When You Believe

by Deborah Bedford

  Put your hand in the water, Lyddie.

  Why?

  Sh-hhh. Don’t ask. Quick, or you’ll miss.

  Miss what?

  Do you trust me? You’ll see.

  Let me put my coffee mug down.

  Slow. Don’t move anything you don’t have to move. I’ll help you. That’s a girl. Now.

  His breathing warm on her ear, his chest full length and hard against her back. His arm curved around her as if they were stepping off into a dance, as if he wanted to hold her and set her free all at the same time.

  Now, your other hand.

  Both of them? You’re going to make me fall in.

  Sh-hhh.

  What?

  Here.

  He took her second hand himself and placed it inches beside the first one. With his hands cupped around hers in the water, they’d waited, motionless, his chin resting on her shoulder, until he said, Now. NOW! and they came up with a brilliant yellow fish, flipping and curling between her hands, as round and as small as her palm. His chin, moving against her shoulder blade. The fish, so beautiful, its heaving yellow middle reflecting glimpses of opal.

  It’s a sun perch. Brim.

  She’d watched as he released it and it side-splashed, then curved its way deep into the water until she couldn’t see it anymore. He had entranced her.

  Do it again, she breathed. Then, after a long silence, staring down into the lake, Oh, do it again.

  What do you want me to catch this time, Lyddie?

  A bass. Try a big-mouthed bass.

  You’re crazy. You know there’s some things that are easier to catch than others.

  The Loch Ness monster, then. Try to catch that. We’d be rich. We’d be famous. With wet fishy hands, she turned into him and grabbed his face. For one frightening moment they lost their balance and she thought that, yes, they were both going to topple into the Brownbranch. But he captured her as they teetered and pulled her against him, rocking his face against her wet palms as he engulfed her with his big arms, both of them laughing.

  Then he had caught her wrists inside his hands and the laughter faded, replaced by a serious longing in his eyes that asked much of her. A deep-seated kiss that she almost couldn’t bear.

  Three mornings ago, and it had been the last time they had touched, the last time they had kissed.

  In a loving impulse, Lydia wanted to touch him now. She hungered to remember the planes of his jaw beneath her fingers, wanted the reassurance of his hauling her against his muscle and bone. She needed to hear him say, “It’s all right, all right now, Lyddie.”

  But it wasn’t all right.

  He backed away from her.

  “Just get in the truck, Lydia. We have to get to the school.”

  “I thought you wanted me to drive.”

  “Not anymore I don’t.”

  She tried to pray but nothing would come. Oh, Father.

  The trees screamed out to her in the churchyard. How could you think he would still want you after you’ve let her accuse him? You fool. You fool. You fool.

  Lydia climbed into her side of the truck and slammed the door.

  Charlie mounted on his side and yanked the rearview mirror so he could see the boat.

  She tucked her knees up with a sullen thump of feet on his dashboard. As if she could make herself invisible, she slouched as low as she could go.

  Charlie winched his seatbelt across his pelvis with the same zealous fervor as he would hoist a battle flag. He jerked the gearshift from neutral into first and gave it too much gas. The truck leapt forward.

  “There’s one thing I know,” she told him fiercely as the trailer rattled over the gravel behind them. “Only one thing I know about this. Maybe this isn’t the right thing to do, Charlie,” she said, looking down. “But I know it isn’t the wrong thing, either.”

  Charlie didn’t reply. His attention stayed on the boat in the rearview mirror.

  Charlie’s Pride, she wanted to say about that boat, dragging along behind us.

  He didn’t speak at all until they’d gotten clear to the corner of Sassafras and Montgomery and pulled up short by the one traffic signal in town. She stared at the prisms in the stoplight, thinking it looked like an insect eye.

  “This boat may be secondhand but it isn’t a scrap,” he said to the red light. “I’ve waited my whole life for this.”

  I have, too, she wanted to say. Oh me, too.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Lydia lifted her fist to knock on the principal’s door. But, for long seconds, she couldn’t do it. Cradled inside the crook of one elbow, she carried her report, one manila folder containing three pages that weighed almost nothing.

  Three pages.

  And they might as well have been a load of bricks for the weight they cast on her heart. This, this was low ground.

  She saw the door-handle turn and heard the muted squeak of hinges. Before she could jump out of the way, the door swung toward her. She caught it with her hand to keep it from hitting her shoulder, and there stood L. R. Nibarger, principal, staring down at her, obviously startled.

  “Lydia.”

  “Oh,” she said, trying to recover. “I was just coming to talk to you.”

  “Well, you surprised me.”

  “Got a minute?”

  He checked his watch, stepped backward into his office. He motioned her in. “Well, for you, I certainly do.”

  “Thank you.”

  But she didn’t move inside yet, not toward him or the desk or the chair. She hadn’t been ready. But every guidance counselor had to be ready for something like this when it came. Nibarger sat on the edge of a worktable and waited for her, curiosity sharpening the features on his face. She switched the manila folder from her left hand to her right and finally stepped forward. She offered no further explanation as she slid it toward him.

  “What is this?” he asked.

  “I think you’d better have a look.”

  As he read, Lydia stared down at the dark ink, the careful block lettering, her own meticulous writing. And as she did, she wished she could be anywhere but here—out with the autumn-evening leaf smells or sniffing the damp red earth that her Uncle Cy had taught her to love or hearing the lap of water as it licked at the lakeshore. Nibarger was biting his bottom lip so hard it had turned white as he read, his eyes tracking left to right along the page, Lydia’s heart moving with his eyes, wishing that she’d never had to do anything like this.

  He finished and looked up. “This can’t be true.”

  “Well,” she said. “What if it is?”

  “Then we’ve got ourselves a problem.”

  Lydia stared up at the ceiling. “Yes,” she said to no one. “Yes, I think we do.”

  The magnitude began to tumble into view piece by piece, like broken stones skidding down a gully. One thing hit onto something else onto something else onto something else. And pretty soon, so many stones were broken free and falling that there wasn’t a place to move over and get out of the way.

  “They’ll want every detail.” L.R. scrubbed his fingers over a spot on his head that must have, some time in the past, been graced with thick hair. “No evidence is ever enough in cases like this.”

  Outside it was mild and fragrant for October, warm for evening, a tangle of blue jay complaint and wood thrush song. Finally Lydia voiced the awful thing she kept learning over and over again as she counseled, the awful possibility she had ignored after Shelby had given her Charlie’s name. “A child almost never accuses without there being some truth behind it.”

  “Yes,” he said. “I know that, too.”

  She stared out the window waiting for him to say something more, thinking of the powder-puff game and homecoming festivities and everything the students were celebrating this week.

  “Charlie is such a good teacher. A good person. I’ve known him since he was splashing in puddles,” L.R. said, his voice edged with despair. “Known him since he was learning to line up the ferrules on hi
s fishing rod.”

  “A lot of people have told me that. It’s one reason I—” She caught herself. That’s one reason I let my guard down with him in the first place.

  “You know what Charlie said when I interviewed him for his job?” L.R. said. “‘I’m tired of the college politics. I just want to be someplace I can teach.’ I was so impressed when he told me that.”

  Neither of them dared say aloud what they both were thinking. Do you think he could have done it?

  L.R.’s face was deeply lined, gone gray with grief. “Never been so glad to see a man come home, start giving himself to the place he grew up in. Never been so sure when I hired him that what I was doing was the right thing.”

  Lydia braced herself against the table. She realized they were speaking of Charlie in the past tense, as if he were already gone.

  “I’ve done what I had to, L.R. He needs you. Please don’t you lose faith in him, too.”

  “When the social workers interview Shelby, they’ll want a neutral location and a police officer here in plainclothes. Can you get Shelby here first thing tomorrow? I know they’ll want to do it as soon as I give this report to them.”

  She swallowed. Hard. Made the commitment that she would bring the girl. “Yes.”

  “She’ll tell the truth about it? She’ll testify?”

  “She’s said she will.”

  “And you’ll sit in with her?”

  “I’ll do anything you need me to do.”

  “Let’s keep a lid on this thing as much as we can,” L.R. said. “This isn’t going to be any good for the school. If the Democrat Reflex gets hold of it, this place will be a madhouse. Not a word to Gritton, of course.”

  Lydia nodded. She didn’t need to say anything else aloud. They were each of them thinking the same thing: Everything this touches is going to fall apart.

  “Our first interest is in protecting Shelby from all this,” L.R. said.

  “Yes.” Lydia rocked forward and back, forward and back. “Yes, of course it is.”

  L.R. had just picked up the telephone to make the call when a loud pop reverberated down the hall. It sounded as loud as a shot against the ominous long silence that followed it. Then came the sound of frail, hard music as broken glass fell somewhere.

  And, for a moment, the two of them stared at each other, each wondering if someone had found out, if this was already happening because of Charlie.

  “What was that?” L.R. asked Lydia.

  “I don’t know.”

  Out in the hallway, they glanced wildly about, searching for something amiss. But Riley McCaskill, the night janitor, had already locked every classroom door. An entire row of them up the A-hall—eighteen to be exact—and each one of them had been fastened tight.

  In the dark hallway, Mo Eden stood transfixed, a red plastic biohazard box in her arms.

  “Mo?” Lydia hurried toward her. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. Did you hear that?”

  “We did.”

  “I had to sign off on those tetanus inoculation certificates. Took me an hour longer than it was supposed to. I was just taking these empty vials to the car.”

  “Sounded like somebody shot out a front window to me.” L.R. kept his back to the wall.

  “I’ve had plenty of experience hearing gunshots. I grew up with my brother Baxter, the big-shot game bird hunter of St. Clair County. This was something else, Lon Ralph.” Mo was one of only a privileged few who knew what the L. and R. stood for in the principal’s name.

  “Where’d it come from?” Lydia glanced from one end of the hallway to the other.

  “The Home Ec room maybe?”

  “That’s what I think, too.”

  “Stay up against the wall,” Nibarger said. Lydia let herself and Mo be pressed into the lockers behind him. “Just in case.”

  As they crept along, the very familiarity of these hallways felt false. Up ahead an eerie orange light flickered, off again, on again, for a moment only half bright, a liquid moving color.

  Lydia could smell something burning. Mo fished for her cell phone in her pocket. “I’ll get the fire department.” She began to punch in numbers.

  When they reached the door in question, L.R. hopped on one foot and yanked off his shoe. It registered only briefly that the principal was wearing yellow socks. How odd to see his big toe, its ragged toenail thrusting out through one of several unraveling holes.

  “I’m breaking in.” He pounded his Hush Puppie loafer against the window in the door. The heel bounced off, useless. He turned to them again. “And while I do, find me something that will hold water. We’ve got some big soup tureens in the Home Ec room, don’t we?” He hauled off and banged the window with his fist. “Ouch.”

  “Get back, Lon Ralph. Let me do it.” Mo practically shoved him out of the way with her hip. “You can’t fool around with this tempered glass.” She raised the biohazard box she’d been carrying, flung it with both arms, as hard as she could, at the window. The glass imploded and fell in one wave, taking itself down. Smoke poured out of the opening.

  “Here.” Nibarger reached in to unlock the door.

  “Not yet. Now this is when you use your shoe.” Lydia took it from him. The glass left hanging looked like the edges of tiny ceramic tile, held in place by what remained of the wire mesh. With his loafer, she began to knock out pieces around the perimeter. Somewhere in the distance, a fire alarm began to blare.

  L.R. grappled past her, reached the handle on the inside. He twisted the deadbolt and they were in. Around their feet, a dozen or so small fires still burned. A stack of graded nutrition tests had ignited. Flames licked one end of a bookshelf against the far wall. Seconds after the alarm began, the automatic sprinkler began to swirl water down on their heads.

  Sirens, which had first been only a rising hum in the distance, now split the air with their wails. The St. Clair County pumper truck lumbered up outside. Behind it, the hook-and-ladder truck rolled in, followed by a dozen different cars owned by members of the volunteer ladder team.

  In moments it seemed, gawkers from all over Shadrach had assembled. Lydia recognized people from as far away as Still Family Mountain and Boilerhead Road. Someone shined a searchlight in her eyes through the broken window, temporarily blinding her. Red-and-blue emergency lights throbbed, blazing against truck chrome and treetops as rescue and salvage vehicles parked at haphazard angles in the street.

  “You know what this stench reminds me of?” L.R. flagged his arms through the smoke as if he were trying to find them. “Thirty years ago I went off and left the popcorn maker turned on all night at the Rialto. Came back the next day and this is what met me. Burnt corn. Smelled up the whole theater.”

  “Good grief, Lon Ralph,” Mo said. “You could spare us the historical details right now, you know that?”

  “Rialto seats smelled like scorched popcorn for over three decades. Up until Old Man Hardy decided he had to have cup holders and finally put new seats in.”

  The door swung open and in marched Captain Judd Ogle of the Shadrach Volunteer Fire Department, brandishing an ax.

  Lydia, Maureen, and the principal stood there in street clothes, covered with ashes and wet, feeling victorious, but looking very small. Towering over them stood Captain Ogle in full fire-resistant Nomex, vast and formidable, the strips of safety-yellow reflective trim etching the fold of his forearms, his yellow helmet rammed low and businesslike over his eyes.

  “I’m Fireground Commander for this mission,” he announced. “Anything I need to know as my teams get into place?”

  “Just this,” L.R. gestured toward the debris they kept stumbling over on the floor. “The fire is out.”

  Lydia crossed the room and flipped the light switch. The fluorescents came on, fierce and bright. Charred sweet-corn ears littered the floor. Ogle picked one up; it was smoking from one end like a gigantic cigar.

  “Well, I’ll be jumped up.” Ogle pulled his chin, squeezed it together at the bottom.
“Thought we were dealing with Molotov cocktails here. Guess not. These came right out of somebody’s cornfield, didn’t they?”

  One of Ogle’s sergeants had tagged along as rear guard. Two uniformed police officers flanked the door. The sergeant said, “Looks like yellow bantam corn. Some good crop. Maybe Joe Wester’s place down along Barn Hollow.”

  “Well, now. I don’t figure Wester’s got anything to do with this. That corn looks like out-of-county stuff to me.” Ogle shook his head. “It’s a shame. All dressed up in my shake-and-bakes for a lot less than a bushel of ears.” He held one up. “See this?” The silk and husks had been twisted into a wick on the top end. “Missouri folks used to light these and use them for flashlights back in the old days. I can see igniting one or two of these things as a prank. Would have been easy enough to do with a cigarette lighter.” Ogle’s mouth went thin. “But this many?”

  L.R. picked one up, sniffed it, recoiled. “They’ve been soaking in something. Paint thinner, maybe? Kerosene?” He handed it over. “What do you think?”

  Ogle sniffed, too, and nodded. “Kerosene would be my guess. Somebody’s doctored up a whole bunch of corncobs, all right.”

  It seemed so incongruous, a uniformed man kicking aside rolled, charred corncobs with heavy boots and Nomex-clad legs as big around as buckets. He certainly wouldn’t need his ax for this.

  “Hey, Captain,” somebody bellowed from outside. “You’d better have a look at what we’ve got out here.”

  Toilet paper scalloped through the lacy branches and billowed like confetti from at least five different trees. As they stood in the yard surveying the purple spray-painted letters on the mortar-and-brick school walls, Lydia saw Brad Gritton’s car screech to a halt behind the pumper truck. He threw open the door, climbed out, and strode toward Lydia with purposeful steps.

  L.R. intercepted him. “What are you doing here, Gritton?”

  “You know what I’m doing,” he said, looking past L.R.’s shoulder at Lydia. “I’m doing what I teach all my journalism students to do. I’m listening to my police scanner and chasing fire trucks. I get most of my best stories that way.”