Her snare hadn't held. He was loose. He was singing. He was free.
ONE
Hands clenched, Lilly stood outside of Meg and Em's door, listening to her mother's age-lightened voice rising and falling as she told the girls their bedtime story. Leaning forward as if to knock, she frowned. Part of her desperately wanted to interrupt, to stop what she thought might be the first signs of a slow decline in her mom. Part of her listened with a rapt attention, remembering hearing the story herself as a girl when the sunset-cooled air breathed its first relief into her room, the very room her own children now called their own. The wide window edged in white lace looked out onto the woods, and she recalled all too well the times she'd kept herself awake listening for the wolves that no longer lived there, wishing that her mother's fairy tales of a beautiful, mischievous boy with red hair were real. She had wanted an adventure so badly, but he had never come whispering under her window to lure her into dancing in the moonlight.
Feeling ill, she rocked back, hand going to her side. Penn, her mother had called him, her gaze distant and eerie as she told her stories, stories where the guardian of the woods could appear as a clever wolf or take on the face of a trusted friend to lull you to an untimely death in his unremorseful search for a soul-a beautiful boy with laughing eyes and a wont for mischief that no one could see unless lured into sight with the promise of honey. Crossing running water could save you from him, or trapping him in a tree. Dangerous, yes, but he would be your friend if you were daring enough to impress him. Then you'd be safe.
Her mother always had stories to tell. Her parents had been among the first settlers to the valley, attracted to the fertile farmland in the lowlands, the tall trees in the hills, and the cool waters coming from them. But her mother had scared her this afternoon with a frantic story of a monster in the woods, one that would kill unless it was stopped.
Resolute, she reached for the knob, hesitating when Meg asked, "Wasn't the little girl scared?"
"More scared than anything in the world," her mother said confidently, "but she knew that to believe him would let him destroy everything she loved in the world, so the brave girl shoved him into the tree and said the magic words to make the tree swallow him up forever."
"And he couldn't get out?" Meg asked, her voice earnest with admiration.
"Not for years and years, love. And everyone lived happily for a time, driving the wolves away and not fearing the woods anymore. But trees grow old, rocks fall apart, and waters shift their course. Even so, you don't have to worry. Stay out of the woods, and you'll be safe. Promise me that you'll stay out of the woods, Meg. You too, Em. Quickly now."
Lilly let her hand drop and she took a step back into the dark hall as the two little girls earnestly promised. Maybe it wasn't that bad. Her mother's stories were harmless. And they did help keep Meg out of the woods. Vengeful tree spirits weren't real, but hunters often overlooked the Keep Out signs. Not to mention the holes that opened up into unknown caves beneath your feet. The woods were dangerous. Perhaps this was her mother's way of keeping the ever-wandering Meg close to home. Her younger sister, Em, wasn't so venturesome, but Meg . . .
Head down, Lilly turned to go downstairs, shoes silent on the thin green runner as she left them to their bedtime ritual. Her worry trailed behind her like perfume, coloring her mood as she made her way down the narrow, steep stairs, working around the creaking boards so her mom wouldn't know she'd been listening. Behind her, three voices-one old and featherly, two young and off-key-rose in a familiar, singsong chant.
"Wraith by moonlight, hunter by day; Bond is sundered by sun's first ray.
"Blood is binding, blood is lure; Flesh is fragile, to blade's sweet cure.
"Sunder wraith from flesh ill-taken; And bind fey spirit to wood awakened."
Brow furrowing, Lilly looked up the dark stairway as her mother told Meg and Em that they were good girls and Meg giggled at the praise. She hadn't realized her mother had taught them the fanciful, morbid rhyme. It was how her mother had once tucked her in, sandwiched in between her bedtime story and her prayers.
Her mood worsened as the poem echoed in her mind and memories. Pace fast, she went into the brightly lit kitchen, snatching up a cloth to move the dishes from the drying rack to shelves. Pepper, their yellow lab, stood waiting at the door, her tail waving fitfully, and Lilly let her out. The dog's nails scraped as she took the porch steps, and she was lost to the night, leaving only the jingling of the dog collar to show she was there.
Still in the threshold, Lilly's eyes went to the car bridge shimmering in the moonlight. Distressed, she let the screen door slam, agitated as she remembered Meg coming in this afternoon, hand on her arm and unhappy that her grandmother had pulled her out of the creek. Her mother had come in a few moments later, white-faced and distracted with her wild claim, going to her room for hours under the pretense of taking a nap brought on by too much sun, but she had heard her rummaging in her closet. Her room had looked unchanged when Lilly peeked in later.
The creak of the three bottom stairs made her eyes narrow, and she slid the four plates away as her mother came in. Her fiery resolve vanishing, Lilly put her hand on the counter and dropped her head, trying to find a way to begin.
"It's my turn to put the dishes away," her mother said, and the hint of challenge brought Lilly's head up.
"Mom." Lilly blinked, taking in the change in her mother. She was still wearing the cotton sundress with the blue flowers and honeybees, her hair done up in a gray and black braid at the base of her neck. Suntanned, wiry arms were crossed over her chest, and her pale blue eyes looked defiant. She stood in the threshold of her kitchen, almost as old as the house itself, almost as much a part of the land as the creek and woods beyond it. Her incredible stories of danger, death, and temptation had always balanced her no-nonsense, vine-tight grip on the here and now that had kept her family intact through the sorrow and heartache that came with farming alone at the outskirts of nothing. But now, taken to this extreme . . . Lilly was scared.
"I don't care if you believe or not," her mother said, coming to the point with a painful bluntness. "The girls need to be able to protect themselves. Especially Meg. She's too close to becoming a woman."
Arguing was comfortable in its familiarity, and Lilly slumped. "Mom, I love that you tuck the girls in, but I'm the one they come piling into bed with when they get scared. Can't you just read them Snow White?"
Snatching the towel from her, her mother brushed past her to go to the sink. "Yes, a story of a murdering stepmother is so much better than a warning to not believe an attractive man who promises you can have him forever if you do him one small favor, no matter that it will damn your soul and set him free to wreak havoc on a world ill prepared to fight him anymore. No one believes. That's why he will survive. That's why he will kill again. He's loose, Lilly. I couldn't hold him."