by Laura Kemp
“If I were on your back you’d know it,” she said, her tone reminding me of my own mother. Turning to me, she patted my hand and said, “He’s always been so stubborn. We had a scholarship all lined up for him to study law at U of M and what do you think he does? Throws it away.”
“I didn’t throw it away, Mom,” he said. “I was never a genius before you got it into your head to pay for law school.”
“You had one semester left.”
I saw him tense, saw his jaw muscles working in the way they always did when he was trying to keep his emotions in check. “Dad had a stroke.”
His mother turned, leaned over me and I wished I could sink into the bleachers and let them go at it honestly.
“I was handling things.”
“Don’t remind me.”
Melinda sighed and readjusted her sunglasses again. Dylan took this as his cue to stretch his legs and I was thankful for a breather of my own. After a minute had passed his mother flashed a brilliant smile.
“I apologize, Justine. We shouldn’t air our dirty laundry in public.”
“It’s okay,” I mumbled, wanting to stretch my legs myself and yet my affection for her son held me fast to my bleacher seat.
“Thank you for saying so.” She turned back to the game. “Avery tells me you and Dylan are getting serious.”
Avery had told her… That wouldn’t have made her happy. Still, I was glad to hear third- hand that our relationship status was secure.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “He’s wonderful.”
“He is,” she smiled without turning her head. “But as I told you before, very stubborn.”
I smiled, tried to steal a glance at the man in question but he’d already moved away to speak to his father’s nurse. I saw him shove his hands in his pockets, rock back on his heels while his father’s eyes followed the game.
“I don’t know why he never told me,” I found myself saying, wondering if I could trust this woman to give me an answer that wouldn’t hurt me.
“My son is on a ‘need to know’ basis with practically everyone,” she smiled again, gave me a sideways glance. “Maybe you can change that.”
I didn’t answer, just sat watching the game as she began asking questions that were obviously intended to assess my eligibility.
“What do you do for a living?”
I tried to stall, tried to think of something incredibly glamorous and came up with, “I tend bar with Mallard Brauski out at Huff’s.”
Her face crinkled at the corners. “Lucky girl.”
I chuckled and felt like a fool. “Tips are good and I didn’t really have time to scope out jobs in my profession.”
She turned and I saw a reflection of myself in her sunglasses. “What is the scope of your profession?”
“I’m a journalist,” I said, not bothering to mention how small the newspaper was and what sort of stories I covered.
“A journalist,” she repeated, her Gucci’s moving from left to right. “How interesting.”
“I wrote for a newspaper downstate,” I took a breath, glanced back at Dylan and knew he wouldn’t be joining us anytime soon.
“In the city?”
I shook my head. “In a small town called Webber.”
“I’ve never heard of it.”
“You’re not alone.”
Melinda reached out, patted my knee. “Going back anytime soon?”
I gave her a puzzled look. Did she want to ship me off already? “Not if I can help it.”
She laughed, patted me once more and I felt my ears filling up, felt my body flush with heat and fought with everything I had to stifle it. No way was I going into a trance with Dylan’s mom sitting next to me, and so I gripped the bottom of the bleacher until it bit into my skin and felt the pain dull my senses.
Just then Melinda turned, a concerned scrunch to her tinted countenance. “My dear—”
“I’m okay,” I mumbled, pressing harder. My ears began to ring, my body to shake.
“You certainly don’t look like it,” she turned, searching for Dylan.
“She just needs some food,” he answered, and I had no idea how he’d gotten to me so quickly. “Low blood sugar. She didn’t have lunch.”
I heard his mother mumble a rebuke as we moved past her, Dylan’s arm around my waist as he led me away from the crowd and back towards the parking lot.
“That was a close one,” he said. “Mom would’ve freaked if you’d fallen over and crinkled her favorite slacks. “
I giggled, still woozy from being pulled out of the vision so quickly, felt myself being pressed into something hard and realized we were against the side of his truck.
“Can you talk?”
I took a breath, steadied myself and whispered, “Yeah.”
“What was it?”
I shook my head, gave him a smile. “It wasn’t anything.”
“How?” he asked, “I looked up and thought you were going to topple over into Mom’s lap.”
I held up my hand, saw the red welt that just fit the groove of the bleacher seat. “I gripped the seat so hard that the pain stopped the vision.”
He seemed confused, “You can stop it? With pain?”
“I think so,” I mumbled, suddenly hopeful that this new part of my life could somehow be controlled. But did I want to stop the visions if they could give me the information I wanted, especially where Jamie Stoddard was concerned?
“That’s good, J,” he said.
Yep, being able to control my freaky ability was so much better than not having to deal with it at all.
“Hopefully this will all stop once I find my dad and get the hell out of this creepy town.”
I felt him draw back.
“When you what?”
“Nothing,” I said quickly, wishing another vision would wipe me out so he’d have no alternative but to bundle me up and take me home.
“Are you taking off after you find your dad?”
I looked at him, looked away, more miserable than I’d ever been.
“What if you don’t find him?”
I glanced down, not sure how I felt about Lantern Creek minus the supernatural happenings. Although the scenery was nice.
“You know I can’t leave town,” he finally said.
“Why would I know that?” I asked, suddenly angry at him, at me—for assuming he would want to leave everything behind for a girl he couldn’t say he loved.
“Things are complicated,” he said slowly, thoughtfully and I wanted to hit him for using the same line twice. “Dad needs me.”
“I know,” I nodded, loving that he cared so much, hating that he cared so much. “You should be here. But Avery—”
“Needs to live her life.”
“Your mom—”
His laughter startled me, and I could sense the sadness behind it. “Are you serious? All she cares about is that stupid firm and how much money she’s losing every day because John isn’t in the ‘family.’ Dad always took care of her,” he stopped, put a hand to his forehead. “You’d think she’d return the favor.”
“Doesn’t she?” I asked, feeling like I was walking on eggshells, afraid of pushing too far.
“She has a nurse for that. Doesn’t want to get her hands dirty.”
“Maybe you’re not giving her a chance—”
“Stop, Justine,” he said, his voice firm and I did just that. Arguing wouldn’t help, and I knew it was selfish to want him to go. But I wanted to be selfish, to wrap him up in my arms and keep him forever.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, pulling me into an embrace. “I should’ve told you about Dad right away but I kept hoping I’d get over it, get over you,” he smiled in a way that made me want him. “But it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen anytime soon.”
“Are you trying to sweet talk me?” I closed my eyes, leaned into his chest.
“Is it working?”
I smiled, nodded against his shirt.
“Stay he
re with me,” he said, his arms tightening in the slightest and I wondered if it would be okay to dream that I could start over here.
I smiled, ready with a request of my own. “Introduce me to your father.”
He kissed the top of my head. “You’ve got a deal.”
Chapter Nineteen
“Beautiful day.”
I started and looked up to see Pam standing over me as I stretched my legs outside of Cabin Three. Twisting my hair over my left shoulder, I noted the way it curled in the heat.
“Daydreaming?” she asked.
“Just thinking that summer is more than half over.”
“What are your plans?” She asked, sitting down beside me.
“Not sure,” I put a hand up and shaded my eyes against the sun.
“Seems like you might have an incentive to stay.”
I looked down at my feet and grinned.
“Your father would be happy.”
I gazed past her and towards the lake, my heart jumping in the slightest. I wanted to argue, to tell her she had no right to mention him, but the time for that had passed. “You think so?”
“I know it,” she leaned her head back, closed her eyes. “His mother would be, too.”
“His mother?” I repeated. Never in my life had anyone mentioned my paternal grandparents—or lack thereof. Dad had told me they died of sickness before I was born. Mom never wanted to talk about them at all.
And I’d kept my mouth shut, content with occasional visits from Grandpa Greer on my mother’s side, wondering why something I’d never had in the first place seemed to be missing.
“Haven’t you figured it out, yet?” Pam asked.
Something in her eyes told me all I needed to know, what I’d secretly suspected since the moment she’d mouthed the words “Take him” during our bar fight.
“Iris?”
Pam didn’t answer, just bent over to pat Rocky.
“But I thought you were her daughter.”
“You thought wrong.”
“You told me wrong.”
“You weren’t ready. She wasn’t ready,” Pam began, a calmness to her I’d never seen before. “She couldn’t get close for the same reason Robert had to get away. They wanted to protect you.”
Protect me? Suddenly everyone wanted to do that.
“From what?”
She dropped her voice, as though she didn’t want to say the words but knew she had to. “Red Rover.”
I felt like someone had jabbed me with a hot poker. Sitting upright, I turned to her and touched her arm, hoping she could finish what her son had started.
“Adam—”
“Told me about him,” she shook her head, pressed her lips together and looked up at the sky. “I think he told you, too.”
“What?” I asked, playing dumb. “You know that’s not possible.”
“Is it?”
“Yes,” I said, my words dying on my tongue. It was useless, and I was only hurting myself by not letting her help me. “Do you hear him, too?”
She paused, unnerved by our conversation. I, on the other hand, felt grateful that someone was acknowledging something. Anything.
“I thought so. A long time ago—”
“How,” I began, wanting to understand but knowing I couldn’t put the pieces together with a journalist’s logic.
“It was wishful thinking,” she said. “But now I know—”
“He talks to me.”
“Yes,” she said. “When Adam was young, he used to draw pictures of a man without a face.”
“Red Rover?” I asked
She nodded. “When I asked him who Red Rover was, he wrote ‘The Bad Man.’”
“Geez, Pam,” I felt gooseflesh rising on my arms and quickly rubbed them. “I think this…Red Rover might have broken into my apartment.”
“He knows about you two. And now that you’re together it makes it easier for him to find you.”
I looked at her, incredulous, then pulled my feet in and hugged my knees. “How do you know this?”
“Robert,” she said, and in that one word a million assumptions strung together like a pearl necklace, broke and shattered.
“Dad knew? How could he? I don’t understand—” I asked all at once, my mind a jumble as a cool breeze blew in from the lake and across my neck, stirring the water.
“Your father was a Cook and that name comes with a price to pay up here. I knew it, too—and when Adam was born I wasn’t surprised when he left us.”
“Why would he leave you? Why would he leave me?” I asked, the last question breaking free from my body with a sort of forced tension.
“It’s easier for Red Rover to find you when you’re together. Your power, your medicine, leaves a trace behind that he can sense and now it grows stronger. Robert never wanted you to know about your brother, never wanted to visit this kind of pain on you—”
I stood up, turned in a circle and gripped the railing of the porch. “What does he know about pain? Growing up without a father—why didn’t he stay and fight for us?”
She shook her head, her own shoulders hunched, and I knew the conversation was just as awful for her as it was for me. “I wish I knew, Justine. Robert wanted to protect us, and he thought he could do that by leaving. I knew Red Rover had something to do with the story about Odessa and the Indian. I knew it was some sort of spirit sent here to hurt Robert’s children, but I thought if I didn’t believe in it…if I just kept quiet it would never find us.”
“And do you feel safe, Pam? Out here in the woods with Red Rover wandering around at night?”
She looked up, her face a contorted mask of hurt and I regretted my words, regretted that I’d awakened my brother’s nightmares in her memory. Maybe if I’d stayed home and ignored the picture I’d seen in the paper, everyone would be safe. Dylan, Adam, Pam, Iris…
But no one was safe. Not even a girl who could tackle three roughnecks without so much as a scratch.
I touched my necklace.
“I’m sorry, Pam. I don’t understand any of this and I just want—”
“I know what you want. I wish I could give it to you.”
I sat down beside her again, put a careful arm around her shoulders to let her know we were on the same side, despite everything. I waited, to see if she would accept the gesture and to my surprise, she laid her head on my shoulder and began to weep.
“I’m so afraid, Justine. Please know I never meant to hurt you or your mother. Please—”
“I know—”
“Things keep happening. Adam’s restless in the night—I hear noises outside and God help me, I want to protect him, but I don’t think I can. I don’t think I was meant to.”
I leaned in, touched her head to my own. “Why don’t you run? Take Adam and get out of here?”
She pulled away, looked into my eyes. “Why don’t you?”
I drew back.
“Because you know he’d find you.”
She was right. I’d been drawn to Lantern Creek by the picture I’d seen in the newspaper, drawn to Dylan and Adam the first moment I’d met them, drawn to the photograph at Camp Menominee and the lighthouse and the tree that had caught fire but never burned at Back Forty Farm.
I stood up and dusted my hands on the butt of my jeans.
“I’m going to see my grandmother.”
* * *
Iris stood in her garden surrounded by coneflowers and daylilies, wearing a blouse that caught fire in the sunlight, her hair tucked beneath the hat she’d been wearing the day we first met.
I slid from the Jeep and walked the few steps between us.
“Iris?”
She raised her eyes.
“Justine.” And something in my thoughts must have told her everything because she laid her trowel aside, pushed her hat from the crown of her head so she could embrace me, her thin arms reaching around my back.
I couldn’t speak for several minutes as she held me, whispering words that somehow helpe
d to mend what had been broken years before.
“How did you know?” she asked.
It took me a moment to answer, “I think I always did.”
“Of course,” she smiled, her eyes dancing in the same way my father’s had. “You can feel it.”
I smiled.
“I’m sorry,” she pulled back and held me at arm’s length, the sun casting shadows between us. “I should never have left you alone with your mother.”
I looked away. “No, you shouldn’t have.” No anger. No sadness. Simply a statement expressing fact.
And my grandmother did not take the blame upon herself, which I admired and someday hoped to emulate. “It wasn’t your fault, Justine. She was so angry at Robert. So hurt by the way he handled things that at first I couldn’t blame her.”
“Iris—”
“Can you come inside?”
I nodded, followed her into the apartment and took a seat at her tiny kitchen table while she peeled off her gloves. Moments later she pulled two glasses from the cupboard and began pouring lemonade.
“I’m not sure what your mother told you.”
I reached for a glass, took a sip. “Not much.”
“Your father’s heart was always bigger than his brain,” she began while slipping into the seat opposite me, her fingers working the red fabric of her gingham tablecloth. “Never able to look ahead and see what was coming down the pike.”
I took another sip. “You mean Pam?”
Iris sighed. “He fell hard and quick. Before long she was pregnant, and he didn’t know what to tell your mother.”
I looked down, fingered the same square of gingham. “But he did tell her, didn’t he?”
Iris nodded, then glanced at me. “You grew up so pretty, Muffet.”
I smiled, my heart in a place it had never been before.
“I gave you that nickname the first time you spilled your milk. Said a spider must have crawled up and scared you.”
I felt a tingle in my nose. “I don’t remember you.”
“That’s how I wanted it.”
I swallowed again, took another quick sip.
“I thought staying away would make it better—would break the tie you had to this place and the things that happened here.”
“It didn’t.”