Dark and Shallow Lies

by Ginny Myers Sain

  I struggle into some clothes and pull on my boots. Honey and I barely say two words to each other as we drag the big pieces of plywood out from the shed. One for every window.

  I don’t point out the missing black trunk.

  And she doesn’t notice it.

  We turn on the radio again over breakfast and catch the tail end of another weather update. Elizabeth’s winds have reached 115 miles per hour, making it a category 3 storm. A hurricane watch has been issued for all of coastal Louisiana, and evacuations are beginning. We’ve got less than sixty hours, the announcer tells us.

  “We’ll get everything tightened down today and head out first thing tomorrow,” Honey says. But I can tell she’s worried. She glances in my direction as she spreads strawberry jam on toast. “I should’ve sent you back to Little Rock days ago.”

  And I’m sure she means because of the storm. Mostly. But also because she could have avoided that whole scene last night.

  We spend the morning carrying all the shop merchandise upstairs to Honey’s big bedroom. Other than the big furniture, everything from my room has to go up, too. And the kitchen. Assuming the whole house doesn’t blow away or get swept downriver, it’s the flood that will do the damage. The stilts and the raised boardwalk protect us from high tides and even normal river flooding. But it won’t be enough to keep our houses dry if a monster hurricane puts this whole area under twenty-five or thirty feet of water.

  After lunch, Leo and Hart come and board up the windows for us. They carry the heaviest stuff upstairs and take down the swinging sign out front so it won’t rip loose in the wind. I try to talk to Hart a couple times, but he doesn’t have much to say other than “hold this rope” or “hand me that screw gun.”

  All up and down the boardwalk, people are tying down their boats and securing their property as best they can. Every so often, they stop work to mop their sweaty faces with soiled handkerchiefs and squint up at the perfect blue sky. I hear them whisper the names out loud in snatches of overheard conversation.

  Rita. Camille.

  Andrew. Betsy. Audrey.

  Katrina.

  Katrina.

  Katrina.

  Then back to work. No time to waste. Everybody is busy.

  Even Victor. He’s crawling around up on their roof checking for loose shingles, and I think again about how we all let Evie down. And her mama, too.

  All of us except Hart.

  By suppertime, we’re about as ready as we’re going to get. Honey and I eat fried bologna sandwiches at the kitchen table while Sweet-N-Low paces around the house on his stubby little legs, trying to figure out where all our stuff went. I figure he thinks we were robbed while he was asleep.

  Being inside with the windows covered is making me seriously claustrophobic. Even with the AC running, it’s like what happened between Honey and me last night has sucked all the oxygen out of the house. So I head out to the front porch to sit on the steps to stare at the river. You’d never even know a storm was brewing. It’s a gorgeous evening. Clear with a good strong breeze to dry your sweat and keep the mosquitoes away.

  To keep those chimes singing.

  I was hoping to see Evie. I want to hug her goodbye. Make sure she’s okay. And now that we’re all evacuating tomorrow, I need to try one more time with her. To see if maybe she’ll spill whatever secrets Elora has been whispering in her ear.

  But Evie is nowhere to be seen. It isn’t long before Sera and Sander and Mackey show up, though. At least our magic still holds. Still draws us together. The four of us huddle on the front steps of the Mystic Rose, exhausted from a long day of trying to get ready for the kind of storm you can’t really prepare for.

  “It’s gonna be okay,” Mackey says, more to himself than to us, and Sander gives his shoulder a squeeze. “Right?”

  “No way to know,” Sera answers. “There are some things you just can’t say for sure.”

  That reminds me of Honey’s words the other morning.

  Sugar Bee, in the end, not everything is knowable.

  But maybe she was wrong.

  “How do you learn to control your gifts?” I know my question seems to come out of nowhere, but I’ve just realized I may not have another chance to ask them. At least not for a long time.

  Sera just looks at me. “Grey,” Mackey starts, “are you—”

  But Sera cuts him off. “You don’t learn to control ’em. You learn to live with ’em. You make space for whatever abilities you have. And you make damn sure to keep some space for yourself. If you can.” She reaches over and lays her hand on mine. “If you’re lucky.” Sander is studying me, and his eyes look sad. “You fight as hard as you can every single day to never let yourself get lost.”

  I think about Hart, sinking so deep in the things he feels.

  Of Evie. Drowning in what she hears.

  And my mother, so swept up in her own power that she lost herself for good. First, when I was four, in the gray dawn behind Dempsey Fontenot’s cabin. Then again in the dark of her own bedroom, when I was eight years old.

  I vow that I won’t let that happen to me.

  When the others leave, I catch sight of Case and Wrynn out on the river dock.

  It’s been a long time since his fight with Hart, but I figure I still owe Case a real apology, so I cross the boardwalk in their direction.

  “Hey,” I say. Case is squatting down, examining the rotting wood. He scratches at the white paint with one fingernail to reveal the decay underneath. Then he stands up to look at me. “I just wanted to say—”

  “Sorry?” He turns his head to spit into the river. “Or goodbye?”

  “Both. I guess.”

  He smirks at me with one side of his mouth.

  “Well,” he says. “Guess dat ’bout covers it.”

  I don’t know what else to tell him.

  Case looks at me for a few seconds while Wrynn fidgets beside him.

  “You know what made Elora so special?” he finally asks. His voice is low and gruff. Threaded with heartache. Like a Cajun ballad. “She made us all think dat she loved us best. Didn’t she, chere?”

  And I guess that’s true.

  “I gotta get on home,” Case says. “Lots to do. We’re clearin’ out come mornin’. Before da storm hits.”

  “Take care of yourself, Case,” I tell him.

  “Yeah.” He nods and runs a hand through that red hair. “And you take care a you, okay?”

  He starts off down the boardwalk and Wrynn looks up at me, blinking.

  “Be careful, Grey,” she warns. She’s all wide eyes and sun-pink cheeks. “Da rougarou, he don’t care ’bout no storm. He’ll eat you up, just da same.”

  Then she turns and runs after her brother. I head back to the front porch and change into my mud boots before I start for Li’l Pass.

  There’s nobody waiting for me at the trailer, so I kick off my boots and crawl up on top to sit cross-legged and watch the sun set.

  La Cachette looks different somehow. All I see now is how small it is. How dwarfed the boardwalk looks, compared with the Mighty Mississippi stretched out behind it, ready to swallow it whole.

  I feel the hair on my arms and neck react to his presence, but I don’t turn around. I don’t have to. I know he’s there.

  “I didn’t mean to scare you, Grey.”

  It’s an old joke between us now. He knows I’m not afraid of him.

  “I have to leave tomorrow,” I say as he crawls up to sit beside me. “I’m going back to Arkansas. It’s over.” I choke on the words. “I’ll never know what happened to Elora.”

  I failed her. My twin flame.

  Zale reaches for my hands, and I feel that tingle. My sorrow starts to evaporate, and that strange calm comes over me. It’s like slipping into a hot bath at the end of a long day. I let him wrap his arms a
round me and pull me against his chest. That zing makes me shiver. He’s warm and alive and beautiful. I breathe him in. Sunshine and cypress.

  And it feels so good. He feels so good. I feel so good when I’m with him.

  I can still feel the hurt of Elora. Not even Zale can make that go away. But his gentle touch makes it bearable somehow.

  I think about Hart. How I love him with everything I have. How I always will.

  Whatever that means.

  But Hart is like the outgoing tide. If I hang on to him, he’ll pull me farther and farther out to sea, until we finally drown together.

  When I sit with Zale, though, even during the storm, I can see lights on shore.

  “I’m sorry, Grey,” he soothes. “I know how much you loved her. And I know how hard it is not knowing. Believe me.”

  I pull away from him a little, so I can see his face.

  “There’s something else I have to tell you. Something about your brother.”

  I see the fire of curiosity in Zale’s eyes, and I feel it in his skin. Sharp enough to sting. But not hot enough to burn.

  “You know where he is,” he says, and I nod.

  Zale’s energy surges again to mingle with mine. Suddenly I’m breathless.

  “There’s an old cypress tree, back at Keller’s Island. At the edge of the clearing. It has two trunks. You know the one I mean?”

  “That’s where I found the little hummingbird, Grey. Off in the dirt there.”

  “That’s where my mother put Aeron. At the base of that tree.”

  Zale exhales into the night. The sound of bayou wind through tall grass. Then he pulls me tight against him again.

  “Thank you, Grey,” he whispers. And when he presses his lips to the top of my head, I let myself breathe out, too.

  Finally.

  My first real exhale since Elora went missing.

  Because at least someone is found.

  “I’m so sorry I couldn’t help you find your father,” I tell him.

  If only we had a little more time.

  I can almost feel the answers hanging in the thick night air.

  I look up so I can see Zale’s eyes. The intense blue of them. I reach out and run my fingers through his blond hair, then I lay my palm against the side of his face, and I can feel the dampness of his tears.

  He’s crying.

  I run my thumb over the ridge of his cheekbone, and I’m rewarded with a series of little sizzling jolts. It makes me laugh in surprise. I can’t help it.

  Zale grins and holds me even closer.

  The last night of a strange summer cut short by a churning monster.

  Some secrets revealed. But others still buried deep.

  “There’s still so much I don’t understand,” I tell him. “About what happened to Elora.”

  And about what happened here thirteen summers ago.

  “I feel like the real story is all tangled up with the lies,” I say. “And I can’t tell what’s true anymore.”

  “It’s all true, I think. And none of it’s true.” Zale is tracing slow circles on my palm with one finger, and the little zips and zaps have me mesmerized. “So it becomes a kind of poem.”

  “Are you leaving tomorrow?” I ask him. It hadn’t even occurred to me to wonder where he’d go. What he’d do when Elizabeth comes roaring into the bayou like a runaway freight train.

  Zale shakes his head. “I still need to find out what happened to my father. And I need to know how dis all started. I need to know who put Ember and Orli in the pond behind our cabin.”

  I stare at him. There’s a massive hurricane heading our way. This whole place will be flooded out. Storm surge halfway up the tallest trees. Twenty, maybe thirty feet. Or more.

  “Can you—”

  He gives me a little smile, and those ice-fire eyes light me up with their shine.

  “I can’t stop the storm comin’. But I’ll be okay. I promise.”

  He’s a hurricane baby, I tell myself. A boy born with all the power of the sea and the sky. And I know it’s not my choice to make. But I’m scared for him.

  Zale reaches out to tuck a piece of hair behind my ear, and I tremble.

  “Don’t be afraid, Grey,” he tells me. “There are some things only the storm can teach us.”

  I’m waiting for the bullet to split my skull in half. For the force of it to knock me face-first

  into the water and the mud. But I never feel it.

  I only hear the shot.

  22

  Zale walks me back to the boardwalk, but we don’t say goodbye. We don’t need to, he says, because we’ll see each other again. Instead, we just stand in the shadows for a few long minutes, soaking up each other’s light.

  “You told me you saved each other,” I remind him. “You and Elora. I know you fished her out of the river. But you never told me how she saved you.”

  He pulls me close, and the hum of his body against mine leaves me struggling to get enough air. I feel light-headed. But it’s so good.

  “She was my friend,” he tells me. “And dat’s really all there was to it. But it was enough.”

  And I know exactly what he means.

  Zale looks down at me, and I reach up to run my fingers through his hair. I want to kiss him. But I don’t. I’m afraid to. I’m scared that if I kiss Zale the way I kissed Hart—if I feel the tingle of his lips on mine—I won’t be able to turn and walk away.

  By the time I climb the sagging wooden steps to the boardwalk, a smothering fog has rolled in off the Mississippi. Evie’s wind chimes ring out in the dark to welcome me back to the hiding place. It’s late. Almost midnight. But I can’t make myself go inside.

  Those chimes are so loud in my head.

  And in my heart.

  Their song starts me thinking about Elora again. How I never got to say goodbye. I spin her ring on my finger. Three times. Like making a wish. Like blowing out the candles on a pink birthday cake.

  And just for a second, I feel her so real. She’s right behind me. If I just looked over my left shoulder, I’d see her.

  I know it.

  It’s my last night in La Cachette this summer. Maybe ever. So I decide to do something I’ve been wanting to do since I first got home.

  I turn away from the Mystic Rose and hurry down the boardwalk in the direction of Elora’s house, dodging the places where long grass has started to grow up between the wooden planks.

  And the spots where the white paint is worn away.

  The slick black rot at the edges.

  Leo told Honey that they weren’t planning to put their own plywood up till tomorrow morning, so I know I’ll be able to get in.

  It only takes me a few minutes to reach my destination, and I hold my breath as I creep onto the porch that wraps around the front and sides of the house. Elora’s window is toward the back, on the bayou side, and it never occurs to me that it might be locked. Sure enough, when I put my palms against the glass and push up, the window slides open without a sound.

  I don’t even stop to think about what I’m doing. I just throw one leg over the windowsill and climb in, like I’ve done it a million times before.

  Because I have.

  Hart was right about it being a disaster, and I’m grateful to Becky for not cleaning it up. For leaving it lived-in. Like something vibrant and laughing only this minute bubbled over and spilled across the floor in an explosion of glossy magazines and discarded tank tops and shiny tampon wrappers and colorful socks.

  I wonder if they haven’t packed it all up yet, or if they’re just going to abandon it. Let the storm surge take it all. Sweep it out to sea.

  Wash the room clean.

  I sink down to sit on the shaggy yellow rug. I’m afraid to sit on the bed. I know it squeaks.

  I close my e
yes and breathe in Elora. She’s been gone almost six months, but it still smells like her in here. Orange-vanilla body spray and cotton candy lip gloss. It’s too much, and I turn to bury my face in the lilac flounces of her ruffled bedspread. The one we picked out together on a shopping trip up to New Orleans with Honey.

  I remember how, the night my mother died, I’d been inconsolable. How I’d wailed with misery until, out of desperation, Honey had carried me down here to Elora’s house, and Leo and Becky had let her slip me into bed with a sleeping Elora. How, still half asleep, she’d reached for my hand and anchored me. Stopped my free fall.

  Something down inside me twists and tears loose, squirming in my stomach like that dying snake on the end of Case’s frog gig. But I can’t cry. I don’t have any tears. Just this awful feeling of wanting Elora so much that the weight of it threatens to pull me right through the floor and into the bottomless mud below.

  Why didn’t I try harder to make things right between us last summer? Why didn’t I ask what was really going on with her? Why couldn’t I give her what she needed from me? I should have said, “It’s okay if things are changing. It’s okay if you need some space. You know I’ll always be here.” Instead I lashed out. Made things worse. Drove the wedge in even deeper.

  How do I forgive myself for that?

  How do I ask Elora to?

  When the hurt finally lets up a little, I get to my feet and take one last look around the room. I don’t know what I was hoping to find here. Other than the faint scent of Elora. Some kind of last-minute clue, maybe. But I don’t even know where to look.

  Then I remember the secret spot. A place that only Elora and I know exists. A loose piece of paneling in the corner behind the bed. When we were kids, we hid our best treasures there. Bottle caps. Glitter pens. Plastic rings we got out of the quarter machine at the grocery store up in Kinter. And later, love notes we wrote to boys who would never read them and lists of faraway cities we planned to visit.

  Someday.

  I wedge myself into the little space between the bed and the wall and sink down to my knees. Then I feel around for the loose paneling and pry it away slow and easy, so it doesn’t make any noise.