Page 5 of Dark Surrender

It doesn’t mean anything to me.

Not with anyone but her.

It was a means to an end. A release. A temporary euphoria.

To clear my head, I scrub a hand down my face and sigh.

Something’s gotta change. I can’t live like this anymore. Visiting Penelope was supposed to be a temporary stop on my way to figuring shit out after leaving Abby and saying goodbye to Kali. But I stayed, and now I’m deeper in her and her father’s world than ever. Guess it’s time to stop burying my head in the sand and make it count.

But that’s for tomorrow.

Tonight, I sleep, hoping I don’t dream of the woman with the crystals and the plants who used to light my heart on fire.

CHAPTER FOUR

Parking my blue, thirty-year-old beater, held together by a prayer and duct tape, at the end of the long, dirt-lined path through the woods, I grab my duffel from the backseat and huff it to our cabin, the only home I’ve known. Dee is rocking on the old porch, humming to herself, when I arrive. There’s a fire burning in the stone pit with a Dutch oven settled in the flames.

I drop my bag on the porch.

Dee stops petting Poppy long enough to lift a hand in hello.

“Hi, Dee, it’s nice to see you, too,” I tease, claiming the worn rocker beside hers that our dad built for me.

Poppy hisses her greeting from Dee’s lap, and I glower at the rodent just as a much smaller version of Poppy bounds up the single step onto the porch. Dee leans over, scoops the ugly thing up, and sets it on her lap.

I shake my head in amusement at Cinderella incarnate. It’s always been this way. Dee loves wild creatures, and for some reason, they love her back.

“Is she pregnant again?” I gesture to Poppy, her opossum.

Yes, I said, opossum. As in the pink nose, long whiskers, beady eyes, weird fingers, fur, and a long tail.

Dee nods at my question.

I figured. Poppy only hisses at me when she’s about to be a mama again. The same went for Poppy 1.0, 2.0, and now 3.0. Yes, we are on our third version. The others passed on from old age.

“Did you fix up the doghouse for her?” I ask, referring to the house where no dog has ever lived. Dee and I built the small box at the edge of our property the year our dad passed away, so her critters have a place to stay if they want to. They tend to live longer when they have a safe home, away from predators.

Dad despised Dee’s love for wildlife. He even called it her weakness and killed her favorite animals right in front of us. His cruelty only pushed us to venture further into the woods around our cabin to be with her creatures. I always kept my eyes open in case Dad followed, but we were good at hiding our tracks. He taught us well, at least in that regard. I’m just glad he never managed to steal this from her.

Dee hums a yes and strokes the back of Poppy’s head, then the smaller opossums.

“What’s that one’s name?” I jerk my chin at the tinier furball.

“Peanut.”

That’s an apt name given its size.

“Is Peanut full-grown?”

Dee shrugs.

“Are these the only two left until the babies are born?”

My sister shakes her head and flashes me four fingers.

“Four total or four more?” I ask in surprise.

“More.”