Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

by Tucholke, April Genevieve

  River just stood there, staring.

  Brodie took his cowboy hat off and set it on the table. He ran a hand through his red hair, and it reminded me so much of River and Neely that my stomach twisted, tight. A bad taste filled my mouth, rotten and evil.

  They really were brothers.

  “I suppose it’s time for introductions,” Brodie continued when he realized River wasn’t going to talk. “I guess I was being rude. I came in here, cut up Neely, and never once said, Hello. I’m your brother Brodie. Our pa knocked up my mad mother and then went back to his real sons, which happen to be you. And here we are. Nice to meet you. I got distracted by that full-figured strumpet who sauntered into the yard. I took off without a word. And then I followed Violet and some little brat to a dead body. I meant to come back sooner. As I said. Rude. Here, let’s meet proper like.” Brodie held out his hand.

  River’s eyes went sly. He reached out. My heart jumped and I thought, Here we go, but Brodie swept his arm back to his side and laughed. “Ha. Not a chance, River. I know how you work. How your glow works. Our papa filled me in, long before I got here and had to listen to the three of you yak and yak about it. You look surprised. Yes, I’ve been prowling around here this whole time, eavesdropping and being bored dead as a doornail. What, still surprised? Didn’t you know you had a brother, River? Didn’t anyone tell you about me?”

  “You were supposed to be younger,” Neely said, his voice off and weak and strange. “Dad probably has dozens of half-Redding brats, but they’re only kids. You’re supposed to be a little kid.”

  Brodie laughed, his low hoarse laugh. “That’s right. Half-Redding. Kids grow up, Neely. Yes, old Papa Redding couldn’t keep it in his pants. He knocked up my poor mother when she was just seventeen. He met her at one of those rich-ass garden parties the worthless and wealthy like to hold to bore the shit out of themselves. Of course, he didn’t find out until later that my mother’s family has their own curse.”

  Brodie paused, one hand on his hip, the other in the air, spinning around on one heel of his boot. “We tend to go insane. Down in the dirt, rootin’ tootin’, tear-your-hair-out insane. Oh, how I love thinking on Ma, barefoot, red hair down to her waist, howling in the asylum, fingernails scratching at the stone walls. I hope the rats are chewing on her toes. Mongrel. Mongrel. Ha. Ha. Hahahahahaha. My grandparents tried to raise me right after she got locked up, but hey, they’re old and I’ve got a lot of energy. It didn’t work out so well.”

  River put his hands on me while Brodie was talking and pushed me behind him.

  “Next thing I know I’m reading a story in the newspaper that was so floor-stompin’ crazy, it spread all the way from the East Coast. A story about some kids seeing the Devil in a cemetery. And I thought . . . hey, that sounds like me. Like my spark. Shoot. I jumped a train and here I am. What do you think, River? Are you impressed? You like what you see so far?”

  “It was you, wasn’t it.” Neely was standing still now. Frozen, not breathing, not moving. “The kids in the park. Texas. The witch burning. The attic. And now you’re here. You’ve found us. So what do you want?”

  Brodie smirked. “You noticed. Austin. That city’s full of pigs and whores. I walked by this group of rat-faced youngsters who were running around like they owned the place. I challenged them to a Neely-fight, fist to fist, but they just laughed. Laughed. So I thought, you know, what the hell. I’d make them burn.”

  Neely stopped rubbing his eyes. His hands snapped into fists and he hit him. Left cheek. Dead center. So fast that even Brodie couldn’t slide out of the way.

  Brodie did nothing. He just took it, and kind of smiled.

  “Fight back,” Neely said, his face brick red, his eyes bright. “Right here. No glow.”

  “Spark,” Brodie interrupted, touching his bruising cheek and still smiling. “I call it the spark.”

  Neely ignored him. “You set people on fire, you make me shove a knife in my brother’s throat. I blamed River for that stuff at Glenship Manor. He tried to deny it but I wouldn’t listen, I didn’t believe him—”

  Neely’s fist flew. But Brodie dodged out of the way this time, quick and light, like it was way too easy and he was only half trying.

  Neely’s face was red as blood. Red as Brodie’s hair.

  River put his hand on Neely’s arm. “It’s all right.”

  Neely pushed him off.

  “I should have known.” Neely was almost yelling now. “I thought you were just some little rancher kid Dad was trying to do right by. But of course you’ve got the glow. Why else would he be supporting some skinny Texas spawn?”

  Brodie grinned. “I bet he told you all the other half-Redding bastards are just kids too. Not nearly old enough to have the spark. And you believed him?”

  Neely was circling and pacing, trying to get closer to Brodie. River reached out and grabbed his arm. “Don’t, Neely,” he said quietly. “He’ll just cut you.”

  “Boooooored,” Brodie’s voice drawled. He sat down on the kitchen table and wrapped an arm around his knee. His other leg swung free, boot heel rapping against the table leg. “This is so boring. Neely, shut up. River, you too. You are both boring the shit out of me. Look, I came all the way here to see what my legit, non-mongrel, sparking brother was like. I wanted to bond, brother-style. Maybe see if he’d want to team up and have some real fun. I even allowed myself to fantasize about it on the way here—the two of us, taking on the world, destroying our enemies, celebrating our victories, cutting up women . . . But so far you aren’t impressing, River. I think it’s because do-gooder Neely is a bad influence.” Brodie turned and stared at Neely. And as he stared his eyes narrowed. Slowly. Then he faced River again, and grinned. “Thoughts?”

  I heard a noise, but didn’t take my eyes off Brodie. None of us did.

  I hoped it wasn’t Jack. I prayed it wasn’t Jack. I didn’t know what Brodie had done to him with the knife. Maybe put him to sleep so he’d be out of the way.

  Please just be unconscious, Jack.

  Brodie tilted his head and looked toward the doorway. “Well, well, well. This must be the twin brother. Sunshine mentioned you, before her father killed her with a bat, that is.”

  I followed Brodie’s gaze. Luke was standing by the door, a worried expression on his face. He looked at me. “What the hell happened to Jack? He’s knocked out cold on the ground outside and bleeding. We need to call an ambulance. Now.” And then he saw Brodie. “Vi, who is this cowboy on our table?”

  Luke nodded at Brodie. He didn’t walk over to him, though, or try to shake his hand. Some deep, instinctual part of my brother told him that Brodie was wrong.

  Off.

  Bad.

  “Run,” I said to Luke. But my mouth was dry and made no sound. I coughed, swallowed. “Run,” I whispered.

  And that time Luke heard me. He backed out of the door, turned—

  But Brodie was faster. He flew off the table and landed on his feet, softly, his boots making small clinks on the floor. In the corner of my eye, I saw something glint in the light coming through the windows. And then my brother was bleeding. Wet round beads of blood formed a line down his left cheek. Luke’s eyes went from surprise, to shock, to anger.

  To nothing.

  I stepped forward, my arms outstretched, wanting to help him, take him in my arms, shake the nothingness out of his eyes, but River held me back. I remembered why, and froze.

  Luke walked into the kitchen. He bent over and picked up the kitchen knife from where it had fallen on the floor. He spun around and threw his body into Neely. Neely went flying against the kitchen wall. And then the knife was at his throat. Neely’s neck was stretched taut; my brother had one hand on the black knife handle, and one hand on Neely’s chin, forcing his head up.

  Brodie clapped his hands. “Let’s see. The first order of business, I think, is to get rid of Nee
ly on a more permanent basis. He can’t spark, and even if he could, I wouldn’t want him around. He doesn’t have your . . . morally ambiguous nature, River. You and me, we’re the same, brother. You just don’t know it yet.”

  River ignored him. “Luke. Drop the knife. Drop that knife.”

  “Can’t,” Luke said, his voice strained, his eyes never leaving Neely’s neck. “This bastard was going to set my sister on fire. I have to keep this knife here so he doesn’t get away.”

  “Luke,” I said, over and over, my hands gripping my skirt and squeezing, squeezing the material between my fingers and my palms. “Luke, Luke, Luke, Luke.”

  River tried again. “No, you don’t, Luke. It’s a trick. Put your arm down.”

  Luke shook his head. “Can’t. It hurts.”

  I wanted to shout at Luke like I had shouted at Neely. I wanted to fall to my knees and beg Brodie to let Neely go, as I had for River, but I knew it wouldn’t work again. “Stop it, Brodie, stop it, just stop it,” I screamed anyway.

  “I’m going to kill you,” Neely whispered. “I’m going to beat your face in with my fists. Try to laugh while choking on your own teeth, you mad fucker.” The knife cut into Neely’s neck when he spoke, just as it had River’s. A red smudge formed underneath the silver edge. River saw it and let out a loud, angry, chest-rattling moan.

  He clamped his hands around my brother’s arm and began to pull. “Drop the knife, Luke,” he yelled. “Drop it.”

  Luke’s arm began to lower, and then he began to scream. He screamed and screamed. He screamed like the time he fell out one of the Citizen’s windows when he was ten and landed with his leg twisted and broken beneath him, scream, scream, scream.

  River let go and stepped away. Luke’s arm flew up, the knife went back to Neely’s throat, and my brother’s screams stopped.

  “I told you,” Brodie said. “Don’t interrupt my victims. They don’t like it.”

  River turned his gaze away from Luke and from the blood that was beginning to drip down Neely’s neck, saturating his shirt. He looked at Brodie, and his eyes were deep, dark hurt and horror and rage.

  River put his hand on his heart. “You know, Brodie, that I can see colors. People’s colors. I’m not sure if our dad told you that.”

  Brodie nodded. “He did. But I didn’t give a shit, because I can’t do it, and it’s not worth doing anyway.” Brodie shrugged and looked away.

  “Well, most people are made of bright colors,” River continued, as if he hadn’t heard him. “Pink, yellow, blue, green. But not you. You’re black. Black as coffee poured across a night sky. I’ve . . . I’ve never seen that before . . .”

  River’s eyes were scared.

  Brodie smiled. It was a crooked smile. River’s smile. Neely’s smile. “I’m pretty special, ain’t I? I’ve always said it, but now everyone else will be saying it too. River, would you please look at me when I’m talking to you? I can see that you’re trying to use your glow. I can sense it, like an electric current running from your body to Luke’s there. But you don’t exercise your madness. You’re much, much, much too sane. Dried up and weak. You can only stand around, ignoring me and staring at Luke, wishing you could make something happen with your glow. But you can’t. You can’t, River. My sparks dance circles around yours. Doesn’t that bother you? You’re the true blue Redding and yet I’ve got you beat before I even start trying. This isn’t how it should be. Let me help you, brother. Let me show you how it’s done.”

  Brodie waved his arm above his head in a circle and then tapped the heels of his boots together, like Dorothy and There’s no place like home.

  “Heck, this is only the beginning.” Brodie’s eyes were jumping and crazy and green as sea glass. “Wait until you see what I can do. Count on it, this is going to be one hell of a ride. And by the end, you’re going be my biggest fan. Believe it, brother. Our time has come.”

  We didn’t move. We didn’t say a word.

  Brodie stared at River. He closed his eyes a second. Opened them. “After all, River, I’m the only one that knows what it’s like to have a spark. A glow. Halfwit Neely there, he doesn’t know. He’ll never know. But I do. It’s us against them, brother.”

  River still didn’t move, still said nothing.

  Brodie’s body slunk back into a slouch. “Shoot, I’m bored,” he said, slow and easy and soft. And his voice was convincing enough, but his shoulders slumped forward.

  And that’s when I saw it.

  A glimmer.

  Underneath the tall, the skinny, the knife, the red, the bored, the mad.

  A Jack-like glimmer of a lonely, unwanted kid.

  And, underneath the glimmer . . .

  Rage.

  Black as the night sky, empty as Montana, bitter-as-burnt-joe, howling, shrieking, screaming rage.

  Seeing this, knowing what it meant . . . it disturbed me. Deep. Down to my bones.

  Maybe Brodie wasn’t insane.

  Maybe he was angry. Just really, really, really angry.

  And this . . . this was so, so much worse.

  A second passed, and then Brodie sat up straight, suddenly, like he’d just thought of something.

  He looked at me.

  I started to see the dark spots again.

  “Violet,” Brodie said. “Come here.”

  I closed my eyes and shook my head.

  “Violet, come here. You are going to help me convince River. Come here. Now.”

  Something flashed in the light. River threw himself in front of me, but Brodie spun out of the way, and I felt a sharp sting on my cheek. I put my hand to my face.

  And then it began.

  CHAPTER 28

  RIVER HAD USED the glow on me. Many times, probably. He used the glow to make me see Jack’s devil. And my mother. He used it to calm me down, after seeing the dead body of Daniel Leap. But River’s glow was a soft thing, a seductive thing; it crept up on me like twilight, and became such a part of me that I missed it when it was gone, like the sun at the end of the day. River’s magic might have been bad, but it felt . . . good.

  Brodie’s did not.

  I felt a hand, a hand as hard as steel, grab my brain in its fist. I could feel its steel fingers clamping in, as it began to press, harder, and harder.

  It hurt. God, it hurt.

  I fought it. And the grip got worse. It squeezed so hard, my mind turned to mush, thick, oily, oozing mush.

  I stopped fighting.

  I tilted my head and looked down at my shirt. It seemed far away. As if it belonged to someone else. My hands went to the buttons of my mother’s soft painting shirt. The shirt suddenly felt itchy. And hot. Like it was burning me. Like all of its tiny threads were scratching and sparking at my skin, trying to burn me up. I clawed at the buttons. I had to get the thing off of me. My teeth gritted with the pain of it. Long red welts puckered up over my body, and now I was ripping at the cloth and I could hear River yelling my name but it was far away and I spun and ripped and at last it was off and down on the floor where it belonged.

  I gasped with relief as my shirt fell to the floor. The itching eased. The grip relaxed. My brain stopped dripping through the steel hand’s fingers, and I could think again. As long as I did what the hand wanted, I was okay. As long as I believed what the hand wanted, the hurting would stop.

  My upper body was naked now except for a thin black chemise I’d found in Freddie’s closet last summer. I had slept in it the night before, and hadn’t bothered to change before I followed Jack out to the dead boy. I was wearing nothing but a sheer nightgown and my green skirt and the mud on my knees. I wanted to wrap my arms around my body and crawl into the corner.

  But the hand wouldn’t let me. So I did nothing.

  I could hear Brodie’s hoarse voice. It sounded hollow and deep and miles away. It said, “Boys, you haven’t seen anyt
hing yet. Getting them naked is only the beginning. I’m going to cut her. Slowly. Gently. Like a knife sliding through butter. Watch this, River. You’ll love it.”

  “Brodie, let her go,” River said, and his words drifted toward me, as Brodie’s had done, and they sounded tired and pleading and sad, like the fight had been taken out of them. “Take the spark back and I’ll hear you out. I’ll . . . follow you, do whatever you want. I won’t put up a fight. You won’t even have to use your glow. I’ll be as peaceful as a newborn lamb.”

  Brodie laughed. “All right. That’s more like it, brother.”

  The steel hand disappeared, just like that. My brain shuddered, swelled. My palms went to my eyes, and I rubbed them, hard. I rubbed the steel hand out of my mind, rubbed and rubbed, and took deep breaths. Then I opened my eyes—

  And River jumped forward. He grabbed Brodie and yanked him sideways into the table. A bottle of olive oil fell to the floor and shattered. Brodie and River twisted and pulled and struggled and fell to the ground, right over the green shards of glass. Brodie was laughing and laughing. He was kicking his boots on the floor and laughing and laughing and laughing. River had Brodie’s hand, the knifing hand, pinned behind his back, and I thought, This is it, River’s going to win, River’s going to save us . . .

  But none of it mattered. Brodie turned his head to the side and sunk his sharp white teeth into River’s forearm.

  His teeth came back with blood.

  River’s arms dropped to the floor. His eyes went dead.

  Brodie jumped to his feet, quiet and quick as a cat.

  Why is he so damn nimble, I thought, somewhere far back in my mind. How did he get to be so damn nimble? Is that how the Devil moves?

  Brodie stepped over River’s still body, went to the sink, and spat out blood. “See, Violet,” he said, after wiping his mouth on the little lamb towel, “that’s why I use my knife. So much neater. I do like being tidy. I suppose some might call it vanity, but there you go. I don’t like biting people. It just ain’t civilized.”