From a Dream: Darkly Dreaming Part I by C. J. Valles, Alessa James

him the weekend to recover, he teased. I looked up from the counter and noticed he was watching me.
    “What’s wrong?” I asked suspiciously.
    “Good walk?”
    “Yeah, sure. Why?”
    “You look … happy.”
    I hadn’t realized that I had looked not happy before, but then, my face rarely hid what I was feeling—even when I tried. I was like my mom that way.
    “I’m just glad it’s Friday,” I said brightly, keeping my eyes down.
    I turned away from him and opened the cans he had left on the counter before adding the tomato sauce to the simmering garlic and olive oil. Then I picked up cutting board and nudged the tomatoes into the pot with a knife before rinsing and chopping the herbs. My dad retreated into the living room with his book, and I added a healthy dose of pepper and other spices to the sauce before leaving it to simmer.
    I moved on to the refrigerator, pulling out ingredients for a salad and rinsing them in the sink. My dad always walked over to Mrs. Hendrix’s house before dinner, and every time she said he was making too much of a fuss on her account, but I knew she secretly liked it—being picked up for a date.
    As I finished up dinner, I thought over what Sean had said earlier about the party and Jason Everett. According to the girls in my English class, Jason was supposed to be every girl’s ideal, and I had to admit that he was hot, with the exception of the look he had all the time, like he was judging people less worthy than he was. Plus, he was loud and seemed to enjoy the worship he got.
    Conceited —that was the word that came to mind when I thought of him. Overall, his presence had never made me anything more than uncomfortable. The truth was that up until Will Kincaid’s arrival in class I hadn’t really noticed any of the guys in school. Back home hadn’t been any different.
    After setting the water on the stove to boil, I called into the living room for my dad to go pick up Mrs. Hendrix. A loud crash made me jump, and I felt adrenaline shoot through my bloodstream. The back door had swung open and slammed into the wall. The lock tended to stick, and the door never shut properly. It was another one of our new house’s quirks—and part of the reason I found myself lying awake at night listening to every creak and shudder, certain I was going to be victim of a small-town horror movie plot.
    Darcy jumped up, barking madly and ran into the yard to investigate, and I closed the door behind him. He would scratch or whine at the door when he was done poking around. A few minutes later, my dad appeared with Mrs. Hendrix, and we sat down around the kitchen table. After taking a small bite of the pasta, Mrs. Hendrix declared dinner a smashing success. But she said that every time she came over. As soon as everyone finished, I did the dishes while my dad went to light the fireplace in the living room.
    By the time I joined them, Mrs. Hendrix had already brought out her tin of toffees. I smiled and took one. Even though they always stuck to my teeth, I never passed them up. I leaned back and listened sleepily while they talked. I was staring into the fire mulling over my strange run-in with Will Kincaid when Mrs. Hendrix mentioned something about the woods. I leaned forward.
    “It’s awful, Aaron. The newspaper said it might have been a pack of wild dogs on the loose, but I’m afraid for my poor Angel.”
    Mrs. Hendrix’s voice caught in her throat as she looked over at Angel, who was curled up in my dad’s chair. I watched uneasily as my neighbor fidgeted, her eyes clouding over. She looked ahead unseeingly, preoccupied by some distant memory.
    “I was just a young girl then, and town was much different. Before the fire, folks never locked their doors. Then they began finding the animals … and that poor young man from the Thompson house.” She stopped and shook her head as though to erase the memory of something distasteful. “I suppose it’s silly to bring up old stories. It was a