Phase (4 page)

But this animal was nowhere near a road. Feeling ill, I inched closer, dragging Slightly with me. Curiosity pushed me forward until I saw exactly what it was.

A brown wolf. Definitely a wolf, with its mouth frozen in a snarl, and its eyes open, staring sightlessly. Its belly had been ripped into by claws, not by a bullet.

I stopped, and Slightly whined, staying behind my legs. I couldn’t stop looking into the wolf’s eyes, which didn’t look like it was really dead. Just still. The eyes were so intense. They were hazel.

Almost like mine.

I hurried back home and told Dad. He went out to look at it and said that a bunch of the neighbors had been out there also. It had been removed before we got back from church at lunchtime.

I e-mailed Jules on Sunday afternoon. Our school gave us each an e-mail address, so it wasn’t too difficult to work out [email protected]. I stared at the empty page for a few minutes.

Dear Juliet

Nope, that sounded too formal.

Jules

Too plain.

Hey Jules,

Hope you’re having a good weekend. I’ve been doing homework pretty much straight since I got home.

Boring.

Hey Jules,

How’s your weekend been? Tell me what you think of the reading in Townsend’s class. I’m not sure what to think, actually.

She’d probably think I was stupid now.

I wrote about the wolf. I still felt jumpy about it. It was one thing to see a dead deer on the side of the road, and another to see a big, wild version of Slightly killed so brutally.

Everyone thinks it was killed by a bear or another wolf. Mom and Dad won’t let me go out for late-night walks with Slightly now, and we’re going to keep her inside at night. At least until they give the all clear that there aren’t any more wolves about.

Did that sound like bragging because it happened near my house? I wasn’t trying to brag, but I felt like I had to say something other than just
Anyway, just wanted to say hi and see how you were doing. Maybe you can come hang out again next week?

Still desperate.

We could watch a movie or something. See you Monday.

Sophie

I pressed Send and let out the breath I’d been holding.

After dinner, I went back up to my room to practice my audition song again, but decided to check my e-mail for the thirtieth time since sending the e-mail to Jules.

I had one e-mail.

Poor wolf. Sure, we can hang out. Later. J.

My face hurt from smiling so big.

* * *

Micah passed me in the hall on Monday, which wasn’t unusual. We didn’t have a class together, but I saw him. I always noticed Micah, Nick, or Aidan. Not for them of course, but for a potential sighting of Ezra.

Micah gave me a quick smile of recognition as he passed. He had a scratch on his face and a bruised jaw.

I stopped. “What happened?” I asked.

He stopped and turned, looking at me, puzzled.

I pointed to my face. “Your face?

He touched it gingerly. His hands were cut and bruised, too. “Fell down the stairs.”

“Really? I won’t find Gil with bruises too?” I’d fallen down the stairs before, but I hadn’t looked like I’d fought with a tiger and lost.

He laughed. “Nah, just me and my clumsiness. Though it looks like yours is still nice.” He pointed to my cheek.

I’d looked at my face that morning. The bruise from Summer’s fist had turned purple. “Yeah, too bad it’s not October. I could go as Barney for Halloween.” I grinned.

He laughed. “I’ll see ya, Sophie.”

“’Bye. Avoid stairs from now on.”

He smiled and turned, almost running right into Jules. He stopped short. She met his eyes for a second, hers narrowing. She edged out of his way.

“Nice to see you too, Juliet,” he said before heading toward the main hall.

Jules rolled her eyes before talking to me. “So.”

“So?” I didn’t ask her about Micah. Apparently, no guy was worth being nice to for Jules. We headed to English.

“Want to come over for dinner? We could study together.”

Surprised, I almost tripped. “To your house?”

“Not mine.” She never called it home.

“I mean, the Vardens’?”

She nodded.

“Um, when?” I asked, trying to play it cool.

“Tomorrow. Meredith keeps hounding me to ask you.”

“Meredith?”

“The mom.” She slung her bag on her shoulder. “I’ll tell her you’ll come?”

“Sure. That’ll be fun.”

Jules smiled again. She had a really nice smile. I started humming my audition piece and she raised one eyebrow as we got to the classroom.

“What’s that?”

“Oh, Show Choir has placement today.”

Both eyebrows lifted.

“We’re going to be performing at the county fair. The fair is a big deal. It goes on all week and weekend, but we get out of school early on Friday for it. Anyway Show Choir’s going to be doing a few show tunes, and there’s different parts, solos. And we have to prove to Miss Roe that we can do it. I’m hoping for a decent solo.”

“So you have to sing. In front of people. As they watch you.”

I laughed. “Yeah, that’s sort of the point.”

“I’d hate that.”

I shrugged, setting my bag on my desk. “I like to perform.”

“Well, good luck.” She smiled again. “I’m sure you’ll be great.”

She’d never heard me sing or seen me perform, but her encouragement, even without evidence, meant a lot. “Thanks.”

* * *

I silently thanked my mom for my itty-bitty GPS as I drove out to Forest Hills the next evening. Tryouts had gone well, I thought, although I never really knew. Miss Roe had a master poker face. She just nodded when I’d finished singing “As Long As He Needs Me” from
Oliver.
I portrayed the character fully and didn’t hear my voice crack. I didn’t know if I could expect much better from myself.

Forest Hills was out in the sticks. Really pretty sticks, but sticks. A town, maybe more like a village, was much smaller than Gregory. The trees I drove past were tall and skinny with lots of leaves, and I could hear the river.

My heart rate sped as I drove. Going to someone’s house for the first time was always scary. Would it smell weird? Would they have strange customs, like eating everything with their hands? Or eat everything with utensils, even fries?

Or worse, would they be out of toilet paper in the bathroom?

“Turn left,” Betty, my GPS, intoned. I signaled and did so. The long branches of the trees created a canopy over the road. If I lived here, I’d never leave. Gregory was a decent enough town, but not this beautiful.

All I saw was a driveway and followed it a ways before I saw any sort of structure.

“Wow.”

The night I’d dropped off Jules had been foggy, so I hadn’t really been able to see the house. It wasn’t the biggest house I’d ever seen. But it was amazing, all wood except for the brick chimney. Large windows with burgundy curtains faced the driveway. The shingled roof almost matched the color of the curtains.

I parked, grabbed my bag from the passenger seat, and locked the car. Where was the front door?

The house was tucked into the slope of the land. Small lower level, bigger second level, and a smaller third story. It appeared mismatched, like someone had thrown it together quickly and without a lot of planning.

“You must be Sophie.”

I jumped at the unexpected voice from the second story deck. I shaded my eyes. A slightly older version of Naomi, who was as pretty as her brother was cute, stood on the deck. She wore a jeans and a T-shirt splattered with paint, looking very un-mom-like.

“That’d be me. You must be Mrs. Varden.”

“Yes. Come on up, the stairs are on that side.” She pointed behind her. I went around the house, noticing a door under the deck into the lower level. I climbed the wooden stairs and exited onto the deck.

Mrs. Varden smiled sunnily. “I have guava juice, would you like some?”

Never had guava juice. “Uh, sure.”

She opened the sliding glass door and went into the house. I followed her. The house was all wood inside also. Bare wood. No wallpaper and no paint, like a well-ordered forest. The stuff inside the house was a mess. Not that I was a neat freak, but we kept our living room area clear of clothing and dirt. Here, the living room looked like people had tracked in a lot of the outside. It smelled different too. Like outside, but mixed with the smells of paint and meat. Strange.

Entering the kitchen surprised me. With all the wood, I didn’t expect a pale green tile floor. But all the cabinets were wood, and they had the biggest fridge I’d ever seen in a house. Covering half the wall, it looked like the type of fridge found at a restaurant.

I stared at it as Mrs. Varden poured the juice. Sure, with Jules added, the Vardens weren’t a tiny family, but an industrial refrigerator for five people seemed like overkill. Especially since the Vardens didn’t appear to have that much money. I probably wouldn’t have noticed something like that, but since I’d been hyperaware of Ezra since I was fourteen, even his financial status was stored in my brain.

“Thank you.” I took the glass from her. Her blonde hair was swept into a chignon, but several pieces had fallen. Her eyes were brown, nothing like Ezra’s, but still pretty. She had to be ten years younger than my mom. “Your home is beautiful.” I sipped the juice. Not bad.

“Thank you. We like it.” She chuckled. “It’s nice of you to—”

“Hey, Mom!” Naomi bounced into the kitchen. I rarely saw her at school, but she had the same color hair as Ezra. Same eyes too. Sophomore and popular from what I could tell. I wanted to like her, but I’d also seen her around Summer Harlan, so I was on the fence about her. Naomi stopped dead upon seeing me. “Oh.”

“This is Sophie. She’s one of Juliet’s friends.”

Naomi didn’t look extremely pleased to see me, but as my mother often reminded me, not everyone saw the world as sunny as I did.

“Hi, you’re Naomi, right?”

She nodded. “I didn’t know Juliet had friends. Or talked to people.” She sounded condescending. Right. Definitely on the side of not liking her.

Mrs. Varden smiled. “Naomi, why don’t you go tell Juliet that her friend is here?”

Rolling her eyes, Naomi left, and Mrs. Varden asked, “So, Sophie, you’re a senior, too?”

I nodded, drinking more.

“Do you know where you’re going to college yet?”

I shook my head. “No, ma’am. Half of me wants to stay close to my parents and the other half wants to go as far away as possible.”

She chuckled. “That seems typical. Ezra is the same. You have some classes with him, right?”

He told her that? He’d talked about me?

“Juliet mentioned that,” she continued.

Of course not.

I heard footsteps, like a dog padding down the stairs. Juliet came in with a big smile on her face. “You came.”

“Of course I did.” I grinned back. I wanted to hug her, but I wondered if it was too soon. She’d said I was OK only days ago. I’d hugged people too early before. A unreturned hug was the worst. “So, where’s your room?” I asked.

“Up a floor, come on.” She led the way.

“Kitchen’s fully stocked, girls,” Mrs. Varden called as we left.

“Thanks,” Juliet called back and started up the open stairs. I grabbed onto the railing. The stairs were smooth and polished. If I lived in the house, I’d have to come stumbling down those steps after waking up. Walking down the hall, we passed a room with a shut door. I pointed to it.

Jules rolled her eyes. “Naomi’s room. The parents are on the second floor. Ezra sleeps next to the garage.”

I pictured Ezra sleeping, all curled up in bed, looking adorable. Then I shook my head to clear it.

At the end of the hall, she opened the door on the left. “This is my room.” She sounded…awed. She hadn’t shared much about her former foster homes, but I was willing to bet that having her own room was something special.

A green comforter covered her twin bed. The bare walls were painted an intense blue. Her nightstand and dresser matched each other and the house by being made out of unpainted wood. Her round window gave her a phenomenal view of the woods. The green leaves blocked seeing very far, but during the winter, when the trees were bare, I bet she could see all the way to the river.

“This is very awesome.”

She sat at her little desk next to the window. “I love it.”

I tossed my bag on the floor and went to it to look even closer. “Yeah, honestly I’d stay in my room all day.” I looked at the bare walls. Juliet didn’t have anything to put up, a sobering thought. I went over to her bookshelf, smiling her worn copies of
The Chronicles of Narnia
. Well-loved.

“I like
The Last Battle
best,” she said. I smiled and went to sit by my bag.

“
The Horse and His Boy,
which no one likes, but oh well.” I opened my bag and pulled out a chips and cookies. “Time to study, and I brought snacks.”

“Very healthy too.”

“Life is too short to eat healthy all the time,” I replied with the argument I often used on my mother. “But I did bring carrot sticks.” I took those out too. “To counteract the chips and cookies.”

She picked up her math book and sat across from me.

“So.” I munched on a carrot. “Mrs. Varden seems pretty cool.”

“She is, but sometimes—”

“Sometimes, what?” I leaned forward. If Ezra and his friends were mysterious, maybe his family was too.

“I don’t know.” She twirled a pencil in her fingers. “I feel like they’re watching me. Maybe they think I’ll run away.”

“Why would you run away?” I half laughed, then saw her expression.