” As emotion tightened Beth’s throat, making it difficult to speak, he hastily added, “It’s not a fancy restaurant or anything, but I know you love the lake, and you’ve always wished you could find a way to this side, so I figured—”

“It’s amazing. I couldn’t have asked for anything better.” She had often wished she could run away and live in that other world, the world she’d been born for. But then she’d fallen in love with the boy next door, and now moments like this reminded her that she didn’t need that other world after all. This world would do just fine.

“It’s just a little bit magical, isn’t it?” Jack said, reaching for her hand.

“Yes.” Not the kind of magical she knew of, but as close to magical as anything could be in this world.

They sat on the blanket and Beth kicked her shoes off while Jack switched his phone to silent and left it by the picnic basket. Still feeling a little nervous, Beth began describing the miniature terrarium she’d constructed that morning inside a hanging teardrop vase. Jack listened as he poured a drink for each of them. Sparkling grape juice, icy enough to send a shiver down her arms as she took a sip. “I’m sorry, I didn’t expect it to be this cold tonight,” Jack said, removing his jacket and placing it around Beth’s shoulders.

“It’s okay. I have you to keep me warm.” She put her cup down so she could push her arms into the sleeves of the jacket. If she’d been dressed like this when she left the house, Dad might not have been so furious. He might not have looked at her with such hatred. She pressed her lips together as she realized the cracks his words had caused in her heart were still there.

Jack ran his fingers delicately through her hair and asked, “Do you want to tell me what’s wrong?”

She looked up, surprised. She had meant to hide her sadness, but clearly she wasn’t doing a very good job. “No, not now. I don’t want to ruin tonight.”

“But if something’s bothering you, then rather get it out. That way it won’t bother you anymore, and the night won’t be ruined.”

She looked down at the blanket. “My dad …” Jack nodded, as if he’d known it was something to do with Dad. Of course he knew. Whenever something was wrong, it was almost always to do with the nonexistent relationship between Beth and her father. “It’s just something he said before I left. He … I’ve always known I mean nothing to him—”

“Don’t say that.”

“—but I was wrong. I mean
less
than nothing to him.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Jack said, and Beth was grateful he didn’t try to contradict her. Didn’t try to convince her that her father did, in fact, care. He knew it wasn’t true just as much as she did. Instead, he leaned forward and pressed a gentle kiss against her cheek. “You mean everything to me, my beautiful scarlet lady,” he whispered into her ear.

“Scarlett,” she whispered back, tasting the name on her tongue. “I like that. It sounds so exotic.”

“It does.” He kissed her earlobe, then pulled back slightly. With one finger, he touched the silver name resting beneath her throat. “But I’m not sure it entirely fits the sweet girl I know you are inside.”

“Maybe I don’t want to be that sweet girl all the time,” she said, looking up at him between lashes painted dark with mascara. “Maybe tonight I want to be Scarlett.”

Scarlett
… The name made her feel stronger, braver. It made her feel more like someone her mother would be pleased with instead of the entirely ordinary girl she had turned out to be. It made her feel like she could almost, possibly … be one of
them
.

“Scarlett,” Jack whispered, a fire igniting in his eyes as she held his gaze, daring him to see her as more than the sweet girl next door.

And then the corners of his lips turned up, and she found a giggle escaping her lips just as Jack’s face crumpled with amusement. They fell against each other, their laughter mingling together, and Beth felt that the cracks in her heart were almost healed. As their laughter subsided, she found herself on her back on the blanket with Jack leaning over her, his smiling face close to hers. He kissed her neck, his fingers slid between hers, and when he looked at her again, his gaze was almost adoring. “It doesn’t matter what name I call you,” he said. “I’ll always love you.”

A shiver raced across her skin, and at first she thought it was because of Jack’s words and the way he was looking at her. But then she realized the strange feeling had returned. The vibration that hummed throughout her body, making her feel light and heavy at the same time. She wanted to make a mental note to stop putting it off and phone the doctor the next day, but there wasn’t a single thought she could hold onto with Jack looking at her like that.

As if nothing else existed in the world but her.

“You are more beautiful tonight than you’ve ever been before,” he whispered.

His lips found hers, and she pulled him closer. Her eyes slid closed. She forgot everything—Dad’s angry words, the picnic blanket beneath her, the soft patter of rain that had begun to fall. All that mattered was Jack’s body pressed against hers, his fingers sliding into her hair, his breaths becoming shallow as their kiss deepened. She dug her fingers into his back, feeling the muscles beneath his shirt, imagining his strength.

As if with a great effort, Jack pulled his lips from hers and took a deep breath. Opening her eyes a fraction, she jokingly said, “Is this where you tell me I’m taking your breath away?”

“I feel … I can’t …” He pulled away from her embrace and clutched his chest.

Alarmed, Beth sat up. “What’s wrong?”

“I …”

“Jack?”

He tried to speak, but his shallow breaths had become gasps. He shook his head and clutched more desperately at his chest. He collapsed onto his side on the blanket. With icy fear shooting through her, Beth scrambled across the blanket and grabbed Jack’s phone. She tapped the numbers with shaking fingers before returning to his side. “Breathe, okay? Just breathe.”

They were the most useless words she’d ever uttered.

She saw the terror in his eyes as his horrible, rasping gasps became slower and slower. She wrapped her hand around his and squeezed it tight. His back arched, and he let out a terrible moaning gasp as a surge of power rushed through Beth’s body.

Shocked, frozen in place, her eyes moved to their clasped hands. Realization, slow and terrible and inevitable, coalesced into a single impossible thought.

Siren.

She snatched her hand away from Jack’s and dropped the phone. “No,” she whispered. “No, no, no.”

“… your emergency?” came the disembodied voice from the phone. “Hello?”

Jack’s eyelids fluttered weakly. His chest barely rose and fell. Biting down on her shaking lip, Beth picked up the phone. She forced herself to speak, but her voice sounded far away as she named the lake and the area before dropping the phone as if it burned.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, inching slowly away from Jack. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

Then she pushed herself to her feet and ran. Twigs slapped her arms and rain wet her face as she tore along the makeshift path. She cried out as the sharp edge of a branch sliced across her leg, but she didn’t stop running. She kept going until she pushed past that final branch and stumbled out beside Jack’s car. She reached for the door—but where could she go? Not home. Dad would cast her out if she’d truly become the thing he hated most. She had to leave, but the thought of being on her own terrified her. How would she survive?

And Jack.

Jack.

“What have I done?” she whispered to the night.

The wailing cry of an ambulance reached her ears. It wasn’t far off. Of course it wasn’t. Nothing ever happened in Holtyn. This was probably the first emergency all week.

Beth looked down at her shaking hands. She stared at the ring. It was the only option left to her now. She gripped the pearl between her thumb and forefinger. She twisted it around three times.

And the world vanished.

CHAPTER THREE

A whirlwind of color spun Beth around and around before dumping her onto a beach of warm sand, where she stumbled and fell to her knees. She stayed there, digging her fingers into the fine white sand, catching her breath, and feeling the magic-infused air drift across her skin. Though a decade had passed since she was last here, she knew this was the right place. That almost imperceptible hum that existed in the sand, the water, even the air, was the same hum that now pulsed through her own body. A hum she had never noticed until she’d been sent to live in a world devoid of it.

Beth clenched her fingers, watching a ripple of blue light dance through the sand away from her hands and vanish as it reached the water. She scooped the sand up and let it sift between her fingers. As the grains hit the ground, they became crystals. White crystals that scattered around her knees, sparkling in the afternoon light before disintegrating into sand once more. She stood and looked out across the water. The rays of the setting sun glittered like fiery orange gems upon the ocean’s surface, far beyond the breaking waves where white foam became galloping horses that tumbled and vanished as they reached the shore. This world was alive in a way that that other world—her father’s world—could never be. And it was just as glorious in reality as it was in her dreams.

But Jack …

She squeezed her eyes shut as guilt tightened like a fist around her heart. But she couldn’t think of him now. She couldn’t go back until she was certain she’d never hurt him again. She opened her eyes and turned around—

And there stood her mother, Evaline. Dazzling, fearsome, perfectly graceful.

“Bessie?” Evaline said, and the terrified girl had to remind herself that she was only five and a half the last time her mother saw her. That was the age at which Evaline sent Beth to live with her father. It was clear by then that she possessed no magic, and Evaline had no use for a daughter who was essentially human. “Bessie,” her mother repeated, the questioning tone gone from her voice.

Bessie.
Beth had come to hate that name early on. After a week of being called Bessie the Cow by her new human classmates, she’d informed her father, her teacher and her classmates in an uncharacteristic show of confidence that they had made a mistake; her name was not Bessie but Beth. That confidence was nowhere to be found now, so instead of answering, Beth merely nodded.

“You look awful,” Evaline said. Beth looked down at the oversized jacket and the torn dress. Dirt smudged her feet and hands. She noticed, however, that her legs bore no scratches, and above the smeared dribble of blood where there should have been an open wound, only a narrow cut marred her skin. “Beneath all that mess, however,” Evaline added, “you seem to have turned out rather lovely. Almost lovely enough to be one of us.” She folded her arms over her chest. “What are you doing here? I told you there was only one reason you should ever return. I hope you haven’t forgotten that.”

A spark of annoyance ignited Beth’s terrified core, heating her chest and running down to her fingertips. This was her mother. Her own
mother
. Couldn’t she at least pretend to be glad to see her daughter after all these years? Finally finding her voice, she said, “I haven’t forgotten. That’s why I’m here.”

Her mother tilted her head to the side, her gaze narrowing slightly. She looked around, seeming to search for something, before her gaze snapped back to Beth. “Is that
you
I’m sensing?”

Beth hated the look of shock on Evaline’s face, as if it were so impossible that her disappointment of a daughter might have turned out magical after all. She raised her chin, attempting to portray the self-assurance she wished she felt. “I—I think so. I’ve been feeling different lately, and then tonight I was … I was with someone, and when I touched him, it felt as though … I’d sucked the energy out of his body and into mine.”

Evaline took a few steps toward Beth—although ‘step’ was a loose term; she seemed to glide more than walk—as an expression of wonder came over her face. “You’re one of us after all. You truly are my daughter.”

A hesitant smile tugged the edges of Beth’s lips as the tension eased from her chest. She’d been waiting her whole life to hear those words. Evaline moved closer and wrapped her arms briefly around Beth. It was barely a hug, just enough for Beth to feel her mother’s hands press lightly against her back, and her sleek, ebony hair tickle her cheek. And then it was over, but it was the most affection Beth could remember her mother ever showing her.

“Come,” Evaline said. “Let’s go home.”

* * *

Beth remembered the rocks that led to the sirens’ home. She remembered standing atop them, staring out at the wild waters, wishing in her young heart that she could be everything her mother wanted her to be. Evaline traversed the rocks with practiced ease, while Beth trailed several steps behind her, slipping and stumbling and grasping onto the rocks. Wherever she placed her hand, the rough, weathered surface lit up, a different color each time, and she wondered if the rocks were now enchanted that way or if it was her magic creating the light.