by Cyn Balog
He’s the one. Get him.
It wasn’t a boy who said that. It was a young woman. Lannie. She said it to Jack. She made him kill Trey, because of what he witnessed. Because he witnessed this.
Lannie did this.
I pull away from Vi’s hand and I’m shuddering. “Oh my God. It’s Lannie. Lannie is my relation? She’s the one in line to become Mistress of the Waters?”
Vi nods.
“She had Jack kill Trey … and then what?” I ask, but I already know. I hear the sound perfectly—sleesh … sleesh … sleesh—and the next words come to me right away. I did everything you asked of me. That was Jack.
I can see the whole scene so perfectly now. Jack, poor, gangly little Jack, whose pants never fit quite right and who never had any real friends, let alone girlfriends. Lannie was the first girl who’d taken any interest in him. He was easily her servant. I could see him, begging in the moonlight, begging the girl he worshipped for his life. Please don’t. I did everything you asked of me. “But you are not a real man,” Lannie spat at him. “You were going to tell everyone our secret. You couldn’t keep your mouth shut.” And she brought that ax down. She brought it down and killed him, too. I could see the blood coursing over his forehead, his eyes staring up through the tree branches, at the silver moon.
You become what you wanted most when you were alive. Of course. Now I know exactly why I was attracted to Jack. After being humiliated by women all his life, the one thing he wanted was to be adored by them.
“What happened to Lannie? She was caught?”
Vi strings up a pretend noose and makes like she’s hanging herself.
I think of the bruises on Lannie’s neck, of how I found her hanging from trees whenever we played hide-and-seek. All this time, it’s been Lannie. But does it even matter? Whether it’s Lannie or Jack, neither of them can become ruler. And I can’t destroy an entire kingdom over my mistakes. Vi’s right. We need to drag my body back to the Outfitters. We need it to be found.
Chapter Twenty-Two
When I reach for the body, Vi makes a move like she’s going to try to topple me again, but I jump back before she can touch me. “Relax. I’m helping you,” I explain. “Let’s pick it up, though. I’ll take the head.”
I slide my arms under it, trying not to look, but the feeling alone is enough to make me want to throw up. This cannot be happening. My hair is already brittle, and the whole back of my jacket is damp, yet pieces are crumbling off, either mud or dried blood. I steal a look at my face; my eyes are closed, but my mouth is slightly open, and I realize that I don’t look dead, merely asleep. I squeeze my eyes shut and hoist the body up to my waist, and Vi does the same. I wondered why, with all her strength, she was having such a hard time dragging my body, but now I know. I weigh a ton. My clothes are probably waterlogged and my hair must be harboring twenty pounds of mud. It smells like wet leaves. I choke and cough and bury my face in my shoulder so I don’t breathe in the smell as we begin to move toward the building. It’s hidden from view, and though I know it’s not far, after ten steps I feel light-headed. But Vi moves on, a determined look on her face, and so I keep going until the red cedar front of the Outfitters is visible among the trees. Vi must see it, too, because she picks up the pace and I struggle to keep up with her.
We break out of the woods, near the service entry to the building. I’m about to say that this looks like a good place to dump the body when a voice calls, “Stop!” I know who it is before I turn. Trey. At once he’s beside me. He doesn’t touch me, just stares at me long and hard. “What in the Sam Hill do you think you’re doing?”
“What does it look like I’m doing?” I say, not making eye contact. “We’re leaving the body near the Outfitters. So it can be found.”
He opens his mouth to speak, but he’s so furious that all he does is shake. Finally, he takes a breath and exhales slowly, and a Zenlike calm washes over him. “Kiandra. Didn’t we just … That’s a bad idea, and you know it.”
“Oh, and destroying your entire kingdom is a good idea?” I shoot back, putting the body down so roughly that my shirt gets caught on a branch and rips, exposing the strap of my lacy black bra. By the time I realize how stupid it is, I’ve already reached down and made myself more presentable. Like someone finding my dead body would think, Her bra is showing!
He sighs. “This is exactly why I didn’t want to tell you the whole story,” he mutters, running his hands through his hair. “You’re stubborn.”
“Maybe you can, but I would never be able to live knowing my mistake caused pain for so many people. No way. Sorry,” I say, turning my back on him.
But I can feel his eyes staring through me. “I know what this is about,” he says. “Your momma. You think you got to go against everything she tells you, or else you’re afraid you’ll start forgiving her. Maybe she deserves to be forgiven.”
“Enough with worshipping my mom!” I shout, turning back to him. I want to strangle him. “It’s getting really old.”
He looks down at the ground. “About that … I spent a lot of time doing things I shouldn’t have. That’s why my shine is still strong. Your mom should’ve punished me but she let me go. She saved my hide. So call it pathetic if you will.” He shrugs. “I call it honor.”
“I’m sorry about that,” I whisper. “I didn’t mean to call you that.”
He motions me to follow him, and at first I don’t want to leave the body, but I suppose off on this path, not twenty yards from civilization, is a good a place as any. It’s not as if we can parade the body into the front lobby. I rub my hands on my jeans and walk after him, first toward the river, then around, toward the picnic benches outside the Outfitters. It’s busy here. People I’ve never seen before are milling about with serious faces. Some are walking out through the woods. Everyone seems hyperalert. Is this for me?
Trey says to me, very softly, “I know your momma hurt you. If you want to stay mad at her, it’s up to you. You ain’t got to do nothing for her if you don’t want to.”
I’m about to say thank you, to explain that, really, I know I should forgive her, but that I just need time. It’s like spending a decade loving the color blue, only to suddenly realize my favorite color is red—it doesn’t seem real or right to change so soon. But then I notice that he’s staring at something between the trees, something away from the river, toward the road. I follow his gaze and, among the police cars, see a very familiar gray Honda Civic, and that’s when the world stops for me. The first thing I think of is how I spilled chocolate ice cream, speckled with rainbow-colored bits, on the front seat not two hours after he picked the car up from the dealer, and how he laughed and wiped it up and said, “Nice job, Sprinkles.”
My dad.
Trey hitches a thumb toward the man sitting behind the steering wheel, knuckles white. “You can’t undo this decision, Kiandra,” Trey says. “So even if you don’t want to think on your momma, you might want to think on him.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
It’s like the world suddenly shifts, and all the brilliance of this new world fades to darker than the old. In seconds, the allure, the beauty of this place is gone.
I was deluding myself. I’d gotten so good at forcing him out of my mind during the rafting trip—too good. But it’s so easy to commit to something life-altering when you’re not in the presence of the person whose life you’re going to alter the most. And in a blur, every moment I’ve spent with him, no matter how trivial, flashes in front of my eyes, carrying weight it never did before. The same words echo in my ears: You’re my everything. You’re my everything. Suddenly I’m dizzy. Trey notices me losing my balance and props me up before I can slump to the ground, a defeated mass. Just like my father, who, behind the wheel of his Civic, looks so small and alone.
I turn to Vi, but words won’t come out. There’s a crushing, suffocating pain in my chest, like my heart is breaking into a thousand pieces. Finally, something comes, the only thing I can manage. “I�
��m sorry.”
My dad steps out of the car and he’s wearing his trademark wrinkled tweed blazer and L.L.Bean hiking boots. His hair is sticking up, which is a usual thing in the morning before he showers. He has a stack of flyers in his hands; I can see the word MISSING in bright red on top. There’s a picture underneath and I bet with everything I am that it’s the one of me last Christmas, wearing the Santa hat he always forced on me. I look about ten in the picture, which is why he loved it and put it on his desk at school. I’m sure that in the next half hour, half the trees in Forks will have that picture tacked to their trunks.
I turn to Trey. “What do you want me to do?” I ask, ignoring Vi’s expression. She begins to shake her head, first slowly, then building up momentum.
“We got to get that body in the boat,” Trey says. “We got to take it back.” When Trey reaches for the body, Vi moves to block his way. The way she stares at him, she looks seven feet tall.
I whisper to her, “I can’t leave my dad. I’m sorry. I have to go back.”
Her face, marred with dirt, doesn’t change. She crosses her arms in front of her ruffled dress, and despite the ruffles and lace, she looks fierce, like an ancient warrior. I’m surprised that with her strength and bravery, she could be so afraid of someone like her sister, Lannie. Suddenly I realize something. “That’s what you wanted,” I say to Vi, softly at first. “You become the thing that you wanted most in life. When she held you down in the mud, you wanted to be stronger than her. And you are.”
She just stares at me, her face stone.
“And don’t you see? She was in line to become Mistress. You’re her sister. You’re a member of our family. That means that you have the same powers we do. Right?” I turn to Trey. “We can fight her ourselves. Right?”
Trey laughs. “Whoa, cowboy. You ain’t fighting nobody. Not if you want to get home.”
“Okay, but she can, right? She’s more powerful than Lannie, so …”
Vi is shaking her head vehemently.
I stare at her. “What are you saying? I wish you could talk, already.”
Suddenly she begins to choke. She doubles over, but when she straightens, her mouth is clear. And suddenly I don’t wish it anymore, because the next thing that comes out is a whine. “I am not doing that,” she pouts. “Never ever ever.” Then she realizes what she’s done, and grins for half a second before she sneers at me. “Took you long enough, Miss All-Powerful. I’ve been begging you to do that for only a million years or something.”
I step back. “Wait. What just … Did I do that?”
Vi rolls her eyes and wipes the remaining mud from her chin. “For a Mistress, you’re really not that smart.” She leans against a tree, pouting.
Brat. I almost wish I hadn’t done that. Whatever it is I did, which I don’t know. I stare at my hands. Did I do anything with them? No, I clearly remember them being in the pockets of my jacket. All I’d done was say that I wished she could talk. I turn to Trey, confused. “I just say it, and it happens?”
He shakes his head. “We went over this. You don’t even got to say it. You just got to want it.”
Right. I do remember him saying something like that. I’ve wanted so many things, but I never just got them. I try to think of something, but nothing comes to mind.
She shrugs. “Anyway, don’t ask me to do that. To my sister. I can’t fight her.”
“Don’t give her that, little girl. I seen what you can do,” Trey says to her. Then to me he whispers, “Look, she’s eight. She don’t get things like you and I do. Her sister is the only family she knows. She don’t want to be alone.”
She rolls her eyes. “I can hear every word you’re saying!” she shrieks. “You think you know so much because you’re older than me?” She stares at me. “I’ve been around years longer than you. I know a thing or two.”
“Your sister isn’t nice to you. She killed you,” I say.
She looks from Trey to me and crosses her arms. Her face sours.
“Then why were you trying to hide my body?” I ask.
Trey studies her and says, “Because if her sister becomes Mistress, she ain’t gonna be just her sister.” And it makes sense. If her sister can weaken my mother and become Mistress, then she’ll be busy with other things. Vi won’t have her sister. “You afraid of being on your own, is that it?”
Vi doesn’t answer, so I just shake my head. “Right. Her brain’s still eight.”
Trey shrugs. “That don’t mean nothing. No fun being alone, whatever age you are.” He walks in front of the body and stands there, arms crossed. “We’re taking this body across the river, little girl, whether you like it or not. So scram.”
She stares at him, her nostrils flaring with rage. At first I think she’s going to challenge him. Instead, she turns and runs back down the path.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” I say. “She’s going to come back and bring her sister.”
He says, “You forget. This is what they want us to do.” He must realize I’m about to feel guilty again, because he squeezes my hand. “Kiandra. Everything’ll be okay. Now let’s get out of here.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
By the time we get back to the rowboat, the sun, orange and lazy, is sliding down behind the tall pines. Trey’s quiet as he rows across the river. Though we’re facing each other and our knees are only a foot apart, he rows with his head down, never looking at me. I watch the muscles of his arms strain as he rows the boat, which is the only indication he’s working at all. His breath comes slow and steady, and the rowing seems so effortless for him, like he must do it all the time.
Trey exhales and he arches his arms back, and the oars smack against the surface of the water, propelling us forward. “Your boyfriend must be real worried about you.” I can tell the gears in his head are turning, though, because he moves his mouth in about a hundred different ways but no words come out. Finally, he says, “When I was alive I thought I’d have all sorts of time for that kind of thing. Girls, I mean.”
“You didn’t have a girlfriend?” I ask.
“Nah. Not even close.” Trey shrugs. “Thought I’d have the time. But guess we never have as much time as we think we’re going to. Missed out on a lot.”
From the look on his face, a sad, distant longing, it’s obvious he’s thinking of something in particular. “What do you regret the most?”
I think he’s going to say something about his mom. Instead, he gives me a sheepish look. “Well, I ain’t asking for nothing, but I wished I’d kissed a girl.”
I raise my eyebrows. He looks away. I feel heat in my face and he looks over his shoulder, away from me, but I know he’s blushing, too. Talk about awkward. “Is that all?” I finally say.
“Well, maybe if you done it before, ain’t no big deal. But I ain’t, and I had a whole mess of years to think on it. And yeah, it may be a little thing to you, but it’s not when someone’s had that long to think it over.”
“No, I didn’t mean to … I wasn’t making fun of you. I just thought you’d say something else. Something about your mom.”
“Yeah, well. I hate dying in a way that she didn’t know what happened to me, but that wasn’t my doing. But kissing. Hell. I could have done that. I could have kissed the socks off a dozen girls at school. They all gave me looks. I was pretty hot stuff, I should imagine.”
I burst out laughing. “Oh yeah?”
He sticks out his lower lip, then sucks it in. “Well, maybe back then. Maybe girls these days want something else. I don’t know. Girls always kind of befuddled me.”
That word makes me laugh even more. “Befuddled?”
“Yeah. What? That not a word they use these days? Girls are befuddling. With a capital B. It means that one day they like the rain and the next they’re crying about it. They don’t know what they want but they expect you to know it. Be. Fud. Ling.”
“I don’t think girls are befuddling. I think guys are. What’s with the whole wanting-to-be-outdo
ors-in-subzero-temperatures? Cooking on an open fire? Who wants to be at one with nature? I’d rather not be, thank you very much.” I cross my arms over my chest. “I mean, hunting? Fishing? Gross.”
“You used to fish. You never minded holding them wriggling worm bodies in your hands then. You liked getting mussed up. You used to scrape up the fish scales and put them on your thighs and watch the sun dance on them.”
“Yeah, but I …” “Grew up” is on my tongue, but it doesn’t come out, because suddenly I’m transported to that day I met him, on the river outside my house. I didn’t catch a fish then, didn’t hold one in my hands. Sure, I’d caught plenty before, and I was so angry at him for catching so many and letting them go. But how did he know I liked the mess? How did he know what I did with the scales? “You … watched me?”
“You’re the next Mistress. I’m a guide. Of course I watched you. Up till you left. Then I couldn’t watch you no more.”
“Oh, right,” I say, feeling disappointed, though I’m not sure why.
He laughs a little to himself. “You know, the funny thing was, I had a picture of you in my mind, all this time, of what you would look like grown up. And it was right.”
“That’s … Really?” I wonder what I look like to him. I wonder if he’s disappointed that I don’t like to fish anymore.
“Most days I wondered if I’d ever see you again. Thought you were gone for good. But I’m glad I got the chance to before I …” He looks away. “I’m glad I got the chance to.”
He grips the oars tighter, and I realize that there’s something on his mind. Something he’s not telling me. “Before you what?” I ask.
“Ain’t nothing.” And by the way he says it, I know it’s something. Something big.