by Lyla Payne
“I heard he might be looking for new employment.”
“Yeah. Mel told me today. I feel awful.” I bite my lip, concentrating on recapturing the good feelings. “It is such a relief to not have any topics of conversation be off-limits with you. David would have given me the silent treatment for a week had I made any sort of mention of Will, even in passing.”
Beau frowns. “We all have pasts. They make us who we are. Your romance with Will is part of what made you the woman I adore. More than that… I love you, Gracie. I would do anything for you. But the truth is, none of that matters if you don’t choose me back.”
“I do.”
The quick pleasure on his face spears my heart with joy. “I’m just saying… You’re only mine if you choose me, as I am yours because I choose you. And it’s only love if it’s freely given, not manipulated in one way or another.”
“You’re amazing.”
“And you didn’t answer the question. Life is different than you expected but doesn’t that mean you get new dreams? Or goals, if that sounds more grown up to you.”
The stillness of the evening injects me with calm. It helps me listen to the voices in my head, the ones that belong to the better parts of me. The ones who understand that even though things are better, that I’m better, the hot mess of a girl who rolled into Heron Creek last May isn’t magically on target and mentally healthy now.
But she’s on her way.
“I haven’t thought much about it,” is my honest answer. “I was such a mess after my breakup, then coming back here and losing Gramps. Everything that’s happened with Amelia and the ghosts, and you”—I give his hand a squeeze—“has shown me that family means the most. I think I’m okay with settling back into my own skin before I think too hard about the future.”
He doesn’t say anything for a long time. Nerves start to stutter through me and self-doubt crowds my mind. It was the wrong thing to say, obviously. He’s going to think he’s not important or that I don’t ever think about what my life would be like in twenty years.
“I don’t… It’s not that I don’t think about you and us and the future, I just—”
“Stop.” He scoots closer, moving our glasses and dessert out of the way so our sides can press against each other, and he threads his fingers through mine. “I wasn’t asking for that reason. I want to know you better is all, and what you said is really surprising.”
“Because it’s mature?”
“Sort of,” he admits. “But more because it takes a lot of confidence to admit that you’re not ready for something. Especially at a time in our lives when it can be easy to feel as though we’re falling behind.”
“Yikes, I know. My Facebook feed is nothing but babies and wedding photos.” In truth, I don’t spend much time on social media. It’s more to do with my own insecurities than any real dislike, but the reminder that the majority of my old “friends” haven’t bothered to check in since I left Iowa isn’t a feel-good situation.
“Right. But I don’t think…I don’t think there’s a reason to be in a hurry. Human beings need a little more time in the cooker than most of us get.”
“You, too?”
“Of course.” He leans closer, reaching up to sweep my hair behind my shoulder. The soft touch of his hand breaks goose bumps out all up and down my bare arms. “I’m still cooking, too. On low.”
“Hmm, is that so?” I turn my head so that our eyes are inches apart and brush my lips over his. “Maybe we should turn up the heat.”
“I like the way you think, but we should finish the wine first. And get, you know, indoors. Mosquito bites on the ass are less fun than they sound. Which is odd because they sound so awesome.”
My giggles feel good. Cathartic.
“Oh! I almost forgot part of the surprise!”
He gets up and takes big strides in the near-darkness until he reaches the base of the trees and plants that line the riverbank. He roots around for something. I follow, perching on a bench that faces the water to watch him fumble. “What are you looking for?”
“It’s a surprise, goofball.”
I wait for more awesomeness to flood the evening, which couldn’t possibly be necessary. Beau picks up what looks like an extension cord and trails it through his fingers as he stalks around, mumbling. The mumbles turn to mutters, then to curses, and my lips start to hurt from pressing them together so hard to keep from laughing.
Finally, it’s too much. I get off the bench and go over to him, putting my hands on my hips. “Can I please help you? Or can we forget whatever the surprise is, chug the wine, and get naked?”
“Okay, fine. I had one of the yard guys string up some twinkle lights in and around the trees. I found the extension cord but I can’t find the plug.”
I clap my hands. “Lights! Yes! I love lights. You go that way, I’ll go this way.”
He follows my direction without argument and with significantly less enthusiasm than when he started this project a few minutes ago. I take several steps downriver, thinking idly how the Draytons and the Middletons of old probably used the water as a quick way to visit one another. My eyes are on the ground, which is why I don’t see the murky, dark figure lurking near the bank.
I try to stifle my squeak.
“Gracie, you okay?” Beau calls, farther away than I expect.
I want to assure him everything is fine but it’s as though my mouth is frozen. The figure moves, stepping out of the shadows. It’s a plump, older black woman with a stunning face. She has a turban around her head and wears a plain dress. It’s not until she raises a finger, wagging it in a No, you don’t motion but not speaking that I suspect she’s a ghost.
My feet shuffle anyway, a little closer, trying to get a better look. She shifts to one side as though to block me, then wags her finger again. She clearly doesn’t want me to go any farther in the direction I’m headed, but as good sense is only a vague concept to me, I keep going.
The woman must be a ghost since she hasn’t said a single word, nor could a living person have gotten so close to us without being heard. The ground is spongy but there’s a ton of underbrush. Which is even more apparent as Beau’s hurried footsteps crash up from behind, no doubt coming to check on me since I didn’t yell back.
Before I can turn around or stop him, say something or get the woman to explain herself, he’s here. He’s moving so quickly that he skids past me by several feet, splashing into the shallow pool next to one of the biggest trees, right where the ghost woman had been a moment before.
No doubting what she is now, since she’s gone, disappeared into thin air.
My jaw relaxes, though my heart races and my hands tremble. It’s as if I’ve been released from some sort of trance. Beau whips around, looking for me, relief dripping down his face when he sees I’m okay. In theory.
Then all that relief is replaced by intense, writhing agony in the space of a heartbeat, and he jerks, falling sideways into a tree.
Chapter Six
I run toward Beau, energy thrumming in my veins. He’s on the ground, holding his ankle and gasping for air, his face so white it’s nearly see-through. I drop to my knees at his side.
“Gracie, don’t. Snake.” The panted words are hard to understand. At first.
My instinct is to set the entire place on fire, or at the very least, to run. Snakes are not my favorite. But Beau needs my help. I ignore him, leaning forward to peer at his leg. Even in the dark the fang marks, which seem too far apart to be real, glow in the center of a red welt that’s growing before my eyes.
“Holy shit, that’s bad. It’s bad. We’ve got to get you to a hospital.”
Movement in the grass catches my eye and I startle. It’s the woman. She’s at Beau’s back, carefully hidden from sight, crouched down in the tall grasses. Her eyes are closed and her hands drift in the air out in front of her, as though working strings on a marionette. After a moment she opens them, looks at me, and nods. Her finger raises again, but this
time, instead of waving me off, she points into the grasses.
“Hold on.” I can’t explain the instinct to trust her, other than the fact that it seems as though she was trying to keep me from stepping into the same snake-filled quagmire that swallowed Beau a minute later.
The ghost has disappeared for a second time when I reach the spot where she pointed—the spot Beau stumbled into when he slid past me in his haste. In the grass is a snake so big it has to belong in a zoo. I’m not an expert, not by a long shot, but it seems wildly out of place in South Carolina.
It also seems dead.
“Gracie,” Beau rasps.
I turn to find him struggling to stand, using the tree trunk for support. He’s not going to make it on his own but I spent enough of my childhood running around barefoot to know if you get bit by a snake, it’s best to know what kind when you get to the hospital.
“One sec.”
“Oh, sure, take your time.”
My heart slows down the tiniest bit at the joking tone, but the pain twisted on his face tightens every muscle in my body. This is a strange snake and we’re twenty minutes from the closest decent hospital. I wrestle a thin branch off the closest low-hanging limb and stand back, prodding the snake’s thick green-and-black body.
It doesn’t move. Doesn’t hiss.
Beau tries to suppress a groan. “Gracie.”
Deep breath. I either trust the black woman’s ghost or I don’t, so I use the stick to pick up the snake. It’s heavy and the twig snaps. The last thing I want is to touch the damn thing but there isn’t time to be a baby. I run past Beau, dump everything out of the picnic basket, and run back to the snake, then shove it in and shut the lid.
“I’ve got the snake. Let’s go.”
“What do you mean you’ve got the snake? That thing is huge!” So are Beau’s pupils. His whole body shudders as he leans on my shoulders and we start toward the car.
“It’s dead. I guess you really taste that bad.”
“That’s not what you said the other night,” he jokes, weaker than the last time.
Now I know he’s hurting because of the two of us, Beau’s not usually the one for dirty jokes. Suggestive, yes. Filthy, no.
“Just hold on, hot stuff.” We make it back to the car an excruciating ten minutes later, even though it was a two-minute stroll a couple of hours ago, and I dump him into the passenger’s seat. “Where are your keys?”
“In my pocket.” He tries to waggle his eyebrows but the fact that his eyes are closed and he’s breathing stupid fast kills the effect.
I get the keys, toss the basket with the giant dead snake into the trunk, and peel out onto 61.
“Other way,” Beau grunts. “Saint Francis.”
“How close?” Panic encroaches on the calm I’m trying so hard to cultivate.
“Ten minutes. Fewer if you step on it.”
The hospitals in downtown Charleston were at least twenty miles further. And it’ll take us even longer if we run into a snarl of downtown traffic. “Trust you to properly use fewer instead of less after you’ve been bitten by a snake that clearly escaped a ‘Harry Potter’ novel.”
His lips curl up in the faintest of smiles. It quickly morphs into a grimace and my heart races faster, nerves and adrenaline pulsing the shakes through my limbs. “Just stay on 61 and you’ll see the signs.”
“Got it.” I focus on driving, my hands clamped so hard around the steering wheel they start to ache, and I do something I haven’t done in years—pray. Snakebites can be dangerous in the best of circumstances, but that thing in the trunk? My gut says it’s bad…and it’s weird. Two things that aren’t going to work in Beau’s favor but that seem to be cropping up in my life on a too-regular basis.
I glance over to see my boyfriend’s head lolling slightly to one side, his lips parted. A stab of terror almost makes me wrench the wheel and careen us right off the road.
“Hey, handsome. Talk to me.”
He barely responds to my shout, eyes fluttering open and then closed.
“Beau, tell me something. Um…” My mind struggles to work, to land on anything that might be useful. “Have you ever wanted to do something other than work in politics?”
It’s a question I’ve been dying to ask since we met, since I fell for him, since I started to feel as though his career ambitions and mine would be the wedge that would pry us apart. Now isn’t the best time to ask—or really a fair time—but it’s out there now and the bottom line is that he needs to stay awake.
The first sign announcing the Bon Secours Saint Francis Hospital pops up on the side of the road and bathes me in relief. It’s also not until I see the name printed out that I realize I’ve seen it before—in the article about little Nan Robbins’s death. It’s where they took her that morning, when they found her body.
“Yes.”
“Yes?” My internal revelation almost made me forget the question. “Oh. What did you want to be?”
“Wanted to be a cowboy. When I was…five. ”
I can’t help but shake my head. “Unless you’re going to move to Montana and buy a ranch I’d say that one’s out the window. Not to mention you’d be a bit behind the learning curve.”
“You don’t know everything…” He trails off, then winces, biting back a groan. “Everything about me. I can rope a steer.”
“I just bet you can. What else?”
“Astronaut.”
“Again, with the training. You’re no young pup,” I tease, trying and mostly failing to hold his attention.
He goes still, but not in a peaceful way. In a way that suggests he’s holding every single muscle in check, afraid of what kind of pain he might feel if he moves. This time when he answers, his teeth are chattering. “I wanted to restore houses. Worked on a crew the summer I was nineteen doing projects downtown and fell in love with the work.”
The third sign for Saint Francis distracts me, and it’s not until I pull off the highway and am sitting at a red light that his response filters from my ears to my brain. I’m about to say something but one look tells me he’s passed out and no amount of semi-interesting conversation is going to wake him up.
Luckily, the hospital is as close as he promised. I screech to a stop in front of the emergency room entrance and scramble out, slamming the door and running inside to get help.
A nurse and what appears to be a teenager in scrubs follow me back outside, running right on my heels, and the three of us wrestle Beau into a wheelchair. He disappears through the doors with the nurse and the child-doctor and I pop open the trunk, grabbing the basket. It takes all my self-control not to hold it away from me. Well, self-control and the fact that the sucker is as heavy as a toddler.
Beau’s nowhere to be found when I make it back inside. My heart lodges in my throat. I catch a glimpse of myself in a mirror mounted on the wall and nearly scream—my hair is sticking up everywhere and my makeup is smudged under my eyes. I had no idea I’d been crying until now.
The nurse behind the information desk isn’t the same one who ran outside to help Beau. I gulp air in an effort to settle myself back into some semblance of a human being.
The raise of her eyebrows and the slight alarm in her muddy gaze says it’s not working. “Can I help you?”
“Yes, they just brought in my boyfriend? Snakebite?”
“I believe they took him back, but it’s family only.”
“It’s not that I don’t respect a good policy…” One of her eyebrows arches higher. “Fine, I don’t respect policies at all, but the point is that I have the snake. And based on all the books I’ve ever read and stupid television shows on the Discovery Channel I’ve ever watched, the doctors are going to need it.”
She rolls her chair back, a mask of horror on her face. “There’s a snake in there?”
“It’s dead. I’m pretty sure.”
The chair rolls farther away and she points a pen down the hall. “Exam Three. Second door on the right once you get behi
nd the locked doors. I’m opening them now.”
“Thanks for your help.”
The doors are still buzzing when my hand grips the handle and flings open the entrance to the apparently top-secret emergency room exam area. It’s been a while since I’ve been in any sort of modern hospital. Maybe they’ve all gone in this security-crazed direction.
The room I’m looking for is helpfully labeled Exam #3. Beau’s on the bed, not looking any better or any more awake than the last time I saw him, and two doctors and two nurses crowd the space. One of the nurses frowns when she sees me. “You need to leave.”
“I have the snake that bit him. Don’t you need it to, like, give him an antidote?”
“We keep several local antivenoms in stock,” the younger doctor barks, motioning for the basket. “Let me see it.”
I have my doubts as to whether a twelve-year-old can identify the snake but hand over the basket anyway. Maybe he was a Boy Scout. Or is a Boy Scout. My hands shake once they’re free of their burden. In fact, there’s no part of me that’s not shaking from fear, uselessness, anxiety, and a bunch of other emotions.
“It’s dead,” I inform him, thinking now about the ghost who kind of half-assed the whole saving-our-lives mission, even if she did—I think—kill that snake.
But maybe she was only there to save me.
A chill goes through me at the thought that came from nowhere. Why would that be?
“Son of a bitch!” The doctor drops the basket immediately after peering inside. It lands on the floor and part of the snake—neither head nor tail—flops onto the white linoleum. His sharp, light eyes land on mine, accusing. “What the hell are you playing at?”
“Me? Nothing! I’m trying to help my boyfriend.” The words are indignant in my head but come out of my mouth covered in tears. “Please.”
“That’s an African snake.” He’s still looking at me as though this whole thing is some sort of joke while Beau lies there unconscious, hooked up to some sort of IV fluids but without actual antivenom.
