Behold the Bones

by Natalie C. Parker

  3

  THE SWAMP IS EXTRA THICK tonight. The storm that blew through early last week left everything good and flooded. So flooded, in fact, that Mr. Tilly’s old dinghy took a trip down the drainage ditch and ended up parked at Miss Bonnie’s full of stolen Wawheece & Sons tools. That led to a storm all its own because it was Mr. Wawheece that found the boat first and decided to hold it hostage on account of it being full of his things. Anyone with sense would write off a boat that old as collateral damage, but Mr. Tilly’ll be planning some sort of retribution, that’s for certain.

  My flashlight charts a bobbing path through dense clusters of plants and skink-brown water. The last time I voluntarily entered the swamp was the same night all those people reappeared. Then it was soggy and disgusting, but more or less walkable. Now it’s bloated with so much summer rain we almost need a boat.

  Ahead, Sterling walks without a light of her own, confident and capable. She bends around trees and makes steady progress, never wavering even when the water climbs to her thighs.

  I waver. Gators don’t like the high heat of summer, but evening temperatures like these make them very happy. I sweep my light at the level of the water, ready to pee if I spot the flash of eyeshine.

  Behind me, Abigail sighs repeatedly in her efforts to remain calm. Abigail is a far cry from being a fan of the swamp and she detests doing anything she has to lie about, but she put on her big-girl britches and told her mom she was sleeping over at my house tonight. Which isn’t a lie. It’s just not all of the truth.

  No one says anything as we continue our weaving path. Every so often, Sterling casts a glance over her shoulder to see that we follow and I think she looks excited to be trudging through rot water in the dark. Just as I’ve begun to suspect we’ve gone astray, we emerge in the clearing of the everblooming cherry tree, still a riot of pink blossoms when all other flowers have wilted in the blistering heat of summer. It might be the one and only cherry tree I’ve seen in my seventeen years of life, but I’m smart enough to know most fruit-bearing trees flower in the spring, not the tail end of summer.

  According to Sterling, this is the tree from which all of the Wasting Shine is spun. We’re pretty certain it’s not the geographical center of the swamp, but it’s the center of its magic.

  Of course, all I see is a tree.

  Sterling heads straight for it and settles herself between the roots. Her hand falls on a small chunk of metal protruding from a knot where two roots collide. She gives it a fond little caress.

  You wouldn’t know it to look at it, but that bit of silver only recently punctured those roots. It used to be a bracelet filled with the magic of the swamp and I watched Sterling stab it straight into the flesh of the tree earlier this summer as she fought to free her brother. The tree has healed around it so completely that anyone looking for the first time might assume it had been there for decades. I guess if the tree itself is made of magic, it ought to have magical healing abilities.

  “So why are we here?” Abigail sits across from Sterling on the damp ground and flicks bits of muck and dead leaves from her legs.

  “Because I’m really tired of being the one who doesn’t see things.” I peer at the tree, looking for any hint of the Shine the two of them so clearly see. But other than the fact of its seasonless blossoms, I see nothing unusual about it.

  “And how do you plan to change that?” Abigail prods.

  How do I plan to change that? It’s not as if the Clary Tales offer any helpful advice on dealing with the swamp. All I know is that whenever I’m near the Shine, Sterling and Abigail say it moves away from me. It physically moves to avoid my touch. And when something avoids me that hard, there’s really only one way to approach it.

  I reach up and grip a low branch of the everblooming cherry tree with both hands.

  Sterling gasps and draws to her feet.

  Do I imagine it, or do I actually feel a vibration against my palms? The bark is rough and damp but also charged. I flatten my hands against the tree. There is a very slight, very constant buzzing sensation on my skin.

  “Candy,” Sterling says, moving back, her eyes taking in all of the tree. “You just—I don’t know—you touched it and all the Shine shifted.”

  Abigail, too, has stepped to where she can see the whole tree. She nods to confirm Sterling’s words and adds, “It’s more concentrated now. More in the center of the tree and brighter.”

  “You mean I made it better?” I tease. I feel this. I actually feel this.

  I try to imagine I see the Shine as they’ve described it: twisted strands of yellow and gold and brown all bound together in a press of light. But it’s unsatisfying.

  The vibration against my palms remains steady. It no longer feels like a thing happening to me. It feels alive and real and ecstatic. It feels like a solid, tangible thing I could push if I tried. So I try to do just that. Imagining it as a wall, I move my hands together and slide them along the branch, closer to the trunk. I feel the pressure receding as I go, the vibration intensifies.

  “What did you just do?” Sterling asks.

  “Tell me what you see,” I say.

  Abigail complies, disbelief heavy in her voice. “It’s just a single column now. Like a spear down the center of the tree. Tidy. And calm.”

  So I can affect it with only a touch, but I can’t see it? How is that just? My friends eat swamp berries and gain access to Shine. But I eat nothing and it avoids me?

  An idea strikes. I release the tree and turn to my friends.

  “You look like you have a plan,” Sterling says.

  “I might. You both see Shine because you ate swamp berries, right?”

  “Technically, I saw it first because I was, ya know, wasting away, but yes,” Sterling agrees. “We’re connected because we both ate something that grew with Shine.”

  “Maybe I have to do something similar. I can’t see it; it can’t touch me, so what if all I need to do is establish a connection?”

  They share yet another look, but at the end of this one, Sterling shrugs.

  “I don’t see what harm it could do to try.”

  “Beale?” I ask. I don’t need her approval, but I’d like it just the same.

  “I don’t know why you’d want this kind of connection, but it’s your life,” she says with a disbelieving shake of her head. “You do what you want.”

  “I usually do,” I say.

  They watch as I select a single perfect cherry blossom from the tree and pluck it. I’ve never eaten a flower before, but it can’t be any worse than undercooked turnip greens. I pop the collection of bright pink petals into my mouth and chew. Other than being slightly bitter, it doesn’t have much taste.

  “Do you feel anything?” Sterling asks, investigating my eyes.

  “Nope,” I say, having swallowed my swamp treat.

  “Hmm.” Sterling turns her confused face to Abigail and I actually feel my very invisible hackles rise from my neck.

  “I say you’re lucky,” Abigail declares.

  “I’m not done. Part two. Anyone have a knife?” They both reach into their boots and produce knives. A worn switchblade for Sterling, and a particularly vicious fixed blade for Abigail. I grin at my friends and produce my own: a folding buck knife with a camo handle, compliments of Red on my thirteenth birthday. “Now it’s a party.”

  “Why do we all need knives?” asks Abigail. “This is about you. Right? You.”

  “I just wanted to see that you had them. Congratulations, you’re smart enough to live in the South.”

  That makes Sterling chuckle and Abigail frown. As always, entertaining one means disappointing the other; such is the dance of our friendship.

  Sterling moves to my side, facing the tree with her little nose held high. “Blood?”

  “Blood,” I confirm. “Unless you have a better idea.”

  “Nope. Okay.” Her blade opens with a click. Deep breath in, deep breath out.

  “You don’t have to do this w
ith me.”

  She scoffs and holds her own hand out against her blade. “Won’t be the first time I’ve bled beneath this tree. How much do you suppose is enough?”

  “Better more than less.” I have no way of knowing if this is true, but it sounds good. I unfold my own blade and press the tip to the meat of my left palm.

  “Wait, wait, wait.” Abigail holds up a hand. “Eating a blossom is one thing, but do you really think it’s a good idea for you to go feeding your blood to this tree? I mean, you can’t take this back. Blood given is blood taken.”

  I pause with the blade resting lightly in my palm. “I know, but I don’t want to be the one who doesn’t see anymore. I don’t like being on the outside of something you, my family, and the entire town is part of. I want to see Shine and this is the only way we know how to make that happen. I’m willing to take the risk.”

  Abigail shrugs. “I still don’t think it’s a good idea. But I’m not going to let either of you do it without me.”

  With a sigh, Abigail comes to stand by my side, placing me firmly between her and Sterling. She lifts her eyebrows along with her blade. “Fools do it on three?”

  “One,” I say.

  “Two,” Abigail adds.

  “Three,” Sterling finishes.

  It doesn’t take much pressure to break the skin. I press and slash in one quick motion. The sting is sharp as the blade. Goosebumps crawl up my arms and down my legs as blood wells in my palm. Beside me, Sterling hisses. Abigail comes as close to taking the Lord’s name in vain as I’ve ever heard.

  We pump our fists and I squeeze until my fingers tingle. Our blood paints the top of the roots a dark color, blending in with the mud and bark. I can’t see where the swamp begins and my blood ends, and for a moment I imagine my veins, the veins of every soul in our little town, pump with muddy, brackish waters instead of blood. I imagine my heart beats in time with Sterling’s and Abigail’s, that it tha-dump-tha-dump-tha-dumps in the rhythm set by the swamp because everything in this damned town is connected.

  Then comes a single word, spoken into my mind in a thin, tortured voice: bones. It ghosts through my head, revolving like the barrel of a gun. Bones, bones, bones.

  I shiver and after what feels like several long moments, we move away from the tree.

  The air is close and warm, the swamp slipping into the calm of night, and in the dark everything is both obscure and so clear. There is Abigail, towering with her many long braids bound and spilling down her back. There is Sterling, cupping her hands, eyes wide with pain. There is the tree, stretching its gnarled arms around them both. I gave my blood, but I see no Shine.

  I shouldn’t be affronted, but I am. “This is really going to suck when we have to go hit volleyballs next week,” I mutter, pinching the broken skin of my palm together. The blood has gotten gummy and thick. Pain is not far from this moment.

  “No, it won’t.” Sterling stoops and collects thin air—Shine, I reckon—into her hands. She speaks over it and patty-cakes it into her wound. When she removes her hand, the wound is nothing but a pale, pink line. She smiles.

  “Swamp witch,” I tease.

  “You try, Abigail,” Sterling urges, but Abigail won’t hunt. “We talked about this; it’s not evil, Shine simply is. It’s what we do with it that matters, and healing is inherently a good thing, right?”

  I don’t think Sterling’s going to win this one, but she can’t help herself from trying. One of her beautiful flaws is her desire to convince people her way of thinking is the right way. I think it’s why she loves Abigail and me. Neither of us is easily convinced.

  Abigail is the most steady thing in this swamp. “This isn’t natural. Giving blood to a tree is one thing, but taking that kind of power in my own hands is another.”

  “It’s not—” Sterling stops herself. Wisely. There’s no winning Abigail at this point and we’re all too tired to really struggle. “At least let me do it, then?”

  Begrudgingly, Abigail releases her wounded hand to Sterling. Just as before, it takes a moment and a whisper to repair the cut that marred the smooth light-brown surface of Abigail’s palm. Abigail doesn’t resist, but she looks up, fixing her eyes on a single star in the cold sky so she doesn’t see her skin knit itself back together.

  The more I think about it, the more it makes sense to me that Abigail is good at turning a blind eye to things that make her uncomfortable. As long as her parents—or God, for that matter—don’t see her doing anything questionable, she can pretend it wasn’t her fault if it was done to her.

  What a horrible way to live.

  When it’s my turn, Sterling takes my hand and goes through the same motions. I hold my breath, keep my eyes trained on the cut, and wait for the moment it dares to vanish before my very eyes. Only it doesn’t.

  “What’s wrong?” Exhaustion is winning the race against my desire to be here one minute longer.

  “I’ll try again.” Sterling closes her eyes this time as she whispers over her invisible Shine and presses it against the wound on my palm. Again, nothing happens except the same stinging sensation. “I—I don’t think it will work on her,” she says to Abigail.

  Whatever that means to Abigail, it makes her look at me with a mixture of confusion and wonder that bothers my skin. Sterling has the decency to look perturbed. I don’t know why any of us is surprised. This swamp mistrusts me as hard as I mistrust it. I just never expected to care as much as I do in this moment. It doesn’t matter what I do, I’m a dead end. In every aspect of my life it seems.

  It didn’t work. There is no new connection between me and the Wasting Shine.

  I feel tears threatening like a storm.

  “I know how to work a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and a Band-Aid,” I say more harshly than I intend. “Let’s just go home.”

  4

  BAND-AIDS DON’T CUT IT. THE blood in my hand pumps as hard as my heart, keeping me up half the night fetching new ice from the kitchen. In the morning, the wound is crusted and sticky, the skin around it shiny and red, and every time I move my fingers my hand burns.

  Abigail likes to sleep in when she stays the night. Her parents aren’t fans of anything that can be construed as lazy. Even on the weekends, their entire house is up with the sun solving global crises or composing the next great musical sensation or making pancakes. I’m a natural early riser, but letting Abigail sleep gives me an excuse to avoid my parents. I don’t roll out of bed until I hear Mom’s car pulling away.

  It’s hard to linger in the shower with a busted hand. No matter how I shift, keeping it out of the water is awkward and irritating. When I’m clean enough, I give up. Clearly, slicing into my own sweet flesh on some stupid supernatural hunch wasn’t one of my best ideas. The only thing that’s changed is my ability to pull up my own damn underwear.

  Abigail’s awake when I return, waiting for her turn in the bathroom. While she washes, I head to the kitchen and start lining up boxes of cereal on the counter. I set the milk next to our bowl of bananas, but break out the frozen blueberries for Abigail since she hates yellow fruit.

  The doorbell rings and I open the door to find a FedEx guy sweating on my porch. With a smile, he offers me his handheld tablet and stylus. “Special delivery for Miss Darlene Pickens,” he says.

  In one hand, he holds a stiff, white envelope with the word CONFIDENTIAL posted across its front in blocky red letters.

  I sign on the slippery screen and trade the tablet for the envelope. In the upper left corner, the return address is printed like formal letterhead: NEW ORLEANS CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL.

  It’s very possible that I shut the door in his face. I don’t remember as I walk back to the kitchen in a twisted stupor.

  My mother’s name is on the front. But the letter inside is for me.

  Then the letter is open. The envelope dropped on the counter and my eyes move across the paper too fast to comprehend the words printed there.

  I slow down and start again.

&nbs
p; It begins with a gentle greeting and a recitation of what tests they ran when we visited. The letter recounts all the things I tested negative for, which includes precancerous or cancerous cells. I feel my chest move again as I draw my next breath.

  Then I read, “Diagnosis: amenorrhea.”

  The letter falls from my fingers.

  Years of wondering have been reduced to a single word. One that means my body is dysfunctional and I am sterile at the ripe old age of seventeen.

  I don’t know how to think about this. It’s an answer. I like answers. I like the certainty of them. But this one provides me with no certainty.

  I’m not dying. That’s certain. But what do I do about this?

  It’s then that I realize Abigail is standing next to me. She’s collected the letter from the floor and is holding it.

  She’s holding it. She’s looking at it. Reading it.

  “Shit!” I snatch the letter from her hands.

  I wasn’t paying attention. I dropped it and now Abigail’s looking at me with her insightful, patient eyes and she knows. She knows. She knows.

  “Damn it!”

  But Abigail says nothing. She stands there with her eyes trained on me, her back to the kitchen window so sunlight gilds her shoulders and laces through her long box braids. But she doesn’t speak and I really need to know what she’s thinking right now.

  “Abigail?”

  “Candy.”

  “Say something.”

  “It’s not my place to say anything.” Here she adds a graceful shrug of her shoulders as casually as if she happened upon a flyer for a party. “If you don’t want to talk, we won’t.”

  My heart begins to thump in a less frenzied way and I feel my left hand unclench, allowing a fresh wave of pain to wash in. It’s biting enough to bring me back to my senses. Of course Abigail won’t force the issue.

  I take a steadying breath and carefully replace the letter in the envelope. “It’s not a big deal. I don’t want to talk.”

  Her nod isn’t meant to assure me, but she does it anyway saying, “Okay. No talk.” She crosses to the kitchen bar and selects a cereal. Then she adds, “I thought we’d have a pool day. Just the three of us. Mom’s taking the boys shopping for school stuff and Valerie won’t bother us, so we’d have the pool all to ourselves. Think about it.”