Finch turned to me, and his eyes had that wild look again. “Death came for me in Inn’s End,” he said. “And I escaped him. But I . . . I have this feeling that he’s never going to stop looking for me, never going to stop biting at my heels. I thought I might as well meet him halfway, on my own terms, and see who’s the better man.”
The sea wind lifted his faded red hair and swirled it about his head, as if it agreed.
“That,” he added, “and the fact that I’m falling in love with Canto.” He smiled, and it was shy and forest-boy and savage and primal all at the same time. He looked over my shoulder at the curly-haired island girl, and then back at me, and his smile widened.
“I thwarted Death too,” I said, a few moments later. “Brodie cut my wrists and spilled my blood and if it hadn’t been for Neely, I’d be nothing but a ghost. Does that mean Death is watching me too, waiting for another chance? Freddie used to say it wasn’t right for me to think of death. She said it was unhealthy and grim and childhood was short and not to be squandered.” I paused. “Still. If Death is coming for me I want to be prepared, Finch. Like you. I want to be brave and meet him halfway.”
Finch grabbed my hand and held it tight. The bright sun sloped off his skin and he looked pale, but happy, his eyes bright, bright, bright. “You will, Vi. I promise.”
I heard a groan from below deck. A River groan. He sounded like he was in pain, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. I just kept standing next to Finch, and watching the sea.
≈≈≈
The mainland. We stood in the Nags Dune hardware store parking lot by Neely’s car. River was so pale. He leaned against his brother, eyes closed. Two bruises were blossoming on his face, one from the driftwood and one from Neely’s fist, and they made him look even more helpless. Which pissed me off. He wore some of Neely’s clothes now, just like Finch, and they hung loose on his starved sea king body. Fragile blue veins snaked across his eyelids, and his breath was rasping and frail. He seemed made of nothing but seawater and air. He looked . . . drained. More than Finch even, who had died and come back to life only a handful of hours before.
River kept rubbing his eyes and sighing and if I still had a heart I probably would have felt sorry for him.
But I didn’t.
He was supposed to stop and he broke his promise and now he was paying the price.
The color had gone out of my world, watching River push Finch underwater and hold him there until he drowned. The color went out, just like Freddie, and Will, and rocking back and forth, back and forth, her hair swinging between his elbows, blood soaking them both.
Canto put her back against the hood of the car and crossed her arms. Her black hair was un-brushed and curling up into tight ringlets in the morning mist. Her black eyes shifted, and looked River up and down. “So who is this?”
Neely moved River so he leaned against the car. River couldn’t have looked less scary, right then, less like a sea king who had glowed up an island and drowned a redheaded forest boy and maybe even a dark-eyed Finnfolk too.
Neely gave Canto a deep look, and then nodded at River. “This is my brother. He went missing and we found him, finally, on Carollie. He’s sick with the flu, and he’s a bit delirious with fever. Nothing to worry about, though.”
Turned out Neely was a pretty good liar too.
I looked at River, and then at Canto. “Does he . . . does River look familiar to you, Canto?”
I felt Finch go still beside me.
Canto looked . . . lost . . . for a second, and then shook her head. “No. Why would he look familiar? Did he eat at the Hag’s Shack sometimes?”
I shook my head, and then Finch did too.
Canto’s lost look disappeared and her eyes went dark. “You’re all hiding something from me.”
“All in good time, Canto.” Neely picked up Canto’s blue suitcase, opened the trunk, and put it alongside his own expensive leather one.
“All in good time,” Canto repeated. “Finch asks me to come with on a little trip, and he says it in such a way that I agree before I know what I’m doing. I leave my house, the Hag’s Shack, my island, everything, and now I find out I’m traveling with a sick person and a bunch of liars.”
Neely laughed, and closed the trunk with a slam. “You’re the one who jumped at Finch’s invitation without even knowing where we were going. I can just picture you—dreaming of adventure every night while sweating over the grill at the Hag’s Shack. Deny it. I dare you.”
Canto rubbed the tip of her short nose with the palm of her hand. “Fair enough. I’ve been itching to escape this island for a few days. My father gets to run around and see the world”—she threw a hand out toward the water—“so why not his daughter too? Carollie has nothing to keep me. Not anymore.”
“Isn’t she a firecracker,” Finch said, his eyes on Canto, nothing but Canto.
“Neely,” I asked, because somehow no one had, “where are we going?”
Neely shrugged, and gave me one of his big grins.
I grinned back. I couldn’t help it.
I looked up. The sky above was bright and blue and happy too, as if it didn’t give a damn about whether Brodie was in Maine, or Colorado, or wherever the hell he was.
“I say we check out that town in the Rockies,” Neely said, answering my question. “The one with the talking trees and the missing kids. Tall, thin, red-haired girl. That’s good enough for me.”
“Neely’s got another sibling who might be in Colorado,” Finch explained, eyes still on Canto.
Canto raised her eyebrows. “Another missing sibling? Neely, you know what they say—To lose one sibling may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose two looks like carelessness.”
Neely laughed and laughed.
“Colorado is really far,” I said. “Too far to follow a rumor that’s probably just nothing. I’m worried about Luke and Sunshine and Jack and that damn barn boy.”
“It’s only three days, doing ten hours each,” Neely said. “I’ll drive fast.”
I looked at River, gaunt and pale, still leaning against the car. He squeezed his eyelids shut against the sun and sighed softly. Then I looked at Neely.
I’d said yes to North Carolina without thinking.
Of course, we’d found River there, in the end.
“Call Luke from the road,” Neely added. “Make sure everything up north is all right. If there’s anything strange going on, anything at all, we’ll turn around.” He came up behind me and put his hands on my waist and his lips to my ear. “I don’t want to bring River back to Citizen Kane, not while he’s like this, Vi. I’m worried about your parents. And Jack. And Luke. And Sunshine. Let’s give him a few days to recover, okay?”
“Okay.” Neely was right. Taking a weak, disoriented, sea king ex-boyfriend back to Maine to meet my parents seemed just about the stupidest thing I could do right then.
Neely laughed. Not a triumphant, I get my way laugh. Just his usual sweet, contagious laugh that brought me to my knees the same as River’s damn crooked smile.
Neely, don’t you take anything seriously?
He didn’t. Mostly he didn’t.
And I both hated this about him, and loved it.
I started smiling, hearing his laugh. I couldn’t help myself, damn it.
“Good,” Neely said, grinning at me. “Let’s do this.”
Chapter 17
ON THE ROAD. I sat in the backseat with River, because Canto said that if we put some delirious, flu-ridden stranger next to her, brother or no, she’d cut out his heart and throw it out the window. So she was up front with Neely, where I used to be, and I sat between River on one side, and Finch on the other.
We went west. The miles passed. The hours passed. River slouched against the side of the car. He still smelled like the sea. Salt and wind and death and life and sand.
&nbs
p; And then the singing began.
“We’ll kick up our forces like true wild horses. We’ll rant and we’ll roar across the salt deep. We’ll worship the white and give up the fight, for here lies the wreck of the violet leap.”
River had a fine voice, soft and low and true, and he sang the words in sweet, lullaby tones. But the face the song came out of was hollow and bruised and wind-whipped and mad. I didn’t recognize the River I used to know in it. Not anywhere.
River stopped singing, groaned, and started tugging at his sweater. “I can’t wear these human clothes, Vi,” he whispered to me. “They rub my fins wrong.”
Neely laughed.
Finch looked at me, and raised his eyebrows in a way that didn’t let me know what he was thinking at all.
But Canto glanced over her shoulder from the front seat, and watched River, and her expression was alert and wary. “Neely, your brother seems really sick.”
Neely shifted his hands on the steering wheel and kept his eyes on the road. “He’s fine. He’s just got to burn the fever out.”
Canto kept watching River. “He doesn’t look fine.”
“We’re off the island and River is going to get better now,” Neely answered in a sharp, non-Neely voice. “So let’s stop talking about it.”
Canto frowned, and turned back to the road.
River slumped against the door, sweater shoved to the side. He was half naked again, his lean chest clean and sea-salt free. He leaned toward me, and—
“My brother is keeping secrets,” River whispered, quiet, quiet, right in my ear. “I can tell. Neely always gets cranky when he lies.”
River moved his lips away from my cheek again. I stared at him from the corner of my eyes, stared at the way his torso curved into the top of his black wool trousers . . .
I remembered. I remembered breathing in, and feeling soft skin under my cheek and warm breath in my hair, in the shack, with the nets and the seaweed, and he slept like an angel, and his heart pumped against my palm, like waves hitting the shore, and I took off my seaweed dress and lay down on the nets, and River started stroking my arms, just his fingertips, all the way, top to bottom, and I . . .
Finch put his hand on mine. I opened my eyes. He looked at me and shook his head. “Careful, Vi.”
I shivered and moved closer to Finch’s side of the car.
Finch noticed things. He noticed things Neely didn’t.
River used to notice things. He used to notice everything.
But now he was just a sea king. A half-mad singing sea king.
Canto started grilling Neely from the front seat, despite what he’d said. “What if River gets worse on the way to Colorado? Fevers are deadly, Neely. Maybe we should find a hospital.”
“He won’t get worse,” Neely said. “Violet’s with him now. She’ll help him get well again. Tell them about the nightmares, Vi.”
I sighed. “Last summer I slept next to River every night and he stopped getting his nightmares.”
Neely winked at me in the rearview mirror. “See? River isn’t going to get worse. Not when Violet’s here. She makes him better.”
I flinched.
Canto looked at me, full of doubt. Even Finch looked . . . wary.
Finch thinks Neely is lying, I thought. And maybe he is.
My heart was so disturbed it skipped a beat.
“He could have a concussion, Neely.” I reached forward and put my hand on his shoulder.
Neely shook his head. “He doesn’t. I checked. Volunteer EMT, remember? He’s just tired and suffering the consequences of too much glow and too little food.”
Canto stared at Neely. “Too much glow? What do you mean?”
No one answered her, and she frowned again. “Whatever it is, you’re going to have to tell me eventually.”
“You don’t want to know,” Finch whispered. “You don’t.” He leaned forward, moved Canto’s hair, and kissed her cheek, slow and calm, just the once. Canto kept her eyes on the window, but she smiled. She did.
We stopped for a late lunch in the Appalachian Mountains. Neely pulled over at a scenic viewpoint. An ocean of trees stretched out all the way to the damn horizon. I didn’t know there were so many trees in the whole world.
I wondered where Inn’s End was, hidden in that forest. Maybe it had disappeared into the mist, like in the stories. I watched Finch, tried to catch his expression as he looked down. But his eyes were steady, no wildness anywhere, and no longing either.
There was snow on the ground again, and I was glad for it. I handed out apples from the picnic basket, and cheese, and the rest of the olives. River was still shirtless, and he’d kicked off Neely’s extra pair of shoes too. He stood in the snow with his bare feet and refused to touch any of the food.
“I only eat seaweed and raw fish,” he said, voice gentle. “Like all my kind.”
“Well, we don’t have either of those.” Neely’s voice was patient, but his eyes were a bit sad.
River ran his fingers through his long brown hair in a gesture that I remembered so well, so damn well, that it made me shudder a little bit. Then he waved his hand out in front of him. “The entire ocean floor is our dinner table. All we need to do is gather the bounty.”
“We aren’t on the ocean floor,” Finch said, patient, just like Neely, just like he’d been talking to mad sea kings his whole life.
Canto watched River. Closely. Her brow furrowed up and her dark eyes looked worried. Worried and . . . scared.
River is acting batshit crazy, Freddie. How can Canto believe this is just a fever? Is she starting to remember? What will we do if she does?
“Then what is all that blue above us?” River pointed at the sky. “It’s the top of the ocean. See those white fluffy streaks? That’s where the water has been stirred up from the fishing boats.” He paused. “Isn’t it?”
“That’s the sky. That’s just the damn sky, River.” I looked at Neely. “How long is this going to last?”
“Not long,” Neely answered, quick, sharp, his eyes refusing to meet mine. “The madness just has to run through him. It’ll break soon.”
My face felt hot, suddenly, blood churning and boiling, spreading down to my throat, arms, legs, feet.
Neely was lying.
“Safe in your bed you are at last.” River was singing again, gentle, gentle, almost a whisper. “Let the waters roar, Jack. All night long the storm did blast. Let the waters roar, Jack. Mind the shadows and watch your back. Let the waters roar, Jack. Riddle it out, find the shack. Let the waters roar, Jack.”
“You’re all hiding something from me,” Canto said again, her voice drowning out River’s singing. “And I hate it.”
She threw her apple core into the snow and got back in the car.
Finch followed. And then River, still singing softly under his breath.
It was just me and Neely and the trees.
The sun broke through the clouds and hit the side of his face. I saw a darkening there that wasn’t shadow.
“You have a bruise.” I put my fingertips to his cheek. His face felt so much more familiar now. It felt more . . . mine. Whether I wanted it to or not. “Did this happen last night? Did River hit you too?”
But Neely just shook his head and got back in the car.
≈≈≈
We crossed the mountains and were camping in the snow again. The campground was closed, but we drove in anyway and set up our tents, no harm done.
I sat on a log and shivered and read Freddie’s diary with a flashlight. Finch sat next to me. Canto built a fire with the driest wood she could find. I watched her for a while. Sometimes she seemed kind of . . . shy around Finch, and wouldn’t look him in the eye.
Canto likes him, I realized. She really likes him. He’s making her self-conscious.
After being on her own
for so long . . . well, I understood. There was something about Finch sometimes that felt so . . . safe. Safe, snug, out of harm’s way. Neely gave me that feeling, once in a while.
I looked at Cornelius Redding, sitting at the snow-covered picnic table cleaning the trout he bought from three fisherman we’d encountered earlier on the road. He looked up often, keeping an eye on his brother—who so far had done nothing but stand at the edge of the trees and stare into the snowy dark.
“No need to cook mine, Neely,” River called over his shoulder. “I’ll eat it just as it is.”
Canto stared at River’s back. “What are you going to do, rip it apart raw with your teeth? Neely, I’m really starting to worry about your brother.”
Neely laughed, and it was dark, and harsh, and not at all familiar. “He’s just eccentric. He’s always been eccentric.”
River turned around and caught my eye. And I saw it. The glint. The Redding glint was sparkling in his brown eyes again, and he wanted me to know. His breath froze as it hit the air—
“And the red red boy said good-bye to the seas and he took to the hills and he talked to the trees. ’Cause when the lone star sparks and the lone star shines, I’ll look to my own, to the blood and the lines—”
“Eccentric or no,” Canto snapped, “if he keeps singing I’ll take that knife of yours, Neely, and cut him open when he sleeps.”
Finch frowned, and Canto softened. “His singing is giving me the creeps, Finch. It reminds me of something. A bad dream I had once, I think.”
Finch said nothing. He just put his hand on her arm and nodded.
River looked at me and smirked. It was fast—fast as a blink. But I saw it.
We sat on a long log before a roaring fire in a campground somewhere in Tennessee and ate hot fish with salt and lemon. I was between River and Finch, and my body finally started to warm up from the fire, at least the part of me that faced the flames.
My gaze drifted down, down to River’s hands next to me, long fingers picking at his food.
Those hands had pushed Finch’s face underwater until he died from it.
Between the Spark and the Burn Page 14
