Not Quite Clear

by Lyla Payne

  Beau’s settled down, the crinkle around his eyes pensive now, as he stirs his drink with one of those worthless little straws. “Would you really do that? Or consider it?”

  “What?”

  “Moving. Taking a job teaching if I decided to run for state or national office.” He pauses, swallowing. “Coming with me.”

  I consider, my heart thudding. The truth will make him happy now but could hurt him later. Lies aren’t my bag. I close my eyes, give in to the pain that’s coming. Which is only going to make it hurt worse. “Of course I would, Beau. I have no serious plans for my life except to continue my work in academia, as you know. Heron Creek isn’t the best place to do that, as much as I love it.”

  “I thought you’d want to stay. It’s your home.”

  “It’s your home now, too. It will always be home. Always be there to come back to.” I shrug. “I don’t know. Maybe having ties like that make leaving on adventures a little easier. We can find our way back if we need to.”

  Under the table, his big hand squeezes my knee. His gaze is soft, almost teary, and I don’t want to let go of it, not ever. “I rather like the idea of going on adventures with you.”

  “Oh? Does that mean you aren’t going to run for mayor again?”

  His face grows serious. Not harder, but more thoughtful. “I don’t know. I guess I’ve been hoping to get to a place where you’d be ready to talk about the future in a more concrete way.”

  It’s scary to know that he’s been feeling things, wanting things, that he hasn’t shared. Things that frighten me and make me want to run away as much as they make me want to throw my arms around his neck and hold on for dear life. That’s love, maybe. It’s so raw, so huge, so terrifying with its intensity that it inspires a flight reaction in all sensible people. It’s too much.

  But we choose to stay, sometimes. See what happens.

  “I want to talk about those things with you. I’m getting there. I’m almost ready.”

  He leans over and kisses my nose, then stands up and pulls me to my feet. “Line’s shorter. Let’s go get some food.”

  It’s so Beau, to drop something huge and then go back to acting as though nothing has changed. He feels his way around me like a vision-impaired person reading Braille, senses when to push and when to back off as though he’s been doing it for years.

  We have dinner, making small talk with the people at our table. There’s a guy in his forties from one of the family lines I’m still missing, but I can’t figure out a way to filch anything that would satisfy Mama Lottie. I’ve excused myself to use the restroom again, and once outside the tent, glimpse a figure over by the rear of the big house. Thinking it’s Jenna and wanting to say hello, I veer off toward her before satisfying my whiskey-full bladder.

  The house casts deep shadows, leaving a huge swath of grass bathed in darkness. It’s cooler now that the sun has started to make way for the stars, and I rub the gooseflesh breaking out on my arms, wishing I’d grabbed my sweater out of my purse before leaving the dinner tent.

  “Jenna!” I call, but she doesn’t turn.

  As I draw closer, I see it’s because it’s not her. It’s the little black girl from the road, the one who caused me to wreck my car and then accused me of failing to help her.

  Now, she’s wearing a plain blue dress again, this time draped with a tattered white apron. Her hair is still in braids but not so many this time, only two, and they’re missing the clacking beads at the end. When the little ghost—I’m sure she’s a ghost, even though I can hear her—notices that I’m close enough to recognize her, she crosses her arms and fixes me with a plaintive stare.

  “Why don’t you want to help me?” she demands in the petulant way only small children get away with. “Can’t you see I need help? Can’t you tell?”

  “Tell me how to help. I don’t know what you need.” A part of me, the part that was apparently born to help dead people and has been languishing all these years, feels sick at my inability to understand. At the tickle of desperation under her words, the accusation in her stare.

  “Stop it.”

  It’s a different voice. Around the same age but a boy this time, and white. He’s wearing black dress pants and a pressed shirt, his trousers held up with suspenders, and his hair looks like someone spent all morning licking their fingers and smashing it into place.

  The boy turns to me, one finger pointed toward the first ghost. “She doesn’t know what she’s asking. She doesn’t know anything. Don’t help her.”

  “Shut up!” the little black girl screams. “You’re a liar!”

  It’s as though I’m frozen to the spot, but this time it’s not because of anything the ghosts are doing. I’m just stunned to see two little ghost children get into a screaming fight. The second one runs at the first, fists raised as though he’s going to strike her, and the girl streaks off into the night, still shrieking.

  They’re both gone, leaving me to wonder what the tussle is about and whether it could have anything to do with me. Or anything to do with Mama Lottie and everything else that’s going on here at Drayton Hall. And how no one in the tent heard the ruckus.

  I make a mental note to ask Jenna and maybe Sean if there have been reports of child ghosts over the years, then gather my wits and turn to the right, intent on following my disabused kidneys to the bathroom.

  “Oh!” I slap a hand over my mouth and swallow my heart back into my chest, then glare at the familiar spirit in front of me. “Anne Bonny, I swear to high heaven if you don’t stop sneaking up on me I’m going to start ignoring you.”

  She gives me a look like seems to say she might count that as a good day.

  I put my hands on my hips, still annoyed. Still trying to slow my pulse. “Those clues from the other night didn’t turn out.”

  She nods, looking pissed. I take a step back from the glimpse of the fearsome lady pirate she once was, which seems to please her based on the way she puffs out her chest.

  “You got something better for me?”

  Her emerald eyes, copies of mine and handed down from generation to generation, light up at my question. She motions me into the darkness by the house, then crawls into a cramped space underneath the stairs that leads into the basement. The house was renovated at one point in time and the kitchen brought indoors from where it had originally been in an outbuilding.

  The presence of half a dozen rotted pirates compress the already small space until it feels like there’s no room to move. The smell hasn’t dissipated since the last time it almost made me throw up, and this time my dinner is much closer to the surface.

  Or it was before I lose it in the corner. I can’t help but feel bad for Jenna, or whoever is going to discover that in the morning. At least there are plenty of people here to blame it on tonight.

  I wipe my mouth, my stomach still pinched and cramping. “What are you all doing here?”

  Anne reaches out a hand and tries to grab a mason jar that’s set up on a cool, earthen shelf but she can’t get a grip on it. She handles objects like maps and keys but those are light. Henry could have picked up that jar, but he’s had quite a lot of alone time in my bedroom to hone his skills.

  As funny as it might be to watch her struggle, Beau’s going to get worried about me soon and the last thing I need is for him to come looking. Start asking questions that start with, Are you bulimic, because why else would you come in here to ralph?

  Not that Beau would say ralph. Vomit, probably. Maybe barf.

  I shake some focus back into my brain and move forward, relieving Anne’s frustration and snatching up the jar. My fingers nearly drop the damn thing by reflex when I see what’s inside—a tooth, what looks like a bloated mosquito, a chunk of skin that might be sliced off a finger, and a few other pieces of human being that definitely don’t belong in a jar. Unless it’s set on a shelf in Hannibal Lecter’s kitchen.

  “What in tarnation is this shit?” I demand, even though I know what it is.

>   It’s what I need.

  I feel my eyes go wide. “How did you get this?”

  Anne motions to the pirates, who start pointing to one another like they’re in a Three Stooges skit. She waves at them, then makes a throat-cutting motion that freezes their antics midmovement. This whole thing is unbelievable. I don’t like more than one dead person showing up at once. It’s hard to concentrate. And harder to remember we’re all not alive.

  “Thank you.” It seems like the polite thing to say.

  Anne nods, then motions to my purse, where I’ve stashed the other goodies I’ve collected today, then to the jar. The look on her face is so hopeful, almost like a child waiting for a pat on the head or a dog wondering whether it’s going to get a treat. I smile, because despite the fact that I don’t want to be doing this and that I’m holding a jar of human DNA clippings, it is helpful.

  I unscrew the lid, not bothering to hold my nose because there’s no way the smell from the jar can overpower what’s already hanging in this space, then upend the plastic baggie in my purse and add my own six little prizes to the macabre collection.

  Twelve family lines. Twelve pieces of DNA.

  A lump jams in my throat. I want to cry.

  Instead, I swallow until the burning dissipates, put the lid back on the jar, and get the hell out of that stinky basement. Still taking advantage of the shadows, knowing I’m running out of time to finish the job, I place a call to Daria.

  “I told you I’m not helping you anymore,” is how she answers.

  “Just one thing. Once I’ve got what she wants, what should I do with it?”

  She’s silent for so long I check my phone twice to make sure she hasn’t hung up. “Leave it out by the river, by that tree she likes. She’ll find it.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  I leave the ghosts behind—all of them, I hope—and trek out to the river in heels for the second time. There are a few other people, ones I might have met if I squint, but none of them take much notice of me. I don’t make eye contact, either, intent on dropping the offering and heading back to the party. Maybe pretending none of this ever happened.

  There’s no Mama Lottie. There is a snake looped around one of the low-hanging branches of that tree I’m never going to be able to walk past without flinching again, and I nestle the jar in a nook on the ground, the roots wrapping it in an embrace. I don’t wait to find out if the tree’s going to suck it in like some sort of magical creature or if it’s more like the tree that throws apples at Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz.

  “I did what you said,” I whisper to the snake. To the wind. “It’s all there.”

  I hurry back to the party, where I find my boyfriend desperately trying to untangle himself from a beyond-tipsy Phoebe Rice. She’s hanging on him with the excuse of straightening his collar, which the dry cleaner ironed and starched to within an inch of its life.

  He sees me, eyes lighting up, and pulls away. One arm around me, he bends like he’s going to kiss my cheek but whispers in my ear instead. “You are my savior.”

  I raise my eyebrows, done with tonight. Done with ghosts and Draytons and girls hanging all over my boyfriend. “That’s me. I’m a damn superhero.”

  “Are you ready to go?”

  “You’ll never know how much.”

  No matter the relief that came with doing what Mama Lottie asked and hopefully securing her help, it meant betraying the people who surround us. People I’d enjoyed, who made the man I love smile and laugh and reminisce about a childhood that some of them had made better for him. People who didn’t deserve to pay for the deeds of the past any more than I did, or than Amelia or Jack.

  It’s done, though, so I guess the only question left is how I’m supposed to live with myself. I wonder if Anne Bonny has any advice about that.

  Chapter Sixteen

  It’s late by the time Beau and I get back to my grandparents’ old house. Funny, how I still think of it as theirs and not ours…after three months, I’m starting to think it will probably always be that way.

  In spite of the hour, all the lights are on in the house. Not only that but there’s a car in the driveway. One I recognize because I was in it last month basically accusing its owner of murder. I turn to Beau and find a surprised expression that probably mirrors my own.

  “What’s Brick doing here?” I wonder.

  “I don’t know. I heard him tell Mother he’d gotten a work call and had to leave right after dinner. But that doesn’t explain what he’s doing here.”

  “I guess there’s no way to get the answer to that question without going inside.”

  “Mmm. And here I was rather hoping for a quiet house, some privacy, and that glimpse someone promised me a few days back.” Beau smiles, unbuckling his seat belt to lean over the console between us and cup my face in his palms.

  He kisses me, a lingering moment full of softness and intensity, the sweep of his tongue, the nip of a lower lip, that leaves me hot and bothered, and honestly, not giving two shits what Brick’s doing here at the moment.

  I lean my forehead against Beau’s, catching my breath. “You are an exceptional kisser, Mr. Mayor.”

  “I tend to think it’s that we’re exceptional in every way when we come together, but I’ll take the compliment, nonetheless. My ego requires constant feeding, as you know.”

  It’s easy enough to laugh because it’s not true. Beau has the perfect amount of confidence—not cocky, not jealous. It’s one of my favorite things about him.

  I unbuckle, too, and follow Beau up to the front porch. It’s late enough, and dark enough, that Mrs. Walters probably won’t be able to accuse me of making out in the car like a teenager. Unless she really owns those night vision goggles. Likely.

  We follow the low tenor of voices through into the living room, where we find my cousin and Beau’s brother sitting way too close together on the couch. There are drinks on the coffee table, sweating as though they’ve sat there, untouched, for a while. They’re both relaxed—or they were, before they saw us—and barely six inches of fabric separates their thighs.

  Amelia takes up more than her fair share of the couch these days, but really, it’s not much of an excuse. Or maybe it just seems untoward because of the twin, guilty expressions hanging on their faces.

  “What are you two doing? You’re supposed to be on opposite sides of a rather epic battle. Or did you forget?” I accuse, hearing the indignant whine in my voice. Shrimp and grits, I sound like a pissed-off Southern mama who just found her daughter on the couch with the town’s resident bad boy.

  Sadly, the situation isn’t that far off.

  Amelia opens her mouth to explain, or maybe to tell me to mind my own business, but it’s Brick who leaps up. Takes over, as if he’s protecting her even though I’m the one trying to protect her from him.

  “I’m here because of the case, actually.”

  “If that’s supposed to make me feel better, it doesn’t.” My retort only makes him dig his heels in, I can sense it.

  “Brick, you’re walking a thin line, ethically. You shouldn’t be talking to Amelia without her attorney present.” Beau shoves his hands in his pockets, right by my side.

  Brick snorts. “Phoebe? I didn’t want to make her leave the party, and besides, I think Ms. Cooper is better off without an attorney who has seen the bottom of at least one wine bottle tonight.”

  He’s not wrong. I don’t want to think about Phoebe or how she was half draped over my boyfriend when I got back from leaving Mama Lottie her required body parts.

  “What are you doing here, Brick? Out with it.”

  Beau’s younger brother, who has inexplicably become the biggest mystery in my life, even with all the competition, looks to Amelia for…what? Permission? She shrugs and nods, and he turns back to me. “I came to give your cousin a heads-up that the Middletons have asked the judge to order a psych evaluation. They’ll be able to pick the psychologist, so you’ll want to find one, too.”


  “He says theirs will certainly find me to be incompetent, so ours will have to be willing to rebut that.” Millie doesn’t sound as defeated as she should, or as she has been these past several weeks. Her fingers are curled into fists and there’s a glint in her green eyes that says she’s ready to fight.

  My heart leaps. I want to cry, shout, hug her, and dance around the room. This is my Amelia, but where did she come from? What brought her back?

  I slide a glance toward Brick. Think of how he slipped her that card the other day, how he went out of his way to utter encouragement, one person who has struggled with depression to another in the thick of it. How obsessed she’s been with her phone since that meeting.

  Maybe it’s not what brought her back, but who.

  There’s zero chance of me untangling my feelings on the subject of Brick and Amelia’s…friendship? Instead, I focus on the problem at hand.

  “Of course our psychologist is going to find that you’re perfectly fit to be Jack’s mother, Millie. Because you are, not because we have to pay him off like the Middletons are going to do.” I glare at Brick. “And stop saying ‘they’re going to’ and ‘the Middletons are planning’ because you’re on their side. You can’t separate yourself from what’s happening to our family right now, no matter how nice you try to play it.”

  He looks properly chastised, embarrassed even, for the first time since this conversation began. Beau’s been quiet but strong in his show of silent support.

  The sound of the front door banging open, then closed, interrupts my probably fruitless attempt to stare down Brick Drayton.

  “Hello? Are you guys awake? I really need to…” Mel slows to a stop, her wide eyes, taking in the number and identity of the people in the living room. Probably wondering if she can get in here, too, with all the tension clogging the space. “…talk to you,” she finishes. Her eyebrows go up, uncertainty flickering across her face. “Is this a bad time?”