by Delia Owens
“I don’t know. He was such an athlete; hard to picture him getting mixed up in drugs,” the sheriff said.
“Former athlete. And anyhow, lots of ’em get tangled up in drugs. When the grand days of hero dry up, they gotta get a high from somewheres else. Or maybe he had a woman out there.”
“I just don’t know of any ladies out there that’d be his type. He only hung out with the so-called Barkley elite. Not trash.”
“Well, if he thought of himself as slummin’, maybe that’s why he was so quiet about it.”
“True,” the sheriff said. “Anyway, whatever he had going on out there, it opens up a whole new side of his life we didn’t know about. Let’s do some snooping, see what he was up to.”
“Ya said you got something, too?”
“Not sure what. Chase’s mother called, said she had something important to tell us about the case. Something to do with a shell necklace he wore all the time. She’s sure it’s a clue. Wants to come in here to tell us about it.”
“When’s she coming?”
“This afternoon, pretty soon.”
“It’d be nice to have a real clue. Beats walkin’ around looking for some guy wearin’ a red wool sweater with a motive attached. We gotta admit, if this was a murder, it was a clever one. The marsh chewed up and swallowed all the evidence, if there was any. Do we have time for lunch before Patti Love gets here?”
“Sure. And the special’s fried pork chops. Blackberry pie.”
20.
July 4
1961
Dressed in the now too-short peach chiffon, Kya walked barefoot to the lagoon on July 4 and sat on the reading-log. Cruel heat shrugged off the last wisps of fog, and a dense humidity she could barely breathe filled the air. Now and then she knelt to the lagoon and splashed cool water on her neck, all the while listening for the hum of Tate’s boat. She didn’t mind waiting; she read the books he’d given her.
The day dragged itself by minutes, the sun getting stuck in the middle. The log hardened, so she settled on the ground, her back against a tree. Finally, hungry, she rushed back to the shack for a leftover sausage and biscuit. Ate fast, afraid he would come while she quit her post.
The muggy afternoon rallied mosquitoes. No boat; no Tate. At dusk, she stood straight and still and silent as a stork, staring at the empty-quiet channel. Breathing hurt. Stepping out of the dress, she eased into the water and swam in the dark coolness, the water sliding over her skin, releasing heat from her core. She pulled from the lagoon and sat on a mossy patch of the bank, nude until she dried, until the moon slipped beneath the earth. Then, carrying her clothes, walked inside.
She waited the next day. Each hour warmed until noon, blistered after midday, throbbed past sunset. Later, the moon threw hope across the water, but that died, too. Another sunrise, another white-hot noon. Sunset again. All hope gone to neutral. Her eyes shifted listlessly, and though she listened for Tate’s boat, she was no longer coiled.
The lagoon smelled of life and death at once, an organic jumbling of promise and decay. Frogs croaked. Dully she watched fireflies scribbling across the night. She never collected lightning bugs in bottles; you learn a lot more about something when it’s not in a jar. Jodie had taught her that the female firefly flickers the light under her tail to signal to the male that she’s ready to mate. Each species of firefly has its own language of flashes. As Kya watched, some females signed dot, dot, dot, dash, flying a zigzag dance, while others flashed dash, dash, dot in a different dance pattern. The males, of course, knew the signals of their species and flew only to those females. Then, as Jodie had put it, they rubbed their bottoms together like most things did, so they could produce young.
Suddenly Kya sat up and paid attention: one of the females had changed her code. First she flashed the proper sequence of dashes and dots, attracting a male of her species, and they mated. Then she flickered a different signal, and a male of a different species flew to her. Reading her message, the second male was convinced he’d found a willing female of his own kind and hovered above her to mate. But suddenly the female firefly reached up, grabbed him with her mouth, and ate him, chewing all six legs and both wings.
Kya watched others. The females got what they wanted—first a mate, then a meal—just by changing their signals.
Kya knew judgment had no place here. Evil was not in play, just life pulsing on, even at the expense of some of the players. Biology sees right and wrong as the same color in different light.
She waited another hour for Tate, and finally walked toward the shack.
* * *
• • •
THE NEXT MORNING, swearing at the shreds of cruel hope, she went back to the lagoon. Sitting at the water’s edge, she listened for the sound of a boat chugging down the channel or across the distant estuaries.
At noon she stood and screamed, “TATE, TATE, NO, NO.” Then dropped to her knees, her face against the mud. She felt a strong pull out from under her. A tide she knew well.
21.
Coop
1961
Hot wind rattled the palmetto fronds like small dry bones. For three days after giving up on Tate, Kya didn’t get out of bed. Drugged by despair and heat, she tossed in clothes and sheets damp from sweat, her skin sticky. She sent her toes on missions to scout for cool spots between the sheets, but they found none.
She didn’t note the time of moonrise or when a great horned owl took a diurnal dive at a blue jay. From bed, she heard the marsh beyond in the lifting of blackbird wings, but didn’t go to it. She hurt from the crying songs of the gulls above the beach, calling to her. But for the first time in her life, did not go to them. She hoped the pain from ignoring them would displace the tear in her heart. It did not.
Listless, she wondered what she had done to send everyone away. Her own ma. Her sisters. Her whole family. Jodie. And now Tate. Her most poignant memories were unknown dates of family members disappearing down the lane. The last of a white scarf trailing through the leaves. A pile of socks left on a floor mattress.
Tate and life and love had been the same thing. Now there was no Tate.
“Why, Tate, why?” She mumbled into the sheets, “You were supposed to be different. To stay. You said you loved me, but there is no such thing. There is no one on Earth you can count on.” From somewhere very deep, she made herself a promise never to trust or love anyone again.
She’d always found the muscle and heart to pull herself from the mire, to take the next step, no matter how shaky. But where had all that grit brought her? She drifted in and out of thin sleep.
Suddenly, the sun—full, bright, and glaring—struck her face. Never in her life had she slept until midday. She heard a soft rustling sound and, raising herself onto her elbows, saw a raven-sized Cooper’s hawk standing on the other side of the screen door, peering in. For the first time in days, an interest stirred in her. She roused herself as the hawk took wing.
Finally, she made a mush of hot water and grits and headed to the beach to feed the gulls. When she broke onto the beach, all of them swirled and dived in flurries, and she dropped to her knees and tossed the food on the sand. As they crowded around her, she felt their feathers brushing her arms and thighs, and threw her head back, smiling with them. Even as tears streamed her cheeks.
* * *
• • •
FOR A MONTH AFTER JULY 4, Kya did not leave her place, did not go into the marsh or to Jumpin’s for gas or supplies. She lived on dried fish, mussels, oysters. Grits and greens.
When all her shelves were empty, she finally motored to Jumpin’s for supplies but didn’t chat with him as usual. Did her business and left him standing, staring after her. Needing people ended in hurt.
A few mornings later, the Cooper’s hawk was back on her steps, peering at her through the screen. How odd, she thought, cocking her head at him. “Hey, Coop.”
With a little hop, he lifted, made a flyby, then soared high into the clouds. Watching him, at last, Kya said to herself, “I have to get back into the marsh,” and she took the boat out, easing along the channels and slipstreams, searching for bird nests, feathers, or shells for the first time since Tate abandoned her. Even so, she couldn’t avoid thoughts of him. The intellectual fascinations or the pretty girls of Chapel Hill had drawn him in. She couldn’t imagine college women, but whatever form they took would be better than a tangled-haired, barefoot mussel-monger who lived in a shack.
By the end of August, her life once more found its footing: boat, collect, paint. Months passed. She only went to Jumpin’s when low supplies demanded, but spoke very little to him.
Her collections matured, categorized methodically by order, genus, and species; by age according to bone wear; by size in millimeters of feathers; or by the most fragile hues of greens. The science and art entwined in each other’s strengths: the colors, the light, the species, the life; weaving a masterpiece of knowledge and beauty that filled every corner of her shack. Her world. She grew with them—the trunk of the vine—alone, but holding all the wonders together.
But just as her collection grew, so did her loneliness. A pain as large as her heart lived in her chest. Nothing eased it. Not the gulls, not a splendid sunset, not the rarest of shells.
Months turned into a year.
The lonely became larger than she could hold. She wished for someone’s voice, presence, touch, but wished more to protect her heart.
Months passed into another year. Then another.
PART 2
The Swamp
22.
Same Tide
1965
Nineteen years old, legs longer, eyes larger and seemingly blacker, Kya sat on Point Beach, watching sand crabs bury themselves backward into the swash. Suddenly, from the south, she heard voices and jumped to her feet. The group of kids—now young adults—she’d watched occasionally through the years ambled toward her, tossing a football, running and kicking the surf. Anxious they would see her, she loped to the trees, sand tearing from her heels, and hid behind the broad trunk of an oak tree. Knowing how odd this made her.
Not much has changed, she thought, them laughing, me holing up like a sand crab. A wild thing ashamed of her own freakish ways.
Tallskinnyblonde, Ponytailfreckleface, Alwayswearspearls, and Roundchubbycheeks romped the beach, tangled in laughs and hugs. On her rare trips to the village, she’d heard their slurs. “Yeah, the Marsh Girl gits her clothes from colored people; has to trade mussels for grits.”
Yet after all these years, they were still a group of friends. That was something. Silly-looking on the outside, yes, but as Mabel had said several times, they were a sure troop. “Ya need some girlfriends, hon, ’cause they’re furever. Without a vow. A clutch of women’s the most tender, most tough place on Earth.”
Kya found herself laughing softly with them as they kicked salt water on one another. Then, shrieking, they rushed as one into the deeper surf. Kya’s smile faded when they pulled themselves out of the water and into their traditional group hug.
Their squeals made Kya’s silence even louder. Their togetherness tugged at her loneliness, but she knew being labeled as marsh trash kept her behind the oak tree.
Her eyes shifted to the tallest guy. Wearing khaki shorts and no shirt, he threw the football. Kya watched the cords of muscles bunching on his back. His tan shoulders. She knew he was Chase Andrews, and over the years, ever since he nearly ran her over on his bicycle, she’d seen him with these friends on the beach, walking into the diner for milk shakes, or at Jumpin’s buying gas.
Now, as the group came closer, she watched only him. When another tossed the ball, he ran to catch it and came close to her tree, his bare feet digging in the hot sand. As he raised his arm to throw, he happened to glance back and caught Kya’s eyes. After passing the ball, without giving any sign to the others, he turned and held her gaze. His hair was black, like hers, but his eyes were pale blue, his face strong, striking. A shadow-smile formed on his lips. Then he walked back to the others, shoulders relaxed, sure.
But he had noticed her. Had held her eyes. Her breath froze as a heat flowed through her.
She tracked them, mostly him, down the shore. Her mind looking one way, her desire the other. Her body watched Chase Andrews, not her heart.
The next day she returned—same tide, different time, but no one was there, just noisy sandpipers and wave-riding sand crabs.
She tried to force herself to avoid that beach and stick to the marsh, searching for bird nests and feathers. Stay safe, feeding grits to gulls. Life had made her an expert at mashing feelings into a storable size.
But loneliness has a compass of its own. And she went back to the beach to look for him the next day. And the next.
* * *
• • •
LATE ONE AFTERNOON, after watching for Chase Andrews, Kya walks from her shack and lies back on a sliver of beach, slick from the last wave. She stretches her arms over her head, brushing them against the wet sand, and extends her legs, toes pointed. Eyes closed, she rolls slowly toward the sea. Her hips and arms leave slight indentions in the glistening sand, brightening and then dimming as she moves. Rolling nearer the waves, she senses the ocean’s roar through the length of her body and feels the question: When will the sea touch me? Where will it touch me first?
The foamy surge rushes the shore, reaching toward her. Tingling with expectancy, she breathes deep. Turns more and more slowly. With each revolution, just before her face sweeps the sand, she lifts her head gently and takes in the sun-salt smell. I am close, very close. It is coming. When will I feel it?
A fever builds. The sand wetter beneath her, the rumble of surf louder. Even slower, by inches she moves, waiting for the touch. Soon, soon. Almost feeling it before it comes.
She wants to open her eyes to peek, to see how much longer. But she resists, squinting her lids even tighter, the sky bright behind them, giving no hints.
Suddenly she shrieks as the power rushes beneath her, fondles her thighs, between her legs, flows along her back, swirling under her head, pulling her hair in inky strands. She rolls faster into the deepening wave, against streaming shells and ocean bits, the water embracing her. Pushing against the sea’s strong body, she is grasped, held. Not alone.
Kya sits up and opens her eyes to the ocean foaming around her in soft white patterns, always changing.
* * *
• • •
SINCE CHASE HAD GLANCED at her on the beach, she’d already gone to Jumpin’s wharf twice in one week. Not admitting to herself that she hoped to see Chase there. Being noticed by someone had lit a social cord. And now, she asked Jumpin’, “How’s Mabel doing, anyway? Are any of your grandkids home?” like the old days. Jumpin’ noticed the change, knew better than to comment. “Yessiree, got fou’ wif us right now. House full up wif giggles and I don’t know whut all.”
But a few mornings later when Kya motored to the wharf, Jumpin’ was nowhere to be seen. Brown pelicans, hunched up on posts, eyed her as though they were minding shop. Kya smiled at them.
A touch on her shoulder made her jump.
“Hi.” She turned to see Chase standing behind her. She dropped her smile.
“I’m Chase Andrews.” His eyes, ice-pack blue, pierced her own. He seemed completely comfortable to stare into her.
She said nothing, but shifted her weight.
“I’ve seen ya around some. Ya know, over the years, in the marsh. What’s yo’ name?” For a moment he thought she wasn’t going to speak; maybe she was dumb or spoke a primal language, like some said. A less self-assured man might have walked away.
“Kya.” Obviously, he didn’t remember their sidewalk-bicycle encounter or know her in any way except as the Marsh Girl.
“Kya—that’s different.
But nice. You wanta go for a picnic? In my boat, this Sunday.”
She looked past him, taking time to evaluate his words, but couldn’t see them to an end. Here was a chance to be with someone.
Finally she said, “Okay.” He told her to meet him at the oak peninsula north of Point Beach at noon. Then he stepped into his blue-and-white ski boat, metal bits gleaming from every possible surface, and accelerated away.
She turned at the sound of more footsteps. Jumpin’ scurried up the dock. “Hi, Miss Kya. Sorry, I been totin’ empty crates over yonder. Fill ’er up?”
Kya nodded.
On the way home, she cut the motor and drifted, the shore in sight. Leaning against the old knapsack, watching the sky, she recited poetry by heart, as she did sometimes. One of her favorites was John Masefield’s “Sea Fever”:
. . . all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.
Kya recalled a poem written by a lesser-known poet, Amanda Hamilton, published recently in the local newspaper she’d bought at the Piggly Wiggly:
Trapped inside,
Love is a caged beast,
Eating its own flesh.
Love must be free to wander,
To land upon its chosen shore
And breathe.
The words made her think of Tate, and her breathing stopped. All he’d needed was to find something better and he was gone. Didn’t even come to say good-bye.
* * *
• • •
KYA DIDN’T KNOW, but Tate had come back to see her.