Between the Spark and the Burn

by April Genevieve Tucholke

  Neely had another bruise under his right eye.

  He was covered in them now.

  River had noticed. Of course he had. I saw him staring at his brother over breakfast, eyes red and narrowed, the cuts on his neck looking raw and sore. Afterward he put a hand on Neely’s shoulder and whispered something in his ear, but Neely only shook his head in response.

  I knew River wouldn’t want his brother to keep suffering for his sake . . . but I didn’t think he was all that eager to go mad again, either. River, more than anyone, knew how bad things could get if he got his glow back.

  Neely shook his head, and winced. “I can’t. Look at him. Just look at him.”

  River stood in a foot of fluffy snow on the sidewalk outside, framed by the hotel window and a shaft of bright yellow sun that seemed to be shining just for him. He looked lean and comfortable and like he owned the place. Behind him, Gold Hollow was still and quiet in the sun and the fresh, deep snow. The whole damn scene was picture perfect and ready for its close-up.

  “If I stop, Vi, he’ll go back to being the sea king.”

  “Maybe he won’t.”

  “He will.”

  “Maybe . . . maybe his madness was only Brodie’s spark. And maybe it’s worn off now of its own accord.”

  Neely laughed his rumbling laugh, though his eyes didn’t join in. “Do you honestly believe that?”

  I shook my head. Slowly.

  But a mad River was better than a dead Neely.

  I helped Neely to his feet and he groaned when I touched his back.

  “It’s going to kill you, Neely,” I said again, and my voice went high at the end.

  Neely didn’t answer. He just breathed in and out, his hand on his ribs.

  And then he fainted again.

  He fell to the floor and I half caught him but I couldn’t wake him up this time. I screamed his name and Neely’s spine straightened in my arms, like someone stretching after setting down a heavy load. I felt something leave him then, felt it snap through the air. I looked outside, onto the porch, and River jerked, jerked like he’d been tugging at the end of a leash and it had finally broken. I saw it clear as day through the window. He spilled his coffee on the snow, and all over Neely’s extra pair of boots.

  River’s expression shifted, and his eyes lost their glint. His arms stretched wide, and his chin pointed up to the sky and he went straight and tall and sea king again. He turned, and wandered off into the snow.

  I leaned over Neely, grabbed his rich-boy sweater in my fists, pressed my nose into his neck, and let my brain scream and scream.

  ≈≈≈

  Finch and Canto helped me carry Neely upstairs. We tucked him into bed and I waited for his eyes to open, any second, come on, Neely, but nothing. He was cold. Pale. Gray. Just like Finch after River drowned him and dumped him on the sand.

  Canto kneeled by the bed and called out Neely’s name and then patted his hand and her eyes were wet, and I guess mine were too. She looked at me, her red eyes meeting my red eyes. “Where is he?” she asked. “Where is River?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Where is he?” Canto asked again. “Violet, you need to find him. We’ll stay here. Go.”

  I looked at Finch and his eyes were worried and serious and he nodded at me too. “Hurry, Violet.”

  I released my grip on Neely’s sweater, one hand at a time. I slid off the bed and got to my feet.

  “Don’t let him die, Finch.”

  “I won’t,” Finch said, and meant it.

  ≈≈≈

  I found River in the meadow.

  He was stretched out on his back in the fluffy snow behind the old cars. A rusted yellow, a rusted black, and a rusted red, lined up before him like a congregation.

  His sweater was on the ground beside him, a black lump in the white. And before he even said anything, I knew. It had started again. Already.

  “Violet. There you are.” River put his naked arms behind his beautiful head, and smiled up at me. And it wasn’t the crooked smile. It was the mad, lost smile.

  I was pretty familiar with both by now.

  “You’re lying half naked in snow. Aren’t you cold, River? Don’t you even feel it?”

  “This is snow?” River lifted his head and looked around him. “I thought it was sand.”

  Another snowflake hit my cheek with a cold, wet plop. And then another.

  I picked up River’s sweater, brushed it off, reached down again, and held out my hand. River grabbed it, and I pulled him to his feet.

  “Girl.”

  I turned. Wild Ann Boe stepped out from behind the old red car, her old green coat swinging against her calves. “You need to be careful, girl.”

  I didn’t even answer her. I was watching the way River had perked up when she called out to me. Jaw clenched tight, posture erect and kingly. He stared down at Wild Ann over his nose and pointed his glow at her. I could feel it, feel a shift in the air between the two of them.

  Her eyes started blinking, blinking fast.

  I stepped between River and Boe, as if that would do any good.

  But I guess it did because Wild Ann’s gray eyes stopped blinking. Widened. She turned them right on me, and they opened up deep, like she was welcoming me to step inside.

  “The Devil is holding your hand, girl,” she said. “Did you know?”

  I froze.

  A dark cloud passed overhead.

  The sun was gone. It was dusky dark and suddenly the snow was pouring down.

  I stood frozen, numb, my feet in the snow.

  A raven cawed from somewhere far away, somewhere in the trees at the edge of town.

  My wrists started throbbing.

  You stop fearing the Devil when you’re holding his hand.

  Freddie had said that once.

  And now here was this Colorado mountain woman standing in front of me, telling me that the Devil’s hand was all up in mine.

  Wild Ann turned to River, looked up at him, and seemed to forget all about me. Her eyes went blank. Dead. Her thin lips closed. River started humming and she joined him, humming in harmony, as if they were singing a duet, her high, him low. Humming, humming, humming out the nonsense sea sounds . . . the sound of waves hitting skin, and the tide going in, and fish tails slapping and forest boys flapping . . .

  I let go of River’s hand.

  Wild Ann’s eyes darted right to mine again, dead, dead, dead. She stopped humming. “Girl. Did you know the Devil was following you? Did you know?”

  And then she went back to humming with River.

  And I just stood there, letting them.

  ≈≈≈

  I saw the bookmobile first. Parked outside the Hollow Miner Hotel, bright red sides covered in mud and slush, the words THE ECHO LIBRARY BOOKMOBILE painted big and black and barely visible through puffs of snow.

  And then I was running. Luke. Me. Bear hug.

  I saw Sunshine while I was hugging my brother and smiled at her over his shoulder and she smiled right back.

  “We barely made it, Vi,” she said, slow and lazy like it was a fine summer’s day out and not a storm roaring and picking up steam. Her blue scarf whipped in the wind. “I hope you appreciate it. Luke had to come. Made me steal the library’s bookmobile. My parents are going to murder me—” Sunshine flinched, and put a hand to her head. “They’re going to be really pissed off. So I hope it was worth it.”

  I let Luke go and squinted at him through the falling snow. God, it was good to see my twin brother again. It really was. “How did you know to come here?”

  “After we left Riddle, we went home and checked on Jack and then talked to Sunshine’s dad, who confirmed where you went based on the message you left. We barely made it before the storm. The roads were hell. Thank god Sunshine can drive like a guy
.”

  “But what about the barn boy? It was Brodie, wasn’t it?” I had to half shout against the roaring wind—it screamed in my ear and tore at my hair and clothes like some lusty drunk in a Robert Louis Stevenson alley.

  “We got there too late. The barn boy was already gone. And the two girls who reported the story are missing. We thought he came here. Have you found him? Have you heard anything?”

  River came up behind me and Luke’s eyes shifted toward him.

  I shook my head. “He’s not here. It was just an old woman, spreading rumors.”

  Luke swore. He threw a few effs at the stormy sky, and then sunk down to sit on the snowy steps of the hotel. Sunshine went to his side and sat down next to him and put her head on his shoulder.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “It really doesn’t matter. I’m just glad you’re here. I was worried about you. Both of you.”

  “Ditto,” Luke called out against the wind, meeting my eyes and giving me one of his rare genuine smiles. “I see you found River,” he added, his eyes back on William Redding III, on his long, uncut hair, snowflakes swirling around him and falling on his shoulders.

  “Sort of,” I said.

  And then River started singing again, mouth open, head back . . . but his voice was drowned out by the storm.

  ≈≈≈

  The blizzard raged outside.

  Neely’s fever raged inside.

  I brought Luke and Sunshine and River upstairs, to Neely. River saw his brother stretched out on the bed, still as midnight. He kept humming, but he reached for my hand, his fingers closing around mine, still so damn familiar and comforting, despite The Devil is holding your hand, girl, despite everything.

  Canto’s eyes softened as she watched us standing there, our hands wrapped up together.

  Neely slept on and Luke drew me into the hallway and made me tell him everything—Carollie, sea king, Neely, everything. And afterward he hugged me tight.

  We spent the rest of the day inside, taking turns watching over Neely. His breathing was ragged and too quiet and his face was sunken and pale, and I felt broken, crushed, in my heart, in my soul, everywhere, damn it, damn it all.

  The storm made twilight come early.

  Miss Marple sent three shots of brandy up to Neely—we told her he had the flu. Though she probably figured out that something more was going on.

  The storm beat against the windowpanes and made them twitch and shake. The wind howled down the chimney.

  “Violet,” River said to me as I began to climb the stairs back to Neely’s room, to relieve Finch and Canto from his side so they could eat supper.

  I turned around.

  And that was all it took. He didn’t even need to touch me this time. He’d gotten past all that. Way past. Now he could do it just by saying my name.

  My eyes closed. I heard River’s heartbeat, each soft thrust of his pulse. I felt the rocking of the waves, rocking my body to and fro, to and fro. I heard selkies slipping out of their skins, slick, squishy grins, discarded flippers, zip, zipping zippers, sea breaming, ships screaming, sleep, sleeping in the deep, deeping . . .

  I forced my eyes open. Slapped my hand down hard on the banister and squeezed.

  Dizzy. Sick. Seasick.

  This had been happening off and on since the cars and Wild Ann Boe. Supper was already a blur—the memory hazy around the edges, like it had been smeared with oil.

  The feeling, the sea king feeling, the singing-in-the-sea feeling, was . . .

  Everywhere.

  In my head and in my heart and under my skin and in my bones.

  River didn’t want to be the sea king anymore. I know he didn’t. Yet . . .

  Neely woke up, sometime near midnight. He opened his eyes and I was the first to know since I was lying on the bed curled next to him.

  “I’m okay, Vi,” he said, just like that.

  And I guess I should have gotten up and danced and sang for joy. But I didn’t. I didn’t move. I didn’t say a word. Some deep part of me thought I was holding him together somehow, my arms around his chest and my cheek nestled into the hollow of his throat, and if I let go he would break into a million snowflake-sized pieces and float away on the winter storm.

  “Violet,” he whispered. His breath hit the back of my neck and my spine glowed, all the way down.

  “Violet,” he whispered again.

  And he kept on whispering, secret, whispery things that made my damn heart swell, on and on until I thought it would burst right through my chest, cracking ribs on its way out . . .

  And then.

  “But none of that matters, Vi,” he said. He kissed my closed eyelids. “You need to be with River. He’s too strong and he used too much glow and I can’t control him anymore. But you . . . you cut through his glow-crazy and he tries to be better, for your sake.” Neely shuddered, quick, quiet. “Go back to him. He needs you more than me.”

  And I thought my heart would shrivel up at this, go hard and tight and mean like a street-starved dog.

  But it didn’t.

  It just kept . . . glowing.

  I left Neely and went down the hall and climbed into bed with River.

  River mumbled beside me, and he reeked of sea and salt again.

  Freddie, what’s going to happen to us? Neely and River and fevers and sea kings and drowned Roman Finnfolk and mountains and storms and my heart aches aches aches and where the hell is Brodie and . . .

  And I guess that’s when it occurred to me. The thought that scared the bejesus out of me, scared me out of my gosh darn Freddiedamned mind.

  What if . . .

  What if the entire time we’d been hunting down Brodie . . .

  He’d been hunting down us?

  Chapter 21

  April

  The first time.

  In the wine cellar of Will’s Manhattan townhouse.

  My parents were both zozzled by six on rye whiskey and sweet vermouth. My mother tried to hoist me onto her friend’s son between cocktails, a boy named Lucas White. He was heir to a shipping fortune and everything she wanted me to have.

  I wore my jade necklace and my blue eyes and a white summer dress—one of three my mother had brought home from Paris that spring.

  The Buccaneers. That’s what people called the Reddings. Will’s parents were notorious in New York City for spiffy parties and bottomless cocktails and affairs and scandals and hushed-up bastard babies and dabblings in the occult. But I thought they were glamorous and mysterious and everything I wanted to be.

  The Reddings and the Glenships and my parents, Klaus and Sadie Van Homan, moved in the same richie New York circles. We’d all grown up together, all us children, all stayed up too late at parties because our parents were too drunk to call the car around to take us home. We’d all tried Scottish whiskey and bathtub gin before we stopped believing in Santa Claus. All been sent off to boarding schools before we knew how to spell our last names.

  Will had just been another boy, another son of my parents’ friends. He pulled my hair, dared me to throw my shoes off the roof of our building, taught me to smoke, showed me how to mix a mean mint julep.

  But suddenly he was fifteen. And I was fifteen. And everything had changed.

  Mrs. Redding turned out the lights because it was time to contact the spirits and the women screamed with delight and the men hummed with drink and what was to come and Will found my hand in the dark and pulled me downstairs.

  The party went on screaming above, louder now that the lights were out, and their footsteps tapped out a rhythm on the ceiling overhead. The wine cellar had a trick wooden panel to keep out the nosy cops. We climbed through it and it snapped shut behind us. It was big and dark and smelled of wood and grapes and cool basement air.

  Will opened a bottle of gin. He drank, and then I drank, and
at first I thought the burn was coming from the liquor sizzling its way down my throat, and maybe it was, but then Will’s lips were on mine and everything was burning, burning . . .

  I thought the burning was love and I thought back then that love trumped all.

  And afterward, as we lay on the floor, naked and scared and stunned, Will took my hand and said, “What did we just do?”

  And then he grabbed me and held me. My cheek touched his hair and his nose touched my milky green necklace, the one he would later take from me, and keep with him always, because it reminded him of this night.

  After a while, a long while, we got dressed. But we still didn’t go upstairs.

  I sat there, worrying a bit about bastard babies, until Will took my hand again. I felt his heat shoot through me, into me, same as the gin that had burned down my throat.

  “I want to do something for you, Freddie. Something only I can do. If . . . if you could see anything, anything in the world right now, what would it be?”

  “Anthony,” I said, not missing a beat.

  Anthony used to sing me silly songs and swing me above his head and buy me little presents and tell me stories until I went to sleep. I loved him as much as any sister loved a brother. And he died like an animal, down in the mud and blood, in France.

  Anthony.

  Anthony.

  In front of me. In his army uniform. One moment it was Will and then it was Anthony, smiling, his lips looking like he’d just said my name. I stood up. I cried out. I opened my arms to him . . .

  He melted away. Dissolved into the bottles of wine. Like he’d never been. There was just Will. Only Will.

  “I made that happen,” Will said, kind of grand and proud. “I can make things happen. It started a few weeks ago, and I thought I was going out of mind, but now . . .”

  I screamed.

  And screamed.

  My screams joined the screams of the women upstairs. No one heard me, except Will. I threw my arm back and brought it forward and hit Will across the face as hard as I’d ever hit anything in my life.

  And then, after his nose finally stopped bleeding, after his shirt was covered in soft, wet red, I took him in my arms.