Waiting for the Night Song

by Julie Carrick Dalton

  “Then I say we only use The Poachers’ Code for good for the rest of our lives.”

  Daniela turned on her desk lamp and pulled The Code from her nightstand drawer. The gloss of their two perfect thumbprints glistened below Daniela’s calligraphy. Sealed in blood, The Code seemed powerful. Upholding the rules felt like a noble calling, bigger than Cadie or Daniela, weightier than the secrets it guarded. Cadie could believe in The Code.

  “We need to make a tablet, like Moses. You know, in the Bible,” Daniela said.

  “You go to church?”

  “I watched the movie. We should make a tablet. Something that’ll last forever.”

  After dismissing several options, they decided to carve The Poachers’ Code into the underside of a shelf in Daniela’s closet.

  They took turns scooting on their backs into the closet and wrote the words on the underside of the lowest shelf. Using the same knife they’d sliced their thumbs with hours earlier, they etched over the penciled letters.

  Flakes of white paint and slivers of pine peppered Cadie’s curls. She closed her eyes and ran her fingers over the lettering, trying to read the words by touch.

  “Move over. Let me in.” Daniela tapped on Cadie’s knee.

  As Cadie rolled on her side to make room for Daniela, a Bicknell’s thrush song curled through the woods and drifted through the window to nestle into Cadie’s chest. The resonance swelled with vibrations that tingled in her fingertips and cheeks. Wriggling up until she was even with Cadie’s face, Daniela put her hand in the small space between their heads and The Poachers’ Code on the shelf above them. Cadie raised her hand to meet Daniela’s. They laced their fingers together and squeezed until it hurt.

  The Poachers’ Code

  Keep one foot in the water.

  Never take all the berries.

  Don’t kill bugs.

  No witnesses.

  Be kind to people who eat our berries.

  No evidence.

  Don’t throw a rock if you can’t see the target.

  Lake water heals anything.

  No matches in the woods.

  Never tell.

  11

  PRESENT DAY

  Cadie stood in the police station parking lot and allowed Daniela’s accusation to gnaw at her. You’ve never had one damn thing to lose. Maybe Cadie didn’t have a child, a home, or a stable job. But she had everything to lose.

  She pulled her research samples out of her car and slammed the door.

  Carrying a box full of dead insects felt silly, unimportant, as Cadie made her way from the police station parking lot to the post office so she could mail the package to Thea. The dead bodies rustled in their envelopes as she shifted her grip.

  A day earlier, her research had been the only thing that mattered to her. Now, her past felt more urgent—and more dangerous—than her future. The mythology of the Summer Kid had assumed a misty sepia in her mind, which often made her question her memory. Encountering Garrett Tierney confirmed all the things she longed to unremember.

  He had survived, which dulled the edge of guilt she had been carrying. But his reemergence introduced more problems. Did Garrett take the gun? If he did, why hadn’t he told them? And if hadn’t taken it, then who did?

  It could have been any August day from Cadie’s childhood. Three men leaned on the railing outside Garcia’s Hardware, talking, spitting. A cracked cinderblock propped the post office door open, as it always had.

  The post office smelled like her high school yearbook room. Adhesive, ballpoint pens, and expectation. Cadie filled out an overnight label and stuffed the box with crumpled-up newspaper from the recycling bin to protect her samples.

  Human Remains Found Near Silas Creek read the banner headline from the morning paper. Cadie smashed the words into a tight ball, then unwound the story. The remains had not been identified. Speculation about a young farm worker who had disappeared decades earlier. A mention that police had questioned Raúl Garcia, the well-liked hardware store owner, in the young man’s disappearance decades earlier.

  Cadie wadded up the news story, threw it back in a recycling bin, and used sports pages to fill in the gaps between her bark and wood samples, the packets of beetles, and her field notes. Her fingertips ached from days spent prying back pine bark.

  Call me as soon as you get this, she wrote in thick black marker next to the label. The tang of solvent stung her nose as the frayed felt tip squeaked out the words. She pressed down hard to seal the adhesive and held her hands in place, praying that her report would be enough to convince Thea, even though she had been trespassing when she collected samples.

  “Whatcha got in there? The answer to world peace?” The postal worker tapped her pink fingernails on the counter, waiting for Cadie to let go of the package.

  “Sorry.” Cadie started to hand over the box but paused. “Are there any same-day courier services around here?”

  “Where to?”

  “Concord.”

  “For a hundred bucks, my son’ll drive it there right now.” She thumbed toward a skinny twenty-something sitting in a lawn chair outside. “He’s out of work and could use the money. You got cash?”

  “It’s important.” Cadie looked at the man, long hair pulled up in a knot on top of his head, drinking bottled organic iced tea.

  “It’ll get there or I’ll kick his ass,” the woman said.

  Cadie exchanged phone numbers with the man, gave him the address, and left. As soon as she saw him pull out of the parking lot, she regretted her decision. She should have driven it herself. Nothing prevented him from taking off with her money and dumping the package by the side of the road.

  She looked back inside at his mother behind the counter. The woman smiled and waved, flashing her pink nails. The makeshift courier’s beat-up Honda disappeared over a rise in the road, carrying Cadie’s future with it.

  Cadie walked past the newly constructed Dunkin’ Donuts in the place where a sandwich shop once stood. The bright pink-and-orange logo stood out like a gaudy bauble against the other sleepy storefronts on Main Street. Cadie felt an unexpected flicker of anger at the audacity of the colors and the smell of mass-produced pastries.

  Three firefighters sat in lawn chairs in front of the fire station next to a life-sized Smokey Bear carved out of a tree trunk. The day her Girl Scout troop finished their Fire Safety badge, they had posed for a photo with the bear. A placard hung around the statue’s neck reading Fire hazard extremely high. Cadie looked over the treetops toward the mountains to the west. To another eye the green-gray smear might look like smog or a low-hanging storm cloud, but Cadie knew better.

  “Holy shit, it’s Cadie Kessler,” called a firefighter named Ryan, who Cadie had gone to middle school with. “Haven’t seen you around here in years.”

  Cadie waved, then turned her gaze back to the smudge of smoke on the horizon.

  “I saw your name on that letter about those beetles. That why you’re here?” he said, following Cadie’s eyes to the horizon. “The chief didn’t want to do it, but I talked him into clearing the firebreaks, like you recommended. You were the smartest girl in class. I figured it would be stupid to ignore you.”

  Cadie walked toward Ryan. The paint on Smokey’s blue jeans had peeled off in strips, making the weathered figure itself look like a fire hazard. The three men on the lawn represented a full third of Maple Crest’s paid fire department.

  “Have you noticed pine trees dying around here, the needles turning rusty orange?”

  “No. But there’s a drought,” said an older firefighter sitting next to Ryan.

  “Yeah. I heard.” Cadie fought the urge to add dipshit under her breath. “There’s this beetle, I’ve been seeing it up in higher elevations. It’s killing off the pines. It’s adding more dry wood, and in this drought—”

  “We’re keeping an eye on it,” Ryan said. “Don’t worry.”

  “The state might start thinning affected pines.” Cadie tried to sound confide
nt in her wishful thinking. “I can help tag them, if you’ve seen any.”

  “You seen any killer beetles?” the older man asked Ryan.

  “I’m being serious,” Cadie said. “You haven’t noticed any pines turning orange? There’s already so much dry wood.”

  “Thanks for the tip,” the older man said, and winked at Cadie as a group of men in work clothes passed by on the sidewalk, talking in Spanish and laughing.

  “Maybe you’re looking for the wrong invasive species,” one of the other firefighters said, eliciting laughs from his coworkers.

  Cadie paused, unsure if she had heard him correctly. She didn’t want to be there. She should be in the woods, or in the lab. She should be writing up her findings. Not there. Not in this town where decades of decay hid under freshly painted clapboard.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” she said to the man, who looked to be her father’s age.

  The firefighter stood up and took a step forward. Cadie recognized him as Chester Talbot, one of the Talbot brothers who owned and operated Talbot’s Sugarhouse, a small maple farm on the edge of town.

  “Cadie, back off. He’s kidding.” Ryan stepped between them.

  “Good thing Canadians are more evolved than you.” Cadie glared at Chester.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Your maples are creeping north as the temperatures increase. If you want to keep making syrup, your family’ll be the invasive species in Canada soon, following the maples.”

  “My family’s been tapping New Hampshire maples for generations.” Chester mopped his brow with a bandana folded in a perfect square. “We aren’t going anywhere.”

  “Sugar maples are pretty particular. Time-lapsed maps show they’re edging farther north at a fast clip. Some models predict there won’t be any left in New Hampshire in fifty years. That’s if the forest fires don’t kill them first.”

  “Good grief.” Chester swatted his arm at Cadie. “A couple hot summers and you kids run around like the world’s going to end.”

  “We’re monitoring the fires,” Ryan said. “Besides, you know what we call a few extra fires? Job security.”

  Chester and the other firefighter laughed.

  “You’re hilarious.” Cadie turned her back on the men and walked away. Ryan followed.

  “I’m sorry about those guys. They’re just messing around,” he said.

  “Maybe they should stop spouting racist crap and do something productive, like get ahead of the fires.”

  “Don’t stress about the fires. We got an update thirty minutes ago.”

  “And?”

  “Six hot spots reported today, but they’re all under control. None near us. We’ve been through dry spells before.”

  Cadie sped up, wishing Ryan would go back to his lawn chair.

  “You staying in town long?” Ryan stopped walking, but didn’t turn back. “A bunch of us are shooting pool at the Deer Park tomorrow if you’re around.”

  “I don’t think so.” Cadie continued toward the diner.

  “Cadie, wait.” Ryan ran to catch up. “You can see some browning pines up the east face of Crier Hill, behind the police station.” Ryan shoved his hands in his pockets. When he smiled, his mouth turned down in the corners, making it hard to tell if he was being sincere or smug. “Is that what you’re looking for? Are these bugs for real?”

  “Why would I make that up? Of course they’re real. It’s the same beetle that devastated Colorado and caused some of the biggest fires in decades.”

  “Check Crier Hill. If I notice anything else, I’ll let you know.”

  “Thanks.”

  “How do I get in touch with you?” Ryan pulled his cell phone out. “Give me your number.”

  Cadie typed her information into Ryan’s phone.

  Ryan turned back toward the firehouse and shouted, “I told you she’d give me her number. Women can’t resist me.”

  Cadie turned her back on Ryan and raised a hand with her middle finger extended.

  “See you at the Deer Park,” Ryan called after her.

  When her family left Maple Crest and moved to Boston her eighth-grade year, Cadie couldn’t get out fast enough. The paved streets of Boston drowned out the noise in her head that the quiet of the forest amplified.

  But the forest always pulled her back. College in Colorado lured her to forestry, entomology, and the chatter that happened in the dark, under the soil in the woods. She belonged among the trees.

  But the trees in Maple Crest were different than anywhere else. Despite her longing to hate her hometown, the particular flavor of her lake water and the smell of decaying leaves specific to the area surrounding the cottage always drew her in with a comfort that teased her like a drug she knew she shouldn’t take. Every forest has a personality. Although similar to the mountains in New England, the Colorado woods did not speak to Cadie. While working on her dissertation, she spent weeks hiking and camping out west. With her ear pressed against stone, her hands flattened against the soil, she waited for the subtle vibrations that rose from the earth. But they never came. She, and all the molecules that coursed through her body, had been fine-tuned to the frequency of the granite in New Hampshire.

  She’d shared her theory over a joint under a wide-open Colorado sky with a fellow doctoral candidate. Three shooting stars slashed the sky as they smoked, but her wish had not come true. In the morning, her friend laughed at her drug-induced pontifications, and from then on, she had kept the theory to herself. The low-grade vibrations in her bones eventually drew her back east where her desires synched with the needs of the soil and stone of New Hampshire.

  She looked over her shoulder at the firefighters laughing in their lawn chairs. Ryan slunk into his seat, just as he always had, just as he always would, with a comfort in his own skin and hometown that Cadie could never capture.

  12

  THAT SUMMER

  Garrett’s lawn chair sat empty on the end of the pier as Cadie and Daniela rounded the point. Frayed strands of the nylon seat flapped in the unsteady breeze. Cadie looked over her shoulder at Daniela, who shrugged and continued paddling.

  “I’ll leave the berries and the book real quick,” Cadie said. He always sat in his chair at this time every day. Cadie scanned the shore, the house, but didn’t see him.

  “He said not to stop unless we saw him on the pier.”

  “I’ll be quick.” Cadie paddled hard toward the ledge.

  “I know what you’re doing.” A lopsided smirk spread across Daniela’s face. “You want to leave the berries for him so you’ll be bound to him forever.”

  Cadie’s ears flared with heat.

  “I do not. I just thought it would be nice. And he needs a new book.”

  “Sure.” Daniela whistled to the tune of “Cadie and Garrett sitting in a tree” while eyeing Cadie. “I didn’t know a person’s neck could turn so red.”

  They pulled the boat up onto the sand and Cadie climbed out with the bag of berries between her teeth and The Call of the Wild tucked in the waistband of her shorts.

  Daniela made kissing noises at Cadie as she climbed.

  Footsteps and two voices approached the top of the wall right before Cadie reached up to put the book on the regular spot. Cadie froze. Daniela beckoned her to come down, but Cadie couldn’t move. She wrapped a tree root around her wrist to hold herself steady and pressed her body against the rough stone, trying to become invisible.

  “So this is my fault?” a man, probably Garrett’s uncle, said. “I was trying to get back your fifty dollars that guy stole.”

  “I never asked you to do that,” a second voice with a thick accent answered. “If they catch you, I got nothing to do with this.”

  “He’s a racist bastard. He can’t just steal your money,” the uncle said. “That guy sits on his white ass all day while you work hard. He can’t just steal your fucking money.”

  “That’s all nice and shit, but I don’t have rights in this coun
try.” His long, feathery s-s-s sounds layered under the accent reminded Cadie of Juan, the man Daniela shared a secret handshake with. Daniela’s eyes widened as she recognized his voice too.

  “I know.” The uncle paused for a few seconds. “That’s why I tried to help you.”

  They were so close Cadie could feel their footsteps above her.

  No one ever looked out for Cadie when she got picked on. No one stepped in on her behalf when the eighth-grade boys called her Little Orphan Annie because of her hair. Maybe the uncle wasn’t as mean as Garrett claimed.

  “Help me? You shot the guy,” Juan said.

  Cadie’s knees locked. Her wrist curled tight around the slippery bark of the tree root, which cut into her skin. Her elbow cramped from holding her body tight to the rock.

  The footsteps moved closer to the edge.

  “Look, I know you didn’t mean to, but, man, you still shot the guy. Don’t get me involved. I wasn’t even there.”

  “Why do you have a gun?” A third, smaller voice came from farther away. Garrett’s voice. “Who’d you shoot?”

  When no one answered, Garrett yelled, “Who did you shoot? They’re not sending me back to that place if you get arrested. I won’t go.”

  Cadie clenched her jaw on the plastic of the Ziploc bag of berries clamped between her teeth. The plastic started to tear, but she didn’t have a free hand to grab it. She sucked a corner of the bag farther into her mouth and held on. A drip of berry juice seeped through the torn bag, quickly turning from sweet to acidic before it hit the back of her tongue.

  “Tell him, tell him he should go to the police,” Juan said. Waves nudged the rowboat off the sandy perch below Cadie. To pull the boat back onto the sand would make too much noise. Cadie watched the boat with Daniela inside slip away from the shore out of sight from the men on the ledge. With small, slow strokes, Daniela guided the boat to hide behind a cluster of boulders just off the shoreline. Daniela disappeared from view.

  Cadie was alone.

  “Get back in the house. Anyone finds out and you’ll go right back to that foster guy. You want him to break your other arm? You want one more concussion?” Garrett’s uncle paused.