Jeffery's Arc

Chapter 1 of 5

Jeffery had walked Melody through these woods for three days, and he knew every tree was a lie. He led her in circles on purpose. He said the path was hidden, that danger waited beyond the trees, that only he could get them out. He told her these things because he loved her. He needed her to believe she had no one but him. That was the whole point. Keep her lost, keep her close, and she stays his. Now she stood at the treeline with her small backpack on her shoulders, and two girls glowed in the dark ahead of her. He did not move. He could not. The glowing girls stood where the trees thinned. Their skin gave off a pale light, soft and steady, like the inside of a shell. One of them lifted a hand. The brush behind her pulled back on its own and showed a clear trail out. A real one. Jeffery had spent three days swearing no such trail existed. "Melody," he said. His voice stayed warm. It always did. "Don't go near those things. We don't know what they are." She looked back at him. Her big eyes were calm. That scared him more than the light. "They're showing me the way," she said. "They could be anything." He stepped toward her, slow, hands open. "Stay with me. I'll get us home. I always do." Her bare feet pressed into the cold dirt. She did not move toward him. She did not move toward them yet either. She just watched his face, the way she used to read a room full of strangers. "You said there was no path," she said. Short. Flat. "There's a path." He had no cover story ready for this. He had one ready for every look she had ever given him. Not this one. His mind raced through the girls, the light, the trail, and found nothing he could name, nothing he could turn into a threat she would believe. That was when his white cat walked out of the dark. It crossed between them, calm, its fur catching the girls' glow. It stopped at Melody's feet and pressed against her ankle. Then it looked back at Jeffery with flat green eyes and did not come to him. "Come here," Jeffery said to the cat. His voice cracked on the second word. The cat stayed with her. Melody crouched and touched its head. She stood. She stepped onto the trail, between the two glowing girls, and the light closed around her like water. "Melody." He reached the treeline and stopped. Something at that line held him back. He could not name it, so he could not break it. "You'll come back. You always come back." She did not turn around. The trail took her, and the girls, and his cat, and the light went out. The woods went black. Jeffery stood alone at the edge of them, and for the first time, he did not know the way.