by Gwenda Bond
I would stay inside this moment, right where we are, regardless of if the cuffs are coming. But she doesn’t need that from me right now. She needs something else.
“You don’t need to apologize to me for anything. Ever,” I say.
She relaxes a slight fraction. “If you say so.”
I drop my hand and catch sight of something in the back seat. “Your last doughnut spoken for?”
She laughs, a real laugh, almost in hysterics, as she faces forward and begins to drive. “That creepy doughnut is all yours. I’m surprised they left one. And, for the record, I’m never eating doughnuts again.”
“Tell me what I missed,” I say, snagging the doughnut, which appears not creepy so far as I can see. I take a bite.
“Well,” Miranda says, swallowing, all seriousness again. She stops the car before she turns out onto the road and looks at me. “I just saw my dad downtown.”
Doughnut flies from my mouth. “What?” I sputter. I can’t believe what I’m hearing.
She nods. “Walking around all cleaned up, hanging out around the returned people. But it didn’t feel like him.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“I’m not sure. Just when he looked at me, it didn’t feel like it was him. It felt like someone else.”
“Who?” I ask.
She shakes her head. Neither of us has an answer.
*
As we begin our slow approach to my house through the woods, on foot now, I’m still absorbing the bulk of what Miranda told me. I still can’t believe her dad is up and walking around town like nothing happened. The spirits thankfully stay backed off for now, shadows and gray flickers, a note of confusion in their words.
We won’t be able to keep her friend Polly’s car for long, but our options are limited. I press a low-hanging branch aside so Miranda can pass in front of me. “I promise after we do this, we’ll go get Sidekick,” I say. “And return the car so they won’t say it’s been stolen. Sound okay?”
Miranda turns to me, the green branches turning her into a haunted creature from some other realm, the kind who lures men into the forest to their deaths. She’s taken her black hair down and it hangs wild with tangles. She fiddles with the strap of her messenger bag, which has John Dee’s weapon in it. She didn’t want to answer how she retrieved the gun out of the trunk of Mom’s car, and so I dropped it.
“You’re sure we can’t do this later?” she asks. She wanted to go get Sidekick right away, but she hasn’t insisted.
“It’s just going to get riskier to come back here. People will be back at the jail soon. I need to get something from my room before they realize I’m gone.” The letter. I’m hoping that it’ll provide some guidance, tell me what to do with my gift. Finally.
“Maybe we can still beat Polly and the others back to the Grove.” Miranda doesn’t sound sure of that.
What she told me about how strangely her friends were acting doesn’t make any immediate sense to me. I decide to focus on making another plan — isolating the steps we need to take to figure out the endgame in all this. I hope whatever I come up with will work as well as the escape plan I’ll eventually land in jail for.
On the other hand, there is at least one good thing about Miranda’s father being back. I should be off the hook for any supposed murder.
Except he was dead — undeniably, indisputably dead— in Marlon’s cold room. How his body got out of there, got up and around, is a looming question. One I don’t have the answer for.
We travel through another stretch of woods. Birds and insects chirp around us, as if it’s any normal day. Miranda stops near the tree line, my yard just steps away. A quick scurry across, and I can climb the tree outside my room and get the letter. Simple.
“After the Grove, we’ll head to Whitson’s —” I start, but Miranda tosses me an I’d rather not look over her shoulder. “We need to question him more about your family history, right?”
Miranda says, “I guess. But I told you — I ran away from him at the square.”
“You should have, I wasn’t with you.” I puff my chest out and put my fists on my hips in parody of a superhero, an attempt to make her laugh.
I’m gratified by her teeth biting into her lower lip. “Captain Ego!” she says.
“I prefer to go by…” I search for a better name.
“The X-Prisoner?” she offers. “You know, like the X-Men.”
“I got it.” We don’t have time for this, but I drop my mouth open in false outrage. “But a pun? How could you?”
“Mischief Man?” she tries again, smiling now.
I tilt my chin down and shoot her a look full of acid disapproval.
“Okay, okay. That one sucks.” She bites her lip again, thinking this time, and then thrusts a finger into the air. “I’ve got it. Random Fact Boy!”
I consider. “Not bad. Except facts aren’t random, you know —”
Just then the front door opens. I move to Miranda’s side and pull her hand down. We crouch, wordlessly, letting the dense ground cover conceal us.
Mom steps out onto the front porch. She scrutinizes the yard and trees where we’re hiding, but she doesn’t come any closer. When she goes back inside and closes the door, I’m pretty sure she hasn’t spotted us.
“Damn,” Miranda says. “She’s home.”
I frown, more at Miranda’s damn than at the news Mom’s home. I expected her to be.
“I like your mom,” she says. “Don’t get me wrong.”
“Not that. Why didn’t you say frak?”
Her cheeks flush. “You noticed I do that?”
I’ve missed hearing her say it more than I’m comfortable with. It’s a Miranda-thing. Part of what makes her who she is. “I like it.”
She flushes again. “I know it’s goofy, but Mom never liked it when Dad cursed. So I just… don’t. Like she’s watching or something. But you said she wasn’t, so…”
So it’s even more a part of what makes her who she is. I came here to help her because I felt moved to protect her, to make amends for the past — but now I want to know her. I want to know all there is to know.
“But the spirits are back, so… maybe she is?” I say. She sits up with a hopeful look.
I have to shake my head with regret. “I can’t tell the difference between them. They’re just there. Talking. I don’t know.”
“Oh.”
We fall silent, and the noise of the woods seems to surge around us, a wall that melds with the whispering, chattering spirits that meander through the woods. This girl could steal me into the wild, and I wouldn’t entirely mind.
“Anyway, I like your mom,” Miranda says, bringing me back to the present.
“Me too, but she’s not on my side right now. Not how we need her to be.”
“Because she cares about you,” Miranda says.
“Why doesn’t matter right now. So you’ll wait here and —”
“No,” she says. The levity of the past few minutes disappears, the darkness around her eyes like an aura. “My father. He… I can’t…”
She’s scared to stay here alone, I realize. Bringing her along will make getting out dicey if anything goes wrong, but I don’t want her to wait and suffer either. We just need to storm the castle fast, make it in and out before Mom has a chance to catch us.
My kingdom for a couple more sedatives and a cloak of invisibility, just in case.
“I get it,” I say. “You’ll come too.”
Chapter 25
MIRANDA
Grant insists on climbing the tree outside his window instead of sneaking in the front or back doors. I can tell he’s surprised I don’t argue — and that I’m proving to be an ace tree climber.
This is something Mom and I did together back when I was a kid — one of my few good memories. Mom calling
me a monkey and laughing, even though she was just as good at finding holds for her feet at the right angle to avoid ankle twists, at gripping the bark without scratching her palms, at looking up and going there. Maybe we had an advantage in that a fair number of island trees tended to grow strangely, with dips and curves, or with trunks split by hurricanes and storms. Bent, deformed, cursed trees. No wonder I always liked them so much.
Grant reaches the thick limb that extends almost to his window, and I raise myself up behind him, staying near the trunk. He scoots toward the window. The limb thins near its end, and I’m not sure it will survive his weight.
“You don’t have to stay back there. It’ll hold us both,” he says. He maneuvers into a crouch, just where the thin end begins to bow.
“Wait,” I protest, “that looks —”
But Grant just hops across the space between the limb and the window, landing in an upright crouch on the ledge. As if he’s done this a million times.
“— dangerous,” I finish.
He grins at me. “It is, I guess.”
“That’s not what I want to hear,” I say, stalling. What if the curse decides to manifest? This would not be a good time to randomly trip like I did before. “How do you know it could hold us both? Entertain a lot of girls when you were thirteen?”
“Of course,” he says, “because most thirteen-year-old girls would have no problem with what you’re about to do.”
I trace my palms over the scarred bark. He means come across.
“What is it?” he asks. “You climb like a…”
“Don’t say monkey.”
“Leopard,” he finishes.
The limb sways in a breeze.
“Maybe I should stay here and wait.” After all, what are the odds that the dead man who looks like my dad can climb trees?
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
I have to tell him. “Breaking into your mom’s car, I tripped when there wasn’t anything there. I’m not usually klutzy. I think it’s the birthmark or something.”
“Oh.” Grant touches his cheek. Then he holds out his hand to me. “Give me your hand. No matter if it’s a snake moment, I’ll catch you.”
He’ll catch me. All right, then.
I pull my messenger bag’s strap as tight as it goes, then shimmy a few inches further until the branch bends with my weight. I grab Grant’s hand and climb unsteadily to my feet. He takes my other hand, and, rather than get across in any graceful way, I count to three and jump across to him. I squeeze my eyes shut, only opening them once I land.
Grant catches me as promised, but we sway on the ledge with the force of my jump. He grabs at the windowpane with the curled fingertips of one hand, and I brace against the brick wall that forms the ledge. There’s barely room for us both.
Finally the swaying stops.
Grant is so close I could tilt my head and bite his nose. Which is a ridiculous thought. He holds my elbow to keep me steady.
“Not so klutzy,” he says, “but a little.”
He turns to the window, and I suck in a dismayed breath at the sight of the windowsill. “Nailed shut?”
He maneuvers a fingernail under the edge of one flat metal circle and pops out the nail. He does the same with the other. “It was a problem the first time, but after that…”
The window glides open under his hands, and I accept his help climbing through it. Having solid floor under my feet again is the height of luxury, like maid service or a hot water heater that never gives out.
Luxurious until I remember we are in Grant’s room.
Together.
Alone.
When he touched my cheek at the station and told me I never had to apologize… that was the moment I started to trust him. It feels impossible that I have someone to count on in so short a time, but I feel certain that I do. And when I saw him outside the police station, I realized I’d missed him. A day and I missed him.
Complete silly girl, and I don’t feel like there’s anything I can do to stop it. I don’t really want to.
So it’s a good thing we don’t have time to do anything but retrieve this mystery item. I’m guessing it’s the letter from his grandmother, but I don’t want to pry.
Grant’s giant duffel bag has been transferred from the bed to the floor, and said bed is as rumpled as the shirt he’s wearing — make that the shirt he whips over his head. He tosses it toward a corner, standing frozen and shirtless. He has a nice torso. I can’t stop looking at it.
The moment has an intensity that makes me want to laugh, except the air is too thick with tension. I cross to his duffel and pick out a black T-shirt.
Grant stays exactly where he is, and I walk to him. I lay the shirt flat against his chest, its fabric between my hand and his skin. His hand lifts to cover mine…
And then I do laugh. I’m too nervous not to. I lower my voice, so his mom won’t hear and come running. “Now you put it on,” I say.
“Right.”
He takes the T-shirt and pulls it over his head. A gray-silhouetted ninja races across the front.
“And get what you came for,” I say.
“Right.”
Grant moves past me and kneels before the bag, carefully going through the contents until he finds a certain shirt and unfolds it to reveal a small cream envelope, tattered with time. His name is written on the back.
I feel drawn to touch the envelope, much like I felt drawn to the gun. The gun in my bag. The gun I blasted Grant with.
Black dust only. It didn’t hurt him.
Both of us flinch at the sudden sound of the front door opening, then slamming shut. Grant presses his finger to his lips, and we wait. I’m not sure for what. Then, faint but unmistakable, a car engine cough and turns over.
“Mom left,” he says, seeming confused about why. “She must have taken Dad’s old car. Hardly ever leaves the garage.”
I don’t want to mention that the likely reason is Grant’s jailbreak.
He fills the silence. “Means we have a little breathing room here now.”
“So, what’s that?” I ask, curious if he’ll tell me. My fingers still itch to touch the paper.
“It’s a letter from my grandmother. To me. She gave it to my dad before she died, and he just decided to turn it over. Because of…”
“Everything. I know,” I say. I have to be honest with him. “The other night I listened in on your conversation.”
Grant blinks at me. “From the top of the stairs. Exactly what I would have done.” He seems pleased about it.
“What’s it say?” I ask.
He shrugs helplessly. “I don’t know. I meant for us to read it together and then everything went haywire.”
He meant for us to read it together. I’m afraid for him, afraid what’s in the letter will end up hurting him. Afraid I will. But still. He meant for us to read it together. Like we’re a team.
“Do you want me to read it to you?” When he doesn’t answer right away, I add, “I understand if you don’t. This is private.”
He looks at the envelope. “It’s a little scary. I don’t think I told you… when Gram died, that night was the first time I saw the spirits, heard them speaking.”
“I don’t blame you for being a little scared,” I say. “Are there any here now?”
He shakes his head. “No, they’re keeping their distance for the moment. I don’t know why.”
“You loved your grandmother?” I ask. The answer might not be so simple. I never knew either set of my grandparents.
“I did.”
“And she loved you?”
His lips soften with his nod.
“It’ll be okay then,” I say. “Let me read it to you.”
He hands it to me. The envelope opens with a whisper of old paper against itself. I pull out a single she
et folded into thirds. Tidy, slanted handwriting in blue ink bleeds through the back of the page.
“‘Dear Grant,’” I start, pausing to give him time to change his mind.
He waits without speaking. I shift closer to the light of the window, and read on.
“‘I’m sorry about the gift I know will now fall onto your shoulders…’” When I stop to gauge his reaction to the beginning, he gestures for me to keep going. “‘…but the most important fact about our family is our lineage. I know you believe my stories are just those of a silly old woman. But it is what makes us who we are, the keepers and protectors of this island, a ground with as many names as our gifted have borne over the years. You will not find their names written or their actions detailed, but know that our family line has a long history of service to this place. It would not have been safe to document that history. And so it has been a tale told by one bearer of the burden to the next.’”
I clear my throat, dry as if dust bunnies from under the bed had migrated there. These secrets were never meant for me to hear. I know that much.
“Go on,” Grant says.
“‘In the past, the gift has passed down through the women in our family, fate’s way of ensuring its preservation in our line. When I was able to bear only one child, a boy, your father, I thought that meant that I would be the one to finish our task. That either we would end or the island would. Your father never developed the gift, never understood it. But you, Grant, you are different. I see now that you will be the last of us. We must have been very close to the edge when your father was born — maybe I was to be the final protector. But events were turned from their course. I don’t know how long you have, and I know you were not properly trained. I have failed you on that score, afraid your father would never allow it, and for that I am sorry.’”
“I removed myself,” Grant says.
I continue. “‘Our line stretches all the way back to the first appearance of the devil on these shores. A child was left behind on the beach when the devil’s cohort was forced to abandon its plan. I know you have never believed this, but your ancestor — and mine — was taken in and protected by the Secotans. Virginia Dare was a child well hidden before that bastard John White ever returned, searching for his master’s weapon. That child was freed from her parents’ sins, left on the island’s rough ground because she was too young to promise herself and follow his acolytes into the other world. The tribe knew that decision tied her to this land. Just as the traitor Mary Blackwood’s decision tied her. Her line was to be marked with the serpent as agents of betrayal.’”
