Mocking birds dueled in the forest canopy beyond the throbbing mansion. A jazzy riff echoed through the marble foyer where I stood by the door. Jolted by the bright notes of trumpet and saxophone, timpani drums matched the pulse of the party goers. Champagne fountains flowed down towers of crystal. The midsummer soiree was off to a swell start. Marcus Reelrum, Poppa Wolf as his lackeys called him, was in his element.
I spied Marcus through the door where he was shimmying with a leggy blonde. Finger curls slipped across half of her face as though she had starlet aspirations. Marcus leaned towards her ear and she giggled. Red nails raking through his pomade slick hair, black as his heart. The creep. They had all warned me about the notorious gangster, my mother especially, but I never listened. Poppa Wolf would never stop howling at the moon, despite my presence in his bed.
“Miss Scarlett?” I glanced over my shoulder at Marcus’s personal valet, Woodson. He was smoking on the veranda. Tossing his smoldering cigarette into the dry bushes, he straightened his bow tie, “Can I help you with anything?”
“You shouldn’t do that, not with how little rain we’ve been getting around here. You could start a forest fire,” I took out my own silver cigarette case and put one between my lips, “Got any matches.”
Woodson smirked handsomely and tossed me the pack, “Keep ‘em.”
I winked at him. Glancing back towards the closet where all the hats and wraps of guests were being kept, I noticed my signature cloak hiding in the corner. Fire engine red to match my hair. I meandered into the square room and ran my fingers down the satin folds.
“You going somewhere, Miss Scarlett? Do you need me to call a car?” Woodson asked behind me.
Lifting my hand, it came to rest on Marcus’s midnight blue derby. His favorite hat or so he said. I had gifted it to him a month earlier. I was now certain the man had many favorite hats.
“I think I’ll just go for a walk in the woods,” I replied coyly, flipping the derby onto my mound of victory curls.
Woodson smiled quietly. He stepped out of my way as I strode from my boyfriend’s palatial forest mansion. With the open champagne bottle tucked under my arm, I wandered out towards the heaving branches.
Fireflies simmered in the humid air, drifting around mossy oaks and ghostly aspens. In the soft dark, I could still make out the depression in the bed of leaves by the creek. I threw back a swallow of the sparkling liquor and squeezed my eyes shut. It was there Marcus had been on top of me. We laughed as he had thrown my silk stockings up into the leaves over us.
With a scoff, I noticed that one of them was still there. The iridescent fabric glossed over with moonlight as I picked it from the tree like strange fruit. An owl hooted and there was a rustle in underbrush. I looked up in time to catch the shadow of a coyote rush across the clearing. It paused, dazzled by the milk fed moon overhead. As it howled, I felt the sound deep in my gut. I decided right then that hot summer night, I was going to be the wolf.
Striding back through the woods, I stuffed the stocking into the derby. Taking out the match booklet, I struck one. I peered up at the wide windows of the ballroom at the party commencing inside. There he was, Poppa Wolf, with a hand riding up the skirt of that leggy blonde where they stood in a corner. The wind rose up from the trees behind me and hushed hot air against my back.
“See who’s howling now, Poppa,” I whispered and dropped the lit match into the hat with the rest of the pack. I tossed it onto the lower veranda roof.
After hot wiring a cherry red convertible parked in the long driveway, I peeked back to see the smoke rising along the arched roof. Flames were creeping down the veranda. In no time, the mansion in the woods would be ablaze. I didn’t want to stick around long enough for them to wonder.
Tires screeching, I sped along the forest road. My red cloak flapped in the window. Thankfully my grandmother’s house wasn’t far. I had been meaning to pay her a visit for some time.
A couple days later, she and I were sitting in the gazebo amid a copse of cherry trees. Her maid brought her the morning paper with our breakfast. I glanced at the headline and bit back a grin.
“Awful about that fire,” she clucked her tongue as she read the article.
“I know. All those beautiful woods around there, went up in smoke like cotton,” I sighed.
Grandma whipped the paper away from her face and studied me, “No dear. I meant that house, the Reelrum mansion. They were having a party. Some people were hurt, even killed.”
“Oh really?” I leaned forward on the table as I sipped my coffee, “Shame.”
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