In The Sight of These Hills (Dolan Twins)

Friday's Promises

Chapter 15: Friday's Promises

"In my body I fight fire
With the snow, my hell is cold
In my body I have a soft light
Burning low, but too hot to hold
I've become the only thing I hate-"

"Body"-SYML

Meredith had asked Ethan to the dance Friday morning, and he hadn't expected it at all.

The last three days had been spent crafting in the drama room after school, having people attempt conversation with them in the classroom and at lunch whom had never even spared a glance at them before, and Ethan's attempted "cures" at home.

He had tried cutting Grayson's palms with the silver knife that Sean kept in their grandmother's silverware collection, which only made Grayson bleed for a few seconds and then begin to heal. Silver seemed to have no effect on him. Ethan just ended up feeling bad about it and getting blood on the sheets.

Ethan walked down to one of the local churches one afternoon and stepping in, felt odd there. He went right up to the priest who hadn't noticed him there as he was bent over one of the opened Bibles and asked, "Can I have some of your holy water?" The man looked up startled and choked in surprise at him just suddenly popping up. Extremely embarrassed, Ethan didn't wait for an answer, but put the water bottle into the baptizing bowl beside him and ran out of there like a maniac.

"I'm a werewolf, E," said Grayson, eyeing the bottle in his hand, his hand on the door frame of their bedroom, "Not possessed."

Ethan had made him drink it anyway and pulling back the bottle from his lips, Grayson grimaced, "It just tastes stale."

Ethan had made the point of tracking the original beast down, the one that had infected him in the first place. He thought he had seen the plot line from a movie or something.

Grayson explained, like in his dream, that he thought the beast was dead, or at least, not in their territory, and that he could not sense it. Unlike his dream, though, Ethan wouldn't let the whole "territory business," go and insisted that he explain what he meant by it.

"What do you mean, territory?" He asked, as they were in their garage working out. Ethan was lying on the floor, on the mat, doing sit ups bare-chested. Sweat glistened on his body, and he was sore, but he kept going. For some reason Grayson wasn't working out. Instead he was on the makeshift bench they had set up, flipping through his notebook. He was eating Twizzlers and he placed one between his teeth, biting down and yanking it back. He chewed slowly, eyes on his brother's.

"I don't know. I can just sense when something is mine."

Ethan broke eye contact with him and got up, grabbing the towel he had on the ground and wiping his body down, patting across to him. He was red faced and thought he may have pushed himself too hard. He punched Grayson in the shoulder, moving to go inside to take a shower.

"That's weird, dog-boy" he said, and Grayson playfully threw a Twizzler at him, hitting him in the thigh with a, "No, you're weird, anime club."

Ethan had never watched anime in his life.

He had printed, though, a sheet about something called Monkshood the night before. It was also known by the common name of Wolfsbane. There were multiple sites talking about how the normally deadly poisonous substance helped stop or delay a werewolf transformation. It wasn't something you could just buy off Amazon or anything; it was rarer than most plants.

Where the hell was he supposed to get Monkshood from?

~

On Friday morning Grayson had to stay after the bell for Pre-AP English to ask the teacher why he got a C on his literary analysis, which meant that left Ethan out in the hall alone and waiting for him. He watched as the students went by on their way to class, some of their eyes glancing over at him, and he looked down at the ground.