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

  But she’s already turning away, letting my mother shut the door and turn the key. Why can’t I black out now, when I want to? I remember all the times I’ve blacked out, woken up in a place I don’t remember going—the doctor’s office, my own bed, the couch in my house. If stress brought on the fits, I should be gone now.

  Sometime during the morning, I finally sleep. When I wake, Tom is sitting on the bedframe I made, and for a moment, everything seems as it always has been. Maybe it was all one of my terrible nightmares. I remember the ones I’ve had, when I was a little kid, that included pain and writhing, the seizures that started after the accident. Or was it before? I remember waking up screaming from dreams of being bound in chains, unable to move, while pain ripped through me. And I wonder when exactly my mother gave me up.

  Dad said she died in childbirth, but that was a lie. What about the other things he said, the stories? How many were lies? Maybe she was there when I was a kid, and I blocked it out—blacked it out. Maybe she bit me, tortured me, and I have no memory of it. Maybe she’s the one who threw me down the stairs, trying to kill me, and Dad finally took me and left her.

  I want to believe last night was a dream, but when I reach up and feel my bare neck, I know it wasn’t. My necklace, the piece of Dad that I promised I would never lose, never take off, is gone. Tears tighten my throat.

  I hear voices outside, and slip from the bed. They must have woken me. I gasp when I set a foot down. My ankle throbs, and I can barely put weight on my bruised and battered legs. But I have to know more. Whatever happened last night, what I saw, only gave me a million more questions, made it a million times more important to get out of here.

  The angry voice of a man drifts through my window. I creep to the end of the room and peer down. My mother and the cult leader—pack leader—are standing in front of the house. Now all the mentions of the pack make sense. I know what I saw, and yet, I know it can’t be true. The story he told, it was just a story, a legend. A tall tale. Because people don’t turn into wolves.

  Except…these ones do.

  I know it’s impossible. I’m not some little kid who still believes in fairytales. But I know what I saw.

  “You need to be certain that she’s not a threat to our identity,” the leader says to my mother. “An outsider knowing threatens our very existence.”

  “I am certain,” she says. “I’ll take better care to lock her in next time.”

  “She was never supposed to know,” the leader says. “If we have to get rid of her now, it’s on your hands.”

  “I’d never hurt my own daughter,” Mother snaps back.

  “Look at the way you treat her.” It’s Harmon’s voice. My heart stops. He’s blocked from view, but he’s down there, too. Humiliation races through me.

  “SILENCE!” the leader roars, and I hear a cracking sound, like someone just struck a stone. Or someone.

  My heart reaches out to Harmon. His dad doesn’t seem a whole lot better than my mom. And Harmon must be scared of him, because he obeys his father and doesn’t speak. I shrink back from the window. Of course they know I’m up here, but I convinced myself that no one else knew how she treated me. No one has ever done a thing to help me. But apparently they know.

  “She’s a danger to this community,” Mother says. “What choice do I have?”

  “We could tell her…” Elidi says.

  I lean forwards again, hoping to catch a glimpse of her, to meet her eyes and somehow communicate something to her.

  “Maybe she could help us,” the leader says. “Diana knows, her father isn’t any help now.”

  “Stop saying it was you out there,” my mother shouts. “I know you’re lying.”

  “I never lie to you,” Elidi insists. “You know that.”

  “It’s good that you know the punishment for deceiving an elder. But this is more than that, Elidi. It could destroy the whole pack. We need the truth. Did you let her out?” The leader rests a hand on her shoulder and turns her towards the porch. Her head drops, and she trudges towards the house. I hear the door open and close downstairs as she enters. My mother and the leader stay outside with Harmon.

  “If Stella saw something, if she knows,” Mother says. “What can I do?”

  “If she was trying to run, and she does it again…” the elder says ominously.

  “She doesn’t know how dangerous it is,” Mother says. “It’s not safe for her here.”

  “You need to fix this,” he snaps. “I don’t care how you do it. But it needs to be done. If you can’t control her…we have a place to put her.”

  The noises I heard in the big house make sense now. They have somewhere to put me, some kind of prison there. And as bad as this prison is, the thought of going somewhere that could be worse, with that man for a warden, makes me tremble. I’m leaning into the window to catch Mother’s answer when the doorknob rattles. I scuttle back from the window, my heart pounding. Elidi stands in the doorway, a jar of water in one hand. She licks her lips and steps inside, pulling the door closed behind her.

  “I brought you some water,” she says, holding it out to me. “You know, in case you didn’t have any. I was going to bring you some food, but with everything that’s been going on today…”

  “What is going on?” I ask, lowering my voice and hurrying to take the water from her. “Are they going to kill me?”

  “What? No,” she says with a forced little laugh. “Of course not. Why would they?”

  Our eyes meet, catch. I think she wants me to pretend with her, to pretend that nothing happened last night. That it was really her out there and not me. This weird thing tugs inside me, as if I’ve somehow unlocked our twin bond by discovering her secret. I can almost read her thoughts.

  “Because I saw,” I say. “I saw what happened. What you are.”

  My mouth is suddenly dry, and I don’t know if I should have said those words aloud. What if Mother has a hidden camera in here or something?

  But that’s stupid.

  Isn’t it?

  I’m so mixed up and turned around, I’m getting completely paranoid.

  “I should go,” Elidi whispers. “Mother doesn’t know I’m up here. She’s outside.”

  Before she can escape, I grab her arm. “You turned into a wolf, didn’t you?”

  “I have to go,” she says, pulling away. “Don’t say anything to anyone. Don’t tell them I came up here.”

  “You did.”

  “Yeah, but I’m not really supposed to bring you anything unless Mother says so.”

  “You turned into a wolf.”

  “I’ll talk to you later,” she whispers.

  “When?”

  “Later.”

  “Put a note under my door,” I say. “Tell me how it’s possible.”

  Without a word, she nods, then pulls her arm from my grip and opens the door. She checks outside, then slips out, and the key clicks in the lock. I can feel her leaving, as if, after what I witnessed, she’s taking a part of me when she leaves. Probably my sanity. I chug some water, then sink back onto the couch. I hear the front door slam, and my heart somersaults. I never heard how Mother is going to “fix this.”

  I should never have left the house. She’s right. She warned me that it wasn’t safe, but I went out anyway. And now I’m going to pay for it, and maybe she is, too. Maybe my sisters will, too.

  I didn’t mean to make anything worse, but I have. So when Mother comes to bring me my dinner, I bow my head and accept it with a meek “thank you.” I eat, and then I wait for my sister to bring me a note explaining how it’s possible that I saw what I saw. Even though she hasn’t explained, I feel closer to her than I’ve ever felt, as if some bond that had been missing fell into place when I saw her become a wolf. Before I sleep, I send her a silent message in case she’s a wolf who can hear thoughts through our twin bond.

  8

  Again I wait, half sleeping, half awake, all night. If it’s not safe for me out there, well, it’s n
ot safe in here, either. I’m just a girl, sleeping in a house full of wolves. I never know who’s coming into my room, what they want, what they’ll bring. Maybe just dinner, maybe a list of chores, maybe a blow across the face. Or something worse this time, something I can’t—and don’t want to—imagine.

  I remember waiting for Dad a hundred times, but not like this. Sometimes, he’d work late or have a weekend thing for work, but Mrs. Nguyen was always there with her mothball smelling house and her cats and her mints. When I was little, I’d make a game of not crossing paths with her black cats—she had a few. I’d have to come up with the most imaginative ways to climb over, scoot under, and wiggle through furniture to avoid them. Days at her house were deathly boring as I waited for Dad to come home. But I was never afraid.

  I knew that when he came, he would bring presents if it was an overnight trip, and if not, sometimes I’d still get a little treat he’d saved from the catered dinner or doughnut run at the university meeting. At the very least, I knew he’d bring me a hug and tell me he missed me. Most of all, I knew he’d always come home for me.

  Until the night he died.

  The night when it rained and rained and rained and rained and rained, just like yesterday. And in the morning, I turned off my alarm and slept in, though I knew I’d miss school. I can still remember the delicious feeling of languishing in bed for hours, knowing I should be at school. When I finally got up, I found his body.

  The days after are a blur. Emmy’s family, Mrs. Nguyen, and Dr. Golden came to help and arrange for the funeral. And then the social workers came.

  We’ll have to contact your next of kin.

  I don’t have anyone. It’s always been just my dad and me.

  I remember Mrs. Nguyen scratching her scalp through her puffs of white hair and saying, “He mentioned an ex-wife…that he felt sorry Stella never got to see her.” I still remember the force of the blow, like a sucker punch to the gut. I was furious, and I couldn’t even scream at him and hit him so hard it knocked the air out of him the way those words did me.

  I had a mother. Dad never told me. All those years. All those lies.

  And worst of all, smelly old Mrs. Nguyen with her mints and her “fudge-bucket” and her cat hair everywhere. She knew about it, and I didn’t.

  This last year, most of which I spent in Mother’s attic, I thought I had figured out why Dad kept me away from her. But just when I had the puzzle put together, I found a thousand more pieces, a thousand more questions. Did he know about them? Did he know my mother was a freaking animal? Was he one?

  Now, all those late-night meetings at the university make me wonder. Do professors have that many meetings? Do they have trainings out of town? Or was he running around Oklahoma City as a wolf, eating stray cats and raccoons out of garbage cans? The thought makes me almost giggle it’s so impossible. By day, botany professor with tree-trunk legs, lumbering around the university in a t-shirt with a corny tree-related saying and Birkenstocks with socks. By night, werewolf.

  Every morning for the next week, Mother brings my food and stands there expectantly, like I’m going to come right out and tell her that it was really me she attacked in those woods. Between meals, Zora comes to let me out to empty and clean my chamber pot. I don’t make a fuss, because Zora glares at me with such hatred that I can’t even speak under the weight of it. I dump my pot in the outhouse and scrub it under the faucet outside, trying not to gag.

  “How come she doesn’t have to do dishes anymore?” Zora asks my mother as they stand on the back porch watching me. “This is her only chore? She doesn’t even cook or clean anything. She’s completely useless. Why is she even here?”

  “Stella isn’t allowed to come downstairs with us,” Mother says. “I gave her too much freedom, and she got ideas in her head about being part of this family.”

  “It’s not fair,” Zora says hotly. “She gets to lounge around doing nothing. And we have to wait on her like she’s some kind of princess.”

  “You don’t have any extra chores,” Mother says. “Elidi has taken them on until she decides to tell the truth.”

  I keep my eyes down, pretending not to take any interest in this new development. But I haven’t seen Elidi since that morning when she snuck me some water. I can still feel her though, ever since that day, her misery hanging just below the surface of my own. I wonder what chores Mother has dug up for her.

  “She’s never going to tell the truth,” Zora snarls. “She’s protecting that freak like she’s our real sister.”

  Unable to stall any longer, I wash my hands in the icy water from the outdoor faucet, ignoring the ache of cold that moves through my skin and flesh and down into my bones until I want to scream with pain as well as fury. Their real sister? I’m Elidi’s identical twin. How much more proof does she need?

  “There are ways to get people to tell the truth,” Mother says. When I straighten up, she’s staring straight at me.

  “What are you going to do, send her to Zechariah’s?”

  “If he wants her,” Mother says coldly. “He makes that decision. I do as he tells me, like everyone else.”

  Zora’s face goes pale. “Mother, you couldn’t.”

  “It’s not my decision. If she chooses to tell the truth, I’m sure he will forgive her. If she continues to lie, he’ll send for her when he deems she’s had enough chances.”

  I stand in front of the steps, looking up at them, but they don’t acknowledge me. They step back to let me through, and follow me up the stairs to lock me back in my room. Zora, who was just complaining about her sister, is now arguing heatedly for her protection from Zechariah, who must be the leader. I remember his daunting presence at the fire and shiver. Whatever he wants with my sister… From the way Zora dares to continue arguing with Mother about it, I know it’s even worse than I imagine.

  I remember hearing about these creepy cults where the elders marry like twenty little girls, but it’s too late for me to warn her. The lock clicks into place before I reach the door. I start pounding anyway. Other things are coming back, too, like the thumping sounds I heard inside the big house. What was really going on there? Maybe Mother isn’t the only one locking girls away in her attic.

  I stop pounding when I hear the teasing, lilting song calling, “El-lee ba-by…”

  I run to the window, ready to throw it open and call for him to come rescue me. But things I know about him come piling into my head, too. All the things he and Elidi said that didn’t make sense. How this would be his ‘pack.’ How he got to choose a ‘mate.’ How they worship the moon. So many things make sense now.

  When I hear him enter the house below, I run back to the door and press my ear to it.

  “I’m looking for someone who might have lost this,” Harmon’s voice says below.

  “Let me see it,” Mother says.

  There’s a pause.

  “Look familiar?” Harmon asks.

  “It belongs to one of my daughters. Where’d you find it?”

  “Which one?”

  “Elidi,” Mother says decisively. Even I can tell she’s lying.

  “Where is she?”

  “It’s hers,” Mother says. “I’ll give it to her.”

  “What’s hers?” Zora asks, and I hear her footsteps join the others.

  “I’m trying to find the owner of this necklace.”

  My heart catches and I grasp at the empty spot where my necklace hung for the past ten years. The necklace my father gave to me. White-hot rage boils inside my skull.

  “Let me see it,” Zora says.

  That’s my necklace. Not hers, and not Elidi’s.

  “Look familiar?” Harmon asks.

  “I had one just like this,” Zora says. “But I lost it. Where’d you find this?”

  “It’s yours?”

  It’s not hers. Fury buzzes in my ears like wasps as I pound on the door again. I knew this would happen. That’s why I kept it hidden inside my shirt. I knew she would want it, li
ke she wants everything I have. And mother would give it to her, the same way she’s given her everything.

  “I knew I’d seen it,” Mother says.

  “Are you sure?” Harmon asks. “I want you to be sure. My father wants me to make sure before I give it back to the owner.”

  There’s a long, long pause.

  “Maybe ask around and make sure, then,” Mother says. “I wouldn’t want to claim something that’s not ours. I mean, if you’re not sure, Zora…”

  “I’m pretty sure…”

  “But absolutely sure?” Mother asks. “You better ask everyone else, too. Maybe it just looks like the one you had.”

  “Can I ask Elidi?” Harmon says.

  “Of course,” Mother says. “We’ll look through our things and see if we can’t find the one we had. Now that I look at it, maybe it’s a little different.”

  I give the door a ferocious kick.

  “It couldn’t be hers, could it?” Harmon asks.

  There’s another pause. I crouch, breath bated, and press my ear to the door just under the knob.

  “Stella? No, of course not.”

  She knows it’s mine, I’m sure of it. She knows it was me that night, even if Elidi claims it was her. They all know it was me. But they’re punishing Elidi for sticking to her lie, refusing to give in. And they’re punishing me for playing along with her. But my punishment isn’t much worse than living here before I knew. It’s Elidi I’m worried about. He’s trying to trick her into admitting she doesn’t know anything about the necklace.

  “I’ll ask Elidi,” Harmon says. “Thanks.”

  “I’m sure she doesn’t know anything about it,” Mother says. “It must have been Zora who had one similar.”

  “Okay,” Harmon says. “Wouldn’t hurt to ask, though. She’s working on the pavilion, right? I can ask everyone down there. Thanks, Talia.”

  The heavy door closes on his way out. He has my necklace.

  Still kneeling, I pound on the door so hard I don’t hear the footsteps climbing the stairs. I don’t hear anything until the knob turns and the door opens. I scramble backwards on my hands, breathing hard.