My mother’s long chestnut hair is pinned back with one delicate hummingbird hair clip. Silver with beautiful painted eyes. There were two of them, originally. She wore them all the time. And I loved them because they were a set. Like Elora and me. But one of them got lost at some point. Before this picture was taken, I guess. I still have the one she’s wearing in the photo, though. It’s tucked away in my bedroom, but I never wear it.
I let my gaze linger on my mother’s face. I’ve always thought our green eyes were identical. A little too big. A little too round. Hart used to say I reminded him of a tree frog.
But our eyes don’t look the same in this picture.
Mine look innocent. My mother’s look haunted. Hollow, maybe. Like there’s nobody left inside.
I think about what Sera said yesterday. Your mama had deep power.
If that’s true, it’s the first I’ve heard about it. Of course, there are a lot of things I’ve never known about my mother. Starting with why she took her own life when I was only eight years old.
I can’t stand to be in the kitchen with those haunted eyes, so I head out into the shop.
Honey is busy arranging tiny bottles of essential oils on a silver tray. buy one, get one free. Her face wrinkles up in concern when she sees the dark circles under my eyes. “Long night, Sugar Bee?”
I nod and crawl up on the tall stool behind the register. “It’s hard being here without her, that’s all.”
It’s not like I made a conscious decision not to tell her about my late-night visitor. Or about what happened before that. Evie crying in the night. My near-death experience on the dock. I hadn’t even realized I was going to lie—at least by omission—until I did it. But once the decision is made, I don’t know how to undo it. I’ve been home twenty-four hours, and I’m already juggling secrets like knives.
Honey nods. “Anything we lose comes around in another form,” she reminds me. “But that doesn’t mean we don’t grieve.”
I still want to believe Elora’s alive somewhere, but with every one of those terrifying flashes, that hope gets harder and harder to hang on to. It’s like trying to hold an ice cube while it melts and drips between my fingers.
“Do you think she’s dead?”
Honey stops rearranging bottles to look at me. “Are you asking me what I think? Or what I know?”
“The second one, I guess.”
Honey sighs. “I wish I could tell you for sure, Grey. But it doesn’t work like that. If it did, we’d all be lottery winners, wouldn’t we?” She squeezes the last delicate bottle onto the tray. “It isn’t like placing an order at a restaurant or picking something out of a catalog. I tried to explain that to the sheriff. The dead tell us what they want us to know. Not what we want to know for ourselves.”
“I miss her,” I say, because it seems like the only thing I can say for certain.
“Oh, Sugar Bee,” Honey says, and she lays her hand on my cheek. “I know you do. And I wish I had the answers you need. It’s so hard when someone goes away and leaves a hole.”
I don’t mean to ask the next question. It just falls out of my mouth.
“Did my mom love me?”
Honey turns back to the tiny bottles. She picks up an orange one and holds it up close to squint at the label. “You were her whole world, but there were things that were hard for her to live with.” She puts the little bottle back in its place. “Things that ate away at her until there wasn’t much left. Especially the last few years.”
Before I can ask what things she’s talking about, the bell over the door jingles and the next group of tourists comes in to poke around. We offer them water and sandwiches and books on astrology. They pay for a thirty-minute reading, and Honey asks me to watch the register before she leads them over to the little alcove in the corner and pulls the privacy curtain.
When the bell jingles again, I look up, ready to say, “Welcome to the Mystic Rose, gentle spirits.” Like Honey taught me when I was barely old enough to talk. But it’s only Hart.
It makes me a little sick to see him, because I already know I’m not going to tell him about my stranger. Or about those drawings the twins showed me. The missing black trunk.
He wouldn’t want me protecting him. He’d be pissed as hell. But I can’t stand to cause him any more hurt.
Not until I have an idea what it all means.
Hart saunters up to the counter like I’m an Old West bartender and he’s here to order a double shot of whiskey. He rests his elbows on the glass top and runs his fingers through his hair.
“I’ve been thinking about what you told me.” He looks around the store and lowers his voice. “About those visions you’ve been having of Elora.” I have to lean in so I can hear. He smells like chicory coffee and cigarettes. “Her runnin’ from somebody.”
Our heads are almost touching. His hair brushes my cheek, and it scares me to be this close to him. I’m worried that he’ll be able to feel me. The fact that I’m hiding things. Or maybe just the way my fingers occasionally long for those dark curls on his forehead.
“It’s gotta be Case,” Hart says. His eyes have clouded over. There’s a bayou lightning storm building inside him. “That’s the only thing that makes sense. Him and that damn jealous temper of his.”
I try to fight it off, but that fear I felt in the shed comes slithering back like a cottonmouth. It prickles at the backs of my arms and climbs up my neck to wrap itself tight around my throat.
“He came to see me last night,” I admit. “Case. He told me he thought Elora was cheating on him. That she was in love with someone else.” Hart jerks his head up and frowns. His face has gone white. “And he wanted me to tell him who.”
“See what I’m sayin’, Greycie? Now that’s a buncha bullshit, right there.” Hart clenches his jaw tight and runs another hand through his hair. “But hell, if Case even thought it was true . . . if he got that idea into his head somehow . . . that’s more than enough motive for—”
“For murder,” I say, and he nods, but I still don’t want to believe it. “Can’t you feel anything from him? From Case?”
“Shit yeah,” Hart tells me. “That’s the damn problem. There’s too much there. Guilt. Anger. Hurt. Jealousy. Fear.” His muscles twitch in frustration. “Take your pick. The guy’s a fuckin’ mess. I can’t wade through it all.”
“None of that means he killed her,” I offer. “I feel all those things, too. Every single one of them.”
“Yeah.” Hart’s face softens. “I know you do, Greycie.”
I take a little step back.
And I remind myself that Hart only feels the emotions. He can’t know the cause.
“But none of that means he didn’t kill her, either.” Hart’s face hardens up again. “There are things Case is hidin’. I feel that for sure.”
I have the urge to put even more space between us. Because there are things I’m hiding, too.
But having secrets doesn’t make you a murderer. Besides, whoever that was outside my window last night, it definitely wasn’t Case.
“What about a stranger? Someone we don’t even know. Maybe—”
“Nah.” Hart shakes his head. “It’s not like she disappeared from the parkin’ lot of a grocery store. What would a stranger be doin’ way down here? Way out at Li’l Pass? Late at night like that? It doesn’t make sense.”
“What about Dempsey Fontenot, then?” I ask. “What he did to Ember and Orli—”
“This doesn’t have anything to do with Dempsey Fontenot,” Hart says. “I wish you’d never brought him up. You’ve got yourself seein’ ghosts.”
“But what if—”
“For Christ’s sake. That’s ancient history.” He bring his hand down hard on the countertop, and all the little bottles rattle. “Let it go, Greycie.”
The bell jingles, and a young couple stroll
s into the store holding hands. I mumble, “Welcome to the Mystic Rose, gentle spirits,” and Hart moves over so he can pretend to look at the candles while I help Ian and Mandy from Lake Charles make their selections. Then I ring up their purchases—some incense, a book on wild herbs of southern Louisiana, and one of those ever-popular red carnelian sex rocks.
Awesome. I hope they get their money’s worth.
When they’re gone, Hart comes back to the counter and leans in close to me again. He reaches up to touch the little blue pearl on Elora’s chain. Rough fingertips graze the skin at the hollow of my neck, and my insides go all liquid.
“Can you get out of here?” he asks under his breath.
“Yeah,” I tell him. “Soon as Honey is done with her reading.”
He nods. “I’ll wait for you out front.”
I watch Hart disappear through the door, and I wonder what Elora would say if she were here to see the pathetic way I’m pining after her brother. Sometimes, when I was supposed to be working in the shop, we used to sneak away and hide in the tall grass out behind the storage shed. Elora and me. Bare legs entwined and fingers laced together. We’d eat peppermints stolen from Honey’s candy dish while she’d poke fun at my hopelessness when it came to boys. Occasionally I’d try to mimic the cadence of her voice, to see if I could wield that musical charm the way she did. But she’d always say I sounded like a dying goose. And then we’d both laugh until we cried.
Elora could flirt with anyone. It was the same as breathing to her. But I’ve never had that kind of easy magic.
I’ve never had any magic at all that wasn’t borrowed from her.
When I step outside ten minutes later, Hart is standing on the dock looking at something. I take a second to study him. Long legs. Strong back. Cowboy boots and faded jeans. Tight white T-shirt. Loose black curls. My girls up in Little Rock would eat him with a spoon.
But he’s different this summer. Harder, maybe. More unreachable.
He turns around to catch me staring at him, and I hurry across the boardwalk.
“Wonder what happened here.” He’s pointing at the place where the wood gave way underneath me. Somebody has put up a safety rope to keep people back.
“I almost fell in,” I tell him. “It’s all rotted.”
“Holy shit.” His eyes go wide. “You could have been killed. When? What happened?”
“Really late last night. I heard something, so I went to check it out.” The whole memory is so surreal. “And the board just—”
“Goddammit.” Out of nowhere, Hart wheels on me and wraps his fingers around my upper arms. His voice is low and tight, like a stretched rubber band. “You shouldn’t be out here late at night, Grey.” There’s something in his tone that’s half-angry and half-frightened. It reminds me of when I was a kid and Honey caught me playing with matches in the shed.
“You’re hurting me,” I say, but mostly he’s scaring me.
Hart gives me a shake. “You wanna end up like Elora? It’s not safe. Not out here. Okay?”
“Yeah.” I’ve never seen Hart like this. I’m caught off guard. “S-sure,” I stammer. “Okay.”
“I need you to listen to what I’m sayin’.” Hart relaxes his grip on me, but he doesn’t let go. “There are things out here in the dark, Greycie.” He finally releases me, and I stagger backward a step or two. He’s still got ahold of me with his eyes, though. “Dangerous things.”
I nod. “I’ll be more careful. I promise.”
“I can’t lose you, too.” Hart sits on an old wooden crate, and it’s like I’m watching him disintegrate, just like that rotten board. “Please. Greycie.” If I touched him, he’d turn to dust.
For the first time in my life, I think Hart’s about to cry. But he doesn’t. He just stares out at that wide, muddy river. And it’s a long time before he says, “She’s not coming back. You know that, right?”
“Hart,” I beg him, “don’t. Please.” But he ignores me.
“Somebody killed her. And I think you need to prepare yourself to deal with that. You know? And if it wasn’t Case, then I have no fuckin’ clue who it could have been.”
And there it is.
Out loud.
We sit in silence for a really long time. Minutes creep by in slow motion like river barges. Hart pulls out a cigarette and lights it in one fluid movement, then we watch the little tugs moving up and down the Mississippi. He tips his head back to blow smoke into the air, and it reminds me of the vapor from an old-fashioned steamboat funnel.
“We had a fight,” I confess. “A really bad one. That last night. Back in August of last year.”
Hart finishes the cigarette and crushes it under the heel of his boot.
“What about?”
I shrug. “Everything. Her wanting to leave. Me wanting to come back. A whole bunch of other stuff.” I focus on the cigarette smoke hanging in the still afternoon air. I detach myself and try to drift away like that. “It’d been building all last summer. She was feeling suffocated, I think. By this place. By me.” Hart is staring at me now. “And I didn’t handle it well.”
I can’t be your one and only, Grey! God, we’re not six years old anymore. I need more than that! Shit, maybe you do, too.
“She was sneaking off a lot. Lying to me. Leaving me out of things.” I take a deep breath. “That’s why I was thinking, maybe Case was right. Maybe there was someone else. Someone secret. Because things weren’t the way they’d always been between us.” It feels weird to finally say that to someone. I’ve kept it locked away for so long, afraid that telling would make it true. “She didn’t love me the way she used to.”
Hart lets out a long puff of air. I see the damp curls lift off his forehead before they settle back against his skin. “She still loved you, Greycie. Whatever was going on between the two of you last summer, Elora loved you more than she loved anybody in the world. I know it for a fact.”
A thick silence settles into the space between us, and Hart gets up to leave. But I grab his hand to stop him. “Wrynn told me something last night. It’s silly, but—” I feel my face flush. It’s so stupid. I shouldn’t even have brought it up, but now Hart’s staring at me. Waiting. “She said she saw the rougarou kill Elora.”
“You don’t believe that, do you?”
“Of course not,” I tell him. “But—”
“It’s Wrynn,” he says.
“I know. But she must have seen something. Right?”
“Greycie, Wrynn wasn’t even out there that night. She’s tellin’ you one of her stories.” Hart tries to smile, only his eyes don’t crinkle up at the edges. “But do me a favor, Shortcake, and stay inside tonight anyway.” He turns and heads off down the boardwalk. “Rougarou or no rougarou, I don’t want you out here in the dark.”
When he’s gone, all I can think about is air-conditioning. But Evie is waiting for me on the front steps of the bookstore. I figure she’s been watching us again.
Hart and me.
A breeze blows through, and I lift my face to find it. The sound of tinkling wind chimes cuts through the stifling afternoon heat. Now three homemade creations dangle from the overhang of the roof, right outside Evie’s bedroom window. The newest one is made from old silverware. Forks and spoons clink against colorful bits of polished river glass.
“Those are really pretty,” I tell her. “I bet Honey could sell them for you in the shop.” Evie’s uncle, Victor, is a shrimper. He has his own boat, but he doesn’t make much money, and I know they mostly do without. Like everyone else down here.
“Oh . . .” Evie turns to look at the chimes. “I could never sell them.” Her voice is even softer than usual, almost like she’s afraid they’ll hear. She offers me another half stick of that stale gum, so I take it and sit down beside her.
“Is Hart gonna be okay?” she asks. And there’s that new sound in he
r voice again. Like she takes special care of his name when it’s inside her mouth. She’s always had this intense hero-worship thing for Hart. Most of us have, honestly. But that naked longing in her words? That’s definitely new.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I really hope so.”
“Me too.” Evie takes a deep breath, and I feel her relax against me.
“Evie, can’t you tell me what was wrong last night? Did anybody hurt you or—”
“Nobody hurt me, Grey. I promise.” She slips her soft hand into mine, and I give it a little squeeze. “It was the Flower Moon last night. Did you know that?” Her head is warm and lazy on my shoulder. “That’s what you call the full moon in May. And it’s magic. The most powerful moon of the year. ’Cause everything’s in bloom.”
“I didn’t know that,” I say.
“The Flower Moon means change comes soon. That’s a thing my mémé used to tell me.”
“Why did you say that last night?” I ask her. “About the dead telling lies?”
Evie pulls at a long thread on her shorts. “Because everybody lies, Grey. Don’t they?” Those wind chimes sing out again, relentless as the biting flies. “It’s just the dead are harder to ignore.”
Honey calls me inside then, and I spend the rest of the afternoon helping her in the bookstore, scheduling appointments and working the register. Mackey stops by to drop off some French mulberry that his mama harvested, and we drink sweet tea from mason jars while he tells me about some girl up in Kinter that he has a crush on. I smile and tease him, but really, I’m stuck thinking about Evie. What she said about the dead telling lies. And what she was doing out there on the dock last night, crying into the fog.
For dinner, Honey cooks more of my old favorites, and it makes me feel loved.
Comfortable.
Safe.
And I’m grateful for that.
Before I get into bed, I turn off the light and move to the window to search the inky blackness. But there’s nothing there. No ice-fire eyes staring at me from the shadows.
Dark and Shallow Lies Page 7
