The Breathless

by Tara Goedjen

  Like right now. The old witch wipes her eyes when she realizes who’s watching them. She knows who’s listening when Grady shouts Hanna’s name, begging her to rise. But only Pearl sees the return as shadows swirl in the air, swirl and settle overhead.

  A moment later, the new Hanna takes a breath as she looks at Grady from the edge of the trees. Her body smells of smoke and ash and earth. In time it will begin to hurt—the headaches will come first, and then the chest pain, the bruising—but for now she feels strong. She almost feels like her old self. Almost.

  She is Hanna, but not quite. She is different now.

  This new girl turns and walks deeper into the woods, alone, away from the blood that’s soaking into the dirt, the blood that she didn’t ask for. Her heart is searching for her child, who escaped. Her feet are taking her far from Blue Gate.

  And so begins a new life.

  CAGE FELT ON EDGE. HE kept looking over his shoulder, but there was nothing behind him except shadows. The moon lit up the ground enough to see by, his boots crushing over twigs and dead leaves. Even now, he could still feel Mae’s warm hand holding his. Her brown eyes, that thick hair of hers twisted back. She’d said in the cemetery that she felt close to him, more than anyone else. And as much as he’d wanted to hear it, and admit that she was the only real friend he had, he knew what she was saying came from missing Ro. The truth was, everything that had happened was bigger than them both.

  Cage ducked under a branch, kept heading toward the barn. The smell of rain was in the air, another summer storm on its way. Behind him, the cemetery had been swallowed by trees, and the woods seemed to buckle and pitch with the wind. He hunched his shoulders and went straight into it, the way a sailboat couldn’t.

  He’d promised to meet her tomorrow but it’d be better for them both if he didn’t. He didn’t belong here, not really. He felt aimless—nowhere seemed right, especially not Blue Gate. And then, just like that, he jumped ship, veering off the path to the barn. He charged past leaves and brambles that tore at his skin, dug into his elbows. He could hear his mother, see her pointing at him, saying, Just like your daddy. When you ever gonna finish what you start?

  But Mae deserved better than this. Ro was dead and she wasn’t coming back, and they thought he’d done it. He didn’t have the money for a good lawyer, so it’d be Lance’s word against his. No one would believe him over the cop’s son. Hell, not even his own mother trusted him. He needed to start over somewhere, find work fishing out in Alaska, where the land was so big there’d be room for a new life. Or he’d go down to Mexico—he could get there with no passport. Either way he wouldn’t ask his uncle for help again. Probably best if he and his mother thought him dead like Ro was. Buried in those green leaves, that kudzu weed.

  There was a rightness to it—that they should both be dead to the world. Cage Lucky Shaw and Roxanne Elizabeth Cole, gone together. She’d tell him to go far from here, to stand on his own two feet. He just had to get out of Blue Gate first. The place was tearing his logic to shit. Blue Gate, with all its mossy trees and graves and memories—it was like some drug, making him believe in things that shouldn’t be possible.

  Cage got to the tree line and jumped over the ditch to the dirt road. He’d made his choice. Maybe he’d never had one, just like Ro had known what she was looking at when he’d given her the ring. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and followed the tire tracks toward the highway. A few minutes later he saw a clearing. A truck was parked there, a big FOR SALE sign taped to its window. It felt like Mexico was calling to him. The truck would take him there.

  He halted, staring at it. He wasn’t close enough to see in the cab, and someone might be in it. He couldn’t let his guard down now, not when he was on his way out. That was when it always happened—when you thought you were out clean.

  He stepped off the dirt road and into the woods, wanting cover as he went around the windshield for a better look. It was slow going. The undergrowth was thick, full of thorns that came up to his knees, and he had to walk around a large tree trunk that’d probably been growing for a hundred years and would shade the earth for a hundred more. When he finally passed the truck, his shoulders relaxed.

  It was empty.

  Finding it here felt like a shred of luck, like Ro was showing him the way out. The money he’d stolen at the hospital was rolled up in his boot. He could leave it under a rock for the owner and take the truck; it couldn’t be worth much. Throw some mud on the plates, spark the starter wire, and go. Simple.

  A blowfly buzzed past his face. Then he saw a few more gathering around the truck bed. In the back was a heavy white cloth, spread out over something bulky. There was the scent of something metallic—blood?

  He took a quick look around. Nothing in sight but the curve in the road and the moonlit trees. He was drawn to the bed, the lumpy shape underneath the cloth, the smell of it. He reached toward the edge of the cloth and tugged.

  The first thing he saw were scales.

  He yanked away the rest of the cover as the stench hit him. The alligator was canted to the side, a smear of dark blood on its body. Next to it was a long black rat snake that he thought was alive before he saw the mangled head. Another blowfly flew at his face and Cage swatted it away, all thoughts of Mexico gone.

  He touched the alligator and its claws scraped the side of the truck—its belly was still warm. Someone had been hunting, just dropped off the kill. He had to get out of here. Now. He was pulling up the cloth when a light swept across him.

  “Hey!”

  Cage whirled, shielded his face to block the brightness. A boot thudded nearby, and then another. “What’s this?” a voice drawled.

  Cage’s throat closed up and he stepped away from the truck. It was that cop—he could tell from how tall he was. The flashlight was pointed at him, scathing his eyes. His hands pressed into fists and he forced himself to stay calm.

  “I’m talking to you, kid,” Childers said, bouncing the flashlight from his face to his chest.

  Say something. But his throat was still clamped up, so he nodded, hoped it looked like a greeting. His mind was scrambling for a way out. Think, Cage, think. He could bolt. Or make up some story about his car breaking down. Or…

  Now that the flashlight wasn’t on his face he could see Childers was wearing camouflage and holding a dog on a chain. It was a big muscly thing, some sort of bulldog mix, and it was showing teeth. He didn’t see a gun on Childers, but swearwords alone hadn’t killed that gator. He needed to talk his way free, get going. Now.

  “I was just gator hunting,” Cage told him. “Can you point me to the highway? Supposed to meet a friend there.”

  “You’re on private property,” Childers said.

  “Sorry, sir.” Cage took another step away, his hands going up, almost automatic. If Childers recognized him, he might just get shot—he knew how it worked.

  “If you were hunting, where’s your gun?”

  Cage didn’t answer, just took another step. He was unarmed, alone, no way to protect himself. They were in the middle of nowhere, and it was dark. Accidents happened. He could die out here and no one would know, not even Mae. If he ran now like he wanted to, he’d get shot for sure.

  “I asked you a question,” Childers said. The dog growled.

  “It’s in the truck with my friend,” Cage told him. “Can you point me to the highway or not?”

  “Haven’t decided yet,” Childers said.

  Cage’s whole body went stiff, and he felt a swell of anger rising. Then came the jingle of keys, and—

  “Hey! Who you talking to?” The shout belonged to Lance, and then Cage heard the spike of a laugh. When he realized it was Sonny, the last bit of hope inside him vanished.

  There were flashlights through the trees, half a football field away. Two minutes, tops, before they saw him. He was pinned in a bad way—a cop and a dog in front, the truck in back, Sonny and Lance heading at him. Nearby some bushes rustled, but he didn’t turn to look,
didn’t dare take his eyes from Childers, who was stepping forward. “What’s your name, anyway?”

  Hell—he was in hell. It felt like someone was sitting on his chest. The flashlight was searing his eyes again, and he struggled to hold back his temper. One. Two. Three. If Sonny saw him, he’d be locked away forever or shot here and now. He braced himself, knowing what was coming. He could taste the fight in his mouth. His fists tightened, ready to swing, to maul. His entire body craved it, had been craving it his whole life—

  And then a voice rang out, high and loud. “Over here!”

  Cage whirled, glimpsed a flash of skin in the brush. Was it Mae? His heart picked up, and a split second later he saw her. That neighbor girl, disappearing around a tree trunk, screaming loud.

  “Help me!”

  Childers bolted toward her, the dog whining, as someone—either Sonny or Lance—shouted out her name, and then there was the sound of them running, crashing through the undergrowth. Cage saw his opening and tore off in the opposite direction, sprinting over rocks and fallen branches as fast as he could go.

  A shout came from behind him and he forced his legs harder, his arms pumping, his chest tight, leaves scraping at his skin as he barreled under branches, dodging tree trunks, running blindly now, deeper and deeper into the woods. He knocked into a tree stump and spun and kept going, ignoring the sting at his shin. His chest was tight and burning, but he kept running until he couldn’t breathe, until he couldn’t feel his legs, and then he stopped and looked back, his lungs heaving for shreds of air.

  There was nothing. No footsteps. Nothing.

  Cage doubled over, tried to catch his breath. He thought he’d heard them behind him, but now he wasn’t sure. Could be they hadn’t noticed he’d gone until it was too late.

  He paced in a circle, needing to slow his breath so he wasn’t gasping so loud. Why had the girl called out like that? She’d done it on purpose. Either that or it was a damn lucky coincidence, had to be. She’d distracted her uncle, Sonny, Lance—she’d saved him.

  His legs felt like putty, and one of his eyes was swollen, scratched by a branch. It stung, his whole body did. From somewhere far off, he heard a peal of laughter. It came again: this time sounding more like a wail, a baby’s cry. It did his head in—it was a warning.

  The sweat on the back of his neck went cold. Up through the dark canopy he saw the broken moon and its icy light shining overhead, and the trees closing him in, corralling him where he didn’t belong.

  Then he heard footsteps tramping through the woods and he knew to run.

  MAE WISHED SHE WAS IN a dream. She stared down at the walnut casket and then shut her eyes so tight there were bursts of color under her lids.

  When she opened them, Sonny had his fists welded together as if praying hard enough to hurt. He’d stayed out all night again, showing up at the house just before the burial. Elle stood next to him, her blond streaks swept back, her chin held high and firm.

  Watching her sister and her dad fight off tears was easier than looking at the casket, or thinking about what she’d tried with Cage in this very place, or remembering what she’d found afterward. Fern’s whisper had been trailing her, haunting her. Initiation, she’d said in the truck. Mae had stayed up all night reading the green book, and that was when she found it—that single, incriminating line.

  More of Ro’s handwriting, next to a sketch of Blue Gate’s woods. That single line had felt like a barb as she read it.

  Initiated Lance on his sixteenth, as declared here. Vow of silence undertaken.

  —RC.

  Mae had stared at it for what seemed like an hour, trying to shake off her jealousy. Ro had chosen Lance over everyone—her and Elle and Cage, and even their granddad, who’d wanted the book kept a secret. It felt like a betrayal. And Lance had deceived her too, he’d let her believe that he was kindhearted when really he was a liar. He’d known what the green book was all along. She could only guess what else he’d lied about.

  All of it felt worse today, and she didn’t want to think about why she was at the cemetery again, so she shut her eyes and thought of that Easter long ago, when she’d followed Ro into the woods. She knew now what Ro had been doing that day—but just before their granddad caught her, someone else had yelled from the trees. Someone else had been there with Ro.

  She drew in a sharp breath, the memory taking shape, Ro’s black door bursting open.

  Lance. It was Lance.

  Mae dug her fingernails into her palms and glanced at Childers, standing solemn beside her dad. Even with his head bowed he loomed over everyone, his big hands folded in front of him. He’d said that one of his foals had gone missing that morning, that Lance was coming to the cemetery with Fern after he checked the fences. Mae dug her nails deeper, the pain helping her focus. If Lance showed his face here, she’d confront him. She wasn’t nervous anymore, she was hungry for it. She wanted him to show up like he was supposed to; she wanted answers.

  “See that?” Childers mumbled to her dad.

  Sonny turned his head, staring off at the woods. Mae’s heart sped up and she scanned the trees past the fence. Was it Cage?

  Beside her, Childers was whispering to Sonny, and her dad’s jaw clenched as he looked back at the casket. Mae followed his gaze, the pastor’s voice like a tide at her ears. The words she’d heard before, at her sister’s funeral, came back. “He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.”

  Elle mouthed along, reading from the program they’d put together, and Mae felt her fingers twitch. She should paint the burial later, preserve every detail. She should focus on her granddad—this moment, before it slipped by—except her mind was veering out of control, her thoughts wild.

  Lance should be here by now, but he wasn’t the only one missing.

  She lifted her eyes past the casket and searched the woods again. All she saw were trees and the darkening sky. Everything had gotten away from her, yanked out of reach. Cage should have met her at the barn this morning. He hadn’t shown, probably because of what she’d said to him. Life was too short to stay quiet, she knew that now. So she’d done it—she’d told him how she felt, that she didn’t want him to leave—but it was just one more thing that had gone wrong. She hadn’t been able to fix anything. She didn’t have a truth about Ro that her dad would believe, and the anniversary of her death was today, which meant she was never coming back. And Mae had been so wrapped up in the green book that she’d let her granddad die alone. She kept playing it out in her mind: How he’d waved to her from the window, wanting her to come up and see him. How she’d ignored him, thinking she could do it later. That was the thing about life—people always assumed there’d be more time. More time to say hello, more time to say I love you. More time to say I’m sorry. Until there wasn’t. Now he was shut inside the casket, his freckled hands across his chest, his cane beside him. She stared at the headstones, the lightning tree, the scattered clouds at the horizon. Anywhere except the casket.

  A warm breeze was in the air, but she shivered. She squinted at the pastor, who was saying how Grady Deacon Cole VI was the last of his name, a legacy that began over a hundred years ago on this very land. The clouds were darker now, and the pastor kept glancing overhead, as if praying it wouldn’t rain. Or maybe he was imagining the upward path of the soul, since no one could say for sure what happened when someone died. Were all thoughts extinguished at the moment of death, or did a person’s memories, feelings, all their dreams, continue to roam the world? Maybe those closest to the dead inherited their desires—like a hand-me-down sweatshirt, an old red car, a ring, a book, a lover.

  The pastor raised his hands. “Grant unto him eternal rest,” he boomed.

  “And let perpetual light shine upon him.” Elle’s voice was loud and fast as she read the response, and Mae glanced down at the program again. The cover had a photo of her granddad as a young man, his blond hair and pale blue eyes shaded by a hat, a little twitch at his mouth like he was trying
not to smile. Inside was the passage her dad had picked—“Requiem,” a Stevenson poem he said was her granddad’s favorite.

  Under the wide and starry sky

  Dig the grave and let me lie:

  Glad did I live and gladly die,

  And I laid me down with a will.

  He must have taught it to Ro, since she’d recite part of it every time she saw Cage. She could see her sister now, a thumb hooked into her pocket as she leaned against the porch, one long leg bent at the knee, foot resting on opposite shin, flamingo-style, that grin as Cage walked up the drive.

  This be the verse you ’grave for me:

  “Here he lies where he longed to be;

  Home is the sailor, home from sea,

  And the hunter home from the hill.”

  Here he lies where he longed to be. It reminded Mae of what her granddad had written in his letter—to let him rest. Her chest was aching. The coffin lurched on its ropes and her dad stepped forward, his hand raised.

  “Now hold up just a minute.”

  Mae turned toward him. The pastor kept his face composed, but Elle and Childers looked as shocked as she was.

  “I brought something,” Sonny continued. He stepped to the edge of the plot and grabbed the memory drawer in the lid of the casket. It creaked on its rails as he slid it open. “His Bible,” he said. “He never goes anywhere without it.” He pulled it out from his suit pocket.

  Mae’s breath caught and she stepped forward without thinking. His Bible. The one always by his side. The one that’d been on his lap when she’d found him in the attic, the letter clutched in his hand. The answers you seek can be found in King James.