Never Let You Go (a modern fairytale) (11 page)

“What time’s it? Almost three? His shift’s just ending. Probably heading for Rosie’s ’bout now to grab a cold one.”

“Come pick me up. I gotta talk to him.”

“Yeah, yeah, sure. Let me just tell Chick I gotta go. Be there soon.”

A bolt of pain shot through his chest as Seth lowered his arm, and he dropped the receiver with a trembling hand. The nurse rushed around the desk, carefully putting her arms under his shoulders and guiding him back to his room.

The insistent knocking on the door woke Griselda from a deep sleep, and she sat up slowly, getting her bearings. The shock of Jonah’s news must have knocked her out. Though she didn’t remember falling asleep, she was lying in the center of the bed in the fetal position. She caught a look at the clock: twenty-five past three.

Standing up, she listened to the sound of more knocking, then walked through the open door of the bedroom. A note sat on the dining table:

You were sleeping. We went fishing. Back by four. –J

She took a deep breath and made her way to the door.

Pushing the curtain aside, she looked through the window to see Quint standing outside on the porch. As he raised a hand in hello, she let go of the curtain. He was probably here to collect on the bets Jonah and Shawn made last night.

He knows Holden. He’ll know where I can find Holden.

She sucked her bottom lip into her mouth, worrying it between her teeth. With Jonah, Shawn, and Tina gone, she was all alone in the cottage, and she knew nothing about this guy, except that he’d had a creepy interest in her last night. Was he a sicko? Would he hurt her? But the question of her safety was quickly eclipsed by the fact that Griselda knew how much pain she could tolerate, and whatever Quint meted out was worth the possibility of finding Holden.

Still, she could be cautious.

She pushed the curtain aside.

“What do you want?” she asked through the glass.

“Need to talk to you.”

Her eyes widened. “To
me
?”

“To you, Griselda.”

Her name. Her full name that she hadn’t been called since that terrible day on the Shenandoah. She gasped softly, unlocking the door.

“How’d you find me?”

“Your boyfriend. Told me last night where y’all were staying.”

She nodded once, barely able to breathe, waiting for him to continue.

“You want me to come in, or you want to come out here and talk to me?” he asked, stepping back as the door swung open.

“Come in,” she whispered, though neither of them moved. “How do you know my name?”

Say it
, she thought, desperately.
God, please just say his name to me so I know for sure that it’s him.

“Seth,” he said simply.

Tears coursed down her cheeks as she nodded at him. It was true. Oh God, it was true. It was Holden in the ring last night. Holden, who went by Seth now. Holden, who had returned to West Virginia. Holden, who was huge and looked thirty. Holden, who fought other men for sport.

“Holden,” she whispered.

“Come again?”

Through glassy eyes, she looked up at Quint. “Where is he?”

“I can take you to him.”

Griselda nodded, walking through the doorway and following Quint to his truck without a second thought, without even closing the door or walking back inside for her purse.

They rode in silence for several minutes before Quint spoke. “Figured out how I knew you.”

“Oh?”

“You reminded me of someone, but I couldn’t figure out who. I realized it last night when we were carrying him into the clinic. He has a tattoo of your face. On his arm.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. And under it, it says ‘H+G.’ Told me today that the
G
was for Griselda.”

Tears brightened and burned her eyes, and she nodded, turning her head to look out the window.

“Only one time Clinton gave him shit for that tattoo. He came to a few hours later, with one less tooth.”

Her lips wobbled, tilting up a little.

“He’s a fierce fighter, Seth. Has been for the four or five years we’ve known him. He doesn’t say much, but I always wondered what happened to him to make him that way.”

Griselda swallowed, her lips tightening again.

“He works with my boy, Clinton, at the glass factory.”

She didn’t answer. She didn’t trust her voice.

“Yeah. You’re a quiet little thing. I get it. I’d quit yammering, but hell, I just get nervous. Seth shouldn’t’a discharged hisself from the hospital like that. And you’re here, and he’s got your face on his arm, and I just . . . heck, I don’t know what’s going on.”

Several more minutes passed in silence before she gathered the courage to speak. Her voice was soft and a little broken when she did. “I haven’t seen him in a real long time.”

“How long?” asked Quint.

She swallowed past the lump in her throat, shaking her head. She couldn’t say anything else. She leaned her head against the window, and her eyes fluttered shut as she remembered the last time she saw him.

***

“R-r-r-r-uuuuuun!”

Griselda’s face crumpled as she watched the butt of the Man’s rifle slam into Holden’s head. Holden’s voice cut off immediately, and he slumped to his side, knocked unconscious. Cutter barked from the riverbank, howling and pacing.

“Goddamn it!” she screamed, lurching forward, then catching herself just in time before slipping. “Goddamn you! No!”

She looked at the rushing water between her and Holden. They were separated by seven or eight large stones, in deep, rushing water, but even if she got to him, then what? She couldn’t fight the Man. She couldn’t drag Holden along with her. There was only one question she needed to answer: should she go back with the Man, or should she try to make her escape and send help for Holden?

“I said to shut up, dummy,” mumbled the Man, letting go of Holden’s shirt. His head hit the rock with a clunk, and he lay there limp and motionless.

“Holden,” she sobbed, staring at his lifeless body. She lifted watery eyes to the Man, speaking through clenched teeth. “You’re going to hell.”

“You first, Ruth,” he spat, raising the rifle.

Her eyes widened as she stared back at him. She hopped two rocks farther away before turning back to face him. Her eyes dropped desperately to Holden’s body before cutting to the Man’s narrowed eyes, which glared through the shotgun sight.

“Why? Why did you do this to us?” she sobbed. “We never did anything to you!”

“Ya led him down the devil’s pathway, sissy, with yer spring tits an’ tight ass. Ya damned him to the fiery pits by churnin’ up his lust. Yer my sister, but I’d kill ya soon as look at ya, Ruth.”

“I’m not your sister! I’m not Ruth!”

“True enough. Yer no sister of mine no more. Yer a lyin’ temptress bitch’n’heat. An evil whore of Babylon sent to destroy my brother with yer wicked ways.”

“Holden’s not your brother! He’s not Seth!”

The Man’s face reddened with fury, and he cocked the gun, taking aim.

Griselda turned her back to him, stepping gingerly onto another rock as the gun sounded and a bullet whizzed past her head.

“Noooo!” she screamed, slipping, then righting herself. “No! Stop!”

“Yer pure evil, Ruth. Ya need to be put down like a rabid dog.”

Concentrating on her steps, she moved more quickly.

Don’t look back, no matter what. Our feet are small. Stone to stone. I jump, you jump.

Tears burned her eyes, and her body was rigid with fear as she tried desperately to keep her balance. She heard him cock the gun again.

“Stop it! Sto-o-o-p,” she sobbed, choking on her words. She chanced a helpless look back at Holden, who still lay motionless on the large rock. “Oh, Holden. Holden, I’m so sorry . . .”

Another gunshot and the bullet splashed a foot in front of her.

She screamed, “No! Stop!” before taking another step forward.

Move, Griselda. Keep moving. Don’t look back. Get to the woods. Find help.

She pushed herself to keep moving. Stone to stone, her feet slipping, her aching muscles compensating for balance. Wondering if a bullet would suddenly tear through her with every step she took made it hard for her to keep her balance, but somehow she managed to move forward. Finally she could see the pebbles under the water, and she jumped into the knee-deep river, wading as fast as she could toward the rocky shore.

Finally on dry land again, she turned around.

They were gone.

***

“This is it,” said Quint, and Griselda realized that the truck had stopped.

They’d parked on a traditional, all-American, if somewhat run-down, Main Street, in front of a two-story brick building. The lower level had a lackluster coffee shop, whose glass door, in peeling paint, announced “RITA’S” and “W rld’s  est Co fee.” She raised her eyes to the second level and saw two windows facing the street. Apartments.

“You want that I come up with you?” asked Quint.

“No,” she said, staring up at the windows. In the right window, two hands were pressed flush against the glass, though she couldn’t make out the body attached to them. It was him. She knew it. She felt it.

Quint fumbled with his breast pocket, finally handing her a key. “This’ll get you in.”

She reached for it with trembling fingers.

“I should warn you. Seth’s in bad shape. He was stabbed a few times last night, nose broke, ribs bruised. Concussion. Cheek fracture. Ain’t no way he shoulda left the hospital, but all he could talk about was finding you. Said he’d beat me like Eli if I didn’t come for you and bring you to him.”

“I’ll take care of him.” Griselda shifted slightly to look into Quint’s gentle blue eyes. “Won’t be the first time.”

Quint’s lips tightened in sympathy, but he only nodded. “Tell him I’ll come by tomorrow with food and such.”

“Thank you,” she said, reaching for the door.

“Griselda,” said Quint.

She turned to face him.

“I don’t know who you are, but he . . . well, he feels something fierce for you.”

She wiped her eyes and nodded, shutting the door behind her.

The key opened the door at street level, and she looked up the dingy stairs, taking a deep breath. For ten years, Griselda had searched for Holden, saving her money for detectives, maybe even hoping to set up a life with him once she found him. And now here she was, closer to him than she’d been in half a lifetime, about to look into the gray eyes that she’d dreamed of all that time, and suddenly she felt terrified.

What do you say to the person you loved so deeply as a child? The person you imperiled when you stepped into a madman’s truck? The person you betrayed when you turned your back and left him behind? How do you make amends for the lost years and broken promises? My God, what do you say?

A door opened upstairs, and she heard the soft shuffling of bare feet on a linoleum floor. She took a deep breath, and when she looked up, there he was: Seth from last night.
Holden
, standing at the top of the stairs, staring down at her. He wore unbuttoned jeans, his torso bare but for three or four tattoos, and bandages that covered a good section of his chest under his heart and over his hip.

“G-G-Gris?” he asked softly, his voice breathless and broken, but in it she heard Holden’s, and her ear, so lonely for him for so long, inclined to him.

Tears filled her eyes, and she nodded as they spilled over the rims of her eyes, trailing down her cheeks. She started crying in earnest, but her lips tilted up as her feet started up the steps, one after the other, faster and faster until she made it to the top, standing across from him, staring into his battered gray eyes.

“Oh my God,” she whispered.

His face was beat-up and bruised, but as wet as hers, and he sniffled as he held out his hand to her. She looked down at it—the fresh cuts stole her attention first, but then she noticed the familiar tan freckles splashed across his white skin like constellations, and she gasped, lifting her head with a beaming smile as she started sobbing.

“Oh my God . . . Oh my God . . . Oh my God . . .”

She reached for his hand, tentatively at first, but the moment they touched, his fingers curled around hers with strength and purpose, pulling her to him.

“He said you were d-dead,” he murmured.

“No,” she whispered. “No, I made it across.”

“My G-God, Gris, you’re alive.”

His eyes trailed across her face, up to the crown of her head, following her amber hair to her shoulders, back to her eyes, which he searched carefully, sweeping down her cheekbones to her lips, to the scar on her chin, where he fixed his gaze for a long moment before looking up again.

“C-can I—?” His eyes glistened as he held out his free arm, as though he wanted to hug her but needed permission to touch her. She stepped into him, letting him wrap her gently against his body as she lay her cheek on his bare shoulder.

With her flush against him, his left hand shifted, fingers entwining with hers, and he leaned forward, resting his cheek against her head.

“You’re alive.” He said it again so quietly it was like a thought that stole some breath to be heard.

“Yes,” she sobbed, closing her eyes and wrapping her left arm around him until her palm lay flush and curved against the back of his neck.