The Bitterwine Oath

by Hannah West

  Levi caught up to me. “See you later, Nat,” he said, his demeanor suddenly frosty even as he opened the door for me.

  “Later,” I said, forcing a smile.

  SEVEN

  While I tied colorful pool floats down in my truck bed, Abbie deposited two coolers, a stack of Frisbees, an oversized badminton set, and a tug-of-war rope.

  “What is this, field day?” I asked as I climbed into the driver’s seat.

  Slathering sunscreen on her arms, Faith offered an indifferent shrug. “I already tried to rein her in. Good luck.”

  “I thought games would be fun,” Abbie said. “Oh, here comes Juliana.”

  She didn’t sound enthused. Abbie was a self-labeled attention sponge and professional flirt, but Juliana was the only person I’d ever met who could handily beat Abbie at her own game. Abbie didn’t like it.

  Juliana’s long black hair glided behind her like a smooth stream of espresso as she swept toward the truck, wearing a dramatic, ankle-length skirt over her swimsuit. She used her phone as a mirror to smooth down her perfectly shaped eyebrows, her nails manicured a blinding fluorescent orange.

  When she climbed in with Lindsey and set her beach bag on the seat, I heard glass clinking around in its depths. This night might be a little more unruly than I’d anticipated.

  I waited until everyone had buckled—Juliana finally gave in with a purse of her lips—before pulling out of my driveway. As we picked up speed, my hair blew around in the warm wind and stuck to Faith’s sunscreened shoulders.

  “Did y’all hear about the dead animals?” Faith asked, wrinkling her nose. “This, on top of the stones in your yard…”

  “Did you know the Travel Channel is thinking of adding San Solano to a ‘Haunted Tour of the South’ feature?” Lindsey asked. “Someone is screaming for attention.”

  I chewed on my lip. This new intel tracked with my latest theory.

  “Ew!” Juliana gasped, plugging her nose. “What is that?” A second later, the smell hit me. Unpleasant odors were common around town—skunk spray, roadkill, manure—but the smell that wafted through the cab was downright offensive.

  “It’s just the poultry litter some of the local farmers use as fertilizer,” Lindsey explained. Weird, how she’d had that locked and loaded.

  Juliana grimaced. “It smells like dead bodies.”

  Lindsey stiffened and fell quiet.

  The stench faded as we drove from San Solano to the nearby national forest. I noticed Bryce’s Jeep not far behind us, and behind him, Levi’s truck. A car full of junior girls sped past us on the one-lane road. “How many people did you invite?” I asked Abbie.

  “Don’t you worry your pretty little head,” Abbie said. “Everyone but Grayson has already pitched in their ten dollars, so we have more than enough food.”

  When we reached the nearest campground and parked by a pavilion at the swimming area, the growl of the engine gave way to insects singing and a breath of wind in the pines. The grass faded to sand at the shore, and the water looked clean and dark, glittering in the sunlight.

  Loud crooning drowned out the peaceful sounds of nature as the others arrived. The evening’s playlist, a victim of Grayson’s questionable taste, would consist of songs about tight blue jeans, trucks, exes, and beer.

  “Ugh, bro country,” Lindsey said, echoing my thoughts.

  I unlatched the tailgate and stepped into the bed to get the coolers. “Can I help?” Levi asked.

  “Sure,” I said, and hoisted one down to him.

  Grayson bounded up to Lindsey and flipped his blond hair out of his eyes. He skipped the courtesy of offering to help and tried to extract a box from her hands.

  “These are working arms, you know,” she said without relinquishing.

  “Just trying to be a gentleman.” Grayson shrugged off a look of defeat and walked away. He and Lindsey had history, if attending her quinceañera together and flirt-fighting for three years could be called a history.

  Lindsey hefted the box toward the pavilion with little effort even though it contained a heaping bag of charcoal and heavy rocks to weigh down the tablecloths. Abbie set up the games and Grayson mercilessly cranked up the volume on his playlist while smearing sunscreen on his face.

  I shed my tank and shorts, stripping down to my aqua bikini. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that Levi’s expression was pointedly neutral, and he seemed suddenly unsure of what to do with his hands. He ran them through his hair, crossed them over his chest, and finally let them fall to his sides.

  Smug, I grabbed a lime-green tube and waded into the water with Lindsey and Faith.

  “Guys, no one help Lindsey if she drowns!” Grayson said. “She can do everything herself. Hashtag feminism.”

  “Don’t be a dick, Grayson,” Lindsey said.

  “You’re so touchy today!” he exclaimed.

  “You wish,” Lindsey fired back with a killer smirk. Everyone burst into taunts and laughter at Grayson’s expense. He paddled away in mock injury.

  “So, what do y’all think about the creepy stuff that’s happening?” Bryce asked. “You’re not behind any of it, are you? Because I think the animal dismembering would be a bridge too far.”

  “No!” Abbie splashed him for emphasis, hitting Levi instead. Levi gave her a warning look, cupped his hands, and sent a squirt of water up her nose. She playfully retaliated by trying to push his head under the water. He laughed and slung her over his broad, bare shoulders, where she flailed and fake-screamed until he tossed her over his head.

  My chest tightened. Was something happening between them? Was that why Levi had gone cold at his house earlier? Since Abbie flirted indiscriminately, it was hard to tell when something meant more. Levi had always been like a cousin to her, but that chaste affection could turn on a dime.

  That was why I hadn’t told the twins about the kiss, or the quiet that followed: I didn’t want their defensiveness of me to sour an old friendship. Faith, especially, was doggedly loyal, even more so than Lindsey, whose sympathy could hit a brick wall when some harsh sense-talking was needed. If I’d told Faith, she would have taken up the banner of my cause and dragged Levi back to San Solano by the ear to make him explain himself.

  Vanessa paddled by on a float. There were gauze bandages taped to her shoulder, clinical white against her warm-toned brown skin. Lindsey had covered her cuts with a bandage today, too, and the wounds were dressed the exact same way.

  “Bryce, are you accusing people again?” Vanessa asked, tightening the floral scrunchie that bound her springy curls. A leather wrap bracelet with an ivory cameo pendant dangled from her wrist, even in the water. I’d never seen her without it. “He really wants to get to the bottom of this. He asked the old lady at the gas station if she’d ever decapitated a deer.”

  “She said ‘about five hunnerd!’ Apparently, she used to be a taxidermist, so dead end there.” Bryce shrugged. “But get this: when we mentioned the smell in town, she was like, ‘That ain’t the farms. It’s them satanic women boilin’ blood.’”

  Everyone laughed. Vanessa rolled her eyes, and then caught me glancing at her bandages. She froze and averted her gaze.

  “I guess I should start grilling,” Lindsey said abruptly. “Nat, you want to help?”

  I wanted to bronze the sandy-white tan lines from my track uniforms and hear more about what people thought of the dead animals, but I stood up and waddled toward shore, the inner tube stuck around my middle like a tutu.

  “Do you know what happened to Vanessa?” I asked.

  Lindsey wrung out her shoulder-length hair and pulled a bag of marinated chicken out of a cooler. “I don’t know.” She shrugged. “Will you shuck the corn while I start the grill?”

  “Smooth subject change,” I said, snarky.

  “What do you want me to say? I don’t know. Maybe she just has psoriasis or something.”

  “Or she got viciously attacked by a Yorkipoo?” I plopped down at the nearest picnic table.
<
br />   “What’s your deal, Nat?”

  “What’s your deal?” The rough husk of a corncob made a satisfying crunch as I peeled it. “You’re being weird. What’s wrong?”

  Lindsey sighed, her expression softening. “I don’t know. Sorry. It’s just…everyone has big plans to go college, and I haven’t figured out what I’m doing yet. It’s hard.”

  “Lindsey, it’s okay,” I said, feeling guilty for giving her a hard time. “We’re young. We don’t have to have everything figured out yet.”

  “But most people do. I just don’t want to be stuck here, with my life on pause, while everyone moves away and moves on.”

  I reached over to squeeze her hand. “I may be moving away, but I won’t move on. You can come visit me whenever you want.”

  She gave me a small smile. “I know.”

  Devious laughter drew my eye to the shore. Abbie had corralled everyone to play tug-of-war in the shallow water, and Bryce and Grayson had taken the opportunity to try to pants Levi. Levi dropped the rope and stumbled across the sand, yanking his swim trunks well above his waistline, managing not to reveal anything. He lunged at Grayson, but Grayson escaped vengeance and trotted around with his fists raised victoriously.

  “New rule! No pantsing!” Abbie yelled, her strict tone broken by a giggle.

  Levi shook sand out of his hair and strode toward the pavilion, dabbing water off his chest with a towel. “Can I help with anything?”

  “You can help Nat,” Lindsey offered.

  Levi sat down next to me, his swim trunks dripping water onto my toes. I listened to the corn husks breaking, tuning out Grayson’s laughter. His voice was always a decibel or two higher than was comfortable for everyone else, even out here on the lake.

  Levi’s bare foot brushed mine under the table and my shoulders gave a tiny jolt.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  I tried to think of a clever joke, but too much time passed.

  Juliana traipsed out of the water in a cutout swimsuit that probably cost more than my whole summer wardrobe. She gathered her silky black hair and extracted her phone from her beach bag to take a selfie.

  “I’ve been getting tons of comments on the photos I’ve taken here.” She perched next to Levi, scrolling through hundreds of replies on a post. “I had no idea the San Solano massacres were so famous. Everyone wants to know if I’m going to see the haunted cabin.”

  “We could go,” Abbie said. Somehow, she was able to hear their conversation over Grayson, now rummaging through a family-sized chip bag like a starving raccoon next to her. “We’d have to be careful not to get caught, but I think it would be fun.”

  “Abbie,” I said in a warning tone. “The police will be watching like hawks until after the anniversary of the murders.”

  “This is our last summer here, all together,” Abbie said, gesturing grandly. “We’re expected to get a little wild, right?”

  “Yes!” Juliana said with a cheer. She draped an arm over Levi’s shoulder. “Let’s get the booze. I want to hear about this Malachi chick.”

  Juliana’s enthusiasm drew everyone in like a tractor beam. Soon the whole group had gathered on the pavilion. She produced an expensive-looking bottle of tequila and passed it around while my friends clambered to tell the story for her followers. Levi turned down the liquor, while Juliana found so many creative reasons to touch him that she couldn’t have made more contact if she’d suddenly sprouted eight sticky tentacles. She flipped her camera so they could take a selfie together.

  I snuck away to join Lindsey at the grill. Vanessa stood nearby, arms crossed. The two were whispering. They stopped.

  “You aren’t drinking, Nat?” Vanessa asked.

  I shook my head. “I’m driving, and my ass is grass if my parents catch me drinking. At the very least, they’d stop paying for my phone and change the Wi-Fi password until I leave.”

  “Same,” Vanessa said.

  “A lot of people thought Malachi started the fire that burned down the church,” I heard Abbie explaining to the camera. She paused to take a swig of tequila before passing it on. “But her parents said they were with her when the flames of their cooking fire suddenly leaped out of control. Malachi said she was angry and did it with her mind.”

  “Tell her about Easter!” a junior girl said, making grabby hands at the tequila.

  Abbie explained about the baptistery filling with blood when the reverend baptized his daughter.

  “No way!” Juliana exclaimed. “She seriously laughed? That’s so creepy.”

  “Everyone in the church saw the same thing!” Abbie’s cheeks were turning red with exhilaration.

  “It wasn’t real,” Grayson said. “She dyed the water or something. People thought she was possessed, but she was just messing with them. She was a preacher’s kid with daddy issues.”

  “There’s no such thing as ‘daddy issues,’ Gray,” Vanessa snapped. As if cued by her anger, a wave of heat from the charcoals gusted out from the grill and forced me to take a step back. “It’s called trauma.”

  “Malachi was abused by her father, and she acted out,” I added, and felt the camera’s gaze on me.

  “People have always felt threatened by rebellious, strong women,” Vanessa went on. “It was a full-on, twentieth-century Bible Belt witch hunt.”

  “How do you think the victims died, if Malachi and her followers didn’t kill them?” Abbie asked.

  “Maybe a suicide pact?” Vanessa offered. “They gathered in a church and drank poisoned wine. That sounds like some sick Jonestown crap to me.”

  “But they tested it, and there wasn’t any poison,” I pointed out.

  “Not that the people who analyzed it could detect,” Vanessa said with a shrug. “The first one was in 1921, and forensic testing still wasn’t that great fifty years later. If they had kept enough of a sample to test now, I bet they’d find poison.”

  “Do y’all ever wonder if maybe Malachi really did have magic powers, though?” the junior girl asked. “Like, what if everything in Lillian Pickard’s book is true?”

  “I think there’s only one way to find out,” Juliana said, turning the camera back on herself. “And it’s to take a tour of the haunted cabin where Malachi did her demon magic. Eek!”

  Lindsey cussed under her breath.

  Blessedly, no one had brought up my connection to Malachi. Even Grayson knew better than to subject my family to more unwanted attention.

  After dinner we migrated back to the water. The slanted light of dusk turned everyone’s eyes to gemstones and the water to flames. I felt as though I were stuck in sweet sap, pretending this summer could last forever.

  At twilight, when the moon emerged like a scoop of vanilla ice cream, we loaded up the supplies. I climbed into my truck, where the leather seats were still warm from the sunlight that had snuck so softly away.

  Lindsey, Faith, and I waited in the idling vehicle while Abbie and Juliana rested their elbows on Levi’s open windows, talking and laughing. I couldn’t hear their conversation, but I sensed they were volunteering us to participate in criminal trespass.

  Abbie and Juliana finally pranced back to us after Levi had driven away with Grayson in tow, followed by Vanessa and Bryce in the Jeep. “We’re meeting them at Sawmill and riding together to the cabin,” Abbie said as she hop-stepped onto the bench seat.

  “No, we’re not,” Lindsey said, her tone intense.

  “Juliana has to,” Abbie said. “Her followers are expecting it.”

  “All the more reason not to,” I pointed out. “What if it goes viral? We’ll get caught.”

  “You don’t have to show your face if you don’t want to,” Juliana said.

  “Or you could just drop us off at our car, Nat,” Faith said, surprisingly game for this adventure.

  “No,” Lindsey said, glaring out the window. “If you’re going regardless, you might as well have more people with you.”

  I was pretty sure Lindsey meant for the sake of sa
fety, but Abbie clapped her hands. “Yay! It’s more fun with a group.”

  “But I’m only going if you promise not to climb the fence,” Lindsey said. “We are just going to look at the cabin. No trespassing.”

  “Natalie’s dad is best friends with the sheriff,” Faith said. “It’s not like we’ll get in real trouble.”

  “I wouldn’t underestimate his willingness to teach us a lesson,” I muttered.

  “Fine, no trespassing,” Abbie agreed. “Just drive or they’ll be waiting on us.”

  Grudgingly, I followed Levi’s taillights down the road. The dark woods were a vast expanse of mystery outside the blinding brights that charged before us.

  About fifteen minutes later, we turned into the dusty Sawmill parking lot, empty and lit by a single streetlight. We parked next to Bryce’s Jeep and climbed into the bed of Levi’s truck.

  The wind slithered along my neck as we cruised down dark and lonesome back roads. The farther we ventured, the more dilapidated the sparse houses became, leaning into the earth, the paint stripped from their weatherworn surfaces.

  Finally, we turned onto the dirt road that would stop dead within sight of the cabin in the clearing. The loud whirring of insects and the droning of frogs died down. Even the wind seemed stiller. That god-awful stench pervaded the air.

  Levi slowed to a stop in front of the towering chain-link fence with the sign COUNTY PROPERTY—NO TRESPASSING. Just outside the reach of his headlights, cloaked in wild wisteria and tucked among towering hardwood trees, the shadow of the abandoned log cabin awaited us.

  I found myself wishing one of Jason’s deputies would drive up and tell us pesky kids to go home.

  EXCERPT:

  PAGANS OF THE PINES: THE UNTOLD STORY OF MALACHI RIVERS

  Lillian Pickard, 1968

  After Ruth Rivers lost her first child, her son, in the storm, she felt a disturbance in the pregnancy of her second. The child went still in her womb.

  According to Ruth’s own telling, rather than seek out a midwife to deliver what she knew would be a stillborn baby, she fled to the woods. Superstitions about a sacred power in the glade had endured for generations. Something older than humankind resided there. It had moved beneath the earth and whispered through the boughs long before San Solano had a name in any language. The place had seduced many a searching soul.