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Chapter 11
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2021-05-06 18:00:05By the time I reach the edge of the forest, my legs feel like they’re about to collapse beneath me.
I catch my breath for a moment under the shade of a huge oak tree, trying to process everything that just happened.
I ran into Bea. I tried to speak to her. Then she burst into flames and disappeared.
Impossible. Just… impossible.
It’s hard to accept the finality of what I saw. I need to know for sure whether or not that thing was really Bea. Even if it means I might be putting myself in danger.
I step out into the road, looking down Greenbriar Terrace. Bea lives just a short walk away, in Arlington Heights, neatly sandwiched between the forest and the Japanese Gardens. During the day, she’s usually one of two places – managing the Rose Inn, which is on the front of her property, or doing random hippy stuff at her cottage hidden away at
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I’m standing alone on a beach at night.A cold winds blows around me, whipping the dark ocean into a roaring maelstrom. My whole world is sand and sea and the freezing air, but my mind is lost in the distant patterns high above me.I lift one hand to point at the black sky, tracing a curved line between five glimmering stars to form a perfect ring.Silver flame snakes through the distant spaces where my finger passes.The heavens are burning.The stars are screaming.“Silver circle,” I whisper.I wake with a start, bolting upright in my bed. I’m having a panic attack. My heart is racing; my skin is cold and clammy. I must have been crying in my sleep, because my cheeks are wet with tears.Struggling for breath, I try to remember what happened and how I got here.A hand touches my shoulder,
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I break my “no creepy mysterious stuff for one afternoon” resolution almost immediately.Within seconds of me arriving at the Night Owl, I hear Mrs. Leyton calling my name across the room. I can see my friends waiting for me at our usual spot – Jamie’s newly-dyed bubblegum pink hair has its uses – but they haven’t spotted me yet.I’ve already kept them waiting thirty minutes. A few extra won’t make much difference.So I put on my best fake smile and walk towards Mrs. Leyton’s window-side table. The wealthy elderly widow has been a regular customer as far back as I can remember – every single afternoon since her husband died, she sits at the same table with a slice of cake and a cup of tea, and writes.She’s known locally as a “colorful character”, which is really saying something in Portland, home of The Vacuum Clea
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I hurry over to where Jamie, Zee and Grace are sitting at our usual spot near the Night Owl’s stage.“Oh my god, finally!” Jamie exclaims, jumping up and pulling me into a tight hug. “We were getting worried. What with your fainting habit and all. Your coffee’s probably cold by now, and Zee ate half your cranberry muffin.”I give Zee and Grace a quick hug before flopping down into a faded burgundy velvet armchair.“Sorry,” I say, taking a sip of my lukewarm but still delicious coffee. I steal a quick glance back behind me. Mrs. Leyton and her spidery suitor have left. Thank god. “I got sort of… caught up in something.”“Oooh, do tell!” Jamie says, her eyes widening. “It doesn’t have anything to do with five super hot boys you’re mingling with, does it?”I hesitate for a mom
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Netflix and a box of caramel doughnuts can mend most things in the world, even a broken heart.Jamie, Grace and Zee are snuggled under a blanket on the sofa next to me, our feet propped up on the glass coffee table in front of us. My mom’s always freaking out that we’re going to break it someday, but seriously, it’s the perfect height for a footrest.We already watched three episodes of Friends, and after it started getting dark the girls got permission from their parents to sleep over, except Jamie, who doesn’t need it. Her mom probably wouldn’t notice if she went missing for a month.Sometimes I think that Jamie’s attention-craving personality – her love of the limelight, and her desire to be loved and adored, by her friends, her Instagram fans, and the inaccessible hot older guy who she can never have – all stem from her inattentive, constantly absent mother.
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It’s 8.45pm.Today’s Thursday, which is always a busy night at Biblio. So the earliest I should expect my parents back is 11pm. That gives me plenty of time.Walking quietly up the stairs so that my friends in the living room don’t realize where I’m going, I try to picture the last time I rummaged through mom’s jewelry box. I would have been a kid back then, maybe five or six years old.I clearly remember one sunny afternoon in Fall, left at home with gran while mom and dad were at the restaurant. While gran was in the kitchen making our lunch, I crept upstairs to my parent’s bedroom. I went for mom’s makeup drawer first, smearing first my lips, then my eyelids, with her pale silver eye shadow. Then I took the talcum powder from her dresser and sprinkled it all over my head, watching the snowy clouds of talc floating behind me in the mirror. I think I was trying to tur
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Red and yellow leaves float down through the air like rubies and gold coins drifting underwater, a pirate’s treasure trove carpeting our front lawn in lustrous Autumn splendor.I’m sitting on the window seat in my parents’ room, looking out through the misty glass panes. I clutch Funnybunny, my favorite stuffed toy, against my chest, and I begin to sing the song we learned in kindergarten yesterday.The blackbirds in the tree outside gather on a branch near the window, bobbing up and down, trilling in time with my rolling melody.My song finishes, and the birds take flight, cawing their goodbyes on the breeze.There’s a delicious fragrance in the air – a quince and pear pie baking in the oven downstairs, gran’s idea of a healthy lunch. As she says, it’s mostly fruit, after all.But I’m not hungry yet. There’s something I must do.
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The silver circle. The ring in mom’s jewelry box. The five princes. Bea. The sea witch. Try as I might, I still can’t quite piece together the mystery I’ve stepped into. Words, tunes, images and ideas swirl through my mind all the way back to the cabin, as I puzzle over the greater meaning – but I’m still as lost as ever. From time to time a bird or a squirrel darts through the leafy labyrinth of branches overhead, scattering the early morning sunlight and bringing me to a standstill. Even now, I feel like there’s someone or something following me, just a few steps behind at all times. I turn around every few minutes to check, but all I see is green, and more green. My parents were surprisingly relaxed about the shattered coffee table. I thought they were just trying not to make a scene in front of my friends, but they didn’t even mention it after Zee and Grace drove off with Jamie (who w
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Wait.My voice sounds hollow and distant, like it’s coming from far away. Felix hovers over me, a darkness dawning in his eyes as I speak.“Wait, Felix,” I whisper. “This isn’t… I can’t do this.”His dark hair falls in front of his eyes, and he pushes it back as he nods, releasing me as he sits up, leaning his back against the trunk of the tree we lie beneath.I stay on my back for a few moments, trying to catch my breath as I stare up at the canopy of brilliant bright red leaves overhead. As I watch, a single, delicate leaf drifts down, landing on my breast like a drop of blood.Felix reaches for it with a faraway look in his eyes, his fingertips leaving echoes of prickling electricity where they brush my skin.He holds the frail crimson leaf up into the silver moonlig
