by Tara Goedjen
Morning sunlight blazed off the antique mirror next to her bed as she rubbed at her eyes. Her room looked older than it did at night, with its warped floorboards and cracks in the walls. The ceiling was also cracked, and painted a light blue with white clouds that were flaking at the edges.
A dream tugged at her memory, but the sun was bleaching it away. The bedside lamp was on—its bulb was hot, she must have fallen asleep without switching it off. When she saw the green book shoved under her pillow, her stomach twisted and it all came rushing back. Yesterday had been both bad and good. Bad because she’d searched for Cage around Blue Gate but hadn’t found him—she’d lost her chance to talk to him about Ro. Worse, she’d let him get away, Elle had reminded her, which made her feel sick. After staying out until dark looking for him, she’d come back to the house and opened the green book, to see if it had any answers. And it did.
Because before she’d died, Ro had written in it. And that was the good thing, the hope Mae was clinging to. She bet that somewhere between the first page and the shredded pages at the back Ro had written something important. Maybe even incriminating. She needed to read more now, but there was still that smell—so sharp and violent it made her eyes water. When she couldn’t stand it anymore, she threw the book into her bag and pulled on a clean T-shirt and jeans, grabbing her Cons on the way out.
In the hallway the smell was stronger, and she coughed as it filled her lungs. What was it? She followed the smell past her dad’s room and down the hallway, the stench the heaviest at the end. She found herself staring at Ro’s door again, at its brass handle, and felt like running away. But she only had to open the door, that was all. Just open it.
She glanced over her shoulder to check that she was alone, then swung the door open and peered inside. For a moment she half expected to see the jewelry box on the floor again. But everything was in place: the bed was still made, the sketches were hanging neatly on the wall near the bookshelf, and the wardrobe was shut, the way she’d left it.
The room seemed normal, except for the smell, which wasn’t in the air so much as it was clinging to everything around her—the furniture, the bedding, the curtains. Gasping now, Mae ran to the window and threw it open. When she turned back, she saw it. A black thread running down the wall and across the floor. It was a steady line of ants, trailing from the windowsill all the way to Ro’s bed.
Mae steeled herself and crossed the room, kneeling to look underneath the bed. It was shadowy and dark, and in the corner a single black eye stared back at her. She jerked her head up, slamming it on the metal frame so hard it stung.
An image came together in her mind. It was a bird, only a bird. She crouched back down and she was right. A red-winged blackbird lay with its wings spread and its claws turned up.
The trail of ants leading to the bright spot on its wing made her want to cry. It must have flown into the room two nights ago, when she’d discovered the window unlatched, Ro’s jewelry scattered across the floor. Mae got up, found an empty shoe box in the wardrobe, and then forced herself back toward the bed. She picked up the bird, feeling its lightness, its soft feathers, and gently set it into the box.
A banging noise came from the hallway, followed by a shuffle of footsteps. She took one last look at Ro’s room before rushing out. Her granddad’s cane was thudding down the hall now, tap tap, tap tap, getting closer to the stairs. She headed after him, putting the shoe box in her room to deal with later. She reached his side just as he turned her way, about to take the first step down the stairs, his Bible tucked under an elbow and his cane in his other hand. His white hair was combed flat, wet around his big ears, and he was wearing his suit, even in this heat.
“I was just,” Mae started, catching her breath, “going down too.”
Her granddad smiled at her with sad eyes. He didn’t put up his usual playful fight about being helped down the staircase, which was too slippery for him, the old walnut worn slick with footfalls. He seemed calmer this morning, but he wouldn’t have forgotten about the green book. He thought it was still on the top shelf of his bookcase, and she needed to keep it that way. She’d find a place to read alone later—somewhere out of sight.
As she guided him down the steps, the portraits on the walls glared at her, especially the seventeen-year-old steeped in shadows: Grady Cole II, his oily blue eyes following her like he wasn’t fooled at all. She’d never been good at lying, but she could usually slip under the radar and go unnoticed. It’d been especially easy with Ro a magnet for any eyes and Elle so loud, fighting for attention. Being quiet meant she could hear more things, see things she might miss otherwise.
Mae clung to her granddad’s forearm as he took the curving staircase. His clawlike hands were too stiff to make fishing lures, but he could still grip his cane, jot his little notes to her. Her eyes watered and she shoved his lack of speech behind the pale white door in her mind, along with his stroke, his cane, his fixation on the Bible. All those things meant he might be dying, and she didn’t know if she could take it. Sometimes she wished she could go back to being a kid, when it seemed that everyone would live forever. When Mae was very young, Ro told her that their mother had never even lived on earth—she’s an angel in heaven, watching over us and keeping us safe forever. But Mae knew now that no one could keep you safe.
“Almost there,” she said on the last step. They crossed the foyer and her granddad’s cane tapped all the way to the kitchen, where Elle was piling dishes in the sink.
“I made breakfast, since you slept in,” Elle told her, bullhorning her voice like she always did around their granddad. For some reason Elle equated aphasia with being deaf, even though Mae had explained it to her. One was a language disorder caused by trauma to the brain—in this case a stroke—and the other involved eardrums.
“Hi, Granddad,” Elle said, loud and slow. “Please help yourself!”
Mae glanced at the table and raised her eyebrows. Four bowls of flaky cereal were drowning in milk next to a carton of fake orange juice. “And you want to start a bed and breakfast.”
“It’s called being busy,” Elle said, flicking dishwater at her.
Mae ducked, and then took a seat as her granddad began eating, her mind slipping back to the green book and what she’d read so far. She couldn’t think of it without remembering Ro’s sixteenth birthday, how her eyes had shut tight until Ro finally gave up on showing her the book. And now she wanted to finish it.
But it would take time. The book was thick, the lettering cramped, trailing from edge to edge or cascading in circular shapes. Besides the raising ritual, there were other spells: some for curses, some for love, so many she hadn’t been able to get through them yet. There were also lists of old-fashioned remedies and what seemed to be haphazard sketches. Notes were scribbled in margins, strange sayings and codes like Chana 4 chana and RC = AC, J = E, H = GCI and Good Deeds for Good.
Throughout the book the handwriting changed several times, sometimes on a single page, though none was Ro’s. And then, just before sleep had caught up with her last night, she found it. Part of a page had been folded over, and when Mae smoothed it out, she discovered her sister’s writing underneath like a treasure. Even now, she could still see Ro’s sharp slashes over the hand-pressed page:
Initiated on sixteenth. Vow of silence. Another attempt unsuccessful.
—RC.
It was too brief, too cryptic. Mae thought about Ro and her games—that was what this had to be. The writing didn’t sound like Ro. It was stilted, a mimicry of all the other pages in the book, as though she’d been trying to lay down her own riddle in ink. Even so, seeing her sister’s handwriting warmed her, like standing next to a fire when you hadn’t realized how cold you were. Now she was even more determined to read the rest, to find out what else was there from Ro and piece it all together.
“Where’s mine?” Fern’s high-pitched voice interrupted Mae’s thoughts. The girl was standing at the kitchen counter, her blond curls tangled over her
Invisible Man T-shirt, the same one she’d been wearing yesterday, and she was digging at her nose.
“Use a tissue,” Elle said.
“What for?” Fern screwed up her face and Mae laughed. Fern didn’t care what others thought. Even at eight, she had one of those old, wizened looks like the fruit sculptures they made in art class as kids: a cooked apple head with golden curls on top.
“Who let you in, anyway?” Elle asked.
Fern claimed a cereal bowl. “Your dad, of course.”
Other voices were coming from the foyer, and a moment later Fern’s uncle appeared in the kitchen, so tall he had to duck through the doorway. Childers was wearing a camouflage shirt over his police uniform, and Mae stiffened.
“You ought to go with us. It’s on your land,” Childers was saying to Sonny. He turned to Mae’s granddad. “Morning, sir.”
“Go where?” Elle called out. Her voice was muffled because she was bent over, twirling her auburn hair into a bun.
Mae gripped her water glass. Elle was eyeing Childers now, and the collar of his uniform that was poking out, and Mae silently started to chant: Don’t tell, don’t tell, don’t tell.
“I was talking about gator season,” Childers said. “You gotta catch ’em at night,” he told Fern, “with big lights and harpoons.”
“I already know that, Uncle Chill-chill,” Fern said, and he gave one of her curls a tug and turned back to Sonny.
“So you game?”
“Ain’t gators I’m looking for,” Sonny said, opening the newspaper he was carrying. His cap shaded his face; it looked like he hadn’t slept in a while.
“What are you looking for, then?” Elle asked. She glanced between him and Childers, and Mae stayed rigid in her seat. Surely Elle wouldn’t say anything.
“Hey there, old Grandpa Cole,” Fern said, yanking on his cuff as she took another bite of cereal.
He stopped slurping his breakfast to pull a cluster of pink lantanas out of his shirt pocket for her. Then he scrawled something on his notepad that made Fern laugh. Mae usually loved his flowers, his little notes, but right now she felt queasy, like she might get sick. If Elle told Childers and her dad about Cage, it would all be over.
Fern leaned in, her blond hair tickling across Mae’s ear. “Your face looks weird,” she whispered. “Lance says that when people look weird it either means one of two things.” Her breath smelled like stale milk. “One, that they are, or two…” Fern paused intensely for a moment, like a preacher in a church. “Or twooo,” she drawled, “that they’re hiding something. Are you hiding something?”
Mae felt her neck flush. “The world is full of secrets,” she said, trying to sound casual as she kept her eyes on Elle. But luckily, her sister seemed to be lost in her own thoughts now, checking her reflection on her phone, and Sonny was already headed into the alcove, Childers trailing him.
“What you got in there?” Fern asked. “It looks ancient.”
Mae whirled, grabbing her canvas bag from the girl’s hands. “One day everything will be ancient,” she said, her fingers fumbling to close the latch.
Fern punched her arm. “Not me. I won’t ever get old. You know what Lance says?”
“What do I say?” Lance’s voice echoed in the foyer, and Mae turned.
He was leaning up against the kitchen doorway, looking carefree and nothing like he used to. Mae tried to keep the shock from her face. After Ro died, Lance had gone away for a study-abroad year and now he was back, looking like a completely new person. His shoulders were broader, it was obvious he’d been working out, and his curly brown hair was shorter, but it was more than that. It was the way he held himself.
“Never you mind,” Fern called out to him.
“Hi, Lance,” Elle said, a smile on her face as she stared his way. She’d mentioned Lance’s “junior year transformation” when she came home from the party last night, but Mae hadn’t believed it until now. He wasn’t just stronger, he was also tan, like he’d been out in the sun all summer. He’d traded his usual black band T-shirt and scowl for a white button-up and an amused grin, and his quiet awkwardness had somehow turned into charm. As Mae stared at him she figured out what was bothering her: this Lance reminded her of how Ro used to act. Waves of confidence were radiating from him, the kind you couldn’t fake.
“I thought you were waiting in the truck?” Fern asked.
“Too hot outside,” Lance said. “Hot in here too,” he added, and winked, his hazel eyes on Mae. She managed a smile and then studied her granddad’s bowl of cereal. It had turned into a lumpy puddle of milk, and she searched for pictures in the floating strands of wheat, hoping Lance would look away. She’d never liked attention, and this new Lance was making her uncomfortable, even though he’d been their neighbor for so long. “Isn’t it, Mayday?” he asked.
She felt an ache in her chest. That had been Ro’s nickname for her. “Tends to be, this time of year,” she said.
He nodded slowly, like her answer was profound. “Anyone up for horseback riding today?” He smiled, flashing dimples. Fern was busy plucking her lantanas, scattering pink petals across the table, and Mae knew Elle was torn—she was scared of horses—but the stricken look on her face meant she wanted to go.
“What, no takers? Who’s up for a swim, then?”
Lance’s eyes didn’t stray from Mae’s as Fern shouted, “Me! Me-me-me!”
Maybe he’d stop staring at her if she gave him an answer. “Later,” Mae said at the same time her sister said yes.
Lance turned to Elle and grinned. “I want to do everything I couldn’t last year. That means warm water, horses, fishing, you name it. L.A. was fun, but it’s no A.L.”
His joke was terrible, but Mae laughed, surprised by it. The Lance she remembered hadn’t made jokes, though she’d never really gotten to know him. Like her, Lance had kept to himself at school, stopping by the house when he could. He never came to see her or Elle—he came for Ro, just like everyone else had. He got up to fish before school like Ro did, went hunting with Sonny and Childers when Ro did, and he always read the same books, worshipped the same horror films and slasher movies. He was the first to stalk her in the school hallways, before all the others, girls and guys alike, and he was the one to find her body on the shore. It hurt knowing that he was there first, when it should have been her, or Elle, or their dad.
Her granddad’s chair screeched across the floorboards and Mae hauled up her bag before Fern got at it again. She took the opportunity to leave by helping him through the kitchen, tap tap, tap tap, while Lance looked on. His hands were in his pockets, jingling his keys, and his curly hair was halfway covering his hazel eyes.
“Good to see you, Mae,” he said as she passed, smiling wide enough to flash his dimples again.
“Welcome back.” She was so unsettled by the change in him that she was glad when her granddad’s cane finally tapped its way into the foyer. “Want to go outside?” she asked.
He squeezed her hand, which meant Thank you and Yes and That’s a good girl, and she felt a fresh wave of guilt for stealing the green book from him. But it had to be done. If it had answers about Ro, she needed to find them.
Mae waited as he sat down in one of the rocking chairs, safe in the shade of the porch. He’d stay there all morning, reading his Bible and petting the black and calico strays that hung around. Those little cats were the reason her granddad kept a bag of kibble in his pocket; the cats would scratch if you tried to take them inside.
“I’m going for a walk,” Mae told him. He waved brightly and she was off, knowing exactly where she could read alone. Her bag bobbed against her hip as she strode into the woods. It was a good day to be outside, but Ro would say that it always was. Quit shutting yourself in your room with your paints. Get out into the world. Everything had been easy for Ro; she hadn’t been afraid of anything new in life—and maybe that was the key.
Mae was now deep in the woods. It was cooler here, the sunlight dappling across the ground. When
she glanced over her shoulder, there was only a sliver of the bluish house and its tall hedge through the trees. Her granddad’s white hair was a tiny splotch, a floating orb next to one of the pillars on the porch.
Instead of veering onto the track toward the beach, she walked farther into the woods, hurrying now. Sometimes it seemed as if the land kept going and going, and being in the middle of the woods like this felt like she was falling back in time to when there wasn’t even a house, when all of it was just trees and swampland and dark blue water.
The turnoff to the Childers place was close enough to smell their stables, that damp scent of manure and hay, but Mae kept straight, skirting patches of mud from the recent rain. After another mile she glimpsed the distant spikes of the wrought-iron gate. The cemetery was a sprawling, shadowy place—the perfect spot to read undisturbed. Trees bordered its fence and rose between headstones and old statues. On the far side was a narrow dirt access road that eventually led to the highway.
Just when she was close enough to see that the cemetery was empty, a deer darted out of the woods in front of her. Mae jumped back, startled. It was a small thing, not much older than a fawn, and as it leaped into a thicket, little dots of red splashed across the grass near her feet. The blood was a shock to see, the way it always was, and without thinking she changed course, following the stippled ground. A drop here on a leaf, another drop there in the mud.
Mae veered around a thick copse of trees, her hair catching on a low branch, tangling up in it. The deer was just ahead, limping away. Blood was oozing from its hind leg, like it’d been shot. She kept after it, weaving through trunks and past a creek that had formed from all the rain.
A small green clearing was ahead, covered in kudzu. Those vines were invasive—they could crop up anywhere—but to swarm like this took at least a year or two. Strange she’d never seen this place before.