Behold the Bones

by Natalie C. Parker

  “There is nothing here,” I say, turning to face them. The light blinds me momentarily, but then figures shuffle forward, gradually becoming identifiable: Leo, Red, Uncle Trent, and Dad lowering the light, each of them looking around with cautious expressions of relief.

  Red is the first to speak. “What the hell was that?” He spits at the ground.

  “Does no one listen to me?” I say. “There was nothing there!”

  “The hell there wasn’t.” He paces away to collect himself. Red’s not great with this sort of intensity.

  Dad holds the light so we’re all lit from below with shadows streaking up our faces.

  Dad says, “You all right, Possum?”

  “Better than the rest of y’all.”

  Uncle Trent clears his throat and gives Dad an uncomfortable side-eye. His patience is thin on a good day, and it’s clear that he’s done with tonight. Leo has become solemn. He stands solid, studying me as though I’ve recently transformed. I’m lucky Uncle Jack isn’t here. He’s so full of the wrath of God, this entire affair would surely end in hellfire. As is, Dad merely nods.

  He says, “Must’ve been the light,” and holds Trent with a firm stare until he nods agreement. They won’t be sharing this with anyone outside the family

  We join the others at the trailhead. Everyone is anxious to get gone five minutes ago. Mom doesn’t meet my eyes, and we pass through the woods in near silence.

  2

  THE RHYTHM OF STICKS, LOUISIANA, has always been a steady one, like the endless punch-punch-punch of a nut-cracking machine. The school year may come with structure, but it’s summertime that’s usually predictable, with days swinging back and forth between babysitting and spontaneous parties, between painting houses and nights at our crumbling racetrack, between church and trespassing on Mr. Calhoun’s creek. I’ve lived that rhythm for seventeen long years. I rely on it the way New Orleans relies on Mardi Gras. I may not be able to predict the weather, but I can sure predict who will and won’t be a virgin by the time school starts again.

  Not this summer.

  This summer started with a shot that inspired a superstitious stampede through the fine folk of Sticks. One day, we were an unremarkable small town with a collection of sinister stories about our little swamp. The next, the swamp burped up a dozen people who’d been missing for days or weeks or years.

  Overnight, our tales about the swamp swung from complete fantasy to an infectious reality. Folks are just as likely to talk about the ghosts that their sister/cousin/uncle saw as they are anything else. As much as I’d like to disavow all of it, there are still some things I can’t explain. And far be it from me to discount a thing because I don’t understand it. I wasn’t blessed with a staggering intellect for nothing.

  Mudding the day after my birthday is the good kind of predictable. I should be able to predict that my two best friends will salvage my birthday for me, but they’re also in the camp of folk who see things I don’t, so all bets are off.

  I pick them up not-so-bright-and-early the next morning, because my dear Sterling doesn’t appreciate the day until it’s well under way.

  “How was the graveyard extravaganza?” Sterling asks around a yawn, squeezing her dark blue eyes shut. She’s been tired all summer, staying up late in the hopes that her newish boyfriend, Heath, will call from his forced internment in military camp. According to her, he keeps a prepaid cell in his shoe for the sole purpose of making illegal phone calls to her. It’s riskier than I’d typically give him credit for.

  “Same as always,” I answer. “Except for the end when everyone thought they saw a ghost.”

  Abigail sucks in a breath. “Another one? How many does that make?” Her face was made to carry warnings—wide eyes, expressive forehead, defined cheekbones beneath a brown complexion.

  “An even dozen since May. But I’m telling you, I was there for this one and I didn’t see anything.”

  Sterling and Abigail share a look. It’s a look that excludes me, a look that says they know more about these things than I do, a look I thoroughly dislike.

  They agree that there’s something very different about our swamp. It’s filled with a kind of magic called the Wasting Shine. No matter how many times they’ve described the way it threads through the trees and mud and vines like glittering Christmas tinsel, I see nothing. In fact, apparently whenever I dare to draw near it, the Shine moves away as though it finds me repulsive. I’m glad to say the feeling’s mutual.

  “It could have something to do with the Shine,” Sterling says. “That might explain why you didn’t see it.”

  “Or it wasn’t there,” I challenge.

  Again, Sterling and Abigail cut me out of their visual communication.

  I’ve accepted that Shine exists. What else am I supposed to do when my two best friends agree so completely?

  I say, “And that’s all we’ll have to say about that. Today is my fun birthday day and those are the rules.” I crank the radio. After a summer spent listening to these two discuss things I can’t see, and worrying about things that might be wrong with me, I’ve had enough. Today isn’t going to be about the things I can’t do.

  We meet Leo and Red in the wide front yard of their parents’ house. Two pickups with utility trailers bearing five all-terrain vehicles are parked on the grass. Uncle Jack is helping Leo secure the straps and imparting some final wisdom as though he hasn’t done this a hundred times before. Red greets us with a hearty, “Y’all ready to get filthy with me?!”

  This is how my fun birthday actually begins. With the best friends I’ve ever known, the cousins who may as well be my brothers, and the promise of mud and mayhem. We’ve all dressed for disaster: old T-shirts, old shorts, and boots. Sterling and I have our hair in short ponytails; Abigail has bound her collection of tiny box braids into a single one that ends at her waist.

  Red’s a walking grin in a camouflaged T-shirt and matching pants. He saunters over to us with a special leer for Abigail. Relations aside, his brain isn’t big enough to account for girls who don’t want him for his body. He sees Abigail as a perfect challenge.

  Abigail says, “I’m riding with Leo.”

  “I love it when you play hard to get.” Red is too proud to be affected, and Abigail is too assured. Their stories are the sort that will never intersect.

  “I’ll take Red,” I say.

  “And I’ll switch on the way home,” offers Sterling.

  Leo signals that it’s time to mount up with a short whistle. He and his faded red ball cap disappear inside his navy blue truck and the rest of us heed his command and follow suit.

  We make a lingering stop at the Flying J gas station to fill all seven tanks and grab Cokes for the road. As we caravan away, Red cries through his open window, “Cooterville, here we come!” revs his engine, and sets the radio to stun.

  Sterling sits in the narrow seat behind me and we spend the two-hour drive shouting to be heard above the summer wind. We know we’re close when a sign for DEER PROCESSING appears at the side of a narrow gravel road. We arrive at Cooterville Mud Rides just in time for an early lunch at the Cooter Shak—we have to eat while we’re clean enough to touch our food—then it’s time for business.

  While Leo and I unhitch the ATVs and Red backs them down the ramp, Sterling and Abigail take care of our passes and waivers. August is high season for mudding. Here in the dusty parking lot is a family of eight and a group of boys all suiting up for action. The sun is blazing in a cloudless sky, the air is thick with humidity and exhaust, and sweat is cooling on my skin.

  “Ready?” I ask my girls.

  Abigail doesn’t even try to hide her grin. There’s nothing about life in the Beale house that allows for this sort of freedom.

  Sterling’s excitement is a little less eager. She nods with an emphatic “Let’s do this,” but she does this because she likes to know that she can, not because she loves it.

  We spend the day slipping, sliding, and sinking in mud pools.
We take turns racing into hip-deep water, rocking the ATVs back and forth to keep them from getting stuck, and whipping down tracks at reckless speeds. Red goes first, I go second with Sterling and Abigail close behind, and Leo pulls up the rear. While Red and I are given to racing, no one else is in it to win.

  I wait for a straightaway and overtake Red, accelerating until my wheels gain and lose traction, becoming unpredictably slick, and the mud pelts my skin. Red doesn’t let me keep the lead for long, forcing my nose into a deep rut. This is how we proceed, laughing and cursing and sweating in the hot sun.

  We pause at the edge of what will be our final conquest. My arms shiver with exhaustion. Here now, even Sterling is laughing.

  The boys are deep in conversation—deciding how best to attack this hole when what we really need to do is barrel forward. I spy one clean patch on Red’s back. It’s a clear target. I scoop up a handful of mud and lob it full force.

  He spins, spots my grin, and returns it. “I’m so glad you did that.”

  He retaliates by darting behind me and locking my arms in his while Leo slops mud through my hair.

  “Beale! Saucier!” I cry, but my friends are much too wise for this.

  “Whatcha gonna do now, killer?” Red teases.

  He should know. He and Leo are the ones who taught me to fight dirty, but Red’s shock is immaculate when I slip his grip and spin to knock my knee into his tenderest jewel. Leo’s long smile is approving.

  These are the best parts of my life all thrown into one moment, the things I’ll actually miss when I finally leave all this behind.

  One day, this will be an interesting footnote in the life of Candace Pickens. I’ll have traveled so far and done so much that when people discover I once got muddy for fun they’ll raise an eyebrow and remark on the surprising depth of my character. People don’t think much of southern intelligence. I can’t change that, but I plan to use it to my advantage. I’ll be the girl who performs in spite of her roots and therein lies my chance at winning a scholarship to a school where studying abroad isn’t a sex joke.

  I’ll never breathe another word about the swamp as though it’s anything other than a mud pit. There’s a fine line between charming-country and eccentric-country, and I intend to stay well on the charming side of things. Shouldn’t be hard. I’m charming as hell.

  By the time we clear all twenty-five miles of trails we’re all as mud-greased as we are sunburned. We hose the worst of the mud off ourselves and our machines then head back to the Cooter Shak for sodas. My treat. I even promise Red a bag of nuts since he’s so in need of them.

  That wins me a rare laugh from Leo.

  Little yellow-green cooter turtles adorn everything from plastic glasses to neon T-shirts. The air stinks of mud, sweat, exhaust, and hot, hot summer. I thread through the filthy press of mudders to place my order. In the dingy mirror behind the bar I see myself as I so rarely am—blond hair caked in mud, skin splotched red and brown, and an easy smile that makes me look wild and careless—a girl out of control, in a state of blissful chaos. That girl doesn’t care about ghosts or Shine or medical issues. To her, all of that is noise she’ll soon leave behind.

  Sodas and snacks in hand, I spot my friends and cousins sitting at a mud-stained picnic table in the full sun. Leo has his hat pulled low over his eyes, Red has fixed pure black sunglasses to his face, and Sterling and Abigail sit with their backs to the sun. As I approach, they all stop talking abruptly.

  “What?” I ask. “Y’all talking about me?”

  “Naw,” Red answers. “The ghost from last night.”

  Leo punches him in the biceps. Predictably, he returns fire. But it’s the way Sterling and Abigail look away that hits me. Guilty. Untrusting. Aware. My one rule for the day—no ghost talk—and they broke it.

  The drive back to town is much too short. I sit next to Red with the wind in my face and mud in my hair. He’s already fussing about how early he and Leo have to get up in the morning to report for work at Mr. Tilly’s farm, but I only half listen. Sterling is in Leo’s truck with Abigail, and all I can think about is how they’re probably discussing things I can’t see. It makes my teeth grind.

  Before returning to Uncle Jack’s, we pull into the Flying J to replenish the now very empty gas tanks of the ATVs. There’s an unusual number of people loitering across the street on the porch of Clary General Store for seven p.m. on a Thursday night. It can’t be a good sign. It happens in the wake of things like hurricanes and successful boar hunts and Monday-night Bingo. None of which happened tonight.

  Red and Leo get the pumps going while the rest of us stretch our legs and scrape dried mud from our boots and jeans. The evening is sticky and warm, the sky a burning blue where the sun has recently been. I keep an eye on the crowd. Their chatter sounds like the thrum of cicadas, constant and pitchy. Before long, one little bug breaks away and jogs across the street.

  It’s none other than hater Hallie Rhodes, who’s made a career of getting detention for chewing gum and both loathes and adores me. She hops up to us with a startled gleam in her wide brown eyes.

  “Y’all been gone all day, huh?” she asks, snapping her gum. “You hear what happened?”

  “Obviously, we didn’t,” I say, knocking my boots against the ground. It’s best not to encourage her too much.

  She grins, bouncing her curls and boobs simultaneously. “There was a ghost. Right here where we’re standing. ’Bout ten o’clock this morning. One second there weren’t nothing here, the next, bam. Ghost at the pumps.”

  “Must’ve been right after we gassed up,” Sterling supplies with a special frown for Abigail.

  Hallie nods. “And it just stood here, well, it was a he, so he just stood here, turning his head this way and that. Mrs. Trish saw the whole thing from inside the shop. So did Mr. Tilly and Featherhead Fred. They were up at Clary’s.”

  The crowd on the Clary porch is thick. Among them, I spot Old Lady Clary herself, standing at the edge with her arms crossed over her ample chest. She’s listening to her guests, but her eyes are trained on us.

  “How did they know it was a ghost?” I challenge.

  “Oh, they didn’t. It was Quentin Stokes.” Hallie brightens at the mention of one of Sticks High’s most willing and committed bachelors. “He came for gas and saw the man just standing there, blocking the pump, so he parked and went over to ask him to move and when he reached out to touch the guy’s arm . . .” She pauses, snapping her gum double-time. “Would you believe, his hand passed right through the guy!”

  “Then what happened?” Sterling presses.

  “Quentin says the ghost looked real bad. Ratty clothes, long hair, and a bunch of children’s toys hanging from his belt. Creep-fest, right? And he just kept looking past Quentin, leering at nothing, until he finally turned and walked off toward the swamp.”

  “Makes a good story,” I say. “In fact, it’s a Clary tale we’ve all heard or told called ‘Jack of the Trade,’ which only goes to show how unlikely it is these are actual ghosts.”

  All three of them look at me like I’ve completely missed the point.

  “People have been talking about it all day,” Hallie continues. “Old Lady Clary says something’s wrong with the swamp. She says all the ghosts folk have been spotting are coming from there. You oughta see the fence behind Clary General. It’s lit up like Mr. Calhoun!”

  Old Lady Clary’s store is an exercise in vertical integration. She not only sells the booklets of the Clary Tales, ghostly swamp stories we all grew up on, but the candles and beads meant to keep those ghosts firmly on the swamp side of the fence. People buy superstitions and solutions all at the same time, leaving candles along the split-rail fence behind her shop. She’s small-town brilliant.

  “She’s probably right,” Sterling says with another frown for Abigail.

  She doesn’t say it, but I know what this look means. It means she’s afraid she’s to blame, that something went wrong when she freed her brother and Abi
gail from the swamp. That night is the reason I’ve been forced to believe any of this business about the swamp, but ghosts are still a stretch.

  “It’s kinda cool to live in a haunted town, don’t you think? Have any of you seen one yet?” Hallie asks, strangely hopeful.

  “I saw the one at Calhoun Creek,” Sterling confesses. It’s news to me. I was there five days ago when half the volleyball team decided a swim in the creek was worth trespassing on Mr. Calhoun’s land. I let surprise blanket my face and Sterling admits, “It was after you left.”

  Abigail reveals nothing, but she also doesn’t seem surprised by Sterling’s confession. They both knew? They both knew. And neither of them thought to share it with me. My frustration with this entire situation starts to darken like the sky above us. Of course, I haven’t said one word about the fact that I’m anticipating my own bad news, so I guess we’re all guilty.

  Hallie leans in, conspiratorial. “Kelly Thames and I are going to hold a ghost vigil tonight behind Clary General. Just a few girls. You want in?”

  I can imagine nothing worse than spending the remainder of my fun birthday day in the presence of Hallie and Kelly hunting for ghosts behind Old Lady Clary’s moonshine shack. Except once again Sterling and Abigail are sharing a look.

  That’s it. I’m not losing my friends to anything, least of all hater Hallie Rhodes. I loop my arms through Sterling’s and Abigail’s and change the course of the night. “We have plans. Thanks anyway.”

  Hallie shrugs and begins to back away. “Keep your eyes peeled for ghosts!” she calls, then turns and jogs across the street to Clary General, where Old Lady Clary hasn’t moved an inch and still watches us.

  “We have plans?” Abigail asks.

  “Now we do,” I say. I’m done being on the outside of this—whatever “this” is—and what better way to manage a complaint than by going straight to the source? “Beale, tell your mom you’re sleeping over. We have a date with the swamp.”