Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

by Tucholke, April Genevieve

  “You know, Violet, when I’m right next to you, I can pick up small drops of all the Violet things going on in your big brain. For example, I can tell that you hate beets. The idea of beets has an ugly brown haze around it, in your head. I saw it when I held them up at the grocery store. Needless to say, I put them back. Unlike tomatoes. Tomatoes have a nice rosy Violet halo around them.”

  I put my hands on my head, instinctively, as if I could block River from reading the bits that were leaking through. But then I felt stupid and lowered them.

  “What else can you tell?” I asked.

  “I can tell that you like me, despite yourself.” River smiled, and part of me melted at the smile, like chocolate in the mouth and ice in the sun.

  But the other part wished I had a brick in my hand, so I could hit him, right in the middle of his lovely, crooked mouth, until his blood flowed and flowed and covered his shirt, like it had Daniel Leap’s.

  “Vi, you should have seen the black cloud surrounding Daniel Leap in your head this morning. Wow. And I thought you hated beets. You had the bastard in a black hole. An abyss.”

  “There’s a world of difference between wishing someone was dead and making them so, River.”

  A thought occurred to me then, a black, evil, oozing thought. What if for River, there wasn’t any difference? Is that what he meant by not being able to predict the results of his glow? Was all his talk about moral ambiguity just a way to justify something he couldn’t control?

  And then I remembered what Gianni said, about the poor red-haired woman. The witch. I had forgotten, with all the horror that came afterward, I had forgotten—

  “River, where did you go that day you were gone?”

  He shrugged. He lifted the edge of my shirt with one hand and began to kiss my stomach. His hands were covered in dried paint.

  “Did you . . . did you go to Jerusalem Rock?” Focus. If you let him smooth away your anger, if you feel no anger, then you’re no better than him.

  River kept nuzzling my torso. “Where is Jerusalem Rock?”

  “It’s the town Gianni was talking about, where they burned that woman. It was you, wasn’t it.” I felt nothing, saying this. Only River’s soft kisses on my skin, like a cool breeze on a hot day.

  “I.” Kiss. “Have.” Kiss. “No idea what you are talking about.” Kiss, kiss, kiss.

  “So you didn’t go to Jerusalem Rock?” It was getting really hard to concentrate. River’s kisses . . . I was feeling so good, so dreamy, so happy, suddenly. “Where did you go, then?”

  “Somewhere else. I just had to get away for a while. I drove south. I don’t really remember where I went.”

  “That sounds like a lie, River. You’re so mysterious, always mysterious, I like it, I do, but I want . . . I want to know if . . .” Focus. “But have you . . . have you ever . . .” Damn it. “Have you ever killed anyone else? I mean, have you made anyone else kill themselves, besides Daniel Leap?”

  “Yes,” River mumbled into my skin.

  “How many?”

  River turned me around in his hands, and began to kiss my lower back. “A lot, Vi.”

  My eyes closed. “How many is a lot?”

  “I don’t know. As many as needed to die. Maybe twelve, I guess. Maybe a whole lot more. I’d have to think about it. I’ve had the glow for four years, you know.”

  “So . . . so you don’t even know, off the top of your head, how many people you’ve murdered?”

  River stood up. His palms were stroking my back, slow and confident. He nestled his face into my neck. “No,” he said. “Once it’s done, it’s done. I don’t really think about it afterward.”

  His lips followed the line of my jaw. His hair smelled like sand and salt, as if he’d been swimming. Maybe mine did too. Living by the ocean did that.

  We were kissing now. Deep, long kisses. I felt the River thing start coursing through me, like it had that first time, at the cemetery. It flowed and flowed, like water flowed down a mountain. Like time flowed by on a summer day. Like blood flowed down a razored neck.

  “River, are you using the glow on me?” I asked.

  “Maybe.” He paused. “Do you care?”

  I didn’t. Or, if I did, I wouldn’t know it until later.

  “Screw it,” I whispered, and brought his lips back to mine.

  CHAPTER 19

  I AWOKE TO a hazy male shape looming over me. The sunlight streaming in through the window made a halo around him, like a golden angel in an early Renaissance painting. I blinked, and closed my eyes again. I was in River’s bed in the guesthouse. I put my hand to my head. I felt dizzy. Thick.

  “Don’t you ever knock?” I asked, closing my eyes again.

  I yawned, threw back the covers, and got to my feet. I had a moment of panic, wondering if I was naked, but I looked down and saw that I still had my black clothes on. I looked at my brother.

  Only it wasn’t Luke standing by the bed.

  It was a stranger.

  He was young. My age, or maybe a year younger. And he was tall, with blond hair lighter than mine, but more bleached-white-in-the-sun than having-a-Dutch-grandma. He had a fading purple-blue bruise on the cheek under his right eye, big as a fist, and a slight bend in an otherwise perfect nose that said I’ve been broken.

  “Well, hello there,” the stranger said, and gave me a grin. “I’m sorry to burst in on . . . whatever this is here. I was looking for . . .” He turned, and locked eyes with River. “My brother.”

  River slowly sat up in bed, stretched, and scratched his head. “Hey, Neely. Nice face bruise. How did you find me this time?”

  The stranger threw a newspaper on the bed. “It made national headlines, jackass. Kids running around a cemetery with stakes.” He threw another newspaper on the bed. A local one. “And last night. A man takes himself to the town square and slits his own throat. Good one, River. Subtle.”

  He threw one last paper on the bed. The Jerusalem Rock Review.

  Silence.

  I put my hands to my hair, and my clothes, and tried to straighten them out while my mind raced around inside my head.

  River has a brother named Neely.

  River said he didn’t have any siblings.

  Was anything he said true? Ever?

  I realized that River and Neely were looking at me. I took a deep breath. If I didn’t calm down, and fast, my cheeks would turn red and everything I was feeling would write itself across my face.

  “This is Violet,” River said. “She lives in the big house with her brother, Luke. But I guess you know that already.”

  Neely grinned at me again. The same crooked smile as River’s. It was strange to see it on this stranger’s face. Neely’s eyes were blue, not brown like his brother’s, but they had the same glint. The one that said I’m up to no good. River’s glint was lazy, though, and cocky. Neely’s was . . . I don’t know. Good-natured, energetic, looking for mischief—like a hell-bent little kid, or a damn Jack Russell terrier.

  “I met Luke in Echo,” Neely said. “I was asking around for my brother, and someone pointed Luke out to me at the coffee shop. He told me that River was in the guesthouse here, and the American Graffiti car in the driveway confirmed it. Luke failed to mention that there might be a pretty girl in my brother’s bed, though.” He pointed his thumb at me, but didn’t look in my direction.

  My cheeks were turning red and there was not a damn thing I could do about it. “Yeah,” I said. “I was here. In River’s bed. Nothing happened, though. Not that you asked. We were just sleeping together. Next to each other. I was upset last night, and then River calmed me down, and he has these nightmares, so . . .”

  My voice trailed off. I wasn’t sure what went on the night before, after River and I started kissing in the Citizen’s kitchen. I remembered hating River for what he did to Jack’s pa, really hat
ing him, and then . . . the hating stopped. And then we were in the guesthouse, and then the bed . . .

  Neely lost his smile. He looked at his brother and his eyes went hard. “Tell me you didn’t use it on her. God, River. You’ve reached a new low. I didn’t think it was possible.”

  River sighed and got out of bed, picking his shirt up from the floor and slipping it over his head. “Violet knows all about the glow. I told her everything. And if I did use it last night, it was only recreationally.” River glanced at Neely and away again, fast, almost—almost—like he was ashamed, for a second. “Whatever we did, it’s between us. Violet and me, and no one else, all right?”

  Neely stared at his brother, but said nothing.

  “Look,” River said, calm and lazy again, “let’s move into the kitchen and I’ll make breakfast. There’s no point having a big talk on an empty stomach. And with you, Neely, it’s always a Big Talk.”

  We all went into the kitchen. No one spoke. The only sound was the clanking of pots and pans and the pissed-off sighs coming from River’s brother. After a few minutes of this, I decided it might be wise to let the two of them have some time alone, so I left them in the guesthouse.

  I went back to the Citizen to check on Jack, but he was gone. Damn. I should have gotten up earlier, like Luke said. I shouldn’t have gotten into River’s bed again. Damn. I couldn’t think straight. I wasn’t myself around that boy. And it was scaring me. But then, everything lately was scaring me, though I’d never considered myself a coward.

  I went back outside and saw Luke painting in the shed, the door open to let in more light. He was bent toward the easel, his face determined but content. It was an unusual expression for him.

  “Hey,” I said, walking over to the door. “Know where Jack is?”

  Luke pointed to the corner table without looking up. Jack was there, leaning over a canvas, applying black and white acrylics in jagged, thin lines.

  I saw red eyes, and small hands gripping gravestones. He was painting the Devil in the cemetery.

  “He’s a natural,” Luke said. “He told me he’s never painted before, but he’s as good as we were at his age. He’s got an eye for color and atmosphere . . . and dimension . . .” Luke trailed off, his eyes back on his work.

  Jack looked up and flipped his coppery hair out of his freckled face. He grinned. “I guess it runs in my family.”

  I smiled back at him. “Ours too.”

  And something clicked then, in the back of my head. Something important. Something I knew I should pay attention to—

  “River’s brother find you?” Luke set his brush down and turned to face me.

  “Yeah. In bed. With River.”

  Jack looked up again when I said this, then bent back over his painting.

  Luke lowered his voice. “What’s going on with you, Vi? You show no interest in boys, minus a bit of coffee talk with Gianni, and suddenly you’re spending every night in bed with a stranger?”

  He was right. Dead right. What was going on with me?

  River. The glow. That’s what. Still, I didn’t feel like getting scolded by a brother who spent his summer either fumbling toward second base with a round-cheeked café girl or getting to know our next-door neighbor’s thighs with his hands. “Who are you to talk,” I said. I sounded bitter and I hated myself for it. “Maddy. Sunshine. You don’t keep your hands to yourself.”

  Luke shook his head. “It’s different. You’re . . . You need to be more careful than me. And no, before you interrupt, it’s not because you’re a girl. It’s because you’re . . . you’re passionate. More than Maddy, and Sunshine, and me, all put together. River will break your heart. Count on it.”

  “He won’t.”

  Luke met my eyes.

  “He won’t,” I repeated. “Sometimes he seems all right, when he’s nice to Jack or he makes me supper or he tells me sweet stories from his past. And I like that he’s different. I like that he’s . . . mysterious. But mostly I don’t trust him. At all. I just . . . forget that sometimes. I’m not letting him near my damn heart, Luke. I’m not.”

  Luke sighed. “So what did the brother want? I see he left his BMW parked in the driveway. Must be rough. What kid drives a new BMW?”

  “He wanted to see River, I guess.”

  “So, is BMW boy moving in too? Because then we can charge them more rent.”

  I shook my head. “Just go back to your painting, Luke.”

  Luke frowned. And he looked so much like our dad, right then, in front of a canvas with a paintbrush in his hand, that it bothered me. I looked from him to Jack. Their red hair glinted in the sun as they leaned over their paintings. They both held their brush in the same odd way, squeezed between their thumb and third finger, at the middle rather than the base.

  I left. I walked back into the guesthouse without knocking. River was in the middle of poaching six eggs and Neely was drinking a cup of steaming espresso. Neither was talking. The air was thick and awkward. I stood in the doorway and wondered what to say.

  Finally, River shoved a plate of eggs into my hand, and we all sat down at the table to eat. Silently. I dipped warm toast in drippy orange-yellow yolks, and tried not to notice the clumsy quiet. Neely was a serious coffee drinker, like his brother, and they both downed three cups of espresso by the end of breakfast. They drank holding the cups in the palms of their hands, rather than grasping the handle. They both narrowed their eyes before sipping. They drank like brothers.

  After we were done eating, River and Neely moved around each other, cleaning up, and still not talking.

  I watched them, fascinated. Neely was at least six inches taller than River, and slightly leaner. But he had the same light, healthy tan, and he wore the same expensive-looking, not-quite-normal clothes—dark linen pants that hung low on his waist, paired with a white Windbreaker that was zipped all the way to his chin. I wouldn’t have thought a Windbreaker could look expensive, but his did, somehow.

  Neely was about as beautiful as River, with a face that looked sort of sweet and open in the places that River’s looked dark and secretive. When they drank coffee, they looked like twins. But when they moved around the kitchen, they seemed like strangers. River’s gestures were slow and lazy. Neely’s were quick and smooth. They wore the same scowl, though—it cut right across both their tan foreheads.

  “River told me he didn’t have any siblings,” I said, deciding to break the silence by calling River a liar. It felt good. I looked at Neely. “Are your parents really archeologists?”

  Neely tilted his head back and laughed. Laughed. It was something to hear. Deep and kind of contagious. He looked at River. “You lie more than our dad sleeps around. And that’s saying a lot.”

  River shrugged. “Lying makes life more interesting. Not to mention easier, for the most part.”

  Neely laughed again. And then his eyes met mine. “River thinks life should be easy. But then he creates more mischief in one night than the Devil does in ten. Which I guess works out fine for him because he has a little brother to clean it all up.”

  Neely came closer to me and lowered his face toward my ear. “Can I tell you a secret?” he whispered. “It’s all bullshit. River talks big when he’s scared, just like our dad. The question is . . . what is he afraid of? Have you figured it out yet?”

  Neely backed away again. I rubbed my ear where he’d been whispering in it. River was watching me closely, but I didn’t meet his gaze.

  “What did you say, Neely? What did you tell her?”

  River looked . . . worried. I took joy in that.

  Neely put his hands on the table and leaned forward. “No siblings. What bullshit. We have at least two half brothers and one half sister, that we know of. As I said, our dad likes to sleep around. Luckily they’re all just little kids still, so they probably don’t yet know what it means to be part of our family. Th
ey’ll find out soon enough.”

  “A sister?” River’s worried expression slid away and mild surprise took over his face. “No one told me about her.”

  “I just found out myself, jackass. I was digging through some of the accounts and found out he was supporting another one, somewhere in Colorado. Why do you care anyway? Dad will never officially adopt them, and you told me, quote, that you ‘never want to meet the spawn of our father’s cheating loins.’”

  River shrugged, all lean and graceful. “Maybe I lied.”

  “River, shut up.” Neely caught my eye. “Violet, did he happen to tell you what his last name was?”

  “West,” I said. “He said his name was River West.”

  Neely laughed, and it shook his blond hair into his eyes. “River’s last name—my last name—is Redding.” He paused, to let that sink in. “Neely is short for Cornelius. And River is a nickname. His real name is William.”

  I blinked. I looked at Neely, and then at River, and then back to Neely. River’s face was shifty and narrow and not meeting my gaze, but Neely’s eyes were directly on mine and still open and laughing. He grinned at me, like he knew I knew what that meant.

  And I did. The Reddings were one of the great old families of the East Coast. If my family was once upon a time wealthy East Coast mansion-building industrialists, they were nothing, nothing to the Reddings. The Reddings had mansions up and down the entire thirteen original colonies. They owned ships, and railroads, and presidents. They had ties to the mafia, and the Masons, and the Beatles.

  Freddie had mentioned the Reddings in her stories. She pulled out a piece of jewelry once, when I was ten or so, an emerald necklace that we sold after her death. She said she wore it to a depraved Redding party when she was young.

  So. I had been sleeping with a Redding. Next to a Redding.

  “So I’ve been sleeping with a Redding,” I said. “Next to a Redding.” My thoughts were all coming out of my mouth. “I’ve heard of your family.” I looked at River. “Freddie said she went to a wicked Redding party in New York City once.”