Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

by Tucholke, April Genevieve

  “Did you follow me and Gianni to the Glenship, Neely?” I asked him.

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  Neely didn’t answer.

  “Any sign of River?” I asked.

  He shook his head.

  “Why did you hit Gianni?”

  “Because I had to. We were running out of time and I needed him to listen to me.”

  “So you just hit people? That’s what you do?”

  Neely grinned. “No, I’m a philanderer. I . . . philander.”

  I laughed. I didn’t mean to, but I did. I gestured to the fridge. “Do you want some lemonade with ginger?”

  “You bet I do,” he answered.

  I made up another batch of Freddie’s feel-good juice while Neely watched, and then poured out two glasses. He took a sip, and sighed. “I feel bad about punching Gianni. It wasn’t his fault, what happened to him. Don’t get me wrong, I like a good fight. But that was . . . an unnecessary evil.” Neely put his hand in his hair and messed it up. He looked so much like River that I stopped breathing for a second.

  Neely put his hand down. His hair stayed tangled up. “It was just, the thought of him hurting a kid, hurting you, hurting whoever else, I just lost it . . .” His voice drifted off.

  I leaned against the table. “River doesn’t feel all that sorry for anything he does.”

  “My brother’s not as bad as he seems.” Neely looked up at me. His bruise was a darker purple in the candlelight, as if it had gotten worse throughout the day rather than better.

  “I know he’s not,” I replied.

  “He’s living with a gift. A powerful gift. And he’s alone. He has no one to talk to about it, no one to help him figure out right from wrong.”

  I drank my lemonade and didn’t say anything. I put my hand to the back of my neck. I’d gotten that tingling feeling, the one I’d felt before in the kitchen at night, the one that said Someone is watching you. I turned around. No one. I looked out the dark kitchen windows, into the night. Nothing but Neely and me, reflected back in the glass.

  I thought of the laughter in the Glenship attic. Shivered.

  Neely stood up and took off his Windbreaker. He wore a black T-shirt underneath, but that wasn’t what caught my eye. I was looking at the long pink scar that ran from Neely’s neck down the length of his right arm.

  “Damn,” I said. And instantly wished I could take it back. Still, I wanted to reach out and touch that scar. I wanted to take my fingernails to it, peel it off, and see the clean, smooth Neely skin underneath. I fought the urge.

  “It’s okay,” he said. He grinned. “Sometimes I still lose my breath when I look at it in the mirror. You can touch it, if you want.”

  I did. I ran my fingers down his neck and then down his arm. The scar ended at his wrist, and the pale skin there was hairless and soft. Softer than it should have been.

  “It’s a challenge, keeping the thing hidden,” he said. “Especially when you’re a yacht brat who likes to take his shirt off in the sun like every other person.”

  “How did it happen?”

  Neely laughed. It was a quiet little thing, but still, a laugh.

  “River was fourteen,” he said, the corners of his mouth still twitching, “and I had just turned thirteen. My brother didn’t know about the glow yet. He was beginning to suspect something, though. He was beginning to suspect that he was . . . different. River and I were out on the beach one day, having a bonfire. River likes to start a fire whenever he’s upset about something. And, before long, the two of us got into a fight. When I wasn’t fighting other kids, I was fighting River.” Neely paused and smiled a little bit. “Me and my fights. Usually River knew how to handle me, how to talk me down while avoiding my fists. But that time, he lost control.”

  I knew this story. I knew what was coming. I closed my eyes. So River didn’t lie. Sometimes he didn’t lie. Not entirely.

  Neely’s hand brushed my arm. “It wasn’t his fault. That time it really wasn’t. He was mad and thought something at me. We all do it, think bad things at a person when we’re mad at them. But River’s thoughts aren’t just thoughts. They’re weapons. We were fighting in the sand, and I had him pinned, and . . . he made me see something. The bloody corpse of a girl. Floating in the ocean by my feet. Very morbid, very River. He didn’t mean to. He just thought it, and it . . . happened. But I got scared, and started running. Then I tripped. And fell. Right into the fire.”

  I opened my eyes.

  Neely put a hand on his scar and shook his head. “I fell right into the flames, Violet. I was on fire. River pushed me onto the ground and threw sand on me to stop the burning. He was yelling out my name and crying. Then I passed out, and that’s all I remember. I spent the next month in the hospital. The world’s most expensive doctors did what they could. And this is what is left.”

  Neely looked down at his arm. He was still kind of smiling, but his eyes looked darker.

  I put my fingertips on the puckered white-pink skin of Neely’s forearm. “I’m sorry,” I said, because I couldn’t think of anything else.

  “Look, I know that River’s done . . . bad things.” Neely paused. “I know about the old vintner. And the Spanish twins. And that little Scottish girl. I know about all of it, all of the others. And I hate it. I hate it so much. But River is my brother. He was there every time I shot my mouth off as a kid, every time my temper took over and I was suddenly fighting three kids at once, all of them bigger than me. He never backed down, never ran, never told our dad, never even asked me to stop, or try to change. He’s broken his right hand six times. He’s always been there for me. Always.”

  I wanted to ask about the vintner, and the twins, and the Scottish girl. I wanted to hear more about River as a kid, before the glow.

  But when I opened my mouth, what I said was: “I heard laughter.” I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. “I heard laughter in the attic. Before you arrived. It wasn’t Gianni. There was someone, back in the shadows, watching and laughing. And it wasn’t sane. It was hysterical. And terrifying. And—”

  “Hey, just forget about all that.” Neely took my wrist for a second. And then let it go. “Just don’t think about it. I’m going to take my brother home and this will all stop. Okay? River . . . he isn’t himself.”

  Neely sat back down on the couch and rested his head against the wall. “I think he’s gotten himself addicted to the glow, like it’s some sort of drug. He keeps running away, and maybe it is because he wants to stop using it. I don’t know. But my brother gets bored, or meets someone he doesn’t like, or gets fired up by some injustice, and . . .” Neely looked at me. And smiled. But it was sad this time. A sad crooked smile that matched his crooked nose, and it looked good on him. “And people end up dead. Always.”

  I sat down on the sofa, right next to him, and we stayed like that for a while, our arms touching. I smelled the ocean, like always, and Neely’s high noon-ness, and I felt . . . better.

  And then the back of my neck tingled again.

  I wished I could see, suddenly. The kitchen corners were full of shadows, and I hadn’t turned on any lights. Was River out there in the night, watching us? Or was I still just spooked? Maybe I’d imagined the laughter in the attic.

  Maybe I’d been scared insane.

  Was that possible?

  I suspected that it was.

  But no . . . Jack had heard the laughter too.

  “I don’t know what to do, other than make him come back home,” Neely said finally. “Even though he’ll just run away again.”

  I didn’t meet Neely’s eyes. I didn’t tell him about the damn, stupid ache I felt at the thought of River leaving. I didn’t trust it.

  Neely got to his feet again, put his Windbreaker back on, and zipped it up to his chin. “Violet, I’ve got a favor to ask.”


  “Okay . . .”

  “I think it’s great what’s going on between you two. You and River.” He looked at me, and I knew from the glint in his eyes that he was thinking about how he first saw me, rumpled, in River’s bed. “But. I think you need to stop letting River touch you. Hear me out. I have a feeling, an intuition, that the only way for River to get better is to stop using the glow. Except when he absolutely needs to. So you have to stop letting him touch you. Can you do this for him?”

  I shook my head. “Neely, I’m lost. What does River’s touching me have to do with the glow?”

  Neely just stared at me. “You mean you don’t know? He didn’t tell you?” He pounded his fist on the table, hard and fast and loud. One of the candles fell over and went out. Half the kitchen fell into shadow. I was still sitting on the couch and he loomed over me. I got to my feet and he still loomed over me. He was just so tall. Even his voice sounded tall. “River needs to touch people to use the glow. He can’t make you see something unless he’s had some kind of physical contact in the recent past. There used to be a glow window of about an hour or two but now he can make it last for days sometimes. His glow is . . . changing. Becoming stronger. Or weaker. Who knows.”

  He smacked the table again, and the other candle went out. The kitchen was dark now. I could still see Neely, but not well.

  “I can’t believe he didn’t tell you. He had you in his bed, touching you, making you see, making you feel . . . who knows what, and he didn’t even tell you how his glow worked?” Neely tilted his head back, and I thought he was going to laugh again. But, instead, he let out an anguished, frustrated kind of yell. I jumped back, startled.

  Neely’s yell started my thoughts running, running wild—

  River, wrapping his arm around Sunshine. River, showing Jack how to use his yo-yo, hand on his shoulder, River, wrapping his arms around me in the cemetery, kissing me, River shaking Gianni’s hand at the pizza joint, River taking the glass of whisky, River’s fingers next to Luke’s on the Ouija board pointer, River kissing me, touching me, touching me, touching me . . .

  “It’s wrong. It’s bad for you, Violet. He can make you think things. Things that aren’t true. I love him. But I’ll be the first to say that he’s unstable. And dangerous. More dangerous than anyone I’ve ever known, or will ever know. You have to stop letting him touch you.”

  But I was barely listening because my brain was all smashed up and my thoughts were shattered and broken and bloody on the floor. And I knew that Neely was sensing it, sensing the sad, sick feeling that was coming off of me. But I didn’t care. I didn’t care if he saw.

  I hated River.

  I hated him.

  CHAPTER 23

  NEELY LEFT. HE didn’t want to. I could tell. But he was mad at River too. We both needed to cool off. I sat alone on the edge of the kitchen sofa for a while. In the dark. Long enough for my anger to shift into exhaustion. Long enough to feel the hairs on the back of my neck begin to rise. Someone was in the room with me.

  I felt a warm body slide onto the couch beside me.

  I sighed. “River.”

  Relief. And anger. Comingling together. I wanted to shove him off the couch, make him hit the floor. But my hands wouldn’t move. And then River got up anyway and lit a candle. He watched me for a second. Then nodded. “So Neely showed you the scar.”

  “Were you eavesdropping?”

  “Sort of.” He paused. “You know, every time I look at Neely, the image comes back to me. My brother covered in flames. Because of what I did. Because of what I can do.”

  River reached down for my hand. He put it to his heart. I yanked it back.

  He sighed. “I’m hurt, Vi.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, the pink rosy haze that always surrounded the thought of me in your mind—it’s gone. Now my color is more blood red, with streaks of black in it. Which in my experience usually means fear. Or hate. Which is it, Vi?”

  “Both,” I said, in a tired voice.

  “Was it the Rattlesnake Albee story?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “The suicide?”

  “Do you know where I was tonight, River? Do you know what happened to me? Do you want to know why I smell like smoke?”

  “You went to the movie with Neely. Did you have a bonfire afterward?”

  “No. Gianni came and found me while we were watching Brief Encounter. He wanted to show me something. It was Jack, tied to a beam in the Glenship attic. He was going to throw rocks at him, River. Cut him. Set him on fire.”

  I stood up. Talking about Jack tied up and scared was making me lose my apathy. My cheeks felt flushed and my anger was coming back, fresh and tall and strong.

  “Get out, River. Leave. I mean it.”

  River didn’t move. His eyes were dead serious for once, and hurt, and even a little . . . betrayed. Could his eyes lie? Could they lie as well as his mouth?

  “Violet, that wasn’t me. I would never use the glow to hurt an innocent kid. How could you think me capable of that?”

  “You made Jack see the Devil. And you made his father slit his throat in the town square.”

  “True,” he said. He put his hands in the air, as if he was pushing away the truth. “You’re right. You’re right. Damn it. Look, I’m not sure what happened at Glenship Manor, and I don’t know what’s wrong with Gianni, but it had nothing to do with me. Are you okay, Vi? Is Jack?”

  “I heard you laughing, River.” My cheeks were on fire and the fury was flowing through me now. “In the attic. I heard you. And then I find out from Neely that you have to touch people to make them glow. How many lies is that now, River? How out of control is this glow of yours? Because part of me thinks I should save the world and brick you up in the cellar. And I haven’t made up my mind not to do it yet. You had better say something convincing. Soon.”

  River leaned his back against the kitchen door frame and sighed. He looked different, suddenly. Not sly or catlike. Just young, and sad, and kind of hopeless, which threw me, because that was not how River looked.

  “You want to know why I love Neely?” he asked me. “We fight and fight, and yet, his color of me never changes. I’m always a bright yellow. No matter what I’ve done. And I’ve done a lot. He’s never been afraid of me. Never hated me. You got to love a person for that. Unconditional devotion is blue-moon rare.”

  I watched him leaning for a bit, and didn’t answer.

  “Do you want to come up with me to the attic?” River asked, at last, in a soft voice. “I’ll stop lying,” he said. “And I’ll start talking.”

  “All right,” I said. Just like that. Because . . . because what the hell. River was leaving and it was for the best. One last night talking wouldn’t hurt. Besides, there was a part of him, the non-glowing part, that I still liked, despite everything . . . the bonfire, his taking my side against Luke, and cooking good food, and the origami animals, and the sleeping with his arms around me . . .

  Ten minutes later, River and I sat on opposite ends of the old velvet couch in the attic, listening to Robert Johnson. I loved the static crunching sound that ran on in the background of all these old-timey recordings. I breathed in deep and smelled salt on the breeze, and, underneath that, the smoke that still clung to my hair. The sea wind blew in through the round windows, which opened sideways like a coin spinning on its side, and it made the candles flicker with the regularity of a heartbeat.

  River slipped a few purple-black grapes into his mouth. I had brought up some food from the kitchen, knowing that he probably hadn’t eaten all day. And knowing that I shouldn’t care. But damn it, I did anyway. River grabbed the triangle of Gouda, cut a slice, and handed it to me. I took it from him, careful not to let our fingers touch. And then River put his arms behind his head and leaned back into the couch.

  “I heard Neely tell y
ou not to touch me.”

  I looked at him. “River, I don’t remember what happened last night. I don’t remember anything after we kissed in the kitchen. I woke up in your bed this morning feeling dizzy, and not even knowing if I had any clothes on. I don’t trust you, River. I don’t. You’re a liar. And an addict.” I paused. “Why couldn’t I remember going to sleep? Or anything that might have happened before that?”

  River shrugged. “Look, yes, I used the glow on you at first, to calm you down. You were upset about Daniel Leap. I was helping you. I didn’t intend for you to forget what happened. The glow just does that sometimes.”

  I absorbed this new information for a minute. “So first you confessed to me that you’re having trouble controlling your gift. And then Gianni went mad and kidnapped Jack tonight and I heard that laughter and you say it wasn’t you.” I gritted my teeth and slowed down. “Well, I guess I have to believe you. You’re a liar. And yet I have to believe you. If I don’t believe you, then I have to do something about it. Like get you drunk and then drown you in the ocean before you get Jack killed.”

  River lifted a hand shiny with olive oil, stuck it into his hair and looked at me. “That’s pretty much the way of it, Vi.”

  “You shall love your crooked neighbor with your crooked heart,” I said.

  “What?”

  “It’s from a poem by Auden. It’s something Freddie used to say sometimes.”

  “What’s it mean?”

  “That nobody is perfect, I think.”

  “Well,” River replied. “That’s the truest thing said round the world today.”

  We sat by each other, not talking, and not touching. Robert Johnson began to sing “Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea.” He played the song slow, and melancholy, nothing like the Cab Calloway original.

  I looked at River and listened to the waves crash outside, and figured that Robert was singing right to me, right then.

  The air started feeling heavy, and thunder burst into the quiet like a drum roll. A storm was beginning. The record stopped, the wind got even colder, and the feeling in the attic changed. It became freezing and black, all in the span of a hundred heartbeats. It was like a dream shifting into a nightmare. Usually I loved thunderstorms. But I wasn’t in the mood for one just then.