He ducks and sprints for the front porch. And all I can do is watch him. I squint against the rain as he messes with the gas generator. It takes him a few minutes to get it going, but eventually the huge floodlight on the side of the house comes on. I blink and hide my eyes. It’s like the sun coming up in the middle of the night.
Hart races back in my direction. “What did you do with her?” I shout. “Just tell me where she is!” I think I’m crying again. And maybe he is, too. The rain makes it impossible to say. “That’s all I want to know!”
But he doesn’t answer.
He just kicks off his boots. Then he rips off his soaked T-shirt. And his jeans. The wind picks up his discarded clothes like they’re made of tissue paper. It whisks them away into the dark. And Hart stands there for a second. Almost naked. With the rain coming down in solid sheets and the wind tearing at his bare skin.
Then he starts to climb down into the gator pond. The water is already high. Over the bottom few rungs of the ladder. Water hyacinth clogs the surface. But Hart ignores the weeds and the muck and dives into that muddy pit. I try to scream his name, but the wind snatches the word and shoves it back into my mouth so I choke on it.
This is all new. I never saw this part. So I have no idea what’s going on.
Or what happens next.
I watch Hart’s head disappear beneath the surface of the water, and I imagine Willie Nelson’s jaws clamping down on his chest.
Teeth.
Nothing but teeth.
Teeth piercing skin. Then muscle. Then bone.
Hart comes up to take a breath and dives back down again. He’s down there a really long time. And I figure Willie Nelson really did get him. But then his head breaks the surface, and this time he’s pulling something toward the edge of the pond.
Something heavy.
He struggles with it in the water, and I think he’ll probably drown. But he doesn’t.
I watch as he hauls it up onto a bit of muddy high ground near the bald cypress tree, and I know what it is even before I see it.
The missing black trunk.
I cling to the boardwalk piling, shaking, as Hart opens it up. I half expect a grand flourish and a ta-da, like he used to do when we were little kids. Back when he was magic.
But there’s only beating rain.
And crushing wind.
The emergency generator keeps shining. False moonlight on dark hair.
Hart’s curls plastered to his forehead.
Elora’s.
Spilling over the lip of the trunk.
And I know now why my mind couldn’t show me this part. Why it kept this part hidden. Didn’t let me peek.
I thought I was empty, but I lean forward and vomit into the water and the wind.
Over and over and over. I vomit until I’ve turned myself inside out.
“Greycie?” Hart sounds far away. Not distance far. Time far. He sounds five again. Terrified. Confused. Like when he came knocking on my window.
The first time.
And the second.
Only this time, I can’t open the window and let him in.
Because he’s the rougarou. Finally come to rip me to shreds.
“Why?” It’s the only thing I can get out. “Why did you kill her, Hart?” I’m choking again. On the rain. And the words.
“I didn’t!” he shouts. “I didn’t, Greycie! I swear to God!” He sinks to his knees in the mud, surrounded by a half-dozen cypress knees poking up out of the earth like witnesses. “You have to believe me! I didn’t kill her!”
I can’t stop staring at Elora’s dark hair spilling out of the trunk. I can’t see that. I have to get away.
I have to be away.
From that.
I pull myself up to my feet, then I let go of the boardwalk piling and throw myself headlong into the wind. It knocks me sideways. I skitter and claw at the boards to keep from ending up in the water, but I manage to right myself and keep plowing forward.
And I don’t take time to look over my shoulder.
I’m hurdling gaps in the boardwalk. Hungry-looking holes that nip at my ankles with splintered teeth. I kick at the grabbing vines.
If I can just make it home . . . maybe.
Maybe this hurricane won’t be as bad as they think.
Maybe the house won’t blow down.
Maybe it won’t wash away.
Maybe I won’t drown.
Maybe Zale will come for me.
Elora is dead.
Hart killed her and dumped her in the gator pond.
But maybe he won’t kill me.
Maybe I’ll live.
I look toward the dock, but there’s no boat. Upriver I can barely make out the lights of something big. A huge commercial supply boat. Churning north. Slow and steady. Trying to get ahead of the storm. Evie isn’t anywhere to be seen. And I tell myself she made it.
She had to have made it.
I run into the bookstore and slam the front door behind me. The electricity is off, but the flashlight in my pocket still works. I flip the dead bolt and hurry to the back door to do the same. Then I stand in the middle of the floor, dripping and sucking in great gulps of oxygen. Grateful to be breathing air again instead of water.
Until I look around.
In the kitchen, the apple wallpaper peels like the skin of a snake. It’s gray. Stained. Molting away from the walls. Rain drips through cracks that spread across the ceiling like spiderwebs. And in the corners, thick vines push up through the linoleum floor and stretch out toward the plywood-covered windows.
I shut my eyes against this haunted-house version of home.
But when I open them again, nothing has changed.
I back out of the kitchen and start up the stairs, toward Honey’s bedroom. When the storm surge comes, that’s where I’ll need to be. But a horrible creaking, groaning noise stops me in my tracks.
The wind is trying to take the roof.
The Mystic Rose shudders and sways under the attack.
I freeze for a second, listening to the house do battle with the hurricane. There’s a cracking, splintering noise from up above, and I back slowly down the stairs.
I head toward my little bedroom and lock the door. I try to ignore the water stains that cover the sagging ceiling. And how the walls are fuzzy with mold. The way the floor feels spongy and rotten under my feet.
I just sit in the middle of the empty room. In the dark. And I wait.
For Hart.
Or for Elizabeth.
And I wonder which one will get me first.
The storm sounds like nothing I’ve ever heard in my life. I feel the walls shake. The roar of the rain is deafening. I cover my ears. Tell myself this is the worst of it.
Even though I know it isn’t.
I close my eyes and think about Zale. The electricity in his kiss.
The power in his touch.
How he makes me feel.
How he said he’d be here if I needed him.
There’s another groaning sound. Splintering wood. I shine my flashlight toward the window. Elizabeth is pulling at the plywood. Ripping it away from the glass. One last sharp crack and the job is done. The wind takes the plywood and I scream.
But then there’s a face outside.
In the dark.
And I realize Elizabeth didn’t take the plywood.
Hart did.
I scream again and scramble back toward a damp corner as he smashes the window and climbs inside. The curtains Honey made me get sucked out to flap in the storm, and Wrynn’s shiny little collection gets scattered. Paper clips go flying. Bottle caps roll across the floor.
And Hart never stops to count them.
But he doesn’t come for me. He doesn’t eat me alive. He just collapses in
the middle of my bedroom floor. Blood runs down his arms from where he sliced himself on the glass.
“I loved her, Grey!” he shouts. He repeats it over and over and over until the words become strangled sobs. “I loved her! God. I loved her so fucking much!”
The hurricane has followed him inside, but I somehow manage to find my voice. “I loved her, too!” I yell. “But I didn’t kill her!”
“We didn’t mean for it to happen. But it did.” Hart is all blood and tears and rain. “And we couldn’t tell anybody. ’Cause what would they have said? What would Leo have said? And my mama? And Case? Shit. Sera and Evie and all of ’em.”
All of them.
The Summer Children.
What would we have said?
“That’s why things felt so weird last summer. Between the two of you. She was afraid you were gonna find out. About her and me. That you’d see it. Because she never could hide things from you.”
It makes sense now. That gulf between Elora and me last summer. Her sneaking around. Keeping me at arm’s length. That change in our dynamic. A shift I could feel but couldn’t put a name to. Why didn’t I dig deeper? Try to find out what was really going on?
“I would have done anything for her!” I shout. “And for you! You could’ve told me!” But even as the words come out of my mouth, I wonder if I mean them.
Hart shakes his head. “We couldn’t tell anybody! But at least we could have that one perfect thing. That secret. Together. Just for ourselves.” He pounds his fists against my bedroom floor. “And, fuck, that was something! That was enough to make all the other shit bearable.”
“Why, then?” I pull myself up, because I have to know. “Why did you kill her? If you loved her so much?”
Hart recoils like I’d laid into him with a baseball bat. “I’m tellin’ you I didn’t kill her, Grey!” He’s still on his hands and knees in the middle of my floor. “We met up that night on the dock. While everybody else was out searchin’ for ’er. That was the plan all along. To finally get the hell out of La Cachette. We’d decided months before that. Because what you said to her at the end of last summer, about how she’d never get out of here, that scared her. Bad. How you said she was gonna die here.”
It’s almost more than my heart can take, hearing my own awful words out loud again. How could I have said those things to her?
To Elora?
“So we were finally gonna go. And Elora had been so messed up after you left. After she had to let you go. Like that. But when I finally said we could leave, she was so happy.” Hart’s voice cracks. “She was so fucking happy, Grey.” I remember what Zale said. About how she didn’t need the river anymore, and I wonder if that’s why. Because she finally saw the light at the end of the tunnel. “That’s why she sneaked off. We were supposed to be runnin’ away that night. Together.”
“Then what the hell happened?” I demand. “How did she end up dead?”
“I backed out. Couldn’t do it. Couldn’t leave. I was too chickenshit. And Elora called me on it.” He looks up at me. “Just like you did.”
“You didn’t have to kill her, Hart!”
“I didn’t! Just fuckin’ listen to me! Jesus!” He’s shaking all over. “We fought about it. And it was bad. Really, really bad. I just lost it. I yelled at her. Threatened her. Probably scared her half to death. I was so worked up. You know?”
I hear the creaking and groaning of the roof again. Like the wood can’t stand to listen to this any more than I can.
“Mostly, I was just pissed at myself for being such a fucking piece-of-shit coward. I didn’t have the balls to leave, but I knew she was gonna go either way. Sooner or later. And I couldn’t stand the thought of being here without her, either. What would be left for me here? Without Elora.”
“What’s left for any of us here without Elora?” I choke on my own fury. “You took her away from all of us! Just so you wouldn’t have to let her go!”
“No! Grey! Please!” Hart sits back on his heels to look up at me. “Listen. She was so freaked out. And she stumbled, tryin’ to get away from me. Got ’er feet all tangled up and went down. So I grabbed her by the arm and yanked her up. I didn’t mean to hurt ’er. But, God, I was half out of my mind. Angry. And afraid. Just outta control. And the way she was lookin’ at me—So I grabbed ’er. That’s all. But the look in her eyes when I did it—”
I wince, remembering Wrynn’s terrified whisper.
I saw dat rougarou snatch her by da arm and open up wide, like he was gonna eat Elora right up. All dem sharp teeth showin’.
“And that’s when I left!” he goes on. “I knew I had to! I walked away. Left her there. Standin’ on the dock. And she was sure as shit alive. Pissed as hell. Yeah. But not even hurt. I swear it!”
I have no idea what to believe anymore.
I can’t tell truth from lies.
But why tell lies at the end of the world?
“I went home. And I tried to figure out what to do. I paced around. Calmed down some. And it wasn’t fifteen minutes later when I went back.” He’s wailing now. “I was gonna tell her I was sorry! More than sorry! That I’d go. That we’d make it work. That I loved her. And I didn’t give two shits about anything besides that!” The next part comes out all chewed up and mangled. “That I didn’t wanna stay here and become my fucking father!”
Right then the rain stops.
Abracadabra.
Like magic.
And the wind stills.
It’s suddenly dead calm outside my broken window.
And dead quiet inside my bedroom.
I hear the crunch of broken glass under Hart’s knees.
“And that’s when I found her. On the dock.” His voice is barely a whisper now. “Beat all to hell. Skull bashed in. Just crushed. Face nothin’ but pulp.” He gags on the words. “You couldn’t even recognize her.” I slump against the wall. “Somebody tore into her with one of those old anchor chains. Blood everywhere. All slippery and red in the rain.” I’m trying not to picture it the way he says. “And she was gone, Greycie. She was already gone.”
I can’t be in the room with him. With that image. I unlock my bedroom door and head for the porch. But Hart gets up and follows me. Outside, a thick tangle of brambles smothers the front of the bookstore and the weathered front steps slouch against each other, trying to catch their breath.
Nothing moves. There isn’t so much as a ripple on the surface of the river.
Even Evie’s wind chimes are silent.
Then moonlight breaks through the thick clouds, and the bugs start to sing again. And the frogs. They think it’s all over.
But it isn’t over.
Not by a long shot.
We’re inside the eye.
“I’m the one who put her in the trunk, though.” Hart’s voice barely manages to cut through the thick air. “I’m the one who put her in the pond.”
“Why?” I turn around to face him, and I’m looking at a stranger.
Someone I don’t know.
“Hart, why? If you didn’t kill her? Why?”
It’s the ultimate betrayal, stuffing her in that dark box and leaving her there to rot in that filthy pond outside her own bedroom window. While all the rest of us lost our minds with worry. Wondering.
It’s worse than killing her, maybe.
Hart sinks down to sit on the ruined steps, but I just stand and stare at him.
“Why?” I demand again.
“I panicked,” he says. “I wasn’t thinking straight. I didn’t think at all. I just did it.” He looks bewildered. Like he’s talking about something someone else did. “I figured if it all came out—the two of us being together—like that—I’d be the first one they’d come after.”
“Why?” It’s the only word my brain still knows.
“Nobody’d ever belie
ve she was alive when I left her and dead when I came back, not fifteen minutes later. They’d all think I did it.” He looks toward the big black barrels out on the dock. Doesn’t seem to notice that there’s one missing now. “And I guess I knew where I’d end up.”
“Why wouldn’t anyone believe you?” Nothing he’s saying makes sense.
“Because I’m the son of a killer.”
“Stop saying that. Your mama isn’t a killer, Hart. She was defending herself. And you.”
He shakes his head. “I’m not talkin’ about my mama. I’m talkin’ about my daddy.”
I take a few stunned steps backward.
“Ember and Orli.” I breathe their names into the silence, and Hart nods.
“He drowned ’em. In an old bathtub out behind our place. All filled up with rainwater. And then he left ’em there to rot in the heat. Covered up with a blue tarp.” He wipes at his face with bloody hands. “Till he had a chance to get rid of ’em.”
The sudden stillness is suffocating. My brain stutters. Stalls. Like a car engine that won’t turn over. “Why?” It’s the only word I can get my mouth to form anymore.
“I guess he’d got bored torturin’ my mama. And me. Needed some new blood, maybe. Somethin’ he could take a little further. He was on the hunt that summer, I think.”
“How long have you known?” I ask him.
“Since the day he did it,” he admits. “I saw ’em. Right after. He made me look at ’em. Eyes wide open. Starin’ up at nothin’. Said if I ever told, he’d do the same to me.”
“Why?” That kind of cruelty is impossible to imagine. “Why would he want you to see that?”
Hart shrugs. “Same reason he killed ’em in the first place, I guess.” He takes a deep breath. “So he could feel my fear. So he could get off on it.”
“He was an empath, too,” I say. “Like you.” And Hart nods.
“Only he fed off pain. And terror. That shit was like honey to him. It got to be where he was addicted. Like an alcoholic. He needed it more and more.” Hart presses the heels of his palms into his eyes, like he’s trying to erase what he saw all those years ago. “And he couldn’t kill my mama. Or me. Not without people pointin’ the finger at him. So when he saw Ember and Orli all alone on the boardwalk that mornin’ . . . all tied up with blue ribbons . . . like they’d been gift wrapped just for him . . .”
Dark and Shallow Lies Page 28
