Page 58 of Together We Rot

—E

Just like mom’s, Elwood’s script is distinct. Mom’s cursive was open, the loops wide like bubbles or swinging hammocks in the summer sun. Elwood’s writing is cramped and uninviting; the empty spaces look less like circles and more like the thin mouths of sewing needles.

“You asshole,” I curse under my breath as the truth breaks over me. I slam the door open and take the stairs up two at a time. I nearly give myself a splinter as I drag my hand up the banister.

“Wil,” Cherry says in greeting, though there’s hardly any energy to her tone. Her eyes are exhausted and bloodshot—she’s been up all night. At least long enough to see him leave. The truth is written all across her face.

“You knew,” I accuse, a hitch in my throat. “And yet you didn’t stop him. Do you know how dangerous it is for him?”

“You don’t think I know all that?” Her mouth droops, my accusation weighing her down. I see the answer in her eyes before she even speaks. “He was determined to leave.”

I storm past her, swiping my jacket and scarf from the rack. There isn’t a plan in my head yet, nothing aside from running out and finding him. The jacket is damp still, but it will do. I curl the scarf across me one extra time. I don’t care how cold it is out there; I don’t care how long it takes me to find him. A need to save him propels me forward, stronger than anything else. Love. It’s a sticky feeling—clinging to my every thought and action, pushing itself into the deepest corners of my mind.

I never got the chance to tell him.

A hand catches on mine. Cherry tugs desperately on me, yanking me away from the door.

“What?” I fume, my body freezing over. I am a statue in her grasp; my heart is equally frigid. “Aren’t I free to leave? Won’t you let me freeze out there like you let Elwood?”

She recoils like I’ve slapped her. Her hand drops. “You owe me a conversation first. Same as Elwood.”

“What could you possibly have to say?” I ask, feeling massively foolish for trusting either of them.

“I have much to say if you will bother to listen to me.”

Every second I wait is dangerous. For all I know they’ve captured him already. Still, I’ve never seen Cherry so intent. Her eyes burn through me, a fierce shade of blue.

“Fine,” I relent. Cherry’s shoulders drop with my words, some of her own tension escaping. “You get one minute.”

“Good. Sit down.”

I trail her to the kitchen, collapsing in the chair closest to me. The walls around us have been smothered in greenery. More vines than I remembered trail the walls, dangling in all sorts of unnatural positions. “Elwood did this,” Cherry informs me, fishing out glass shards from the trash. She brandishes a sliver of what used to be a plate. It’s a jagged pie-shaped piece. The design is still fairly visible on the sides of it, a looped blue spiral print. But that’s not what I’m looking at. A plant has grown from porcelain. Roots spiral out in the open air on the other side of it. In a bizarre way, it looks like the flower is wearing the glass as a dress. It simply cuts right through it.

“That too.” She gestures toward the open chair across from me, the one that’s been swallowed whole. Not an inch is uncovered, no part safe from the devouring foliage.

“Just like back at the motel,” I breathe.

“That boy belongs to the woods. I think he knew that better than any of us.” She doesn’t bother sitting. Instead, she leans her weight into the wall, her head falling back against the green. For a splinter of a second, I worry that she will sink through, that the leaves will entangle her and trap her there. “He cares deeply for you if you haven’t noticed.”

I love you, Wil.

Cherry parts her lips to say something, but I twist away from her and stare down at the kitchen table.

There’s an emptied glass of tea. I peer inside it and see leaves against the bottom of the cup, pooling into one large circle. In the center, there’s an unmistakable gap. A large shape carved out in the middle, broken up by three distinct splotches.

Two hollow eye sockets and a gaping crater of a nose.

“It’s a skull,” I whisper. A random smattering of leaves shouldn’t have the power to unnerve me this much. I drop it quickly back on the table. “There’s a skull in that cup.”

“What?” Cherry blanches. She’s no longer looking at me. Her wrinkled fingers jump out and grab ahold of the cup. She lifts it for a better look. “The leaves shouldn’t have moved like that... When I first read his cup after he left, I saw a pattern of toads. It meant there would be obstacles, surely, but ones he could face himself. He needed to learn who he was.”

“And now?” I ask, even though I’m confident I don’t want to hear the answer.

“And now... death is coming.”

My chair screams as it drags across the room. I slide it back, pulling myself to my feet with my hands pressed firmly on the table. “If that’s the case, we’re wasting time. He could be dead by now.” A million gruesome images flash in my mind—all of them with Elwood at the center. I come up with endless scenarios, each one ten times worse than the last. What I can’t envision is saving him. When I try to imagine it, my mind draws a stubborn blank.

It doesn’t matter. I need to get out there. The plan can come later. Cherry doesn’t give me the chance.

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