Behold the Bones

by Natalie C. Parker

  Nova.

  Not even Quentin remembers she was there, and that can only mean that when she whispered her Shine-induced command into his ear, she told him to forget she was there. It’ll be my word against hers. Right now, my words are the only ones that matter.

  “Is there anything I can possibly say that won’t make it worse?” I ask.

  Sterling makes a sound that’s something like a snort. “Making things worse is what you do. But you have to do that before you can even start to make it better, so . . . giddy up.”

  Abigail is still hard at work, smoothing a pine needle flower bed that’s smooth as can be. Her determination is meant to insult.

  “I’m an ass,” I say.

  The needles in her hand suffer a crushing death. “That supposed to be news?”

  “No.” I crouch next to her. Blaming Nova feels like a cop-out even if it’s partly true. I was there and I didn’t stop it from happening in the first place so I start with the basics. “I’m sorry, Abigail. It was stupid and I wasn’t thinking and I’m ashamed to have been a part of it.”

  She stands, dusting her hands on the legs of her work pants. “Thanks for the apology,” she says without making eye contact. Then she turns to walk away.

  “Abigail?”

  She ignores me at first. I call again and she spins on her heel, marching straight to me with a finger pointed at my nose.

  “Don’t you dare call me that. You call me Beale, like you always do. Don’t try to soften my heart toward you because I promise you it won’t work. You’ve betrayed me. Twice. And I don’t trust people who betray me because they’re self-centered and thoughtless.”

  I’m stunned to silence. Abigail’s rage is wet in her eyes and tight on her lips.

  “You call me Beale or nothing at all. Got it?”

  A lump rises in my throat. I nod. She nods. And then she’s gone.

  Sterling brushes a hand down my arm.

  “I didn’t do it,” I say, pleading.

  She shrugs, toes digging in the dirt. “You sorta did.”

  She’s as right as she is wrong, and I can’t find it in me to argue. “You should go make sure she’s okay,” I say.

  Sterling hesitates, reaching out to grip my hand in hers. I will myself not to cry, not to keep her to myself when I’m the one who did wrong. I nudge her.

  “Go.”

  And she does.

  24

  IT TAKES TWO SECONDS TO find the text Nova sent to herself from my phone with the video attached. It’s the damning evidence I need, but it’s also useless. Quentin doesn’t remember that she was there and she never speaks on film. I’m also unsure it matters to anyone but me. But it definitely matters to me so I text Nova on the same thread: i know what you did.

  She takes her sweet time sending her response: that was nothing. imagine what else I can do. take me to the tree.

  Seeing those words raises my blood. I feel gullible and stupid and threatened. It makes me so angry I could spit.

  After an hour, I follow up: delete this number.

  There’s no response. This, too, raises my blood. I hate her for tricking me so easily, for helping me to make everything so much worse, for smiling and pretending we could be friends.

  It all makes me feel helpless and if there’s one thing I hate, it’s feeling helpless. I decide there’s at least one thing I can do.

  I have to be quick. Weekends are prime time for the Wawheece boys. I’ve probably got until the end of lunch to catch Riley where I want him.

  With the windows down, I drive the speed limit through town to the catered streets of Heath’s neighborhood, which is more accurately the Wawheece neighborhood, since they’re responsible for its development. Like so many things in Sticks, these roads lead to the family with the deepest pockets.

  Looking at Riley and Lamont, you’d never expect their house. Not in a million years would you expect those grubby, bedraggled boys to dwell inside something so beautiful and stately, but their house is exactly that. Built in the Greek revival style so common to the South, it proudly exhibits tall columns along a broad face of windows and mini balconies. Their trucks are still parked in the long detached garage, which likely means lunch is ongoing.

  I ponder what it would be like to knock on the Wawheece front door and ask for Riley. Character suicide, that’s what it would be like. It’s much wiser to sit out here like a stalker and wait for Riley’s shiny head to appear before making my approach.

  A coward’s move, that’s what that is.

  Smoothing my vintage Spice Girls T-shirt, I walk confidently to the door and press the bell.

  It takes a second, but I hear footsteps approaching and then the door opens on the face of Mrs. Wawheece. Her hair is poofed like any gilded halo, she wears a crawdad-covered apron over the ample curves of her body, and she welcomes me with a smile.

  “Well, Candace Pickens, this is a surprise. What can I do for you, sweet pea?”

  “I’m, um, I’m here to see Riley. If he’s home,” I say.

  The house smells strongly of sweet meats, salty beans, and very fresh corn bread. My mouth waters, but I couldn’t eat if I tried.

  “Ri!” Mrs. Wawheece tosses over her shoulder. “Someone here for you, Ri! It sure is nice to see you,” she adds, her smile becoming sweeter than sugar.

  Heavier footsteps head in our direction. Sweet Lord, let them be Riley’s, I think as I say, “Yes, you, too, ma’am.”

  “Candy?” Riley says, coming around his mom. “I . . . Hey.”

  Mrs. Wawheece’s retreat is deliberately slow. Riley ushers me out onto the front porch and pulls the door closed behind us. For that, I’m more than a little grateful.

  “Hey,” I say.

  Then I pause. I know what I have to do, but how to get it done is suddenly a mystery.

  “I see the irony in what I’m about to say,” he starts, “but what are you doing here?”

  Moving past the shock of a guy like Riley knowing how to correctly use the word irony in a sentence, I clear my throat. “It’s about that video.”

  Before I say anything else, he shakes his head. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “What?” I ask.

  “I said don’t worry about it.”

  I study him as all of my assumptions about the sort of boy Riley Wawheece is begin to fracture. His family is dirty rich, emphasis on the dirty, and Riley and his brother have been the brutes of our generation since kindergarten. There’s no way this guy is telling me not to worry about a video in which another guy confessed love for him.

  “I just wanted to apologize,” I say. “Posting it was unintentional and I’m sorry if it caused you any trouble.”

  Mr. Wawheece chooses that moment to holler Riley’s name from the garage. “Get a move on or ya ain’t getting paid, hear?”

  Riley’s smile is grim. “I can handle trouble. But thanks.”

  “O . . . kay.” I take a step back. This was my mission. I shouldn’t question how it was accomplished, just that it was. But this is too strange to let lie. “Wait, why don’t you care?”

  Again, his dad shouts from the garage. That’s a man with more temper than patience. He’s exactly what I expect to find in the Wawheece house.

  “I do care, just not the way you think I do,” Riley explains, hands braced on his hips. “Look, I got no problem with Stokes saying he likes me. I mean, so what?”

  “O . . . kay,” I repeat, unsure how to proceed. “Stokes is pretty bent out of shape about it.”

  “Yeah, it’s probably more his dad than him.”

  Once again, I feel that overwhelming dread pulling down from my shoulders and knees. I was a part of this. I am part of this problem.

  “I didn’t post it,” I say, suddenly desperate for it not to be my fault.

  Riley nods. “It’ll blow over. Everything always does.”

  In what world does Riley Wawheece offer me a comforting word?

  “See ya, Candy.” With a half hearted smile, h
e leaves me standing on his oversized porch while his dad gripes from the garage. He’s catching hell for wasting time. His dad’s a terror, shouting and taking quick shots at Riley’s head, but Riley bears it in silence. Just climbs into the bed of their rig and crouches while his dad guns it out of the driveway.

  And I’ll be damned, but I think I just felt something fond for the boy who’s been nothing but a hair-pulling cur for all my life.

  In church on Sunday, I sit next to Sterling, which is normal. I always sit with Sterling for the sermon. The part that isn’t normal are the sideways glances I get from my peers and their parents. My own parents tiptoe around the issue. Mom says, “If there’s anything you want to talk about, I got a recommendation for a lady therapist in Alexandria. Think about it?” Dad says, “It’s okay to be angry, Possum. Try to be angry in the right direction.” That’s the only indication I have that they’ve either seen or heard about the video.

  While Father O’Connor speaks, I let my thoughts occupy the high ceilings above my head. How was it possible that I got things so wrong? No, I know how. I can’t fool myself into thinking my actions were anything other than selfish. The part I don’t understand is why knowing it was wrong didn’t stop me.

  I used to think it was silly to assume that birthdays made you older, that age had anything to do with your intelligence. I still think that’s true.

  What I didn’t know until right this very minute was how growing up happens in little surges. We grow up in moments—when we encounter such stupidities in ourselves that our only choice is to grow past them or into them. Maybe that’s why some kids grow up too fast and others not at all.

  Two days ago, I was an entirely different Candace Pickens than I am today. Two days ago, I was a girl who was incapable of admitting fault. Today, I am very, very wrong and I can either burrow into it or change. The video lit a wildfire. It got Stokes punished, added fuel to my preexisting problems with Abigail, and probably soiled my good name. I can’t undo all the damage it’s done, but it’s my responsibility to try.

  Father O’Connor sits back in his velvety chair and the congregation raises their voices. I know the words, but I don’t sing. I stand and let all those voices wash over me. It’s my favorite part of any church service. I can’t sing worth a lick, but neither can half of these people and that’s never stopped them.

  There are plenty of things in Sticks I’d like to escape, but there’s something about these musty pews, these tattered Bibles, these eccentric people that feels like home. And you don’t burn down your home just because you want to go someplace else.

  The song of the choir spirals around me. I tip my head back and relax into the vibration. One minute without feeling or thinking is all I need. One minute of complete silence between my head and my heart. I concentrate on nothing but the notes, letting my mind follow the instinctual language of music, rising and falling like a feather on the breeze. Rising and falling.

  Rising and falling.

  Rising and

  falling,

  falling,

  falling

  into the river,

  river,

  river.

  Sterling pinches my thigh. It stings and I hiss involuntarily, but when I turn to punish her for it, her forehead is a committed frown.

  “What?” I ask.

  “Are you okay?” She stands because that’s what everyone else is doing. The service is over. But it had only just begun. Hadn’t it?

  And then I know it’s happened again. My mind lost itself in that swirling song and time passed without my permission. How many times is that? Four? Five? Too many. My innards turn spiky and uncomfortable at the thought.

  Sterling tugs my hand and I follow her out into the parking lot. The sun is warm on my skin and that’s the only reason I realize I have gooseflesh and am shivering.

  “This has been happening to you more and more,” Sterling insists, sounding confident and knowledgeable. “Abigail and I have been watching you and at least once a day you zone out like this.”

  I open my mouth to respond, but she jumps right back in.

  “Don’t you dare try to deny it, Candace Pickens. Something is happening to you and it’s your duty to tell me what.”

  “Okay, okay,” I say. “But only because I like it when you’re pushy.” I pull her away from the crowd and try to convince my innards to release this uncomfortable confession. “You remember what Nova told me about being this Blind Bone? That I balance the swamp magic and I heal quickly because of it? Well, she also said there’s always a trade-off.”

  “Like, in payment?”

  “Something like that. She says it can show up a number of different ways but is always some sort of physical or mental . . . deficiency. I’m the lucky bastard who got one of each.”

  Sterling gasps. “Your infertility?” I nod and she squeezes my hand in hers, reminding me that she’s not let go since we left the chapel. “And what’s the second?”

  “Um.” Now I hesitate. It’s harder to say this one out loud. Possibly because I haven’t yet. And once I do, there’s no turning back.

  The memory of Mrs. King’s feral eyes crouches in my mind, waiting to leap and carry me away with them.

  “Um,” I start again. “I think I might be going mad.”

  Behind us, the crowd is drawing closer as the post-church mingle begins to break up. But neither of us moves.

  Sterling says, “Tell me what happens,” and I do. I tell her about Mad Mary’s voice in my head, how the song pulls me away from myself, and how time passes without my notice. And though I try to tell it like it’s just another story, by the end, I’ve squeezed the blood out of both of our hands.

  “I think I’m about to freak out,” I admit.

  Her mouth is pinched tight with worry. She doesn’t have to say it, but she’s scared, too.

  Just then, a claw pinches my other arm and I swivel to find Old Lady Clary has sneaked up on us while we spoke. Beneath the wide brim of her fancy blue hat, her clouded eyes bore into mine.

  “I don’t know what you did to that swamp to make it so feisty, Candace Pickens, but whatever it was, enough is enough.” And here she leans in so close and says, “You’re the Shine Child. Fix it.”

  Then she releases me and shuffles away to her shiny red truck and guileless husband.

  Sterling is the first to speak. “I really wish that just once she would be useful.”

  “Why start now?” I ask.

  That actually wins a dry laugh from Sterling. “I have my interview with Mr. King in a half hour, but if you want, I’ll come over after. If you want company?”

  I shake my head. “I’m okay. Promise.”

  “Call me if that changes,” she commands.

  “I double promise.”

  We part and I go straight home to change into jeans and a T-shirt. In my haste, I knock the brochures from Mom to the floor. They scatter across the carpet, a rainbow of creased female brows. I collect them and open the one that ends up on top.

  It starts off with language so sympathetic and patronizing it should win awards. I skim down to where it lists possible treatments, ready for anything from excessive prayer to electroshock therapy. But the first thing it lists is merely birth control. Sometimes all it takes to jump-start the system is to introduce low doses of the right hormones.

  Setting the stack on my desk, I decide I can give my mother that much. It may not change anything, but the swamp doesn’t get to dictate my life and it certainly doesn’t hurt me to try. For her. I fold that brochure open and with a Sharpie, I circle the bullet point on birth control. Next to it, I write: Okay, let’s try this. I stick it to the fridge with a magnet, then settle in for an afternoon of homework.

  25

  MOM IS SO EXCITED ABOUT putting me on birth control, she pulls me out of school on Monday. We spend the day in Alexandria going through all the motions necessary to secure me a one-year prescription of pills. All things considered, smoothing this corner of my
thoroughly mussed life was a piece of cake.

  When I return, Sterling enforces Monday-night study nights at her house and she, Abigail, and I gather in her room with a stack of Tabasco-and-cheddar grilled-cheese sandwiches.

  I tread lightly around Abigail and she does the same with me, but Sterling breaks the ice with, “I know neither of you wants to do this right now, but we’re going to talk. We’ve been friends for too long not to talk.”

  Abigail turns her placid gaze to Sterling and I have to admire the way Sterling doesn’t wither beneath its weight.

  “Candy did a stupid thing. Two stupid things, and the odds are good she’ll do another stupid thing in the future, but you love her, I know you do. And Candy, you did a stupid thing. You don’t like to be stupid, but that doesn’t mean you’re somehow immune from being stupid. So, deal with it. Both of you. Deal with it together.”

  Abigail’s music struts around us while she and I try not to fidget. I know it’s my move. I just don’t know that it’ll do any good.

  “Ab— Beale,” I say, remembering the violence with which she denied me the intimacy of her first name. “Sterling is right. I was stupid. And not only stupid but selfish. I wasn’t thinking about you when I did either of my stupid things, but I used you and that’s not what friends do. I’m so sorry.”

  Abigail looks from me to the floor. Her hand rests on the cross-shaped pendant at her neck. A habit I used to assume was unconscious, but now I wonder if she does it intentionally.

  It’s a long moment before her hand falls away and she looks up.

  “You hurt me,” she says, and before I can accept that, she continues. “And you should know you hurt me because I love you so damn much.”

  Her eyes begin to shine with tears. I feel my own eyes respond, and they must be connected to my heart because my chest squeezes.

  “I love you, too,” I say, cursing my soft voice.

  “I know,” she says as a tear slips down her cheek. “And I forgive you, but I’m also asking you to be better.”

  I nod. “I can do that,” I say. “I’m pretty amazing.”

  She laughs and we fall together for a hug. Sterling joins, wrapping her tiny arms around both of our backs until we’re too uncomfortable to stay put.