"Draw," he said. "I'll hold you until you're done." I put the charcoal pencil to the paper. I hesitated for a moment. What was it I wanted to draw? I looked out across the yard in the other direction. From here, most of my Craftsman-style house was obscured by branches, but it looked like it had when I sat up here as a kid. Not patched and old, but solid, inviting, and safe. My hand started moving, drawing what I saw. Glimpses of my childhood home from my perch in the walnut tree.
"Good," Daniel said as he watched my progress. He stayed mostly silent except to point out something here and there. "See how the sun glints off the wind vane? Draw the dark, not the light itself."
I drew, letting charcoal lines flow right out of me, until my hand felt cramped and tired. I stopped to stretch, and Daniel pulled the sketch pad off my lap. "It's good. Real good." He nuzzled his nose against the top of my head. "You should do this in oils."
"Yeesh." I leaned forward.
Daniel trailed his fingers down my spine. "Still not a fan?"
"I haven't tried oils in years." Not since the day his mother took him away.
"You'll never get into a place like Trenton if you don't get the hang of it."
"I know. Barlow's been after me all year about that."
"It wouldn't be same there without you."
I scooted away from him and dangled my legs along the sides of the branch. Daniel thought about us together at college? It felt weird to think about the future--our future--when so many weird things were happening. What were we doing up here anyway? We'd held hands, brushed skin, talked into the late hours of the night. But what did any of this mean? What could it mean?
"You never did show me that technique with linseed oil and varnish," I said. It was the "trick" he'd promised to teach me just before he'd left with his mom.
Daniel cleared his throat and pulled himself to his feet. "You remember that?"
"I tried to forget," I admitted. "I tried to forget everything about you."
"You hated me that much?"
"No." I grabbed a branch and pulled myself up, my back still to him. "I missed you that much." Daniel slid his fingers through my hair, sending little chills down my back. "God only knows the things I did to try to numb you out of my brain."
"Me?"
"Grace, I ... You have ..." Daniel rested his hand on my shoulder. He sighed, and I knew he was about to change the subject.
I stepped away from his grasp, annoyed that I wouldn't know what he wanted to say. Daniel laughed uneasily. "I can still see right into your bedroom from here."
"What?!"
Sure enough, I could see right into my bedroom window. It was afternoon, so the window reflected the sunlight, but if it had been night and the light was on, I'd be able to see just about everything. "You perv!"
"I'm just teasing," he said. "I mean, I used to sit up here and watch your family, but I didn't--" Just then, something--someone--moved behind my window. I leaned forward, balancing myself with a thin branch, to see who was in my room.
"Careful," Daniel said.
My foot slipped. The branch I held snapped. I shrieked.
Daniel caught me along the waist. He whirled me around so I was now on the thicker portion of the branch, and he stood where I had been. He pulled me tight against his body. Am I the one shaking so much, or is that him?
Daniel rested his chin on my head and we stood together, precariously perched at such great heights. The only thing holding me, keeping me from falling, was Daniel. But he didn't try to balance himself in any way--he didn't need to.
"You've got to stop doing that," he said about my near fall. "I don't remember you being such a klutz."
Neither did I--at least not before he came back. "You're the one who is always making me climb on things." I smacked his chest. "Who knew hanging out with you could be so dangerous?"
"You have no idea," he mumbled into my hair.
I looked down at my hand on his hard chest. "You're worth it."
"Gracie," Daniel whispered. He lifted my chin so I was looking up at him. He cupped my face with both hands. His eyes glinted with the sun. He touched his nose to my brow. He tilted his head. All my fears and worries about monsters, all my concerns about my older brother, all my questions about Daniel melted away as I stretched up on my toes to meet him.
"Grace, Daniel," someone shouted. Daniel dropped his hands from my face and stepped away. Disappointment washed over me with the flood of my returning doubts. I sighed and looked out at the house. For the briefest of seconds, I thought I saw Jude watching us from my window. But that wasn't who called our names. It was my dad.
He stood at the base of the tree, wearing the same clothes from yesterday. It looked like he had a wooden box tucked under his arm. The Corolla was parked in the driveway. Daniel moved as far away from me on the branch as he could.
"Oh hey, Dad." I gave a slight wave.
Dad crouched and picked up my sketch pad from the grass. It must have fallen when Daniel caught me. He looked at the drawing and then up at us.
"We were just working on an assignment for class," I said.
Dad shielded his eyes from the sun. "Come down now," he said, sounding more tired than I'd ever heard him.
"Are you okay?" I asked.
He looked at Daniel. "We need to talk."
Daniel nodded. He turned to me and said softly, "Meet me on the porch after dinner. We'll go to the store and get some linseed oil and varnish."
"Can we go for a run afterward?"
He brushed my cheek. "Anything you want."
Chapter Fifteen The Lost Sheep
LATE AFTERNOON
"Grace!" Charity bellowed from the front room.
I came in from the kitchen. She was sprawled across the couch, watching TV.
"What?"
"Phone." She waggled the cordless over her head.
I grabbed it from her. I was about to put it to my ear when I noticed two wolves on the TV
screen. They were gnawing on bloody, fleshy bones.
I covered the receiver. "Gross. What are you watching?"
"It's for school." She lowered the volume a bit. "I'm doing my paper on wolves. Did you know there haven't been any in our county for over fifty years?"