Beware the Wild

by Natalie C. Parker

  “Eaten anything? No. I just need her to remember.”

  She shakes her head. “Sorry, shug, I don’t give charms to anyone that wants them. Only folks that need them. Like this boy did. Anyone foolish enough to swallow a piece of the swamp risks going mad unless they got a charm to keep their brains clear. But if she don’t need one, it’s safer that she don’t have one—if she don’t already remember those that’ve gone, she’ll be happier remaining that way.”

  Without meaning to, she’s filled in more gaps than I could’ve hoped for. Why Heath started to go mad, why he stopped, why we are the ones to remember. It’s all there.

  “I know how to work the Shine. So, please, ma’am, sell me a charm or tell me what words you use to make them and I’ll do it myself.”

  Her eyebrows shoot up at that. “It’s not a good idea to go messing in that business, and I’m pretty sure I shouldn’t be helping you to do it.”

  She folds her arms across her chest and fixes us with an impassive look. How does this woman manage to infuriate me so? I shouldn’t have bluffed. I’ve got no idea how to make a charm. And I don’t even want to think about how many things could go wrong if I pick the wrong words.

  “Mrs. Clary, ma’am.” Heath leans forward with his arms on the counter. It makes his shoulders look broad and sturdy—authoritative. “With all due respect, you might be right and we should stay away from the swamp, but if we don’t get help from you, we’ll get it from someone, somewhere else. It’s up to you, really, how we go about it.”

  He puts words together so easily. I can hear exactly how he’s plucking at her adult sensibilities to get the answer we want. I couldn’t have done it, but Heath makes it all sound so easy and logical. Then, before my very eyes, Old Lady Clary transforms from stubborn old woman into something more austere. Still, her mouth is a tight, unbending line.

  “You know I’ve been over the fence already,” I say, pushing Heath’s groundwork a little further. “I saw him, Mrs. Clary. I saw my brother and what he’s become. . . . I can’t leave him there. No matter what you say, I’m going to try to save him, and I need all the help I can get.”

  “Every bit as stubborn as your granddaddy,” she mutters before taking a long drink of her water. “All right, I’ll give you one, but you’d better be sure. Not everyone can hang on to multiple realities if you know what I mean, and this town’s got all the Featherhead Fred it can take.”

  If there’s anyone capable of dealing with this sort of confusion, it’s Candy. “Yes, ma’am, I’m sure.”

  At that, she ducks beneath the counter and rummages around in hidden drawers, muttering to herself the whole time. It’s enough to capture Candy’s attention. She makes big, baffled eyes at me, but I shrug. The good thing about being old is that you can get away with a lot of crazy without people making too big a fuss. Candy only rolls her eyes to let me know her patience has worn thin and joins us at the register.

  Finally, Old Lady Clary reappears and presses a woven leather circle into my hand. It’s not the prettiest thing, but it’ll have to do. I reach for my money, but she clucks her tongue.

  “Not this time, shug. You hold on to your money and promise me you kids’ll be careful.”

  “Yes, ma’am, we promise,” I say hurriedly. “C’mon, Candy.”

  Before I can step away from the counter, the same wave of nausea I felt when Fisher bound Shine into my wounds crashes over me, and my vision clouds. I lean forward—I can see how firmly my hand presses against the counter, but can’t feel it—and then it’s gone.

  A rushing ocean fills my ears and there’s a tickle in my nose. Behind the waves are voices, cresting and falling, reaching for me, trying to tease me from the surge. It seems a long time til they punch through, but I’m content to stay in this fuzzy place, this cotton ball space where I’m not hot or cold, just quiet.

  “I think she’s waking up.” The voice is suddenly clear and very close.

  I open my eyes. The world is a smear, and something pinches my waist.

  “Pull it together, Saucier. C’mon, wake up!”

  “I think I should give her mother a call,” says another voice.

  My feet are on the ground. The pinching at my middle is a hand holding me upright.

  “No, look at that, her eyes are open. Poor thing’s been working too hard lately.”

  Little by little, my vision clears. Candy’s got me through the front door and the heat of the sun revives me a little. I see my legs moving down the stairs before I feel them. Once the fuzz starts to clear, it leaves quickly, and I realize I must’ve started to faint.

  “Don’t slow down now, Sterling. We’ve got you.” Heath’s voice clears more of the fog.

  I started to faint and Heath caught me.

  “Say good-bye to Old Lady Bat-brain unless you want her calling your mama.” Candy hooks one arm through mine, lending her strength and momentum.

  I dredge up enough energy to call my farewell and toss a smile over my shoulder. Then we’re in Candy’s car. I rest my head against the seat and close my eyes, but Candy’s having none of it. She punches the side of the headrest, making my brain collide with my eyes.

  “Candy!”

  I’ve never heard Heath’s voice at that volume. Candy’s face is rigid. I know why, but I don’t have any apologies for her.

  “What. The. Hell,” she says. “Have you eaten anything today? Anything at all? Because I don’t think you have.”

  “Just leave it alone,” I say. I’m not about to explain that I had a dose of Shine that’s kept me going as well as any meal. The ironic truth is that ever since that night in the Lillard House, I’ve been eating better than I have in months.

  “That’s a no. And no, I won’t just leave it alone, Saucier. You fainted because you, I dunno, exist. This has gone too far and it’s time you faced it. You need a damn hamburger. I’m buying. That means it’s a gift, and etiquette says you can’t refuse a gift.”

  “I’m not doing this on purpose, Candy!” My throat is so tight I can hardly speak. “This was totally out of my control!”

  “I don’t believe you,” she returns, unrelenting. When Candy gets her nose in something, she can be as ruthless as a turkey buzzard. Pick, pick, picking until the bones are clean. “I don’t believe that you get to this point—fainting—unintentionally. I don’t believe that you don’t have control. And I’m not going to let you believe that, either.”

  I can’t explain anything to her until I get that charm on her wrist and reintroduce her to reality. And I need to talk to her about it. I’m tired of this wall between us. I’m going to knock it right the hell down.

  “Okay,” I say even as she noses the car into one of the stalls at Sonic. “Get me a damn hamburger. And in return, I get to give you a gift you can’t refuse.”

  I display the bracelet. The charm in this one is a ceramic tile pressed with some saint’s face. Basic, but not anywhere near Candy’s style.

  “Seriously? You are cruel, Saucier.” She snatches the bracelet, fixing it around her wrist as she places an order for three hamburger meals.

  From the backseat, Heath squeezes my shoulder. I don’t know what I expected. There was no flash of light, no immediate sense of knowing that came over me when I put my own bracelet on. I just watched Phin go in, never forgot him, and started seeing the Shine all at once.

  It was different for Heath and Old Lady Clary. They didn’t watch Phin cross the fence. I had to say his name before they remembered. But they were capable of remembering. That’s what these charms do: make us capable of seeing how Shine has changed reality.

  As we eat, I watch Candy carefully, waiting for some sign that the charm’s done its work. I demolish the burger and pass the fries to Heath. Candy doesn’t protest. She only eats a handful of her own fries before also donating to the same cause.

  “Thank you,” she says, collecting all the bits of trash from my lap.

  Unlike Heath’s car, Candy’s comes with rules. One of thos
e being that the person who leaves garbage behind shall lick her tires clean. It’s a sign of how concerned she’s become that she let us sit inside while we ate something with more grease than a banana.

  “So what do you want to do on this our day of exoneration from the sophomoredom?” She waves at a yellow truckload of screaming former seniors pulling into a slot three spaces down. “That is, before we round up the girls to crash whatever party my cousins are hosting at the trailer. We can make an allowance for you, of course, Heath. Just this once. Because you’re pretty.”

  “That’s very thoughtful,” he says, clearly amused at the way Candy directs the world.

  “One more time.” My gut cramps. I wish I hadn’t eaten quite so much. “His name is Phineas Harlan Saucier.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me. You’re both in on this madness?”

  “It’s not madness,” Heath replies quickly, winning a scoff from Candy.

  “Just say it, Candy. Just once. Phineas Harlan Saucier.”

  She repeats his name and I wait for the memories to unlock or return or do whatever it is they do. I wait for that surprised shake of her head, the vaguely confused look in her eye as she reconciles what she knows with what she knew, but it doesn’t come. She looks at me with that same expectant expression.

  “There. I said it. Can we move on?”

  It didn’t work. Why didn’t it work? Did Old Lady Clary give me a bad charm? Did she do it on purpose? Why would she do such a thing? She wouldn’t. That’s the answer. She wouldn’t bother with sabotage; it just didn’t work.

  My phone buzzes three times in quick succession with a message from Lenora May. All it says is, It’s time we talked. Meet me at home.

  “Yeah,” I say, uncertain how I should be feeling in this moment. “We can move on.”

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  PHIN SAYS THERE ARE TWO ways you can tell a person’s lying. First, they start talking, and second, they stop. It’s the sort of perspective you develop when the town you live in is built on secrets.

  All it takes to divert Candy is the suggestion that Heath and I have intimate plans for the afternoon. She drops us at Heath’s truck and we heed Lenora May’s beckoning message, returning home to find her waiting at the kitchen table.

  Her face is desperately honest and she clutches a folded piece of paper close to her chest. Its edges are tattered, the creases so worn they might fall apart in her hands. Her eyes move to Heath briefly.

  “He knows,” I say.

  “I saw your boots,” she says finally. “You went into the swamp again. And I know you’ve met Fisher and he’s the one who gave you that cherry. I know you won’t stop trying and also that you don’t believe I’m not the enemy. But maybe you’ll believe someone else.”

  With some reluctance, she offers the paper. It whispers between her fingers as I take it. I don’t understand the pain I see in her eyes, but I do know it’s real. Whatever is written on this page is as dear to her as my brother is to me.

  The date in the upper-right corner is July 10, 1997. The paper looks much older than that, as if it’s been opened and refolded a thousand times. The small handwriting is as neat as it is jagged.

  My Sweet May,

  I’ve entrusted this letter to Ida Clary, who has been a friend to us both these many years though you have never met her. I have no reason to believe you will ever read this. But I have hope.

  It’s been thirty-eight years since I saw you last. I am an old man, May, and do not have much time left. I don’t know how to tell you of all that has passed. But I must tell you one thing, and that is the story of what happened the night I abandoned you in the heart of that jealous swamp.

  It plagues me to think that you’re still waiting there beneath our eternal cherry tree, and even more to imagine what you must think of me. I did come for you, as promised, and with a way to extract you from that cursed Wasting Shine, but it was your brother I found. He threatened to kill you if I ever dared enter the swamp again.

  Heaven help me, I believed him.

  I left with the intention of finding another way to save you, but the swamp was different after that night. It began to move, to shift, and expand—closer and closer to town, as if wanting to consume it. And as it grew, it took people, our friends and our family. Ida and myself were the only two in town to remember those who disappeared—my eyes remain open thanks to your bracelet, my love, which I have carried every day of my life—and so it was up to us to protect our town.

  We built a fence of Canadian pine to keep the swamp at bay—Ida knew the only way to contain the Shine was to create a powerful barrier of our own. My only regret is that the fence kept me from you, too. I couldn’t risk your life by crossing it and I couldn’t ask anyone else to do that for me. There were good and bad reasons for this, but the very core of the matter is this: I left you there and I am more sorry than I will ever properly express.

  If you find this letter in your hands one day, I hope that you will forgive me for not loving you as well as I should.

  Love,

  Harlan

  Harlan. Grandpa.

  Pieces of the past suddenly begin to fall into place. If you ask Mama, the swamp is the reason Grandma left Grandpa. Even surrounded by family, he could never extricate himself from it. If he wasn’t sitting on the porch, watching the swamp with eyes as narrow as pumpkin seeds, then he was walking the perimeter. He called this “fence walking.” Mama called it “obsession and a sad one at that.” A man who’d built so many of the beautiful old houses of Sticks shouldn’t be obsessed with something as simple and mundane as a fence. But now I know. He wasn’t obsessed, he was in love. It’s so tragic I almost can’t bear it.

  “Okay, I’m listening,” I say, sliding into a chair.

  With a cautious glance to the window, she clears her throat delicately and begins, “My name is Lenora May Lillard and I was born here in Concordia Parish in 1845.”

  She gives that a moment to sink in, which is good because Heath is on his feet and I’m not far behind.

  “Lillard?” I ask. I know that name. “As in the Lillard family? No. That’s not possible.”

  “I’m afraid it is. I grew up in Oak Point Manor—that’s what we called it then, now you know it as the Lillard House—and for most of my life I was happy. People didn’t fear the swamp so much then. There were stories, of course, and Mrs. Clary had all the best ones, but they weren’t all these tales of madness and despair. There were good ones, too. The Clarys were even known to go into the swamp to collect remedies that could cure nearly anything.”

  “How is this even possible?” Heath’s fingers rest on my shoulder.

  “It shouldn’t be,” I say, looking again at the letter in my hands.

  I guess she could have faked it, but the paper’s old as time and there’s no mistaking my Grandpa’s handwriting. I recognize it from old plans for this house, the ones Mama had framed after he died. They’ve been hanging in our dining room for years and years. That, combined with recent events make it possible, even probable, she’s telling the truth.

  I think of what the Lillard House must have looked like with a fresh coat of paint and big, lazy rocking chairs lining the porches. Before the years weighed down the floorboards and a thousand storms battered the walls, it must have been impossibly beautiful set against the dark oaks. Lenora May makes all sorts of sense when I picture her there, orbited by crinoline and layered skirts.

  So does Fisher.

  Heath slumps into his seat, boneless as a sack of potatoes, and Lenora May takes that as a sign to continue.

  “Before I explain what happened, I have to tell you that we loved the swamp very much as children. It was our secret hideaway and it was a good place.” A frown flashes across her lips almost too quickly to see. “Fisher was good, too. He only ever wanted to keep me safe.”

&nbs
p; I know what she’s not saying. “You’re afraid of him?”

  Her response is in her hesitation. I think of the easy way Fisher moves through the swamp, the way Shine seems to lean into him like he’s the sun, and how I felt at the end of our conversation today. Lenora May’s fear is quiet, but it’s serious as summer and it resonates with something I already knew.

  Taking a shallow breath, she continues, “Fisher was friends with Elijah Clary, Mrs. Clary’s son. From him, Fisher learned how to construct a charm and manipulate Shine. When the war came on, my father decided it was prudent for me to marry immediately. He chose a man with a brutal reputation. I couldn’t bear it and, on top of this, Papa was sending Fisher away to fight for the Confederacy. We had no time to waste. We decided to escape into the swamp and not return until enough time had passed that we could choose our own destinies.”

  “So you stayed and turned into what? Ghosts? Demons?” I ask.

  “No, there was more to it than that. From Elijah, Fisher also knew how to redirect Shine into things—tangible items: a bracelet, a gris-gris, a piece of food. Or our bodies.” She becomes very still for a second. “He was sure it would keep us safe. That by merging our lives—our bodies and souls—with Shine, we’d be safe from the evils of the world. And I trusted him. We went to the pond, built a fire of oleander and sumac, and breathed the smoke until we were well and truly poisoned.”

  “Jezuz,” Heath mutters. “You killed yourselves.”

  “Yes and no. As we lay dying, we swallowed cherry blossoms. We took their magic into our bodies and, in return, it threaded our veins with power. We became a part of the swamp and it was wonderful because there was nothing to fear. The swamp gave us everything we needed—food, shelter, warmth, protection.” She smiles a soft, sad smile.

  “It was amazing. We could spend days learning how the water moved from pond to pond, or seeing which of us could find the smallest spiderweb. And the Shine! We could do so much. We were powerful, and I was happy for so many years.

  “Eventually, though, I grew weary of that life. I asked Fisher if we could go, as we’d planned, but he refused. When I tried to leave anyway, he became furious. He told me I would die if I left—the cost of having such perfect protection from the swamp was that we were bound to it. Forever. I think he knew it before we ran into the swamp and didn’t say.” She shudders at the memory. “So, I stayed with him because my only other choice was to die.”