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lilliths-story-studio · 2 days ago

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I hate her damn car.

It smells the same way she does, cloyingly sweet and everywhere in this confined space. Her navy curls have been piled into a messy bun, and all four foot, eleven inches of her is perched at the edge of her seat. Her adjustments to reach the pedals make me comfortable as a cat in a bath.

“I don’t want to hear it.”

“I didn’t say anything.” I adjust against the discount-velvet seat, looking pointedly out the window.

Midnight had rolled into one and now hangs fifteen minutes shy of the second hour. Soft moonlight seems brighter than it should be, silver rippling over the patchwork of treetops that blanket near every undeveloped inch of these hills.

“You think loud.” She grumbles and I freeze.

Can she actually read my mind? Distaste bubbles from my stomach to my throat. No…no, too much wouldn’t have happened if that was the case. The air floods my lungs anew and I look back to find her just watching me.

“Are you even here?”

“Just trying not to choke on the gallon of perfume you soaked the car in.” I nod towards the road. “You wanna look forward, or do you just woo woo the car to and from hell.”

“Are you going to be like this the whole time?”

“Good chance.”

“What a wonder that I let you go.”

“I think that rope unraveled from both ends, sugar. Let’s be real.” She doesn’t have anything to say, and I have no interest in awkward silence. “So I’ll be real with you, I haven’t processed anything for the last hour or so. How the fuck did Bigfoot end up with your cousin?”

“Bigfoot?” I’m smarter than she thinks I am, the way she’s looking at me right now. But damned if I can remember that through the squirming of my stomach. “That’s what you got from our conversation?”

“I got a headache from our conversation, Cassy. What I didn’t get was anything that made actual sense.”

She shakes her head.

“You remember we told you to stay outta the woods at night?”

“Yep. Lots of times. You seemed a reasonable bunch until those trees were involved.” Or I started noticing holes in their stories.

“It’s because the wilderness in this area is…odd. There’s a lot of tales that get told about these woods and a lot more that don’t. After Evelyn’s friend went missing, she started looking for the stories that no one wrote down, for names no one was supposed to know.”

The car slows its roll over an old, iron bridge. Cassy pointedly presses her lips together and shakes her head as I open mine to speak.

It’s the ringing in my ear and the swirling in my gut more than her comically exaggerated moves that still my tongue. A skittering of nerves fire off like ants dancing down my skin, the sensation swelling and then abating as we reach and pass the midway point of the bridge.

It’s only once we’ve rounded two bends in the road and left the eerie threshold several miles in the rear view that the last of the ants falls away and Cassy releases a breath.

“What the hell was that?”

“Something you would have noticed four years ago if you’d ever been sober enough to connect to your nerve endings-“

“How many fucking times are you going to fish that shit up?“

“I can’t have you and your love of the bottle causing problems, Tasha.”

“The bottle I don’t fucking have on me? You came to me, remember?”

She shakes her head.

“If it’s not a problem, then it’s not a problem.”

“Then stop bringing it up.” I tap a-shave-and-a-haircut against the meager ledge intended to serve as an arm rest. “And tell me what just happened. I don’t remember any of the folktales out this way.”

“There wouldn’t be any for whatever that was - it’s newer. The natives that grew up here don’t interact with it, and they don’t have a name they’ll share for it. Say it’s something all the new folk have summoned in the last twenty years they’ve been moving out here. It’s making the place sick.”

“You passed all of your science classes, right?” I knew she had- I’d attended her graduation and congratulated her on the special-snowflake red sash that had signified something to do with super good grades.

“Did you?” It’s the sniff at the end that really sells the dig.

“Well enough for a good enough.” I flash her a wide smile and she ticks her disgust in the back of her throat.

“We haven’t named it - E and I just know we don’t use names near the bridge. It collects them and whispers them in the night.” She shakes her head. “I’m not entirely sure why yet.”

“That’s not too bad. It just says names?”

Another cutting look.

“Nothing collects names for no reason. Don’t be careless.”

“You never worried about it before.”

“Grand Junctions so far from its territory that I’m not worried. You’ll notice we were always silent or listening to music when we passed this bridge…” she trails off. Come to think of it, we had typically been out of sorts with one another anytime we drove in or out of the area. Had she just been stirring the pot on purpose, then? “Whatever it is, it doesn’t seem to have a very big sphere of influence. Did you notice it drop off?”

“Like itchy water rolling off my skin?”

She presses her lips together for a second.

“Itchy water?” Up a note- she’s laughing at me.

“Get bent, Samantha. Was that it or not?”

“Yep.” She pops the ‘p’ and then does a shit job of suppressing her giggles.

We slow and turn up a slender gravel road marked with a single wooden sign for Forsythia Farm. The wood itself is a light enough wash that the black letters are legible as we roll by in the dark. The handwriting would be a nicer touch if both of the hooks had been securely attached. As it stands, the sign dangles from a single point and waves like a broken arm.

I love this.

“I thought we were going to Grand Junction.”

“Not until we have her back.” She shakes her head, eyes darting about as the treeline encroaches closer to the road on either side. “My parents already told me once to drop the issue. If they realize I’m going looking for her…I won’t be getting back out of that town.”

“You know you’re a grown ass adult, right?”

“Don’t start.”

“Just pointing out facts.”

“Some of us care if we disappoint the people we love.”

I bite the inside of my cheek.

“Sounds like a drag. Can’t relate.”

The car slams to a halt, and it’s my turn to compulsively check the inky dark eating everything past the first, closest couple of trunks. Is she really just gonna sit here after telling me how friendly these trees aren’t?

“If we do this fighting the whole time, we’re going to get killed, and your friend is going to die tied to that lot.”

Fuck, I hate it when shit she says makes sense.

“Now, do you want to try starting again? This time pretend you’re an adult.”

“Stop taking shots if you don’t want them fired back.”

“I’m trying to get this over with. Do you want to help or make it harder?”

The car starts moving again and we wind our way up from the foot of the Osage hills - about as presumptuously tall as a thousand piles of rocks can be, yet technically not a mountain range because of measurements and science I don’t understand. The drive splits to the left, where the farm sits settled atop a cleared plateau. The property itself holds only a small, dark, wooden cabin and a large, red barn several yards back from it.

Splitting to the right and away from the property, a set of worn tire tracks leads into the thicket of woods that dress the next sloping ascent.

“So where’s here?”

“It’s a farm that Thomas’s family owns and the place she was supposed to be staying before she vanished.”

“And no one thinks it’s weird his place is the last she was seen? That guy always set off my shit-o-meter.”

“Maybe you’re more connected than I thought.” She mutters more to herself before she pushes open the door. “Come on.”

What the fuck did that mean?

I snag my bag from the back seat while she digs hers out of the trunk, then follow her to the door of the cabin.

“Thomas didn’t do anything.” She says, jingling a silver key from her pocket. “Matter of fact, he’s the only other person who seemed worried when she didn’t come back.”

“Not even her parents?”

Cassy shakes her head.

“She’s been a hopeless nomad since she left for college. Nearly every weekend she and her friends were off on some kind of adventure and she didn’t always tell people where she was going. So they just assume she skipped out for summer break. Aside from Thomas, I can’t say if anyone else knew about the shit she and I got up to in those woods.”

I pause.

“Why does Thomas know? Isn’t he connected to the mayors office for that town? I thought you couldn’t trust anyone there with the whole witch thing.”

She rolls her eyes as she unlocks the cabin.

“A sickly, fourty year old man is hardly backup.”

“No, but he’s a prominent member of the tiny community your parents are so worried about. Surely his co-sign-“

“Would make people question his sanity at best. At worst, they call for a demonstration, and history tells us how kindly the aftermath treats the truth.”

My teeth click shut and she shoulders the door open.

“Has he been here since?”

“No, he doesn’t want to take any visible action or make anyone worry- folks out here are fond of their stories and they spook easy.” Cassy pockets the keys and flips on the lights to reveal the interior. “Shut the door. We’re not going out tonight- you need any kind of warding before we go any further in.”

“Warding?”

“Just shut the door.”

I do what she says, because I don’t have a good reason not to. She tosses her black, studded backpack onto the grey and brown couch.

“You’re like me- at least a little bit.” She says as she plops next to her bag to start unlacing her boots. “Never could figure out how much - it’s hard to channel drunk if you’ve never accessed your abilities before. The way that learning any new skill would be hard drunk.”

I don’t bark at her, because really what’s the point. Instead I drop my own grey bag onto the sandy hardwood and motion for her to continue.

“If you really have been sticking to beer, it might be easier. I don’t have time to teach you to do shit but ground and seal your energy, but that will make one less thing I have to worry about.”

“What help am I supposed to be, again? Right now it just sounds like extra work.”

“I remember you being pretty scrappy when the situation called.”

“Those were other drunks - not whatever hellspawn E went on a playdate with.”

“Then I guess we’d better stick with your other specialty- sneaking around.”

“I’m not the one living a double life.” I’m doing an admirable job of keeping my tone low and my hands busy playing with the new pendant hanging about my throat. “So you wanna try that again, sugar?”

“You’re light on your feet, see well in the dark and locked doors are a suggestion. Get as mad as you want. You’re the one who decided to become a cat burglar carnie.”

“Those are two separate entries on my resume, and I don’t appreciate the stereotype you’re perpetuating by conflating them.”

She yanks her boots free one at a time and drops them to the floor with a thud. Eye contact holds steady through theatrically exaggerated movements, and I’ve decided to borrow the Cheshire grin that Jax uses to piss me off when I’m in this same mood.

“My point is I want to sneak around trouble and steal E back - ideally avoiding any sort of fight.”

“Sneak where? The woods?”

“Close. The mines.” She nods to the door and wilderness beyond. I expect her to roll on but instead she stands and moves closer to the door. The otherwise golden handle has a sooty dark handprint where I’d pushed it shut. I turn my palms up- perfectly clean.

“So…what does that mean?”

“That you’re new to his home.” She turns back towards me. “Lots of things can take on the face of a friend - most of them are tricksters at best and malevolent at worst.” A small grin. “Black typically means murderous intent.”

I roll my eyes.

“I don’t want to kill you-“

“The magic speaks louder than your protests. But I know you love your friends, so I’m not worried about it.” And clearly she’s not, given she marches right back by me to investigate the other three rooms. “Kitchen, bath, and a single bed trope.”

“I’ll take the couch.”

“I don’t recommend separating until we’re done here. It’s hard enough to ward one room, let alone two.”

“I thought the cabin was warded. Magic lying door handle?”

“Magic doesn’t lie, but people do.” She waves me towards the bedroom and I cross my arms. “Seriously? You think the bridge was it?”

“What’s going to happen, Cassy? I’ve slept out in these hills before-“

“Slept walked, Tasha.”

And it’s true, but it hasn’t been an issue these past three years.

“I told you, it stopped.” I tilt my head. “Is there a reason I should be worried?”

“It wouldn’t matter, you’re not going to listen. Sleep on the couch. I hope it’s enlightening.”

She closes the door behind her and I contemplate the chance she isn’t full of shit. Looking at the couch once more I huff to myself and bang on the door. Whatever had motivated me to swallow my pride and knock dies a swift death when she opens the door with the most self-satisfied of smiles and a flourishing wave to the interior.

“I need a blanket and a pillow.”

Her smile drops and I wonder for a moment if I’ll ever enjoy painting it on rather than ripping it away again. The next moment I march past her to grab the aforementioned items and sashay my ass right back out with a determination born more of stubborn will than better sense.

This time when the door closes there’s a zip of some kind that seemingly flashes through the slats of wood. I lay my hand on the surface and find it hot to the touch. Curious, I move my hand to the knob and a lancing pain sears up my arm to my elbow.

I hear her giggling behind the door.

“Good Night, Tasha.”

“Go to hell, Cassy.”

Satisfied with our good-nights, I throw my wad of brown, fuzzy blanket and single, floral cased pillow onto the nightmare of a couch and eyeball the door. The black marring the knob hasn’t faded, and when I approach to drag a finger over the area of discoloration, the smudge spreads where the pad travels.

A small, soft thud on the other side of the wood jolts me from my study of the phenomenon. I decide it best to double check all of the locks and put myself to bed, before all of this woo woo talk and folksy, ghost story bullshit can steal my sleep as well as my better sense.

They’re just woods, for Pete’s sake.

"I'll be real with you, I havent processed anything for the past hour or so."

#writing prompt #work in progress #creative writing #a story in prompts

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