Page 74

CHAPTER 73

“WHAT’RE YOU DOING?” Wendy has wandered into the room I now share with Holo to find me half-dressed, up to my shins in a pile of Lacey’s clothing.

“I’m going to a dance,” I say grimly, yanking off a checked top I’d hoped would be fine but instead made me look like I was wearing a kitchen tablecloth. “And I’m supposed to look nice or something.”

Wendy sits down on the bed and tucks her bare feet under her. Her hair is clean and braided; she smells like Ivory soap.

Lacey, especially, has welcomed her in like a sister. She and the chief give Wendy lots of space; they happily eat her foraged salads; they don’t ask any prying questions about her past. And I know Wendy’s trying to settle in, too. But she’s so shy and skittish that sometimes she bolts from a room the minute someone else walks into it.

It’s like living with a deer , Lacey had whispered.

“A dance,” Wendy repeats thoughtfully. “Are you going with a boy?”

“A guy,” I correct her. “Yes. His name is Waylon.”

“How strange.”

“His name?” Personally I think Holo is a weirder name than Waylon—not that I’d tell her that.

“No, just the idea of going to a dance.” Her eyes get a curious, faraway look in them. “With a boy.”

Guy , I think but don’t say. I pick up another top and hold it up to my chest. Pink is not my color. Red’s even worse.

“I can’t even imagine what that would be like.”

It strikes me like a slap across the face. Wendy’s never had a crush on anyone. Never held hands. Never had a first kiss.

Of course, I’m iffy on those things myself. But I’m only seventeen. Ish. Wendy’s over twice my age.

“Where did you meet him?” Wendy asks.

“Jail.”

Wendy looks startled.

I slip a black dress over my head. “He’s not a criminal. He was just riding a motorcycle too fast.”

“That looks pretty on you,” she says. Apparently she’s not worried about Waylon’s checkered past.

I smooth the front of the dress. “It’s too short,” I say. I’ve tried on six tops and five dresses and I’ve hated them all. I bend down and grab the jeans and sweatshirt I was wearing before. They’ll have to do.

“Why did you go?” Wendy blurts. “I mean—why did you leave the woods?”

I freeze. Why did I? I still can’t really explain it.

I take a deep breath. There are way too many words and feelings, and I don’t know how to sort them all out. So I pick the simplest explanation. The one that’s the truth, if not all of it. “I wanted to know what it was like out here,” I say softly. “Didn’t you? I mean—how did you spend all those years alone?”

Wendy plucks at a stray thread on my bedspread. “I thought about leaving sometimes. But then I’d say to myself, ‘Just one more day. Tomorrow you can go into the human world. But for today, stay here.’ And the next day would come, and I would find myself saying the same thing. ‘Just one more day.’ And so the years passed. And I kept staying.” She looks up at me. “Leaving wasn’t a choice I could make, I guess.”

But I made it for you, didn’t I? I brought the men, and they dragged you out of the forest.

And suddenly I feel the sting of tears. “I’m sorry,” I say. “For leaving. For leading those people to our house. For ruining everything.”

“It’s not your fault,” Wendy says quietly.

But we both know that it is.

Wendy starts to say something else, but then I hear Holo calling from downstairs. “Kai! Hurry up! Your date’s here!”

I wipe my eyes. “He’s not my date ,” I yell back. “He’s my friend .”

“Whatever!”

I turn to Wendy. “I’m sorry. I have to go. Do I look like a normal teenager?” I ask.

She laughs—a small, sad little chuckle. “How would I know?” Then she reaches up and pats my cheek. “You look beautiful. Have fun,” she says. “And come back and tell me all about it.”

I kiss the top of her head. “See you later.”

I go downstairs to find Waylon waiting for me on the porch. I feel so shy I can barely say hello. But he doesn’t seem to notice.

“I was here once already,” he says, rolling his eyes. “Half an hour ago. I was on the motorcycle, though, and Lacey told me to turn right back around and get a vehicle that wouldn’t kill us both.” He hooks a thumb behind him, gesturing to a low black car. “So I had to borrow my mom’s ancient Saab.”

I squint at it. “Where’s the roof?”

“It fell off on the way over,” Waylon says.

“What? How?” I exclaim.

Waylon starts to laugh. “It’s called a convertible, Kai,” he says. “It’s supposed to be that way. Now hurry up and get in.”