Behold the Bones

by Natalie C. Parker

  My relief is so real, so palpable, I could eat it like a slice of cake.

  Sterling beams and sits up on her knees to say, “I have good news. Mr. King made good on his promise.”

  She whips out the contract my parents so casually executed against my wishes and drops it into my lap. In the face of everything that’s happened, it seems like such a small thing. Even if it’s a small thing I’m glad to have.

  “Thank you,” I say.

  Sterling nods and adds, “Mr. King also wanted me to tell you that he hopes you take this as a gesture of good will and honor what Gage told you the other night.”

  Stay away. Gage’s voice is urgent in my mind. Urgent and pleading.

  “I need to tell y’all what happened the night Nova and I tricked Stokes.” I pause, offering an apologetic glance to Abigail. She nods me forward, showing no sign of the lingering hurt she must still feel inside. This is the difficult part about moving on, but it will only get better if we keep moving, so I tell them everything that happened that night, starting with exactly how Nova tricked Stokes into an untrue confession, dwelling perhaps too long on my encounter with Mrs. King and subsequent dismissal by Gage, and ending with fleeing in my car.

  “This isn’t good,” Sterling concludes.

  “It sounds like you’re in danger,” Abigail adds.

  “Yeah, but from what?” I ask. “The only person who’s been willing to talk through this whole thing is Nova, and she’s as reliable as a tornado.”

  We sit quietly for a moment, the only sound Abigail’s recent musical obsession piping through her portable speakers. Through Sterling’s window, the swamp has gone from the impenetrable black of summer to the razored paleness of autumn. Beneath the dark sky, it’s revealing all its bones.

  That’s the only reason we see the beams of yellow light sweeping back and forth. They move slowly, edging in from the direction of the Lillard House.

  “They’re still looking for the tree,” Sterling grumbles.

  “And how is that possible?” Abigail asks. “It’s always been so easy for you to find the tree, and by all accounts, they know what they’re doing with Shine, so why haven’t they found it yet?”

  The question is so obvious that the three of us are momentarily stunned into silence.

  Then something else catches my eye.

  Sterling gasps, Abigail leans in, and I know they’ve spotted her, too.

  At the edge of the fence, Mad Mary Sweet stands in her filthy white dress. Her hands grip the planks and her eyes fix on mine.

  “I see her,” I breathe, leaning in, gripping the window, never, never blinking.

  “But not the Shine around her?” Sterling asks, tentative, a hint of fear in her voice.

  “It treats her the way it treats you,” Abigail adds, more solid than either of us. “It moves away from her wherever she moves.”

  Mad Mary begins to climb. Her movements are stilted, her hair swings like vines, and she begins to mutter a single word over and over and over.

  “Bones, bones, bones,” she grates in her unearthly voice. “Bones, bones, bones,” as she sets her feet in Sterling’s backyard and begins to walk toward the house.

  “What on earth does she want from you?” Abigail asks, now horrified and leaning away from the haint in the backyard.

  The word grows louder, filling the room around us like smoke. “Bones, bones, bones, my bones, bones, bones,” she says.

  She reaches the edge of the screened-in porch and begins to climb using the notches Sterling and Phin made as kids. Her hands slap against the wood, as little by little she raises her tortured body to reach the porch roof.

  “Candy?” Sterling’s voice quivers. Her hand grips my elbow, pleading.

  Mad Mary says, “Bones, bones, bones.”

  My skin shivers. I see how pale her skin is. Beneath the streaks of mud and blood she’s as pale gray as a rain cloud.

  Mad Mary says, “Bones, bones, my bones,” and crawls steadily toward us. Toward me.

  I lean against the window frame. I know I’m safe, my touch will dispel her, but there is a solid core of fear holding me stiff. “Annemarie Craven,” I say.

  She pauses. She blinks her milky eyes and purses her cracked lips.

  “I know you’re my kin. That’s why I can see you, isn’t it? I know you died in the swamp. I—I know what we are.”

  Her voice grates again. “Bones.”

  And I nod as understanding hits me all at once. “I’ll find them. I promise.”

  She reaches out one hand. It’s a terrible sight, all split nails and scraped knuckles, but I reach for it and at my touch, she’s gone.

  “Sweet Pete,” Sterling breathes.

  “How do you know what she wants?” Abigail asks, sliding the window closed and turning up the music.

  “She’s the only one of my kind—the cursed kind—who wasn’t buried in the family plot. I think she probably just wants to go home and if I can give her what she wants, she’ll quit bothering me.”

  Farther out in the swamp, the flashlights begin to turn away from the location of the everblooming cherry tree.

  “It doesn’t want to be found,” I mutter.

  “No, you don’t want it found,” Sterling answers just as quietly. “Trade-off, remember? It heals you, you keep it safe. It’s a balance.”

  Something swells in me then, a sensation of expanding, and I literally feel my mind being blown. I’ve felt apart from my town, from my family, from my two best friends in the entire world all because I was looking at everything too closely. I assumed that my position had to mirror theirs, that because my experience of life and magic was different, it meant I was all alone.

  The reality is that my differences are what connect me to everything around me. I am Sticks; I am the Shine Child; I am Candace Craven Pickens.

  “They’re not going to stop looking,” I say, watching the beams of light snuff out.

  “You know the best way to figure out what they want with the tree?” Abigail asks.

  Our eyes meet. I suspect she knows that all I needed to hear was that question to know the answer. It’s the obvious Candy Pickens move. The only problem with it is that I’ve recently shut the door I need to make it work.

  “What am I missing?” Sterling demands. I love the girl, but she doesn’t have a scheming bone in her body.

  “I have to give them what they want,” I say. “I have to take her there. I have to take Nova to the everblooming cherry tree.”

  PART THREE

  She died one night as she wandered alone,

  Nestled ’twixt the roots of a tree that shone,

  And there she did lie,

  With eyes on the sky,

  Waiting for kin to take her home.

  26

  TUESDAY MORNING, THE SCHOOL LIBRARY is closed for ghosts. Freshman debater Nina Harrison was in the stacks when she encountered two men in suits with an ax, a saw, and lascivious grins. She freaked, grabbed the closest thing, which happened to be a fire extinguisher, and hosed the whole place down. As a result, classes are even more cramped than usual.

  Sterling, Abigail, and I decided there’s no reason to delay. As soon as the final bell rings, I corner Nova in the hallway.

  “I know you’re still looking for the tree,” I say.

  She doesn’t mask the surprise on her face, but she proceeds cautiously. “Yes, we are.”

  Now I lay my cards on the table. “I’ll take you to it if you tell me why it’s so important to you.”

  She considers for a moment, tapping her fingers on the edge of her books. “Okay, I’ll tell you on the way to the tree. Just you and me. No one else.”

  I’ve got two friends who won’t be pleased with that, but what choice do we have? “Deal. Tonight, seven p.m., behind Saucier’s house.”

  Nova raises an eyebrow and I explain, “I can only get to the tree from there. Any other direction and I’m just as useless as you.”

  She nods. “Great. See you t
hen.”

  Then she turns on her heel and as she walks away, I remind myself that this was the plan and there’s no reason to be nervous. The swamp, as it turns out, is my friend.

  We gather at six thirty p.m. I’ve dressed for the work ahead: long-sleeved T-shirt, jeans, rubber boots, switchblade. Sterling, Heath, and Abigail are all similarly dressed in boots and clothing they don’t care much about.

  “I still don’t like this,” Heath says for the tenth time. “Maybe we should go ahead of you. I don’t like the thought of you being alone with her out there.”

  “Aw, Heath,” I say, patting his cheek. “I’m touched, but if you guys are in the swamp, there’s a chance she’ll use you against me.”

  “You’re assuming she’s better than we are, than Sterling is, with Shine,” he protests.

  “She might be,” I concede. “But the point is she can’t do a damn thing to me and I’m ten times stronger than she is. All we’re doing is walking to the tree and back. If all goes well, I’ll return much the wiser and she’ll never be able to find the tree again. And just in case she tries something . . . ?”

  Abigail lifts my phone. “We text Red and Leo and gather a crowd as soon as you’re gone.”

  Sterling shifts nervously. “My parents are gonna love this.”

  “Blame it on me,” I offer.

  Nova chooses that moment to strut around the side of the house. Like me, she’s dressed in work clothes, and she has a small backpack slung across one shoulder.

  “The whole party’s here,” she says, cheerful. “And you’ll stay here or the deal’s off.”

  “We got the memo,” Abigail says with a surprisingly hard edge.

  “Great.” Nova beams. “We won’t be long.”

  The three of them don’t move but look at me with matching expressions of dissatisfaction. Well, Sterling and Heath match. Abigail looks at me boldly, as though courage is a thing she can pass with a gaze.

  And maybe it is, because I feel confident as I turn to Nova and say, “Follow me.”

  I pass through the gate Sterling forced her parents to install and assume Nova follows. I don’t demand anything from her until we’re in the thick of the swamp.

  “Okay, I’m doing my part. Now you do yours. I want answers,” I say, choosing a muddier path than necessary.

  “A deal’s a deal,” she sings. “My mother’s been sick for a long time. Almost my whole life,” she says matter-of-factly. “But now she’s dying.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say immediately.

  “We’ve been looking for a Shining tree for years. It’s the only way to heal her.”

  The swamp feels empty. Every step is a torrent of sound, announcing us to whatever is brazen enough to live here. And in that emptiness, a taunting voice begins to spin in my mind, Take a stone, take a flower, flower, flower, these will last only an hour.

  No, not now. I shake my head.

  “Why is it the only way to heal her? Why not take her to a hospital?”

  “Because she’s like you. A Blind Bone.”

  Mrs. King. A Blind Bone. A Shine Child.

  With a start, I recall the painting of her standing before a cherry tree very like ours, and her grating voice as she clawed at me: “Bones, bones, bones.” She must have known that we were the same and wanted me to know, too.

  Nova nudges my shoulder. “Unless we’ve arrived, you need to keep moving.”

  I do as she says but make another demand. “What can the tree do for her?”

  “I think it can save her,” she says, her voice tormented and hopeful. “I hope it can, at least.”

  “Nova, why didn’t you just say so?” I turn to face her and see the pain I heard in her voice written plainly across her face. “Why wouldn’t I help you to save your mother?”

  And why would Gage be so vehement in his plea that I stay away?

  Nova blinks against the tears forming in her eyes. “Because I’m not even sure it will work.”

  She steps forward again and we continue to plod through the chilly mud and layers of fallen cypress needles. After another minute, the aggressive pink of the cherry tree comes into view and my vision swirls between its branches.

  Take a bone or take some strife, these will last for all my life.

  With an exclamation of joy, Nova pushes past me and I stumble. Swamp water splashes up my legs.

  “This is a thing of beauty!” Nova holds her hands out as though beholding a god. “I knew I’d find it. Oh, I just knew it. You’re a true friend, Candace Pickens.”

  “Are we friends?” I ask. “I think we’re something else.”

  “Oh, no, we’re friends,” she assures me. She moves with more speed than I’d have given her credit for and wrenches my arm behind my back. “And as my friend, you’re going to save my mother’s life.”

  “Oh?” My arm twists painfully. The voice in my mind sings, She’s mad, mad, mad. I struggle to keep my balance. “How? What are you doing?”

  “I’m glad you asked. Don’t worry,” she soothes against my cheek. “I’m not going to ask you to die.”

  Die,

  die,

  die.

  She hauls me forward. Each of my steps is directed by the pain at my wrist and elbow. I try to convince myself to take the injury. Ride the pain and take her down with my left cross. But fire lances through my shoulder and my moment of bravado flees.

  My head spins. My knees hit the ground.

  Nova releases my hand. Pain flutters away like butterflies, but I don’t recover fast enough. Something crashes against my head and I see stars in the pale bark of a cypress tree.

  Not enough to knock me out, but enough to stun and in that moment, she takes my hand in hers and presses it between the protruding roots of the tree at my back. Before me, I see the pink, pink, pink of the cherry tree.

  Help me, I think. But I know it won’t. I’ve been bad, bad, bad.

  “I just need a piece.” Nova’s voice again. “I—I regret this, Candy, I really do. If there were any other way, I’d take it, but it has to be bone or it won’t work.”

  Before I have a chance to parse her words my hand explodes in pain.

  Bones crunch. Skin splits. Nova grunts, sawing her blade through my skin, through my bone, through my body. Red spills down my skin and into the roots of the cypress tree. My mind goes with it, spinning and crashing through the earth until all I know is the hum of silence, the cruel cold of pain.

  I blink.

  I’m on my side with my hand tucked against me. Nova stands over me with something between her fingers. The night sky cradles her hair until she is the sky. Her eyes are distant, dark stars on the verge of supernova, her red lips a colorful nebula. The pieces of her face are a constellation with a horrible story pulling them together.

  I blink.

  I’m seated with my back against the tree. Sweat slicks my forehead. I’m hot and sick. Standing will be a challenge. It’s a good thing there’s rope holding me up, tight to the cypress tree so I can’t fall over again. The cherry tree seems very far away, isolated and small by the edge of the pond. My hand smarts, but Nova is wrapping it. She’s twisting a bit of my shirt around the shortened stub where my pinky used to sit. She’s doing it because she cares.

  “I’m sorry,” she says. “But these are the rules. The Shine Child needs a tree. I’m sorry it had to be yours.”

  She’s mad, mad, mad, mad, mad, mad.

  No stars shine between the pink bulbs of the cherry tree. All the sky is a riot of blossoms with no sense to draw them together. My mind sifts into them until all my thoughts are pink.

  Nova crouches next to me. My finger lies on the mud and all I can think is that it’s been too long since I changed my nail polish. The bright orange is chipped in all the wrong ways.

  She collects it and carefully drops it into a sandwich Baggie from her pocket.

  “There,” Nova says, standing.

  My mind whirls like a tornado. There are words I need to say. Wha
t “there”? Let me go. You cut off my finger! They’re all there, but all I manage is, “Why?”

  She crouches near my face. “I told you, to save my mother. And because without this,” she shakes the blood-smeared Baggie in the air, “she’ll die. And I’ll do anything to keep that from happening.”

  I grapple with what she’s saying. Try to find the argument that will bring her to sanity. I say, “I would have helped you, Nova.”

  But she laughs and I have the sinking sensation of having missed something vital.

  “You are. The laws of the Wasting Shine are simple, remember? There must always be a balance in the world, a living force to keep the Shine in check—that’s you. In order to interact with Shine, you must risk your mind. And, my favorite, in order to bind yourself to Shine, you must eat it.” She lifts my disembodied finger. “My mother is dying because her tree was killed, buried beneath a soulless subdivision, so I’m going to give her yours. All I need to do is reset the system.”

  “Reset the system?”

  “Break the bond between you and the tree,” she states as though it’s all so obvious.

  My heart throbs in my hand, in the back of my throat, in my gut. My mind sings, She’s mad, mad, mad.

  “How do you know it will work?”

  She crouches to stick her pointed nose in my face. “I don’t, but I have to try and who knows, maybe you’ll survive just fine and be free of Sticks like you’ve always wanted.”

  For a brief moment I see the future as she paints it—one in which I don’t have to worry about Shine or madness. I feel tears begin to slide down my cheeks.

  Nova sighs. “I don’t think it’s very likely, either. And I know you won’t believe me, but I really am sorry.” She pauses with an unreadable expression on her face. Distaste. But for me or what she’s done to me, I don’t know. “I hope you survive.”

  “So don’t do it,” I say.

  “My mother doesn’t deserve to die any more than you do,” she says, apologetic. “If I don’t do this, I’m killing her. How am I supposed to kill my own mother?”