I try to see the valley through her eyes.
“It’s so important to pass things on.” She turns quietly toward me. “Roxy never got that.”
A new heat travels up my neck.
“I’m thirsty,” I croak.
“Of course you are,” she says. She reaches for the necklace Neve gave me last night, looks at it fondly, the engraved flowers and birds. “Do you know what this is?”
“Not really.”
“I had a drawer full of them upstairs before the kids came. My grandmother had them specially made many years ago. She loved being what she was. Anyway, this one was mine when I was younger. And then I passed it to Neve when she got here.”
I wrap my hand around the silver.
“Unscrew the top. Spray it on your tongue and hold it there.”
I do.
“Good,” she says.
Relaxation slips downward until my whole body is warm. “You only need a little bit. We keep extra jars of water in the attic. Only put it in glass or metal,” she says. “It eats right through plastic.”
I lay a flat hand on my belly.
“Why don’t you have a necklace?” I ask.
She has the bird, like my mom’s, no secret compartments I can see.
“Oh, I don’t need it,” she says. “And soon you won’t either. There’s nothing like getting it from the source, but it’s best to keep some of the water around while you’re transitioning because it’s really a drag going all the way to the cave every time you need it, and you’ll need plenty for the first few days. It’ll be best if you stay here until the first phase has passed, and then we’ll work on getting you acclimated.” She is about to say something else, but the orange van comes rolling into the driveway. We both turn.
Jason gets out. Just the sight of his skin and his bright yellow T-shirt are enough to start a riot in my insides. The car door closes, and I fight to keep my attention on Elle. She is bright laid against the greenery, the flowers. Around her, shiny tendrils climb from her skin.
“I can help you, Mayhem,” she says. “I didn’t mean for it to happen this way, but now it’s done. You’re a part of the Brayburn legacy, and you don’t have to do it alone.”
I can’t respond. My mouth won’t make words.
“One more thing. Don’t be an asshole about this. I know you’re going to have mixed feelings about it, but Roxy left once before thinking she was protecting you, and I think she’ll do it again, so we have to be strategic. We won’t have to keep it a secret forever, just for now. Fortunately, she’s so doped up I don’t think she can see at all anymore. She’s done it to herself, and at this moment that works to our advantage.”
It’s like Roxy and I are standing across from each other and our whole story is cracking the earth between us and she’s too asleep even to know it.
“Sorry,” Elle says. “That was insensitive.” She clutches her head and smiles. “I’ve just almost had it with people not listening to me, careening off the rails and taking me and my entire town with them. We have a job to do.” She takes a long, deep breath. “So go upstairs, use my bathroom, get yourself cleaned up, and then go take a nap. When you wake up, you won’t be so out of sorts.”
She looks over my shoulder, to where Jason and Kidd are approaching. I can see the concern on Jason, and I feel how afraid he is that Elle will kick him out and he and Kidd will have to sleep on the beach or in the cave from now on.
“Be a love and go get Nevie for me. I need to have a word,” she says. “Do you mind? We’ll talk more later.”
I hardly look up as I pass Jason and Kidd.
“Are you okay, Mayhem?” Kidd asks.
“Fine,” I say, staring at the ground.
“Hey,” Jason says. “It’s okay. It really is. We’ll be okay,” he says, and runs two fingers down my arm, quickly.
I am so tired I hardly make it upstairs. Millie follows me and meows as I open the door to the attic, contemplate the stairs, and decide I can’t even make it that far. I call for Neve to go downstairs. I wander through Elle’s bedroom, run a bath in her claw-footed tub, dip under hot water and back out again, then fall onto her bed and into the deepest sleep ever.
TWENTY
CHOICE
When I wake, it’s dark. The smell of incense wafts through the air, and the scents of rose and lavender creep through the open window. Crickets chirp. Elle’s room is large and clean. Black-and-white photographs cover the walls, all of them old and worn, but lovingly framed. Trees and their shadows. Moss on a rock. A woman’s figure. Two small girls holding hands. A cat that looks just like Millie. Sprays of white flowers burst from vases on the dresser and bedside table, where a bottle sits with a note taped to it that says Drink me. I chug it all at once. When I am strong enough, I get nosy. Oils and candles and silk scarves in a silver tray cover the vanity. I open the top drawer to find small boxes lined up, most empty, but two with beautiful necklaces like the one I’m wearing, one with an owl and the other a tree.
Music comes from the attic. Maybe that’s what woke me.
If Jason and Kidd hadn’t showed up when they did, I don’t know what I would have done to the guy from the Ferris wheel. The scene with him plays briefly in my mind, but I shake it off. I am still wrapped in the towel I was in when I fell asleep. I find a black T-shirt and leggings on the bed next to me. I slip them on and pad toward the room I share with Roxy. I have to tell her what’s happening to me, about the cave, about everything Elle said.
I nearly trip on the phone cord running across the floor into the bathroom.
I smell smoke and hear the slosh of bathwater.
I put my ear to the door. Roxy’s slippery voice is saying, “Mmmhmmm.”
I stiffen.
“No, I’m not,” she says, voice mushy. “Lyle, I told you, I wasn’t calling you because I’m coming back. Stop saying that.” A pause. “Well, because, I want you to know I’m fine but that my decision is firm.”
Lyle. I swivel the doorknob and knock. “Let me in, Roxy.”
“Oh,” she says, then, furtively, “I gotta go.” She hangs up, and I hear the phone drop to the floor with a clang. “Oh shit,” she says.
My face pounds as I keep my hand on the knob. I want to rip it off the door. I want to rip her apart. I try to gain control of my breathing, to make the air come in and out evenly.
“Why did you do that, Roxy? Why would you call him like that?”
I bang my forehead lightly against the door.
“Why would you go out at night and tell me you’d be back and then stay out all night when there might be a psycho on the loose?” she returns. “Do you have any idea how scared I was?”
“Why would you call Lyle?” I say again. “Don’t try to turn this back on me.”
“I shouldn’t have to justify myself to you. You’re a kid and there are some things you can’t understand.” There’s the sound of water as she sits up in the tub. “I have screwed everything up, I know that. But I wanted to tell him I had decided once and for all. And you didn’t even bother to come home. You left me here alone.” It’s like she can’t decide if she’s blaming or apologizing.
I’m afraid to ask my next question, but I do it anyway. “Roxy, did you tell him where we are?”
“No,” she says. Then “No!” again.
I sink to the hardwood floor, look up at the fairy lights strung along the hallway, and bring my knees to my chest. I rest my head against the wall.
“You hear me, Mayhem?” she calls out. “I didn’t tell him anything.”
Lyle used to tell me the story of the woman who called him up needing help to find a place even though she had no money and no family, so she could have an address and get a job. As soon as he saw Roxy, he knew she wouldn’t be living in the apartment or the motel at the edge of town. She was too beautiful for such a sad fate.
“I know you don’t understand why I was ever with him. I don’t expect you to.” Her voice evaporates into memory. “He took me
out dancing that first night. You stayed with Grandmother. You know her house. It was clean and tasteful, and she was nice at first. We laughed, Lyle and me. I had been so sick, crying all the time, too. I missed your dad so much I could hardly breathe. It was the first time in so long I’d felt even a little bit better. He was strong, knew which way to turn me so I could two-step even though I’d never done it before.”
Again I almost vomit. “I don’t really want to hear about any of that right now.”
“He gave us a car and bought you clothes and didn’t ask any questions,” she says. “He took care of you like you were his own, mostly. At first he allowed me to try to go on living without your dad.”
She goes quiet, and we sit there for a while. This day. This is a day I’ll remember forever. How it started. How it’s ending. How I’m not the same person I was last night. How I cannot stand my mother right now.
“Why did my father kill himself? Because that’s what happened, isn’t it? He didn’t fall or slip or anything else. He jumped, right?”
No answer. I’m breaking our tacit agreement, the one where I tread carefully around Roxy so she doesn’t break down.
“Why did you leave here and take me away from my family?”
No answer.
“Why did you let Lyle hit you and go back with him when you could have come here?”
Again, quiet.
“Why did you steal me from my own life? You only thought about yourself is why. You only ever think about yourself.”
Nothing. A sniffle.
“You know,” she says finally, “you don’t get over things like losing your one and only. You just learn to live around the loss.”
“I’m sick of living around your losses.” I hit the wall. “They’re my losses, too. And you didn’t even give me any choices. You won’t tell me anything at all.”
“This is why I didn’t want to come back here,” she says.
“Well, I don’t get that,” I say. “Because coming back here is the only thing you’ve ever done right.”
“May,” she says, voice cracking.
“You only care about yourself. Don’t lie to me anymore. I’m only important to you because I make you feel less lonely and because I always do whatever you want.”
I don’t know when the last time was that she sat with me, completely sober, and listened to me talk about my life. Maybe it’s that she’s afraid of what I would say if she asked. Maybe she’s a coward.
The door to the attic creaks open. “Oh, good,” Neve says. “You’re up! I’ve been waiting all afternoon.” She bounces over to me. “Come on. Elle said she would literally murder me if I woke you.”
Neve doesn’t hesitate or wonder what I’m doing here or why I might be sitting in the dark. These things are not important to her, and I love her for it.
I put my finger to my lips.
“Okay,” she stage-whispers. “But we talked to Elle, and she isn’t even mad anymore. You’re one of us now!” She jumps up and down so the fairy lights tinkle. “We have so much to talk about.” She waves the Brayburn book at me. “So much to teach you.”
She motions for me to come, tracers swooping from her hands.
“Where’d you get that?”
“Where you hid it. I’m good at finding things.”
“May?” Roxy calls. “You still there? You still listening?”
Neve lets out a little giggle and tugs on me.
The water sloshes again, and the door to the bathroom unlocks. Roxy’s blond head peers out across the hall. She is dripping wet and swathed in a towel.
“May?” she says, blinking hard. Her makeup is smeared. And now I see. She is a little blurry. The dullness, Jason called it. It’s like she’s shrouded in a see-through blanket. The sight saddens me with a sudden, unexpected weight.
“Go to bed,” I say softly.
Neve leans into me.
“You’re not going to tell me where you’re going? I thought we were talking.” Roxy scans me as though looking for something.
“Do you want to talk? Because I’m here if you do. But only if you’re actually ready to say things that matter, not give me excuses about Lyle, because I’m done talking about that.”
She hugs the doorway and drips onto the floor.
“Didn’t think so,” I say.
Normally, I would run to her. I would comfort her and make sure she was warm and safe, but I don’t want to do that now. I’m not sure I ever want to do it again.
Roxy’s pain.
Roxy’s battles.
Roxy’s needs.
I stand there, one hand in Neve’s, and I see my mother. “I’m going up, Roxy.”
“May?” she says.
“Good night, Roxy!” Neve trills.
“Night,” Roxy half-whispers.
I close the attic door behind me.
TWENTY-ONE
BILLIE BRAYBURN DAUGHTER OF JULIANNA
1928
Mother told me yesterday that Father has been run over by an automobile. I can’t picture it. Did his face come to pieces? What does a body look like after that? I don’t know and I can’t get my head around it properly, so I’ve given up. It’s because of the way I work, the way that I figure through things slow as syrup. But I get there. I get to an understanding. I just have to be patient with myself.
And meanwhile, Father is the person I would have asked for help in this sort of situation, for advice. He would have been the one to tell me how to go step by step until I understood how he could be here one day and gone the next as though he had never been at all. He would have tried to explain to me about the body being a temporary home for the soul, and I would have been able to understand it. But without him, I can only imagine him putting his things away in his drawers, turning off the lights, going out the front door, and disintegrating into nothing, ceasing to be.
When I close my eyes, I hear him saying to chin up, to put my best foot forward. Still, I don’t quite know what to make of death. One time I saw Tommy Havershaw shoot a deer, saw the hole from the gunshot, all the blood coming out and leaking everywhere. Why, I feel like I’ve got one of those holes in me right now, that bits of me are leaking out all over the place.
But Mother.
Oh, Mother.
She recited lines from Romeo & Juliet for hours last night. That’s the play Mother and Father were in when they met. She lay down with her scarred cheek against the sofa in the drawing room, and she sobbed. And I ask you, where do I belong in this? I do not.
I first saw the hideaway last week. Maybe finding it meant something. Maybe it was a foreshadowing of Father’s explosion, of his corporeal departure from this fair world and of something new for me.
And I don’t know.
I don’t know what made me get my swimming costume on and put my hair up in my cap and go all the way there, to the place where the cliffs come apart.
Well, I do know why, and I shall endeavor to be honest here, in this place, writing just for me. Perhaps that way, life won’t be such a puzzle.
The hideaway opened to me, showed me its existence, and I remembered Mother talking about a dangerous place filled with magic, built into the cliffs. The curtains made of mountain drew back, drew apart. Can you imagine? I think most would run, but I did not. Or I did, but I ran toward.
I saw something that shouldn’t even exist, and I believe in magic, and I believe when magic comes a-knockin’ at your door, you have no business doing anything but answering the call.
Of course, Father always told me not to swim out past where I could put my foot down to touch the rocks and the sand. But he’s not here now, is he?
We’re not supposed to do anything, ever, and it’s just ghastly, unfair, ridiculous, if you ask me, which nobody does.
And by we, I mean girls.
Well, I don’t like it one bit.
I am the best at holding my breath in the water. Tommy Havershaw says he is, but he is not, and I know that because the last time we had a c
ontest he was gone, sitting on the shore having himself a ham sandwich by the time I came up to the surface.
Yellow-bellied.
Father once told Mother she was a stunner, with black hair to her waist like she has now, though she never wears it down, and skin that browned in the sun and eyes that sparkled and twinkled like she was made of stars and flame.
Mother always cleared her throat when he said that.
Oh, Mother would be so angry if she knew about the hideaway.
Well, she doesn’t, and she didn’t want to look at me because of Father dying and so there.
It’s true the hideaway is full of ghosts. But I am better than fear. Mother says, when she’s having her good days, that being brave is being afraid and doing a thing anyway.
It’s how I found the spring in that cave, going deeper toward the fear, to my very own private well.
And would you like to know something? The word “Brayburn” is scratched right into the wall. That’s my last name. My heart nearly gave out when I saw that. It truly, truly did. And now I have made a decision. If I ever have a child, she will be named Brayburn. A woman is just as good as a man, and she can want to pass on her line, too. The more I drink the water, the more I understand that things as they are make no sense.
I will tell you a secret about that cave.
It’s not seawater. It’s clear and sweet like you wouldn’t believe. I tested it. And then I felt strange the next day, like I was going to die if I didn’t get more. But then, then I felt just fine, better than fine, because then I could see.
There is the part of me that doesn’t want to see so much. Sometimes I’d rather not know that the good are quite so outnumbered. Fortunately, I have figured out how to turn it off, just like a tap. I am thinking how I love this water and this place, and how I want to stay here forever, because here I can pretend there’s nothing but me and the earth and this water, and that is better than people. Things look different now, and no one can keep a secret from me anymore.
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