Sweetly (6 page)
“Will
he
be at the festival?” Violet asks Sophia before Ansel is out of earshot. I see my brother cringe and I suppress a laugh.
“You two are still coming?”
“Of course we are!” Jessie says, and looks offended that Sophia would even question it. “You don’t think we’d listen to a bunch of old people’s opinions? They’re all idiots. They just want someone to blame.”
Sophia sighs and shrugs. “Seems like more and more people
are
listening to them.”
“If by ‘more and more’ you mean, like… seven people, total,” Violet says pointedly.
“In a town like Live Oak, that’s a lot!” Jessie and Violet almost simultaneously roll their eyes.
“They’re not going to ruin you. The festival is gonna be packed.”
“I hope so.” Sophia looks down as Jessie turns to me, oblivious to some sort of pain crossing Sophia’s face.
“
You
should really stay for it, at least. It’s so much fun,” Jessie says. “But then make sure you run for the hills as soon as it’s done. This place, it sucks you under and drowns you, swear to god. I’m running and never looking back the second I get the chance. I can’t believe you came back, Sophia, after you managed to escape.”
“Eh, well, someone had to run this place. Besides, the chocolatier gave me something to come back
for
. I can’t say I blame people destined for cashier jobs at the Piggly Wiggly for not calling or writing once they break free.”
“That’s true. I’m not dating anyone who’s stocking shelves at twenty,” Violet says.
“Oh, shut up, you sound like a Lake City snob,” Jessie tells her, then turns to me. “My boyfriend works there. And speaking of, I’m supposed to pick him up in twenty minutes, and there’s no way we can speed on Jot-Em-Down this time of day. You know Ricky has his car set up behind that kudzu wall.”
“Dammit,” Violet says. “He could at least sit on the interstate and catch tourists instead of locals. No offense,” she adds to me. “Anyway, I need to grab some chocolate-covered Oreos before we go, if you have any. For Grams.”
“Oh, that’s right, your Grams…” Sophia trails off. “How is she?”
Violet shrugs. “She’s okay. Better, now that school’s out and I can take care of her. Stubborn as hell, though. Won’t move out of her house to live with my mama. Afraid she’ll send her to that Live Oak old folks’ home.”
“Of course… you have to take care of her.” Sophia shakes her head, as though she’s tossing away some lingering question. “I don’t have any Oreos made, but if you give me a minute, I can dip them for you.”
“Thanks,” Violet says. “If I came back without them, I’d be in trouble.”
Sophia disappears to the kitchen, leaving me, Violet, and Jessie staring at one another somewhat blankly.
“So… is this place like Washington at all?” Jessie asks as we hear Sophia crinkling wrappers in the back.
“No,” I admit. “It’s much better, honestly.”
“Even staying all the way out here? God, it’d make me nervous,” Jessie says.
“It’s nice. Quiet, but nice,” I answer. If I could just forget about the forest, or get over it entirely, it’d be perfect.
“I don’t know how Sophia does it,” Violet says. “I mean, after the whole thing with her daddy,
I
couldn’t do it. Maybe she finally cracked, and that’s why she let two outsiders move in…”
My expression must give away my ignorance about whatever happened with Sophia’s father—Jessie and Violet look at each other meaningfully. It’s clear they think they’ve said too much.
“It’s not a big deal,” Jessie says, but I can tell by her voice that it is. I raise my eyebrows. Jessie chews her lip, then looks over my shoulder to see where Sophia is.
“Her dad,” Jessie finally says in a whispered voice. “He got killed out here. In the house, about three years ago.”
Death doesn’t scare me. Disappearing, vanishing, being swallowed, yes, but death, surprisingly, doesn’t affect me the way it does some people—I watched my mother die, then my father, and death is a lot easier to handle than disappearing. Still, I muster up a shocked expression when I ask, “How?”
Violet’s eyes widen and she answers. “They think wild animals; someone said rabid dogs, maybe. Tore him to pieces. That’s why Sophia had to move back to Live Oak—to handle his things and take over this place. I would’ve just shut it down, honestly. There’s hardly anyone left in Live Oak to shop here anyway.”
Now my eyes widen at the story, and I open my mouth to respond. But before I can articulate a single word, Sophia sweeps back in.
“Here you go!” She hands a bag of Oreos over to Jessie and Violet. Violet gives me a quick shrug, clearly not as paralyzed by what she’s just told me as I am.
Sophia takes their money and drops it into an ancient red cash register. “Oh, and wait,” she says. She reaches into the glass case and chooses three chocolate-covered strawberries, then puts them in a white box. “If Ricky gives you trouble, throw these at him and run for it.” She grins. “Trust me, he can’t help himself. He loves them.”
“Thanks, Sophia,” Jessie says, laughing as she takes the box. “See you later. Good to meet you, Gretchen.” Violet waves as they push through the screen door. I lean back to see them through the window; they climb into an old Camry in need of a paint job. Sophia dusts her hands on her apron and moves back toward the kitchen.
I remember the look on her face this morning, the sad, wanting look.
Was it for her father?
“Gretchen? Are you coming?” Sophia asks, and I realize she’s holding open one of the saloon doors for me. I jump and realize I’d been staring at her, then follow her into the kitchen.
“So… what was that festival they were talking about?” I want to ask about Sophia’s father, but I’m not sure how she’d react to questions. Besides, I’m an old pro at walking on eggshells for people.
“It’s this thing I do toward the end of July. Big chocolate festival that I throw in the yard out back for all the Live Oak girls. I invite some out-of-town guys just for variety. That and the Fourth of July block party are the biggest events in Live Oak. Unless you count the Daughters of the Confederacy gala which… um… I don’t, no matter how many mailers those old ladies send out,” she says with a giggle. “They were right, though. You really should stay for it. I mean, I know it’s, like… I guess a little more than a month away? But still, you’d have a great time.”
A grin blossoms across my face. She really wants me not only to go to her festival, but to stay here for that long? I’ve never been invited to so much as a sleepover. I try to hide my smile—I don’t want Sophia to know how alone I used to feel. I want Sophia to know the new Gretchen.
I slide back onto a bar stool in the kitchen. “Is that why the old people don’t like you? They blame you for ruining their gala or something?”
Sophia turns on the stove, and gas flames beneath a large cooking pot leap up.
“No,” she says with a sigh. She drops a chunk of butter into the pot and swishes it around with the point of a knife. “Two years ago, the first year I threw the festival, a handful of the girls who came skipped town right after. And I guess that put the idea into the head of a few others, because last year another few left.”
“How is that your fault?”
Sophia shrugs as the butter crackles and stares into the pot as though it has an answer for her. “I got unstuck once. Some people think I convince girls at the festival to leave—put the idea into their heads, give them some money, and send them away. After the first year no one really was mad at me, but then it happened again and people wanted someone to blame.”
“That’s ridiculous.” I mean for it to come off casually, dismissive, even, but my voice is serious. I know what it is to be blamed. I know what it is to be Sophia.
“Where’s your sister?”
They asked us questions. They wanted to know why we had let her go. What we last heard. What we last saw.
They didn’t believe me when I said it was a witch. They didn’t understand when I told them if it wasn’t a witch, I didn’t know what it was.
They wanted to know why we didn’t help her. Why we let her disappear. How could you leave her? How could you just let her go?
We wanted the same answers.
How could we just let her vanish?
I know what it is to be blamed for someone’s disappearance when it isn’t your fault. I know what it is to have eyes on you, to know people whisper, to at once both fear and long to vanish like her.
Sophia is still talking, and I pick back up midsentence. “… it’s a long-standing Live Oak-ian tradition: graduate high school, grab your stuff, and take off before you end up barefoot and pregnant. Live Oak just has so few kids left; it’s a bigger deal when a group takes off, I think,” Sophia says, adding water to the pot. It steams up around her face and she stirs it slowly. “Plus they don’t call or anything, so people suspect they really are missing and not just escaping this place. It kind of sucks, though, when people you’ve known your entire life—people you used to babysit for, even—start hating you for something you can’t control. Something you can’t help,” she finishes, and hurt creeps into her voice.
“I understand.”
Sophia looks at me, surprised, and then seems to remember what I told her yesterday about my sister and how they blamed us. She inhales, looks down, nods. When she looks back up at me, her eyes are wet, just like mine. We blink away the tears simultaneously and smile. I understand her, and for the first time, I think someone other than Ansel might understand me. Whatever the chocolatier’s candy might do to make me happy, make me forget the forest, it’s nothing compared to the glow of the knowledge that I’m not as alone as I thought. The knowledge that if Sophia can be brave and confident and happy, so can I.
When Ansel returns to the kitchen a few hours later, he’s sunburned and sweating. There’s a goofy grin on his face, though, and a hammer hanging from a loop on his jeans. I don’t know that I’ve seen him so pleased with himself in ages—maybe Ansel is trying to start new here too. It’s working.
“Roof is done,” he says proudly.
“Really?” Sophia smiles at him, but it’s not the smile she gives me—it’s different, gentler, softer, and makes me feel as though I’m being left out of something between them. “I’m impressed. Let me get you something to drink,” she says, swinging the freezer door open. The blast of cold air reaches me on the other side of the kitchen. She breaks apart an ice tray, pours Ansel a drink, then slides him a glass along with a few chocolates.
“Do you think you have time to fix that break in the fence? I meant to ask you this morning,” Sophia asks.
“Of course. That’ll be an easy fix.”
“You’re sure? You might have to stay another night,” she says, glancing at me, as if I’m the one she really needs to convince.
“It’s fine with me as long as it’s fine with Gretchen,” Ansel answers. He finds my gaze, pulls it away from Sophia. He looks pleadingly, longingly, and I can’t tell if it’s because the scent of the chocolatier has the same effect on him as it does me, or if it’s Sophia herself that draws him in.
But the forest is still here, and it still frightens me—how long will Sophia’s candies stave it off? Surely it will be only a matter of time till I’m back to being a little girl, ready to run, quivering when the leaves tremble. I wanted to start over at the ocean, but…
“How about this,” Sophia says, watching my and Ansel’s exchange carefully. “I’ve got to pick up some groceries. While I’m in town, I’ll get a board for the fence—you know the measurements I need, Ansel?” My brother nods. “And you guys talk about it, okay? I don’t want to split up siblings,” she says with a grin, and for the first time I find myself wondering if she has that power. My stepmother couldn’t, our parents couldn’t, but could Sophia Kelly pull us from each other?
No, of course not.
Sophia offers Ansel a coconut cordial, gets the fence measurement, and then takes off for the store. It becomes very quiet, save the rustling of the outside world and the occasional slam of the screen door being opened and shut by the breeze.
“You don’t want to stay here another night?” Ansel asks.
I think of the ocean for a moment, then shrug. “I guess. Sophia seems to like having us around.” I pause, remembering how surprised Jessie and Violet were by our presence here. “Is that weird? She barely knows us.”
“She’s lonely, obviously,” Ansel says, waving a dismissive hand toward me. “Out here all alone? Wouldn’t you want someone around?”
“Speaking of—Sophia’s father was killed here, in this house. They say it was wild animals. Rabid dogs, maybe.”
Ansel’s eyes widen. “Right here?”
I nod.
“Poor Sophia,” Ansel says, shaking his head. I can hear it in his voice—he wants to save Sophia. That’s how Ansel works. Someone is in pain, and he wants to save her—he ran back into the woods after our sister, he became my rock. He didn’t give up on our father, even when Dad became someone Ansel and I barely knew—it wasn’t long after Mom’s death that he started drinking, and once he remarried it got worse. He couldn’t escape the guilt—over my sister, over our mother… Guilt ate him through the mouth of a bottle.
But something
actually
ate Sophia’s father alive. Ansel’s right—poor Sophia.
“I think this place is good for us,” he says quietly. “I feel… I feel like maybe getting out of Washington is what we needed. To get away from her.” It’s not clear if he means “her” as in our stepmother, or “her” as in our sister.
I suspect both.
