x.A Chapter by Rhiannon chapter one, meet the protagonist and watch her die. Emilia finds animal bones on the path she takes through the forest to get home. Small bones, usually, from mice or chipmunks. Rabbits, on occasion. Today she finds a skull, picked clean and sun-bleached, dirt seeped into the places where it’s cracked. The teeth are sharp, the incisors look fierce, and Emilia thinks it must have been a coyote or a fox. She goes to touch one pointed tooth and lets out a little yelp. She draws her hand back quickly, puts the tip of her finger to her lips. Little pink tongue flickers out to taste the iron, rust, and salt. Blood, she thinks. Emilia has walked this path nearly every day for practically her entire life, so she isn’t scared. Nothing can hurt her, because she is sweet sixteen and untouchable. She has a date tomorrow with the boy from her geography class, the one who is so handsome and has perfectly tousled hair and wears the right jeans and sneakers, and she is bubbling over with excitement. She has two best friends who will be over later tonight, and an older brother who is away at University who would most definitely not approve of some high school Casanova try to put the moves on his kid sister. She has a Mom and a Dad, a cat named Butterscotch. She has her own bedroom, her own computer, her own cell phone. Emilia is sixteen and lovely, her body alive and humming with the green energy of a summer forest. Emilia is sixteen and her mind is like a sponge that wants to soak in every last drop. Emilia is sixteen and she does not know that he is watching her. He is always watching her. He follows her through the woods each day, into town on the weekends. He sits outside her bedroom window in the itchy bushes and waits for the sounds of her syrupy-sweet voice singing along to her music. If he is very, very patient, he might get a glimpse of the soft apricot skin that lies beneath her clothes, waiting to be discovered and claimed like unchartered land. He believes that if he is patient enough for long enough, the brave explorer who will first plunge his flag in the soil of that rich, unspoiled country will be him. And so, he waits some more. Only, this time, it is especially hard. Today, it is really quite difficult for him to keep quiet, to keep from emerging and blocking her way down the path. It’s almost summer vacation, and Emilia is wearing a gingham sundress the color of a robin’s egg, her fan-colored hair swept back in a thick braid that nearly reaches her hips. He thinks he may not be able to keep everything inside, he might say to hell with the plan and the waiting. He moves without thinking, without breathing. “Did you prick your finger on that skull? You shouldn’t be touching dirty dead things, y’know?” The man comes out from behind a mossy elm with such agility and ease. It was difficult to imagine what such a person would be doing in these woods, with no binoculars or hunting vest, no bird call around his neck. He repeats what he said about the skull. Emilia notices that he is very sweaty, and that his cheeks are flushed with what appears to be exertion. “Oh, it’s nothing. I’ll put some Neosporin on it when I get home,” Emilia replies, looking at her glossy red toenails, scrunching them up on the soles of her flip-flops. She is trying to look anywhere but at the man in front of her. He smells like bug spray and a greasy-spoon lunch, too many fried onions piled high on a thick wad of red meat. He steps one foot closer, says nothing. The crunch of a twig popping beneath his boot, the whirring of cicadas in the trees, the horns of cars speeding past on the nearby highway; these were all in stereo in Emilia’s ears. Along with the thud-thud of her heart, which has only just begun to catch on to the idea her brain has been tiptoeing around; that not every stranger is just a friend waiting to be met. He has her cornered now; he is inching closer with each breath she takes. She smells of clean soap and powdery deodorant, of the sticky watermelon lip gloss she smears over her lips each day. There is another scent encroaching upon the others, though; it is ripe and pungent, a sick, trembly odor that he knows is the scent of her fear. She knows that only one of them can come out of the woods today, and that the odds are not in her favor. He mutters something inconsequential about having seen her around before, about how pretty she looks in her dress. She is starting to cry but doesn’t want to show it, her nose gone pink and rabbity. When she tells him she has to get home, her voice wobbles and quavers and her eyes are huge liquid pools of pleading. He doesn’t tell her that she never had a chance. He is, however, slightly annoyed that she isn’t thrilled to meet him. He’s always thought that maybe somehow, deep, deep down she’d recognize him for who he truly is. Her conqueror, her shadow-knight, her ever-watchful secret admirer. He drags her off the main path to a small copse of trees and tries to take the sundress off as carefully as he can, it’s just so pretty. He would hate to rip such a pretty, pretty dress. He stuffs a wad of old t-shirt into her mouth when she tries to scream, and now he’s more than a little offended. She should feel lucky that he’s the first one. He loves her so much, he feels as though he’s always loved her. He wants to take her back to his house, maybe cook dinner for the two of them, see if she’ll come around; he knows this is just wishful thinking, though. She will scream, run screaming home if he lets her go. The police will show up at his door within the hour, slap those cuffs so tightly around his thick wrists that they’d cut into his flesh ‘til he bled. He was so sure that she was the right one, the one he’d been looking for, practicing for with the others. He is very upset that he was wrong. She was supposed to be the Right One. But he can’t take the chance now, now that he knows she isn’t. He does what he must do. He folds up the sundress neatly and slips it into his satchel. He leaves her body in the woods, her hands clasped as if she’s asleep. He almost cries, almost. © 2013 Rhiannon |
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