Hazel and Gray (Faraway collection) Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2020 by Logolepsy Media Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Amazon Original Stories, Seattle

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  eISBN: 9781542009430

  Cover design by Micaela Alcaino

  Hänsel said to Grethel, “We shall soon find the way,” but they did not find it. They walked the whole night and all the next day too from morning till evening, but they did not get out of the forest . . .

  —“Hänsel and Grethel,” translated by Margaret Raine Hunt

  The house looks inviting enough.

  It’s white. Two stories with a wraparound porch. There are dark shutters and a turret, and a plume of pale mist issues from the chimney, despite the warmth of the summer night. As the girl and the boy stare at it from their hidden post in the woods across the street, neither really knows what to do. They’re exhausted after hours of wandering the dark forest, and the girl is so hungry, when she blinks, the whole place morphs, taking on the look of a massive licorice-topped cake heaped with vanilla icing and strategically placed Ho Hos.

  Despite it being the dead of night, every window is lit from within. When the girl and the boy first spotted the house, they slowly approached from the edge of the woods they’d been lost in, drawn toward the bright beacon like bloodthirsty mosquitos to bare flesh.

  “We should go knock,” Hazel says. Her stomach rumbles. “Like, fine: it’s late. But somebody has to be awake if all of the lights are on, right?”

  The boy doesn’t respond.

  “I’m sure they have a phone we can borrow, or if nothing else, they can tell us where we are. Plus, I really gotta pee.” She moves to step out from the cover of the trees, but the boy catches hold of her arm.

  “Whoa now,” he says. “Chill with that, Hazel. It’s literally the middle of the night, and all them lights on is real suspect.”

  “But, Gray—”

  “We in the woods, babe. Pick a bush and handle your business.”

  Desperate times call for desperate measures, so Hazel does as the boy suggests, grumbling as she squats, her back pressed against an oak tree. As she feels the sting of urine running over her swollen lady bits, it occurs to Hazel that the indignity of peeing in the woods is nothing compared to the shoved-up skirt and moved-aside undies by the river earlier. The boy above her, bare from neck to knees; Hazel on her back, her own knees splayed wide with him between them . . .

  Flashes blitz through her mind and bring a flush to her face.

  There’s a noise then, and the boy lets an expletive fly as he ducks behind a different oak to hide.

  “Gray?” Hazel says, craning her neck to check what’s going on, but she’s unable to move because she’s . . . still peeing. “You all right?”

  “Shhh!” the boy hisses.

  There’s a rumble from the road while Hazel finishes her business. As she tiptoes back to join Gray, a dark SUV whips around a bend in the road, slows, and pulls into the rounded driveway. Five guys hop out. They’re similar to Gray in both style and skin tone—loose jeans, polo shirts, and sneakers; brown like a walnut shell—and likely no older than his and Hazel’s seventeen.

  The group ascends the porch steps and walks right into the house without knocking. “Yo, I think black people live there,” Gray says, amazed.

  Hazel’s retort is swift. “Why do you sound so surprised?”

  “Bruh, whatever. You know of anybody who looks like us and lives in a crib like that?”

  “No, but—”

  “Exactly.”

  Hazel huffs. She knows Gray must be just as tired and hungry as she is, but the way he’s treating her grates. Especially after their tryst by the river. Hazel’s stepfather once told her that Gray was “only after one thing,” and as much as she hates the man, those words now ring through her head.

  “Yo, look, look, look!” Gray says, still focused on the house.

  She sighs and follows Gray’s finger. Three additional vehicles have arrived. A second SUV and a large sedan unload seven more guys of varying ages and skin tones. A smaller sedan parks and empties of its white male driver, plus four young ladies in skimpy outfits and crazy high heels. When the driver opens the front door of the house and stands aside so they can go in, Gray turns to Hazel, his eyes wide.

  There’s music playing.

  She swats Gray’s arm. “They’re having a party, you scaredy-cat,” she says.

  Not that Gray would mention it, especially right now, but she seems different since they did what they did at the river. She’s bossier and short on patience.

  Or at least it feels that way to Gray.

  “Now let’s go,” she snaps.

  Anyway, Gray can’t put a finger on it, but something about all the lights on and the drop-offs and the girls in skimpy clothing gives him the heebie-jeebies. “Man, I don’t know, Hazel . . .”

  “Somebody will have a phone we can borrow.” She tugs Gray to his feet. “You can call and let your mom know you’re okay, and we can figure out where the hell we are and how we’re gonna get back.”

  And Gray just swallows. Because what is there for him to say? Let’s just go back into the dark woods instead of over to that nice house full of phones, and likely food too?

  “Come on,” Hazel says. And she pulls him out of the forest.

  The trouble started some six months back, when Hazel’s mother began seeing a monster.

  Not that things were great for Hazel before that. She’d endured her mother’s emotional whims for as long as she could remember. For the most part, Hazel was used to it. She’d learned to shift and bend for the sake of avoiding, or absorbing, the heaviest of her mother’s mood swings. When Mother would soar—up, up, up, giddy and elated about everything—Hazel would make herself into the wind that kept Mother aloft for as long as possible. After the inevitable plummet and crash, Hazel would shrink down, morphing from a gale into a molecule, invisible to the naked eye, but able to observe and keep cover. The drops weren’t enjoyable, to say the very least—the highs weren’t great either, what with the knowledge that they wouldn’t last—but Hazel was used to them.

  But then came the night Mama stumbled (literally) into their teensy two-bedroom apartment, giddy as a gumdrop, with a disgustingly foul creature on her heels.

  Hazel didn’t know how foul back then, though if you’d asked her, she would’ve said he made her uneasy on sight. He was white (but tan). Tall with broad shoulders. Sharp jawline. Thick dark hair.

  When he first smiled at Hazel, the light glinted off his too-straight, too-white teeth. That’s when she knew something wasn’t right. No regular person’s eyes were that blue. Not that Hazel had seen, at least.

  “Well, well,” he’d said. “You’re just as stunning as your mother.” His voice made Hazel think of a square of butter gliding across the top of a warm biscuit. Too perfect. And then his strange eyes trekked over the hills and valleys of Hazel’s terrain.

  Had he been lying about her mother’s beauty, Hazel might’ve picked up on him sooner. But Hazel’s mother was stunning, with impossibly smooth, deep-brown skin, high che
ekbones, a wide nose she would contour slimmer with cosmetics, and long black hair she kept ironed straight. Hazel knew: all it took was a bat, bat, bat of Mother’s eyelashes to grab the attention of anyone she desired. A rich, white widower (according to him) taking interest in a black woman without a cent to her name made perfect sense, once you saw Hazel’s mother. Her beauty made her a prize.

  Anyway.

  The trouble.

  Life with the Monster was manageable at first. In the early days, it was even a bit of a relief. No longer was Hazel the main boat on Mother’s topsy-turvy mood sea. In fact, Hazel saw less and less of her mother, who spent more and more hours away from home.

  Hazel couldn’t have been more thrilled: for the first time in years, she felt free. She came and went as she pleased, spending more time with Gray than she’d ever imagined possible.

  And her mother didn’t say a word about it. Before, Mother had humphed and clucked her tongue about “that boy with a name as difficult to pin down as he is.” She liked things to be black or white, Hazel’s mother did. Up or down. Right or left. Nothing in the middle.

  But she was right. Gray was as gray as a person could be. Distinctly middle-of-the-road. An average student of average height with average looks. Neither great nor terrible. Not top-notch, not bottom-rung.

  It was Hazel’s favorite thing about him.

  Gray had moved to the area the year prior. Just him and his “ma,” as he referred to her. Hazel didn’t know much about his life before he’d entered hers. She was aware of a brother who’d passed away a month before Gray’s move, but Gray’s demeanor would darken when Hazel asked questions. So she’d stopped.

  What Hazel knew for sure was that Gray was different from other boys. He may not have been the tallest or strongest or most popular or best looking, but he always looked Hazel in the eye and asked how her day was going. And when she talked, a little dent would form between his eyebrows, so Hazel knew that he was really listening.

  The one time he’d met Hazel’s mother, he’d been shy (as Hazel presumed any person would be in that situation). But Gray had answered Mother’s questions honestly:

  Mama: You got any hobbies?

  Gray: I enjoy playing video games in my spare time, ma’am.

  Mama: What’s your favorite subject in school?

  Gray: Can’t say I have one, ma’am. I do my best in all of them.

  Mama: Plans for after high school?

  Gray: I’m leaning toward becoming a mechanic.

  Mama: A mechanic?

  Gray: Yes, ma’am. Like the type who fixes cars.

  Mother’d had her gripe about Gray ever since—“Ain’t nothin’ special ’bout that boy,” she’d say. But with the Monster around, she ceased to care about Gray at all.

  Hazel’s mother shot hiiiiigh up into the air, borne on the breeze of the Monster’s affections. There were flowers, both fresh and fruit: daisies made of pineapple and cantaloupe; carved apple roses and tulips sliced from plums. There were spa trips and new clothes, jewelry and fancy footwear, vintage wine and fine dining.

  But then Hazel’s mother dropped, and she closed herself in her bedroom.

  More time and more space without Mother’s hovering became more time and less space in the apartment. Because contrary to Hazel’s expectations, the Monster didn’t flee like all the other men had. He drew closer.

  There were mornings Hazel would wake to the fragrance of coffee, and she’d know the Monster was there, because her mother only drank tea. He’d show up a few times per week at first, but soon the Monster was in the apartment more than Hazel was.

  Always watching.

  A month in, he began implementing rules and imposing restrictions. Wondering aloud about her comings and goings, and commenting on her clothing. He’d notice a sliver of exposed skin at her waistline and insist that she change her shirt. Or put on looser pants. Or switch out her skirt for something longer.

  Hazel didn’t like it, but she also didn’t object. So well-adjusted to . . . adjusting was Hazel that she always complied without a hint of resistance.

  Soon, vaguely controlling remarks about her style of dress—which stopped once she switched from sweetly sexy to baggy boho chic—became a commentary on her makeup: “That’s a beautiful lipstick color, Hazel, but it’s a bit . . . suggestive. You wouldn’t want anyone getting the wrong idea.”

  The next thing Hazel knew, she had daily errands to run. They began as requests, then switched to imperatives: “Would you mind picking up your mother’s dry cleaning this afternoon?” to “Retrieve the dinner I ordered and be home by six o’clock to eat.”

  The night the Monster tossed a “Be home by ten” at Hazel on her way out the door for a date with Gray, she was taken aback. But she returned at 9:59 p.m.

  But a few weeks later, Hazel woke up the morning after a date with Gray and discovered the Monster sitting with her mother at a brand-new dining table, waiting for Hazel.

  Seeing them together made Hazel’s heart race.

  “Your mother and I would like a word,” the Monster said.

  Hazel knew then that she had reached the end of a rope she hadn’t known was fraying.

  “We know you may see things differently right now,” the Monster began, “but we think it best that you stop seeing that young man you like—”

  “His name is Gray.”

  The Monster’s eyes flashed with something Hazel couldn’t describe. She was terrified.

  “You are distracted,” he went on. “I’ve seen it time and time again: a girl with your level of promise gets wrapped up in some knuckleheaded boy and isn’t able to disentangle. He’s only after one thing, as are most boys your age. I would know. I was one.”

  “He’s not—”

  “So we are taking care of it now.” Hazel watched as the Monster put a hand on top of her mother’s and squeezed.

  Mother nodded. “I agree.”

  “But, Mama—”

  “This is not up for discussion,” the Monster said.

  You’re not my fucking father, Hazel wanted to scream back but didn’t.

  “You’ve never even met him,” she said instead.

  “And I now have no need to,” the Monster replied. “You will cut ties—immediately—or there will be consequences.”

  That was all Hazel could take. “What gives you the authority to make decisions about my life? You’ve been around for three months and think you’re my dad now?”

  “No. But I am your stepfather. Or at least I will be.”

  Hazel stopped breathing.

  “Your mother and I are getting married.”

  The moment Gray and Hazel step onto the porch, the front door swings open.

  And they both stop dead.

  In front of them, just as stunned by their appearance as they are by hers, stands . . . well, neither Hazel nor Gray is sure whether girl or woman is more accurate.

  “Garnet, you out?” someone calls from behind her.

  “Yeah,” she replies. But she doesn’t take her eyes off the interlopers.

  They can’t stop staring either. Her skin is medium brown, and she looks young in the face, even caked in cosmetics. Maybe fifteen or sixteen at most. But the way she’s dressed . . . or really undressed, makes Gray think—hope—she’s maybe older. Her getup reminds Gray of a ballerina’s leotard. But it’s silky-looking and the color of blood. The deep-V cut in the front goes down to her belly button, and there’s a spattering of freckles across her clavicle and breasts. Which are very much on display. Unbidden, Hazel’s eyes travel down the fishnet stockings and arrive at very high heels. She decides girl.

  And when the girl blinks, her impossibly long eyelashes flutter like butterfly wings. Gray opens his mouth to speak, but the words catch in his throat. Hazel doesn’t speak either. The only sound is the bass-heavy music thumping from somewhere within the depths of the house.

  The girl in red—Garnet, she was called—takes in Hazel and Gray’s disheveled appearance. And she
scrunches her nose. “Jesus.”

  Hazel clears her throat. “Sorry to interrupt your—”

  “Party’s downstairs. The door’s at the end of the hall.” And she steps out of the house and walks around them. “Don’t let the Grande Dame see you, though. Y’all are mad underdressed.” Her shoes click down the steps.

  Gray looks over his shoulder as a car that sparkles in the moonlight swings into the driveway. Again, words vaporize on his tongue. The back of Garnet’s getup leaves precisely nothing to the imagination. She climbs into the passenger seat of her glittering chariot and lays quite the kiss on the driver before closing her door.

  They drive off.

  “Well, that was rude,” Hazel says. She grabs Gray’s hand and tugs him across the threshold. “Come on.”

  As soon as they’re inside, things get more bizarre. Heading down the dim hallway toward the back of the house, they pass a few rooms. The first one on the right—a dining room if the chandelier is any indication—is filled with grown men. All seated on chairs and benches that line the walls, and most looking at their phones, though a few have their heads leaned back against the wall and their eyes closed. A makeshift waiting room.

  A white boy in a baseball cap who looks to be around Hazel and Gray’s age comes out of a room farther down on the left. He leaves one of the sliding French doors cracked, and Hazel and Gray can see inside. There are a large couch and a pair of wingback chairs, and a strangely colored blaze flickers in the fireplace. Shifting from blue to green to purple. At the center of the room, huddled around a coffee table, is another group of baseball-capped guys. Counting money.

  It’s when they reach the kitchen, though, that Gray’s blood goes cold. There’s one girl in lavender propped up on the island with her legs around the waist of a man whose face is buried in her neck. There’s gray hair at his temples. Another girl—in turquoise lingerie—places a plate of food in front of a different older man sitting at a table. He ignores the plate, and he pulls her into his lap.

  The music is getting louder.

  Gray wants nothing more than to leave this place, but he has a hunch that if he does, Hazel won’t come with him. Not before she finds out where they are so they can get home.