Between the Spark and the Burn

by April Genevieve Tucholke

  Finch, whose red hair was touching my blond on one side, and Canto’s black on the other.

  Snowflakes started falling. Big fat ones. I turned my palms over to face the sky, and the flakes fell on my skin and melted at my touch.

  Neely started laughing at something Canto said. His face in the firelight was tired. I wondered if anyone else had noticed how tired he looked all of a sudden.

  We had kissed the night before, we had, it hadn’t been a dream, River’s brother, me, it was real. Neely had laughed and done it again and my stomach had melted right down to my toes, just as the snowflakes were melting on my fingertips.

  River threw the rest of his fish into the fire and then looked right through me toward the trees. The glint was gone and his eyes were odd and dull and nothing else.

  I glanced over at Neely, sitting on the other side of Canto, telling her one of his rich-boy stories, a grin shining under his tired eyes.

  Finch reached out his hand and set it on my open palm, nestling his thumb up next to mine. And my anger started settling back down, right back down.

  “Are you all right?” I asked him. We were all so focused on River that it was easy to forget Finch had died the night before. “Finch, are you sure you’re all right? You still look too pale.”

  Finch nodded, once, as cool as ever. His red hair had started shining again. Or maybe it just looked that way in the firelight.

  I slid my hand out of his and got to my feet. I readied the moka pot and set it near the fire, and in a few minutes it was rattling and steaming. River sniffed the air and seemed to perk up a bit. His eyes started sparkling again and his shoulders straightened.

  “Is that espresso?” he asked. The glint was back, just like that, and the smile too, that damn crooked smile.

  “Yes, River,” I said.

  “I haven’t had coffee in a long, long time.”

  I poured the joe into one of the blue tin camping cups we’d brought along and then handed it to him. He took a sip, and then sighed.

  “I smell like salt. And the sea.” River took another sip. “Why the hell do I smell like the sea, Vi?”

  “You used to be a sea king on a North Carolina island,” I said. I poured myself a mug of coffee too, and drank. “You lived in a hut and slept on fishing nets and tried to drown a red-haired forest boy as a sacrifice. Do you remember?”

  River didn’t answer.

  Later, Neely turned on the radio in the car and we listened to Wide-Eyed Theo. He talked about the same mountain town in Colorado again, the one we were heading to, but this time he focused on the rumor of “a Highlander hung up dead in a tree.” At the very end, he mentioned that the town was still looking for the red-haired girl that stole the children.

  A bad feeling started blossoming across my stomach. Queasy. Deep.

  What if we finally find Brodie in Colorado, Freddie? Or another Redding half sibling, just as mad? What will we do?

  The thought scared me so much I felt sick. So I stopped thinking about it.

  I gave Finch the rest of my mug, and put the moka pot in the snow to cool so I could brew another round.

  River drank the rest of his joe in one long swallow. He leaned toward me, smooth, his too-long hair falling across his forehead. His arms snapped out and wrapped around my waist. He pulled me into his lap.

  My body folded into his like it had a mind of its own, my hip into the curve of his elbow, my face into his neck, my cold nose into the warmth of his bruised chin.

  “Violet,” he whispered into the top of my head, “would you sleep next to me tonight?” He kissed my temple, slow and soft, and I didn’t stop him. “I keep having the nightmares. They won’t leave me alone. Night after night.” He put his hand on my wool-skirted knee, and then a little higher, his thumb moving in a small arc across my thigh. “Sometimes I dream that I’m using my glow on people and hurting them and I can’t seem to stop. I just can’t stop. Would you please sleep next to me, like old times?”

  My eyes slid to Neely’s. He was watching us. He met my gaze, blue to blue. He didn’t smile. He didn’t laugh. He didn’t do anything. He just looked at me.

  “Okay, River,” I said.

  The thing was, River needed me.

  I think he needed me.

  I could feel Finch’s eyes, tickling the back of my neck as I slid off River’s lap and went over to the coffeepot and the fire.

  But he didn’t say anything either.

  I glanced again at Neely as I followed River into his tent, and he nodded and gave me one of his big Neely smiles.

  But his eyes were dark and sharp and his hands twitched at his sides.

  ≈≈≈

  River curled up in my arms in the cold just as I had curled up in his, all those nights last summer. And on the one hand it was not at all like I remembered. And on the other hand . . . it was.

  I put my face in River’s hair. He smelled like the sea. Not like leaves and autumn and midnight, but salt and wind and brine. Maybe he always would. He’d lived in that hut for God knew how long, his pores soaking in the ocean scents, his mind soaking in the glow. But the sea was a familiar smell to me, and so I guess I didn’t mind. Maybe I even liked it.

  There were no wolves howling this time, but the wind was doing what it could, blowing through the trees like it was trying to impress somebody, shaking the walls of the tent, and making me shiver in River’s arms.

  “I screwed up, didn’t I,” River said, clear as a bell, long after I thought he’d fallen asleep.

  “Yes,” I whispered back. “Yes, River. You really, really screwed up.”

  And he held me, tight, his lean arms crisscrossing my back and his long brown hair sliding between my blond and it was just like before. I tried to see the wild horses in my head but I couldn’t remember what they looked like and then River’s hands moved under blankets and under clothes and my breath sped up and so did his and suddenly the cold wind couldn’t touch me, I was that warm . . .

  ≈≈≈

  River tossed and turned and cried out in his sleep.

  Nightmares, nightmares.

  I couldn’t help River with his bad dreams this time. Not after what he’d done. Not after all that glow.

  Chapter 18

  March

  Will writes and writes.

  He says he needs me.

  He begs.

  And sometimes I can’t say no. So I don’t.

  He comes back, and it’s the two of us again, like old times, like always. I do whatever he asks, give him whatever he wants. I strip naked in the cemetery and hold him in the dark between the stones. I drink too much gin and lie across the train tracks tempting fate while he smiles at me and tells me I’ll live forever. I lure nosy Shanna Shard to the sea and lead her into the waves, though she never did learn how to swim.

  Those are the things I remember.

  What about the things I don’t?

  I think Will is better. He always seems so much better.

  I’m too happy. I miss the signs.

  Lucas knows about Will and me. And he knows about the painter too. But he says nothing. Not a word.

  I think God is punishing me.

  ≈≈≈

  The next morning the sea king was back.

  “I pushed him beneath the waves,” River said. He wasn’t singing this time, just talking softly. He stared out the window at the snowy scenes passing by, and seemed not to know where he was, or who I was, or anything at all. “I pushed him beneath the waves with little fuss, just like the sea king did before us.”

  I felt hate bubbling up inside me, strong as steaming black coffee.

  Last night, you and me in the tent . . . none of it made any difference, River?

  I moved a few inches over to Finch’s side of the car.

  He and Canto had shared a tent the n
ight before and Canto had been quiet and soft-eyed over our hard-boiled-eggs-and-coffee-breakfast.

  Finch’s hair looked redder.

  Every so often he would lean forward and touch Canto’s curly black hair, softly, gently. Canto would laugh and the tip of her nose would turn pink.

  Finch looked serious and calm and deep and happy.

  I watched them, and kind of shivered with envy for a second, and River stared out the window, and Neely kept his eyes on the road.

  If Neely was thinking about me, and River, and the both of us in the tent the night before . . . he hid it well. He looked slightly up to no good and overall pretty amused with life in general. As always.

  Though he still looked tired. Really damn tired.

  And suddenly I wanted it, all of it, every last bit of it, to disappear. Finch, Canto, River, the car, the road, gone, gone, gone.

  I wanted to be back in the guesthouse, smelling snow in the air, Christmas Eve, Neely stretched out beside me, laughing, not looking tired, not at all.

  I wanted it so much I ached.

  “Just like the sea king did before us,” River repeated, next to me.

  I sighed.

  “You’re not a sea king,” I said, though my eyes were on Finch now, on the way his calloused forest fingers touched Canto’s arm. “You’re just a screwed-up rich boy with a glow.”

  “What’s a glow, damn it?” Canto asked. And then frowned when no one answered.

  River slid his hand onto my knee, and I turned to him, and I thought, Here we go, he’s going to remember, after last night, he’s going to try to shake off his madness, he’s—

  River opened his mouth—

  “The flinchy bastard likes to tease, and you shall sink to the bottom of the seas. We poor sailors are skipping at the top while the citizens fall to their knees. The trees are talking and the lake will freeze, and all our brains will pop and squeeze . . .”

  The River in the tent was not the River sitting next to me now. That River would have glowed up this River and made him slit his own throat.

  When would this madness leave him? How much longer could we all take it?

  “Stop singing,” Canto shouted, her black hair flying as she flipped around, her curves pulling against the seat belt. “I can’t stand listening to it. It makes me feel like screaming. Like crying, and screaming . . .” There were tears in Canto’s eyes, and I wanted to tell her right then, tell her everything, because I knew what it felt like to be glowed up and not remember . . .

  Except it would only make everything worse, so much worse. If Canto remembered Finch drowning, and River making him . . .

  If she thought of the missing Finnfolk boy, and guessed what had happened to him . . .

  No, I couldn’t tell her. I couldn’t.

  But what if she remembers on her own, Freddie? What then?

  Finch leaned forward and said calming, lullaby things to Canto.

  River ignored all of us and kept whisper-singing.

  Neely yanked on the wheel and pulled the car over to the side of the road. He turned around in his seat and stared at his brother. Hard. “Enough with the singing, River. I mean it.”

  River’s voice trailed off. And, after a couple of heartbeats, his eyes cleared, and his posture . . . changed. He stopped sitting straight-backed like a king, hands on his knees. He relaxed into the back of the seat, and his arms and legs went long and lazy, like the old River.

  Neely turned back around and then we were driving again, the car silent.

  After that, River didn’t sing or chant strange sea things or try to take his sweater off or announce that he only ate raw fish and seaweed. Not once.

  Except. Except for the time he leaned toward me and whispered in my ear, “Violet, who are these people?”

  And he was looking at Neely when he said it.

  ≈≈≈

  I’d tried to call the Citizen from a pay phone three times since we left Carollie. But no one answered the first two times and the third time the line had been disconnected.

  If I wasn’t around, no one remembered to pay the phone bill.

  I hoped that was the problem, anyway.

  Please let that be why, Freddie.

  We stopped at a general store in a quiet, sweet town named Spring Green. I called Sunshine’s house from the pay phone. No one answered. I left a message on the machine, saying we were headed to Colorado.

  We couldn’t find a campground, come dusk that night. There was nothing but emptiness and snow and small bunches of strange bent trees that looked as if they were huddling together in the cold. Finally Finch spotted the roof of a building—it was down a neglected side road that was almost hidden by tall pines. We turned in, and drove slowly forward, hoping, hoping, hoping it would be abandoned.

  “Well, it’s no Lashley house,” Neely said as we all climbed out of the car.

  And it wasn’t. It was in bad shape. Peeling white paint and half the roof collapsed and boards missing from the front steps. The few, unbroken windows were thick with dirt and covered with tattered curtains.

  This big farmhouse had a family in it once, Freddie. And rosebushes that blossomed every summer and scruffy dogs running around and lazy firefly nights and evening thunderstorms that shook its walls and made the kids shiver in their beds. What the hell happened between then and now?

  I always wondered that, about abandoned houses.

  Neely went up and tried the door. It was locked, or jammed. He shook it a few times, hoping to dislodge it. The house creaked, and then something big and heavy on the other side of the door hit the ground. The thud was so deep I felt it in my chest, like a heartbeat.

  “You’re going to shake the house down,” River said in his old River voice, clear and sly. “And then where will we sleep?”

  Neely laughed, and shrugged.

  We walked around to the back of the house, and found the family cemetery. Just fourteen gravestones worn to nothing, peeking their heads out of the snow as if too shy to show themselves. We put up our tents between the stones, since it was the only clearing wide enough. Mother Nature was taking the land back and trees hugged the house from all sides.

  “I seem to be spending a lot of my life in cemeteries lately,” I said, to no one in particular. “But I think it suits me.”

  Luke would have yelled at me for saying that. He would have told me to stop being so stupid and odd.

  I missed him, suddenly.

  I was worried about my brother. About the whole Citizen crew. Jack and Sunshine and my parents. I worried about them all the damn time, every damn second I wasn’t worried about Neely. Or River.

  Finch set up my tent in front of two small gravestones that leaned together, as if they were whispering in each other’s ears.

  We’d bought dry firewood and coal and food at the general store and had a supper of red potatoes wrapped in foil with butter and carrots and onions and black pepper and lemon juice and sea salt. Canto called it Hobo Potatoes and cooked it on the rocks near the flames and it was just about the best thing I’d ever tasted. There was an icy-cold stream that ran through the property, and we drank it straight and freezing cold, and then got some more to use for coffee.

  River was quiet. He hadn’t sung since Neely told him to shut up. We all huddled up to the fire, wincing each time the wind blew through the broken-roofed house and made it groan and sigh.

  Finch sat near Canto by the flames. I might have shivered again, watching them. Or maybe it was just the cold. Finch and Canto. The Feisty Island Maid and the Forest Boy. It would make a good story, told by a fire.

  My own story had morphed from the Mysterious Liar and the Lonely Granddaughter into the Mad Sea King and the Red-Haired Orphan Rescuer Who Made Bad Choices.

  Which was the better story?

  Which was the true story?

 
Finch would know. I had a feeling Finch would know . . . not that I could go ask him. Canto’s cheek was pressed up against his shoulder and they were talking quietly to each other.

  I shivered again.

  “I’m so glad you didn’t drown,” I said out loud to Finch, before I knew what I was doing.

  Neely gave me a kind of wide-eyed look but Finch just nodded. “Thank you, Violet,” he said. And then he got up and filled River’s blue cup with espresso from the moka pot.

  River, the boy who had shoved Finch’s head underwater until it killed him.

  “When did you almost drown, Finch?” Canto asked. “Was it when you were a child? You should tell me that story.”

  “I will,” Finch answered, not meeting her eyes. “Someday.”

  “Hey . . . are you Brodie?” River asked. He was staring at Finch’s red hair in the red firelight, the way it shone like a damn red star. “Are you the boy with the knife?”

  We all froze.

  The fire crackled and the wind howled and none of us moved an inch.

  River nodded, still staring at Finch. “If so, then . . . I was right to drown you.”

  Finch and River stared at each other, stared and stared.

  “It’s not him,” I said. “This is Finch, a boy we met in the Appalachian Mountains.”

  River gave Finch one more long look. And then he just shrugged and held out his mug for more coffee.

  Canto’s round face suddenly looked almost . . . mean. “Neely, I don’t think your brother is sick or eccentric. I think he’s fucking with us.”

  Neely laughed. “Could be, Canto. Could be.”

  Canto didn’t laugh with him. She opened her mouth—

  “Let it go,” Neely said, and he wasn’t laughing now. Not at all. “Let it go.”

  She did.

  A raven cawed. I looked up and saw him on the roof of the house, black outline against the black night sky, waiting for us to disappear so he could have at the scraps of our supper.

  One of the bigger logs collapsed, and the fire roared up another two feet.

  And I saw it. Neely had another bruise on his face, left cheek now, near his jaw.