Even so, there was no alternative but to try.
“I know what you’re up to,” Meredith said, as she put the finishing touches on her outfit, her melon skirt from last year’s birthday party paired with blue leggings and a new blue sweater. She was going to Neely’s and was cheerful for the first time in ages. Mally spun around to face her sister, stark panic on her face. “It’s about that guy. Cooper. Eden’s brother. You’re sneaking out to meet him.”
Arranging her panicky glare into an eager girl-crush face, Mallory made Merry promise. “Don’t tell.” Grinning, Merry took time from her dressing ritual, which Mallory had clocked at ninety minutes, to use two fingers to cross her heart. And then Mallory was out the door.
Assuming from her headlamp and clothing that she was going running after picking flowers, Campbell shouted for Mally to be quick about it, but Mally called back that she might drop in and see Eden, who might be waitressing at the Big Dipper. Campbell was drowsy. Tim and Adam were playing chess.
And so Mallory slipped out under the cover of everyone else’s preoccupation.
THE CAT
Mallory’s resolve shuddered.
It was smudge-smoke dark on the road that led up and around Rose Ridge reservoir. Six or seven junky cars—junkier even than Drew’s—were parked in the scrubby trees at the side of the road. She could hear hoots and shouts down by the water, even though it was cold enough outside to see her breath.
Although he promised to stay in the car, Drew made Mallory agree to use a signal—three short flashes of the light and one long one—if she got in trouble and needed him, which he warned her she had better not. Drew was dressed for his date, wearing a pair of cuffed chinos and a pale green sweater. When Mallory told him he looked nice, Drew ignored her.
She used her headlight to keep to the path, such as it was, as she scuffled her way uphill. Every few moments, she would call out in a soft voice, “Eden! It’s Mallory!” But nothing stirred. The partiers’ distant noise faded. The wind rattled the dry branches and something small and quick slithered across the trail behind her. She heard the occasional loud crash from below and saw flames leap as someone threw something on the bonfire.
Mallory walked faster, her hands deep in her pockets.
She made her way up to the top of the ridge over the reservoir and peeked down at the party. Mostly guys with a few girls wearing shorts or sweats, they were yelling and singing and throwing green beer bottles into the now-raging fire. Every time one crashed, Mally jumped.
She smelled the lion behind her before she saw her.
It was a strong, wild, hot scent like nothing Mallory had ever experienced, cleaner than a zoo smell, not unpleasant but tangy and strong. She heard the low sound that ended in the “wow” of a snarl.
Slowly, she turned, steeling her body to remain still. Was this really Eden? If it was, could Eden’s mind be inside the creature?
Determined not to flinch, Mallory couldn’t help but fall back a step when she actually saw the lion. It was not really white but a buff color, like brushed suede boots or sheepskin. It would have been magnificent had Mally not been so terrified. No more than ten feet away, it stood among the low birches, its unblinking golden eyes with their straight-line black pupils fixed on her, the muscles of its chest and forelegs like tiny mountain ranges. Its head was twice the size of Eden’s, its grin between thin black lips one of the most frightening things Mallory had ever seen. It . . . no, she . . . tossed her head and snarled again. An electrical thrill pulsed along Mally’s arms.
Mally took a deep breath.
“Eden?” she said.
The cat delicately placed one paw before the other and stepped toward Mallory. Mallory’s bladder tightened. She nearly turned to run; instead, she squeezed her eyes closed and prayed to St. Bridget. She smelled and felt, rather than saw, the big cat’s approach, shivered as its casual heft brushed her leg—the cat’s shoulder higher than Mallory’s hip.
Mallory breathed then.
It could have killed her.
So it was Eden.
“You hurt that man. Eden, why? Is that the kind of bad luck Cooper meant? How can that be good? Hide, Edie. Please. An animal control officer with a big rifle is coming tomorrow from Warfield. Do you hear me? Do you understand me?” Mallory looked deep into the golden eyes and heard Eden tell her, the way Meredith did, I do.
Then she heard the voice.
“You don’t belong around here, little dude.” The voice was twangy with menace. Mally turned, her hood slipping back. There were two of them—one guy small and scrawny with a caterpillar ’stache and the other bulky with eyes as blank as a bear’s. “Oh, the dude’s a lady. Ry, look here. A mini-lady has come to visit us. Hi, baby.”
Eden was . . . where? Nowhere to be seen.
“I . . . I was running,” Mallory said. “I’m just going down.”
“That’s okay,” said the skinny boy, who had buzz-cut black hair to go with his mini-mustache. “You come on down by us and have a brew.”
“No thanks.”
“No, you come on down. Right, Ry?”
“No. I’m only twelve.”
“You’re pretty cute, though. I was brewing up a storm when I was twelve. No time like the present to get started.” The skinny boy with the black buzz stepped forward and grabbed Mallory’s arm.
“Leave me alone!” she said sharply. “My brother’s down there.”
“Let him come too, then. We don’t want you going to tell Mommy what you saw at the reservoir, right?”
Pulling her miner’s light off her head, Mally switched it on-off three times and then back on. “Ooooooooh,” said Buzz Head. “Secret code.”
“I know her,” said the other boy, the one called Ryan. “That’s the little chick that was on TV when that big fire happened. The twin. And she was the one there when the guy went over the cliff in Ridgeline. That was intense. Did his head break like a pumpkin? Was it sick?”
“Leave her alone, you idiot,” said a familiar voice. Kim stepped out from behind the Buzz Head boy. “Mally, is that you?” Mallory nodded. Kim wore a sweatshirt ripped open to the top of her bra, and a parka. Her skintight black jeans were stuffed into furred boots that outlined her calves. “Evan, she’s a little kid. She’s my friend’s sister. Let her alone.”
“I’m no more a kid than you, Kim. Why are you here?”
“Why do you care?” Kim asked. Whipping a lighter out of her parka pocket, she stumbled a little. In the light from her headlamp, Mally saw that Kim’s eyes were black pits at the center, wavering and bloodshot. The cigarette was just a Marlboro, but there was more going on than that. Mallory didn’t know whether to be more afraid of Kim or the boys. More were making their way up the hill.
“Ev!” one called. “Evan! What are you doing, Tauber? Taubsky? What’s going on? Where’s Kim?” A guy at least a head taller than Drew stepped out onto the path. His head was shaved and, in the cold, he wore nothing but a T-shirt with the sleeves ripped off and “Dead Meat” scrawled on it in crude strokes of marker. “Who’s the midget?”
“Leave her alone, Evan, Brett. She’s leaving. She was just up here for a run,” Kim said.
“Kim, come home with me. Drew’s down there. We’ll drive you.”
“My parents would just love to smell my breath now,” Kim said, with a laugh that came out more like a croak. The bare-headed boy, Evan, grabbed her arm and kissed her deeply. Kim broke away. “You go home, Mally.” She dragged deeply on the cigarette. “My friends are nicer to me than the stuck-up little preps and princesses at Ridgie.”
“I’m sure they’re nice, but Kim, you’re not even fifteen.”
“Since when?” the boy asked.
“She’s nuts,” Kim said. “I told you. I’m a senior.”
Mallory said, “She’s not. She’s a freshman. Just like me. Her brother was the boy who died in Ridgeline last spring. The one who fell off the cliff. Deirdre’s guy. You just said. She’s just a kid. You’re giving
beer and cigarettes to a kid. And I’m going to say so. I recognize you. And I don’t care what you think. I heard your name. Evan Tauber. I’ll tell the cops.”
“I don’t think you will,” the bald-headed giant said gruffly. “I don’t think you’ll want to tell anyone if you hear what might happen to you if you open your mouth, little teeny girl.” He grabbed one of Mallory’s arms, but Kim reached for Mally’s other hand. The boy called Ryan pushed Kim’s hand away, nearly knocking her down. Mallory struggled, as the bald giant held her tighter.
Then they all heard the high, impossibly loud cry, humanlike but not human.
Behind them, the mountain lion crouched on a rock.
She rolled her shoulders and growled again, her claws like individual teeth, her teeth glistening in a mouth that yawned so large Mally could have put her head and shoulders inside it. The cat lay low on the boulder, her head restlessly swinging. The moon had risen, bathing the path in white light. The puma looked cut from marble, like a statue of a beast, except that it moved.
“Mother . . . man, what is that?” Ryan whispered, backing up.
“You’re lit, man,” said the skinny guy
“You see it too.”
“I think I’m seeing what I smoked. I’m out of here. . . .”
“It can’t be there, because it can’t exist. Even though we’re seeing it. It can’t be,” said Buzz Cut. Their friend had already cut out for the scrubby path downhill.
“What is?” Kim asked. “What’s that sound?”
The huge guy was looking over Kim’s head at the cat and beginning to back down the slope.
“It’s really there,” Mallory said to the guys. To Kim, she said, “Kimmie, listen. For your mom’s sake. For David’s sake. Listen. Look right at me and walk down the path. I’m so serious, Kim. Don’t turn around.”
As if hypnotized, Kim began to walk down the ridge path toward the parking lot. The cat snarled again. Kim began to run. Mally followed her.
“I’m gone. Tell Jaybird and Detox to grab a ride.” The boy called Ryan began to jog down the path. Buzz-cut was nowhere to be seen. The huge bald guy had just turned his back when Eden sprang. She sailed ten, maybe fifteen feet, like something light instead of something that weighed easily four times what Mally did, but she hit the ground in long, easy running leaps and was almost upon the giant within seconds.
“Eden, no!” Mallory shrieked. “He didn’t hurt me!”
Kim had disappeared.
Mallory heard the shrieks and scrambling from below as everyone made for their cars. As Mallory watched, Eden closed the distance between her and the scrawny boy with the ripped T-shirt; she saw his face as he glanced back once, bone-white with fear.
And then Eden fell.
She fell flat just a foot from where she had caught up to the boy, taking a first step and then stumbling into a copse of low bushes.
“NO!” Mallory cried. “NO!”
She hadn’t heard a shot. The animal control wasn’t supposed to come until tomorrow.
She turned the light toward where Eden lay and ran to her side. Kneeling, she ran her hands over the tiny spot of blood on the cat’s thigh. She heard a stick break behind her and looked up into Cooper’s face, his wonderful face she’d missed so much. Mally cried, “What did you do to your sister? How could you hurt her?”
“It’s okay,” Cooper said, pulling her close to him, kissing her hair, then her mouth. She could see that he was crying. “There were herbs on the arrow. From our grandmother. She’ll sleep an hour and then head north. I heard on the radio that she hurt that man. That’s the ancient way. I don’t think she meant to hurt him.” Cooper held Mallory close to him and said, “I’m scared to death. What if I hadn’t hit her? And it’s Eden! How could I do this to Eden? I never thought it would be like this.”
Mallory pulled away.
“How did you think it would be? Did you think Eden would just be happy being everyone else’s fairy godmother? Is this okay with you? That your sister takes out the occasional little old man who has the bad luck to see her, just because it’s the ancient way?”
“No, but Edensau should stay away from people!”
“Maybe she’s mad, Cooper. Maybe she’s lonely! She’s taking too many chances.”
“But that old man told what he saw,” Cooper went on. “And those stoner kids are going to tell too.”
“No they won’t. They’d have to explain what they were doing down there. Everybody knows what Rose Ridge means.”
“True. But she has to hide. The animal control . . .”
“I know, Cooper. The old man shot at her! He said he did, at the hospital. My mom was there. She treated the guy and his grandson. He shot at her with a gun. If he wasn’t so drunk he’d have hit her.”
“He did hit her,” Cooper said, leaning over Eden’s fallen form. Mallory clutched his arm. “But, look, she’s okay. The bullet barely creased her skin. Right there. That hide is tough.”
“But Eden’s hide isn’t! Will it show on her real skin?”
“I don’t know. Why do you keep blaming me? I love her as much as you do! She’s been scratched by branches, yes, and growled at by bears. But never hurt. She’s tough. She’s stayed out of sight and safe. I don’t know what’s come over her!” Cooper raked his hair back with both hands.
“James has.”
Cooper let his breath out in a rush. “Of course. That’s why.”
“Is something going to happen to us? Because we saw her?”
“I don’t think so,” said Cooper. “I’m under her protection. I assume you are too. And anyway, I’m not having particularly good luck tonight.”
“And my luck is generally bad.”
Cooper said, “This is a hell of a mess, Mallory.” In his dark shirt and jeans, he looked like part of the sky, part of the dark trees and suddenly starless sky. Star blanket. His name. Mallory couldn’t have seen Cooper if he hadn’t been standing so close. Suddenly, he took her hand. “I think about you all the time. Why do you have to be such a kid?” He kissed her again. Mallory, ready this time, leaned into him and kissed him too, reaching up to put her arms around his neck. Cooper pulled her close to him. She felt the buckle of his belt against her sternum. There would be a mark there.
She was glad.
“So, okay, this is why I had to drive you up here?” Drew Vaughn asked coldly. “So you could meet him?”
Burrs clung to the cuffs of Drew’s good pants, and he reached up to pull a branch from his hair. “I saw your light, Brynn. I thought you were in trouble.”
“I was. Those boys down there . . .”
“Right. Was he with them?”
“You know he wasn’t. This is Eden’s brother.”
“I know who it is,” Drew said. “I get it now. Thanks a lot, Brynn. Remind me to help you out again sometime real soon.”
Pulling away from Cooper, Mallory raised both hands in a gesture almost like a prayer. “Please don’t think that, Drew. I would never use you like . . .”
“Your mom and dad would go nuts if they knew you were going out to meet him, but it’s okay if good old Drewsky is there. They can trust me! What do you think that’s like?” Drew spat the words on the ground. “Hey, Cooper. You take her home. And don’t worry about Kim. Some psycho in a Buick picked her up. I think she broke one of her high heels, though.”
He turned his back and jogged away down the hill.
Mally turned back to Cooper. He was using a bough to sweep away the tracks and kicking around stones to remove the signs of a scuffle. He kneeled again next to Eden, placing his hand on the thick pelt, where a ruff of white bunched at the neck. “She’s breathing easily.”
“I’m not!” said Mallory. “Eden is my best friend! Drew Vaughn has known me all my life.”
“And he likes you, not just like a friend, and he saw us over there. What can I do about that? I like you not just like a friend too.”
“But he thinks I’m a loser and a user,” Mally said as
Cooper picked up his bow. “I only wanted to warn Eden.”
“That’s the price you pay,” Cooper said.
“Easy for you to say if you don’t have to pay it.”
“I do,” Cooper said. “That’s my sister! This is my big sister on the ground. I shot her with the bow she helped me make when I was twelve and she was fourteen. How do you think I feel? How would you feel?”
“Horrible. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I know.”
“Do you have to go right home?” Cooper asked suddenly.
“I’m cold and dirty. And yeah.”
“Right home, right this minute?”
“Why?”
“This night is a nightmare. Only one good thing can come out of it so . . . I thought we’d sit for a moment and look at the stars. The truck is down there.”
“It’s cloudy now. There are no stars to see.”
“Oh, well,” Cooper said, and smiled—a smile weary but real.
“I’m almost fourteen.”
“I just turned sixteen. Two years and a couple of weeks between us. My grandmother was fourteen when she married my grandfather,” said Cooper. “But you don’t have to worry about anything, Mallory. I like you, but I would never hurt you or make anything difficult for you that way.”
“I know that,” Mally said. She took his hand.
“And I’ll get you home in a while. Honest Injun.”
“Don’t say stuff like that.”
“I’m just goofing.”
Cooper was as good as his word, but for the first time in her life, Mallory went home with “kissing chin.” No one but Merry noticed because it was almost gone by morning—except for the memory, both tart and sweet.