Bad Timing

Quindici

Gray’s mouth fell open. “Dad, it isn’t stupid! There were four girls who went missing here at different times. Aren’t you the least bit suspicious?”

“They were found, idiot, and they didn’t say anything about the Woodsman,” Noah said.

“Who’s the Woodsman?” I asked, growing more and more confused.

“The Woodsman,” Gray started with suspense, ignoring Luca and Noah’s groans. “Is this shape shifting evil spirit that wanders amongst this hiking ground. Somehow with his evil voodoo powers, he makes pretty teenage girls hallucinate and come to him. If the girl doesn’t get impregnated with a devil child who’s supposed to exterminate mankind, he makes them forget about him. But because they didn’t satisfy him, those girls will go to hell when they die.”

I couldn’t help it. I burst into a fit of laughter at the ridiculous horror story that was probably made up by some kid who got high on a pot of glue. “I’m sorry. I don’t believe any bit of it.”

Luca chuckled. “Wow, Noah, you better keep this intelligente woman. If you don’t, I’d check you into a mental hospital.”

“You don’t believe me?” Gray gasped, his eyes flashed with hurt.

Noah grumbled, disregarding Luca’s teasing laugh. “Emma and I are just friends.”

I struggled to find the right words to say after I realized that I unintentionally hurt Gray. “I-I, uh, you really believe that?”

“C’mon, you don’t like Emma? Not even a tiny bit?”

“I do believe it, but if you don’t, it’s fine with me,” Gray continued

“Si prega di smettere di torturarmi,” Noah spoke in perfect Italian, dragging his hand down the length of his face.

It was hard to concentrate on the presumptions and theories Gray was desperately trying to make me believe, but more than half of my attention was on the foreign conversation that Noah and Luca were having. I was beginning to grow more and more annoyed every time my name was thrown in a jumble with Italian words. I was starting to regret my opposing decision on taking a foreign language class.

“ – girls don’t remember a thing? Are you even listening to me, Emma?” Gray snapped his fingers in front of my face.

“Perché non basta dire di lei?” Luca asked Noah in that infuriating alien tongue of his.

Gray smirked. “He’s a coward that’s why.”

“Wait, Uncle Luca, can you speak a little bit slower so I could understand?” Maia requested with her eyebrows knitted together as she tried to make sense of every word that came out in Italian.

I smiled sarcastically. “I got a better idea! Could you speak in English?”

“I’ve got an even better idea,” Noah uttered as he held a branch out of the way. “Why don’t we drop this topic and talk about the Woodsman?”

“Sei un vigliacco,” Gray said in a teasing manner.

Noah shoved him. “Lo non sono un codardo.”

“Quindi dille poi.”

“Tell who, what?” Maia interjected as she looked up at her older cousin.

Ignoring Maia’s question, Noah continued to bicker with his cousin. “Vaffanculo!”

“Noah,” Luca warned. “I thought we all agreed that we wouldn’t teach Maia vulgar language in Italian?”