FSE

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Leo rounded up what few belongings he had for the trip, preparing himself for tomorrow’s drive back home. Questions continued to knock at his thoughts, even far into the night. A part of him wanted to barge right into his parents’ room and demand more answers. What he needed was a distraction, and it just so happened to be one that he needed to do anyways.

Picking up his phone, Leo speed dialed that number home. The phone rang once, twice…

“Leo! Hey, Leo, how are you?” Missy asked. “Had a good turkey day?”

“Hey, Missy. Thanksgiving was definitely something,” he said.

Strangely, it felt good to hear her voice again. All the doubtful, demonic talk earlier had begun to take hold in his mind. With the way his parents spoke, he almost wondered if Missy truly was some sort of elaborate mental charade, so it was good to remind himself of the reality of his woodland partner. At the same time, it also reminded him of the miserable faux date from yesterday with the woman who just so happened to share her voice.

“A good something or bad something? Maybe an in-betweeny something?” she asked.

“I’ll lean on good for now. We can talk about it when I get home. Was wondering how you’re holding up. Everything good back home? No fires or anything, right?”

There was the slightest of pauses. Leo swallowed.

“Yeah! Yeah. I just ran outta sandwiches and I feel like I watched all the movies ever. Just keepin’ myself occupied with the Internet and the faaaaancy computer. I couldn’t even open the box of matches when I tried.”

“Thank God for that. You try out anything else? Read any of those technical manuals? They’re a real page turner,” he said with a smile.

“Hey, woah, I don’t want to go to sleep just yet. Still have a few hours to kill. D’you spend your hours killing?”

“Only a couple, but we got that sucker quick.”

“OK, eugh, it was a joke.”

“Don’t worry, it was humane.”

“Stoooooooop.”

“Alright, alright.” Leo chuckled. “How’s the whale doing?”

“Selene is doing fine, thank you for asking, spent the whole day by my side. She’s eagerly awaiting your return.”

“Glad to hear someone is.”

“Hey! I’m looking forward to you coming back, too… As long as you bring some goodies with you.”

“Goodies galore.”

Missy giggled. “Then, yes, I am so excited to have my Leo back!”

“I’m looking forward to it.” Leo’s smile softened. “I better get to bed to wake up early. Have a good night, Missy.”

“ ‘Kay. Goodnight, Leo.”

_

Missy held her breath, waiting for the line to drop. The second that it did, she clicked the program shut and looked back to the absolute mess of tutorials that infested the web browser. The living room table had been pulled up to the side of her chair, allowing her to pick away at her new froggy friend as she learned.

“Oh, yeah, everything’s fine,” Missy said. “Nothing terrible going on here, Leo. Pause. Yeah. Pause. Just had to crank the ol’ brain as soon as he asked about a fire! Just had to think if I really had burnt down the whole house!”

“No need to worry about that now. You are focused on your task and have to complete it,” Selene said.

“OK, yeah, task. Task. Right.” Her fingers twitched, tapping on the table in a wave. She glanced down at the strip of fabric in front of her, patterned in all the practice stitchings.

“Hurry on. You do want to complete it before Leo arrives, don’t you?”

“I’m gonna, OK? Just give me a second.” Missy took a breath. “It’s gonna be like a year before he gets back, anyways.” She huffed.

“Then use that time wisely, making certain he’ll like it. You would do well to please him.”

Missy looked to the frog. It had largely taken shape, with its floppy fabric limbs and wide body. But some of the more specific portions were missing, like the eyes and some finer stitching along its body. Maybe some little details on its sides? Frogs had spots, right? Some did, anyways.

“It looks pretty good,” Missy said. Or did it? She frowned. “I think he’ll like it. At least he’ll be happy I’m using my hands, right? Won’t be upset I just laid on the couch all day.” She looked back to the couch. No couch time. It was work time.

“Are you certain he will? You know his standards of diligence. He might think you just tossed it together.”

Missy bounced her leg. “Look, I got all the videos out and everything. I’m trying super hard here.”

“But is it your hardest? Are you putting your all?”

Missy’s eyes wandered over to the clock, then back to the fabrics laid out before here, and then all the other tutorials she had splayed out before her. She shook her head. No, everything would be fine. Relax. Her leg slowed to a stop.

“I am working my hardest,” Missy said. “This is my all. Diligence, right? Leo wouldn’t rush something, and he wouldn’t want me to rush this.”

“But despite that, he might think you didn’t put forward any effort at all if he came home now.”

He couldn’t come home. Not now. Not when she had so much work to do. The room pressed in on her. Missy looked to the front door, then back to the computer.

“Outside.”

Missy snapped to look behind her. Her eyes scanned the room. She whipped back around to look at Selene snuggled against her monitor. The whale offered no response.

“Go outside.”

It scratched at the back of Missy’s head. She stood up and turned around, glancing around the room again.

“The outside.”

It was behind her again. She looked to the blinded window, which denied her any look at the outside world. Missy sat back down, resuming one of the videos she had crowding her screen.

“This would be way better if I had shorter fingers,” Missy said.

“It only makes your work more impressive, doesn’t it?” Selene replied.

“Good point. An artist suffers for their work, huh? That’d be great go in the autobio--”

“Outside.”

Missy’s eyes twitched right. She wrangled her gaze back to the screen and she slowly mimicked its on-screen instructions as carefully as she could. Each little knit was a closer to heaven. Essentially, Leo complimenting her. Once she was done memorizing each pattern, she could hammer it into the frog and make a proper creature worthy of guarding her bed.

“Outside. There. Look.”

And once the frog was finished, she could move onto all sorts of things. Missy wouldn’t even have to be tied down by patterns other people made, she could simply make her own and crafted whatever magical whimsy came to her mind.

“Outside. Run now. Find him.”

The bobbing of Missy’s leg grew faster. Her eyes dug into the fabric, counting every little thread on the strand of string as the needle wove in and out of it. Something pressed against her thoughts.

“He’ll be here. Run now.”

Missy slammed her tools down onto the desk and stood up again, now walking to the middle of the living room. She looked to the window. The blinds had been drawn, with the distant moonlight seeping through its plastic cracks. There was a whole world out there, wasn’t there? Or a forest of nightmares. Missy looked away as her heart stuttered. Everything was fine. Leo would be here soon and all the worries burning through her neurons would disappear. Right?

“Run from him. Run from here.”

Those words carried her over to the window. Her fingers slipped between the protective blinders, sliding them open to peer out into the darkness. Only the dark tree line and empty road greeted her. Her brow furrowed. She tried to peer just below the window frame.

“Mate is out there. Find him.”

“Make up your fucking mind!” Missy said. She pulled her hand from the window and looked to the floor.

“Find the mate. Take him there. Pain without him. Pain with him. Run. Hide in the dark. Sit in the trees and hate the intruder.”

Missy shook her head. The desire to move hit her again, yanking at her muscles. Missy walked around the couch. Leo would be fine, and happy, and he’d cook her something and talk about how Thanksgiving wasn’t great and how he was happy to be back home and everything would be good again.

But it wasn’t good now. An urge pulled on her mind, teasing at her muscles, preparing her to lunge into a mad sprint. Missy clenched her jaws and continued to circle around the couch, working off that desire.

“You’re exposed. Something will see. Find the mate. Sink into him.”

Missy shook her head.

“Sink into him. Take him. Grab him. In the trees. In the dark. Mark the act. Rest comfortably.”

“Stop it,” she hissed.

“Claim him!”

Missy sat back in her seat and cranked up the volume, forcing her head toward the screen. Every stitch would be burned into her mind whether she liked it or not.

_

It was good. Life was good! It was so good. God, was it good. Missy looked out at her band of friends spread out on her bed. Cutesy animals all sewn up, made by her own hand. Each one a unique creature. Frog, octopus, snail, caterpillar, and don’t forget the axolotl. All those friends, she sure went overboard on this little test, huh? Oh well. Now she just needed names. Names for all of them. Friendly, unique names. But it was hard to think of names with the music blasting.

Missy racked up all of her favorite songs and let them flood from the soundbar she had. God, Leo was great. She descended into a feverish dance to the tune of some foreign song she couldn’t even understand, save for the words “fashion monster”. Something rumbled in the back of her head, but it didn’t matter, because life was good and music was loud.

Selene sat on her nightstand, looking out over at the new batch of friends. Would she come up with good names? They might sound a little uptight and serious, but they’d be good names. Like, no way she wouldn’t name the butterfly “Bartholomew” right? It was the perfect B name.

The forest.

No, no. Missy couldn’t hear a thing. Oh! She looked to the clock displayed on the screen. 6 AM. Leo would be home soon, probably! He probably left hours ago. Weird how time flies when you’re having fun, right? Would he come up with good names? He’d love the toys at least, right? After she spent so much time on them, how couldn’t he?

Missy continued to bob and jive along to the tunes while something stabbed at the cracks in her thoughts. The forest. The forest. The mate. Leo. Safety. Hide. Run from the pain. Embrace. Mark. Claim. Missy’s eyes widened, but she didn’t stop, she couldn’t stop. That fucking thing wouldn’t win.

The music lapsed. Silence filled the air.

“Outside.”

Missy stumbled into the living room, running over to the window and nearly tore the blindfolds off.

“I’m looking! I’m fucking looking! See! Outside! There, I see the outside! I--”

Off in the distance there was the blur of motion. Missy squinted, seeing a sliver of black fur. She gasped, then ducked low, hiding below the window.