Girlwood (16 page)

Polly's mom motioned for Polly to go inside. "Get in your pajamas, honey," she said. "I need to talk to your dad."

Polly was too tired to argue, but when she got inside she
paused at the top of the stairs. Her parents' voices were muted at first, then slowly grew more intense. Polly crouched in the shadows when they came inside.

"...looked terrible," her mother was saying. "Feeble, Paul."

"I can't believe how close those girls came to disaster."

They stepped into the living room, out of view. "She handed over her medicine bag like she was passing the torch to Polly," her mom went on. "It's just like my mother, isn't it? She does everything she can to make me hate her, then starts dying to trip me up."

"I doubt she's doing that on purpose, Faith."

"Oh no? How many people do I have to lose? What did I do to make Bree leave? What if I do the same thing to Polly?"

"It wasn't your fault. Bree—"

Her dad's voice broke, and Polly knelt on the landing.

"Bree had to go," her dad continued. "We may never know why, but she had to. That's the only way I can bear to think of it. As for Polly, just don't try to tame her, Faith. You may not want to hear this, but she's a lot like your mother. "

Polly straightened her spine, a tingle creeping up her fingers toward her wrists. As each hair on her arm rose, a tendril of green light spiraled up after it, bathing the landing in a soothing emerald glow.

"How did you go on?" her mom asked. "Answer me that, Paul. After Bree, how can anything still matter?"

Polly closed her eyes and counted to ten. Even before she opened them again, she knew the green glow had faded. She felt her skin cooling, and when she finally looked around the landing, she saw only normal things—a warm brown floor, a white-painted table, a blue vase.

Downstairs, her dad shushed her mother, saying things he hadn't in years. Why, Polly wondered, didn't he talk like this all the time? Why was it only grief that inspired him?

"We can't give up," he said. "Every day is another chance for her to come back. We've got to believe that, Faith."

"I've been leaving things," her mom told him. "Food, clothes."

"I know. Polly told me. I've been cutting firewood and stacking it in the woods." He sounded ashamed, like he'd made a fool of himself.

"Eighty-seven days," her mom said.

All of a sudden, Polly had to remind herself of Bree's last words. Had she said she'd be all right, or had Polly just imagined that part? Even if Bree had gone into the woods, even if they left her everything she needed, there were a million ways not to survive. That's what Bree was really good at—finding the sinkhole in otherwise solid ground. Turning food into a weapon, her home into a prison, friends into spies and thieves. She could easily make a place as magical and bountiful as Girlwood a grave.

Polly fought her tears but began to tremble. Eighty-seven days. A miraculous amount of time for a girl to survive alone in the wilderness.

"Faith," her dad said. "Faith."

Polly heard their footsteps down the hall and her mother's bedroom door open, then close. It felt peculiar to be still listening, so she went into her room and turned on the radio to help her sleep.

***

In the morning, her father was in the kitchen making pancakes. He smiled too brightly, like an actor in a commercial hawking Aunt Jemima. Her mother jumped up from the table, playing his hungry, happy wife.

"Your mom and I have wonderful news," he said. "So much has happened, but last night we talked. We've decided to try again."

Polly closed her eyes for a moment to take it all in, but when she opened them again, her elation waned. Her mom was smiling, but the light around her had a pinkish tinge.

"Really?" Polly said.

Her mom laughed. "Yes, really. Aren't you happy?"

Polly wanted to ask her the same thing, but she didn't dare. Instead, she rushed to hug them both, praying that happiness
simply grew more complicated as you got older, and sometimes, if it had to, even started with a lie.

***

Christmas came; then Polly's thirteenth birthday, which passed without a party because Olivia's mom wouldn't let her come; then the snow. When it was a foot deep, construction on Mountain Winds was officially halted until spring. Polly was grateful for the temporary reprieve, but the sudden silence also made her realize that winter was no longer a threat, it was an actuality. It took every bit of her imagination to picture Bree curled up in that abandoned cabin, feasting on green vegetables and burning their dad's firewood until spring.

Polly's mother made her promise that she would no longer sneak off to Girlwood, and Polly kept her word. From her bedroom window, she watched the snow grow so thick, nothing moved except the wolves. Polly spotted them one evening, the female they'd saved standing just beyond the trees and howling as if the pack was one wolf short. But when Polly opened her window, the animals scattered, the female limping only slightly as she dashed into the brush. Polly waited night after night, even howling herself one time to try to entice them, but she never saw them again.

Winter seemed the time to move on. Polly's dad closed up the cabin and came back home, once again doing the dishes and shoveling the driveway while Polly's mom planted a smile on her face and ignored the sawdust he tracked in from the garage. Though Polly listened for signs of strain, what she heard instead was eerie politeness—
pleases
and
thank yous
that, for some reason, made her hold her breath. Every time her parents prattled on about house repairs and the weather, Polly wondered what they really wanted to talk about. What would happen when all their dull conversations dried up?

School, surprisingly, became Polly's refuge. There, she could breathe right and, most importantly, see Olivia.

"Can you believe that test?" Olivia asked after the last bell on Monday. While most of the kids bolted for the exits, they lingered by their lockers. Olivia's mom would be waiting outside.

"It was totally impossible," Polly said.

"And what about that drama at lunch?"

Polly rolled her eyes. Carly Leyland and Crystal had been going at it in the cafeteria. Polly had no idea what had caused the rift, but Carly hadn't been satisfied until Crystal cried.

"Poor Crystal," Olivia said.

"Crystal needs to pick better friends," Polly told her.

Familiar laughter spilled down the stairwell. "Speaking of the devil," Polly said.

Crystal must have groveled her way back into Carly's good graces because they came down the stairs together, all smiles. Joy was there too, to complete the trifecta—girls one, two, and three in their designer jeans and boyfriends' football jerseys. Carly still wore Joe Meyer's number 24.

Carly caught a glimpse of Olivia's rumpled beige coat. "Nice jacket,
Liv,
" she said. "Are you joining the army?"

Joy and Crystal thought that was hysterical, and Carly turned her attention to Polly's orange windbreaker. "Is it hunting season already? Be careful what you shoot. I hear there are wolf girls running loose."

Olivia stepped forward suddenly. "What's wrong with you?" she asked, loudly enough to stop conversation in the hall.

All eyes turned toward Carly, and for a moment, Polly would have sworn she was looking at Bree. At a girl who asked herself that very question a hundred times a day.
What's wrong with you? What's wrong with you?
Then Carly narrowed her eyes.

"
You
are, Wolf Girl," she said, laughing as she towed Joy and Crystal away.

Polly touched Olivia's arm. "Yeah, that's the girl you want for your friend," she said. "Great judge of character,
Liv.
"

Olivia shoved her and they laughed until Olivia's mom pulled up in the drop-off lane. After Olivia had gone, Polly wandered through the hall, not ready to face her father's
polite questions about her day or the sight of him wandering aimlessly from room to room. She was still at her locker ten minutes later when Bridget and Mandy came looking for her.

"There you are!" Bridget said.

Their brush with wolves and the wrath of their parents hadn't curbed their devotion to Girlwood. Bridget had been grounded for two weeks, but at school she'd formed a club called Kids for the Woods. Polly, Mandy, and Olivia were her first members, but within days, she had a dozen more. Lily and some of her goth friends showed up at lunch, along with John and Peter. The day they made the news for cleaning up a portion of Sheep Creek, twenty-six new students had crammed into the library. Even Crystal came, though she kept looking over her shoulder to make sure Carly didn't catch her there.

"We want you to see something," Bridget said. She unzipped her backpack, revealing a mound of small, dark green leaves. "My family went on vacation to Nevada last weekend, and when I went on a hike I found these."

Polly lifted out a few of the leaves and sniffed them. "Oxeye daisies," she said.

Bridget turned to Mandy. "See? I told you that's what they were." She smiled proudly. "I had my field guide with me."

"I can't believe you found so much," Polly said.

"It's summer all year there, as far as I can tell. Anyway,
we've got snowshoes. We're going to leave these for Bree."

Polly didn't know what to say. She hadn't thought that any of them would go back. Ever. She'd thought it was done.

"I ... I promised my mom I wouldn't go," Polly said.

Mandy touched her arm. "We know the way. We'll take care of her, Polly. It's not only you anymore."

Polly blinked back tears, both in gratitude and horrible, horrible doubt. Could a few wild greens really sustain a girl through winter? Could Bree, or anyone, change that much, from victim to survivor, wraith to fairy, just like that? It was a lovely notion, but now Polly saw that it was also ridiculous—the fanciful visions of girls.

Yet her friends were smiling, bright-eyed, and hopeful. She felt protective of their optimism, the way a mother would feel if she found a note her daughter had written to the fairies and would do anything to keep that kind of innocence alive.

"Bree will love that," Polly managed to say. "Thanks."

***

Polly's dad picked her up from school. The truck cab was sparkling, not a wood shaving in sight.

"How was your day?" he asked.

Usually she said "Fine," whether it was true or not, but today something in his tense manner kept her silent. A few days
ago, her mother had brought up the idea of his going back to the law firm, and since then he hadn't touched a log in the garage. He hadn't trimmed his beard either, and it was looking a little wild.

"Polly," he said as he pulled away from the curb. She wanted him to call her his lovely fairy Gwendolyn, but she knew he wasn't going to. Just like her mother wanted them to be the Family That Had Moved On, but that hadn't happened either.

"I don't know how to say this," he said, and ran a hand through his hair. "The last thing your mother and I wanted was to disappoint you again..."

He popped the clutch on the truck and had to restart the engine. Even then, he only went a block, then he pulled to the curb. He kept his hands on the wheel, waiting for her to say something, but all Polly could think of was that she wished she were more surprised. She wished they could love each other simply because they'd lost the same thing.

"It's all right," Polly said. "You should go back to your cabin." She didn't know where the words came from. Her voice didn't sound like her own, but like some wise, hardened city girl's, a teenager who had seen it all.

He was the one who cried. "I'm so sorry, honey. I—"

"It'll be better for Mom," she said quickly, cutting him off. "You just remind her of everything. And I'm thirteen now. I'll be fine."

When he took her in his arms, she wanted to retract every word. In her head, she was screaming at him to stay, no matter what it cost him, but the words never left her lips.

"I love you, Polly," he said. "My fairy girl."

***

They stopped for ice cream and took nearly an hour to eat double scoops. When they got home, she saw that he'd already packed. It had all been worked out. Her mother would be home early so she and Polly could talk.

"You be good to her, all right?" her dad said, and she stiffened. That's all she'd been lately: good. Going to school, coming straight home, giving up Olivia (for the most part), giving up Girlwood. Giving up on Bree.

He put his hands on her shoulders. "You're all your mother has now," he said.

Polly blinked in surprise. He was
wrong.
Her mother had plenty, if she'd only look past Bree's empty room. And Polly had plenty too. She had her friends and Baba and more belief than doubt. Maybe that wasn't the perfect world she used to create with her sister in the woods, but for real life, it was pretty good.

"That's too much to ask," she told him, "to be someone's whole world."

"But, Polly—"

"No," she said. "I'm not everything. I'm just me."

After he left, Polly went into the kitchen and grabbed the notepad from the drawer. With each stroke of the pen, she realized that, like it or not, she was no princess in need of saving. She would rather be the knight.

I'm going to the grove. I'm not giving up on her.
Polly

She grabbed her jacket and went out. Without snowshoes, she sank to her knees with each step, but she didn't turn back. By the time she slogged to the wall of devil's club, the afternoon light was fading, and her pants were soaked through.

Bridget and Mandy had had to dig away two feet of snow to reach the tunnel, making the entrance obvious. Polly dropped to the ground and slithered into the opening. Halfway through, she knew something was terribly wrong.

She couldn't hear the wind over the sound of voices. There was a party in Girlwood. As she came to her feet, she saw a roaring bonfire and a full keg of beer. She even thought she spotted Mandy and Bridget, but then a crowd moved between them. An older dark-haired boy thumped the keg, another threw lighter fluid onto the logs and cheered when the flames leaped skyward. They looked like high school seniors, older boys who wore only jeans and cotton shirts despite the cold.
She recognized a couple of girls from Bree's high school—Cathy Davidson in a neon pink jacket and Nan Tucker in her faux-fur boots and hat.