The Story Sisters

But there was nothing for him in that world. He soon realized that the realm he’d chosen to replace it was just as dangerous as the world aboveground. Luckily, only a few weeks after he arrived underground he adopted a dog he named Mother, half husky, half German shepherd, abused by an unbalanced homeless owner, turned vicious, then abandoned. Mother had saved his life more than once. Hence the name. The mother he never had, one with teeth and claws. A beast whose very presence scared the evil residents away, but who would eat from his hand and never once bite. That’s how he came to understand what loyalty was. It was the first worthwhile human trait he ever learned.

THEY WERE IN the grass in the place where the robin’s bones had been scattered, where they’d broken her ribs. His arms were around her, under her clothes. He was so hot she felt he was the match that had been set to her skin, like those combustible men belowground, just waiting to be ignited. “Should I let go of you?” he asked.

Being close to him was like being in another world. Elv felt safe in a way she didn’t understand. She closed her eyes. She thought about the wild dog and the subway platform lit by torchlight. Most men would have rushed her, but Lorry had waited until she was ready. She told him not to let go. Nothing else seemed to matter anymore, not even Arnelle. Everything that had happened to her before was part of a ghost life. This alone was real and beautiful.

“You can trust me,” he said. “People tell you that all the time, and you know you can’t believe them. But this is me, Elv. Just me.”

She could not remember the last time she trusted anyone. He slipped her clothes off, ran his hands over her, took his time. She gave herself to him completely. It was pointless to fight what was happening; it seemed preordained. She wanted someone to protect her, to know her. She felt herself swoon like some foolish girl who believed in love and fate. He talked to her the whole time, and the more he spoke, the more entwined they were. She gasped when he moved to enter her, shocked by how much she wanted him. With all those boys back home, she’d stood outside herself, watching. Now she was on the inside looking out. What she saw was a man who couldn’t take his eyes off her. It was exactly what she wanted.

He didn’t kiss her until the very end. By then she belonged to him. He told her that he’d made a vow to never kiss a woman he didn’t love, that it went against his nature, because it was the way you entered into another person’s soul. He waited while she pulled on her T-shirt, buttoned her jeans. When he drew her to him once again, Elv realized that he’d never taken off his coat. He’d spent his life on the run, he told her. But he wasn’t running now.

They were hidden in the woods. Elv could see the angles of the school through the trees. She didn’t want to go back. She curled up, covered her face, distraught. Once you started to feel things, this is what happened, it went on and on, taking you over.

“Come on,” Lorry said. “I’ll do anything to make you happy. I’ll get you whatever you want. Seriously. Just tell me.”

“I want Jack,” she said.

He backed off, frowning. “Jack?”

Elv felt a little rise of pleasure. He was jealous. She nodded to the stable. “The old horse. He’s the best one.”

Lorry laughed, relieved. Any air of menace dissipated. “I can’t manage that right now. But I have something else that will make going back easier.” He took a small envelope from his pocket and snapped his fingers against the waxed paper. He called it the witch. “My fatal flaw.” He laughed.

Elv shook her head. She could see it wasn’t true. He was flawless, exactly what she’d been waiting for. How had this happened? How had she been so lucky? He had walked across the meadow and it had all begun, her real life, her life on earth. He laid out the lines of heroin. It made her think of the way the grass froze into a white patchwork of dew.

One breath of the powder and she was blown away. Nothing she’d tried before compared to this. She leaned up against him. She was miles away from the mud in the fields and the bitter green scent of swamp cabbage. Neither of them cared that it was getting cold now that the light was fading. She hadn’t seen how beautiful it could be in New Hampshire. The grass looked black. The peepers out in the marshlands began to call. Elv really didn’t care about anything except for him. She kissed him for as long as she dared.

SHE WAS LATE, missing dinner by nearly an hour. Anyone else would have been put in solitary, but Miss Hagen, so earnest and well-meaning, came to her defense. As punishment Elv was assigned to a second job. “It was the best I could do,” Miss Hagen said apologetically.

“It’s fine,” Elv assured her. “I just got lost.”

She laughed because it was true. She was lost and he had found her and she didn’t really care about punishment. She worked in the stables in the mornings and had latrine duty at night, after supper. It didn’t matter. She was just biding her time. Counting off the hours. Michael came around to watch her mopping out the rec room bathrooms. He was resentful, sullen, someone with a jealous soul. He rarely saw his brother now that Lorry was so taken with Elv. He just checked Lorry in at the administration building, then slunk away while Lorry went to meet Elv at their prearranged spot in the woods.

Now Michael tried to unwind their bond. He perched on a chair to tell Elv she was an idiot if she thought she could keep Lorry’s attentions. Every woman who saw him fell for him. Did she think she was the first? They’d hand over their hearts and their savings and when he was done he’d walk away, on to the next. In case she hadn’t noticed, that fatal flaw Lorry joked about wasn’t a joke. He’d been hooked on heroin for years. This wasn’t a baby habit, it was King Kong—his everything. Lorry was a liar, one of the best. He was dangerous territory for a girl like Elv, too stupid to see him for what he was. Michael was his brother, of course, but he was a wolf as well. Maybe it would be better if Lorry was taken off the visitors’ list. Michael grinned when he suggested it. Elv glanced up, eyes narrowed. Just as Lorry had said: those who are most powerless are the ones who do their best to hurt you.