Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

by Tucholke, April Genevieve

  I had a fantasy when I was younger that one of the Glenships would come back and fix the place up. He would be young and beautiful, and not at all insane like his throat-slitting ancestor. He would have slicked-backed hair, an expensive education, and a sharp tongue. The two of us would meet and fight and fall in love and live and have children and grow old in Echo’s second mansion by the sea.

  I was pretty stupid, when I was younger.

  Behind the Glenship, spreading out to the edge of the woods, were the remains of the manor’s extensive grounds. The lawn had grown wild in the last lonely decades, savage almost, with fountains covered in green mold and monstrous, untended shrubbery. The Citizen looked slightly better than this. But not by much.

  To the back and right of the grounds stood the tree house. And it wasn’t just any old tree house. Chester and Clara had a daughter, as well as a son, and they loved her more than life itself. So of course she had no choice but to grow up rotten to the core, or die young. She died young. Her parents built her a miniature mansion in the trees, where she played, pretty and spoiled and oblivious, until one day she fell out of the tree house, broke her neck, and died.

  River and I followed Jack. We followed him and the other kids right up to the kid-killing tree house. The paint was long gone. The wooden boards were warped and gray, with rusted nails sticking out, dying to give someone lockjaw. The gable roof was sagging in the middle, one strong wind away from caving in.

  The kids fanned out around Jack, forming a circle around the tree. River and I drew close and rounded out the edges. Jack put two hands on the tree and scrambled up what remained of the wooden boards that had been nailed into the trunk as steps. We all watched, necks craned upward. Jack kicked in the rotted-out door of the tree house and went inside.

  My heart beat once. Twice.

  The door opened, and there he was again, Isobel next to him. She smiled a shy smile and waved at the crowd of kids below, as if the whole thing was nothing. As if kids went missing and spent two long nights in decaying, grandiose tree houses all the time, eating God knew what and sleeping on the hard floor and worrying everyone half to death.

  Isobel hopped down the tree and was swallowed by the throng of kids. They shouted and whooped and congratulated her on not being kidnapped and possibly dead and taken to hell. I saw her brother Charlie give her a bear hug, their black curls blending into each other until you didn’t know where one ended and the other began.

  But Jack stayed where he was, up in the tree house. I squinted up at him and then looked at River, and saw that they were looking at each other.

  My heart beat once. Twice.

  We left the kids. We walked back to the town square and stood in front of the café. I fidgeted for a while, not saying anything. Luke and Sunshine were inside; I could see them through the café window, standing by the counter. They must have wandered into town while River and I were in the cemetery.

  I didn’t stand close to River, and he didn’t stand close to me. I turned to face the square while he stayed at the window. A ray of sunshine broke through the gray sky, darted around a cloud, and hit me full in the face.

  Silence.

  Silence.

  “So, is she going to be all right?”

  “Who?”

  “River, you know who. Isobel.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Should we tell anyone, like the cops or anything? Tell them that she’s been found?”

  “No. Word will get around fast enough.”

  I paused. “So . . . there’s no Devil?”

  “No.”

  I tried to catch River’s gaze, to read his expression, but he was still facing the café and wouldn’t look at me.

  “How did you know where Isobel was? How could you possibly have known where she was?” I stepped closer, put my hand on his arm. “River. What did Jack really see in the cemetery? He wasn’t lying. I know he wasn’t. What’s going on? And how did you become part of all this? What did Jack mean, when he said you told him to go look for the Devil in the cemetery?”

  River just shook his head and continued to stare at the café window. “Look, I’ll tell you about it later. I promise. But right now all I want to do is get Luke and Sunshine, and have a bonfire by the sea.” He paused. “Yeah, that sounds like a great idea. I like to have a bonfire after exciting events. It calms people down.” He caught my eye then. “Me included.”

  I looked down at Freddie’s dress. I was wearing the faded blue-flowered one. I gripped a bit of the fabric in my hand and squeezed it tight. Pushing River was only going to get me less of what I wanted, not more. “All right. Let’s have a bonfire.”

  I turned and waved at Sunshine through the café window. She and Luke left the counter and headed outside. Gianni was working instead of Maddy, and he gave me a small nod and a smile. Which I returned. I could just make out a copy of Fresh Cup Magazine on the counter—the latest issue, no doubt. I wondered if Gianni hoped I would come in, so he could talk to me about it.

  “Did you hear?” Sunshine said, sidling in between me and River. “Turns out the missing girl wasn’t missing at all. She spent the last few nights in the Glenship tree house, drinking dew and eating nothing but wild strawberries, according to my sources.”

  River looked at me, one eyebrow raised in a cocky way that, for a second, reminded me of Luke. And I liked River a little bit less for it.

  “How did you find that out already, Sunshine? It just happened. River and I were there, we—”

  Luke interrupted me. “So I guess those boys made the whole Devil thing up. The one chance our town has at fame, and we blow it. Figures.”

  “Shut up, Luke. Maybe those boys really did see the Devil.” I paused. “Like how Sunshine saw Blue, in the tunnel.”

  Sunshine glared at me for a second. Then her eyes went sleepy again as she turned to River. “So where have you been? Luke said Vi’s been doing nothing but wandering around the house, wringing her hands and wailing since you took off.”

  Luke grinned at me.

  Sometimes I really hated my brother.

  “Luke is lying,” I said to River. “I didn’t even notice you were gone.”

  River smiled. “And I thought I was the only liar around here.” He stepped forward and put one arm around Sunshine’s shoulders and the other around Luke’s. “Enough about devils and tunnels and mysterious travels. The sun’s come out and I’ve decided to have a bonfire on the beach. Everyone’s invited.” River’s brown eyes were lit up like July fireflies. The serious, shadowed River from earlier was gone. Completely gone. As if he’d never even existed.

  I was worried, I was. I felt a sharp tingle in the pit of my stomach that said All Is Not Right Here, even as I looked at River’s smiling face and firefly eyes.

  But he had come back, and the truth was . . . the truth was that it made me happy. Maybe it shouldn’t have, I don’t know. But then, who was I to slap a bit of joy in the face? We were going to have a bonfire together on the beach, and everything else could just go to hell.

  The bonfire. A steep trail led from the road by Sunshine’s house to the ocean, winding down the cliff and ending in a small, secluded cove. There was a much bigger public beach down the coast a mile or so, but I liked my little private spot because it couldn’t be seen from above, and so no one knew it existed. I often visited it by myself, just to read, alone, in the sand, the waves crashing nearby.

  Luke and Sunshine and I swam down there sometimes too. The ocean was usually too cold and fierce for it, but some blue, calm days, it was all right, and we would take a picnic basket to the cove and splash around for a while. Sunshine had a slick white swimsuit that she loved to tuck her curves into and run around in. And I had an old, vintage suit of Freddie’s, of course. It was navy trimmed with white, and it had a little belt. It covered most of me except my arms and legs.

  I liked t
hose swimming days. We were always cold and always laughing. Sometimes Luke held me under the water, or kissed Sunshine in the sand, but mostly we just had a really good time. For all that Luke complained to River about spending the summer with two girls, I think he actually kind of loved hanging out with us. At least, he never bothered finding anyone else.

  It wasn’t nearly warm enough for swimming now, but the sun had shoved the clouds away, and it was bright and blue again and barely past morning. Luke dug up a bottle of port from the Citizen’s dusty Cask of Amontillado wine cellar, and took turns sipping from the bottle with Sunshine while River and I gathered dried-out driftwood into a pile and set it on fire. I’d found an old camping grill in the basement while Luke was looking for the wine, and River made grilled cheese, tomato, and mustard sandwiches for lunch.

  Sunshine had taken some quilts from the Citizen, and after we ate, the four of us curled up on the blankets in the sand and watched the flames dance orange-yellow-red against the blue sea.

  I had my own blanket, and River had his. We didn’t sit near each other and I didn’t even look at him.

  Mostly.

  River was lying on his back, knees bent, his pretty, bare feet tucked halfway into the sand. He must have felt me staring at him, because he turned his head and winked at me, slow and casual, as if he knew that I was beginning to distrust him a bit, and he wanted to show me he didn’t all that much care.

  There was something about sleeping next to a person that was . . . dangerous. More dangerous than sleeping with a person, maybe. Not that I would know. But being next to River, in the same bed, and waking up beside him, did bad things to my mind. I felt as if I knew him already. Like how I knew Sunshine, and Luke, and my parents. Like how I knew Freddie.

  But I didn’t. At all. And that knowing feeling, based on nothing, was dangerous. And, I felt, not quite sane.

  “So Violet, get this.”

  Sunshine was all tucked up next to my brother, her elbow on his thigh, her hand on the bottle of wine, her long dark hair touching the sand.

  “Get what?” I asked as I shoved her arm off Luke’s leg.

  “I had a dream last night. A dream about a giraffe.”

  I took the bottle out of Sunshine’s hand and set it behind my back. It was almost gone. “A giraffe?”

  “Yeah, this giraffe that I was friends with. You see, this giraffe had a party, and I helped her clean up afterward. I never dream about giraffes. Do little kids even dream about giraffes? But here’s where it gets interesting. I read the front page of the Portland paper at the café and it said some giraffe at some zoo died yesterday. And I just realized that it probably means something. Don’t you think that it means something? I think it means something.”

  Sunshine was drunk. She would never have talked about her dreams otherwise. Sunshine hated illogical things, like dreams and fairy tales and Salvador Dalí.

  “Sunshine, you’re drunk,” I said.

  She raised her eyebrows. “Didn’t you hear, Violet? Boys like drunk girls.” At this, Sunshine turned over on her side in the sand, lifted her arm, and let it fall in a gentle arc onto her hip. Then she wiggled. Just a little bit. Just in the exact right spot.

  Sunshine continued to amaze me with her ability to draw attention to what she considered her most interesting parts. Without seeming to try.

  Luke stood up, reached around me, and took the port bottle. “That’s right, Sunshine. We do like drunk girls. What do you think, River? I bet you’ve had a few drunk girls in your time. Less fuss, I say.” My brother paused and took a swig from the bottle. “Women are always making it so hard for us men to get the one thing nature intended for us to have. It’s such a shame.”

  So Luke was at it again. I thought he might give up the man-love talk with River, but the wine had brought it back. River shook his head at Luke’s comment and kind of laughed. Sometimes my brother said things that were so, well, wrong, in so many ways, it was impossible to do anything but laugh.

  Luke grinned at River and drank down the last of the port in one long gulp. He reached his arm back and threw the empty bottle into the bumping, grinding waves of the sea.

  “Luke, what the hell did you do that for?” I gestured at the water. “The bottle will break and someone will walk along the beach and cut their feet.”

  “Shut up, Vi. No one but us even knows about this spot.”

  “I can’t believe you think throwing a bottle at the ocean makes you look cool. It’s so dumb, I don’t even have words to describe how dumb it is. It’s speech-sucking dumb.”

  “Stop squabbling, siblings.” Sunshine put her hands on the sand and pushed herself to her feet. “The fire’s almost out and the wind is picking up. Let’s go back. Let’s, you know, go play in the Citizen’s attic. Come on, Violet, we haven’t done that in years. It’ll be fun. Come on.” She took my arm and began to tug on it.

  “Okay, okay,” I said to Sunshine. I turned to River. “Want to see the attic? It’s big and dusty and scary.”

  “Yep,” he said.

  So we all climbed back up the trail to the road and walked home.

  Jack was waiting.

  CHAPTER 12

  “I WANT YOU to show me how you do it,” he said.

  Jack was standing on the steps of the Citizen. He stared at River for a second, and then repeated himself. “Show me how you do it.”

  River tilted his head and smiled. “Do what?”

  “The magic.” Jack kept staring, and his expression began to match River’s—cagey, and smart, and suspicious.

  I looked at Luke and Sunshine. They were laughing and flirting with each other in a drunk, shameless way, and not paying attention.

  But I was paying attention. I watched River closely. Very closely.

  Because I knew. I knew that River sneaking away during Casablanca and the kids seeing the Devil in the cemetery weren’t two separate things. I just didn’t know how yet.

  River leaned down and whispered something in Jack’s ear. Jack nodded. Then River stood back up. “Jack,” he said, out loud now, “do you want to explore a dusty, scary attic?”

  Jack glared at River for a second and then shrugged.

  So we all walked through the Citizen, up the marble staircase, down the second-floor hall, past Freddie’s room, which was now my room, and up to the third floor, past Luke’s bedroom, past the old ballroom that was now the art gallery, until we reached the rickety spiral staircase at the end of the hall that led to the attic.

  The Citizen’s attic was, objectively, breathtaking. The place was littered with trunks and old clothes and wardrobes and pieces of furniture and strange metal toys no one had played with in sixty years and half-painted canvases and on and on. There were several round windows to let in the sunlight, and I loved how it raked its way across the floor as I watched, dust dancing like sugarplum fairies in the bold yellow glow. If attics could make wishes, this one would have nothing to wish for.

  “Will I find Narnia inside there?” Jack asked, pointing to a tall wardrobe against the wall. He was wearing dark jeans that were too big, and a faded brown T-shirt. Over the T-shirt he had a green army-style jacket, which was also too big but looked kind of cool on him. It had a lot of pockets, which was probably why Jack liked it.

  Jack turned to River and me, and he was smiling about the wardrobe, his thin lips parting and his freckles shifting with the movement. “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is a good book.”

  So there was still a little kid inside Jack after all. A little kid that liked fantasy books and wardrobes.

  River smiled. “There’s no way Narnia isn’t in that thing. I’m going in.”

  Moth-eaten fur coats began to fly as they dug their way to the back of the tall, deep cupboard. I went over to the old wind-up phonograph in the corner and began to sift through the yellowed record sleeves, occasionally stopping to
push my hair out of my face so I could lean in closer. By the time the tips of my hair were covered with dust, I’d found what I wanted.

  I put the record on the player and turned the crank. The rustling blues of Robert Johnson filled the attic.

  After River and Jack disemboweled the Narnia wardrobe of all its old coats, it served as the attic’s changing room. Sunshine put on a wrinkled saffron dress that was two sizes too small in the chest, which suited her fine. My brother found a dashing pinstriped suit, probably one of our grandpa’s. When he came out of the wardrobe I wanted to say he looked good, and that he should dress like this all the time, and hey it’s pretty awesome to wear your dead relative’s clothes . . . but I kept my mouth shut, because I was afraid he would take the suit back off.

  I pulled a black party dress and fake pearls out of a wooden trunk—very Breakfast at Tiffany’s—and went into the wardrobe to put the dress on. When I came out, River took one look at me and grinned. A nice, kind of appreciative grin.

  “You need to put your hair up,” he said.

  So I dug around in a small box of cheap jewelry until I had gathered a handful of bobby pins. Then River appeared behind me, and, with his long, tan fingers, started lifting my hair, one strand at a time, twirling it and pinning it until it was all piled on my head in a graceful twist. My hair was thick with dried salt from sitting on the beach, and tangled from the wind, but River made it look pretty damn elegant, all things considered. When he was done, I went over and looked at myself in one of the long dressing mirrors—it was warped and stained with age, but I could still see half my face pretty well.

  “How did you learn how to do that?” I asked, putting my hand to my hair. “Wait . . . let me guess. Your mother is a barber.”

  River laughed, but his eyes didn’t join in. “No. My mother is . . . invited to a lot of parties. While she puts on makeup and picks out her jewelry, we talk. She taught me how to do her hair when I was a kid. So that’s how I know.”

  What River was telling me sounded personal. It sounded . . . real. As in, not a lie. So I was interested, and my tongue itched to ask some follow-up questions. But River walked away and started digging through a red trunk by the record player. Done talking, apparently.