Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

by Tucholke, April Genevieve

  “That sounds like us,” River replied, giving me an odd look I couldn’t quite decipher.

  Neely ran a hand up and down his right forearm in a thoughtful gesture. “Echo. What a nice name for a town. It’s perfect. An echo of all the things that came before it. How many places is this now? Eight, nine?” Neely noticed what he was doing with his hand, and stopped. “When are you going to quit running away, River? Because I’m thinking if you don’t stop soon, I’ll have to beat you. Bad. With my fists. And I’d rather not.”

  “It’s eight. Eight towns. Unless you’re counting Archer, which you shouldn’t. No one even died that time.”

  Neely laughed again, a darker laugh—it had a bitter streak in it now. “So the towns without death counts don’t even register. Good to know. Jesus, River. I’m not sure whether to put you out of your misery or worship you.”

  So River had run away before. And people had died then too. I felt an ache deep inside me, as if I’d been bitten by sharp, frigid cold . . . though the morning was warm enough. I looked back and forth between the two boys and wondered what the hell I’d gotten myself into.

  River reached over and put his hand on Neely’s arm. “I’ve got everything under control this time. I promise.”

  Neely shook his brother’s hand off. “You always say that.” His cheeks were red. It had started in one small spot on each side, when River said Archer didn’t count, but now the blush covered him from neck to scalp.

  River’s mouth tightened, and I saw the dimple in his jaw, where he clenched it too hard. And his eyes . . . the last time River’s eyes went narrow like that, a man killed himself in the town square.

  “Cornelius, don’t pick a fight with me. It won’t end well.”

  “Dad is the only person allowed to call me Cornelius,” Neely said. His voice was wound tight and the laughter was gone from his eyes, and I felt creepy, witnessing this brother fight, like some kind of verbal Peeping Tom.

  “And how is Dad these days? What’s it like, playing the good son all the time? Does it ever get old?” River and Neely stared at each for a second. “I’m trying to stop, Neely,” River said finally. “I am. If I go back home, it’ll start all over again. And I’m not as good as I used to be. The glow is changing—”

  “You’re trying to stop?” Neely let out a short laugh. “Some job you’re doing, River. Every place you go erupts into chaos within hours.” Neely closed his eyes, put his fingers to his flushed temples. Then he opened them and looked at me. “Ask him about Rattlesnake Albee.”

  “River, what happened in Rattlesnake Albee?” I asked, sort of quiet, and realizing halfway through that I didn’t really want to hear the answer. I wanted to walk out the door and go hang out by the ocean and not come back until I’d figured out how to raise Freddie from the dead.

  River unscrewed the moka pot and began to fill the small cup inside with espresso. He didn’t look at me. “Nothing happened in Rattlesnake Albee. Neely is blowing things out of proportion, as usual. It’s just a small town on the prairie that I stumbled across, once upon a time. I thought it would be fun for some of its citizens to believe that they were in the middle of an Indian attack, pioneer style. How was I to know that everyone in town had a shotgun?”

  Neely glared at his brother. “The entire town of twenty-three people. Dead. In one hour. How exactly am I blowing that out of proportion? How would a person blow that into proportion?”

  “Look, no innocents died. The whole town was past retirement age and mean as villains in a Shakespeare play. I’d been in the place all of five minutes and I saw a man beat his horse with a whip and a woman throw a cat out an upstairs window. A sign at the church said All women are the Devil’s concubines, all children, his pawns. The town held an annual celebration in honor of the black plague for ridding the world of filth. Need I go on? I did the world a favor.”

  “No,” Neely said. “You played God.”

  “I am a god.”

  Neely threw an arm in the air. “Well, there you go. What can I say to that? How do I reason with a god?”

  “Why didn’t I hear about this? A whole town up and shoots itself to death. Why didn’t that make the news?” I went to stand between Neely and River. A black, furry dread was growing in my belly. River wouldn’t kill a whole town. That wasn’t just mischief, or vengeance. That was evil. Devil evil.

  “Because Rattlesnake Albee was in the middle of nowhere, so no one cared.” River paused. “And because me and my father made sure no one cared.”

  There was a long silence.

  “You know, you and Dad are more alike than you think,” Neely said. “Things would get a lot easier for you if you’d start seeing that.”

  River whipped his gaze toward his brother. “And you wonder why I keep leaving. Don’t you think I know how much I’m like him? And don’t you think it scares the hell out of me? Go home, Neely. We’re done here.”

  Neely didn’t move. He blinked a few times. “I read about those teenagers. What you did to them. Making them think they were on fire. For two hours. Two hours of screaming. Writhing in agony while their parents looked on, helpless.” Neely gestured to the bruise by his eye. “I found myself a frat bar and got into a fight with a trust-fund dick after I read that. And every time my fist hit his face, I wished it was you.”

  River took a step back and put his hands up. “Kids on fire? Neely, what are you talking about?”

  “The teenagers at that park in Texas a few weeks ago. I’ve got the newspaper in the car. Did you think I wouldn’t find out?”

  River shook his head. “I’ve never even been to Texas.”

  Neely slammed his fist down on the table. “Stop lying.”

  “Neely, I swear that I have no idea what you’re talking about. I. Have. Never. Been. To. Texas. You’re my brother, Neely. If you don’t believe me anymore, then who will?”

  “I want to believe you, River. You have no idea how much I want to believe you. I love you. I love you more than anything in world. But you. Are. Killing. Me. I hate the things you do. I hate them. I hate them so much, I have to punch strangers until they bleed, just to keep from going crazy. It’s driving me mad. Mad. I feel like I’m losing it, really losing it, sometimes . . . and it scares me, River. I’m scared.”

  River looked from his brother, to me, and back again, and his look was hurt and bitter and sharp as the razor that sliced up Daniel Leap. “You know what?” River said, after a moment of silence. “Go to hell. Both of you.”

  And then he walked out the door.

  I made to go after him, but Neely blocked my way. “River needs to be alone for a while. He’ll be back to his old self in a few hours. It’s always like this, at first, when we see each other.”

  I leaned against the door frame and watched River until he disappeared into the woods. “Yeah. I have a brother too.” I glanced toward the shed. “I know about fighting.”

  Neely looked at me then, really looked at me. And grinned. The red had started fading from his face, and I noticed his broken nose again.

  “Hello there, Violet White,” he said. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Cornelius Redding of the East Coast Reddings, and I’ve got a magical, murdering brother and one hell of a temper.” He laughed.

  I laughed right back, and Neely and I stood there, looking at each other and laughing somehow, after all of that, and the ocean wind blew in and I could smell Neely. Chamomile shampoo and clean clothes and dirt and forest and midnight.

  No . . . not midnight. Noon. High noon.

  Sun, not stars.

  CHAPTER 20

  “WHAT ARE YOU doing?” Sunshine walked into my bedroom without knocking because everyone had decided not to knock anymore, I guess. “Luke and the kid are painting,” she continued. “I heard about the new guy in the guesthouse, and I went over there to see if he wanted to meet me, but it was empty. And I’m bored. S
o I went looking for you. What’s that on the nightstand? Is that a frog? A frog made from a hundred-dollar bill?”

  “Thinking,” I replied, in answer to her first question. “I’m just lying here, thinking.” I moved my legs so Sunshine could sit down on my bed, but she walked over to the full-length mirror and began admiring her breasts and her long brown hair instead. “And yes, it’s an origami frog. River keeps leaving them for me. I’m not too proud.”

  Saying it makes it true.

  Sunshine just shook her head. “I’m hearing all kinds of things about you these days, Violet. Sleeping in River’s bed. And now this.” She waved her hand at the frog. “Wow.”

  “He’s worried I’ll run out of money and I’ll need to buy groceries, or something.”

  “That’s a justifiable concern.” Sunshine pushed her long hair behind her back and faced me. “But leaving you frog money on your nightstand is still . . . weird.”

  But I didn’t want to talk about River. My laughing with Neely had released something. I wasn’t sure what it was. But I felt . . . better. Clearer. And without River in my head, I could think about other things, like Freddie, and Jack’s painting, and the thing that stirred in me when I saw Luke and Jack working in the shed together, and stirred again when I saw River and Neely drinking coffee.

  I sat up. “Freddie told me something, once. She was getting ready for Christmas dinner—we’d prepared the meal all by ourselves because we’d had to lay the cook off a few months before—and she’d put on an old, slinky black dress and looked kind of far away and sad. Not because we were running out of money, which she didn’t care about. It was because she thought it might be her last Christmas. And it was.”

  I paused for a second, and blinked, fast, a few times. “She was brushing her hair in front of that mirror. I was watching her reflection, and admiring the way her black dress matched the cross on the wall behind her, and thinking how good they would look lined up against the moss-green wall. I wondered if I should try to paint it. But then she put the hairbrush down and turned to me. She said, Hide your letters, Vi. Hide your letters, but not so well, your loved ones can’t find them after you’re dead.”

  Sunshine’s wispy brown eyebrows went up. She came over and sat next to me on the bed.

  “I’ve been looking for those letters ever since,” I said. “I’ve got to find them, Sunshine. Soon. It . . . feels important, for some reason.”

  “Well, I’ve got nothing better to do.” Sunshine stood back up, went over to my dresser, and started pulling out drawers and looking behind them.

  I smiled. Sunshine was a good sport sometimes.

  We tore through the two dressers in the bedroom. Nothing. We looked behind the seven paintings in the room, hoping to find something taped to the back. Nothing. We dug around in the closet, and under the bed. I’d done all of this before, but I did it again.

  And still, nothing.

  Until. Until I pictured Freddie again in my mind. I pictured her turning away from the mirror in her black dress, catching my eye, and then turning her gaze to . . .

  I went over to the dark wooden cross on the wall, and took it down. It was heavier than it looked—two inches thick, with the simple cut of a medieval monk’s. I turned it over. I pressed the back with my thumb. And it moved.

  The back of the cross slid open. There was an empty black compartment, about twelve inches long and three inches wide. I put the cross back.

  “Follow me,” I said. And Sunshine did.

  We walked to the guesthouse. No one was there, as Sunshine said. Neely had probably gone in search of River.

  I went into River’s bedroom and opened the top drawer of the dresser. The cross was still there, right where I’d seen him put it. I picked it up, turned it over, and pressed in the exact same spot with my thumbs.

  The back panel slid open.

  “Here we go,” Sunshine said, because, as the panel opened, two sheets of folded paper fell out and drifted down to our feet.

  I smiled.

  June 21, 1947

  Freddie—

  Last night was a mistake.

  I’ve been in love with you since the first moment I saw you, since the first moment I moved into your guesthouse, since the first moment you snapped your fingers, and then took off all your clothes in front of me, shameless and free as the hoochie coochie girls I saw in the dance halls of Europe.

  I loved painting you. I loved tracing the sharp curve of your elbow with charcoal, loved bringing the pink sheen of your skin to life on canvas, loved mixing the perfect blue for your eyes. I loved it when you draped yourself over my sofa, in nothing but your white skin, relaxed as a kitten in the sun. I loved how you drank sloe gin from a flask like a drugstore cowboy. I loved how you never wanted to know who I was, or where I came from, because it didn’t matter to you. The only thing that mattered was what you saw in front of you. And you liked it. Liked me. I think.

  But you have a husband. And I . . . I have nothing. Nothing but a handful of brushes and an itch in my fingers to draw.

  I’m packing my things now. And by the time you wake up, by the time the decent, stoic Lucas returns, I’ll be gone. Back to the city. I left you two of my paintings. They were your favorites.

  —John

  I knew. I knew even before I read the next letter.

  February 27, 1950

  Freddie—

  It’s been a long time. Three years, I think, this summer. You could have told me a long time ago. You should have told me a long time ago. But I forgive you. I suppose you thought I would come back and cause trouble . . . go howling into the night or fight a duel. But you should have known it’s not my way. I’ve never had the fiery artistic temperament that made my fellow painters notorious.

  I married recently, a girl from Echo. Ann Marie Thompson—yes, the pretty blond girl that worked for you as a maid, some time back. We ran into each other at a dance in New York, a few months ago. She’s a ducky shin-cracker, Freddie. You’d never believe it. She’s almost as good as you.

  We will be moving back to Echo in the next few weeks. As I said, I won’t cause trouble. We will be like strangers.

  But it will make me happy, to see the boy, once in a while, just in passing.

  —John

  P.S. You named him after me. That was kind.

  “Does this mean what I think it means?” Sunshine and I had walked back to my bedroom in silence. Now we were sitting on the bed, the letters handed back and forth between us as we read them over and over and over.

  “Yeah, I think so,” I said, but my voice wasn’t working right. I cleared my throat.

  “Your dad’s name is John,” Sunshine said. She was watching me closely, trying to figure out what I was going to do—if I was going to stomp around or throw things, or what, though I knew that she knew I wouldn’t.

  “Yes, I know what my dad’s name is, Sunshine.”

  “And this ‘John’ was an artist, and your dad is an artist, and you and Luke are artists.”

  “Yes, I know. So what?”

  Sunshine threw her arms up in the air. “Rich people.”

  I gave her a sidelong glance, and I supposed my so-what expression was kind of fragile-looking, because she stood up and went to the door without another word.

  But then she stopped and turned around, and her face was . . . sad . . . and thoughtful, and very un-Sunshine. “Vi . . . I think you’d better see if Freddie hid any other letters.” She watched me a moment.

  I nodded.

  She left.

  Freddie had looked at me like that sometimes. Sad. Thoughtful. Mainly when she was worried about Luke beating on me, or my hating him, or my parents being gone too long.

  I went to the ballroom. I sat under my grandpa Lucas’s painting until the sun set, just thinking about things and feeling like I could probably st
art crying, if I let myself.

  But I didn’t.

  CHAPTER 21

  THERE WAS ANOTHER movie in the town square that night.

  Luke and Jack were still painting. I wanted to talk to them about the letters, both of them, but didn’t have it in me yet.

  Besides, there were more. I was sure of it.

  But where?

  Where had I seen another black cross?

  River was still nowhere to be found, which meant a kind of ache was starting in my insides. I didn’t know what it meant, or why it was there. I tried to ignore it.

  Sunshine invited us for supper. Her parents had cooked up a roast chicken with fingerling potatoes and crème fraîche. Luke and Jack went, but I stayed behind. I didn’t feel like small-talking. What I felt like doing was sitting on the front steps and staring at the sea, which is how Neely found me.

  “Want to go to an old movie?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said. “More than anything.”

  I packed a picnic for Neely and me, just like the one River had packed for me and him and Casablanca. But it wasn’t the same. Now there was a devil, and a ghost, and a murdered man, and twenty-three dead people in a nowhere town called Rattlesnake Albee.

  I considered telling Neely about the tunnel when we passed by it on our way into town. I considered telling him what River showed Sunshine while they were inside it together. But I didn’t say anything, in the end. I figured Neely would either laugh, or get into a fight with someone. I wasn’t sure which was worse.

  “So River’s run off before?” I asked, after a few minutes of silence.

  “Yep,” Neely said. He slid his arm under mine and took the handle of the picnic basket from me.

  “And you always have to come get him?”

  “Yep.”

  “And then the two of you get into a fight, and he disappears for a while, and then you both go home.”

  “That’s the way it works.” Neely glanced at me. “He won’t stay, Violet. I don’t know what he’s told you, but he won’t stay. He never stays anywhere, not for very long. Including home.”