"It's just you and me now, kid," Zoe's sister told her softly, shifting her car into reverse. Zoe could feel her pain like it was something solid lodged in her throat. She tried to push it down, because Melody wouldn't know how to comfort her, and she didn't want to watch her try.
"Dad's not coming back," Zoe said, her voice floating above her like a ghost. She imagined that if she looked at her reflection in the window she'd see that someone else had spoken.
"Not for a few years," Melody said, fixing her eyes on the road.
Mel's voice was clearer now, regaining the hard edge it usually had. Zoe imagined that if she pressed hard on Melody's skin she would find cold, hard metal underneath.
Mel sheltered Zoe from most of it, wouldn't even let her into their Dad's trial...Zoe hoped she was stronger than Melody thought she was, but sometimes she wasn't so sure. If you pressed on her skin all she got was a bruise.
They went a few minutes in silence. Like most people from a strained household, they could handle the quiet, but this time Zoe's mind was buzzing with curiosity. The lines on Mel's face looked drawn in. Zoe almost wished she had a pencil before she realized she wouldn't want to draw her sister this way.
"What are we going to do?" Zoe finally asked, pulling her legs underneath her to make herself warmer. Mel's car barely drove, and the heat hadn't worked since 1996.
"What we've been doing. Getting by. Honestly, jail might be an improvement. At least we don't have to support him anymore." Each word was a punch, not directed at Zoe but making her wince just the same.
"He worked sometimes," Zoe said, her defense a weak one even to her own ears.
"Once every four months is not enough. Not when you have a daughter to take care of."
"Two daughters," Zoe corrected.
"I've been taking care of myself for years," Melody said, rolling her eyes.
"I'll get a job," Zoe said, looking away from her sister's angular profile to her own in the side mirror. All she saw was shadows and round cheeks, nothing like her sister's thick eyebrows and sharp nose. "I don't want to be a burden."
Melody's eyes briefly flitted at her, taking in her slumped body. She would always think of her as a kid. She was so small, even now in the front seat with her legs tucked under her and her face shielded by bangs. Her little sister, with her nose in a book and her mind far away. She always envied her for that.
"We'll figure it out," Melody said finally, putting her left blinker on. "And kid?"
"Yeah?" Zoe asked, looking to Melody's dark gaze.
"I have a lot of burdens in my life," Melody said, tucking a piece of Zoe's hair behind her ear. "And you are not one of them."
Zoe remembered the day with almost stunning clarity. She had a mind made to absorb details, down to the last jolt in her stomach.
It was the last day before things really changed. Her last day to have her head in the clouds, to pretend that life might get better without the lurking reminder her father had become. She remembered then, feeling the bumps in the road, tracing her name in the fog on the window, that she couldn't wait to get home and get back to the story she was reading.
Zoe lived in books until her life became stranger than one.
It started with Kate Argent. Curly haired and sharp tongued, she had Zoe's sister in her clutches before she could blink. That always surprised Zoe, because Melody didn't let anyone in. Ever. She couldn't remember the last time her sister even had a friend, let alone one with so much power over her.
But Kate swayed her somehow, with her fierceness and her take-no-shit attitude, and Zoe watched her sister's skin turn inside out until everyone could see the metal.
Zoe knew something was off when she awoke to gunfire one night. She found her sister in the backyard with Kate, shooting the head off Groll, their garden gnome. His mushroom seat sat forlornly without his red capped head atop of it. They'd laughed when they saw barefoot Zoe emerge with her hair in tangles.
"Calm down, Zoe, we're just practicing a little," Kate said, slinging an arm around her shoulders.
"For what?" Zoe asked, resisting the urge to pull away. She hadn't felt comfortable around Kate since Day One.
"The next guy who breaks your pretty little heart," Kate said with a wink, releasing her.
"Well the neighbors might not take so kindly to that explanation," Zoe said, crossing her arms and glaring at her sister. No doubt they'd woken her neighbors.
"You're right!" Kate said, smiling mischievously. "Let's switch to the crossbow."
The secrets started soon after. Zoe would wake up in the middle of the night to find her sister's bed completely made. Melody kept her bed like she was in the army, no creases to be seen even when Zoe peered through the darkness.
She found weird books in their apartment. Zoe couldn't pass one without at least peeking inside, but they were full of mythology and pictures that made her insides cold. She'd never even seen Melody touch a book so she knew Kate had to be involved somehow.
"Why are you reading that?"
"It's...interesting," Melody insisted, turning a page in the yellowing volume.
"Did Kate give it to you?"
"Uh...yeah. She knows a lot about this stuff. To be honest," Melody said, looking around as if she expected Kate to pop up. "I find it a little dull. I prefer when people tell me things. But Kate seemed like she wanted me to find out myself."
Zoe tried to shrug it off, but she had read the book when her sister was at work. The things stuck in her head, of myths and legends, and monsters and hunters. Why did Kate want Mel to read this? Melody liked movies about war and battles, but she certainly didn't have a penchant for reading about it.
The wounds started next, and this time Zoe could not ignore the weirdness that enveloped her sister. Normal people did not come home with scratches on their arms and mud on their shoes without a good explanation, and Mel did not have one.
"What the hell is going on?" Zoe asked, her stomach a painful, permanent knot. "Are you in a cult or something?"
"No," Melody spat, pulling down her shirtsleeves. "Kate's teaching me to...hunt."
Melody never lied to her. She didn't even believe in lying, but Zoe could tell from the hitch in her voice that something was wrong.
"Hunt what?" Zoe asked, having a hard time picturing her sister killing innocent deer, no matter how stern she could be.
"Furry things," Melody said, giving her a quick grin before patting her arm. "Don't worry, little sister. That's my job."
But soon enough, after all the questions and sleepless nights she spent waiting for her sister to get home, Zoe's problem disappeared. Kate went to visit her family in California for an indefinite amount of time. Melody was quieter then, still firm and focused, but not in the same way. She seemed restless, like Kate had given her a taste of adventure that she now couldn't live without.
Zoe went to school. She got a part-time job at a coffee shop. She found friends, and started to feel normal again, without having to worry that her sister was going to accidentally shoot herself after drinking wine with Kate.
But something wasn't right. The myth books piled up. Melody made strange, whispered phone calls. And one night, when Melody was reading the news online, her face drained of all color and her coffee cup shattered on the floor.
"Kate's dead."
Zoe felt guilty for almost feeling relieved. She didn't know if Kate was the leader of a cult or some strange teacher, but there was something odd going on with her that she could feel down to her bones. Melody locked herself away for days, but Zoe held fast to the hope that she would emerge after her grief and they could move on with their lives.
Zoe held her breath when she heard her sister's door open four days later. She braced herself to see a distraught Melody, with messy hair and bloodshot eyes. Instead, she saw her sister, her hair braided to the side, her jaw set firmly, a suitcase in her hand.
"We're going to California."
It had started with Kate...but Zoe soon learned that it did not end with her.
I can't watch and like a show so much and not write about it, but I only want to keep going if people read it, so let me know what you think! No Isaac in this one, but he will be here soon, I promise. ;)
