I sucked back frustrated tears that hung on the edges of my lashes. My beast stretched inside me, content being mine. No room for ifs. My truth slapped me across the face with one clawed-paw. I was the beast. She was me. Whatever that meant, I had a true ally taking up shop inside where my have-to lived.
Without looking right at Nana, I wrapped my arms around her middle and squeezed until she let out an oomph. I buried my face into her chest and breathed the garden of fresh-bloomed roses. I loved that woman more than I could say in words. I hated to leave. I’d have laid down every tomorrow I had left to spend the rest of my life in her lap.
“You come back here in the morning. I’ll have breakfast on the table for you. I want to hear everything about your night out hunting.”
Nerves pushed vomit into my throat and I swallowed it back. Retelling my nights out was on the bottom of my list of shit to do. I was some kind of monster and Nana was proud to sit and hear about it. There’s no one on the planet who loved you more than your nana. I could swear to that.
Home again, home again
The sun sat dead nuts in the center of the sky on my way home from Nana’s. I thumped a finger against the steering wheel, running through made-up reasons to have run off like I did. Ten minutes wasn’t long enough to come up with a good lie to tell Garret about what I’d been off doing.
I had to figure out how to keep Garret safe without telling my secret. Keep myself safe. Not kill anyone else. And, this one was probably most important, not lose my ever-loving mind along the way.
Garret and Hattie stood on the porch when I bounced over the potholes in the gravel up to the house. “Shit,” I hissed and slammed my hand against the dash.
I had half a mind to turn around. Let them watch me drive away. At least they knew I was alive. But I couldn’t bring myself to turn the wheel.
I hadn’t even put it in Park before Garret leapt off the porch and had my door open.
“Well, damn it, Garret, lemme get the thing parked,” I complained.
He reached over top of me, shoved the shifter into place and pushed the button on my seat belt. “Where the hell have you been?” One strong arm wrapped around my waist and he yanked me off the seat. Just my tips of my boots dragged across the dirt as he carried me to the house. Hattie scurried to the truck and plucked the keys from the ignition.
Did they really think I was gonna run off? I bet they did. Could I blame them? Nope. Not one bit. Was I gonna get those keys back? You bet your ass.
“Sam’s been calling here looking for you. You ain’t been to work, ain’t been home. Where in the holy hell—”
I kicked. “Will you put me down?”
“Lynn, I’ve been out of my mind looking for you.” He let me slide until my feet hit the porch. “Hattie and me looked all over the woods for you. We called the sheriff.”
Eyes wide, my hands flung in the air. “You called the sheriff?”
“Yes I did.” He tipped his head in a dramatic nod. “He said you probably just need some time after….” Ahem. He couldn’t say his name and it hurt my heart. I wanted to tell him everything. Tell him about Rusty, all of it. He had to know. I didn’t keep secrets from Garret. Who was supposed to protect me if he couldn’t? “I called Mama.”
“You what?” I growled.
“What did you want me to do, Lynn? You were just gone.” He looked at Hattie and back at me. “And there was this…” Don’t say it. “Dog, or cougar, or something. I don’t know. A beast.” I stared at him, breathing as evenly as I could, begging him not to say it. “Lynn, don’t laugh. I swear to the Lord almighty it was the damn Howler.” Hattie rolled her eyes behind him. I didn’t move. “I know it sounds stupid, but for a minute there, I thought you was ate up by the Ozark Howler.” Hattie closed her eyes. I silently thanked her for being his voice of reason. Even though he was mostly right.
Mama pushed through the screen door as if someone had given her a cue. “My girl, there you are. Where’d you run off to?”
I didn’t really look at her. “Hi, Mama.” I let Garret think he’d seen the Howler and that I’d just run off to get my head on straight. As much as I wanted to, he couldn’t know what I’d become. Liability alone was reason enough to keep him in the dark. “Where you been?”
“Oh, you know, just out and about.” She admired her painted toes poking from the tips of her sandals. “Sorry I didn’t come out and see you in the hospital, sweet pea.” Her eyes slapped Garret with a switch that still made him flinch a little. “Nobody called to tell me.”
“Out,” I repeated and nodded. I knew what she meant. I loved my mama, but she had a man problem she couldn’t quite shake. “I was out, too.” I wasn’t a big fan of my daddy, but I did believe in the bonds of marriage. It’d gotten worse since I moved out and she was all alone. It took me some years to figure out why she didn’t just leave him. Mama liked men about as much as she didn’t like to work.
“Thanks for coming out here to see me, Mama, but I’m fine. Honest. I spent some time with Nana today and feel a lot better.”
Mama looked away and nodded. “Yeah.” She clicked her tongue. “I love you, Lynnie. More than you could ever know. Why don’t you come back home with me? You need looking after.”
I’d been waiting for that. “I’m fine, Mama. I can look after myself. Besides, Garret needs someone here or this place will go to shit.” I grinned at him.
“She’ll be okay. It was an accident what happened to Rusty, Mama.” Garret choked out his name and Mama winced. “I won’t let anything like that happen again.”
I begged the universe to make that true for himself. “We’re fine here, Mama. Let it go.” There was no telling what tonight would hold, and I damn sure wasn’t going to get my half-brained mother involved in it. She’d surely have me in a nuthouse by morning. “I’ll be by next week for dinner,” I lied. I just need a few days to make a plan. To keep everyone safe.
She nodded, eyes focused on anything but me. “Sure thing, Lynn.” Her hands balled into fists, then let loose again. Thudding in her chest echoed in my head. She turned to leave, stopped, and looked at me. “Happy birthday, my girl.” A small bag made of old flour sack hung from her manicured fingers. “I know it’s late, but it’s yours. Should keep you safe.” She dropped it into my open hand.
I gently pulled on the brittle string to open the bag. A leather cord spilled out with a jagged black stone attached with a silver wire.
“You didn’t have to buy me nothing, Mama.” It was pretty, heavy for how small it was, and not something my mother of all people would have ever given to me for any reason let alone my birthday.
“Of course I did. And I didn’t buy it. It’s sort of a hand-me-down. Been holding on to it for years for just the right time. It’s a gift from all your nannies, and your mama.” With tears in her eyes, she kissed my forehead. “Best be going.” Mama patted Garret’s cheek and touched Hattie’s shoulder on her way down the steps. At her car, she stopped, hollering over the roof, “Keep your soul about you, baby.”
It took a beat for me to catch up. “Mama,” I shouted after her. “What’d’ya mean?” I ran to the car as it fired up. “Mama.” I banged on the window and she rolled it down. “What does that mean? Keep your soul about you.”
She breathed, a hot puff in the middle of cold air conditioning. “Just an old saying from my granny Maureen. Means don’t lose yourself along the way. It’s all you’ve got. It’s all that matters.” She put the car into gear. “Keep that close to you.” She nodded at the necklace dangling from my clenched fist.
I watched her white car get smaller. Gray dirt clouds swirled and fell. “Everyone is so damn worried about my soul. They should be more concerned with my body.” Both of them.
“I’m worried ’bout both.” I jumped out of my panties.
“Hattie, you scared the shit out of me. How long you been standing there?�
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“Long enough to see you get sad over your mama and start talking to yourself. You look like shit run over and smashed into the road.”
“Thanks.” I kicked dirt with the pointed toes of my boots on my way back to the house.
“You keep me around for the truth, don’t ya?” She kicked a rock out of the way. “How long’s it been since you had a proper bath?”
“A hundred years.”
“Looks like.” Hattie pinched a crunchy chunk of hair between her fingers. “Is that blood?”
I jerked away. “Uh, must be ketchup from that new diner in Russellville. Best burger in Arkansas.” I cleared the steps in one long reach. “Thanks for being there for Garret. But I’m fine. You can go on home.”
She scoffed. “You’re fine? You ain’t fine. You’re about as fine as a cat in a snare. I don’t know what kinda mess you’re in, but you better get yourself out of it. Your brother’s half gone crazy and he’s taking me with him.”
Garret banged pots in the kitchen. There was no way in hell I was cleaning up whatever mess he was making.
“He won’t talk about Rusty, but I will.” His name was a poison arrow shot through my heart. “I’m sad. Stupid sad. I can only imagine what you’re feeling.”
“He told me he loved me,” I said without thinking.
“Finally.” She raised her hands to the heavens. “Took him long enough.”
“I’ll slap you if you knew about this and didn’t say shit, Hattie.”
“Would you have believed me?” Probably not. “That boy’s been in love with you for years. You must be as dumb as you are filthy.” I glared at her. “Rusty Kemp would’ve walked off the edge of the earth for you.” She pinched her lips between her teeth.
She was right. He would have done anything for me. Even die for me.
Garret pushed open the screen with a handful of cold beers. “Ladies,” he said, handing us each one.
Hattie looked at him, then at me, and back again. She pulled in a deep breath. “I actually think I’m gonna head on home.”
Eyes bright as a spring morning, a grin tugged the corners of Garret’s mouth. “All right.” He swiped a wet hand across his jeans. “Thanks for comin’ out, all your help. I really appreciate’cha.” They looked at each other for a few seconds, then Garret leaned in and wrapped both arms around her. I watched, brows at my hairline, icy bottle clutched in each hand. They’d known each other as long as I’d been in school; they’d hugged before. This one was different. Longer. More handsy.
A sickening weight I hadn’t known I carried lifted from my chest. The idea that if I left, by will or by kill, he’d be okay. Someone would look after him.
One day Nana would be gone. Probably sooner than later, in fact. Mama had her life she was living. If Garret and Hattie paired off I’d be alone. My person, the one who would’ve looked after me was dead. I’d killed him.
I walked past the two, waving lazily. “Bye, Hattie,” I said, hoping they didn’t hear the crack in my voice. They really were right for each other. Hattie the mother and Garret the man child. Inside somewhere happiness shined bright, but that bright shiny place was hidden in the shadows of the beast. No. Not the beast, me. What I’d done. What I’d taken from us all.
Bath water filled the tub when the screen door finally creaked open and slammed shut. Garret didn’t come knocking like I thought he would. It relieved me more than hurt that he hadn’t. I wanted to sulk in my misfortune, sink into the steaming water and wash away the death that clung to my skin.
The house was hot, sticky humid, and I was chin deep in a steamy tub. Suds floated on the surface and I blew them away. The overhead light painted my shiny wet knees white. I ran my hand over the semismooth skin and considered swiping a razor over them. They’d just be coated in green fur come nightfall. What did it matter anymore? Things like shaved legs were for the girl I was before. This girl, the one desperately trying to hold it all together, had bigger fish to fry.
I pulled my fuzzy pink robe tighter around me, tying the knot at my hip. Wet hair made the collar of my shirt soggy before I wrapped it up in a band and the fabric stuck awkwardly to my skin.
Garret stood in the middle of the living room, staring at nothing. Lost in his own head. “Aren’t you burning up in that thing?” he asked when I walked past him to the kitchen.
Chilly mountain air had sunk deep, rattling in my bones since the first morning I woke up in the woods. Still, sweat dripped down the middle of my back. “Just looking to feel cozy.”
He nodded, accepting my bullshit. “Hungry?”
Starved. “I could eat. But I really just wanna sleep for a million years. Feels like it’s been a week since I laid in my own bed.” Give or take.
Bright summer sun poked him in the eye through a break in the front curtains. He took a breath to ask me why I’d be sleeping at noon but stopped and thought of a more important question. “Were you out drinkin’… er?”
I sighed. “Garret. I was just out. Thinkin’.”
“Thinkin’?”
“Yeah. With my brain. You know, that thing between your ears.” It wasn’t his fault I had to lie. Not all his fault.
“You really not gonna tell me where you been?” His chest heaved under a tight gray T-shirt.
I swallowed, one big gulp of prickly lies. “Not on your life.”
He moved into the kitchen to stand close. “One day, doesn’t have to be today, you’re going to tell me what happened in there.” His eyes shifted toward the back of the house, my bedroom.
Those lies clawed their way up my throat and out my lips. “I was just drunk, camping. Thinkin’.” I could’ve added the R word, forced Garret out of the conversation. A secret weapon I’d use when there was no other choice.
His eyes played over that night, what he’d seen. “Sandwich?”
I watched his face, waiting for him to force me to fess up. “Tomato?”
One nod and he was off into the cabinets for bread. He’d ask me again. If he didn’t, he was dumber than I gave him credit for. What I’d say when he did depended on things I wasn’t even sure existed. Like my future.
Garret’d cleaned up the glass and taped a piece of cardboard over my escape hatch. I’d have to rip the tape off to get out this time. Long before the beast popped out.
I flopped onto my bed face first, burying my face into the pillow. “He washed the sheets?” I mumbled into the pillow.
I slid off the bed, crawling a few feet to my balled-up jeans on the floor and pulled Mama’s gift from the pocket. A small purse made from flour sack and old twine. Using my nails, I picked the knot until it came free. I dumped the necklace into my hand. I slid the leather strap over my head. The weight of it was strangely familiar, comforting.
A rolled piece of old, leathery paper was stuck in the bottom of the bag. I plucked it out gently, the brittle fabric one quick move from ripping. Written in aging red ink, a poem scrawled in jagged cursive.
“By the Moon,” I read. “Power in thee, this stone charged in protection be.” My fingers traced the edges of the stone. “Who wishes harm render still, not spoil a soul nor bid thy will. Hear my plea on this night; impart protection to this bringer of right. By these words power show, grant your guard upon this stone.” The thing around my neck started to warm between my fingers. “Wholly in power and divinity, by these words, so mote it be.”
“Now you’re gettin’ somewhere.”
A squeaky yelp popped out of my throat and I dropped the piece of paper. I searched the darkened corners for my boy. I’d heard him clear as day. Scurrying to my feet, I ran to his corner. Nothing. Not even a spark of magical energy left behind. “Come back,” I whispered. “Come back.”
Light caught my eye in the mirror on the back of the door. The black stone glowed vibrant purple. Brighter than the blood I’d spilled.
My eyes refused to move, locked onto the glowing thing, terrified to look away, refusing to let fear rip it from my neck. It burned, hotter and hotter the longer I stared. I stood there, silently waiting for it to burn me up like the abomination I was.
Searing pain hit my spine. Not the pain of the beast, a scratching, claws from the outside instead of in. I gritted my teeth, gutting any sounds of pain that would bring Garret. My knees shook, but I wouldn’t let them take me down. I had to watch it happen, whatever it was.
The stone flared to a white blinding light. Like a balloon pumped till it popped, the pain burst, instantly cooling in icy strips down my back. A force of air filled my lungs and the stone flickered to green.
Holding myself up with hands planted on either side of the mirror, I panted, “What. In. The. Hell.” Eerie lime green light cast villainous shadows over my face.
Prickly heat crawled up my spine, sending chills over my body. I checked the time in the mirror. Hours still until the beast clawed free. I shrugged out of my robe and ripped the soggy shirt over my head.
My stomach hit my toes. “It’s real.” Black slashes cut across a long line down the center of my back. Were these Percy’s marks? My marks. “I am the beast.”
The necklace dimmed until it was mostly black again. I thought about taking it off, burning it, refusing the change. My gut promised I was an idiot.
I’d live in that body, under those marks, sharing my space with a big green beasty until I didn’t. Until someone came to take my place.
I looked at my naked twenty-year-old body. It would never grow a big pregnant belly. Or get wrinkles. It’d look like that when they came. “When they eat me up.”
My radio popped on to an old country song when the alarm went off an hour before sunset. It’d been a restless, dreamless type of sleep. I thought about letting the beast take me to that quiet, emotionless place tonight. Wasn’t sure if I had it in me to do it again just yet. To remember the beastly things we did.
I stuck a note to my mirror for Garret. Had to get out. I’ll be back. Don’t worry about what I’m doing. I can take care of myself. Love, me.
And the Creek Don't Rise Page 9