Behold the Bones

by Natalie C. Parker

  It’s a while before anyone speaks. My phone lights up with yet another request. I let it stay where it is at the center of the trampoline. Fred’s accident has people understandably worried, but I can’t be expected to race across town every time someone thinks they’ve seen a ghost.

  “So,” Sterling begins. “Shine Child?”

  I knew what it was the second Old Lady Clary said the words. I just never thought to connect it to me. “It’s one of the Clary Tales,” I explain. “It’s the story of a young man who could walk through the swamp unharmed and did so all his life. That’s basically the whole story except that there was a girl who was sweet on him and one day followed him into the swamp. The boy was busy collecting flowers or hunting ducks and didn’t hear when the swamp sucked her under. She died and he was sad, but he got married sometime later and was given fat, happy babies by his wife.”

  “So he was kind of like you?” Sterling asks. “Immune to Shine?”

  “But why would that make her think you can stop this?” Abigail asks.

  There’s nothing so horrible as not having an answer. I down my tea and drop the glass to the ground three feet below. Sterling and Abigail watch me with expressions of veiled concern and unveiled interest.

  With a sigh, I prepare to let them down. I say, “I have no freaking clue, but I’m pretty tired of everyone else knowing more about me than I do.”

  “Do you want to ask Lady Clary?” Sterling asks, reluctant.

  “What are the chances she tells us anything we don’t already know?” I ask, feeling defeated. “I’d rather take my chances with Nova. At least she seems to want to tell me things.”

  When the sun’s a less brilliant ball in the west, we deposit our empty glasses inside the porch and head home. As we emerge from the Thurmans’ backyard and pick our way along my street, I see a dark SUV parked in the street in front of my house.

  Just as we’re close enough to see it has Washington State plates, my front door opens and out steps Mr. King. My mother says something obviously cheerful and he laughs before waving and fixing his big white Stetson on top of his head. Oblivious to our presence, Mom shuts the door and Mr. King crosses the front yard toward his car.

  Seeing him causes whatever small degree of patience I had left to snap. I make a beeline for him. He turns and, seeing me, waits.

  “Evening, Miss Candace,” he offers.

  “Look,” I say, “I know my parents gave you permission to use that footage, but I don’t give you permission. In fact, I give you the exact opposite of permission.”

  His smile is condescending. “I’m afraid they’ve signed all the paperwork already.” He raises one hand with what I assume must be the offending papers. “It’s a done deal.”

  I consider my next words carefully but decide I won’t be giving him anything he doesn’t already know. “Do you want to know how many people have asked me to come banish their ghosts today alone? If I were a priest, I could turn a pretty penny for my services, but I have no desire to be a priest and if you put that footage in your show, things will only get worse. You’re ruining my life.”

  His eyes shift to my left and right. Abigail and Sterling, I assume, backing me up.

  “You’re asking me to give up the finest footage I’ve ever captured,” he admits. “What are you going to offer me in return?”

  I pause. He wants the tree, that much I know, but without knowing why, there’s no way in hell I’ll tell him where it is.

  From behind me, Sterling says, “I’ll give you an interview. All the swamp lore you want, and I’ll tell you what happened to me and my brother.”

  “Saucier!” I snap.

  Mr. King perks up at the offer. He rolls the contract between his palms as he considers, weighing my future celebrity against the unknown but enticing offer of Sterling’s firsthand account of encountering the swamp.

  The streetlights click on, painting our illicit dealings in sickly orange.

  “All right,” Mr. King says now that he’s had a good think. “You come have a chat with me, Miss Sterling, and I’ll hand over the contract.”

  “Deal,” Sterling says, stepping up to shake the hand of Mr. King.

  “Nice doing business with you.”

  We don’t return the sentiment, but that doesn’t seem to bother Mr. King at all. He treats us to one of his winning smiles then slides into his SUV and leaves us alone on the street.

  “You don’t have to do it, Saucier,” I say.

  “I know,” she answers. “But I might have done it anyway.”

  “You’re a damn fool,” I counter. Sterling may think there’s no harm in talking openly about the swamp—at least not when she’s aware she’s talking openly about the swamp—but I think she’s dead wrong.

  And I decide right then that if there’s any truth to the notion that I can stop these ghosts from haunting my town, that I’ll do it. If there’s nothing for Mr. King to shoot, there’s no show, and if there’s no show, there’s no reason for Mr. King to stick around asking uncomfortable questions.

  16

  BY FRIDAY, I’VE BECOME A collection of sharp edges. School is back in session, but with three classrooms out of commission. The classes are redistributed to the lesser-used spaces like the cafeteria, the auditorium, and the library. That works until the ghosts of three girls in dated prom dresses run shrieking across the stage. They weren’t there long enough for anyone to force me into yet another banishing, but for the rest of the day people huddled uncomfortably close to me.

  When I get home from school, I find Mom in my room with a laundry basket and an agenda. I’m so on edge, it takes all the patience I can muster to keep from sinking my teeth into her.

  “Can we talk?” she asks. “No research,” she promises. “Just talk.”

  Even this has cost her. All her usual shields are down. She’s trying, and that means I should, too.

  I lean against the edge of my desk and she takes the bed. Her eyes scan the walls, which chronicle my greatest achievements from my seventeen years of life in certificates, group pictures, award ribbons, and trophies. My room is a shrine, a tribute to the version of me I need to be in order to leave Sticks. I suspect it gives Mom a different sort of satisfaction than it gives me.

  “I’ve never told you how hard it was for me to get pregnant. No, don’t freak out. I’m not going to go into detail, I just need you to know that I didn’t know how important these kinds of things were until it wasn’t easy.” She pauses, having taken us over that first hurdle, and waits to see if I’ll bolt like the green filly I’ve become.

  I hold my ground. If there’s one thing I know about my mother, it’s that she’ll say her piece over and over again until she’s convinced she’s been heard. The surest method out of this is to take the Band-Aid approach. So it’s about time I take it.

  “You will hate me for saying this, but you can’t know what you’ll want in five or ten years. I’d hate to see you make choices now that you’ll regret later.”

  I nod. “I know. But they’re still my choices and I’m not interested in turning my body into a science experiment on some infinitesimal chance that it’ll change something.”

  “I know what you’re going through. I know you’re angry and disappointed and confused, but we have options. We can try to fix this.”

  “I don’t need fixing,” I snap, suddenly protective of my biological failures.

  “Candace, I need you to really think about this. Don’t just react, think. You’re such an achiever—you’re used to being able to do everything really well and you shut down when you can’t. I don’t want you to wake up one day and realize you’ve cheated yourself out of something.”

  I can hear everything she’s not saying and it fills me with a cold passion. I want to strike back.

  “You don’t have to worry because finding out I’m a reproductive dead end was probably the best thing I’ve ever heard. Do you realize how much sex I can have?”

  “Candace!” Her
shock smells like fear. “Be serious.”

  “Oh, but I am.” I let cruelty into my smile. “Babies are out of the picture. All I have to worry about are diseases and assholes.”

  I recognize the degree of control it takes for her not to respond immediately. It’s satisfying to know I’ve planted a seed of worry. If she’ll believe that I’m a reckless, angry child ready to drown my woes and seduce half the town, then it serves her right.

  She clears her throat and lifts her chin. “I know you’re angry. I know this is unfair. There’s a lot about life that isn’t fair, and sometimes we can’t do anything about it, but sometimes we can.”

  “Don’t try to pretend this is about anything other than your own disappointments, Mom. You passed your faulty genes to me and now you’re suffering because no one will ever call you Grandma. Well, you know what? Poor you!”

  She stands with the laundry basket pressed to her hip. “Okay, Candace. I won’t bring it up again. But if you change your mind—”

  “Don’t hold your breath.”

  “If you change your mind, I’ll be ready to help.”

  She closes the door behind her and I scream into my pillow.

  I don’t want to be fixed. I don’t want to spend hours thinking about whether or not I need to be fixed. How am I supposed to know what will make me happy? Or unhappy, for that matter? I know what makes me unhappy right now and it’s my mother looking at me like I’m broken.

  In the midst of what could quickly become an ugly pity spiral, I text Red and Leo and bully them into holding an impromptu party. There’s no real chance they’d refuse, but it costs me twenty bucks and a box of shotgun shells just the same.

  Their place is perfect for this sort of thing. They live in an old trailer on the back half of Uncle Jack’s acreage. The lawn is maintained by frequent parties full of trampling feet, an outdoor fridge is constantly occupied by a keg, and they keep a firing range stocked with cans and rotting fruit.

  With a few well-placed texts and phone calls, I ignite the party. Cars begin rolling up no more than fifteen minutes after my first lure went out. It’s satisfying to see. With so little effort on my part, these fifty people will enjoy something less mundane than they’d have come up with on their own. I get a distraction that will keep me busy until I can get some info out of Nova tomorrow. And Mom gets to wait at home and wonder what her precious daughter is up to.

  While we wait for the crowd to thicken, we start the night off right with pumpkin carving. It may not feel like fall, but soon the weather’ll turn and we’ll break out exciting wardrobe pieces like flannel and lightweight leather jackets and scarves.

  Leo sets five pumpkins at the end of the range. Red loads fresh clips into a collection of .22 rifles and hands one to me. He saves two for himself and Leo and hands the other two to Heath, who looks like he’d rather not, and Quentin Stokes, who was the first to respond to my call and shoulders the rifle with a cocky sort of confidence.

  Red calls us to the line and we stand a few feet apart with our eyes on the pumpkins.

  “Hey, Candy,” Stokes says in my ear, flirting. “You want me to help you with that? I don’t mind showing you how to grip it.”

  Stokes is the perfect combination of attributes—he’s just pretty enough, just smart enough, just easy enough to be entertaining without inspiring feelings of true love. There are at least thirty copies of him in our grade alone. They’re all Ken doll, salt-of-the-earth types who aspire to be exactly what they are. Which makes them easy targets.

  I ask, “Your grip gets a lot of practice, does it?”

  I fire. He laughs and for the next ten minutes, we all become completely focused on our pumpkins. I take my time, lining up my sights, exhaling when I shoot. Red hollers when the last shot is fired. The air smells like gun smoke and competition.

  Leo collects the pumpkins in a wheelbarrow and carts them to us for display. Each one bears the rough approximation of a jack-o’-lantern smile except for mine. Leo raises my pumpkin and an eyebrow.

  “It’s for Stokes,” I say.

  “Subtle,” says Leo, holding the gutted fruit up for everyone to see.

  It’s definitely rough, but I have to admire my handiwork. There, in ten bullet holes, are the letters F U.

  Stokes says, “Any time,” and I give him my most satisfied smile.

  The night picks up speed after that. Nearly every junior, senior, and recent graduate shows up at one point or another. The notable exception being the King kids. They stay blessedly absent.

  This sort of setting is where I do my finest work. I slip in and out of circles, listening and waiting for someone to look at me with a twinge in their eye. Everyone has a tell: Sterling tucks her chin, Abigail avoids eye contact, everything about Heath is a tell. It’s more complicated with people I don’t care to spend recreational time with, but I’ve collected more than a few tells in my tenure as a lowly underclassman.

  I scan the crowd for any bit of gossip that doesn’t have to do with me or the swamp. Beneath a low-leaning pine tree, I spot Max Thames and Tara Taylor bending around each other in some misguided attempt to define the word lewd. Max’s little sister Kelly has no love for Tara and watches them with her hands strangling her cup. There’s something gossip-worthy there. I don’t know that I care, but it’s better than nothing.

  I start to head toward Kelly when Riley Wawheece appears out of nowhere. He’s just suddenly here, standing beside me with a plastic cup in one hand, the other shoved into his pocket. When he bobs his head in greeting, I notice how the shadows sculpt his shoulders and chest into something attractive, how here he stands upright and confident where usually he hulks like a crab. Our eyes connect and I notice how a small smile bends his lips just for me.

  And then I notice how my first reaction to his presence was nothing like normal.

  Head in the game, Pickens, I chide myself.

  I’m already haunted by swamp ghosts; adding Riley Wawheece to the mix just seems cruel.

  “What are you doing, Wawheece?” I ask.

  “Just came to say hey,” he says, defensive. “Can’t a guy say hey?”

  “Sure, but a girl doesn’t have to listen.”

  I don’t even feel a little bad as I stalk away to find someone more agreeable. But Sterling and Abigail have disappeared too early. Sterling with Heath. Abigail with Shannon. They’ve both fallen into forbidden romances and they plan to use every stolen minute they can. And good for them. I’m glad for them, but the later it gets, the more the crowd thins until those left around the fire are either the die-hards or the too-drunks.

  And I am alone. I called this entire party into being and I’m still alone. While everyone else hooks up or blisses out, I’m startlingly sober and standing here like the parsley on a plate of fried chicken. This is what my mom is afraid of. What boy will want the girl who can’t give him kids? What do I have to offer if I can’t offer family? I’ll end up a ghost before I’ve died.

  I fill my cup with cheap beer and tip my head back to guzzle it in one go. This isn’t fair. I’m not ready to think about this. I shouldn’t have to think about this. I’m done thinking about this.

  I spot a cut figure in the firelight near my cousins. That’s the one. The boy of my mother’s fears. He’s blond hair, thick biceps, and easy manner. He’s uncomplicated. He comes with no strings attached and he’s exactly what I want.

  I stride across the yard, press my hands against his chest, and lean to whisper against his skin, “C’mon, Stokes.”

  Someone whistles. I don’t care who.

  Quentin captures the tips of my fingers with his and tugs me into the shadows. My head swirls with anticipation and the beer I downed too fast.

  This is what I want—reckless, easy kisses and not a single care for my biology or ghosts. This is what I want.

  Stokes pulls me against him, presses my back to a pine tree, and drops his mouth to mine like a ton of bricks. He wants control, so I give it. His mouth barely breaks con
tact with my skin as it travels from my lips, down my neck, and over the top of my shirt.

  My head spins like the sky above.

  If my mother only knew what her precious girl was up to. I wish she did. Maybe I’ll tell her. I want her disappointment to be legendary.

  I grip Stokes by the shirt and turn him so it’s his back against the tree. I let my kiss carry all of my fury and then I reach for his belt. He reaches for the button of my jeans, but I move his hands firmly away.

  His eyes flare with a question. I answer by tugging again at his belt. His fingers overtake mine fumbling between us until his pants drop to the ground.

  “Condom,” he says, husky and excited.

  I laugh, suddenly flooded with a sense of power and freedom. I lean in to him and whisper, “Here’s my secret, Stokes. You can’t get me pregnant.”

  “You on the pill?”

  “Nope,” I say without a care in the world. “I just can’t get pregnant. Ever.”

  I see the moment he fully comprehends what this means. I feel it in the grip of his hands at my waist, suddenly rushed and greedy. But I don’t care. Not right now, not while these careless kisses are burning my neck.

  Again, my mind twists, the ground suddenly becomes unstable, and I stumble against Stokes. He’s happy to support me, pull me close, drown me with a kiss while the wind whispers in my ear, the tree it took her for its own, own, own; fond and jealous of her bones, bones, bones.

  Leaves unfurl in my mind, blossoms open pink and wanting, roots shred through my veins and I feel a shiver race through my skin. I feel myself falling into this madness again, I feel my mind spinning with words that aren’t my own. I hear a voice not my own and it sings, They took all she had, had, had, and left her mad, mad, mad.

  What, what, what is happening? I squeeze my eyes shut, but that song continues to spin through my mind.

  And then pain. Stokes bites my lip bringing me firmly back to this moment where I am not a tree.