Beware the Wild

by Natalie C. Parker

  Pain slices from my brain to my belly. I can barely keep my legs from giving beneath me. Tears slip over my cheeks, hot and fast. I swallow my cries and press my back firmly against the cherry tree as if I might find a way to fall inside it. Then I close my eyes and wait for this to end—hope that it will end—and fear that it won’t.

  My teeth slice my lip and blood slides over my tongue. The taste is a bright color in my mouth. I swallow it to keep me warm as all the heat is pulled from my bones, as my body tries to transform into something unnatural.

  Then Fisher curses and pulls away. Gradually, the pain drains from my belly. I’m weak and empty and gasping. Looking down, I expect to find a body that’s not my own, something twisted and malformed, half gator, half me. But I see my own hands, my own knees, no hint of gator green anywhere.

  The swamp sings, but I feel no warmth. I feel only this whip of a lizard’s tongue licking at my ribs where my heart should be.

  Then I fall to the ground, a useless heap of muscle and bone.

  Again, Fisher wrenches my head up. This time his fingers dig into the soft spot beneath my chin. His other hand squeezes my wrist. He frowns at the bracelet, but doesn’t pry it off. When he speaks, his voice is distant. Detached. “We might’ve ended this tonight if not for that little charm.”

  Too late, I realize what’s happened. Lenora May’s bracelet is stronger than I knew. Somehow it kept Fisher from taking me in my brother’s place, and he thinks I tricked him on purpose.

  “No, I didn’t—”

  The swamp hisses and snaps.

  “Ah,” Fisher says, an alarmingly delighted smile on his face. “Just in time.”

  Nathan walks into the clearing. His yellow-brown skin is dusty in the moonlight and he tugs nervously at his elbow.

  He looks from Fisher to me and, in a voice that’s been scratched to pieces, asks, “Do either of you know which way I go to find the road? I’ve been looking for hours.”

  No, I think, you’ve been looking for a year.

  He looks frustrated and sad and a little scared. He scrubs a hand through his hair. It sticks up, adding three inches to his height.

  “And my friend. I think he’s somewhere in here, too. I’ve looked everywhere, but I can’t find him. Have you seen a white guy in a Saints cap?”

  “Sterling.” Fisher isn’t looking at me. His eyes are trained on Nathan. “I want you to understand that I’m being generous right now.”

  With that, he walks to Nathan and presses one hand to his chest. Nathan’s eyes go wide and bright with Shine. His head tilts away. His mouth gapes, filled with light and then dark, releasing a final, quiet sigh. When he falls to the ground, all I can hear is my scream tearing a hole in the air.

  His body is silent and motionless in the underbrush. Wide-soled shoes make a muddy V shape, looking for all the world like he fell practicing first position in ballet. I doubt ballet was ever his thing, but I’m staring at his shoes and it’s all I can think. Long trails of Spanish moss dangle over his head. They should sway, but nothing moves. Not the moss, not his chest, and not me.

  Nathan is dead. Nathan is dead and the world will never know it.

  A cold fist closes around my lungs, my belly goes tight, and I think nothing will ever work the way it’s supposed to again. I’ll never draw another breath that isn’t also a sob, I’ll never open my eyes without tears because Nathan is dead.

  I can’t look away. Not even when Fisher closes in.

  “You call that being generous?” I manage to ask.

  “Isn’t it obvious? I’ve spared your brother. Now, listen closely because my generosity only goes so far.” Fisher grips my arms, hissing his words. I can feel the bruises reaching down to my bones. “Lenora May did me a favor when she left as she did. It was so explosive that she left a very slender crack behind. Your fence is weak and it won’t be long before it’s completely useless. If I don’t have Lenora May by midnight tomorrow, I will kill someone you care about every day until she returns, and when I run out of people you know, I’ll drain the life from Phineas and feed it to the swamp. Do you believe me?”

  I believe him so hard my heart turns to granite, but I can’t let him feel my fear. Instead, I nod. Once.

  “I’m not sure that you do. What was the other name you mentioned?” he asks.

  I shut my eyes over the tears and will him to forget I was ever stupid enough to give him the name of my best friend.

  It’s a hopeless thought.

  “Abigail, was it? Oh, Abigail?”

  And as though she were waiting for his call, she steps into the clearing, as tall and beautiful as ever. Her eyes are tired and she looks infinitely confused.

  “Sterling? Why haven’t you called?” She crouches in front of me and wipes at my tears, ignoring Fisher as though he’s invisible. “What’s wrong?”

  “Abigail, I’m so sorry,” I say. “Please, don’t kill her.”

  The confusion on Abigail’s face defeats my heart, and in the next instant, Fisher covers her body in a weave of Shine.

  She screams. Her body begins to jerk, to make wet, snapping noises, to whimper and gurgle as it reshapes itself. It happens slowly. Painfully. Her body transforms into a gruesome mash of human and alligator. It’s exactly what he tried and failed to do to me. She gives one final shriek of pain, and I tremble, wondering why I hadn’t thought to do anything to keep Abigail safe.

  When it’s done, she regards me with placid, yellow eyes. Like Phin, her face has been twisted into a wide rictus. Unlike Phin, she’s nearly all gator. Her body squats low on short legs with long, black claws digging into the mud.

  “Now do you believe me?” He carves each word with the precision of a scalpel.

  “I believe you,” I repeat, never looking away from Abigail’s once-beautiful face.

  “Good, because that was the last of my generosity. Next time, I will kill her.” He releases me and brushes his hands down the front of his shirt. You’d never guess he’d just killed a boy. “Now, off you go.”

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

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

  FISHER INSTRUCTS THE SHINE TO lead me home. I stumble through the swamp in a daze, no thought in my mind other than to keep following the lights. If I think of anything else, I’ll dissolve right here in the muddy pools behind my house.

  I see the fence and my house beyond, but I’m not connected to my body enough to feel my feet hit the ground or the knots of my boots between my fingers as I untie them. Somehow, I make it to my room without drawing attention. I keep my thoughts simple: shower first, then clean clothes, then bed.

  But once I’m clean and alone in my room, the dam breaks.

  Nathan died in front of my eyes, Abigail was transformed, Phin was strung up like a puppet, and I walked away with an ultimatum I can’t fulfill. My plan didn’t just fail, it destroyed a life.

  I should text Heath, but I don’t know if I should start with, “Are you alive?” or “I got your best friend killed.” Irritation at his silence and guilt over Nathan aren’t easily reconciled into a single text. Sometime around five, I manage to send, call me. pls.

  There’s no sleeping after that. The world is restless, adding its own grumblings to the noise in my head. It starts slowly, a soft rattling that’s easy to dismiss, but soon Mama’s wind chimes are singing up a storm and the rattling becomes a violent bang, bang, bang!

  Lenora May slides into my room with her hands clasped together. She climbs onto the foot of my bed, tucking her feet beneath her to look through the window. Neither of us speaks. Fence boards shudder in their posts as they’re hit again and again by something inside the swamp. I can’t see what it is, whether it’s Fisher’s magic or a beast or wind or the trees themselves, but it’s ruthless. The fence won’t last long.

  “Girls,” Mama says, a shadowed figure in the doorway. Predawn light falls over her tired face and white bathr
obe, washing her in blue. “Storm’s moving in. Could be a big one, so we need to get some tape on the windows. I’m making a hot breakfast.”

  She’s pretending it’s not unusual for our entire household to rise before the sun, or for the fence to shake itself silly. The rest of Sticks’ll be doing the same—pretending the swamp is only a swamp, all the while visiting Clary General to light sticks of incense and seven-day candles for protection. Well, I’ve had enough of pretending.

  “It’s not a storm, Mama.”

  Her fingers tighten on the door frame and she looks past me to the swamp. Wind whips the chimes into a cacophony, and I think Mama’s finally going to say something true. But then she meets my eyes and says, “Course it is. Duct tape’s in the hall closet. Don’t dawdle.”

  “Mama!” I cry. “It’s not a storm! The swamp is angry and you know it. Why do you keep pretending there’s nothing unusual about it? You know that’s not true. Why else decorate the fence?”

  “Because I hate it.” Her answer’s a whip, and she takes a moment to recover her composure. “I love this town and everyone in it, but that swamp drove my daddy to madness and my mama away.” For a moment she looks devastated—years of loss and pain etched around her eyes and mouth.

  “So you know it’s different,” Lenora May says, sounding gentle and wise. “You’ve always known.”

  Mama steps into the room and takes our hands in hers. “I know that the more power you give something, the more hold it has over you and it doesn’t do anyone a lick of good to feed them stories of swamp demons and the like.”

  With those few words, everything my mother has ever done begins to make sense. This is a lesson she learned from Dad. Once he knew he could hurt her by hurting us, he became more and more violent. And once you tell people a thing has power, then it does. That’s the power of belief.

  “It’s only a storm,” she says, stroking her soft fingers down our cheeks. “It’ll blow over soon enough.”

  I know she wants me to agree, but pretending doesn’t make me feel strong anymore. I say, “I’m not afraid.”

  “Good girl,” she answers, bending to kiss my forehead and then Lenora May’s. Just before she leaves the room, she adds, “Remember to dress warm for church.”

  The fence planks groan, complaining loudly. A sharp crack makes me and Lenora May jump together and draw away from the window as a board falls to the ground in two pieces. Farther away, something else pops like a gunshot. It’s followed by another and another as all around the swamp, boards snap in two and hit the dirt.

  Lenora May’s expression is tight. “It’s him.”

  “Yeah, it’s Fisher.”

  My arms ache where he gripped them and I taste blood on my lip. I don’t know how to tell her about his ultimatum. I don’t know how to ask her to choose between that life and this. The thought makes me sick.

  She turns to me with an inquisitive frown. “You’re horrible with secrets, Sterling. What happened? Tell me what happened.”

  “He was like you said,” I admit.

  I tell her about last night. Not about Nathan. I can’t bring myself to tell her before I tell Heath. But everything else comes pouring out until there’s nothing left. Her presence is sympathetic and I’m surprised to find that I’m glad she’s sitting here next to me right now. Even Candy wouldn’t know how to relate. She hasn’t got a frame of reference for something like this. And I’m damn glad about that.

  Lenora May pulls the window shut, blocking the noise. She twists the latch with a sigh and says, “He wasn’t always like this.”

  It’s what Mama used to say. Early in the morning when Dad was sleeping off his affair with the bottle, she’d take me into the bathroom to brush my hair and kiss my bruises.

  I never believed her, either.

  As if reading my thoughts, Lenora May continues, “When we were young, he was my protector and somewhere along the way, he forgot what that meant.” She laughs a humorless laugh. “It’s strange to think of myself as older now than I was then. I look exactly the same, yet I’ve lived so many years. I should be wise by now. It’s singularly cruel—I mean—it sucks that I’m not.”

  “Nice to see you’re picking up our less-refined lingo.”

  She laughs again. It’s such a delightful and proper sound that I sit up straighter. I should have a cup of tea in my hand to go with that laugh.

  The smell of bacon and coffee wanders into the room and teases my stomach, which growls and gurgles like a wild animal. It’s been ages since I was hungry for breakfast, but at least it’s something to look forward to today. Maybe the last thing, because I have to find Heath to tell him what happened in his absence—that Nathan was alive last night until I got him killed.

  “Lenora May,” I say, remembering one last thing. “Do you know what’s making the Shine fade all of a sudden?”

  Her frown is delicate, landing on her features as lightly as a hummingbird. “What do you mean ‘fade’?”

  I had hoped Fisher wasn’t telling the truth and it isn’t my fault that the Shine has become nothing more than a dim nightlight. But Lenora May’s face confirms it. There’s nothing wrong with the swamp—it’s something to do with me.

  A few bits of sunlight splash over the pines. The swamp grows calm and quiet in its presence, allowing the irritated chirping of birds and the sizzle of bacon from downstairs to reach our ears. Lenora May studies me with a frown waiting in the wings. Whatever she’s thinking, it makes her look haggard.

  “You know not everyone sees the swamp the way we do,” she begins, and I nod. “The Shine is always there, but it’s not something we expect to see, so most people simply don’t. It’s easiest to see when our senses are heightened—when we’re children or close to death, when we’re drunk or traumatized or sick or mad or scared—or any other time we’re not completely in our rational minds.”

  I say, “I thought that’s what these charms were for,” twisting the bracelet on my wrist, but even as I say it, I know it’s wrong. The charms keep our minds clear of the swamp’s fog, but Heath saw Shine before Old Lady Clary placed a charm on his wrist. And when I asked her for a charm for Candy, the first words from her mouth had contained the answer.

  “They ate something. Heath and Abigail both ate something from inside the swamp,” I say, thinking of the swamp water Heath swallowed and the blackberry Abigail picked. “That’s why they started seeing Shine, why they were called to the swamp.” I hadn’t been there for Heath, but I’d completely missed the signs in Abigail—her reluctance to confirm she’d seen Nathan, her exhaustion from sleepless nights.

  Lenora May nods. “Yes, eating something from inside the swamp creates an unbreakable connection to Shine—one that allows the person to see Shine and the effect it has on the world, but that also drives him to return to its source. For most, that call is irresistible—even more so if the thing they ate was something as powerful as that cherry Fisher gave you. Fighting it can drive them to madness. But it can be tempered with a basic charm like Heath’s.”

  The charm helps him remember without losing his mind. That’s why Old Lady Clary was so insistent he wear it. I’d assumed mine was the same, but I was wrong. Mine does more than help me remember because Lenora May made it to be more than a charm. She made it for someone specific—Grandpa Harlan.

  “Mine protects me,” I say, studying the silver bouquet. I don’t have to imagine what words I’d choose to protect someone I loved: protect, shelter, defend. And if even part of me feared the source, I’d add, from Fisher. “And it helps me remember because that’s what you wanted for Grandpa Harlan. But I’ve never eaten anything from inside the swamp. Why can I see Shine at all? And what’s wrong with me now?”

  “I’m afraid there’s nothing wrong with you, Sterling,” Lenora May hedges, scooting to the edge of the bed and getting awkwardly to her feet. “In fact, it’s more the opposite. A week ago, your body was starving. In such a strained state that you could easily see Shine. And recently you’v
e, well, you’ve been eating well. It’s a good thing, Sterling.”

  Of everything that’s happened this week, this seems cruelest. And I did it to myself. I’ve stopped being so afraid and letting that fear direct my life. I ate catfish and hamburgers and peaches and felt so strong and certain, but the entire time, I was undercutting the one thing that gave me a fighting chance in the swamp.

  “You’re saying the only way to see and touch Shine is by making yourself weaker?” I ask, choking on the injustice of it.

  She doesn’t answer. The truth hangs between us like a pendulum.

  The swamp always demands a price and this is one I can’t pay.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

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

  CHURCH IS A LITTLE LIKE cheating when I’m grounded. Not only do I get to leave the house, but half the town shows up for Mass. Mama and Darold like to sit up close because a sheriff needs to be seen, but they don’t require us to sit with them.

  Lenora May immediately finds the friends I’ve seen her with at school. She hasn’t said much since we spoke, and I can’t blame her for wanting some distance. I’m left on my own. If things weren’t so horrid right now, it’d be a coup, but as it is, I spend the service glued to Candy’s side hunting for missing faces in the familiar crowd. Course, it’s tough to tell who Fisher may have taken and who might be sleeping off last night’s revelry in the backseat of their car.

  For the past five months—ever since Liddy Jacob’s wedding got out of hand and a fire took the First Baptist Church of Sticks—we’ve only had the one church. It’s Catholic in the morning and Baptist in the afternoon. This morning, there’s an unusually large number of Catholics to be found packed into the single-story house. Storms have a way of bringing people to prayer and this one’s no exception.