Unlikely Magic: A Cinderella Retelling (Girl Among Wolves Book 1) Read online

  When I’ve looked down at night, I’ve seen lights in the valley. It seemed impossibly far then. Now, it seems impossibly possible. So near that I could turn into a bird and fly down the mountain to the valley in minutes. Just before pulling my head back inside, something catches my attention. Voices, on the path up the hill from the house. Instead of ducking back in, I turn. I can’t see the road, but I can see treetops. And further up the hill, at the top of the little mountain, I can just make out the roof of another house. It’s much bigger than Mother’s little log cabin.

  After a few minutes, when I’ve taken in the view in every direction, I pull myself back through the skylight. Seeing the valley below gave me hope. It’s not so far, if I can see it from here.

  The excitement downstairs reaches a fever-pitch when the others join my sisters, everyone squealing and talking over each other. I press my ear to the door, just below the knob.

  “Come on, girls, we don’t want to be late,” Mother says.

  “How’s my little pup?” Harmon asks.

  I roll my eyes at Zora’s squeals of delight.

  “I’m ready,” Elidi says, her voice approaching the stairs. For a second, my heart stops. If she comes upstairs, she’ll foil my escape plan. But Harmon sings out his usual greeting to her, and her voice retreats. I slump against the door, shaking. The other girls are all talking at once, and under their voices, the murmur of the boys’ deeper voices boosts them up. I rest my palm against the smooth wooden door, aching to be a part of that life so deeply that I wonder if my hand will vacuum the very house into the black hole of my longing.

  Instead, I listen to the bustle of movement as they leave the house. One pair of hurried footsteps crosses the floor below, the door slams, and the noisy bunch departs. The voices pull long like taffy until they are gone, and the house is silent and still around me. At last, I pick myself up and wind my hair, now halfway to my elbows, into a bun. I’m ready.

  Although I discovered after a month of pressing my face to the window that it was only painted shut, and I’ve long since peeled away the paint and opened it, I can’t jump from there. I look around the room for something to make into a ladder. Yet the door seems safer. I could ram the knob with something until it breaks.

  As I’m searching for something to break it, my eyes fall on the screwdriver I’ve been using to build the bedframe. Mother is not stingy with the tools, I’ll give her that. She’s given me a handsaw and all the screws, nails, hammers, and screwdrivers I’ve needed. Of course, that generosity has come with a price. The fence is not the first thing I’ve built for her. In fact, the moment I dragged out the pile of two-by-fours in my room, she found all sorts of things to do with the wood that had been sitting abandoned for who knows how long. She even brought me a few books on basic furniture making.

  If I had tried to leave back then, she’d have locked me in here alone, with nothing. If I had thought of this the very first time she locked me in the room, I wouldn’t have built up her trust. So it’s good that I’ve never removed the doorknob before. Now, I have everything I need for the job, and even though it takes me a few minutes to figure it out, it’s pretty simple in the end. I take out two screws, remove the knob, open the door, and walk out.

  This isn’t the first time I’ve thought about running away. Once, I even told Mother I would. My threat was met with sneers and laughter, and a few days in my room with the door locked. Since then, I’ve done what I was told. Maybe that’s pathetic, and my life has become small because of it. But I’m not sorry. Now I have the ability to walk out of the house without my mother suspecting a thing.

  As soon as I step onto the path, though, I know I can’t roll a big clunky suitcase along the dirt trails. The wheels make too much noise. After returning to the house, I leave the suitcase, along with most of the contents, on my couch. I take one change of clothes, the phone I’ve long since stopped charging, and a book about edible plants. I wrap these things in a small bundle inside a long-sleeved t-shirt and tie it onto my back like a pack. Then I set out again.

  Though the rain has let up, with only a few drops sprinkling down on me from the trees as I pass, the sky remains grey and ominous. Over the past year, I’ve grown to love the fresh smell of the rain on the trees when I press my face to the screen in the upstairs window. Now, as I inhale it unfiltered, it fills my lungs like hope. My foot slips on a wet root, but I pick up the pace and turn onto the wide trail that circles through the cabins. A stab of paranoia hits then. What if someone stayed home sick? What if someone has to come back for something and sees me?

  A thump sounds from somewhere further into the cabins, and I bite back a shriek, my heart pounding. I tell myself I’m being silly. It was just a dog.

  But…there are no dogs here. As soon as I realize it, my skin prickles. No cats sit on porches licking their paws, no dogs run out to see what stranger is passing. Even though we’re out in the country, there are no animals at all…except wild animals. There are no pets of any sort. Of course, I can’t know if other people have parakeets or goldfish inside their houses, and yet…I do. I’m sure.

  You’re being paranoid, I tell myself. They don’t eat dogs. Or sacrifice kittens to the moon gods.

  But I don’t know that, either.

  Instead of going towards the road I arrived on, I turn right and hurry along the wide path that winds through the cabins. My family always turns left to go to the lunar meetings, and I don’t want to follow them. I want to get out of here, and I don’t know if there is a road out in this direction. If there’s a chance, I have to take it.

  A hundred times, I have watched Zora and Elidi and Mother, their friends, their neighbors, come and go on this path. But this is the first time I’ve walked it. The cabins are all similar, though not identical. Some are larger or smaller, some have big front porches with wood stacked on them for the coming winter, and some have small porches with a woodshed off to one side. I pass one with a porch swing, another with two old rockers on the porch beside the screen door.

  It’s all so quaint and idyllic, like something out of an old movie. Or like I’ve stepped through a time warp. No cell phones, no computers. No way to call for help.

  The thump comes again, like someone flinging himself against a wall. I’m no more ready for it than the last time. I jump a mile and almost face-plant in a puddle. Edging closer to the trees along the path, I hurry forwards. Once, a drippy and darkening forest would have scared me much more than a random noise. But it’s familiar now, something I watch from my window every day, something I work alongside in the backyard. I’ve almost forgotten the day it tried to grab my sister…almost.

  As I approach the furthest reach of the path, I spot a house I haven’t seen before. It’s beyond the view of our house, blocked by trees and other modest cabins. Except…I have seen the roof. This is the house I just saw, this one not so modest as the others. It’s not a mansion, but if this was a smattering of summer cabins, it would be the lodge.

  I crane my neck and examine it, but aside from the size, it’s no different from the others. A stone chimney rises from the wooden shingles of the roof, whereas Mother’s house has a tin roof and a metal chimney. A large woodshed sits off to one side, stacked with ricks and ricks of neatly cut wood. A porch swing hangs empty on the porch, beside a screen door, behind which I can just make out a vague outline of a doorway and darkness inside the house. The inner door is standing open.

  I hear it again, a thump and a grunting sound. I freeze. That sound was not a dog.

  I spend the next minute engaged in an internal tug-of-war with myself. At last, though, curiosity wins and I creep towards the house, clutching my necklace without thinking. “Hello?” I call, my voice coming out so weak that I can’t help but think of all the horror movies Emmy used to make me watch. I hated them. My nightmares were bad enough. But she always wanted to watch the stupid heroine go wandering into a strange house where she heard a strange noise, calling hello in her quavering voice just befo
re some psychopath jumped out and plunged a knife into her throat.

  What the hell am I doing?

  I turn away just before I reach the screen door. I leap off the porch and hurry away, almost running. It was just a dog, I tell myself over and over, until it’s a chant inside my head. Until I almost believe it.

  I have more important things to think about than whatever is in that house. Things like getting as far from it as possible. The path makes a tight circle in front of the house, where a jeep is parked. The road does not go on beyond this lodge, does not continue over the mountain and out of this crazy place. Since I know nothing about this area, I have only one option. I have to go back the way I came. Unfortunately, this requires walking out on the path that leads directly through the communal area where so long ago, I saw the girl with the band t-shirt playing Frisbee with two boys. I thought they looked so cool and mature. Not like cult members at all.

  I can’t walk out right now, when everyone is mooning at the moon. And I can’t wait until they’re back at the house. Which leaves me with one solid plan—take the path as far as possible, skirt around the cult while they’re all absorbed in their ritual cleansing or whatever they do, and find my way back to the road. If I stay within sight of the clearing, I won’t get lost.

  I hear them before I see them. The peals of laughter, the hum of many voices, the tinkle of silverware on plates. They sound so normal. Not like they’re eating puppies or babies. Despite myself, I pause and listen for a moment, remembering cookouts in the backyard at our house, with the neighbors, Mrs. Nguyen, Emmy’s family, and even Dr. Golden. Neighborhood barbecues at Emmy’s, lounging around the pool and pretending not to check which boys were checking us out.

  Tightening my hands on the sleeves of my t-shirt backpack, I hurry on, until I see the flicker and glow of a huge bonfire. The shape of a boy moves past the fire, and I know I’ve come too close. Inside the pavilion, people are stacking dishes into plastic tubs, murmuring quiet conversations and scraping leftovers into trashcans. It’s so normal that I almost forget I’m running away. I retreat a few steps, my heart pounding. But no one has noticed me on the path. They aren’t looking for intruders. Everyone who belongs here is already here.

  The moment I step into the woods, I’m so relieved for that day’s rain that I almost sink down and kiss the soggy, silent leaves under my feet. I hadn’t thought about the noise I’d make crunching through dry leaves, and now I don’t have to. I take another step, and a huge drop of rain slides off a leaf and falls directly onto my head. I shiver. Despite the torrential rain, they don’t seem to have had any problem getting a fire going. It licks into the sky, sending up sparks and a glow that reaches far above, into the blue-black twilight.

  As if drawn by the flames, I take another moth-like step closer. I want to know, just like I wanted to know what was making the noise in the big house. I want to see what these crazy people do, why my mother and sisters are so excited each time they leave for one of these meetings. I want to know what my identical twin sees in this that she doesn’t see in me.

  Just then, I spot her white hair, stark against the gathering dark and her red raincoat. She’s standing by the fire with Harmon, Zora, and some of her other friends, all of them similarly clad in raincoats, rainboots, and jeans. Harmon laughs and touches Elidi’s arm, and she smiles up at him. Something twists inside me, and I want to burst out of the woods and push her straight into the fire. She gave my note to our mother.

  But it’s more than that. She is normal, happy, surrounded by friends. She is laughing with her sister, the one she claims as her own. She doesn’t want another sister. She’s never offered to stay home with me, has never begged our mother to let me come to one of these. She doesn’t want me here any more than the others do. I hate her for that.

  But I also want what she has.

  For a second, I let myself imagine locking her in the attic and taking her place at one of these meetings. I imagine Harmon smiling down at me with that cocky grin, Zora pulling at my sleeve and leaning in to tell me something, her friend Xiu nudging me and nodding up at the swollen, rising moon.

  I’m pulled out of my fantasy by the sight of the moon peeking through the trees. Clouds clot the sky, broken up into a pattern that looks like cottage cheese, edged by the silvery glow of moonlight. It’s full dark now, and I should be gone. I don’t have a flashlight, and I couldn’t use it if I did. Not until I’m out of sight. I take a step back, and a twig snaps under my foot. I freeze, not daring to breathe as Harmon and Zora turn towards me.

  Before they can investigate, a group of adults join them at the fire, some of them carrying babies. They call out, and a herd of running feet approach, little kids who had been dancing around on the grass beyond the fire. A firefly flashes near me, and I pray it won’t draw their attention. For once, I get lucky.

  5

  A tall man with salt-and-pepper hair claps his hands once, and everyone falls silent. When he turns a bit, I catch his profile and see that it’s Harmon’s father. “Let’s get started,” he says. With his bronze skin and widow’s peak, along with his height and the sharpness of his eyes, he’s as imposing as a high-powered CEO. I don’t have to belong to this cult to know he’s the leader.

  And probably the one who lives in that house.

  I shiver again and begin to slowly, slowly take my weight off the broken twig.

  “The pack is strong tonight,” he says, and I remember Harmon’s words. I had assumed he was talking about his little posse, not the whole cult.

  “We are each as strong as our pack,” the entire clearing chants at once. “And the pack as strong as each.”

  My body goes cold. This is too freaking weird. I need to get out of here before they honor their cult by sacrificing a baby to the fire. I suddenly remember all the times my family has left, how scary it is to be in that house by myself, trying not hear the noises from outside. The wolves howling. The coyotes cackling. Sometimes…sometimes, I hear screaming.

  “It’s just owls,” Elidi said when I whispered to her once that I’d heard a scream the night before. She looked away, though, and gave a nervous little laugh. “They make all kinds of noises, not just the hooting everyone knows. Screech owls.” She practically ran out of my room afterwards.

  “Let us honor the pack,” the leader says. As if on cue, they all chant a few lines in a language that is definitely not English. I take the opportunity to edge a few steps around the fire. I wish I’d run before they were all so close. When they fall silent, I don’t dare move for fear that I’ll trip over a fallen log and go sprawling, making all kinds of noise. What would they do if they caught me now, spying on their ritual? What was I thinking? I’ve delivered a living sacrifice right to their fire.

  My blood goes cold, and I clutch the tiger-eye stone on my necklace until my fingers ache. The night is close and clammy around me. The forest no longer feels like an obscuring, familiar cloak. It feels like a cold and hungry thing, like a shark moving in for the kill.

  After a few beats of silence, the leader speaks. “Tonight, we come together in community to honor Alpha Oberon Shoals and the Lunessa pack,” he says.

  Isn’t that a sleep aid?

  “As was agreed in the days before we walked as one with our true natures.”

  Everyone murmurs in agreement, and then, as if on cue, they sit on the ground around the fire. No one seems to notice that the grass is soaking wet. They all lean forward, hanging on the leader’s every word.

  In truth, I am, too. I can’t run now, anyway.

  “In the days before we were joined,” he says, his voice older than he can possibly be, “There was only the Wolves. And in that time, Oberon was the leader of his pack. He had a lovely mate and many children. Until the time that Man came to the Oachita. Man was greedy and wanted the land for himself, and hunting became difficult. Oberon lost many pack members, some his own children.

  “One cold winter, the snows came and did not let up. Oberon’s pack w
aited for the thaw, but it did not come. A sorceress had come to the valley and cast a spell to drive out the wolves. Oberon did not want to leave, for his people had lived and hunted the valleys for thousands of years in harmony with the world around them, never taking too much. But now, his mate came to him one day with a frozen pup in her mouth. She laid it at his feet and said, ‘Alpha, we must leave this place, for it is not safe for us any longer.’

  “Before making a decision, Oberon did as a good leader must. He went to see the sorceress. He transformed himself into a man so he might speak with her. When the enchantress saw him, she fell in love. She told him that her people wanted the land, and his pack could no longer hunt there. But she would let the thaw come, and convince her own people to let his stay, if he would remain as a man and be her mate.

  “Oberon did not falter, for all good leaders must sacrifice for their packs. He agreed to walk as man for the rest of his days, but every month, he was allowed to take his true form again for one night, to return to his pack to hunt. But Man was not happy with this bargain, for he was suspicious of magic. When he discovered the sorceress had agreed to let Oberon transition and the pack continue to hunt, for even one night a month, he was furious. He cast out all of her kind, and all of ours. So that wolves could eat, the sorceress created skinwalkers for the pack to hunt. From that day onwards, the unified world was splintered.”

  I’m lost. But whatever is happening, I don’t think I want to be here to witness it. I’m way too close. This was a terrible idea.

  To my relief, they don’t all pull out guns to go hunting, though. They stay seated as I creep a few more steps towards the road.