No human will find me, but the wolves will. In that, I feel almost safe. I breathe. And find my peace in the stars.
But a noise grows. Crunching. Swooshing. And Mr. Henderson comes crashing into the clearing with a dangerous hunger in his eyes and blood on his hands.
Come to steal your soul away.
Come to Steal Your Soul Away
I scramble to my feet and scream. My voice carries, but there is no one except the two of us to hear it.
Mr. Henderson advances on me.
“You don’t have to do this,” I say. “They’re just letters. I’ll leave in the morning. I won’t be a threat to you anymore.”
“You’ve always been a threat to us. To Kyra. You distracted her from her true purpose.” Mr. Henderson corners me, and all that’s left of him is anger—or maybe despair.
“Mr. H. Please.”
This man used to carry Kyra and me on his shoulders. He would find ways to talk to Kyra when no one else could, not even me. He would be away for weeks at a time, tending to his investments, but when he was home, he anchored Kyra’s world. She trusted him, and so did I.
I try to crawl away, but he’s taller, stronger, faster.
His hands clamp around my throat and I can’t breathe I can’t breathe I can’t breathe. I twist and claw and kick, the barely healed cuts from two nights ago opening up again, but Mr. Henderson does not relent.
“No one will come looking for you here,” he says softly, increasing the pressure. Shadows creep into the edges of my vision. “I’ll make it look like an accident. It’s not difficult, you know. Plenty of places here where a girl could fall in the darkness. You could drown in the lake, and no one would be the wiser. They say it’s a peaceful death, drowning.”
I ram my knee upward and he hisses when it connects with his groin. He stumbles, but he doesn’t let go.
I can’t breathe.
“You know, if your body were never found, there would be no crime. A tragic accident, at most. Plenty of animals roam these woods, even in the dead of winter. You would be nothing more than prey. Easy dinner for the wolves. And I’m sure they would appreciate it.”
My vision goes black.
“No one comes between me and my daughter.”
And then I fade away.
Saving the World
I don’t see my life flash before my eyes. I don’t see stars. I don’t feel panic. What builds inside me is an unwavering determination. I refuse to accept this as the end.
I. Refuse. To. Die.
I arch back in the snow, and going on pure fear, I lash out again. I claw at Mr. Henderson’s face and at his hands. I kick him again, hard. My knee connects with his groin once more, and this time, he lets go.
He curses, his voice raw.
I drink in sweet, pure air. Everything hurts, breathing most of all. But I can’t soothe the pain or allow myself to give into it. I have to move.
My eyes water and I scramble to put distance between us. I try to get to my feet, but my vision twists. I crawl.
Mr. Henderson’s hand closes around my ankle. I open my mouth to scream—but all I manage is a dry sob.
“Leave me alone.”
“No.”
I turn to face him and stop.
With one hand, Mr. Henderson holds my foot. With the other, he holds a knife. I recognize it from their kitchen. A boning knife, a carving knife, a chef’s knife.
He holds the knife just above my bunny boot. If he pushes any harder, it’ll slide through fabric, skin, muscle. If I can’t stand or walk, I’ll freeze to death here.
Oh God, he’s going to kill me. He’s really going to kill me. I can’t escape.
“I didn’t want to do this, Corey,” he says slowly. “But I cannot let you leave. And blood will bring out the hunters.”
Kyra used to tell me fables about wayward girls who wander into the woods and are dragged off by wolves, never to be seen again. They’re cautionary tales. But wolf attacks do happen, and Mr. Henderson wouldn’t even have to kill me himself. Leaving me wounded and bleeding would be enough.
He traces the knife along the rim of my boot and I freeze midkick. I’m trapped.
“Give me the letter, Corey.”
A cloud passes over the moon, casting us into darkness. I claw at the snow. It gives me no traction.
I lean into my anger instead.
“She didn’t need you to protect her legacy. She needed you to protect her. Kyra. Her dreams. Her plans. Her future.” Antagonizing Mr. Henderson while he holds a knife is certain self-destruction. But I couldn’t stop if I wanted to. “She needed you to be her father.”
He draws breath as if to speak, but I push on.
“Do you even know what painting meant to her? It was her coping mechanism, not her passion. She needed therapy. She needed medication. She needed help. She deserved acceptance. Neither of us gave her that.”
The words hit a nerve. The knife eases against my skin.
“You don’t understand anything,” he snaps.
“I understand enough.”
My fingers touch the notebook. The letter Mr. Henderson wants is inside it, and I won’t be able to withdraw it without his seeing the notebook too. I don’t want him to see it. Kyra didn’t want him to have it. She hid it away for a reason.
But Kyra wouldn’t have wanted this either. He won’t listen to me. But maybe he’ll listen to her. One day. Maybe if he reads her letter—all her letters—he’ll understand her.
And maybe he won’t. But if I take Kyra’s notebook to the outside world, who would they believe? The words of a young, bipolar girl, or the collective testimony of an entire town?
Forgive me, Kyr.
“Mr. Henderson,” I say.
His eyes flash. Once, I thought Kyra had her father’s eyes. They both shared the same sharp intelligence and curiosity. But now he towers over me and hatred twists his features into harsh angles. He is nothing like Kyra anymore.
And I pity him.
I hold out the notebook for him to see, and he freezes. “Take her letters.” Then I send it sailing through the air, as if it were a Frisbee, toward the edge of the clearing. In the shadows. If he doesn’t find it soon, it’ll likely be lost forever.
“Catch.”
The instant he lets go of my leg, I scramble to my feet and run. Down the hill. Through the trees. Stumbling over the snow and the rotting branches beneath it. I run until I reach the spa, my leg aching and my eyes burning with tears.
Roshan catches me. There’s a gash across his temple, but aside from that, he looks no worse for wear.
I nearly sob in relief.
“He needs me. He needs my father’s investment. He would never have hurt me.” Roshan is probably trying to make me feel better, but he doesn’t. He holds out my backpack and what’s left of my belongings. I don’t have the energy to reach for it. I can’t hold myself up. I can’t keep my emotions at bay. I can’t stop shaking.
I collapse onto the ground. Roshan kneels next to me and wraps an arm around me. “I’m here,” he says. “I’ll stay with you.”
“I want to go home.”
“I know.”
Roshan shelters me from everything I’m afraid of as I cry myself dry. And when I stop shivering, he hugs me tighter.
“Kyra told me that you want to be an astronomer. The sky is clearing. Will you tell me about it?”
I bite my lip and glance up. I can see Venus from here, bright in the path of the moon. Gemini and Orion with Betelgeuse, high above us. Canis Major, and a muted Milky Way passing through. The sky around us edges blue, and a single meteor streaks down in a bright flash.
I smile.
Maybe this is why I never minded the night sky, even when I hated the darkness. Because there’s so much light here.
Day Six
Hero Days
Almost Two Years Before
“Why do you call them hero days?” I asked Kyra early one morning. We’d walked out to the airstrip to see the sun rise above the mountains in the distance. It wasn’t too long after the ice broke up, and sunlight felt like a luxury.
“Because every story needs a hero,” Kyra said. “And I would like to be the hero of my story.”
“Can I be your sidekick?”
“I’d rather you be the hero of your own story,” she said. “A companion to mine.”