by Bre Hall
“Why are you so upset about it?”
“I’m not.”
“You sound like a five-year-old.”
“It’s just that strangers don’t go out of their way like that unless they want something in return,” Alfie said. “You should find him and give it back.”
“Why?”
“So he doesn’t get the wrong idea?”
“The wrong idea about what?” she asked. “He’s probably new to town and wants a friend.”
“He shouldn’t have to buy friendship.”
“You sound jealous.”
“All I’m saying is I don’t trust the guy.” Alfie mounted the bike.
“You don’t even know him.”
“Do you?” Alfie asked.
“Why does it matter?”
“It doesn’t,” Alfie said quickly. He fixed his lips into a wench-tight line and studied the street lamp, sprouting out of the cracked concrete sidewalk, straight ahead.
“Good.” She wriggled the bracelet onto her wrist and heard something rattle. She shook her wrist and listened. A ping sounded from inside the moon-engraved locket. She dug her thumbnail into the split in the locket, wanting to see what made such a noise, but it was rusted shut.
“What are you doing?” Alfie asked.
“Trying to open this thing,” she said.
“Do it at home.”
“Can we go to yours?”
“I’d rather not.”
“Why not?” she asked. “It’s closer.”
“My mom’s been in a mood lately,” Alfie said.
“When is she not in a mood?”
“Let’s just go to the farmhouse.”
Ren exhaled dramatically. “Meredith’s there.”
“I don’t care.”
“Whatever,” Ren said, climbing onto the book rack. “It’s your funeral if she bites our heads off for looking too long at her precious parlor.”
“She’s not that bad.”
“She’s my stepmom,” Ren said. “I’m supposed to hate her.”
“Says who?”
“Just pedal.”
With that, Alfie cycled away, steering them along the side of the road. They breezed past limestone and concrete buildings that made up Wynn’s Wild West-style downtown. Then, they slipped into the outlying neighborhoods where small brick houses were set back from the street, separated by generous tracts of yellowed lawns. Soon, they pedaled beyond the green city limits sign and up the old highway that cut straight through the sorghum fields, the heads of the crop rippling like a russet-colored sea. The closer to her house they got, the heavier the charm bracelet weighed on her wrist. She tried once more to open the moon locket, but gave up when Alfie turned down the long gravel driveway that lead to the farmhouse. She would need to use something sharp to pry it open. To see if anything interesting was waiting inside.
chapter
2
THEY LEFT REN’S BIKE IN the space Grams’ Beetle used to fill before they crashed it. Just the thought of that fateful summer night brought on a rush of muggy air, the sensation of glass piercing Ren’s left eye, the sound of Duran, Duran, accompanied by the crunch of metal. Her heart changed its rhythm, beating louder and faster. Her palms began to sweat. As she and Alfie climbed the porch steps, she pushed the memories of the crash away and focused on the tornado blur of her feet. Before they opened the door, she could hear the sounds of dishpans clanging inside. She twisted the doorknob and waltzed into the sheltered, square entryway. They were greeted by a savory aroma that immediately set Ren’s stomach growling. She hated to admit it, but her stepmom, Meredith, was an amazing cook. The woman could take the entire contents of a refrigerator and turn it into a feast without a bead of sweat forming on her porcelain skin.
Ren kicked off her combat boots. They landed with a thud against the wooden floorboards, joining the neat rows of Meredith’s work heels, Grams’ slippers, and Ren’s dad’s Sunday brogues.
“Ren is that you?” Meredith asked. “Dinner’s almost ready.”
“We’re not hungry.” Ren started to climb the stairs, tugging Alfie along behind her. She was dying to open the charm bracelet.
“Skipping isn’t an option,” Meredith said, poking her head around the corner. “You hungry Alfie?”
Alfie shrugged. “I had a big lunch.”
Ren scowled at him. Whispered, “If I’m eating dinner, so are you.”
“Sorry,” he said and bolted up the stairs.
She heard her bedroom door click as her ex-best friend closed himself in. It wasn’t like Alfie to turn down a meal. You couldn’t tell by how skinny he was, but boy, could he eat. Turning down conversation with her family, on the other hand, that she understood. They weren’t exactly a cookie cutter family. With her dad hyper-focused on farming, Grams losing it from the dementia, and Meredith, the cliché, frustrated stepmother, they weren’t even close to cookie cutter. You’d need a chisel and a hammer to carve an inch of recognizable shape out of them. But they were all she had, so what could she do?
“Ren, set the table, please,” Meredith said as she poured a pot of boiled green beans into a colander over the sink.
“I did it last night,” Ren said.
“Well, I cooked, so tough luck.”
“Give me five minutes.” Ren climbed another step up the stairs. The charm bracelet was burning against her skin. Her mind. She needed to know what was inside, and she needed to know right then.
“No, now.”
“Come on, Meredith,” Ren said. “Two seconds.”
“One, two.” A smug smile ripped across Mer’s face. “Times up. Wash your hands first.”
Ren stomped down the steps and walked to the sink, glaring at Meredith the whole time. Meredith didn’t bother to glance up, which was fine. It wasn’t that Ren was scared of her, but she tended to avoid eye contact with Mer, lest she be burned by her mother-knows-best glare. Meredith’s eyebrows would flatten, her pupils would shrink like a shark’s, and her jaw would twitch. Ren swore, when Meredith gave her one of those looks, she never blinked. Other than the staring and the nagging, Meredith wasn’t that terrible. Though Ren would never admit that out loud. She had too much fun poking Mer’s buttons.
Ren was laying down plates on the dining room table when the back door swung open and her dad walked in. He pulled off his work boots, caked in dirt, and shuffled into the house in his socks, one toe poking through a tattered hole. His dishwater blonde hair was splotched with grease, making it look dark, like Ren’s. It was about the only thing she and her father didn’t have in common. She inherited her locks from her mother, who she only knew from a picture her dad used to keep in his top dresser drawer. She’d jetted off to China to save orphans before Ren even said her first word. At least, that was the most common story her dad would tell. Occasionally, it was South America to save the Rain Forest or the Middle East to advocate women’s rights. Ren knew the truth, though. Her mom had plain old left. She was probably living two towns over, doting on a new husband and kids, taking pictures with the fluffy Pomeranian at Christmas time in front of a stone fireplace in a fancy, new house in a neighborhood where everything looked identical.
“Well, you won’t believe this.” When Ren’s dad spoke, every word was drawn out, every syllable met with a Wild, Wild West twang. “Hugh just quit on me.”
“Just before harvest?” Meredith clucked her tongue, shook her head.
Ren set forks on unfolded napkins. “You could pull me out of school.”
“What?” Ren’s dad asked as he rubbed two, T-bone steak hands together under running water in the kitchen sink.
“I could drive one of the combines or something.”
“Nice try, kiddo.”
“Alice Martin misses school for three days every year to help her family harvest the wheat,” she said. “It’s totally reasonable.”
He shook his hands in the air to dry them. Meredith shot him a look from where she was wedged in the open fridge door before toss
ing him the towel that was thrown over her shoulder.
“I’m sure I’ll find someone,” he said.
“Call your grandmother to supper, Ren, will you?” asked Meredith.
Ren shuffled across the floorboards and stopped at the start of the hallway. The faint hum of music flowed down the corridor. “Grams, dinner.”
“Go down and get her,” her dad said as he slid into his seat at the head of the table.
“She can hear just fine.” She trudged down the hall anyway, turned the brass knob on the door, and pushed. She poked her head through the crack. “Grams?”
Grams shuffled across the room in one of her long, bohemian skirts and pulled the needle off of the record player. The music cut off mid-note. “I heard you before.”
“I told them that,” Ren said. She leaned against the doorframe. Grams hadn’t always been like that. Off-kilter. The doctors said it was dementia. Sometimes she was there, the stubborn, hard-working old broad Ren used to spend weekends with during busy seasons on the farm. They’d bake cookies. Tend the chickens. Glue buttons onto photo frames. You know, shit grandmother’s and granddaughters do together. Most of the time though, Grams was closed off, copperhead-angry. Ren hated snakes. So, like everyone else, she put up a wall, taking whatever shit Grams threw her way and waited for the brief glimmers of normalcy.
Grams twisted toward her. Massive blue eyes blinked across the room. “What are you still doing here?”
“Waiting to walk you down.”
“Don’t need an escort.” Grams waved a hand at Ren. “Go on and start without me.”
Ren closed the door and started for the kitchen. The music flared up again as she came around the corner and slid into the seat across the table from Meredith.
“She’s in a mood.” Ren reached for the large, silver spoon near the casserole. Meredith batted her hand away. “Hey.”
“Not until everyone’s at the table,” Meredith said.
“She’s not coming.” Ren filled her plate, adding green beans and a slice of bread, then shrugged off her denim jacket and slid the charm bracelet on her right wrist farther up her arm.
“What’s that on your arm?” Meredith plucked a slice of bread from the tin foil.
“A bracelet. Duh,” Ren said. Her dad smacked her shoulder. “Ouch. What was that for?”
“Watch your tone.” He took two helpings of casserole. The sauce dribbled over the edge of his plate.
“Where did you get the bracelet?” Meredith held her bony shoulders tight beneath her navy suit jacket.
“Found it at Richard’s.”
“Richard’s Antiques?”
“Yeah.” She put a piece of chicken in her mouth, chewed slowly, swallowed. “What’s the problem?”
“No problem,” Meredith said.
Forks scraped against plates. Green beans were salted. The barn cat, drawn to the house by the smell of dinner, mewed loudly outside and brushed its speckled, white body against the screen of the window closest to the dining room.
“You haven’t opened any of the lockets, have you?” Meredith asked.
“No. Why?”
Meredith glanced sideways, in the direction of the tall grandfather clock that clicked loudly against the wall, pendulum swaying. Meredith’s mouth fell open, facial expression blank. She shook her head, scooped up a helping of casserole onto her fork, and said, “No reason.”
Heavy footfalls fell on the floorboards, and Grams swished around the corner. On her head she wore a plastic tiara, a pearl set into the front, and around her neck, a set of real pearls to match.
“Y’all couldn’t have waited for me?” Grams asked. Ren’s dad sighed as Grams plopped into the chair next to Ren. Grams snapped her fingers. “Starving old woman here.”
Meredith spooned chicken onto Grams’ plate. Ren served up the green beans. Meredith stared at Ren.
“What?” Ren asked.
“Just thinking about your pretty little bracelet.” Meredith handed Grams some bread, which she used like a backboard to scoop up her chicken.
“What bracelet?” Grams asked.
Ren pulled the charms down to her wrist. Held her arm out for Grams to see. A wrinkled, sausage finger brushed over the top of the largest locket.
“Does it open?” Grams asked.
“I wouldn’t—” Meredith said.
“Wouldn’t what?” Ren glared at Meredith’s straight nose.
“Open those lockets.”
“Why not?”
“Bad spirits,” said Grams. She grabbed Ren’s shoulder and whispered, “Once they’re released, you can’t put ‘em back.”
A tingle skittered up Ren’s spine. Grams might be crazy, she wore tiaras for Pete’s sake, but it wasn’t like Ren didn’t believe in the supernatural. She’d like to think there was more to the world than what they could calculate. The peach fuzz at the back of her neck rose at the thought.
“If anyone needs me,” her dad said, wiping the edges of his mouth with a napkin and standing up from his empty plate, “I’ll be watching Texas Ranger.”
He kissed the top of Meredith’s blonde head, lingered for a moment to let her reach up and pat the stubble on his jaw, then slipped into the den, where he would remain until bedtime. Ren’s dad was a man of routine. He woke early, headed straight outside to plow or mend or feed, whatever part of the farm needed his leathery touch, before he broke for a quick lunch at high noon, worked until supper, then watched TV until sleep lured him in with its siren call. Before school, before Meredith, Ren used to fit in neatly to his routine. A miniature attachment at his hip. She missed it sometimes, the certainty of the day.
Grams began to whistle. Meredith cut a green bean in half with the side of her fork. Ren took a drink of water. Held the glass close to her chest. Stared at the flashbulb bursts of light breaking through the open doorway of the den.
“Something on your mind?” Meredith’s eyes flicked up to Ren, back down to her plate.
“No,” Ren said, then sloshed back another ounce of her drink.
Grams screamed suddenly and jolted back from the table. She bumped into Ren, her water glass breaking free of her grip and shattering. Flakes of glass scoured the floor.
“No one move,” Meredith said. She dashed for the mud room, where the cleaning supplies were stored.
“What happened?” Ren asked.
Grams pointed a finger at the window, finger shaking, lips quivering. Ren followed Grams’ gaze, but all she saw was the barn cat, tail twisting close to the glass. Mewing like it was starved.
“It’s only the cat,” Ren said.
“No,” said Grams, her gaze unwavering.
Ren squinted past the cat. That feeling she’d had earlier that afternoon of being followed returned, but she saw nothing except the soft orange hues of twilight falling over the pasture, the barn in the distance, and the sorghum fields beyond.
Meredith appeared with a broom, swept the glass into a pile, and squatted with the dustpan to clear it away. “Ren, why don’t you take your grandmother back to her room?”
“Yeah, okay.” Ren looked over at Grams. Her tiara sat slightly crooked on her head and her eyes were peeled back wide, still fixated on the world through the window. Ren looped an arm around Grams’ thick waist and led her down the hallway to her room. A single lamp glowed near the window. The bed was made with perfect creases, the vanity scattered with lipsticks, eyeshadows, and necklaces. The bookcase was full of canned fruits. A Ouija was hand-painted onto a table in the far corner. Ren turned Grams around and sat her back on the bed.
“Are you okay?” she asked as Grams laid back on the pillows, eyes glazed over. Ren covered her up with a blanket and reached for the lamp.
“Leave it on,” Grams said.
“Can I get you anything?”
Grams shook her head. She suddenly seemed very small. A tiny punctuation mark in a sea of Thomas Wolfe prose. “No.”
“Not even a cup of tea?” Ren prodded.
“N
o,” Grams said. “Thanks.”
“With Irish whiskey?” Ren expected Grams to blossom at the thought of her favorite drink. Instead, she closed her eyes, her lids a hazy purple, and shook her head again. Ren took the hint, backed away slowly, closed the door, and walked back to the kitchen.
Meredith had moved on from sweeping to putting leftover food into plastic containers. She clamped down the lids and fitted them into the fridge like a Jenga tower. Then, she spun on the balls of her feet and floated toward Ren. She gave Ren’s shoulder a motherly squeeze. “I’ll let you finish cleanup.”
Ren’s knees buckled. “Why?”
“Because I cooked and still have essays to grade.”
“That’s not fair,” Ren said, thinking of the locket she was dying to open.
“Just load the dishes into the machine,” Meredith said. “It’s not that difficult.”
Meredith clicked past Ren and closed herself into the parlor room at the front of the house, the room no one was ever allowed to enter. Not Ren’s dad or Grams, but especially not Ren. The moment the lace curtains, hanging over the windows on the parlor’s French doors, stopped swinging, Ren whipped a middle finger at the room and Meredith by proxy. After that, she turned with a satisfied sigh and got to work. She scraped forgotten food off plates. Ran them under the faucet. The sound of a bullet exiting a gun came from TV in the den. Music fizzled up from down the hall. Papers rustled quietly in the parlor. Ren tucked the dishes into the dishwasher, filled it with liquid, and pressed start. Then, she booked it up the stairs to her bedroom.
She pulled the bracelet from her wrist and jammed her thumbnail back into the rusty crack the moment she stepped into her room.
“What are you doing?” Alfie asked from his perch on the edge of her bed. She’d expected him to be reading one of the paperback books he always kept curled in his back pocket, but he was watching a movie on the old analog TV she kept on the floor by her closet.
“Trying to open this locket,” she said, her voice strained from the pressure she was applying to the metal.
“Need some help?” Alfie asked.
She sighed and dropped the bracelet into his open palm. “It’s stuck.”