by Erica Waters
I would think I dreamed the whole thing if I weren’t stripped to my underwear and soaking wet, my muscles like limp spaghetti. Aunt Ena must have dived in and rescued me.
“Do you see?” she says, her voice shaking. “Do you see now, darlin’?”
“What happened?”
“You almost drowned,” she says, her voice so husky and low it’s almost not her own. “You almost drowned for that—for that—for that goddamned fiddle.”
“The alligator—you chased it away?”
“There wasn’t any alligator, Shady.”
“It dragged me under.”
Aunt Ena shakes her head. “That fiddle dragged you under. Just like it did William. Why won’t you learn?”
“Is it here? In the lake?”
“No,” she says, loud. “No, it’s not here. All that’s here is your own grief, and mine.”
“You were humming Daddy’s song.”
“The ghosts were humming it. The whole goddamned world was humming it. That’s how I found you.”
“He’s here,” I say. “I heard his voice, right before the alligator dragged me under.”
“There wasn’t any alligator.”
“I drowned.”
“You didn’t. But you would have if I hadn’t come and pulled you out. Don’t you see? That fiddle’s all darkness, all the way to its core.”
“No,” I say. “No. I heard his voice.”
“You heard my voice, yelling from the dock.”
I sit up and my head spins. Aunt Ena grips my elbows. “Did you inhale any water? Do you need to go to the hospital?”
“No,” I say, though it makes no sense. I felt myself drown. I look back at the water. “It’s still out there.”
“Shady,” Aunt Ena says, shaking me, hard, her fingers like iron digging into my skin. “The fiddle’s not out there. That’s not where we put it. You won’t find it in this lake.”
“Where we put it? Who’s we?”
“Never you mind. We put it back where it came from, back where it belongs. So don’t come here again, don’t come back to this lake.” She shakes me again.
“But Daddy—”
“Don’t you remember the way that fiddle sucked your daddy in, how dark he got when he played it?”
“It wasn’t always like that,” I say. “And he wanted me to play it. He said he was going to teach me one day . . . before he died.”
Aunt Ena shakes her head. “Sometimes even the people who love us most do us hurt.”
I can’t say anything else for another minute, but finally I ask, “You really don’t think it’s Daddy who’s been drawing me to the fiddle?” Saying it out loud makes me feel so hollow, so lonesome.
If it wasn’t Daddy . . . He admitted the fiddle had its dangers, that it laid the player open to ghosts, gave them more power over him than they normally would have. But to think there’s something out there that means me harm, and that it could be using Daddy’s fiddle to hurt me . . . My mind flits to the shadow man, his hungry, reaching hands.
“Aunt Ena?”
But she’s not listening. “I’ve lost too much, Shady. Too much. Do you hear me?” she says. And then she’s weeping, her body shuddering.
I put my arms around her and draw her close. We’re both soaking wet and smell like lake water. But she clings to me all the same, clings to me like I was dead and came back to her, like if she can keep hold of me, I’ll stay with her. And I cling to her too because my daddy was here, and now he’s gone, and it’s never going to stop feeling like my heart’s been ripped from my chest and buried in this lake.
“Don’t leave me again, Brandy,” she sobs into my hair. “Don’t leave me again.”
I pull away. “Aunt Ena, who’s Brandy?”
Her face is pale and washed out by the moonlight, but I see her features freeze. “I said ‘Shady.’” She pauses, and then her voice grows surer. “Shady Grove.”
Aunt Ena’s had a bad scare, so I let her slip go. Whether there was a real alligator or not, I would probably be dead now if Aunt Ena hadn’t come in time to rescue me. I’d have drowned, if only from my own fear. And that thought terrifies me worse than anything. What sort of being has the power to warp your thoughts so terribly that you’d drown out of pure fear?
I thought Jesse was the one in danger, but maybe he’s not the only one. Maybe I am too.
Fourteen
I’m dead tired when I get to school the next day. Every muscle in my body aches from last night’s . . . haunting. That’s what I’m calling it. It was a haunting and there’s no other word for it. If it wasn’t Daddy drawing me, then who was it? And if not to help Jesse, then why? To hurt me? I feel more alone than I’ve ever felt before, empty and lost and scared. More like a ghost than a girl.
I trudge past the office building, dreading sitting through a day of classes that are meaningless compared to what’s going on with Jesse and the fiddle. Then someone reaches out a tanned, freckled arm and snags me by a belt loop. I startle, ready to fight off whatever nightmare’s come after me this time. But it’s only Cedar, and he’s smiling and pulling me gently toward him.
“Hey,” he says, flashing a smile that makes me feel a little more tethered to this earth.
“Hey yourself,” I say, eyeing him uncertainly. We lean against the brick wall side by side, watching kids pour off the yellow buses.
“You’re quiet. And I know I’m not supposed to say this to girls, but you look tired. Did you have a rough night? Or were you up thinking about me?” he asks, smiling that sly smile.
I almost roll my eyes, but I don’t have the heart for banter today. “A rough night, yeah. It looks bad for Jesse,” I say, tears starting again. And bad for me, too, but I don’t know how to explain that to Cedar. I don’t even know how to explain to myself what happened last night at the lake and what it means.
“I’m sorry.” The moment he sees my tears, he pulls me against him with gentle hands.
I had planned to tell him our kiss was a bad idea, but instead I rest my cheek against his neck, and he lays his face against my hair. I feel rather than hear him sigh. We barely know each other, but already this feels natural and easy. Like slipping into a favorite pair of shoes—familiar, comforting, safe. Not because he’s a boy and I’m a girl. But because he’s Cedar, I guess. And right now, with everything that’s weighing on me, a little safety and comfort is exactly what I need.
I try not to think too hard about how being with Cedar means whatever chances I might have with Sarah will disappear, even though the idea sends a tiny shot of panic straight to my heart.
“Well, I’ve been thinking about that kiss,” he whispers into my hair, his voice drawing me back to him.
I lift my head and look at him, and he’s so beautiful and solid and here that I can’t help but rise up on my tiptoes and kiss him on the cheek. He lifts one side of his mouth into a smile and turns his head, lowering his face until we’re nose to nose. He kisses me lightly on the lips, and that cold emptiness inside me warms.
“You smell like coffee,” I say, wrinkling my nose and pulling away. That’s when I catch sight of Sarah, standing stock-still on the sidewalk staring at us. My heart drops into my stomach, and I take a step away from Cedar.
She shakes her head and walks off fast, eager to put some distance between us.
“Shit,” I whisper. I should follow her, I should explain. But Cedar’s still got a hand wrapped around my arm, and I’m not ready to let go of this warmth, this safety. I’m not ready to throw myself into another battle.
He glances between Sarah and me, unsure. I can almost see the questions forming behind his lips, but he doesn’t ask any of them. “You should go talk to her” is all he says. When he mentioned my relationship with Sarah that night at the springs, I didn’t tell him what’s between her and me. He still doesn’t know how much I feel for Sarah, or what she feels for me. But he has probably guessed.
The thought of facing her right now, facing all that an
ger and betrayal I saw in her eyes . . . “I’ll talk to her tonight. She’s coming over with Orlando to watch a movie.”
“Am I invited?” he asks lightly, but there’s a smidge of jealousy in his voice.
“Probably not a great idea,” I admit, watching Sarah disappear around a bend in the hallway, taking a little chunk of my heart with her. I thought I’d have more time to make up my mind, but I guess it’s made for me.
That lost feeling settles into my chest again.
As soon as I step off the school bus at home, the fiddle’s wild cry catches my ear, saying follow, follow, find me. But I ignore it, hurrying home up the dirt road, like the alligator’s on my tail, my pulse pounding a steady rhythm in my head. I slam the front door and turn on the TV to make sure I drown out any notes that followed me inside. I don’t trust that sound anymore.
Mama leaves for work at six, and I manage to get Honey in bed before eight, right before there’s a knock at the door. Orlando’s standing outside gazing up into the sky, holding a Tupperware container. “Thunderstorm’s coming,” he says.
“Where’s Sarah?” I ask, even though I knew deep down she wasn’t going to come.
Orlando squeezes past me into the trailer. “She said she wasn’t feeling well.”
“And you actually bought that?”
“Why wouldn’t I?” He pushes up his glasses with his ring finger, the gesture as familiar to me as my own face in the mirror. Suddenly, I want to confess everything.
“She saw me with Cedar today.”
“So?” he says, sprawling on the couch, long, lanky limbs filling every inch of furniture. He holds out the container. “Pastelitos, from my abuela.”
“Thank you,” I say, accepting the food. I open the lid and inhale the sweet smell of pastry. “Ooh, guava and cheese. I love these. Give Mrs. Ortiz a kiss for me.”
Orlando reaches into the container and swipes a pastry, shoving it into his mouth with a groan.
“Anyway,” I say, “about Cedar. We were together, you know, together.”
Orlando’s eyebrows rise toward his hairline in a perfect imitation of Sarah. He swallows the sticky pastry and wipes his mouth. “You and rodeo boy, huh?”
I shrug and take a bite of a pastelito, closing my eyes at the heavenly taste. It’s almost good enough to make me feel less miserable about Sarah. I should save one to take to Aunt Ena.
“That’s good. It was never going to happen with you and Sarah anyway.”
His words sting, but Orlando doesn’t know everything. I push the remark away, clinging to my stubborn hope. “It could happen. We kissed, remember? It was a really good kiss,” I add.
Orlando snorts, and my desire to confess everything disappears. I throw a pillow at his head. “Let’s just watch the movie.” Maybe there’s no use talking about it. Sarah’s never going to open up to me like that again. Anyway, this isn’t what I should be thinking about—I should be thinking about Jesse, and finding a way to get him out—without the fiddle’s help, I guess, since I nearly drowned going after it. Since Aunt Ena’s probably right, and it wasn’t Daddy drawing me.
But if it wasn’t him . . . I think I know who it might be, and the thought turns my worries about Sarah and Cedar to nothing. If it’s him, if he’s found a way out of my nightmares . . . I shiver and drop into the recliner, hugging my knees to my chest.
We’re halfway through a mediocre fantasy movie when the storm outside kicks up in earnest. The power flickers in and out, in and out, reminding me horribly of my dreams. Lightning flashes in between rumbles of thunder.
I want to hide under a blanket, but instead I go to the window and peer out. A strike of lightning illuminates the trees, which are tossing in the wind. I can hear them rustling in the quiet spaces in the movie, when the actors stop speaking, the weapons stop clashing.
“Does the same tree ever get struck by lightning twice?” I ask Orlando, but he’s asleep, his mouth hanging open. If my favorite tree goes down tonight . . . If that tough old tree falls, what chance do I have to stand against everything trying to tear me down?
Without thinking about it, I start to hum “The Old Oak Tree,” as if my music can keep it safe from the storm. I tried to find the words to the old murder ballad a few years ago, since Daddy would never sing them. I had to search for hours, sifting through obscure ballads on useless webpages until I found it on a university website. The ballad tells the story of a girl who sneaks out on a cold, dark, rainy night to meet a man and then goes missing. Her mother searches and searches for her, but she’s vanished without a trace. Her mother dies of a broken heart. Weeks later, a squire and his dog find the girl’s body, stabbed and buried, under an old oak tree. When they confront her killer, he shoots himself and dies. He’s buried right there where he killed her, and no priest will bless his grave. It’s no wonder Daddy would never sing it for me.
It was a struggle to put the lyrics to the melody. But I managed it, and I sing the words to myself now, though sometimes the thunder roars so loud it drowns out my voice. As I finish a verse, I trail off in thought.
Beneath the old oak tree . . .
After what happened at the lake, I should do like Aunt Ena said—get on with my life. But as I stand at the window watching lightning scatter across the heavens and rain drive through the trees, the thought draws me as surely as Daddy’s fiddle. “What if . . . ,” I whisper to myself.
Aunt Ena said they put the fiddle back where it belonged, where it came from. But surely she didn’t take it back to Ireland, back to Daddy’s ancestors. She must have meant something else. Somewhere else.
She thinks the fiddle is death and darkness. She thinks it’s rotten to its core. And yet I’m drawn to it just like I’m drawn to that old lightning-struck tree that made my daddy hum a murder ballad every time he drove by . . .
I open the trailer’s door and peer out into the storm. Rain dashes against my face, wind hurls back my hair. The forest is full of shadows, and the trees toss and moan. I shouldn’t go out in this storm, but an idea has taken hold of me, the rightness of it running like static electricity through my limbs, popping in my muscles, making me unable to keep my seat.
My good sense finally kicks in and I close the door, but then I open it again, listening for the fiddle. When I finally catch it between rumbles of thunder, I could swear it’s playing “The Old Oak Tree.”
I make sure Honey and Orlando are still asleep, and then, like the girl from the song, I put on a raincoat and slip out the door into the dark, stormy night. The rain is beating down hard, the driveway already turning into a river. I run around to the little shed behind the trailer and search for a shovel. All I can find is a small hand spade Mama used once for planting flowers, but I take it and set off down the road, dodging puddles.
The lightning illuminates my path every few minutes, but I know the way without it. I try to walk fast, concentrating on not falling into a rainwater-carved rut, but between the expectation thrumming through me and the roar of the storm, I can’t help but run. My tennis shoes smack the road, sending splatters of mud halfway up my back. Soon, my chest is heaving, but I can’t stop.
Finally, in a flash of lightning, the oak tree looms ahead of me. I run past it to find a gate, and let myself into the field. It’s more like a marsh now, the high grass sodden and treacherous. I trip twice, falling to my hands and knees, but finally I fight my way to the lightning-struck tree that stands bare and white in the midst of the darkness like a beacon in a storm-tossed sea.
Of course. It’s always been a beacon. I haven’t loved it all these years for nothing.
I put my hand on the trunk and feel my way down to the roots, searching the ground for a soft place. Once I find a space free of roots, I start digging like the squire and his hounds from the ballad. Water fills the hole as fast as I can empty it, and after a few minutes, I abandon the spot and try another, and then another.
But then lightning and thunder meet above my head in a roar of light and sound that ma
kes me scream and fall to the muddy ground, shielding my head with my arms against the blue-white glare, waiting for tree limbs to fall on me. The thunder cracks again, and the backs of my tightly squeezed eyelids flash white. If I were brave enough to lift my head, I’d see clear across the field, the lightning is so bright.
But the tree is still whole, and I’m not dead, so I pull myself from the mud and pick up my spade, trembling against the assault of wind and rain, any bravery in me shattered. The only thing that keeps me from flying back to Mama’s trailer is the thought of Jesse in a jail cell across town, listening to a storm he can’t see.
I keep digging, and finally, long after my arms begin to ache, long after my knees feel bruised, my spade strikes something hard. It could be a rock, but I know it isn’t. Carefully, carefully, I dig around it with my hands, trying to ignore the lump forcing its way up my throat. This could be Daddy’s fiddle, the answer to all my questions.
With shaking arms, I unearth the object, which is encased in plastic, and hold it up to the light. It’s the right size for a fiddle case, but it’s too wrapped up to be sure. But it must be. Of course it is.
I tuck it under my arm, my heart thundering in my chest, and start for home. The rain starts to let up as I near the trailer, but the lightning still forks across the sky. I let myself into the trailer quietly. The movie’s over, the credits rolling down a dark screen. Orlando is still asleep, snoring quietly.
I throw my raincoat over a chair and kick off my muddy shoes, but I’m too excited to bother changing out of my wet clothes. Instead, I take the parcel down the hallway to the bathroom and sit on the floor with it, waiting for the trembling in my limbs to stop. The plastic is thick and tough, but after a few tries I rip it open and pull it off, mud and grass falling away with it.
And there is Daddy’s fiddle case, black and battered, covered in scratches.
But whole.
A sob catches in my throat but I force it back down. With trembling fingers, I unlatch each of the rusting clasps, half afraid some dark creature’s going to come leaping out at me. But when I open the lid, only the smell of home wafts out—must and dust, Daddy’s aftershave, and the barest hint of cigarette smoke.
