Waiting for the Night Song

by Julie Carrick Dalton

  Cadie’s wrist throbbed as she squeezed the tree root tighter. She pressed her cheek against the stone wall to steady herself. Her breath rustled the plastic.

  “Don’t be stupid,” Juan said. “Tell the cops you didn’t mean to do it. The guy’s not hurt so bad.”

  “I’m not going back,” Garrett whimpered.

  “Don’t worry, little man, Juan’s not telling anyone anything, right?”

  “This is messed up,” Juan said. “Just turn yourself in now. Better than getting busted later. I’m out of here. I’m going to go stay with my cousin in Vermont.”

  Gravel crunched and feet shuffled above Cadie’s head. She squeezed her eyes closed.

  “Put that thing down,” Juan said. Everyone stopped moving.

  “Garrett, go inside.” The uncle’s voice remained calm and slow. “Now.”

  “Okay, okay, I won’t say anything,” Juan said. “I don’t know anything. Don’t point that at me.”

  “How do I know you aren’t going to turn me in to protect yourself?” the uncle said.

  Don’t let go. Don’t let go. Don’t let go. Cadie shifted her weight from one foot to the other on the narrow, gravelly perch. She could no longer feel her hand, tangled with the tree root.

  The air above Cadie exploded. The gunshot reverberated in the stone against her cheek. She stared fiercely at the bowing veins in the rock wall and summoned strength from the granite particles coursing through her. Her fingers locked around the tree root. Her muscles stiffened, her joints froze.

  The stench of sulfur stung her sinuses. She swallowed hard to suppress a dry heave.

  Silence. Stretched-out silence. So long and deep Cadie worried they might hear her breathe.

  She looked across the lake but couldn’t see the boat or Daniela.

  She wanted to call out to Garrett. She tried to swallow but her throat tightened and she gagged on the plastic bag and the ooze of smashed blueberries. She tried bending her knees, but her muscles would not respond. If anyone saw her, she wouldn’t be able to escape. She would fall into the lake like a rock and sink to the bottom.

  “You do everything I tell you, got it?” the uncle whispered. “And don’t you fucking cry.”

  Was Garrett crying? Please let Garrett be okay.

  “We’ll be okay.” The uncle’s voice softened. “I’m going to take care of everything. Stay here.” Cadie listened as footsteps trailed off toward the house.

  Her knees hurt where sharp edges of rock pressed into her flesh. She clenched her teeth, tearing the corner of the baggie, which fell against the rock and tumbled into the water with a splash. Cadie held her breath.

  Gravel and sand fell from the ledge above into Cadie’s hair. She looked up, expecting to see Garrett’s uncle pointing a gun at her.

  13

  THAT SUMMER

  Cadie looked up to see Garrett peering down from the rock ledge. He looked back over his shoulder and flicked his wrist with a short jerk.

  “You need to get out of here.” His chin trembled as he spoke. “You can’t talk to anyone about this. I’ll get sent back to that place.”

  “Come with us. You can’t stay with him. He just—” Cadie tried to calm her voice. “He shot someone. I heard everything.”

  “You don’t understand. If he goes to jail, I go to foster care.” Garrett’s bony shoulders curled forward and inward as if he might collapse in on himself. “You can’t say anything. I’ll run away.”

  Cadie’s arms burned from clinging to the tree root. She moved up a step and held on to the top of the ledge, warm from the sun.

  Garrett dropped to all fours so they were almost at eye level. He put his hand on top of hers. “Please help me.” Garrett scooted closer to Cadie, his breath warming her cheek.

  She fought the urge to back away from him.

  He squeezed her hand. Jump. Run. Do something. Garrett’s pulse beat against her skin.

  A surgical scar ran up the inside of his forearm, with round purple scars where pins must have held him together. Cadie shuddered, trying not to imagine the abuse Garrett had endured.

  “I need you to do something. It’s important.” He crawled a few feet backward and returned with a white plastic grocery bag, stretched tight by the weight of its compact but heavy package. “Take this into the middle of the lake where it’s deep, and dump it.”

  He put the bag on the ledge in front of Cadie. Metal clinked against the stone. She picked the bag up. It weighed more than she expected. She dropped the bag back on the ground with a clang.

  “No way.” Her heart thumped wildly.

  “Drop it in the lake. That’s all.” Garrett leaned his head inches from Cadie’s. The smell of fear and sweat and dust swirled around her as he whispered. “Please help me.”

  Garrett had the reddest lips, almost purple against his pale skin.

  Cadie picked up the bag again and wrapped the plastic around the item inside several times. It looked like a shapeless blob.

  “Garrett. Where the hell are you?” his uncle shouted from the driveway.

  Garrett jerked upright and grabbed a fistful of his sweaty hair. “Don’t let him see you. Go!”

  Cadie slid down the rock face, scraping the skin off her knees. She huddled at the bottom of the ledge until she heard Garrett and his uncle climb the porch stairs and slam the door.

  She waded silently into the lake and swam with one arm holding the plastic bag above water, kicking with both legs and pulling with her other arm. The rocks looked so close from shore, but they seemed to get farther away as she swam toward Daniela’s hiding spot.

  The weight of her denim shorts and T-shirt dragged as she pulled forward. Water grass wrapped around her ankles. As she closed the distance between the shore and the rocks, the tip of the rowboat emerged. Daniela’s face peered through a gap in the rocks.

  Daniela crawled to the end of the boat where Cadie climbed in. Daniela put her hands on Cadie’s knees and leaned forward until her forehead rested against Cadie’s; neither of them blinked. Daniela cupped her hand under one of Cadie’s braids to catch the water dripping off.

  Through the opening between the rocks, Cadie watched Garrett walk out to the ledge and crane his neck to look for her. She couldn’t see anyone else on shore. Cadie picked up an oar to push off the rocks, but Daniela grabbed her wrist.

  “Not yet,” Daniela said.

  Through the gap in the rocks, Garrett spotted Cadie. He locked his eyes on her. She lifted a finger to her lips. He mirrored her gesture. Finger to lips. Lips to finger.

  In the distance behind Garrett, a lanky male figure stepped out of the woods. The slight cheekbones, the stringy yellow hair. Clyde, the blond guy from the diner, was Garrett’s uncle.

  Garrett turned away from Cadie and walked toward the house. Clyde put his arm around Garrett’s shoulder, and they disappeared.

  Neither of the girls spoke as they paddled home.

  “Are you going to tell me what happened?” Daniela said as she tied the boat to the birch tree.

  “I don’t know.” Cadie picked at her cuticles. “But if we tell anyone, Garrett will go back to foster care. They broke his arm and burned him. He can’t go back there.”

  “Yeah, well isn’t that better than living with—with him?”

  “We don’t really know what happened anyway. It’s not like we saw anything,” Cadie said. Visions of the frail boy being locked in a basement, whipped, and starved flooded Cadie’s mind as she tried to imagine how foster care could be worse than living with that uncle.

  “But we heard it. Did they hurt Juan?”

  Echoes of the blast resounded in her head. “I promised him I wouldn’t tell the police, but—”

  “No police,” Daniela hissed in a voice that did not sound like her. “We can not go to the police. You aren’t going to tell your parents, are you? Because they’ll definitely call the cops.”

  Cadie shook her head.

  “Are you going to tell me what’s in there?�
�� Daniela pointed to the bag as they tied off the boat at the rock.

  “I didn’t look inside.” Cadie picked at a scrape on her knee. Friar jumped up on Cadie’s thighs, barking and sniffing her as if she hadn’t been home in weeks. Cadie pushed him away.

  “What are you going to do with it?” Daniela said.

  “I don’t know. He told me to throw it in the lake.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “What if we need it for evidence one day?” Cadie let Daniela tie off the boat, although it was usually her job. She cradled the bag and paced. If she tossed the gun in the lake it would be there forever, every time she jumped in the water. Every touch of water to her lips would taste of sulfur and fear.

  “Follow me.” Cadie walked into the woods toward the creek. Daniela did not follow right away. After about twenty paces, Cadie could hear her friend’s reluctant footsteps.

  Friar circled around Cadie’s feet, whining for attention. Cadie shooed him away. Friar fell back and walked in step with Daniela. Mud sucked at Cadie’s feet along the wide-open swath on the bank of the creek. Cadie stopped in front of the beech tree.

  “If we hide it, no one else gets hurt.” Cadie placed the bag on the ground. She pulled a wad of large Ziploc bags from her backpack, the ones she used for berries when the buckets got full. She wrapped the grocery bag as tight as she could and put it in the Ziploc. Then she placed that Ziploc inside another one, and then one more. She pressed out the air and sealed it tight.

  “Why’d you do all that?” Daniela said.

  “We can preserve the evidence. You know, just in case.” The longer she held the bag, the heavier it became. Cadie looked up at the tall beech tree at the edge of the clearing. She had been saving the hiding spot to stash her diary when she was older and had secrets worth hiding. Cadie climbed up the boulder next to the beech. The hollow, shaped like a sideways eye, made a perfect hiding spot, only visible from on top of the boulder.

  She imagined the tree growing around the bag until the hole closed over. In two hundred years maybe the tree would rot, and someone would find the fossilized package and wonder what had happened in those woods all those years ago.

  Daniela handed the bag up to Cadie. She tried not to touch the shape so it wouldn’t imprint on her brain. Maybe she was wrong about what was inside. But as she lowered it, she felt the bumpy texture of the grip panel, the arch of a trigger. She took a deep breath. With slow movements, she lowered it until she hit the bottom of the hole. She covered the bag with bits of broken branches and leaves and willed the tree, the forest, to absorb it.

  The tall trees around her swayed. Cadie pressed her palms flat against the smooth beech bark and closed her eyes. Her wet clothes clung to her body. She stamped her feet to bring circulation into her cold toes.

  They couldn’t leave Garrett with that man. They had to help him. She paced in a circle at the base of the tree. What was she doing? Why should she protect this boy she hardly knew? Her teeth chattered uncontrollably. She closed her eyes. The air in the forest felt thick, gelatinous, as if she were underwater. Underwater where she could hold her breath, and sink deeper and deeper, away from the surface, the woods, the gun. Shafts of light broke through blurry green-gold water and warbled noises slurred in the background.

  “Cadie.” Daniela shook her shoulder. “I’m talking to you. Can you even hear me?”

  “What?” Cadie jerked her eyes open as Daniela’s voice pulled her back into the forest.

  “Stop it.” Daniela grabbed Cadie by the arm and held tight. “You need to get control of yourself.”

  The trees around her rushed into focus. Nothing appeared different, but it somehow felt completely unfamiliar.

  “We need to act normal. Can you act normal?”

  Cadie nodded.

  “We can’t tell, you understand that, right?”

  “What about Juan?”

  “No police.” Daniela’s eyes widened so far, the whites completely encircled her dark irises like a ring on a bull’s eye. “I’m taking you back to my house.” Daniela walked toward her house, but Cadie’s feet felt stuck to the ground, as if she would never again have control over anything, over her limbs or even her mind.

  “Come on. I’ll make you a milkshake.” Daniela let her shoulders droop, softened her glare, and extended a hand to Cadie.

  Cadie followed Daniela through the woods, the gunshot echoing in her head over and over.

  Dolores startled them when they walked into the kitchen.

  “Why are you home?” Daniela said.

  “I’m playing hooky. Your father’s at a meeting in Concord, so I asked Agnes to watch the store for a few hours. I’m going to sit outside and read a book.” Dolores pulled Daniela in for a quick hug. “Don’t tell your father.”

  Daniela stiffened in her mother’s arms and Dolores pulled back. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” Daniela glared at Cadie, warning her to act normal.

  Cadie tried to shove her trembling hands into her shorts pockets, but the wet fabric wouldn’t give, so she clasped her hands behind her back.

  “Girls? What happened?” Dolores fingered Cadie’s shirt. “Why are you wet?”

  “She fell off the pier. It just scared her,” Daniela said. “She’s fine.”

  Cadie clamped her jaw shut.

  “You’re crying.” Dolores touched Cadie’s cheek.

  The gentleness of Dolores’s fingers broke Cadie. She shook her head, although two hot tears slid down her cheeks.

  Dolores looked back at Daniela, who stood stone-faced.

  “There’s this boy,” Cadie said. Garrett needed her.

  “Cadie, don’t.”

  Dolores put her hand up to silence Daniela and nodded at Cadie to continue. “A boy?”

  “Okay, so I pushed her into the water. I’m sorry I pushed you off the pier, Cadie,” Daniela said with sharp, deliberate syllables.

  “He’s in trouble. Someone got shot, maybe.” Cadie felt as if her body had been ripped open and all her secrets spilled out onto the floor. “We were there.”

  “What do you mean shot?” Dolores said.

  “She’s making stuff up. We were making up stories, you know, like we always do. Right, Cadie?” Daniela glared at her.

  “His name’s Garrett and he’s in trouble.” She couldn’t bring herself to look at Daniela as the words tumbled out.

  The phone rang, but Dolores ignored it.

  “Tell her it’s a game.” Daniela pulled hard on Cadie’s arm and turned to her mother. “It’s just a stupid game.”

  “In trouble how? Do you mean shot with a gun?”

  Cadie nodded. “We have to help him.” Cadie felt Daniela’s eyes burning into her.

  The phone stopped ringing, then immediately started again.

  “You’re shaking,” Dolores said to Cadie, and guided her to a seat at the kitchen table.

  Cadie couldn’t quiet her limbs. She clasped her arms across her chest, which made her shoulders shake. Dolores pulled one of Raúl’s jackets from a hook and wrapped it around Cadie. Dolores beckoned Daniela to join them at the table, but Daniela did not move.

  As soon as the phone stopped ringing it started for a third time. Dolores sighed and picked up the receiver.

  “He’s not home. Can you call back later?”

  Daniela squinted fiercely at Cadie and pressed her body into the far corner of the kitchen. Cadie watched Daniela’s chest heave as the anger in her eyes morphed into an icy fear that Cadie felt in her gut, but didn’t quite understand.

  A muffled voice yelled on the other end of the phone, but Cadie couldn’t decipher the words.

  “I don’t know when he’ll be home.”

  Dolores held the phone away from her ear as the caller shouted.

  “Calm down,” Dolores said. “What happened?”

  A muffled ramble of indecipherable syllables poured through the line.

  The caller hung up.

  “There’s an emergency
at the store. I need to go in. We need to finish this conversation, though. I want you to wait here until I get back, both of you.” Dolores did not look at either girl as she spoke. “I don’t want you to talk to anyone else about this.”

  When Dolores put her hand on Cadie’s shoulder, Cadie felt her trembling too. “Not even your parents. I’ll help you when I get home, and we can discuss what happened.”

  Dolores grabbed her keys and paused in the doorway. “I’m sure this is all a misunderstanding. We’ll sort it out as soon as I get things straightened out at the store.”

  Cadie watched Dolores’s car until it disappeared.

  “How could you do that?” Daniela broke the silence in the kitchen. “You swore a blood oath to always keep our secrets. Do you know what happens to people who break blood oaths?”

  Cadie nodded.

  “They’re cursed forever.” Daniela pointed to the door.

  “But your mom said—”

  “I don’t care what she said. I want you to leave.” Daniela narrowed her eyes. “We’re going to tell her you made the whole thing up and you were upset because you fell in the lake. Tell her I pushed you in and you’re mad and that’s why you’re acting so weird.”

  Cadie stood up. Her knees felt unstable and she gripped the edge of the table.

  “You put my entire family in danger.” Daniela’s look of disdain burned Cadie’s skin. “We cannot be witnesses. We cannot be involved. My mother cannot know anything. Do you understand?”

  A wave of nausea rose up and Cadie ran for the door. She sprinted through the woods toward her house. Branches whipped across her thighs and her face. Tears clouded her vision and she caught her toe on a root. She landed prone on the path with her arms stretched out. The thud to her chest knocked the wind out of her.

  She couldn’t go home. If her parents saw her they would know something was wrong, and she didn’t trust herself not to tell them everything. She lay on her stomach and swallowed down the dirt that had kicked up on her face when she fell.

  Her fear bubbled into anger. Daniela wasn’t the only person who needed protecting. Someone had to look out for Garrett.