Behold the Bones

by Natalie C. Parker

  Heath releases a low whistle. “Looks like new neighbors.”

  “It can’t be,” Sterling says, panic rising. “It isn’t. Maybe it’s just a restoration effort to keep it from dying altogether. Maybe it’s just for tourism or history.”

  “Hate to burst your bubble,” I say, peering through another arching doorway, “but there’s a dishwasher in there, which is the epitome of an anachronism.” Sterling looks like she’s going to vomit, so I add, “But maybe they’re just sprucing it up for some sort of—”

  A child in a hard hat swoops through the room with a shriek. He dives around the corner into the kitchen and then is quiet. I know a game of hide-and-seek when I see one.

  “Time to get,” I say, ushering Sterling and Heath to the door. Not fast enough. I usher them right into a girl with bangs as heavy as her eyeliner.

  “Oh!” She stops short of Heath’s chest. “So sorry, I wasn’t watching and I— Wait.” Suspicion streaks across her face as she realizes we certainly, definitely don’t belong. “Can I help you?”

  I’m not one to notice hair, but hers stands out as decidedly not Sticks: a short bob with sharp pieces framing her face, all of it a silky dark brown. The pale brown feather hanging by her ear is the only part that moves when she does.

  “We were just passing by and noticed all the commotion. Sorry to intrude,” Heath says, smooth as butter.

  “Everyone around here is so polite,” the girl says with a smile.

  “Who did you say you were?” I ask, stepping in front of Heath.

  “Nova!” The whine comes from behind. “You promised.”

  The child in the hard hat slumps around the corner with arms crossed. Half his head is lost beneath the helmet. He has to tilt his head all the way back to see Nova.

  “I’m not breaking my promise, Thad,” she says gently. “But we have guests. Can you introduce yourself?”

  Without shifting his glower, Thad extends a hand. “Thaddeus Roosevelt King,” he pronounces carefully. “I’m four.”

  Taking his hand, I say, “Nice to meet you, Thaddeus. Big name for such a small kid. I’m Candace, but call me Candy.”

  His eyes brighten, but the scowl remains. Maybe his brow’s just too heavy for his face. Some kids get stuck with awkward faces for a while. Nanny says strange-faced babies make beautiful adults, but that’s hard to imagine.

  “Thad,” he says, pumping my hand twice. “This is my house.”

  I can practically hear Sterling’s back stiffen. Time to get as many details as possible.

  “This is Sterling Saucier—she lives just down the road from here—this is Heath Durham, and I’m Candy Pickens. We’re all juniors this year.” The last is for Nova and she takes the bait.

  “Me, too. Oh, I’m so glad to have met you. I hate awkward first days at school.” She looks eagerly between us.

  “Sorry, but, what’s going on here?” Sterling asks, bringing us back to our original point.

  “Renovation,” Thad says carefully, rubbing his hard hat back and forth on his head.

  “Yeah,” Nova confirms. “We’re moving into the nineteenth century because central air is so bad for your health.”

  “But the Lillard House is a historic site. You can’t just move in. It’s protected.” Sterling’s starting to sound slightly hysterical. She doesn’t always deal well with change. “I mean, just who are you?”

  To her credit, Nova shrugs right past Sterling’s tone. “My dad made some deal with the town council, I guess. In exchange for letting us live here, he agreed to update it to ninety percent of its original glory.”

  “Ninety percent?” Heath asks, ever the nonconfrontational element.

  “We can’t be expected to live without modern appliances.” She leads us into the kitchen where, in addition to a dishwasher, a refrigerator has been pushed into a corner. “You guys want a Coke or something?”

  Nova hands out cans of Coke, shoves an extra into the surprisingly accommodating back pocket of her shorts, then leads us outside and down a side path I’ve never noticed before. Going by Sterling’s expression, neither has she. It branches off from the main drive and immediately cuts away through the oaks.

  Thad trots out ahead, doing his best to lead, though he has to stop every few feet to tilt his hard hat and relocate the path. I walk next to Nova with Sterling and Heath following just behind. On the way to wherever we’re going, we learn that though the Kings travel a lot for their dad’s work, they consider Washington State home, specifically a little town called Seal Harbor on the Olympic peninsula. Sticks High will be Nova’s third high school in as many years. She doesn’t play sports but has nothing against them. She’s more into things like debate and Model U.N. She shares these bits of herself with ease and confidence as though extracurriculars are the most important representations of a person. I suppose moving so often would help a person get over all the awkwardness inherent in first meetings, but it makes me wonder what she’s hiding.

  The path ends at a little shack so far from the house I can barely hear the buzz saw anymore. It’s ragged but looks like a sturdy log cabin. The door leans against the wall, its hinges long rusted, leaving the entryway shadowed and empty. On either side of it are windows with broken panes of glass. The whole thing bleeds dead kudzu. I think this is how the history dies; one choking vine at a time.

  “Isn’t it wild?” Nova asks. “It’s like an old witch’s hut.”

  “Is it an old slave quarter?” Heath looks endearingly horrified at the thought.

  “No,” says Nova. “According to the old plans, the slave quarters would’ve been much larger and closer to the swamp. It was torn down when the Lillards renovated in the early nineteen hundreds. This was just some sort of storage shed, but everyone thought it’d been torn down, too.”

  “My brother found it,” announced Thad with a proud grin. “I was with him and I’ll bet there’s ghosts in there.”

  “Aren’t there always?” Nova mutters wryly, tugging the Coke from her pocket. “Hey, Gage! You in there? Gage!”

  “What?” The shout comes from behind the house.

  “I’ll get him!” Thad shouts, running already.

  While we wait, we sip at our Cokes and poke our noses inside the old shack. It’s practically cool inside and the air smells sharp and musty. It’s packed with all sorts of rusted junk: ancient bicycles, some sort of plow, an anvil, and several somethings that look like dangerous farm implements. Nova explains that the plan is to clean it up and turn it into a fort for Thad. That’s what older brother Gage is out here working on.

  “That is, of course, assuming it’s not haunted,” she adds.

  “Why would it be haunted?” Sterling asks, tugging at a bit of withered kudzu.

  Nova’s answer stuns each of us. She says, “Haven’t you heard? This whole town is haunted and my dad’s here to find the cause.”

  Sterling and Heath go rigid. Not a game face between the two of them. They might as well come right out and admit the Wasting Shine is real and they know how to find it. There’s no question Nova sees their alarm. Sees it and maybe understands it, but lucky for everyone, Thad chooses that moment to careen around the side of the shack.

  “Found him!” he cries.

  The boy I assume is named Gage King is two steps behind. And I see that brow that sits so heavily on Thad’s little face has a bright and beautiful future. Like tectonic plates, the King features have found the shape they were meant for on Gage’s face. Sweat and dirt make tracks down from his temples. His loose jeans are distressed here and there and one wrist is wrapped in bands of leather. He wipes a hand down the front of his jeans then reaches out. I take his hand on instinct before realizing Nova was making introductions and he was reaching to shake Heath’s hand. Not mine.

  Shit.

  “Candace,” I say, rushing to cover. “Pickens.”

  His smile is less revealing than his tank. “Gage King. It’s a pleasure.”

  I know I’m with a grou
p of classy people when no one points out my mistake and guys say things like It’s a pleasure. I spend the rest of the intros convincing my cheeks that pink is a tacky color and nobody cares anyway. Least of all me. It was a dick move to reach for the only other boy’s hand first anyway. I was closest. He’s the one with cause for embarrassment.

  It’s not until Gage, Nova, and Thaddeus stand together that I see it: a boy, a girl, and a child.

  I catch Sterling’s eyes. She sees it, too. Now my cheeks are pink for an entirely different reason. I didn’t see ghosts last night.

  I saw these three Kings.

  7

  THE THREE OF US ARE strangely in sync as we extricate ourselves from the Kings and run to our cars at the end of the driveway. There’s no question Sterling and Heath have already sacrificed their reunion on the altar of finding out what the hell is going on.

  “Clary General?” I ask as the two of them swing around opposite sides of Heath’s tragic green truck.

  “We’ll follow you,” Heath confirms.

  And with that, we’re off.

  If you want to get to the bottom of a mystery in Sticks, the place to start is always Clary General. It’s also the place to avoid if you want to keep a secret. A fact I learned hard and fast from Red’s brief tenure as a high school pot dealer. He’ll be haunted by that poor choice until he himself is a ghost.

  Sunday afternoons are always a popular time to hit Clary General for a quick cup of coffee and a bit of town gossip to start the week off right, but today the crowd is especially large. The rocking porch is crowded with kids younger than us sipping Cokes and licking rainbow-colored ice pops. They’re all old enough to know something’s up, but young enough not to care. The useful part of the crowd must be inside.

  The three of us hop up the stairs and ease through the front door. Apart from a few folks standing nearby, no one notices the chime of the bell. They’re all too busy chattering. We meander through, catching snippets of conversations as we pass. Mr. Tilly, a real scarecrow of a man, is fussing at Mr. Calhoun about “those money-grubbing Wawheeces” pushing aside lifelong customers for fresh deep pockets. Mrs. Gwaltney towers over a group of women near the back of the store, each of them shaking their heads in mirrored dismay.

  We keep going until we’ve found a spot up by the counter where Old Lady Clary is conversing loudly with none other than Sterling’s stepfather, Deputy Darold Gatwood.

  “It’s all perfectly legal, Ida, I promise you that,” he’s saying loudly enough for everyone to hear. “They went through all the proper channels. No one’s rights are being trampled here.”

  “Easy for you to say, Gatty,” she counters. “There’s plenty this town wants to keep to itself. We don’t need a television crew in here hunting down all our secrets.”

  Television crew? We came looking for information on the Kings, but it seems there’s more going on than we bargained for.

  Deputy Gatwood continues. “Everybody just needs to calm down a doggone minute. Yes, Mr. King is here to film his show, but no one will be filmed without giving their express and legal permission.”

  “He’s already been in here asking questions.” Mrs. Clary’s voice rises, bringing other conversations to a hush. “He wants to know who knows what about our swamp. People like him have a way of getting what they’re after, you mark my words. He’ll take our quiet riches and leave us with nothing!”

  At that the crowd stirs. Deputy Gatwood raises his hands and hollers, “Simmer down, now!” losing all the final consonants to his accent. “I’ve met the Kings and they are good people. They’ve as much right to be here as anybody, and they’re doing a very fine job on that old river house. Do yourselves a favor and give them a chance.”

  That’s all for the deputy. He nods ever so briefly in Sterling’s direction and threads his way to the door. The second he’s gone, the shop fills with chatter again. We hover just long enough to catch the fuller picture: Mr. King is the producer and star of a ghost-hunter show we’ve all seen called Local Haunts and he’s here in town on account of hearing our swamp was full of ghosts.

  There are conflicting stories about how he heard. Some say he has spies who sift through every ghost-inhabited corner the internet has to offer. Others say someone from town must have contacted him directly. And some say it doesn’t matter because he’s loaded and a rising tide lifts all ships.

  Whatever the cause, the Kings are here to stay and Sticks is about to fall into an uncomfortable spotlight.

  Sunday dinner calls all of us home earlier than we’d like. By the time I stepped through the door, the conversation was in full swing. Everyone’s heard the news and our table is packed with extra chairs to speculate about the Kings. Nanny’s here, of course. Leo and Red, having stopped by to return Dad’s power washer, were invited to stay, which means Aunt Sarah also had to come. Uncle Jack was invited but failed to show up, and by the end of dinner Sarah confesses it’s because he lost his teeth on Highway 15 somewhere between Sticks and New Orleans.

  Now that his mom’s spilled the beans, Red tells the story with tears in his eyes, about how he was on the phone with his dad when he started cussing up a storm and hung up. When Jack called back, he admitted to dropping his dentures—hard won by the age of forty—out the open window. He says he was shaking out a napkin to kill a spider on the dash, but Red’s opinion is that he was littering and forgot his teeth were chilling in a crumpled napkin.

  “How does the man survive?” Red asks, still laughing at his father’s incompetence. “I swear, you gotta be some kind of special to lose your teeth on the highway.”

  “If anyone could do it, it’s my brother, God bless him,” Mom adds, having paused kitchen cleanup to hear the full tale.

  “Keep that boy away from my teeth,” Nanny says, shaking her head.

  “You don’t even want to know what happened the time the dog got ahold of them.” Red’s primed to tell us, though, belying his words with a devious grin.

  Leo uses the group distraction to whisper in my ear, “You okay?”

  I stare at him. He stares at me. He always looks a little vulnerable without his ball cap. I can see the faint depression of the band around his hair, forcing the ends to curl at his ears. And after a long minute he drops his gaze to the bandage on my hand.

  “Oh,” I say. “Um, yeah.”

  Truth be told, I haven’t noticed the cut since he stitched it up Friday night. Which, now that he’s looking at me with his brows knit together, I realize is weird.

  “Can I see it?” he asks.

  I lift the edge of my bandage and barely manage not to curse. Beneath the line of immaculate green stitches, my palm is 100 percent healed. There’s a pale pink scar where there should be a gash still crusted with blood.

  Leo grabs my elbow and tugs me in the direction of the back porch. I follow and when we’re safely outside, he rips the Band-Aids from my skin and pulls out his pocketknife. I hold my hand steady as he chooses the scissors and begins snipping at his stitches. They slip out one at a time until all that remains are their tiny depressions on either side of the scar.

  “What did you do to it?” he asks with a shake of his head. “Didn’t we just put those in?”

  “I’m as surprised as you are,” I admit. “Maybe it wasn’t as deep as we thought.”

  Leo drops my hand and folds his knife away. “No, it was deep.”

  I blame the swamp. I don’t know how or why, but I do. Maybe eating that blossom did do something, just not the something we expected it to. Whatever it was, the most likely source of superhuman healing in Sticks, Louisiana, is the swamp. But I can’t say that to Leo. Not out loud.

  “Well, I’ve always said my genes were superior. Now you have proof.”

  He drapes an arm around my shoulders, turning us toward the house again. And just before we move through the door, he mumbles, “I’ve never needed proof.”

  I prod him in the ribs for daring to be so sweet. “You’ll rot your teeth with that
sugar,” I warn as the feeling of being loved squeezes my heart like it’s a lemon.

  We return to the dining room in time to catch the result of some appetite-killing story Red has told. There’s not a single straight face around the table and Red’s looking mighty pleased with himself. At the sight of us, he lights up, ready to go at it again, but a knock on the front door saves us from a detailed retelling. Mom goes to answer, returning with a guest in tow.

  “Everyone, look who stopped by.” Mom’s heels on the hardwood tick-tick-tick like a bomb. “This is Mr. Roosevelt King; his family’s just moved into the old Lillard House by the river,” she says as if we weren’t discussing him all through dinner.

  “Good evening,” he says with a modest nod of his head. “I don’t mean to interrupt your supper.”

  “Oh, you haven’t,” Mom assures him. “We’re done. Just visiting now. Can I offer you a cup of coffee? It’s decaf.”

  “That’s very kind, but I won’t take up too much of your time. I just wanted to come around and introduce myself personally. I know how quick rumors can travel and I wanted to make sure you knew who I was in case you have any questions.”

  The man, this Mr. King, wields a lasso of a smile beneath a spotless white cowboy hat. He’s neatly dressed in slacks and a blazer, and while his features are more rugged than his son’s, it’s in a way that makes him middle-aged handsome.

  It seems too obvious to me that all of this is designed to keep us calm and agreeable, but I know better than to trust a man who wears a hat indoors. At night.

  “Well, we’re glad you’ve stopped by.” Mom’s voice is intentionally cheerful as she introduces us one by one.

  Mr. King moves gracefully between us, offering everyone firm smiles and handshakes. When it’s my turn, I make sure my smile is polite-reserved instead of friendly.

  “Miss Candace,” he says, “I understand you’ve met my children already—Gage, Nova, and Thaddeus quite enjoyed your visit.”