43 Sophie
Sophie
Sophie kneels on the edge of the crag, noticing the rain sliding down her nose. She takes in the panorama before her: lakes of wildflowers and forests spotted with tennis-ball-green aspens.
The snippets she remembers from that night fifteen years ago with Tanner are blurry—ironically, like they were taken with a bad-quality camera.
But they also linger in the way that a bad dream lingers.
The smell of the duvet. Musty, like it had sat in the washer for days.
The flash of the camera in the dark room.
As soon as he got near her last night, his breath sulfuric on her face, she wanted to gouge his eyes out, but that didn’t happen.
It couldn’t, not with fingernails as chewed-down as hers.
She tries to pull her thoughts out of that hallway.
Tries not to think about the abject revulsion on Marissa’s face, tries not to think about his jeans and the way they pressed against the back of her hand.
Suddenly, a violent longing makes her miss Talia.
No call from her yesterday at all. Sophie tried again this morning, but it went straight to voicemail.
And for some reason she hasn’t responded to her texts.
Worry has coiled around Sophie’s logical thinking, squeezing the air out of it.
After the fourth unread message, she started to spiral, and the worst-case scenarios emerged.
An out-of-control fever from an unknown virus.
Emergency room. A nose cannula pumping oxygen just to keep her baby alive.
It took twenty minutes and a solid talking down from her dad to snap Sophie out of it.
If Talia needs me, she will call. This is what she has to keep reminding herself, though she can still feel the electrode prod of anxiety all over her body.
It’s satisfying to know in a small sardonic way that even after Elena’s baseless accusations and her own explosive cruelty, after her conversation with Marissa, and even after her run-in with Tanner McGrath, that her anxiety is still centered around her family.
Right now, all she wants is to see her little girl’s face and to wrap herself in her wife’s arms.
The journal is butterflied open before her knees. There are even more pages with handwriting now, as if more appeared overnight. She knows now that no one has been sneaking in, thank god. She kept the journal cradled to her chest all night as she cried herself to sleep.
Most of what’s here is a hurried and nonsensical stream of consciousness that Sophie will have to decipher later.
She is scanning it frantically, looking for Tanner’s name, because since she woke up this morning, she has been wondering something.
Quinn knew how upset Sophie was, how traumatized.
What if she didn’t make light of the pictures?
What if she did do something about them?
Quinn could have done a summoning spell on her own to get the pictures from Tanner’s phone.
She shouldn’t have done magic alone, but maybe she did.
If the pictures were really that bad, maybe they drove Quinn to do something stupid.
She could have gone to Tanner’s, like Marissa said, but not to play matchmaker.
Maybe she went there to warn him to stay away from Sophie.
Sophie can’t seem to marry the two versions of Quinn.
There’s the Quinn who kept the incriminating photos of her and lied to Elena about being in a secret relationship with her.
Then there’s this version of Quinn, the one who Sophie realizes now might have threatened Tanner on her behalf.
She wants to believe in that version, the loyal friend.
She really wants to. Ordinarily, it wouldn’t be difficult.
But now, she doesn’t know. Sophie naturally turns toward the positive like a plant leaning toward the sun.
But believing that Quinn stood up for her means believing something else too—something unthinkable.
Tanner, fresh from being threatened by Quinn, would have been angry, so angry that he retaliated.
Years of being the target of his obsessive bullying meant Sophie knew him.
And he hated to be told what to do. He liked to be in control.
He wouldn’t have taken Quinn’s threat lightly, and he had already proved his capacity to do real harm.
Did he push her? The theory reverberates through her as if she’s a Tibetan singing bowl, growing louder and suddenly becoming the only possible explanation.
Sophie gets to her feet, still clutching the journal.
She leans forward, just slightly. Enough that she can see what’s below her.
The creek is there—a milky yellow, thanks to the ore sediment leached from the ground—and the rocks.
Years have washed away any trace of a death here, and yet it feels as raw as if it happened yesterday.
Cradling the journal in one hand, she forces herself to resume skimming for Tanner’s name. She doesn’t get far before a new page catches her eye, and she trails a finger over the words.
I asked my mom if The Book of Aspens is hiding something.
She said yes, lots of things. She told me a story about the women who were initiated with her.
She said this very question fractured their friendship.
It drove the four of them apart. She told me to let it go, that it can only lead to greed.
But I know she’s wrong…because I unlocked them. I unlocked the rest of the spells.
Behind Sophie, footsteps. She holds her breath and listens. The steps grow louder, closer. Someone is coming, and the idea sends all her thoughts fluttering away completely. Fear grows roots beneath her. Is it Tanner? Is he following her?
Slowly, she crouches down, too afraid to look behind her.
She carefully tucks the journal away and slides her bag onto her shoulders and starts to think of an escape.
She could break into a run through the brush.
But, oh god, what is she thinking? She can’t outrun Tanner.
She hasn’t exercised properly in years. She could stay low, but how long will that last for her?
It’s only a matter of seconds before he sees her here.
Or, she realizes, she could jump. The option blows through her like a cold wind. It’s not really an option, though. Is it?
“Sophie?”
Sophie yelps, and her foot slips an inch.
Her shoe catches on a flat part of the crag.
It’s drizzling, she realizes with a panic.
Slippery. She steadies herself with fingertips against rock and then realizes she recognizes the voice.
It’s not Tanner’s, or at least she doesn’t think it is.
She stands with a surge of courage and turns to see.