Creeping Beautiful

by JA Huss

  All the stories are fake. Even the true ones.

  That’s a lesson I learned early.

  But I should clarify this right here, right now. Nathan St. James was neither a storyteller nor a liar.

  He saw facts. But you know why this was OK with me? Two reasons, really. One. His real-life truth was better than anyone’s fake story.

  Even mine. Even my true one.

  And I think I already made it clear that I can tell a fuckin’ story.

  Two. Nathan St. James also peppered his real-life true facts with the prettiest words you ever heard.

  For instance. Nate would say, “Indie, you see that tree over there with the green velvet trunk? That velvet only grows on the north side of the tree because that star up there in the sky is a ball of fiery heat and velvet doesn’t like heat. So that’s how you know where north is.”

  And I would look and look for green velvet and a star in the blue sky of daylight and only see moss and the stupid old sun. And of course, I knew that he was talking about the tree with the moss and the fuckin’ sun in the sky, but that word ‘velvet’ and the way he saw past the surface of the sun and peeked inside it… it just changed everything about the way I saw moss on a tree from then on.

  He was like that with all the things in the woods. He’s the one who told me that his little brick house was the color of the mud in the Pearl River when the water was low.

  I didn’t make that up on my own. It was all Nate.

  In Nate’s mind’s eye the world was pretty pictures made up of soft, hazy words.

  Who needs clarity when you can have Nathan St. James’s outlook on life?

  After I went home—rather, after Donovan came and called me home from the woods those first weeks I was living at Old Home—Nathan and I got tight. We even did the whole blood brothers thing, even though I was not his brother, nor was I a boy. It’s just what you call it and I am not easily offended by labels like that. But we did that blood brother thing. I always carried a knife and so did Nate. But his was a folding knife handy for things like cutting fishing line and peeling apples. And mine was a hunting knife handy for things like huntin’. Animals. People. Whatever.

  But we used my knife for our little ritual. One slice across our palms. It hurt too, because at this point in time McKay had already showed me how to keep that knife sharp. In fact, we actually had to get stitched up that same afternoon because it might’ve went just a little too deep.

  Adam was furious about that because he had to go over to Nate’s house and explain to his grandfather why McKay had to stitch up Nate’s palm and it was now covered in white bandages.

  I heard Adam yelling about that in the nighttime. He was telling McKay, “It’s your job! It’s your job!” Meaning it was McKay’s job to keep me in line and ‘in line’ did specifically not mean letting me carve up the neighbor boy with a knife I had used to kill someone two weekends ago.

  Of course, I was not in the same room when this yelling took place. I was upstairs sitting on the top step, spying on them. But if I had been in the same room, I would’ve said that I wanted to do this ritual two years ago, before I was killing people with that knife. But Nate was too chicken. So… sometimes things just shake out that way and it’s nobody’s fault.

  Nate was grounded for two months after that. Not from going outside or anything. Just me. His grandfather said I was a bad influence. And what kind of little girl lives with two grown men who are not her brothers, or fathers, or uncles and doesn’t even go to school?

  Me.

  That was the answer. Just me.

  But Nate and I were a special thing. And he did live just across the duck lake. And there were no other neighbors. There was a nature preserve on the other side of the river and their little brick house used to be some kind of carriage house on Adam’s family land. Which there was plenty of. And so the nearest neighbors were almost a mile away.

  Who else was Nate gonna play with if not me?

  So. Two months. We took our punishment and then when it was over, and our hands were all sealed up with new skin and matching fancy white scars, we got back to the business of being best friends.

  Nate did not know what I did on the side.

  He probably guessed, though. I mean, we were always shooting guns off in the woods. McKay had set up a shootin’ range in this gulley down on the north side of the property. And he took me out there almost every day. And Nate would mostly watch. His grandfather threw a fit about our shooting habits. But sometimes McKay would let Nate shoot too. He wasn’t as good at it as I was, but that’s because he grew up with a proper grandfather who didn’t let him shoot nothing, not even cans, until he was twelve. Then when he was twelve his grandfather used to take him turkey hunting.

  So after that happened McKay said he could shoot on our range. And Nate got to watch me shoot. And he could tell right away that my shootin’ skills were something special.

  That was all McKay. He made me sharp like that.

  But I tell you what Nathan St. James was very good at—besides fishing. He could out-fish me any day of the week.

  He was very good at the martial arts McKay and I did.

  I started learning that the day after my runaway trip into the woods when I first arrived. And Nate saw that happening too. Because by the time I decided to not be a runaway anymore, Nate and I were already well into our friendship.

  And McKay was tired of pulling his punches. So he said I should learn with Nate. And that’s what we did.

  Nate kicked my ass in martial arts nearly every day. I was good, don’t get me wrong. But it’s like Nate saw into my soul when we were sparring. He knew what I was gonna do before I did it. Every time.

  Back then McKay didn’t mind Nathan so much. Nate had grown a little so he was a few inches taller than me by then. So McKay had to teach me how to take down people bigger than me. Which was everyone. And I had just started doing jobs—real jobs—the year before when I was thirteen.

  I had started the jobs when I was twelve, but they weren’t real dangerous jobs. Just thieving, mostly.

  But anyway. Nate was just good at martial arts. I loved that about him.

  On the subject of school and Nate’s grandfather’s opinion on the matter… that’s a sore one with me. Because I did go to school, I just didn’t go anywhere but the back room of Old Home for my lessons.

  At least, not until I was fifteen. Then I did go away to school. Just a semester though, because I had to kill a senator’s daughter. Then I had to stay all fuckin’ semester to make it look all natural. Then I went home at Christmas and never went back to that school.

  I did that a couple more times over the years when certain things needed to be cleaned up for whatever reason.

  So I did actually go to some very fine schools. And I could speak three languages because Adam was in charge of languages and he knew five. We would go months of just speaking Spanish. I even had to speak Spanish with Nathan during immersion training with Adam. But Nate didn’t care. He just pretended to understand me and made up whole conversations in his fake Spanish.

  And we would laugh about it.

  He was so funny.

  We would just laugh, and laugh, and laugh.

  One day we were watching a movie at Old Home. And it was called Forrest Gump. And I swear, it’s like those movie people were spying on me and Nate. And I, of course, was Jenny. And he was Forrest. Even though Nate didn’t have leg braces. He was a runner. And when Forrest got up and ran Nate cheered. Every time. Every. Single. Time. He just cheered for him.

  So we were peas and carrots like that. I even looked like her. I even played outside in a white dress like her. But Adam got mad because every time I came home, I was muddy and he said, “I’m not gonna buy you white dresses anymore if you’re just gonna wallow in the mud like a wild hog.”

  So I stopped wearing the white dresses in the woods and only wore them to church after that.

  After that first time we watched the movie I sta
rted talkin’ like Jenny because I wanted to be her. Not big her. Little her. Even though I didn’t want God to make me a bird and fly far, far away.

  I loved my life on Old Home Island.

  I loved McKay, and I loved Adam, and I loved Donovan when he was there.

  But I loved Nate the most.

  And he loved me. So much.

  But I’m not gonna write about that.

  Not yet.

  All that love stuff came later. After we were grown and we understood each other better. After I told him what I really did. And why I really lived with Adam and McKay. And who Donovan was and why Nate wasn’t allowed to come around when Donovan was there.

  And then he told me things too.

  Surprising things. Secret things.

  That’s when I fell in Love.

  Before that it was just lower-case love. Not capital-L love.

  What were Adam, and McKay, and Donovan doing during all this?

  Adam was gone a lot. He would leave for meetings with the Company people. They would tell him what needed to be done. Then he would come home and we’d talk about it. And he’d tell me his plan, and I would give notes on his plan. Then, sometimes, I would come up with an alternative plan. But not always. Adam was pretty good at planning. Then we would rehearse the job. Over, and over, and over.

  This was McKay’s doing. He wanted everything to be set up perfect. So we would do a lot on the computer. We would do a virtual walk through the neighborhood with Google Streetview. And often times McKay would go to the job site and take pictures of the target and get other details. Then he would come back and we’d go through it again.

  It was like this a lot in the beginning. Adam said, “I didn’t pay three million dollars just to get you killed before you can even drive a damn car.” Which was his way of saying, I love you, Indie. And I don’t want you to die. And even though I really did pay three million dollars for you, I really just want to make sure you come home with me when the job is done because Donovan and McKay will not be happy if I get you killed.

  So we did a lot of that. But even when Adam was not meeting with the Company he was in New Orleans with his sometimes-girlfriend, Misha. I met Misha. She was around long before I was. Though I would not say they were steady. Not the way Nate and I were steady, for instance.

  At least Adam was not steady. He was with other girls all the time. Not girlfriends. Like Misha kind of was. But just… girls. No-name girls. Short-term girls. And he always lied to them. He never told them his real name. And he said I was his sister and we were visiting such-and-such place for such-and-such reason.

  But Misha thought they were steady. I’m pretty sure.

  McKay’s trips were short and he did not do girls. Not ever. At least, I never ever saw him with a girl.

  But what he did in his personal time was not something he ever shared with me. And he didn’t leave the house much. Not nearly as much as Adam did. He was almost always home with me. Tucking me in bed. Harping on me to brush my teeth and eat my vegetables. Taking me to the orthodontist. Teaching me math and science and shooting and martial arts.

  And he would run a bath for me in my bedroom bathtub every night. With bubbles. He bought cheap bubbles by the gallon at the dollar store. The kind that only last a few minutes and then start to fizzle out. But he said those bubbles didn’t make me feel dirty when I got out the way the expensive ones did. And he was kinda right about that.

  Donovan, of course, was almost never around. He came every single month for the first year. But after that it was just whenever Adam called him in. Which meant that Donovan was around a lot more instead of a lot less.

  Not because I was being bad either.

  Adam just had a rule that after every job I had to have a session with Donovan before I could go play with Nate again.

  It didn’t make sense at first. But later it did.

  Because I would come home from the jobs and feel… funky. McKay would say, “You’re in a funk, Indie. And you have to talk yourself out of it.”

  So that’s when Donovan came. And he would talk me out of it.

  But sometimes…sometimes even when he left that funk was still there. So I would go outside—because I would have the all-clear from all three of them—and I would find Nate, and he would take one look at me and take my hand, and lead me into the woods. To this little grass meadow. And in the summer, he would make me flower crowns. In the winter he would make me twig crowns. And he would tell his stories.

  “Indie, do you see that bird up there on that branch? That’s a violet eggplant-headfluff whistler.”

  I’m making that part up. But he would know what the bird was and he would change its hard, factual name into something hazy and soft. He would change my whole life into something hazy and soft.

  He would take me out of this world and into his story.

  He would empty me out. Just… spill me out all over the place.

  And then he would fill me back up.

  CHAPTER SEVEN - ADAM

  THIRTEEN YEARS AGO

  Indie was dressed the way I asked and she came with a little pink roller suitcase. Plus a sweater and a journal. She was waiting for me down by the dock, just standing there in the moonlight looking like a little girl should look.

  Donovan came with me when we left so he could talk to her. I gave them their privacy, so I don’t know what was said, I just watched them from afar. But when he was done, he came up to me and made a big deal about the journal.

  “Don’t take it away. She needs to write.”

  “Why?”

  “It helps her.” He turned me around so she couldn’t read our lips while we talked. “You know what she is, right?”

  “I know.”

  “She’s not like the others. She’s like you, Adam.”

  “I get it.”

  “I hope you do. Because I like her. A lot. I’m invested in her and I want her to make it.”

  “Define ‘make it.’” I laughed. Because she was what she was. Her future involved lots of danger, and pain, and stress. Even if we did manage to break this whole shit show up into a million pieces, what did he think she was gonna do when that happened? If that happened?

  Go to college? Get married to someone normal? Have a couple kids?

  Her future was my present. Literally. Look at me, Indie. Good and hard, little girl. This is as good as it gets. There is no version of your life that includes the words normal, or easy, or predictable, or safe.

  Donovan’s face got serious. He was fifteen so it wasn’t serious the way McKay’s face might look serious. But I could tell he was not fucking around. “I want her to live.”

  “Everyone dies, Donovan. We’re born waiting to die. That’s just a part of life.”

  “OK. Let me be specific then. I want her to grow old.”

  “That’s a nice thought.”

  “Make sure it happens.”

  “Whatever,” I said. Then I walked away from him. Because I paid three million dollars for the girl. She was mine now. Not his.

  He called out after us. “I’ll see you soon, Indie.”

  Then we left.

  The trip home was pretty uneventful. There was a yacht, there was a plane, there was car. Then we were driving through the gates of Old Home and McKay was waiting on the porch for us.

  Indie did not say one fucking word to me. She wrote in her journal a few times. She sat still. She slept and ate when I told her to. She was actually pretty obedient.

  But once we got home all that changed.

  I won’t lie and say it was easy. She is just not an easy girl. But after we got used to each other—and I did have to call Donovan to sort her out that first month—she settled in.

  At least she started talking to us.

  Now, one year later, I realize that it was Nathan St. James who really kept her in line. Donovan comes once a month to read her journal and talk with her. She doesn’t let McKay and me read it, but I don’t need to read it. I get the recordings
of her talks with Donovan and he discusses the journal pages with her. So I know what’s in there.

  Nothing special, really. It’s mostly all about Nate.

  Which is fine. He’s a kid. She’s a kid. I don’t mind that relationship. But I do worry about them now that she’s getting older. Because I see where this is going.

  Even though Nate goes to public school in the nearby town, he never brings any friends home. At least not that I’ve seen. And I’ve told Indie many times that if he does, she cannot play with him on those days. So maybe she warned him about this and that’s why that kid has no other friends.

  Or… maybe he just loves her the way she loves him?

  That’s the part I worry about.

  This boy will be the first one to kiss her. He will be the one she falls in love with. He might break her heart, she might break his, but it’s clearly one of those love stories you read about in books.

  And I don’t know how I feel about that.

  No, that’s a lie. I know exactly how I feel about that.

  She’s mine. That’s how I feel. That girl is mine. He can be her friend, but that’s it. That’s all he can be. So today I’m gonna have a talk with that kid.

  It’s Sunday, so everyone around here goes to church. It’s just something people do. I’m not particularly religious, but I was raised the same way and I’d like to think that church gave me another perspective on the jobs I have to do and the life I have to live.

  I know Nate goes to church with his grandfather and Indie goes with me. But I also know that Nate’s grandfather is sick so he’s staying home today.

  I’m staying home too. And Indie is going to church with McKay.

  I make sure Indie knows I’m staying home because I have a meeting. Which isn’t a lie. I do. It’s just with the boy next door instead of some Company fucks.

  I watch McKay’s black truck disappear down the driveway and then push through the screen door, let it slam shut behind me, and set off into the woods towards the St. James place.