"What do you want, little ghoul?"
Sephie swallows, trying to moisten her tongue. "We want to find the garden."
"Well, that"s easy, isn"t it sisters?"
"All you do is follow the path."
"But you must pay the toll, to leave the cavern."
"Yes. Pa.s.sage is not free."
"Not again." Sephie tugs her hand free of Caleb"s, flexes tingling fingers. "What do you want?"
Even as her eyes adjust, she can"t make out the speakers. Only vague shadows and glowing eyes, gold and silver and poison green. They smell like fur, like musk and blood and autumn leaves.
One of them laughs, a chuffing animal noise. "Come closer, child."
Caleb tries to hold her back, but she shakes off his grip and steps forward. Shadows lap over her, thicker and cooler than the air, and she shivers. Something crunches under her foot, dry and hollow; she doesn"t look down.
"What"s the price?" She searches her pockets. Coins on the eyes of the dead, but she can"t remember where she read that.
"Not that," says one of the women-or whatever they are-as change rattles in Sephie"s pocket. "We have no use for money."
"And I doubt you have enough for everyone you"ve brought."
The sisters move closer, surrounding her. Hot breath tickles the back of her neck.
"Orpheus sang his way in," hisses the shadow on her left, the green-eyed. "Do you have a song for us?"
Sephie shakes her head. Even if she could carry a tune, her voice is caught in her throat and she can"t remember the words to any song she knows.
"She"s bleeding," the golden-eyed beast whispers.
Sephie flexes her right hand; crusted blood cracks on her skin.
"So she is." The silver eyes lean in. "Living blood. It"s been a long time since we"ve tasted that."
She holds up her hand. "Is this enough? Will this pay our way?"
The green-eyed sister hisses. "Ghoul blood is cold and dusty. I want something sweeter. Perhaps . . . " Something cool and scaly touches Sephie"s cheek and she fights a flinch. "A young girl"s tears. Yes."
"Sephie-" Caleb"s voice drifts through the dark.
"Be silent, little ghost. This is her bargain to make."
Long clawed fingers catch her right hand, pull it down. Hot breath stings the cuts. She clenches her fist, reopening the wounds. The pain of tearing scabs makes her gasp, makes her eyes water.
"Blood and tears, fine. Take them."
Serpents writhe against her face, tongues flickering toward her eyes.
"If we all may name a price," the silver-eyed woman says, "then I want a kiss."
Sephie closes her eyes. Moisture beads on her lashes, and the snakes lick it away. The beast"s tongue laps her hand, hot and rough, rasping against the cuts. "Fine," she whispers. "Just do it."
A hand cups her cheek, cold and lifeless, tilts her chin up. The woman"s mouth closes on hers. Silk-dry lips, icy tongue, teeth like icicles. She tries to breathe, but the kiss steals the air from her lungs, steals the heat from her veins.
We can take it all, the woman"s voice whispers deep in the whorls of her brain. All your pain, all your fear. Even your debt. We can take everything, and you"ll be free.
She"s truly crying now, crying and bleeding and gasping for air. Snakes in her eyes, teeth piercing her hand, and that tongue in her mouth, leeching her dry.
What does that leave for me?
Nothing. You"ll have nothing, be nothing, want nothing. And nothing will ever hurt you again.
She can"t answer, can"t feel her limbs or her tongue. Caleb is shouting somewhere far away, calling her name. But she can"t answer, because she"s falling into the dark.
But the dark doesn"t want her, spits her out again, and she wakes with a gasp. Cold, so cold, and she can"t stop shivering. Caleb holds her; he"s warmer than she is.
"What happened?" she whispers.
"They"re gone. I thought you were, too."
She sits up, rubs her stinging eyes. Her right hand is shredded, like she was mauled by a dog, but none of the wounds are bleeding. Her chest aches, and it"s hard to get enough breath.
"Where are the ghosts?" she asks, glancing around the empty cavern.
"They went on, into the forest."
Carefully she stands, leaning on Caleb. He feels more solid now, more real. Or maybe she"s less.
"Come on. Let"s find the garden."
A path leads into the trees, like the sisters promised. Birds and insects sing in the darkness, and animals move through the underbrush. The peach-golden moon is high overhead, dripping light through the canopy, turning all the leaves to amber and jade.
The trail takes them straight to the garden wall, and this time, the gate is easy to find. Curling iron, the bars wrapped thick with vines and flowers. One side stands open, and the werewolves are waiting for them.
This time, Sephie isn"t afraid.
"h.e.l.lo, children," one beast says. After the guardians in the cave, its growling voice is welcoming, kind. "We wondered when you would find the way."
The wind drifts past them, flutters Sephie"s hair. The smell of the garden eases some of the aching cold inside her.
She turns to Caleb. His color is better, and as she watches, the constant dripping blood slows, dries. An instant later the wound is healed, leaving nothing but tangled dark curls.
Her wounds are still there.
"Come with me," he says, stroking her hair. "Stay with me. We"ll be all right here."
She leans against him, hears the whisper of a heartbeat in his chest. So tired. Not scared anymore-now she"s just numb. It would be so nice to rest.
Caleb bends down and she lifts her head for a kiss, a kiss to warm her frozen lips, to ease the memory of the cave. It could be like this here, like it was before things went so wrong.
Will Seth wonder what happened to her? Will Anna? Will they worry? She won"t be hungry here, won"t owe anything to anyone.
Nothing.
"I"ll take care of you," Caleb whispers, his stubble scratching her lips.
She stiffens, turns her head aside. "You never could do that."
"I tried to be what you wanted . . . "
"I never should have asked." She pulls away, runs her fingers over his cheek. "I"m sorry."
"What"s up there for you? What"s worth going back to?"
"I don"t know. But it"s something. It"s my life."
"Sephie-"
"Goodbye, Caleb."
She tilts her head toward the gate, and the waiting monsters. "Go on."
He takes a hesitant step toward the garden. She waves once in farewell, then turns away. She doesn"t look back.
The cavern is empty. No one challenges her as she climbs the black and winding stair.
Halfway up, her hand starts to hurt again, and then to bleed. Not long after, she begins to cry. When she reaches the top of the steps, her chest burns, and all her weary muscles ache. But she"s not afraid.
As Sephie opens the door, the weight of her debt settles heavy on her shoulders. She pauses on the threshold, breathes in the garden"s scent again. Then she steps into the light and noise and stink of the world.
BLAMED FOR TRYING TO LIVE.
JESSE BULLINGTON.
The summer after Charles"s mother died he decided to become a werewolf. Not really, of course, he wasn"t crazy, even after the murder and moving to a city that was as hot and wet as the inside of a mouth, every breeze like warm breath in his face, every afternoon the clouds sneezing warm rain; he wasn"t crazy and he wasn"t a kid who believed everything he read or saw in a movie. He was really, really bored, though, and he didn"t have any friends, and one of his library books on werewolves had a six page chapter on how people turned into them, and with the start of tenth grade still a month away Charles figured in the name of science he should put the book to the test. He knew nothing would come of it, not really, but he"d never drunk water from a wolf"s pawprint or dealt with the Devil, either, so who knew?
If he had hit on the plan back when they were making him see the two psychologists he wouldn"t have mentioned it, obviously, but he knew what the shrinks would probably have said. The older one would think that Charles"s ambition came from an urge to protect himself and his remaining family, and the younger one would have told him that lycanthropy was his way of metaphorically dealing with his post-p.u.b.erty anxiety. They were both, in Charles" estimation, dumb as b.a.l.l.s.
"Mr. Jenkins said Rickards is an urban high school," Charles had told Mr. Matherne, his A.P. history teacher and an old friend of his mother"s.
"Jenkins dropped the U on you, huh?" Mr. Matherne shook his head the way he always did when Mr. Jenkins came up, as though the princ.i.p.al"s name was a fly buzzing around his ears. "You know what that means, right?"
"Ghetto," Charles and Mr. Matherne said in unison.
"It won"t be easy, being the only vegan in the ghetto," said Mr. Matherne, and that was the double truth, Ruth. Charles"s dad didn"t buy that s.h.i.t, and his gramma, while she tried, didn"t understand, and so the only people he knew who really understood what the V-word meant were back in Baltimore. Person, Charles would correct himself, person, because even back home he"d never told his friends when he restarted his vegan clock, and while Mr. Matherne was still embedded in 4A waging his one man war against ignorance, Charles"s mom was gone, even if her bones weren"t going anywhere.
Southside was the ghetto, too, Charles soon realized, even worse than the Frenchtown neighborhood that lay bunched up on the far side of the public library. Lie-berry, his gramma p.r.o.nounced it, and Charles winced every time. For an "urban" area there were a lot of dirt roads linking the narrow paved streets, actual dirt roads shaded by the huge live oaks that peppered Tallaha.s.see, as if the rednecks who had built the place didn"t know the meaning of the word city. The shotgun shack Charles moved into with his dad and gramma was over a mile from the library but three blocks from the nearest liquor store, two if you took the path through the kudzu-smothered vacant lot next door. That"s a ghetto, all right, Mr. Matherne had agreed in his last email to Charles, watch out for drive-bys.
Except Tallaha.s.see wasn"t enough of a city to have drive-bys, at least not real ones. A silver hatchback full of white kids would occasionally prowl down the narrow streets to shout or throw trash at the crack-veterans who patrolled Southside like the world"s shadiest neighborhood watch. They had pegged Charles with a McDonald"s bag when he was returning from a library trip, the car"s ba.s.s almost-but-not-quite m.u.f.fling the sound of laughter. Looking down at the cla.s.s-trash they had nailed him with Charles felt the old sting in his eyes and the shaking in his legs, then let out a long sigh and kicked the bag away. At least they hadn"t jumped him like the crew of Southside locals that took umbrage to a cheeseduplittleb.i.t.c.hsteppinout, or whatever they had said.
"They just think you"re a f.a.ggot cause of your gla.s.ses," Charles"s dad had told him knowingly, his sour breath reeking like whatever was on sale at the ABC. "Next time clock"em in the face."
"I can"t fight them all," Charles had said, instantly regretting having told his father. "And don"t say f.a.ggot. The community"s ignorance about h.o.m.os.e.xuality-"
"Are you a f.a.ggot?" Charles couldn"t tell if his dad was messing with him or not but the way he recoiled reminded the boy uncomfortably of his own reaction when Mr. Matherne had casually mentioned his orientation during one of their first lunches together.
"No," said Charles, his heart picking up like it did when other kids focused their attentions on him. "But so what? As black males it"s our responsibility to cut out the bulls.h.i.t h.o.m.ophobia-"
"Don"t take that high tone with me," his dad scowled. "This ain"t that dumb comic strip, and this community don"t care about hurting your feelers. Fifteen years old and already talkin like her. Comin down here"ll do a world of good for you."
Her. Charles went inside and his dad stayed on the porch, reflecting through his buzz that it was maybe still a little soon to discuss the problematic rearing his ex-girlfriend had given their only child. He had reason enough to be bitter with her, and once the kid got himself together he"d set"em straight. She"d cut north after graduation, not even telling him about the boy until Charles was five, for christsake, and then refused to take the boy to visit, making him fly up instead, and by then Charles was ten or eleven, already looking like that Urkel kid with those gla.s.ses and pressed clothes, so it"s not like he could be blamed for being a deadbeat dad or whatever-he didn"t even know about the kid for years, so how the h.e.l.l was that his fault?
"These are good," Charles said as he chewed the turnip greens and surrept.i.tiously pushed the ham further away from his oasis of watery vegetation.
"Long"s you"re in my house you"ll have vegtables," his gramma said, patting his knee.
"Next time let me know before you cook," said Charles. "I"d like to learn to cook southern like you, ma"am."
"Cookin"s good work," his gramma said, giving Charles"s snickering father a reproachful glance. Since moving down Charles had found himself cooking far more than he ever had at home. There was a hippy grocery store an hour walk or so down Magnolia so he"d been able to spend what little allowance his dad gave him on actual safe food. That, and plain bean burritos at the Taco Bell. Once he had started public school Charles had covertly revolted against his mother"s diet, but ever since the funeral he couldn"t look at meat or smell eggs without getting queasy. He knew it would make her happy if he- "Jus put the hamhock in with the greens, so they soak the flavor and-" His gramma went on, making Charles" dad howl with laughter as the boy put down his fork. She broke off, confused. "What? What"s funny, Douglas?"
"Nuthin," Charles"s dad said, spearing a piece of the pink meat and waggling it at his crestfallen son. "Nuthin at all. Clean your plate, Charlie, or no allowance this week. Serious, now, you need meat."
Reset vegan clock to zero, Charles thought glumly as he picked up his fork. The longest he had made it so far was four days. By the time he had worked his way through the greens his dad was back on the couch and his gramma took the ham off his plate, winking at him. "Tonight you don"t gotta, but you"ll get sick if you don"t start eatin right, Charlie."
Charles went to his room and looked at his twin stacks of books. The pile that was on semi-permanent loan from the Matherne Collection consisted of the poetry of Langston Hughes, the fiction of Ernest Gaines, and the autobiographies of Olaudah Equiano and Malcolm X. The other stack came from his most recent trek to the library-non-fiction on werewolves, bigfoot, and more werewolves. Not even losing the only real parent he had ever known had dampened his interest in horror movies and books, although of late his predilections had shifted to what his gramma dubbed "things comin out the woods people never heard of," instead of more mundane slashers and thrillers. Charles had already worked his way through vampires, and avoided the subject of ghosts as carefully as he tried to eschew meat and dairy.
After a while he put the Dead Prez CD Mr. Matherne had given him into the dusty jambox his dad had left him upon moving out to the living room. Since the self-proclaimed Holten Street Clique had liberated Charles of his iPod, the Let"s Get Free alb.u.m was the only music not trapped inside his mom"s laptop that he was now only allowed to use for an hour a day.
"They"re from Tallaha.s.see," Mr. Matherne had told him. "Rickards alumni, even; knew that name was familiar. Pro-veg, pro-active."
"Really?" Charles accepted the compact disc with the reverence of a relic.
"For real, like Sarandon in Fright Night," said Mr. Matherne. "I also tried to find The Beast Must Die but it"s out of print. So keep your eyes peeled for that down in the dirty dirty."
"Are they also positive?"
"Who? Oh, no, it"s a movie. Great white hunter has a dinner party."
"Except?" Charles smiled.
Mr. Matherne smiled back. "Except all the guests are suspected werewolves. And the great white hunter"s a black guy."
"Cool."
"Very."