“Go ahead. Go. If you leave now, you might still get those back to your precious City before they rot,” I muttered.
“Just what in the hell is your malfunction?” Syd asked, giving an apologetic shake of the head to Troy, who tried to corral her. She shouldered her way out the door.
No one was listening by the time I admitted I had no idea.
I left Len at the diner with my brothers and headed down the street to spend some time reading at the Sanctuary—letters from the parishioners about worries they wanted Len and me to ask the Spirit to show us during Tuesday services. It had been a long time since Len had joined me in these duties, and normally I didn’t mind. But today my work was distracted and halfhearted and eventually I gave up and scuffed my boots all the way down to the courthouse.
I found Sheriff Jayne in her office. She wasn’t alone when I swung myself around the doorway; instead she was chatting in hushed tones with Deacon Pious. It was either about Syd or Cal, and as much as I wanted to eavesdrop, I resisted, clearing my throat instead.
“Afternoon, Casandra.” Deacon Pious smiled. “Rumor has it Syd’s first day at Retraining was a bit rough.”
My stomach sank again as I realized how much harder I had just finished making it. “Yeah. Some people hang on to old grudges,” I said. Back when all of us girls shared ballet classes, Syd had outshone just about everyone at the dance studio. I don’t even know if she knew she was doing it, either. Some of us found other things to occupy our time. Others, like Becky—like me—found resentment, though Becky’s was age-old and deep while mine was a small and needy thing. One I was deeply ashamed of.
The Deacon stood and gestured to the chair he’d been sitting in. “Please. I was just heading off, in fact. I’ll see you for services tomorrow evening.”
The Deacon’s shoes barely made a sound across the scuffed linoleum. “Must be genetic,” I said.
“Pardon?” the Sheriff said.
“Oh, nothing. It’s just they’re both so . . .”
“Scut around like clouds, those two. Exact opposite of Cal. Man never met a door he wouldn’t slam.” Sheriff Jayne smiled to herself.
The Sheriff, the Deacon, and Cal had a strange and unlikely friendship, uniting to placate the need for companionship present in even the most solitary of souls. Tongues wagged around town, trying to ascribe some sort of sin or deviance to their gatherings, but the accusations rolled off like water on a mirror. They were three introverts, three enigmas, and their loyalty bolstered and protected each other in a way I hoped to have one day.
“I haven’t seen you since the funeral,” I said, sitting gingerly in the warm chair. “Have there been any new, um, developments?”
“It was a heart attack, Cas,” she said, a grim smile on her dark red lips. “It’s not like we can chase down a pot of mac and cheese.”
“But I mean, was anyone with him? Who found him? Is there anyone who knows more?”
She sat up. “Where’s this coming from, Cas? Did you hear something? See something?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. Maybe Cal really did have a heart attack. Maybe the Bishop had been too late. Maybe he just didn’t hear the cries for help.
“Look, I’m sorry, but unless you have, this is uncomfortable. These questions. They don’t bring him back.”
I wanted the information for myself, to put my mind at ease, but it was to the detriment of everyone else. “You miss him.”
“I do,” she said. Her voice was thick but didn’t crack. Her sorrow was buried deep, the few tears at the funeral and her refusal to say many words about Cal the only symptoms of her pain. “Pi’s in worse shape, though.”
“He’s got Syd, now,” I said.
She raised an eyebrow. “Or Syd’s got him.”
“I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have brought her today if I’d known . . .”
“Loss makes people unrecognizable,” she said, looking at her hands. “Becky’s had a bit. And Syd’s had ten times her share and then some. I don’t think you get it, Cas. The way she is isn’t about you. Or New Charity. Caring for her is courageous, not weak.”
If she was right, then why did I feel so insubstantial?
I was wiping tears away in the middle of the street, the dusk to the west settling in deep orangey blues. I’d been looking up at the Acolyte apartments above the Sanctuary, wondering what it would be like to live for good on the other side of those floor-to-ceiling windows. Would I feel high up and revered, or independent like Syd? Would Len be there with me, or would he keep slipping away to the back room of the mercantile, or into the arms of Al Truax?
As if my thoughts had summoned him, there was Len, heading toward me, whistling to himself as he scuffed a rhythm with his boots, his flask glinting off the light from the diner.
He didn’t so much stop as collect me around the shoulders, leaning into me with his uneven gait. By the time I’d let him haul me halfway home, my tears had dried up.
“Don’t worry. Tomorrow’s a new day, Cas,” he said. “For all of us.”
I thought of another day worried about Syd, another day sitting through services in a closed room of the Sanctuary, searching my Foresight for dangerous visions while Len slept one off. I remembered the intensity of the Bishop’s stare the night Cal died, when he’d asked if we’d seen any sign of Syd.
“Bishop did something terrible,” I blurted.
Len untangled his arm from mine, clapping me on the back once more. “Poor Cas. Did he breathe on you again?” He guffawed at himself and leaned over to slap his knee.
The tears started to run, again. I didn’t bother to wipe them this time. “The day Cal died. The Bishop. When you fell. He touched me without his gloves. And I saw . . . something bad.”
“Define bad, Cas. You saw him naked? Dancing the lambada with Diner Tess? Eating the last of the seven-layer dip? Saw him what?”
“I saw his past, Len. I saw. His Hindsight. He was there when Cal died.”
“Okay.” He handed me his handkerchief, his face falling somber, eyes darkening almost to blue. “But you might’ve seen lots of things. Was he trying to help? Could be someone had called him because Cal was sick, the Deacon maybe?”
“I’ve been trying to make sense of it, but I can’t. They were alone. I think the Bishop . . . I think he made it happen.”
“You mean the Bishop killed Cal? Our Bishop?”
“I think so.”
“You’re serious, aren’t you?” Len muttered to himself, kicking his heel into the dirt. “Al kept saying it. That there’s something wrong with him. That something wasn’t right.”
“We’ve been Acolytes most of our lives, Len. Could the Bishop really be responsible for this? Is it even possible—that we don’t understand what he’s capable of?”
I expected Len to react, but I wasn’t prepared for his anger. “There’s no we here, Cas. You discovered this big secret and decided to keep it all to yourself. How in the hell were we supposed to think anything about it?”
“I didn’t know how to tell you, Len. Or even who to tell.”
“If not me, the Deacon. Sheriff Jayne. Anyone.” He raised his flask to me, at me. “No wonder you’re a basket case.”
“I am not a basket case.” I blew my nose in the handkerchief. “What if it’s one of those nightmares, just happening in the daytime instead and—”
“Then you’re wrong. But at least let someone help figure that out.” Len looked at me like I was an alien instead of his mirror image. “You need to tell the Deacon or the Sheriff in the morning, or you’re on your own with this.”
“I tried to tell the Sheriff, but—”
“You know what?” Len took another swig of his flask. “You are an expert at excuses. You have an excuse every time you aren’t the person you want to be. Do you even know who that is? I’m tired of watching you paddle around in the kiddie pool. Grow up. This is real life we’re living. Do the right thing. For Cal. For Syd. For you.” He wobbled, poking me in the arm.
“Or what?” I whispered, afraid my full voice would falter.
“Or I will.”
I prayed to the Spirit with every fiber of my being to make me invisible in the long hallway to my bedroom. But the Spirit wasn’t listening. The alcove in front of my room was occupied by Troy, asleep and slumped over a volume of love poetry. I thought about nudging him with my shoe, but I was furious with Len and with myself. I cracked my door, and Troy fell backwards, opening his eyes as he hit the carpet.
I thought about apologizing, but I didn’t have time before he scrambled to his feet. “Did you see Syd? Is she okay?”
I rolled my eyes at him. “Be more obvious, would you?”
“I’m serious, is she okay? I went by and no one answered.”
“She was fine at the diner, doofus. Remember?”
“You were fighting. How is that fine? Did you apologize?”
The tears smarted in my eyes again. Everyone would choose Syd over me, would keep choosing her—everyone except the Bishop, and I wasn’t sure I wanted the Bishop’s attention anymore, either. Len’s question rattled around my head. What kind of person did I want to be? Who was I? Why did I have to decide?
“Cas, are you listening to me?” Troy sat down on the edge of my bed.
“I haven’t seen her since this afternoon. I worked for a bit, then I saw the Sheriff. Then I collected your drunk brother in the street and came here. Happy?”
“I don’t get it. Why can she be your friend if she can’t be mine?”
“It’s been a long time for Syd and me to just pick up our friendship where we left off. Besides, she isn’t planning to stay long, Troy. Don’t lie to me, to yourself: you don’t want her friendship, you want . . . something else.”
“How could you understand, Cas? I’ve loved her my whole life.”
“Do you even know what love is?” I asked.
“Do you?”
I was still fumbling for an answer when Len burst into the room. “Quick. Come. It’s Perry.”
We raced down the hallway behind Len.
In the entryway, Perry swayed, bloodied and stammering. A woman stood next to him, her hands tied with a loose bandana, which she brought to her face to wipe the tears sliding down her dark-skinned cheeks.
“What have you done?” Mama demanded—answers Perry didn’t seem to have.
And still Perry smiled. It was a vacant thing, and my skin went cold. I shoved Troy between me and Len. A vision spooled up, and despite Len’s drunken inability to participate, the images were unyielding.
Syd stuffing a backpack full of tuna, first aid supplies, and the hide-a-key with our childhood keychain still attached. Syd riding the gray to the Basalt, wet and weary. Syd at the reservoir, reaching out to touch the floodgate Ward—then a blinding whiteness that split my head with a cudgel of pain.
As I fell to the floor, I heard Perry’s voice, calm and even. “Mama, Governor,” he said. “Meet Nelle Harris, the love of my life.”
CHAPTER SIX
Syd
I wake up early on my third day in New Charity. I hardly slept and my mind is jumpy and everything hurts. So before I do anything else, I turn the lights on over the basement stairs and remind myself I have faced far worse than giant house spiders in the last several years.
It looks like my dad hadn’t completely given up on the basement. The pool table looks freshly used and there are a few empty bottles of Spirit-approved beer on the counter. The part I really dread is pulling his couch away from the wall. My fear is twofold: the awful things I might find fallen behind it and the abject horror I’ll feel if he’s taken down my old practice barre.
Aside from a few dead bugs and prodigious dust bunnies, the couch comes away from the wall without incident. The barre is still there, dusty but sturdy. I take down the sheets from the long mirrors at the ends of the room and note that my dad must not have been big on his own reflection. During my pliés, I mull over the regrets he listed and relisted in his journal—littered randomly between observations about weather, the horses, appointments, and a few out-and-out anti-Sanctuary screeds. His discomfort doesn’t make anything easier, but I feel both better and worse knowing that the decision to stay wasn’t simple for him.
My body takes over the rote movement and my mind empties. My back and hips crack mightily, as bones fall back into alignment. I stretch for a good long time, until I hear Pi calling my name.
“Down here,” I yell, or try to at any rate. I realize I haven’t spoken aloud yet, and I have to try a few times before my vocal cords make themselves useful.
I stand up and pull an old summer dress over the ridiculous purple leotard I found in the Room of Sequined Horrors. Bounding up the stairs I realize I left the blue journal open on the living room table. I’m engulfed with guilt, even though there’s really no reason. My dad is gone, and the journal is mine to do with what I want. But it feels voyeuristic somehow. And wrong.
Pi is standing over the little blue book when I get upstairs. He nods to himself and then to me. “Good,” he says. “This is good.”
“I just thought I’d take your advice, try to understand him, or something. He talks about the weather a lot, that’s for sure.”
He smiles and shoves his hands into his pockets. “I’m glad, truly. I am. It’s just a shame you getting to know him couldn’t happen some other way.” Pi all but crumples into the corner of the couch.
I’m frozen in place. I know I should console him, but I’m afraid his sorrow is contagious. I grab a couple of Spirit beers from the fridge, and sit down next to him.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m trying to hold it together, but I’ve never lived in a world without him. There are days when I’m not sure I know how.”
A half laugh burbles from my throat. “And here I am with the opposite problem.”
“I’ve been avoiding being here in the house. But I think it might actually help. This is just a house. The house where my brother lived. Where he died. No more, no less.”
“It’s your house, too, Pi,” I say. “You don’t have to ask. You don’t have to knock.”
Regardless, I realize someone is knocking on the screen door. It’s a soft knock, barely louder than the grasshopper song swelling with the morning sun. “Come on in,” I yell. The way my mother used to. Pi knows it. But he doesn’t say it.
Troy appears from the hallway, a dark green cowboy hat in his hands. “Syd, Deacon, morning to you.”
“Good morning,” I say, grateful Pi is here and I don’t have to deal with this awkwardness alone. “I forgot, I have turnovers. You both hungry?” Not waiting for a reply, I spring up from the couch to grab a few plates and the box from the diner.
Pi winks at me, exaggeratedly, and raises his beer. “Well, I need to head to the office, Syd. Have to get ready for services tonight. You’re always welcome at the Sanctuary, you know.”
I pause, box of turnovers wobbling in my hand. He can’t really be leaving.
He waves again. “You two have a nice chat.”
All his sadness is eradicated by leaving me tied to the tracks of puppy-love railroad.
Troy has settled into the armchair, long legs crammed in between the chair and the coffee table, which I slide toward me. “Damn, you got tall.”
He laughs. “Beer, eh?”
“Breakfast of champions. Want one?”
He shakes his head. A morning beer wouldn’t be a first for us. The summer before I left, he and Cas and Len and I would sit in sleeping bags up on the ridge on Friday nights, looking at the stars, talking about what our lives would be. We never drank to forget—not like Len does now—but to get into that hazy place where everything seemed possible. When the sun shed its pink robe, stars blinking out, we finished the last of the full cans, sneaking home full of hope.
“How’s everyone at the Willis mansion this morning?” I ask, folding myself into Pi’s old spot on the couch.
Troy frowns. “To be honest, it’s kind of a disaster.�
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“Did someone get sick? What can I do?” He shakes his head, and I remember I’m not a nurse anymore. No one here expects me to be anything but a shiftless equine heiress. If anyone needed actual help, they’d be at the well-stocked clinic next to the Sanctuary.
“It’s not really an emergency, see. It’s Perry.”
I catch myself wrinkling my nose, but he’s busy fidgeting with his hat. “I don’t know quite how to explain. If I tell you, you’ll need to keep it to yourself, at least for a bit.”
Secrets were something we’d barely ventured into all those years ago. Cas and Len never pried about our relationship, what we talked about when they left us alone on the ridge or walking home along the two track, so I’d never had occasion to lie, so much as omit. But his clear-eyed gaze is urgent. I nod—impressed by a loyalty to his brother whose love, if reciprocal, certainly isn’t proportionate.
“Perry showed up last night with a woman.”
I can’t cover up my snort. “Well, good for Perry. I didn’t think he had it in him.”
Troy allows himself an amused smile. “The trouble is, see, she’s a Survivor.”
I set my half-finished breakfast on the table, but keep ahold of the beer. Before I extricated myself from our meeting under the ponderosa, Perry had said he was going to find Nelle. He didn’t ask for my help, just her location. It would not have surprised me to learn Perry had gone missing, but never in a million years would I have expected him to bring her here.
“I’m not sure I understand,” I say, trying to play it cool.
“Perry brought her. Kidnapped her, I guess, if you want to get technical.”
Troy looks so uncomfortable, as uneasy as he looked the first time he sat there, waiting to ask me to Homecoming while I sewed ribbons on my pointe shoes instead of sitting at rapt attention. Attention I’m giving him now.
“How do I help him, Syd?”
I know how much he wants Perry’s approval, how much he wanted it back then. Even as Perry grew more and more distant. Even as Perry laid down the ultimatum to Troy: their friendship or me. It wasn’t that Troy idolized Perry, but that he sensed how desperate his brother was to belong.
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