Poison Tongue

by Nash Summers

  “Maybe there’s evil—” Monroe grabbed my hand. “—but there’s good too. The only good I’ve felt in ages.”

  “I’m afraid of what we’ll do when we’re together. What we’ll become. You are too. I can see it in your eyes.”

  “And I can see in your eyes that you know there’s something good here.” He put his warm hand on my bare shoulder. Slowly he traced my neck, ran his hand up my throat, stroked my jaw, and tilted my head back to meet his gaze.

  I smiled sadly. “I think when we’re together, evil runs wild. The fire in your garage, the blood on your bed. Me wanting to drown myself in the swamp.”

  Monroe pressed me against the wall, leaned in close. “Then I’ll burn this town to the ground, and use the wood of this house to start it.”

  There was a lump in my throat and a knot in my stomach. He looked at me so intently, so earnestly, it might’ve broken my heart.

  This could never work. We could never work. We were two sides of the same coin. I was fuel to his fire, the devil on his shoulder. Together we would be a walking disaster. The worst part was, in my heart, I wanted nothing more than to let his darkness consume me. I wanted nothing more than to beg the curse that wrapped itself around his soul to hold me under the swamp water and kiss me until I drowned or disintegrated.

  “I know I ain’t good enough for you, Levi,” he said solemnly. “I know I ain’t the man you deserve. But give us a chance—give me a chance. I will try so damn hard for you.”

  “I’m sorry.” I ducked under his arm and slipped away.

  He dropped his arm, smiled at me sadly. “It’s not worth the chance?”

  “No. It’s not.”

  The ceiling drew his attention. He didn’t try to stop me.

  Before leaving the house, I grabbed my clothes from the dryer and pulled them on. As I did, part of me hoped that Monroe would rush downstairs and pull me into his arms. Another part of me wished I’d never see his face again.

  Outside, birds chirped. The wind blew gently against my face, through my hair. The sun beamed its hot rays down on the bare skin of my arms. By all counts it was a beautiful day. But to me the world had become sepia.

  My heart ached when I thought of Monroe’s gentle kisses from the night before, when I thought of his hands against my skin. It wasn’t fair that it was him my heart wanted. I tried to reason with myself, tell myself I was lucky that I’d at least been warned by Gran that something like this would happen. But a warning about wanting someone as broken as Monroe Poirier was entirely different from experiencing it. I’d been expecting a rainfall, and I’d been caught in a hurricane.

  I might’ve been walking for minutes or hours or days. Eventually I found myself in the one place I knew Ward would be.

  Bright yellow sunflowers smiled up at me, even from a distance. I envied their joy, their wild color, their simplistic beauty. Their petals were soft as I reached out and ran my fingers along them. Part of me wanted to lie down in the field of sunflowers and sleep. Another part of me wanted to rip out the roots of each and every one.

  He stood in the middle of the field, looking toward the sky. Hands in his pockets, back straight, unmoving. His loose tank top slapped gently in the breeze. His dark eyes focused on a cloud above our heads, but he knew I was walking toward him.

  I stopped next to him, our arms brushing. He didn’t acknowledge me at first, and for that I was thankful. Times like these need moments, maybe years, of silence.

  Eventually, without looking at me, Ward said, “Do you remember, years ago, when you were young, and we snuck out of the house one night?”

  I smiled at the memory. “Yes. The bonfire, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “All the seniors at school were talking about it. Some massive bonfire they were having out in the field behind Kevin Andrew’s house because his parents were outa town. I must’ve only been about ten.”

  After a short pause, Ward asked, “And do you remember that night? What we talked about?”

  I turned to him. “Of course. I think about it all the time, Ward.”

  After school one day, I’d come home and flung my school bag on the table. Head in my hands, I began to sulk. Mama had asked me what was wrong, and I’d told her nothing. I could tell she didn’t believe me but let it go.

  When Ward had asked me the same question, I told him about the bonfire behind Kevin Andrew’s house, and how I wanted to go, not to talk to anyone, but to see the fire. The older kids at school said they were going to make the biggest fire the world had ever seen. In my young mind, I truly believed it too. I wanted to be part of that, to witness something so magnificent I’d remember it for years.

  Ward nodded when I’d told him. He’d said, “Then we will go.”

  “Mama will never let me.”

  “Then we will sneak out.”

  The idea had shocked and surprised me. But if Ward had suggested it, I knew it couldn’t be a bad idea. I trusted him in everything and anything.

  After the sky had filled up with stars and a big watching moon was pinned into the sky, Ward snuck into my room. I was still awake, waiting for him anxiously on the foot of my bed. We snuck out my bedroom window, crawled across the roof above the porch, and climbed down one of the pillars.

  The walk to Kevin’s house was twenty-three minutes. I remembered that because I counted each passing minute. My excitement grew and grew until I was almost overflowing with it. By the time we reached the field where the bonfire was being held, I thought I could die happy. Even from a distance, it glowed brightly like a firefly on my nose. Hills poured all around, blanketed in the darkness of night. Not wanting to risk being seen, Ward and I had perched ourselves on the tallest hill so we could look down on all the seniors and the bonfire.

  We sat side by side, knees pulled up to our chest, arms wrapped around our legs.

  Without looking away from the fire, I said, “It’s amazing.”

  “It is.”

  “I think it might be the tallest fire the world has ever seen.”

  “Maybe.”

  Together we sat in near silence. Crickets croaked and jumped around our ankles. The singing and shouting from the seniors around the fire was but a light buzz of noise in the background. A gentle crackle and roar of the flames popped every now and then. I remembered thinking to myself that if stars could twinkle, they’d be singing too, in the glory of the fire.

  My mind had wandered, as it did easily when I was younger. I’d thought deeply of all the things my life was and all the things my life could be. I had wondered if I’d ever leave Malcome, or if I’d ever help people one day. I had wondered if I’d ever grow up tall, if my blond hair would change to a darker color, if the world would be kind to me.

  I had wondered if I’d ever fall in love.

  “Ward?”

  “Yes, Levi?”

  “What if I move away from Malcome one day?”

  “It does not matter. I will be there.”

  “What if I do something crazy, like join the circus or run away from home?”

  “Levi, I will be there.”

  “Well, what if I do something bad, Ward? Real bad?” My voice had shaken. “What if I say something mean to my mama, or get in a fight at school, or lie about something real important?”

  “I will be there.”

  I snapped my mouth shut. Seconds drew out into minutes. The silence between us was thunderous. There was something else I wanted to ask, and we could both tell.

  “But, Ward?” I asked quietly, unable to look at him.

  “Yes, Levi?”

  “What if I fall in love one day? Then what will I do? Will you leave me then?”

  “No, Levi. I will never leave you.”

  “But Gran said—”

  Without looking at me, Ward reached out, laced his fingers with mine, and squeezed.

  “Always,” he said. “I will always be there for you. I will never leave you. You are my heart.”

  I turned to him, unabl
e to contain the smile that spread across my face. “And you are my soul.”

  The smell of the sunflowers brought me back. Ward was looking at me now, eyebrows slightly raised, waiting.

  “And?” he asked. “Do you remember what I told you?”

  “Yes. But I thought things might have changed. It was so long ago. We weren’t in the situation we’re in now.”

  “It could be a hundred lifetimes, Levi, and nothing would change. I will be with you always and forever.”

  I wrapped my arms around him, hugging his large frame, pressing my cheek into his chest.

  “I’m so sorry, Ward.”

  He wrapped his arms around me. It felt like a childhood blanket being tossed over my shoulders after a long, cold night.

  “You never have to apologize to me, Levi.”

  “Yes I do. For this, I do.”

  “He may never be a good enough person for you.”

  “And I may never be good enough for him.”

  Chapter 13

  OVER THE next two months, Monroe stopped me from drowning myself another five times.

  Each occurrence was like the time before it. I would awaken with a gasp, frantic, a longing in my heart. Monroe would be there, strong arms wrapped around me, holding me up from the depths of the water.

  His eyes wouldn’t meet mine, and each time it caused a fissure in my heart. He would pull me out of the swamp, bring me in through the back door of his house, and put the shower on. Unlike the first time he’d done this, he hadn’t said a word to me, just turned on the hot water of the shower and closed the door behind him.

  I stood in that shower each of those times, letting the hot water thunder against my naked body, wishing I had the courage to say something to him. But I’d been the one to push him away, and I knew it was childish to say one thing and truly hope for another. So I tried to respect the invisible wall I’d put between us, for both our sakes.

  ONE NIGHT, after the fifth time, I found Ward sitting on the porch waiting for me.

  The night was hot, humid. The air around me weighed heavy, pressing on my shoulders. It wasn’t the first time I’d come home from the Poirier house and found Ward waiting, but I could tell it was the first time that he’d wanted to talk.

  The old, wooden boards of the steps creaked when I sat down next to him.

  “He might be a good man after all,” Ward said.

  “I know.” It came out like a sigh. In the past two months, each time Monroe had saved me from drowning myself in the swamp, I’d come to the realization that there was still a man beneath the curse who was worth saving.

  “I think,” Ward said, “that we should try to help him, even if you are afraid.”

  I smiled. “You are too.”

  “Yes.”

  “I think we should try to help him too. Even if we’re both afraid.”

  MAMA WALKED over to Monroe’s house first thing in the morning.

  “It’s best you stay as far away from that house, and that swamp, as you can,” she’d said before leaving. Silvi went with her, mostly because Mama was too stubborn to use her walking stick and the sun hadn’t fully risen yet.

  I found myself fidgeting, waiting for them to return. Ward told me to calm down, but I couldn’t. My heart wouldn’t listen. I paced back and forth on the front porch, Ward sitting on the bench, watching me.

  A part of me was excited, hopeful even, thinking that we might actually break this curse on Monroe’s soul and make him a free man once again. A larger part of me was afraid that we’d be too weak. Our knowledge of curses wasn’t extensive, and even if it were, none of us were strong enough to compete with a curse like his. But we had hope and had asked Gran for a little bit of luck.

  When they crested over a hill in the distance, my heart skipped a beat. Coin ran ahead of them, barking, wagging his tail. Mama and Silvi were holding hands. A few feet to the side of them walked Monroe, a medium-sized box tucked under his arm. His gaze focused on the ground in front of him, sometimes looking up to smile at Silvi and my mama.

  As I stared at them from the porch, it suddenly struck me how devastatingly sad it all was. He’d never had a real family, not like I had. He’d never walked next to his mama, as a man, never had the small comforts of a familiar laugh of a loved one, never read a sibling a bedtime story, never known each and every night that your family loved you just as much as you loved them.

  Was evil born, or bred? Was cruelty in a person’s blood, or was it something that life pounded into their being? Could the harsh years and a lifetime of regrets and pain be taken back?

  “What’s wrong, sweetheart?” Mama asked. “I can see you frowning from a mile away.”

  I tried to smile. “Just worried, is all.”

  She gave me one of those looks that let me know she wasn’t buying what I was selling, but she let it slip. “Monroe brought some of his old family stuff over. Anything we could find on his aunt. You said she was the one in the family who was experienced in voodoo.”

  They reached the porch, and Silvi and my mama bounded up. Monroe stopped a few steps below me.

  “Hello,” he said quietly.

  “Hi.”

  “We don’t have all day,” Mama hollered from inside the house.

  I smiled and motioned for Monroe to follow. We walked down the hallway and into the living room. I sat on the floor in front of the coffee table. Monroe plunked the box down on top of the table and sat down by my side. The closeness of him was unnerving.

  “What kinds of things did you bring?” Her eyes focused on the wall behind Monroe’s head. She held out her hand.

  “Well.” He began rummaging through the box. “Mostly old pictures, a locket, some family and birth records. An old notebook of hers is in here, but it’s mostly incoherent scribbles and pictures. It’s all I have left of my family, except for the house. Once I left Malcome when I was a boy, I never looked back.”

  “Spells?” Mama asked, a frown on her face.

  I took the book out of the box and flipped it open. It was leather bound, brown in color, with a crest on the cover. The pages were old, stained and curling at the corners. Inside, the scribbles were frantic and messy. My gaze traveled down a page, I flipped, and then another. “Looks like spells,” I said. “Nothing I’m familiar with.”

  “Don’t read any out loud, Levi,” Mama said quickly.

  Monroe snapped his head up to look between me and my mama. “What could happen?”

  “No idea, but it’s better not to take the chance,” I said.

  Monroe knelt to dig through the box. The bottom hem of his shirt lifted as he moved, exposing a tanned strip of skin. My face began to warm. I tried my best to keep my eyes on the scribbled mess of words and symbols inside the journal.

  “Here.” Monroe reached out to hand me something.

  Without thinking, I took it.

  A bright flash of white light shot into my eyes. I might’ve fallen backward, or else I was floating. I couldn’t tell. Everything was white. My body felt as though it were made of air and dust.

  The white slipped away, and the ever-present darkness took its place. It surrounded me. My head spun. I couldn’t see or feel anything. The inky void began slipping into my skin, through my pores, into my mouth and ears and nose.

  And then I was back in my living room. Silvi sat next to me, and Monroe held my wrist tightly. Everyone around me had worried expressions on their faces.

  “Levi?” Silvi asked softly, looking up at me.

  It was then I noticed how badly my hand hurt. I tried to pull it away from Monroe’s grip to look at it, but he held it tight.

  “What happened?” I asked. “Why does my hand hurt?”

  “You don’t remember?” Monroe asked slowly.

  “No.”

  “I handed you that picture of my aunt.” He nodded to the discarded picture lying on the floor. “It started burning your skin, Levi. But you wouldn’t let go. I tried to take it from you, but you wouldn’t let me. T
he look in your eyes was totally blank, like you weren’t really here.”

  Monroe reached out and grabbed the picture off the floor. I couldn’t help but follow it, the movement of his hand, as he gave it to my mama. When the picture was secure in her hands, Monroe let go of my wrist. I rubbed it with my other hand, the dull burn setting in.

  When I opened my palm, I was shocked to see my hand was red, bleeding in spots, burned and puckering.

  “Stay put.” Monroe jumped up to his feet. I couldn’t help but sit there and stare at my hand.

  “It has to be her,” Mama said quietly. “This woman. She’s the one who left the curse on Monroe and has been tormenting you from that swamp.”

  “But why the swamp?”

  “She must’ve had some kind of emotional attachment to it.”

  Monroe walked back into the room and sat back down next to me. Pulling my hand into his lap, he pressed a washcloth filled with ice against it. I hissed at the stinging sensation.

  “Sorry. I didn’t think it would hurt you like that.”

  “You couldn’t have known,” I said.

  “Bad things really do happen when we’re around each other, don’t they?” He had a sorrowful tone to his voice.

  “Hopefully not forever.”

  He looked up and met my gaze. I smiled, and in another few moments, he smiled back.

  “All right,” Mama said as she stood. “Levi, show Monroe to the washroom and run the water. I’ll grab some things for his purifying bath.”

  I nodded and stood. Monroe followed me down the hallway to the washroom. A large, off-white claw-foot tub sat against the far wall. The faucet was plated gold, chipping from age.

  “What am I supposed to be doing?” Monroe asked uneasily.

  The knobs on the tub squeaked when I turned them, making the water flow freely into the tub. “It’s a bath, Monroe. What do you think you should be doing?”

  He shifted his weight from one foot to another, hands shoved into his jeans pockets. “I’m supposed to get naked with your bodyguard standing right out there, watching?”