“Duh,” Elle says.
“Lyle showed up at the hospital. He’s got a couple broken ribs, about a million cuts on him, and he’s … uh…”
“What?” we all say.
“… missing an ear.”
Elle lets out a joyful laugh.
“He’s been babbling about murderous birds.”
George does his little dance on my shoulder again, and Boner looks at him nervously.
“He would like to press charges.”
“Good luck with that,” Elle says. “He came here and attacked—”
Boner clears his throat. “Not against you. Against the birds.”
“Really?” Roxy says. “Shit. He’s lost his mind.”
“One can only hope,” Elle says.
“He’s going to be okay. He called his mother, so … ah … she’ll be here soon to get him. I think we’ll leave it at that. It’s been years since animals have been put on trial.”
“Can you imagine Grandmother in Santa Maria?” Roxy says. “She’s going to burst into flames at the county line.”
“Your lips to God’s ear,” I say, repeating something Grandmother used to say often.
“Amen,” Roxy says.
Elle wraps the blanket around her shoulders. “I might just have to sneak down to the hospital and take a peek.”
“I’m going to strongly suggest you all keep your distance,” Boner says. “Unless you want to press charges yourselves, but, uh, frankly, I met Lyle.”
“Met?”
“Well, actually I went down there to let him know if he ever comes back here what will be waiting for him, but it turns out he’s an incoherent mess.”
Elle nods, satisfied.
Boner takes a step closer to me. “Mayhem?”
“Yes?”
“I want you to know that I would never hurt you or your mother, ever, no matter the circumstances. I was a real prick about that report when you first got here, and I am sorry.”
I look up at Boner, his cargo shorts and button-down shirt, his socks pulled up midcalf, rain dripping down his nose and chin. He’s a dumbass with poor fashion sense, and that makes me like him.
I ask for his secrets again, and this time they rise. All he has in his beckoning honeycombs are pictures of his unwavering, lifelong love for my mother.
“I know,” I say.
“Oh, and, uh, looks like a dead end with the Sand Snatcher thing. No clues anywhere. No sign of who put him in that chair. Nasty business. Good riddance to bad rubbish, right?”
He puts his hands in his pockets and leans back on his heels and Roxy kisses him on the cheek and Elle makes a disgusted sound and George caws and that is enough.
FORTY-ONE
NEVE
I find Neve in the tunnel under the boardwalk like I knew I would. She doesn’t have anywhere else to go, except maybe the hideout, but that is Brayburn territory. She’s in her bikini lying right against the curve, hair splayed out around her, so skinny I can see her ribs with that stupid dagger I thought was so cool running down her arm. She’s shaking. I sit down next to her and put my hand on her shoulder. She comes awake feral and ready to fight, scoots herself into a corner so I put my hands up until her eyes clear and settle. Around her, holes in light, a halo like Swiss cheese.
Her chest rises and falls.
“Where did the boys go?” I ask.
“I kicked them out,” she says. “They’re gone.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m sick of them,” she says, and it echoes all around us. “I’m sick of everything.”
She collapses down again and stares at me. Her lips are cracked and bleeding. Because no water and no boys.
“I came to tell you I’m sorry,” I try. I’m half-braced for her to attack me, but I’m not sure she could even if she wanted to.
“The way you looked at me.” She shakes her head. “I’m not a monster. I’m not.”
“I know,” I say.
She waits, arms around her legs, still breathing hard.
“I took Elle away from you,” I say. “I didn’t mean to, but it doesn’t matter. I know I took Jason, too.”
Her eyes fill up.
“I should have asked you if it was okay.”
She shakes her head like she doesn’t want to hear what I have to say.
“Take me,” she says, and puts her arms out to me.
“Home?”
She shakes her head. “I have to get out of here. I want to go. I have to leave Santa Maria.”
“Come back to the farm.”
She shakes her head again, more vigorously. “I’m done. I can’t go back there. I have to be done.”
“Where do you want me to take you, then?”
What Jason told me. About her dumpster diving. She can’t go back to that.
“I’m going to die,” she says. “I don’t want to.”
“You won’t. That’s what I was trying to tell you last night.” I think for a second, and then it comes to me. “I know what to do.”
FORTY-TWO
THE WEIGHT OF US
Jason and Kidd are on a bench outside We’ve Got Issues, the comic-book store, just before dark, chewing on granola bars, hanging with the Gecko brothers. It’s been almost twenty-four hours since Lyle, and the storm has cleared up and it honestly feels more like one thousand years and that’s how old I feel, too, but also like a baby. Also like all my skin is new.
“Hi, Gecko brothers,” I say.
“What happened to you?” Jason says. “You left the house.” He colors up. “I worried.”
“He was freaking out,” Kidd says, showing me her hands wide apart. “This much!”
“Thanks, Kidd,” Jason says.
“I had to take care of something,” I say.
Jason nods, and I love him for accepting things.
Neve is with Marcy now. Marcy has been through this. She can help Neve. And then she will help Neve get out of town, too. She made a lot of phone calls to friends in Oregon, and it looks like Neve has somewhere to stay if she wants. For right now, Neve wants to be away from all of us, and that’s okay. She still managed to give me a short lecture about being true to myself before I left her at VHYes.
“‘What happened to you’ is right,” the Gecko brother wearing the beret says. “You have bruises all over. Look like shit.”
The smell of Joop and Drakkar Noir rises from around them.
“Fighting the good fight,” I say.
“I think you look all right,” Jason says.
“You seen any vampires around tonight?” Beret asks. “They’re out in full force, man. Must be the moon.”
“Vampires aren’t real.” I smile at Jason, who shakes his head, and sit beside them.
“Oh, really?” Beret opens his jacket to reveal a huge strand of garlic.
Bandana pulls a cross from under his shirt. “You of all people should know better,” he says.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask.
“It means what it means.”
“Cool,” I say.
Bandana hands me a comic with murderous bloodsuckers on the cover.
“One thing I never could stomach about Santa Maria,” Beret says, “all the goddamn vampires.”
They fold their arms across their chests.
“We’ll keep on keeping this boardwalk shithead-free,” Beret says, saluting. “As we must.”
“Conspiracy,” Bandana adds. “Man, do you know about MK-Ultra? It’s vast, bro, vast.”
“You two take care,” Jason says, shaking their hands, “and thanks for the snacks.”
He puts out his elbow and I hook in my arm. There’s so much we have to talk about. If he wants to be free and wants to take Kidd with him, maybe he should go with Neve. Or he could go somewhere else. Or he could stay and get off the water.
But for now Kidd runs down the boardwalk, fast but not so fast that she’ll scare people, and then Jason and I look at each other and we are running, too, c
utting out toward the water, where my father died and I was reborn and where every Brayburn woman has ended up. We break sand with our feet and we are laughing and worshiping with our laughter and light peels off of us and we strip down to our underwear and we leap into the water.
And we are weightless.
Dear Reader,
Like Mayhem, I experienced a period of time when my life was extremely unstable. I can still remember what it was like to be shaken so hard I thought my head would come off, to watch the room vibrate, to feel unsafe in my own home, to never know what was coming around the next corner. I wanted to run. I always wanted to run.
I ran to friends, but also movies and books, and although girls were more passively portrayed in movies like The Lost Boys back then, that feeling of teenagers prowling the night, taking out bad people, being unbeatable … that got me through it.
I guess that’s what I tried to do here. I wanted girls who feel powerless to be able to imagine themselves invincible. And yes, I used a rape as the seed for that fierce lineage, not without thought. For me, there is nothing worse, and I like to think great power can rise up as a result of a devastating trespass.
Please know I took none of this lightly. Writing this now, my heart is beating hard and my throat is dry. This is the first time I not only really looked at my own past, the pain of loss, the pain of the loss of trust that comes when someone puts hands on you without permission, the pain of people dying, the shock of suicide, and put all of it to paper in a way that made me feel victorious, strong, and warrior-like. It is also terrifying.
I know I’m not the only one who had a scary childhood, and I know I’m not the only one who clings to stories as salve to smooth over burnt skin. I am so sick of girls and women being hurt. This was my way of taking my own vengeance and trying to access forgiveness.
Thank you for reading and for those of you who can relate, I see you and you are not alone.
Estelle Laure
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First, my husband, Chris, and my children, Bodhi and Lilu, for not loving me because of books, but in spite of them. You are all my feathers.
Emily van Beek, dearest and most beloved human and agent, you are the only voice I can hear through my own fear sometimes, and it is clear and beautiful and certain. For that, for your friendship, and for the fight you are in on my behalf, eternal gratitude.
As always, Folio Literary Management and everyone in it, thank you, but especially Melissa Sarver White.
Without my editor, Sara Goodman, this story would never have been. Thank you for the spark and the shared memories of California in a time that smells like coconuts and cherries, but also a little bit like a serial killer. I will never forget that first call; the crackle and spark. And thank you for loving Sax Man as much as I do.
Beyond Sara to the entire team at Wednesday Books: Jennie Conway, Sarah Bonamino, Alexis Neuville, India Cooper, Kerri Resnick, Elizabeth Catalano, Joy Gannon, and Nicole Rifkin. You have made me feel truly special and that my story is in the best of hands.
Anais Rumfelt, for all the birds and the friendship and your Anais spice. Your art was my special sauce.
Joy, and Tanya Who is Missed, for giving me the basis for a tight, breathless love. Laine, Shandra, and Sunny, for being sources of unending light. Sonya, Bonnie, Sam, Yvette, Jessie, Elisa, for being all the fire and reason and for making me laugh. Mindy, because you are my Mindy and there is only one. Cory, because kids and life and it all goes on. My students: I’m grateful to be your teacher as you are mine. My writer friends, thank you, especially the great Jeff Zentner, who has given me hope when I had none, more than once. Awesomeness, thanks for the awesomeness. NCW, you rule. We need community and you all give me one.
Booksellers, teachers, readers, and all lovers of books, my continued gratitude.
My nearest brother, Christophe, for roaming California with me when we were kids. This one’s for you, and for the California of our childhood, a place that was certainly not without magic, both dark and light in equal measure.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ESTELLE LAURE believes in love, magic, and the power of facing hard truths. She has a BA in Theatre Arts and an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts in Writing for Children and Young Adults, and she lives in Taos, New Mexico, with her family. Her work is translated widely around the world. Visit her at estellelaure.com and on Instagram at @estellelaurebooks, or sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Epigraph
Part One. Brayburn lady coming for you
One. Roxy Brayburn and a Broken Heart
Two. Tell the Truth
Three. Santa Maria
Four. Family
Five. Mother
Six. Yellow Wallpaper
Seven. the Attic
Eight. Julianna Brayburn Daughter of the Woods
Nine. the Kids
Ten. Remember Me
Eleven. the Beach
Twelve. Boner
Thirteen. Rape
Part Two. Take your man and curse you, too
Fourteen. Sand Snatcher
Fifteen. This is Your Brain on Drugs
Sixteen. Hideout
Seventeen. One of Us
Eighteen. Wake Up
Nineteen. Auntie Elle
Twenty. Choice
Twenty-One. Billie Brayburn Daughter of Julianna
Twenty-Two. Mayhem Brayburn Daughter of Roxy Brayburn Mine
Twenty-Three. Sluagh
Twenty-Four. Training
Twenty-Five. Lyle
Part Three. Brayburn lady knows your sins Reads your mind and kills your friends
Twenty-Six. Shift Change
Twenty-Seven. Curfew
Twenty-Eight. Murder Murder Kill Kill
Twenty-Nine. Billie Brayburn Daughter of Julianna
Thirty. Fate
Thirty-One. Gratitude
Thirty-Two. Gifts
Thirty-Three. Stitcher Brayburn Daughter of Billie
Thirty-Four. Mayhem Brayburn Daughter of Roxy Brayburn Party Monsters
Thirty-Five. Tunnel
Thirty-Six. Roxy Brayburn Daughter of Stitcher Brayburn
Thirty-Seven. Mayhem Brayburn Daughter of Roxy Brayburn Dry
Thirty-Eight. Finally
Thirty-Nine. A Murder of Crows
Forty. And Then Came the Rain
Forty-One. Neve
Forty-Two. The Weight of Us
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
First published in the United States by Wednesday Books, an imprint of St. Martin’s Publishing Group
MAYHEM. Copyright © 2020 by Estelle Laure. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Publishing Group, 120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271.
www.wednesdaybooks.com
Cover design by Kerri Resnick
Cover illustrations by Nicole Rifkin
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Names: Laure, Estelle, author.
Title: Mayhem / Estelle Laure.
Description: First edition. | New York: Wednesday Books, 2020.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020005578 | ISBN 9781250297938 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781250297952 (ebook)
Subjects: CYAC: Magic—Fiction. | Fate and fatalism—Fiction. | Wife abuse—Fiction. | Family l
ife—California—Fiction. | California—History—20th century—Fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.1.L38 May 2020 | DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020005578
eISBN 9781250297952
Our ebooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by email at [email protected].
First Edition: 2020
Mayhem Page 23
