hear her steps

CHAPTER Two

Morgan starts to feel better as she walks away from the abandoned lot. She glances back every once and a while but there’s nothing there. No dog. No Hush-Hush.

She checks the time on her watch. It’s 5:30 PM now. Ophelia had forgotten to pick her up from the pool. Again.

Morgan doesn’t even swim anymore. She hates it now. But Dad had purchased a year long pass to J Street Pool so she has to go every once and awhile, mostly spending the time wading in the overcrowded waters enough that her hair and clothes smell strongly of chlorine, watching small children spit up water and housewives gossip during their aerobics sessions about how Trista Lane got her third DUI and where Jenny Riviera’s boyfriend has run off to when she’s expecting in less than a month, clucking like hens with disapproval.

Normally Morgan could call Scout to come pick her up, but Dad had taken her phone away after Mr. Williams complained about seeing her draw lewd image with chalk on the park sidewalk (“Penises are the height of comedy” is what Scout insisted). But Morgan knows where Scout is, so she heads east towards the Dead Ends.

Other than the Starlight Arcade, there’s not much reason to be in the Dead Ends. Most of the shops and stores are abandoned and looted and it’s not unusual to see a local crackhead urinating on the corner. Many parents protested against the children playing in the Dead Ends, but it’s where the arcade is. And forbidding something only makes it more tempting. Morgan’s not sure that Dad knows she hangs out there with Scout and Rat, but she’s not about to let him know anytime soon.

The arcade isn’t far from where she is, as long as one knows the right roads to take. The roads in La Estrella are so confusing that the locals like to joke that the founders were drunk when constructing them. D Street winds into 2nd Street and turns left into Apple Avenue before circling into K Street, skipping six letters in the alphabet as it continues into L and M Streets and winds into 4th and 6th Streets because old Mayor Bilko had been illiterate and believed odd numbers gave his wife (who ate three pies a day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner) diabetes.

The winding roads make La Estrella seem bigger than it is, but the town is actually quite small. It sits at the bottom of Echo Valley, susceptible to thick fogs in the morning and mudslides during rains. It’s isolated and surrounded by the thick Echo Forest with only a single road for an entrance and exit. The road famously shut down in 1889 during the Westfront Storm that put down six feet of snow and left La Estrella at the mercy of rations and prayer. That winter had killed seven people - four adults and three children - but instead of building another exit out of town the mayor of La Estrella at the time opted to spend the money to build one of those new swimming centers that the East Coast had. It’s decisions like these that makes one wonder how La Estrella survived for so long.

But everyone knows the anchor to its sustainability: Mirror Lake. Mirror Lake used to be the main attraction of La Estrella, luring tourists with fishing, boating, lakeside beaches, and forest hiking trails during summer seasons and ice shaking during the winter. It was the heart that pumped life into the town, funneling down to the hotels and gas stations into the markets and diners and novelty shops.

But around 10 years ago, the water in the lake disappeared overnight. It was there one morning and gone the next. Scientists came from all over the world but none could explain it, picking and examining the dead fish through microscopes and testing the soil. They concluded that it was an environmental fluke, a freak of nature accident caused by the air pressure that pushed the water into the ground.

It had an incredible impact on the town, that disappearing lake. The tourists packed up and went off to Crystal Lake, which was 20 miles north at the inferior town of Blue Forest, which had salty fish and chips and whose lake was a third smaller, or took a day’s drive west to the ocean for warmer weather. Restaurant and hotel owners closed their businesses and disappeared, muttering about prospects in the east and the west, anywhere other than La Estrella. Like safari animals seeking water, they went elsewhere.

So now La Estrella is filled with empty businesses and home and an empty hole in the ground where the lake used to be and the bitter men and women left behind with the carcass picked to bare bones, asking what the hell they were supposed to do with the situation. Most left. Some stayed, but most left. Like Mirror Lake, they just disappeared.

Morgan was just four years old when the lake disappeared. But she doesn’t remember that as the year the lake disappeared. For her it’s the day her mom, the day Tara, left. And the thought of that turns her stomach into knots.

Behind her Morgan can hear an approaching beat and hum and turns around. She sees a bright red car with a chrome finish and a pair of blue dice hanging from the rearview mirror. She rolls her eyes. It’s Bobby Kentucky, Timmy’s older brother. And if Bobby is here, that means Valentine is with him as well. After all, the devil favors pairs.

She watches as the car passes by her and slows before pulling over to the side of the street a few yards ahead of her. Bobby Kentucky slouches out of his car with his perfect hair and varsity jacket and nice sunglasses despite the overcast clouds and those stupid snakeskin boots like he actually thinks he’s some cowboy from Kentucky even though his family is from Cleveland.

Bobby Kentucky is two years older than Morgan, a sophomore turning junior, but he already looks like a senior. He even had a mustache briefly last year but then Betty Lewis said it made him look like a middle-aged pornstar and he shaved it off during lunch break in the boy’s bathroom behind the gym. But he was still incredibly handsome even when he had the mustache. Her only solace is that he has a gap between his two front teeth that he hides by smiling without showing his teeth in every picture taken of him.

He leans into the backseat window and Morgan can see the outline of Timmy. She knows it’s Timmy from his meek frame. He seems to ask Timmy a question, pointing towards Morgan.

But then Valentine comes out of the passenger side and seeing Valentine pisses Morgan off more than anyone from the Kentucky family can.

Morgan and Valentine Lee used to be best friends, taking solace in their shared differences. But during the summer between 7th and 8th grade Valentine learned how to take care of her skin and her hair and how to use makeup and she just changed. Like a catepillar shedding it’s skin into a butterfly but more like a wasp and at frightening speed. And now she’s pretty and popular and she parties and she smokes and Morgan has even heard that she drinks. And she’s dating that gap-toothed, mustache-shaving motherfucker.

Valentine narrows her eyes towards Morgan. The heels on her botts tap angrily across the sidewalk, like some sort of cranked monster. It makes Morgan smile a little knowing she’s riled up.

“What the hell’s wrong with you?” Valentine Lee demands, crushing her cigarette under her heel. Valentine has one of those hoarse voices, the seductive type that makes the boys go crazy. There were rumors that it’s because she smokes, but Morgan knows that’s what she’s always sounded like. She smells like smoke and lavender.

“What’d you mean?” Morgan asks, standing her ground. Valentine is a good head taller than Morgan, but Valentine doesn’t scare her.

“Don’t act like you don’t know.”

“I don’t.”

“Timmy.”

“Who?”

“Timmy! Bobby’s little brother. What the hell?”

“Oh, that Timmy. What about him? Does he need help finding his teeth.”

“Why did you do it?”

“He was being a little bitch.”

“Hey now,” Bobby finally decides to make his way over. He had been watching the two from a distance, as if wondering if he should intervene. “Don’t be calling my kid brother a bitch.”

Whenever Morgan sees Bobby, she always expects some sort of Southern drawl with his snakeskin boots, but he speaks in a very normal tone. When his family first moved here he would say “y’all” a lot but has since dropped the habit.

“Hard not to when he is.”

“Whaddya got against him anyways?” Bobby asks, leaning against a lamppost, crossing his arms. “This the second time you’ve picked on him.”

“Why don’t you ask him?”

“He said you just beat him down. That you cheated and kicked him when you two’d agreed to no kicks.”

“That all? Didn’t say why?”

“No. So tell me why.”

“He was being a coward bitch. With all his friends. They were throwing rocks at a dog.”

“At a…they were throwing rocks? At a dog?”

“Yeah. Not surprising, him and his friends and Nancy are all like that. All the time.”

“Timmy’d never do something like that. I know my brother. He loves dogs.”

“Well, I guess you’re a shit brother because you don’t.”

“I think his brother would know him better than you,” Valentine snarks.

“Ask him yourself,” Morgan shrugs. “I don’t care.”

“Don’t listed to her, Bobby. That’s all Morgan does, lie, lie, lie.”

But Bobby looks very disturbed by this accusation. It’s almost comical seeing the little gears turn in that pretty head of his.

“Timmy!” Bobby hollars towards the car. “Get your ass over here!”

Timmy Kentucky slinks out of the car, glaring at Morgan suspiciously. There’s still some dried blood crusted around his nose.

“Now Timmy,” Bobby says. “Morgan here says you were throwin’ rocks at a dog. That true?”

“Nah.”

“Liar.”

“Shut up, Morgan,” Valentine hisses.

“He’s lying.”

“I’m not.”

“Now Timmy,” and Bobby gets to one knee to be at eye-level. “Tell me the truth now. Were you throwin’ rocks at a dog?”

“I said I wasn’t,” Timmy says stubbornly.

“You sure?”

“I haven’t seen any dog. Last dog I seen was Apples at the barbeque. That’s three days ago.”

“It was missing it’s lower jaw,” Morgan cuts in.

“It’s…what?”

“It’s jaw. I’m sure Timmy can tell you that. It was a black lab with maggots in its mouth. And that’s why they were throwing rocks. Picking on something weaker.”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I think I hit your head a little too hard if you can’t remember that.”

Bobby looks at Timmy long and hard but Timmy doesn’t flinch.

“Alright, Timmy,” he says, getting up. “Get on back to the car.”

“Wait,” Valentine stops him. “Morgan needs to apologize.”

“For what?”

“What do you mean, ‘for what’? You beat him up! He’s missing a tooth now!”

“So? He deserved it.”

“There was no dog! Only you would come up with a lie like that.”

“I’m not lying, that little coward rat is.”

“It’s no reason to beat up a kid.”

“Yeah it is. And he’s not a kid.”

“He’s younger than you, Morgan. That’s messed up.”

“Just a year younger.”

“He was throwing rocks at a dog!”

“There was no dog!”

“Alright, cool it, V. Timmy, I thought I told you to get to the car,” and Timmy trots off obediently at his older brother’s bidding, his feet dragging against the sidewalk.

“She attacked your brother, Bobby!” Valentine says. “You’re just going to let her get away with that?”

“You think I don’t know that? Listen,” and Bobby turns to Morgan, his large frame towering over her. “I don’t want you gettin’ near Timmy ever again, you hear that?”

“Or what?”

“Or…or I’ll have Caspian put off the team.”

“He’s already benched, being off the football team won’t make much difference.”

“I’ll tell my dad,” Valentine cuts in.

“So? Why do I care what you dad knows?”

“Your sister works for him.”

“So what? You saying that he’ll fire her?”

“Maybe.”

“I don’t care. She works at a movie theater, not like she’s some astronaut. She can find another job.”

“Can she? You really think so?”

“It’s not like working at a theater has high qualifitications.”

Valentine huffs. She works at the New Moon Theater with Ophelia as well.

“Fine. I’ll tell your dad.”

“He already took my phone. Not much more he can do.”

“Listen,” Bobby says. Just keep away from him, alright?”

“Whatever.

“Nice comeback.”

“Knock it off, V. C’mon, Tess and them are waiting for us and I gotta drop Timmy off.”

He holds out his hand but Valentine doesn’t take it. Tossing his hands up in experation, Bobby walks off to the car by himself.

“Trouble in paradise?” Morgan asks.

“You wouldn’t know. You don’t have any experience.”

“Yeah, ‘cus I don’t want one.”

“Don’t want one, or can’t get one?”

“Don’t want one. And if I did, it wouldn’t be with a bag of bricks like Bobby Kentucky.”

“Jealousy isn’t a good look.”

“Neither are you.”

It’s a dumb thing to say because Valentine Lee is very beautiful but Morgan knows where to hit where it hurts. It gives Morgan small pleasure to see how red her face gets.

“You’re a real bitch.”

“And you aren’t?”

“You know I’m not. Not like you. My dad says-”

“Oh, what does your dear daddy say?”

“He says there’s some people who can’t change. And you and your entire family are one of them.”

And Valentine Lee walks off, her heels snaping against the sidewalk, getting into Bobby Kentucky’s car as it peels down an empty road.

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