21. Friday, November 3, 2023 #2
Taking in the sharp angles of his face, the depth of his deep, round, green eyes, the perfect bow of his lips, she is moved again by his beauty.
He is as flesh-and-blood as any boy she’s been with, and she perfectly remembers the lightness of his touch and the chill of his fingers and lips on her skin.
“I’m sorry the plan didn’t work,” he carries on, still wiping at her tears with his thumbs, as though his touch were consensual, as though they’re having a normal conversation and she’s not been bewitched by something malevolent behind her.
“You weren’t supposed to find out who I was.
At least not while you were pregnant. Not until after the baby was born.
” His words make her want to squeeze her eyes shut against him, but she can’t.
There is no misunderstanding, no imagining on her part.
He is exactly who she was afraid he was, and he intended to get her pregnant.
“That séance was a bad idea. I don’t understand people who play around with things like that. They’re just asking for trouble.
“And you do know what it would have meant if you had given birth?” He pauses for her answer, as though she were able to provide one.
“No? It would have meant that the woods could reproduce. Create life beyond its own ecosystem.” He leans in close to her.
“The woods have been a place of rebirth for many, but what we created, together, it could have been completely new. A product of the soil and trees and air and wildlife of this magical place. Wouldn’t that have been wonderful? ”
Polly’s on the verge of fainting. She’s lightheaded, and bile is burning up the back of her throat. Will whatever spell she’s under keep the vomit from rising, or will she choke on it?
Gray must sense what is happening inside her, because he moves close to her again and strokes her hair as though that will soothe her. “I don’t blame you, though. You didn’t know what you were doing and, in the end, maybe it was for the best. Now the woods will fix everything. They always do.”
The walls of the cave behind him darken and blur and shift. Three tall figures, cloaked in shadow, materialize out of the cave walls. They are like those who stood above her and Gray when they were having sex, like the one who attacked her on Halloween night.
“You know the woods saved me, right?” Gray gestures to the figures behind him.
“When my mother poisoned me, they saved me from her.” He frowns and shakes his head, a look of pain crossing his face.
“I forgive my mother though. She didn’t know what she was doing.
She didn’t realize that me and my dad and my brother, we were all better when we came back from the woods. Better.
“I was in so much pain, and I was afraid she would find me and finish the job. And that’s how they found me.” The shadowy figures behind Gray are so still, they appear rooted.
“They brought me to this cave. They let my physical body die and they resurrected my spirit, and I became a true creature of these woods.” His whole face lights up and he moves closer to Polly with excitement in his eyes.
“They freed me from the material world, released me from its pain and greed. Now they are my mothers. I’m bound to them and this place, but at the same time I am free.
” He nods at her. “You’ll see soon enough. ”
The figures drift forward. She is screaming and fighting inside, but her body is like stone. Each of the three figures reaches up and pulls back their dark hood. Polly’s desperate to close her eyes against the sight of them, but she can’t.
The sight she will never unsee.
Their faces are identical—long and thin, stretched out of proportion.
Their skin as rough as tree bark and as white as a cold winter moon, their mouths in a permanent grimace.
But it’s their eyes that frighten Polly the most. Holes of deep black shadow, perfect voids.
They are ancient, powerful, and terrifying. A word flies into her brain.
Coven.
Gray leaves their side to come to her. Putting both hands on her shoulders, he says, “Tonight is your time to be reborn.” His eyes shine with emotion.
“You won’t remember any of this, any of the bad things.
Only the good will remain. Good thoughts.
Good feelings. Good memories. You will emerge, leaving behind the shell of your former self, the version of you that is a lie, a lie that you have been living since the car accident that killed your sister.
All of that will disappear. That is the gift of the woods. That is the love of a mother.”
Shock makes her forget that she is immobilized.
She tries to speak, to ask how he knows, to beg him not to tell, but her lips are frozen shut.
If her lie comes out, then her whole world will fall apart.
There will be nothing left to fight for.
A strange calm comes over her, and she stops struggling.
I would have kept your secret forever. Her sister’s words are the softest whisper, fluttering through her mind.
Gray leans in and kisses her softly on the lips. “I love you so much, Lucy.” A black shadow slides across his eyes, disappearing as quickly as it arrived. He nods to whatever holds her from behind and smiles at her kindly. “I will see you on the other side, my love.”
The grip on her shoulder lifts. Without it, her body crumples to the ground. She can feel the unevenness of the bones beneath her. She hears Gray scold someone, telling them to be more careful. Everything goes black.
Lucy
As soon as they left the house to pick up Quinn from the sleepover, Polly told Lucy to give her the keys.
“I’ll get us there faster,” she’d said. Lucy had tossed them to her, not wanting to fight about it because taking on Polly took a lot of work and she didn’t care that much.
She just wanted to get home and get to bed early for her basketball game.
It was an important one and the team was depending on her to play well.
Only once they were in the car, with Polly behind the wheel and Lucy in the passenger seat, did Polly add, “We’re on a tight schedule. I need to get to that party before the molly kicks in, and you drive slower than Nana.” She peeled out of the driveway.
Looking over at her sister casually palming the steering wheel with one hand, the other tapping her thigh to the house music that she’d turned up full-blast, she felt both dread and exhilaration. Polly was reckless and unpredictable—and Lucy loved her for it.
Polly’s hair was a thick, straight curtain hanging down her back.
Her glossy pink lips were mouthing the words to the song and the glitter on her cheeks was catching the last light of evening coming through the car window.
Lucy was envious of how free Polly was. Free from people’s expectations of her, from pressure to do well or be good.
Polly had made it very clear at a very young age that she was not one to conform, or live up to people’s expectations, or follow rules.
She was her own person and everyone else adjusted.
Including their parents, whose only expectations of Polly were that she stay out of jail and finish high school.
Lucy, on the other hand, was being crushed under the weight of her parents’ expectations.
But it was her own fault. She overcompensated for her wild, tenacious, unpredictable twin.
Always top of her class in marks, star of the basketball team, never getting in trouble or worrying her parents.
Lucy had started to think that maybe she overperformed so that her sister could underperform and get away with it.
Or maybe she did it for the approval. Either way, she felt trapped.
If Polly was the black sheep, she was the sacrificial lamb.
They were only blocks away from picking up Quinn when it happened.
Lucy was telling Polly off for lighting a cigarette in the car and Polly was calling her a nerd when Polly’s phone rang from her bag on the backseat.
Polly told Lucy she’d put out the cigarette if she got her phone for her.
There was a stop sign up ahead and Lucy saw her chance.
She unbuckled to reach back and get the phone.
She heard Polly mumble something about the drugs kicking in and felt the car accelerate. A car horn, an explosion of glass and metal. She felt her body fly forward.
The world disappeared.
They didn’t know it, but Lucy could hear them while she was in the coma.
Just bits and pieces drifting through the soft walls of unconsciousness to float down to her.
She heard her mother call her Polly—“We love you, Polly. We’re right here with you, Polly.
Please come back to us, Polly.” She heard the nurses talking over her while they gave her a sponge bath and refilled her intravenous—“The other one was called Lucy. She died in the accident, poor thing. This one wasn’t wearing a seat belt so she was thrown clear before the fire.
You know the doctors couldn’t figure out who was who for hours? ”
Lucy didn’t worry about their mistake. She knew they’d figure it out eventually.
She was alive and Polly was dead. She knew this for a fact because Polly came to see her in the coma landscape.
They had tea parties like they did when they were little, and played hide-and-seek, and lay in meadows full of flowers, talking. It’s where they said goodbye.