Shelter

by Stephanie Fournet

  “That’s it,” he yelled back without turning around, and soon the night’s shadows had swallowed him up.

  “Good riddance,” I muttered.

  Ava sighed. “I know he’s mean sometimes, but he’s nice a lot of other times,” she said softly. “I wish he’d stay with us.”

  I didn’t let Ava know that I thought Cole was about as nice as a kicked wasp nest. Instead, I looped my arm through hers. “C’mon. Let’s go get some Rice Krispy treats.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Rice Krispy treated, I trudged back up Azalea Street practically dragging Ava behind me. The house at the end of Azalea had truly been at the very end, on the corner of University Avenue, a busy four-lane road. Along the opposite side of Azalea Street sat City Hall and the offices for Lafayette Utilities — where I went with Mama sometimes to pay our electric bill — but across the street on the University Avenue side was St. John Cemetery.

  It was Halloween. It was dark. And even though Ava was with me, and I could see other kids trick-or-treating at the end of the road in the direction we were heading, I did not want to be that close to the cemetery.

  “C’mon,” I hissed, casting a backward glance over my shoulder at the spiked wrought iron cemetery fence. I couldn’t help but wonder, was the tall boundary to keep the living out or the dead in? I gripped Ava by the elbow, tugging her to make her match my hurried pace. “It’s getting late.”

  “Ow! Elise, you’re hurting my arm,” she protested, wrenching her elbow from my grip. “And my feet are killing me.”

  The kids up the street ahead of us turned the corner, leaving us alone on the long stretch of road. I looked back, imagining that I’d see skeletons in tattered clothes climbing clumsily over the black fence. I could taste my heartbeat in the back of my throat. It certainly was going a lot faster than the click-clack of Ava’s plastic shoes.

  The cemetery fence was free of ghouls, and a car turned onto the street from University Avenue. I let go a sigh of relief. If there was a car, the zombies and ghosts wouldn’t bother with us. That’s how it worked on Scooby Doo, anyway. I brought my eyes back to the end of the road, wondering how far we could get before the car passed us and left us unprotected again.

  Seconds later, I looked back over my shoulder into bright headlights. The car had slowed, probably to be careful around us kids. It was a boxy car that looked either yellow or beige in the light of the street lamps. I expected it to move past us and continue on up the road, but when the car came alongside us, the brakes let out a high-pitched squeak, and the passenger side window hummed down.

  “You girls all alone out here?” A man’s voice called from within the cab, and at the scratchy sound of it, I immediately forgot all about zombies and skeletons.

  I grabbed Ava’s elbow again, this time more gently so she wouldn’t pull away. “C’mon,” I hissed on a whisper. My eyes pierced the dark interior of the car to see a man who looked older than Mama, wearing an Astros baseball cap and a mustache that looked like a feather duster.

  “No, sir,” Ava said to my horror.

  My whole life, Mama told me never to talk to strangers in a car, never approach a stranger in a car, and never to accept anything from a stranger in a car. And if that stranger was a man, I needed to get out of there as fast as I could. Clearly, Mrs. Whitehurst had never had the same talk with Ava because she kept gabbing. “We’re not alone. My brother is around here somewhere, and I just live on Myrtle,” she said pointing to her right.

  “Ava!” I rasped. Not only was she still talking to him, she’d told him where she lived!

  “Well, why don’t y’all get in, and I’ll help you look for him,” the man said, smiling his mustachioed smile at Ava. “Y’all shouldn’t be out here by yourselves in the dark.”

  I frowned. He was right about that, but Mama had warned me that bad strangers might try to trick me into going somewhere with them or getting into their cars. He wasn’t my Mama or my teacher or the principal so I didn’t have to listen to him.

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “We’re not allowed to ride with strangers.”

  The driver’s smile grew. “Aw, I’m not a stranger. My name’s Charlie, and I live right across St. Mary on Souvenir Gate.”

  Beside me, Ava’s mouth dropped open with delight. “My house is on the corner of Souvenir Gate and Myrtle Place,” she nearly sang.

  For the second time that night, my eyes nearly came loose. “A-va, what are you doing?”

  Charlie just chuckled. “Well, get in, girl. I’ll take you home.”

  To my growing shock, Ava reached for the car’s door handle, and my hand already clasped around her other wrist cinched tighter. She swung her eyes at me with an impatient look.

  “Elise, he’s my neighbor,” she droned. “He lives right down the street. It’s okay.”

  She moved toward the door again, and I yanked her back. “Do you know him? Have you ever met him before?”

  Ava tsked. “No, but I could have. He’s just one block away.” She looked at me like I was slow to follow, and my heart started to gallop in my chest because I could see she was going to get into the car with Charlie the Stranger, and I knew — I knew deep down in the pit of my stomach — he was not going to take her home.

  My throat got tight, and my breath started coming in quick little gasps. “Ava, d-don’t. It’s dangerous.”

  “Ava.” The stranger spoke her name with authority, and we both turned to look at him. “Who do you think you should listen to? Your neighbor who’s an adult and knows where you live or some little girl?”

  The way he said little girl came out like the way people said piece of trash. And, apparently, this was all the logic Ava Whitehurst needed because she shook off my hold and opened the car door.

  And I lost my mind.

  “Noooo!” I yelled. At Ava. At Charlie the Stranger. At the Halloween night. My hands landed on Ava’s shoulders, and I tugged us both backward. And Ava, who was a couple of inches taller than me and a whole year older, tipped back onto me, sending us both down into the ditch.

  The force of Ava’s body knocked the wind out of me, so she scrambled up first. And she did it screaming. “Elise Cormier, what’s wrong with you?!” She raised her arms, her eyes scanning the grass stains and dirt on her Baby Spice dress. “Look what you did to my outfit!”

  I tried to pull in a breath to tell her I wasn’t sorry. That I might have just saved her life. But my gut was on fire, and I could only wheeze. Then I couldn’t even do that because I heard the sound of a car door opening, and before I could get up, Charlie came around the front of the car and stood over us.

  He’s going to kill me and take Ava.

  The thought was so clear, I was surprised no one else heard it.

  “Ava, are you okay?” Charlie asked, sounding fake worried. I noticed he didn’t even look at me still lying on the ground, making sounds like a seasick frog. Managing to push myself up to my elbows, I watched Ava peer up at Charlie, and something about him made her eyes widen. She took a step back.

  “I-I’m okay,” she stammered, but she hugged her elbows before looking down at me. “Elise, get up.”

  “She’s fine,” Charlie said, stepping closer to Ava. “Let’s go, honey.”

  In the next moment, Charlie lunged, she dodged, and I finally filled my lungs.

  And then I screamed my head off.

  “Ava!”

  Her shouted name didn’t come from me but from the end of the block. My head jerked to the right to see Cole tearing down the street like he was charging the battlefield.

  “GET AWAY FROM HER!” he shouted, his strides swallowing yards at a time. Charlie’s spine straightened at the sight.

  “Shit,” he muttered, slamming shut his passenger side door. He sped around the front of his car, but before he got inside, he jabbed a finger at Ava. “Ava, don’t you dare tell anybody about this. Remember, I know where you live.” Then he turned his sinister face to me, his eyes like hot coals. “And your name i
s Elise Cormier. I may not know where you live yet, but I could find out, so keep your little cock-sucking mouth shut.”

  My neck snapped back at his words. The threat they held. The ugliness they carried that I couldn’t define but still somehow understood. It felt like the time I’d fallen on my face on the playground at school and had to spit dirt and blood out of my mouth.

  I scrambled to my feet just as Charlie gunned his car in reverse down Azalea Street. Cole reached us, and we watched Charlie’s boxy car halt before he threw it in drive and made a hard left into the parking lot of City Hall. And then with a noisy and frightening screech of tires, he pulled out of sight.

  Soon, the only sounds I could hear were Ava’s quiet sniffles, Cole’s fight for breath, and the loud thumping of my heart. I looked from one Whitehurst to the other.

  Cole stood with his hands on his thighs, his chest and back swelling and collapsing with each breath. His eyes never left his sister. “He drove backward so we couldn’t see his license plate… Ava, what happened?” I’d expected him to sound angry since Cole Whitehurst always sounded angry, but his voice was surprisingly soft.

  Ava’s eyes didn’t meet his, but her lower lip trembled, and the only sound she made was a little whimper.

  Cole swung his gaze to me. “What happened?”

  Charlie the Stranger knew my name, and he knew where Ava lived. And he’d told me to keep my mouth shut in a way that made my face sting. I looked at Cole and blinked.

  He kept his eyes on mine and shook his head. “I won’t tattle,” he said. “I swear.”

  Cole Whitehurst was as mean to me as the meanest kids at S.J. Montgomery Elementary, but looking into his ice-blue eyes, my heart still racing in my chest, I realized that he might be mean, but I didn’t think he was a liar.

  I took a deep breath. “He was trying to get us to go with him,” I said in a rush. “He was trying to take Ava.”

  At my confession, Ava burst into tears. Her body curled like a question mark, and she shuffled to Cole. I watched him put his arms around her before I quickly looked away. I fidgeted with the drawstring of my bag, listening to Ava cry as Cole whispered to her.

  I glanced up. Ava’s face was hidden against the front of Cole’s army shirt. His arms were crossed over her back, pulling her close. And his mouth was pressed against her ear as he whispered.

  It looked… nice.

  Not mean at all. But like it would feel really good.

  I swallowed and looked down again. It was getting late. We were still the only ones on the street, but I wasn’t afraid of zombies or ghosts anymore. And even though I knew I’d now always be scared of strangers in cars who wanted to steal little kids, I wasn’t scared Charlie would come back.

  I just wanted Mama. I wanted Halloween to be over, and I didn’t much care if I had any candy to take home or not.

  Cole set Ava back from him, and she was nodding now, wiping her eyes. “O-okay,” I heard her whisper, her voice still shaky.

  With his hands still cupping her shoulders, Cole looked at me, his eyes sharp now as though all the softness he’d just shown was all he’d ever have.

  “We don’t need to tell anyone about this. Got it?” His voice seemed to startle the night air, and I flinched against it.

  I nodded.

  “Promise, Elise,” he said, using my name for the first time. “Promise you won’t say anything to Flora or anyone else.”

  For a moment, I couldn’t find my tongue because now, almost yelling at me, he seemed nothing like the brother he’d been to Ava just a moment before.

  Or maybe this was him still being that brother. Protecting her from the stranger’s threat and maybe from something else I didn’t understand.

  “I promise,” I gulped.

  He watched me for a while, his eyes like slits, testing, I guessed, if he could trust me.

  “If Flora tells anything to our mother and father, I’ll—”

  I shook my head. “She won’t say anything because I won’t tell her anything.” I decided I didn’t want to anyway. I didn’t even want to think about it. “I’ll keep my promise.”

  Cole gave me a slow nod. “Good. Because I hate people who break their promises.” He hooked his arm around Ava and finally stopped staring at me.

  I followed as he walked his sister back the way we’d come, all the while wondering who had broken their promises to Cole Whitehurst.

  Chapter 3

  ELISE

  I never broke my promise.

  And I was glad I didn’t because the year I turned ten, Mrs. Abigail Whitehurst took a spill down the family’s sweeping staircase, fracturing her leg, hip, and pelvis. After the first surgery, it was clear Mrs. Abigail would be in the hospital for weeks before she could go home, and then she’d be bound to a wheelchair for months after that, while she went through physical therapy, got her strength back, and learned how to walk again.

  I probably would have only been dimly aware of this if Mrs. Abigail’s accident hadn’t had such a direct impact on my life. But two days after her fall, Mama and I moved into the Whitehursts’ guesthouse so Mama could be close at hand and help the family around the clock. The arrangement was meant to be temporary. Six months. Maybe a year, depending on Mrs. Abigail’s progress.

  But Mama and I would live there for the next seven years.

  I’m glad I hadn’t known that the day we moved in. I might have tried to run away. Don’t get me wrong. To say that I liked the guesthouse would be like saying The Cheetah Girls liked singing. It wasn’t just a step above our rental house on Silkwood. It was like nine steps above. A floor above. A penthouse above.

  And that was great… in a way. But it was also a problem. Walking out of the guesthouse door into the Whitehursts’ back yard, with its newly redesigned pool, hot tub, and waterfall shelf was like living at a resort. Mama and I could use the pool, provided the Whitehursts weren’t using it or entertaining. I knew this was generous of them, but every time I put on my one piece and jumped into the deep end to splash around by myself — while Mama sat on the edge of the hot tub with her skirt hiked up and her feet soaking in the water — I could not forget the truth.

  We didn’t belong there.

  And while Myrtle Place was a lot safer than Four Corners — for riding my bike or even taking a walk — I missed my neighborhood friends. Summer and Sky Beauford. The Ramseys. Mrs. Alicia’s grandkids. Silkwood Street may have been a dangerous place to wander at night, but during the day, there was never a shortage of kids to play with.

  Sure, two kids lived not a hundred yards from me, but now, when they weren’t at one of their many lessons or practices, they were playing with their own friends, and those occasions definitely didn’t include me.

  Because, again, I didn’t belong. Ava and Cole might have known me, but that didn’t mean they thought I was worth knowing.

  I could still see some of the girl I’d known in seven-year-old Ava now that she was eleven. She still shrieked with laughter and played games with her friends in the pool. I could hear this from my bedroom in the guesthouse. She was still quick to laugh, tease, and get distracted, but if I walked outside, Ava and her friends would suddenly hush in a way that made my stomach pitch and my ears burn.

  So I just didn’t make eye contact with them because I was pretty sure they were trying not to make eye contact with me. After four weeks of living in the guesthouse, I’d stopped hoping to be invited to join them. Instead, I’d walk through the yard to the storage shed behind the guesthouse, get on my bike, and ride through the Saint Streets.

  And that was how I met Alberta Okeke.

  The first time I saw her, she was lying flat on her back in her driveway in the middle of a pair of blue, lavender, and pink butterfly wings expertly drawn in sidewalk chalk. She was just lying there as though she were a girl-sized butterfly. I hit the brakes on my bike so hard, I almost went over the handlebars.

  At the skid of my tires, she turned her head to look at me. She was a light-skinn
ed black girl with hair the color of honey. I noticed her eyes right away. They were a startling, perfect, bottle blue.

  They were also smiling as though she were just a little embarrassed to be caught pretending to be a butterfly. I took this as a good sign, a sign that she might not be too snobby to play with me.

  “You like to draw?” I asked, ignoring the fact that she had gone way past drawing to become one with her art.

  “Yeah. Do you?” she asked, still smiling.

  I smiled back. “It’s my favorite.”

  She sat up. “Wanna draw giant dragonfly wings with me?”

  My bike landed in the grass. “Sure.”

  “What’s your name?” she asked, handing me a hunk of green chalk.

  “Elise.”

  “Okay, Elise,” she said, motioning me to the empty span of driveway next to her butterfly. “Lie down with your feet pointing away from my wings, and put your hands on your hips like this.” She held her hands at her hips with her elbows pointing out. I did as she instructed, and she proceeded to draw an oval around me.

  “Elise what?” she asked as she traced.

  “Cormier,” I answered, squinting up at her as she slowly worked. “What’s your name?”

  Her eyes met mine. “Alberta Okeke.”

  I blinked. Her name sounded like the noise a cockatiel would make. Or what I thought a cockatiel would make. I couldn’t say I really knew. By the look on her face, I guessed she expected me to laugh, but I didn’t. Her name was beautiful. Just like her butterfly. Just like she was.

  “I’ve never heard a name like that before,” I said.

  Alberta nodded and kept tracing, seeming satisfied with my response.

  “My dad’s from Nigeria. My mom’s from here. He’s black. She’s white.” At this, her eyes shot to mine again. “In case you hadn’t already noticed.”

  I shrugged. “My mom’s white. I don’t know about my dad,” I said. “I’ve never met him.” I watched her just as closely as she’d watched me.

  She smiled and gave a little laugh. “I think it’s safe to say he’s white.”