by Tara Goedjen
Cage swore aloud. He’d taken the book from Mae hoping it would help him remember, but it was only making him more confused. The book felt hot to the touch and then his whole body felt hot, almost feverish. His hands—they were dirty, full of soot or maybe it was grease, and he was slick with sweat. Water, he was craving water.
He looked up at the stretch of sand, the hulking dock where they’d found her body almost a year ago, if he believed her sister. To him, it felt like he’d been here a few days ago taking out the sailboat with Ro. That was the last thing he remembered doing with her. The dock and the fight, and then the crash…
“Ro,” he said aloud, because he couldn’t help it.
A rustling came from behind him and Cage jerked, stared into the woods. Nothing was there. Another wave of heat hit him. He was sweating, dripping on the book. It looked like it might storm soon—no one would be at this beach for a while. He could cool down in the bay and then read some more. He set the book on the log and took off his stolen boots, his jeans. The air felt good against his bare skin, and the pebbly sand was rough under his feet as he walked to the dock, all the way down to the water.
Home is the sailor, home from sea. Remembering what Ro used to say sent a chill through him. He knew she’d be grinning at him if she could read his mind right now, and maybe she was. Who knew what came after death, where you went. Preachers said heaven, old folk said haints, and some said nothing came after. He thought of his friend back in Ohio who’d touched an electric fence over summer break and died. Their neighbor in New Orleans, dead for a week before anyone found him. His uncle’s wife, killed slow by cancer. Maybe they were all still here somehow. If there was a choice to stick around, Ro would take it. She wasn’t the type to give up easy.
A little wave rushed at his feet, the foam hissing and bubbling and cold on his skin. Cage strode out into the bay, shivering as the cool wet edged up his thighs. It should’ve been warmer this time of year. He was freezing, but he kept going, his jaw tight, his hands tucked under his armpits.
When the water reached his stomach, he dunked himself under like an evangelist being saved. The coldness rushed over him, his ears, his mouth, his eyes, everything. He lifted his head up, taking in a monster breath before going under again. It was ice to his head, and his pulse thrummed in his ears. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. He could hear his heart beating, the blood running through his veins.
Keeping himself down, he let the coolness prickle over him. Then he surfaced with a gasp, splashed under his arms, rubbed at his buzz cut gone feral, gargled a mouthful of gritty salt water. He waded toward the dock before he lost all feeling in his legs. The water was so cold it was fiery. It streamed down him as he made his way back to shore, his limbs stiff. And then, just as he was striding onto the beach, he saw it—a smear of blood in the sand. It flashed at him and was gone, and he yelled out, lunging from the water.
Ro was found right here by the dock, that was what Mae had told him. If he kept tracing his steps, maybe he’d remember. It had to come back to him, all of it, not just flashes.
Cage braced himself against one of the pilings and thought of that day, what had happened in this very place. Ro’d been shouting at him, but what else? He slammed the back of his head against the wood and got nothing but pain. He was shivering now; he needed clothes.
Home is the sailor, home from sea. His heart was pounding so hard he couldn’t breathe. And the hunter home from the hill.
Overhead a flock of gulls shrieked and then settled on the sand nearby, huddling around a dead fish. When they all turned their beaks at once, he followed their gaze.
Someone was coming out of the woods.
Cage ducked around the piling, flattening himself against it. He took a breath and peered out. It was a man with a fishing rod, and he was standing near the dirt access road. The fisherman stepped onto the sand, looked down the beach. Cage stayed flush against the piling and tried to quiet his breathing. No shout came, but everything inside him was tense. Being naked made it worse. Like those nightmares where he was stuck at school without a scrap of clothes and everyone was laughing. He needed to get to the trees, get back to his clothes, grab the book and run.
He heard the squeaking sound of footprints on sand, followed by a thud on the dock. The boards creaked overhead as the steps grew louder and then stopped directly above him.
Next came the metallic whir of a lighter being flicked, the stench of cigarette smoke. After a minute, the fisherman started to whistle. It was an old tune, one that Ro used to hum. Cage peered up through the slats, his heart pounding.
Sonny Cole was right above him.
He was crouched on one knee, jabbing cut bait through a hook. The long brown ponytail under his cap was impossible to miss. Cage pressed himself against the piling, hoped Ro’s dad wouldn’t look down. He knew Sonny kept a pistol in his tackle box.
Don’t move, don’t. His breath was so loud, he was sure it’d give him away.
And then Sonny shouted.
Cage stiffened, his heart in his throat. But Sonny wasn’t looking down at him, aiming true. He was facing the woods.
More footsteps now, someone’s heavy tread through the sand. Cage thought at first it might be the old man—Ro’s grandfather and Sonny used to fish together—but instead a younger voice called out a greeting, swung down some lawn chairs on the dock. “Thought you’d come out here.”
“Where’s your dad?” Sonny sounded gruff, just how Cage remembered him.
“Saw him on the way over from your place. He spilled coffee on himself in the truck. Went back home for jeans and another drink.”
Cage’s fists tightened. Lance Childers was above him. He was trapped here under the dock until the two of them went farther out or left altogether. Being late afternoon, they’d probably be onto the trout, given the flooding tide. Once they got stuck into it, he’d have to move—fast.
“He better not bring that dog with him,” Sonny said. A hook jingled on a fishing line, and the boards groaned overhead. Ro’s dad was walking down the dock now. If Lance followed him, Cage could leave without them seeing. He stared through the slats, waiting.
“Good that you’re fishing again.” Lance shifted in his lawn chair and pulled off the hat he was wearing. “You casting or what?”
Sonny grunted. A long minute of quiet stretched out. Cage held still, hearing nothing, and then squinted up through the planks at Sonny. After another minute, he glided the line back overhead and then suddenly whipped it down, the rod snapping in his hands with a loud crack. He dropped the pieces onto the dock before kicking them into the water.
“You okay?” Lance stood up so fast he knocked his chair to the ground. Cage got ready to bolt—here was his chance—but Lance stayed where he was. Then came more footsteps, moving toward him. Cage crouched low as Sonny sank into one of the lawn chairs.
“Can’t do it. Can’t fish anymore.” His voice was raw. “Reminds me of her.”
Another long silence. Should he make a run for it now? Hope to Christ they didn’t see him?
Sonny spat and then cleared his throat. “Tell me about that day.”
Cage went cold at those words, like he was back in that freezing water. That day. He knew exactly what day he meant.
“I already told you,” Lance said. “I don’t think it’d—”
“Why don’t you tell me again.” Sonny sounded strung tight, impatient. “From the beginning.” It was a challenge, or maybe the strain in his voice was from missing his daughter.
Lance let out a sigh. “I found her on the shore,” he said after a minute. “He was bent over her, holding her.”
Cage sucked in a breath—it was him they were talking about. His feet were heavy, welded down, his heart firing in his chest. He couldn’t run now if he wanted to. He was stuck against the piling. He had to hear, had to know.
“Go on.”
“Something didn’t look right,” Lance said. “The way she was just lying there.”
“W
hy’d you show up?”
“I’d come to fish; sometimes Ro and me fished together, you know that.” Lance let out another jagged sigh. “And then I saw him; she was…” He trailed off. “She was lying on the sand. He was trying to hold her, or shake her. I wasn’t sure which, but I shouted out.”
Cage’s body went to stone. One, two, three.
“And he looked up at me, at least I think he did, and then he was running. He just dropped her down on the sand and took off.”
“I’ll kill him,” Sonny swore. “I’ll kill him if he did it.”
He meant it, it was in his voice. Cage kept as silent as he could.
“Don’t blame you,” Lance said, “not for a second.”
“Why didn’t you follow him?”
“Because of her,” Lance said. He coughed. “She was still on the sand. She didn’t move. I went down to the water, and when I got close I saw…” He stopped. “Sir, pardon me, but—”
“Go on.”
“When I got close, I saw the blood. Her head was bleeding. There was blood on her mouth. Her eyes were…” He stopped, seemed to pull it together. “They were all black. That’s when I checked for a pulse. Didn’t feel anything. My phone never works out here—”
“Did you notice anything else?” Sonny shifted in his chair, the metal legs screeching across the wood. “Anything at all?”
“Well,” Lance said, “y’all’s boat was tied up.”
“Show me where.”
Cage heard their footsteps moving farther down the dock and knew he couldn’t wait another second. Go, go, go. Now.
He sprinted across the sand toward the trees, expecting to hear a shout. Every muscle was straining, and he could almost hear it—their yells, their hollering, a clap in the air, the meaty thud of a bullet in his back—but nothing came. He made it to his clothes and then ducked down behind the fallen log. They hadn’t seen him. A shred of luck. He pulled on his shirt and jeans as quick as he could and then dared a glance at the dock. Sonny and Lance were looking at the bay, their backs to the woods.
Cage ran off toward the barn, glad to grow the distance between them. Halfway there he realized what he’d done—
Ro’s book, he’d left it on the log. Christ. He turned and raced back. When the ground got sandier under his feet and he heard the tide, he knew he was close. At a break in the trees he saw the dock. Only one man was still out there, but he couldn’t tell if it was Lance or Sonny.
He slowed down, wary now, going for stealth over speed as he headed toward the fallen log. When he got close to it, he stopped.
Near the branches on the other side was a blond girl. She was standing by the log with her back to him.
Ro?
But she was too small, too young. The girl was holding something in her arms and straightaway he knew what it was. He couldn’t call out to her, but he couldn’t let her take the book either. Grabbing her was a bad idea too. She’d scream and it’d all be over.
The girl turned away from the beach and set off into the trees. He didn’t have any choice but to follow.
She moved slowly, her head bent over the book. She was trying to read as she walked. He kept his distance, stepping from tree to tree as he stalked her.
The girl’s hair was a knotted mess down her back, and she was barefoot. Maybe it was the neighbor kid who lived on the other side of the woods. The one Ro used to babysit. She was related to the cop somehow, had one of those hippie names, he remembered that now. Daisy? Apple? Fern. He’d only met her once, so she probably wouldn’t recognize him—and he needed that book; it wasn’t his to lose. He had to call out to her, ask her for it. That cash he’d taken at the hospital was rolled up in his boot. He’d offer to pay her for it if she didn’t give it to him outright.
“Is that you?” The girl had stopped walking. She was peering into the woods ahead. “You can’t scare me, I know you’re there,” she said, turning suddenly.
Cage crouched behind the trunk of an oak and waited, trying to figure out who she was talking to.
“I’m serious,” she said. “I saw you just then. Don’t try to scare me.”
Maybe she’d spotted him. He chanced a quick look. The girl was still standing there in the woods, staring off to the side at nothing he could see.
“Just come out already.”
He thought about stepping out, asking her for the book, but then—
“Wouldn’t waste my breath scaring you.” It was Lance, walking into view now. “What’s that you got, little cousin?”
Cage pulled back behind the trunk and sank low to the ground.
“Nice, give it here,” Lance said, and then the girl cried out like he’d yanked it from her. “Holy shit, Fern. You found it.” He sounded surprised. “I’ve been looking for this. Know who it belongs to?”
Cage’s chest flared tight and hot. Maybe Ro had shown the book to Lance too. He shook off his jealousy, tried to focus.
“Yeah, it’s mine,” Fern piped up. “Finders, keepers.”
Lance laughed. “I don’t think so.” There was a scuffling sound—the girl was trying to grab it back. “I might let you look at it,” he said. “If you’re lucky.”
Christ, he was going to keep it. Mae would be furious with him.
“You got any of those pills?” Lance asked.
It was a weird thing to ask a kid, and suddenly they were beside him, walking right past the oak, close enough for him to touch. Lance was studying the book’s front cover and didn’t look his way. He could hit him and take it, but the girl would yell.
“Mom skipped her shift,” Fern said. “Didn’t bring any home.”
Cage held still, unsure of what to do. And then something strange happened. Fern looked over her shoulder. Her eyes landed on him—she was staring straight at him, he could’ve sworn it.
A tightness gripped him as he waited for the girl to call out, get Lance’s attention. Instead she frowned a little and then turned back, kept walking.
As though she hadn’t really seen him at all. As though she’d seen through him.
MAE RAN DOWN THE STAIRS and threw open the front door. No one was in the yard—no man standing in a hat, glaring at Blue Gate. No one was at the tree line either, those dark oaks hemming in the house from all sides. A coldness was at her neck as if she was being watched, and when she went inside, locking the door behind her, the foyer felt airless. She couldn’t hear her dad or Lance and Elle either. The house had emptied out while she’d been in the tunnel, and it seemed like she’d returned to some other place, where her family didn’t exist anymore. But when she passed the dining room, she found her granddad asleep in the window seat, his chin resting on his chest and his Bible on his lap.
He nodded awake and waved her over. She hesitated for a moment, thinking again of the attic. What was he hiding about their past? Everything she’d found in the house so far was odd, but the way he’d acted around the book…That was fear. And even when they’d gone through the album earlier he was spooked, on edge. Now his blue eyes looked clear, calmer. He pulled one of the garden’s pink lantanas out of his pocket, presented it to her, and then fumbled for his notepad and scratched out a line.
NOTHING LIKE BEAUTY SLEEP
She put a smile on her face because it would make him happy. “Keep sleeping, then,” she said, and he grinned. It was their joke. With all that had happened last year, he was the only one who tried to keep a sense of humor, who took the time to remind them that he cared, even though they were all missing Ro.
“May I borrow that Bible?” she asked.
His eyebrows rose, and then he pointed at the bookshelf by the table instead of handing her the one beside him. Another edition was on the bottom shelf, next to the old encyclopedias he used to read aloud when they were younger.
“Just want to check something.” It wasn’t a lie, but her face flushed as she turned the thin pages to the right section. Psalms 3:5.
I laid me down, the verse started, and Mae’s eyes locked on th
ose four words. I laid me down. She didn’t have to read the rest to know what it said. She’d seen it before, on Hanna’s grave in the woods.
I laid me down and slept; I awaked,
for the Lord sustained me.
Whoever had chosen the epitaph had also been the artist in the hidden tunnel. Mae shifted, tried to hide her unease. She slid the Bible back onto the shelf, knowing what she had to do. Her granddad shook his head when she asked if he needed anything—he was always worried about being a burden—but she brought him some sweet tea anyway to drink on the porch. She spent the rest of the afternoon searching the house for more hidden tunnels. Elle and Sonny weren’t around to ask questions, and the search kept her mind off meeting Cage at nightfall. But even after checking every closet, and knocking against walls in every bedroom to see if they were hollow, she didn’t find any more secret passages. Blue Gate was hiding them. Or someone was.
—
It was almost dark. Clouds were smothering the sky by the time her dad had left the house to go drink with Childers, Elle leaving right after him for a party. Mae steeled herself as she finally made her way toward the woods. Her pocketknife was in her hand, and she’d decided to shove a hammer into her bag, just in case. She turned the knife over, the metal cool on her skin. She wasn’t sure if Cage was innocent, but she knew what she wanted from him—she could feel it all throughout her body, like diving into shocking-cold water. What she wanted from him, what she craved, was the same thing she wanted from Lance. She had to know the truth about what happened with Ro.
The sky seemed even darker when she reached the tree line, and she clenched her bag strap as she started on the trail toward the barn. The woods were thick here, full of tupelo and black gum and cypress. If you didn’t know your way, it was easy to get lost, especially in the fading light, the whole sky moving toward a purplish dusk. It was the color of blood coming to the surface—a bruised color that matched her heart.