My mouth automatically opened with the impulse to snap at her,You mean came here every week before you decided to turn into a jerk,but before I could endanger my frail truce with Willow, Julianna smiled a little and nodded, her shoulders slumping in relief, and I swallowed the words back.
The three of us were quiet as we munched on our sandwiches, but once we were done, I decided to broach the subject I’d been curious about. So I asked Julianna, “Why did you want to join us, knowing you don’t like hiking?”
She didn’t expect the question, I could tell, because she began shifting uneasily in her place. “Just because,” she murmured, shrugging, feigning indifference.
Since she was obviously lying, I prodded. “I highly doubt this is the reason, Jules.”
Flushing, she looked away. “I was bored,” she said, as she attempted half-heartedly to find another excuse.
But neither Willow nor I bought it. “You’ve been binging that show lately,” Willow said with a slight snort, “and I know for a fact you aren’t done with it. So obviously, that isn’t it.”
Jules frowned and released me from the hug, pulling her knees to her chest and hugging them instead. “Fine,” she murmured. “I just ... I wanted to spend time with you, okay?”
Willow and I exchanged brief glances, surprised. Julianna had never shown much interest in what either Willow or I liked to do. She was extremely self-centered, which made sense, considering her age and maturity level, and often kept to herself, much like Thayer, our older brother, in that regard.
But unlike Thayer, who’d refused to join our hike when Jules begged him to tag along, Julianna was still young and still craved affection.
And perhaps she had also noticed the distance between Willow and me and wanted to do something about it. Jules was a sweetheart like that.
When neither Willow nor I knew what to say, Julianna rocked back and forth, uncomfortable, as she blurted, “You two are so busy all the time. You don’t join Mom, Dad, and me for dinner. You barely leave your room, and when you do, it’s to get a snack from the kitchen or fight each other. Even during summer vacation, it felt like I saw less of you than during the school year.”
Guilt clawed at my conscience. Jules felt neglected. That explained her abnormal behavior today.
Willow suddenly rose to her feet and stretched her hand out to Jules. “Come with me,” she said, gray eyes determined.
Julianna’s own gray eyes, softer and far less steely than Willow’s, flickered, and she grabbed Willow’s hand.
Willow dragged Jules into the river and splashed water on her, laughing when Julianna’s small body became soaked immediately.
But Jules retaliated and splashed Willow too.
The two of them splashed each other, laughing, smiling brightly in the setting afternoon sun.
I watched the two, feeling warm and fuzzy. I loved my sisters—and my brother, of course—more than anything in this world. Even if they were annoying. Even when they hurt me. Seeing Jules upset made me sad, and seeing her hiccupy laughter now made me feel absolute joy.
Seeing Willow acting so carefree, too, for once, made me also feel lighter than I’d felt in a long while.
So I stared at the two playing in the water, smiled, and even dozed off feeling so content—and tired from the hike too.
That’s probably why I didn’t see what came next.
A shrilling scream made me jump to my feet before I even opened my eyes, and when I did open my eyes, what I saw made me freeze in place, because for a moment, I thought I was dreaming, and this was an extremely vivid nightmare.
What I saw couldn’t be of this world, after all.
Thethingthat came out of the water was a monstrosity almost as tall as the trees in the woods. It had the vague shape of a human body, but there were black flames instead of limbs. Its head was narrow, and it didn’t even have a face—only two diagonal slits glowing white. The monster had a mane of long hair, too, but the hair seemed like a mirage almost, as it blew unnaturally in the nonexistent wind.
Before I could even process what I was seeing, a scene out of a horror movie played right before my eyes, and I watched it as though I was staring through a telescope rather than being there too.
Because the monster’s arms of flames curled around my sisters, lifting them up from the river as they screamed, crying, thrashing in the hold of the unmovable monster.
“Drew!”
Willow’s scream was what made me snap out of my terrified haze, and I tried to take a step forward as I stammered, shaking all over, “Let them go ... Let my sisters go ...”
My legs didn’t respond to my wishes, though. It was as if I was rooted in place, either by some sort of external force or by my own terror.
Helplessly, I watched as the monster began to sink into the river with my sisters in his arms, and I tried to stretch out my shaking hand, to try and walk and reach them, to do something,anything, rather than just stand there and watch like a fucking idiot as my sisters were being kidnapped.
