And I dreamed.
I dreamed about cemeteries. And a tunnel. And a man with furry teeth, and a slit in his neck. I dreamed about the Devil, who looked liked River except he had red hair and bloody red eyes. Only it wasn’t the Devil. Or River. It was Neely, his blond hair red from the setting sun, his face red from fighting. Fighting with River, who was suddenly kissing me, and I was feeling so good, so good, because River was kissing my neck, and then my shoulders, and I slipped out of my clothes and he helped me and then I helped him do the same and we were naked, and I didn’t care, and I just wanted the River kissing to go on and on forever and ever and ever amen and everything felt right and I knew it was time and I wanted him, oh how I wanted him . . .
A door slammed.
I jerked awake.
I took a deep breath. And opened my eyes.
It was almost dawn, the light an eerie bluish dark gray. I’d only been asleep a few hours. And I was in River’s bed. I’d been dreaming. Just dreaming. Such a good dream.
Damn that door for slamming.
But wait. Something was different. I felt warm. Hot, even. My skin tingled. I moved.
And suddenly I realized what was different. I was naked.
And so was River.
Our bodies were pressed against each other, tight. My dream. My dream had been real. River’s naked body was curled into mine, and it felt so right, like in the dream . . .
“Violet?” River whispered.
“Yeah,” I said, really quiet. I took another deep breath, and my chest swelled into River’s body. I let my breath back out. My eyes met his. He moved his hands and pressed them into my lower back.
“I think I was . . . I think I was using the glow in my sleep. I didn’t even know I could do that. Aw, hell. We, we almost . . . God, I’m sorry, Vi. I don’t know what’s happening to me . . .”
I didn’t move.
“Neely’s right,” River said, and his voice sounded unsure, and tense, and very un-River. “I’m out of control.”
“Yes,” I answered. And still, I didn’t move.
“Violet, I’m not safe,” River said, at last. “You’re not safe around me. You should go. Get out. Vi, get out. Now.”
My heart shut down, shuddered, and started back up again. I slid out of River’s arms, and out of the bed. My clothes were scattered on the floor, mixed in with his. I got dressed. Left.
Then I turned around, went back down the hall, and back into River’s bedroom.
“River, you need to leave Echo,” I whispered. I stood by his bed, with my hands on my heart, and waited. River shifted, and the blankets fell off his body, exposing his naked hip down to the thigh. “Tomorrow. And I don’t want to see you before you go, all right?”
“Get out of here, Violet” was all River said.
And so I did. I left.
Neely was in the guesthouse kitchen. He was drinking coffee from a small pink cup with a chip in it. His back was to the window, and the sunrise was starting up behind him.
“Neely, I don’t know how you can drink so much coffee.” My voice broke a bit when I said it. I took the cup from him and swallowed what was left in one go. I felt a little better, with the joe burning its way down my throat.
Neely looked at me. He was smiling, but his eyes were digging into mine.
“You all right, Vi?”
“Yep. Completely.” But my hands were still shaking, and Neely knew I was River-lying.
“Okay,” he replied. “I’ll leave that for now. Want to know where I’ve been?”
I didn’t.
“I tried to track down the kid that River glowed,” Neely continued, when I didn’t answer. “I went back to the cemetery and followed that trail through the trees for a while. But nothing. I’m worried about him.”
I stared out the window and wouldn’t meet Neely’s eyes. “Me too,” I said at last.
Neely looked at me. Really looked at me.
“So why are you awake?” he asked. “Why aren’t you still sleeping in my brother’s bed, buried in his arms, breaking your promise to not let him touch you?”
I shook my head and didn’t answer.
“What happened?” Neely asked, his voice quiet. “Violet, what happened?”
I looked at Neely’s right hand, the swollen one. The one that hit his brother across the face. “Will you promise not to start fighting again?”
“No.” He paused, and ran his hand through his hair, and looked like River. “Yes. Yes, I promise. So help me God, Vi.”
“River used the glow on me. In his sleep. He didn’t mean to . . . but he did it anyway. And things were happening, and we were both letting them happen, but then I heard the front door open, and it woke me up. In time.” I added that last bit of information, only because Neely’s eyes were doing the antsy, eager thing they’d done before, a second before he punched River.
Neely took a deep breath and grabbed my hand. He squeezed it, hard, so hard, his fresh scabs split open and started bleeding again. And we just stood there, quiet, in the guesthouse kitchen, with the sun rising, and the sea breeze coming through the windows.
CHAPTER 25
SOMEONE WAS SAYING my name in a soft voice. I batted my eyes against the bright morning sun, and turned to see who had decided to wake me this morning. Sunshine? Luke? Neely? I stretched, and realized that there was no one next to me in bed.
River.
I sat up and rubbed my eyes. And then the memories from the night before flooded my brain and woke me up faster than a bucket of cold water. River leaving. He was in trouble, out of control. The glow. The letters—
“Violet?”
It was Jack. He was standing in a sunbeam at the end of the bed, looking serious as usual. “Jack. Hey. I was sleeping. Alone.” Concentrate, Violet. “What’s going on?”
“I went walking this morning,” he said. “I wanted to find the perfect tree, and paint it. But I found . . . something else. In the ditch, by the tracks.”
I looked at him, uncomprehending.
“I need you to come with me,” Jack continued. “Now.”
I nodded. “All right.”
I brushed my hair, and my teeth, threw on a green skirt and a soft, long-sleeved button-down that my mom used to paint in. Jack waited for me outside. I didn’t tell anyone I was leaving, not Luke, not Neely, not . . . River. I told River I didn’t want to see him before he left. And I wasn’t sure I still meant it.
Damn.
I followed Jack down the path to Echo, past the tunnel, past the cemetery. The sun was bright in the sky, and the dew on the grass was making my feet slick inside my flip-flops.
We heard a train whistle go off in the distance, and Jack’s small shoulders stiffened in front of me. We had passed the town center and were walking by the empty field that led off from Glenship Street, and still Jack hadn’t said a word. And it was making me nervous.
“For God’s sake, what did you see, Jack?”
But Jack only shook his head. We walked another couple of minutes. I could hear the creek now, the one that circled the town and, some miles away, dropped into the sea. I swatted at a mosquito, and grimaced at the streak of blood it left on my arm.
When I looked up, Jack had stopped walking. He was pointing at the tracks.
Trains still went through Echo. The tracks near the Citizen had disappeared long ago, but there was still an active line that ran outside town, carrying cargo and, less often, passengers, all the way into Canada. Jack was pointing down a tree-lined stretch of those tracks.
He slipped his hand into mine, and together we stepped onto the rails. I listened for the sound of a train, but heard nothing but the mourning doves, coo coo-ing to each other in that husky, melancholy way they had. Jack pulled on my hand, and we half walked, half slid down the ditch on the other side of the tracks.
; When we got to the bottom, I looked at Jack, puzzled. His red-brown hair was glinting in the sunlight. His face was pale.
And then I saw it.
Him.
Black hair, tangled, and clotted with dried blood. That’s what I noticed first. The rest of the boy was hidden in the shadows cast by the trees. But his face was in the sun. I stumbled to the side, and almost stepped on the dead boy’s hand. My mouth made a noise, a screaming, wailing noise, and the rest of me shivered at the sound of it.
“He was hit by a train, I guess,” Jack said. “The conductor probably didn’t even hear him. He bounced off, and . . . rolled.”
I didn’t answer. I was looking at the dead boy’s eyes. His eyes, which had been so angry in the cemetery, with River’s hand gripping his neck, were now wide and staring. And dead. Dead, dead, dead. This was different from seeing Daniel Leap, cutting his throat in the town square. The body in front of me had belonged to a kid. Just a kid. And his head was twisted at a horrid, unnatural angle, and his skin was purple and gray, and his black hair was dirty and full of leaves and blood and oh hell, I was looking at a dead boy, close enough to touch his poor dead boy body—
“Did River do it, Violet? Did he make him step in front of the train? I haven’t told anyone else. I don’t want River to get in trouble. I was going to tell the cops, but then I thought, what if it was River?”
I dropped Jack’s hand, turned to the side, and threw up.
Jack patted me on the back, and I kept throwing up, again and again. And when there was nothing left I still threw up, the dry heaves racking my body and making me shake like the leaves on the trees that hid the dead boy’s body from the light.
Finally, finally, I straightened. I walked over to the creek, put my bare knees on its muddy banks, and splashed cold creek water on my face. I rinsed out my mouth. And then went back to Jack, and the body.
“River is out of control, Jack. It was him, in the attic. I’m sure of it. He’s dangerous. To me. To you. To everyone. So . . . so here’s what is going to happen. You are going to go to the café, or the library, and stay there until I come for you. I don’t want you to be involved in any of this. I’m going to Sunshine’s. I’m going to use her phone, and call the police station in Portland.” I ran the back of my hand over my forehead. My face was cold, but whether it was from the cold creek water or the clammy throwing up I’d done, I didn’t know.
“Go back to town,” I said, when Jack just stood there, watching me and not moving.
“Aren’t you coming too?” he asked, and his voice was sweet and serious and concerned.
I shook my head. “I’m going to wait here for a few minutes. I don’t want anyone to see us walking back into town together. I don’t want anyone to know you’re involved with . . . this.”
Jack stared at me a second, nodded, and then he was gone.
The mourning doves cooed. A crow cawed from the top of a tree. The shadows danced around as clouds passed in front of the sun. The boy’s whole body was in dark now. I wanted to help him. I wanted to move him so he looked more comfortable, I wanted to—
“Hey there.”
For a second, a wild, mad second, I thought it was the dead boy talking to me. I thought he’d come back to life. I thought I’d gone insane. I put my hand on my heart and leaned over and stared at the dead boy’s mouth and eyes, waiting for them to move.
And then the back of my neck prickled.
I turned around.
A boy. A not-dead boy. Standing not ten feet away in the darkness underneath the closely packed trees. Fourteen, maybe, but still taller than me. Vaguely familiar. Did I know him? He was skinny, all bones and elbows and legs. And his hair. His hair was long, down to his shoulders, and red. Red like the sky in the morning, sailors take warning. Fire red. Blood red.
He was wearing black cowboy boots and fitted, expensive-looking black jeans, and a plain white T-shirt. His eyes were green, and wide open, and surprised.
He nodded at the body. “Yes, ma’am. It’s quite a si . . . quite a sight,” he said, his voice cracking halfway through. He had a southern accent, but not Deep South. McMurtry south. Texas, maybe. “I stumbled upon it while watching the trains go by. That’s how I got here.” He nodded toward the tracks. “By train. I like to watch them. Ride them sometimes.”
I stared at him. I tried not to shake. Tried not to panic. “How long have you been standing there?”
Please don’t let him have heard that stuff about River, oh God, please, I thought. Even though I’d already planned to tell the cops, and it didn’t matter anyway.
“Only for about five seconds, ma’am. I live in Echo. I started for town, to get help, but then I saw you and the other kid coming, so I just hid in the trees until I knew what you were about.” He held out his hand. “The name’s Brodie.”
I shook his hand. It was skinny, but tough. His fingers gripped mine . . . and let go. “Brodie? I don’t think I’ve . . . Have I seen you before? Did you just move here?”
He nodded, fast. His red hair parted at the movement and the tops of his ears broke through. They stuck out a bit and made him seem even younger. “I’ve only been in Echo a few days.” He reached down and picked up something at his feet. It was a black cowboy hat. He slapped the hat on his head, and some of the red disappeared in a flash, like a lightbulb going out. “I’m from Texas.”
I’d seen that hat before. The kid, sitting on the swings, when Daniel Leap killed himself—he’d been wearing a hat like that.
The clouds shifted, and the sun broke through again. The dead boy’s face was back in the light. And I realized I’d just been having a get-to-know-you conversation with a kid from Texas with my toes twelve inches from a corpse.
“Texas, right . . .” I said, barely noticing. All I was thinking about again was River, and turning him in, and what they would do to him, and what it would do to me. “I’ve got to go make a phone call, so I . . . I can’t talk right now. I’ve got to go home and . . .”
“Would you mind if I came with, ma’am?” Brodie took his hat back off and held it at his side. “You’re going to call the cops, is that right? Well, I can wait with you and then tell them what I saw. I’d like to help you out. You look a bit pale, to be honest. I’ve seen a dead boy before. There are lots of dead bodies in Texas. So I don’t mind so much.”
But my mind was a million miles away and I didn’t answer. And when I started walking back to town, Brodie just followed me. The part of me that could still notice things noticed this. But what difference did it make? What difference did it make if he came with and told his side of the story to the cops too?
We took the back roads when we reached town, so we could skirt the main square. I didn’t want to explain to anyone why my legs were covered in mud, why my hair was dripping with creek water, why I looked sick, why I was walking next to some kid named Brodie. I was certain that if one person stopped and asked me what was wrong, I would open my mouth and confess everything. The glow. River. The Devil. The dead boy. Everything.
If Brodie talked on the way home, I already couldn’t remember.
Everything was silent at the Citizen. I went to the shed, but Luke wasn’t painting. The guesthouse was quiet. When I put my ear to the door and listened for sounds of breakfast being made, coffee sizzling in the moka pot, eggs frying in the pan, Neely and River fighting, there was nothing.
I stood in my backyard and shivered. There was a bad feeling in the air, like a storm brewing. Except the sky was clear. The sun was bright, and the air was warm. Something was making my skin crawl, though. Something was giving me the feeling that I was being watched.
I looked around. No one. No one was anywhere.
“I don’t know where anyone is,” I said. “It’s . . . strange.”
Brodie just smiled and shrugged.
I started to waver. I walked toward the Citizen’s fr
ont steps and considered crawling back into bed. Forgetting what I saw. Forgetting the dead boy, his hair clotted with blood. Forgetting Daniel Leap slicing the razor across his throat. Forgetting it all.
But then I looked at Brodie, with his red hair and his hat and his ma’ams.
He’d seen the body too.
There was no forgetting. No covering it up.
“Just stay here,” I said, not being all that polite and not caring. “I’m going to go to the neighbor’s and use the phone. It’s easier if you stay here. Okay?”
Brodie tipped his black hat at me and then pointed at the ground by his feet, as if to say I’m glued to this spot.
I took a deep breath. And started walking down the road. To Sunshine’s house.
Sunshine wasn’t outside, sitting on her swing. She must be sleeping too, I thought. I wondered what the hell time it was in the morning. Sunshine was an early riser, like Luke, and I didn’t really know what early morning people did, when they got up and when they ate breakfast or how they spent their early morning time. I had never been one of them, except for the times serious boys woke me up at the crack of seven a.m. to show me dead bodies by the railroad tracks.
The front door of Sunshine’s house was open. I knocked on the screen, but didn’t wait for a reply. I stepped inside.
I saw Sunshine’s parents. Sam and Cassie stood beside each other in the living room—Sam was lost-looking and corduroy as usual and Cassie was black hair and glasses. They were staring at something on the floor.
The thing on the floor was Sunshine. She was lying on her stomach, and she was bleeding. Blood oozed from a slick dent near her temple, dripped across her face, and pooled on the floor beside her.
Sunshine saw me. She opened her mouth. She was trying to say something, but the only thing that came out was spit, and more blood. She coughed, and blood sprayed between her teeth.
Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea Page 20
