Persuasion

by Martina Boone

  “Now is neither the time nor the place for this conversation.” Seven kept his profile to her, his eyes locked on the judge.

  “Is Cassie having migraines because she’s in jail?” Barrie insisted.

  “She’s not in jail yet. She’s in juvenile detention. Now stop. Pay attention.” Seven’s eyes had gone from light green to glacial. He looked hard, the kind of hard that had to come from a lifetime of being pushed, in spite of yourself, to give people all the petty, stupid, senseless things that humans always wanted.

  The set to his jaw, a defensive mulishness, clued Barrie in. “You’re deliberately avoiding the question,” she said, “which means you either know or you suspect and you don’t want to know.” She paused and gathered her thoughts. “The judge said something about the prosecutor wanting to try Cassie for kidnapping. Does that mean what I think it means? Did you manipulate him? Use your gift to read what he wants and use that to your advantage?”

  Seven’s nose flared and his brows snapped together. “You and Eight could both have died in that tunnel.”

  Barrie pulled back. Away from him.

  Stated so baldly, the words conjured the clang of the door and the stench of death that had seeped into the air after all those years that Luke and his fiancée had lain forgotten in the tunnel. Barrie fought to block the memories of the long, awful night and stuff them back into the locked compartment in her mind, where they belonged.

  She hoped Cassie had felt half as terrified in jail as she and Eight had felt in the tunnel, when they’d thought they would die down there and no one would ever find their bodies. Still, Barrie remembered how much the migraines hurt. Remembered what they had done to Lula. Seven had said they’d made people commit suicide to get them to stop.

  “Excuse me.” The judge turned in their direction. “Are we disturbing y’all? Because I wouldn’t want this proceeding to be an inconvenience to you, Mr. Beaufort.”

  “We’re very sorry, Your Honor.” Seven turned a gimlet eye to Barrie, and then looked past her to Eight, who had leaned in closer.

  Barrie swallowed what felt like a throatful of bitterness, and it settled in her stomach, heavy and impossible to digest. Shaking her head at herself, she couldn’t believe what she was about to say.

  She had no choice.

  Leaving Cassie in prison with the same migraines that had made Lula go half-crazy, the kind of migraines that didn’t let up, that was cruel. It amounted to torture.

  If dreams changed a person, as Seven had suggested, then so did cruelty. The sort of person who could turn her back, knowing Cassie would be in pain every day, wasn’t the person Barrie wanted to become. She hated what she was going to say, but she would hate herself more if she didn’t say it.

  “Can I speak, Your Honor?” Her voice came out too soft, and she cleared her throat and scooted forward in her chair to try again. “Is it okay if I ask a question?”

  “Sure, what the hell. Why not?” The judge pushed back the yellow tablet he had in front of him and clicked the end of the pen as he sat back. “What do you have to say, young lady?”

  “If Cassie can make some kind of amends, I think she should get to do that.” Barrie ground to a halt as she felt both Eight and Seven staring at her, but she refused to look at them. She especially couldn’t look at Eight. “I’m not going to make excuses for Cassie, and if the amends can include me never seeing her again, I’d be happy with that. I’d have a hard time living with myself, though, if I thought she was in jail with people who had done a lot worse than lock a door and walk away. I don’t want to be the reason her life is ruined.”

  The judge glanced at Cassie, who had looked up at Barrie with sullen eyes and very little reaction. What he saw didn’t seem to impress him. “That’s very commendable of you,” he said, “but you didn’t make the choices for your cousin.”

  Barrie nodded and held his gaze longer than was strictly comfortable. “I know that, Your Honor.”

  He finally looked away. “What about you, Mr. Beaufort?” he said to Eight. “Is that what you want?”

  Bracing for the betrayal she was going to see written on Eight’s face, Barrie turned with her eyes stinging. For once, she was glad he had his gift to urge him to agree with her. On the other hand, his gift also pushed him to want what Seven wanted. Did that mean Eight would feel pain no matter what he told the judge?

  Eight gripped the armrests of his chair. “I want what Barrie wants,” he said with only a hint of bitterness. “If she wants Cassie to make amends instead of going to jail, then I’ll go along with that.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Barrie and Eight turned into the marina and threaded their way along the narrow labyrinth of floating walkways among the berths, boats, and empty water. It was another of the between places in the world that became addictive to contemplate, ships loaded with hope as they set off to fish or search for adventure, coming back with dreams fulfilled or empty holds. Either way, there was something innately optimistic about the kind of people who were always ready to set out in search of something more.

  There was nothing optimistic, however, in the set of Eight’s profile as his boat shoes and Barrie’s sandals slapped in time along the boards. He had barely looked at her on the long drive back in Seven’s car. When they reached the Away, he helped Barrie into the boat before he threw off the rope and jumped down to head toward the motor.

  “Are you not going to talk to me at all?” Barrie dropped onto the seat beside him and rubbed her aching head.

  “I’m waiting until I figure out what I’m going to say to you,” he said, pulling the cord on the outboard until it sputtered to life. “Or until you can explain to me why the hell you did that. Without even asking me. Without even giving me a heads-up first.” Shading his eyes, he guided the boat cautiously out of the marina and past the no-wake zone before speeding up. Glancing over at her, he shook his head. “And put on your life vest.”

  Barrie kept her center of gravity low as she went to get the vest and slip it over her head. It was odd how things changed. Fears and perspectives. A week ago, she had been terrified of being on the water, but she had come about as close to drowning as a person could get. That wasn’t her biggest fear anymore. She had been terrified of Eight going to California, but that was only a geographical loss. A temporary loss. There were things far harder than geography to overcome.

  Explanations, for example. It wasn’t up to her to explain to Eight that his father had lied to him all his life.

  Eight opened up the motor a bit and steered across the short stretch of ocean that stood between the harbor and the point, guiding the boat past the sandbars where the dark Santisto River emptied into the frothed Atlantic like tea spilling into nonfat milk. The Away hit the top of a wave and slammed down again, jarring Barrie in her seat.

  “The letter that Mark left for me with Lula’s lawyer asked me to choose what to do with his ashes,” she said.

  Eight glanced at her, then looked back out toward the lighthouse they were approaching on their left. “I know that.”

  “He also told me that I was—I am—his legacy. I’ve been thinking about that. Thanks to what he gave up for me, I’m all he has to show for his life. I figure that means it’s my responsibility to do the kinds of things he taught me by example. To be the kind of person he was.”

  The boat slammed down again, and her heart thundered in her ears. Not with anxiety. Or not only anxiety. Blood and adrenaline and need made her tingle in every finger, every toe, and against all logic, it made her feel alive. Out loud, no-holds-barred alive. She looked at Eight, and he was watching her without a smile, but still with the kind of focus that made her feel like the only girl in the world.

  She hated Seven then. Seven and Cassie and the Beaufort gift.

  “Have you ever been to a drag show?” she asked him.

  He eased the motor back to slow the boat. The tails of his shirt whipped against his pale chinos, so he looked like the last kind of guy to go to a drag
show. Still, she could picture him cheering for Mark.

  Mark would have loved him.

  “A drag show?” he repeated. “No, I’ve never been.”

  “I used to beg Mark to do his Gayle Force act for me. He’d sing ‘I Can’t Stand the Rain’ as Tina Turner, and ‘Heat Wave’ as Diana Ross, ‘Rain’ as Madonna. Then for the finale he would do himself—Gayle—belting out ‘It’s Raining Men.’ He was better than the Weather Girls or any of them. He always said he never minded giving up performing to take care of me. He said that’s what you did for people you cared about. But I always seem to be on the receiving end when people give things up. First Mark, and now you with your scholarship, and Cassie losing her freedom.”

  “I wondered where you were going with this.”

  Barrie swiveled her knees around and tucked her hands beneath her thighs so she wouldn’t reach for him. Not until he met her partway. “Cassie getting herself locked up might not be my fault, but I don’t want to look back and regret it, either. The amends thing makes sense. It gives her a way to fight back from the hole she dug for herself.”

  “I hated even seeing her in the same room with you after what she and her father did.” Eight shook his head. “She didn’t seem like she even gave a damn. If she had apologized, or even looked at you like she realized what she had done—”

  “She’s an actress. I respect her more for the fact that she didn’t put on a show.” This time, she did reach for Eight’s hand. Slipping it between hers, she folded his fingers around her own.

  The world slowed down to details. The hardened skin that kept him from feeling pain. The white scar of an old injury across the backs of his knuckles. A wisp of cloud parted, and the sun slashed through, making his green mosaic eyes look darker. She painted him in her mind, fixing him there permanently. He smelled familiar and important, rumpled cotton and sunshine with undertones of salt and his particular cherries-and-root-beer scent.

  She turned back out to look across the water. “Do you believe in karma?” she asked. “Because I think I do. I don’t know about heaven or hell or reincarnation or any of the rest, but I believe that what we do comes back to us one way or another. If I can be generous to Cassie, whether or not she deserves it, maybe I’ll deserve a little generosity back.”

  Really, it came down to that.

  She had never agreed to keep Seven’s secret, but somehow that was what was happening. Eight would be hurt and furious if he ever found out she had kept the knowledge from him. To avoid that, Barrie was going to need every ounce of good karma she could get.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Two small motorboats were anchored near the mouth of the creek by the time Eight guided the boat toward Watson’s Landing. The pair of paunchy middle-aged men in the first of the craft were chatting with each other, but the lone guy in a checkered short-sleeve shirt and a camouflage fishing hat in the other boat had a rod and reel set to dangle fishing line into the water. He didn’t seem very interested in catching anything except Eight and Barrie.

  He stood up and waved as the Away approached. “Hey, are you the Watson girl? You live here, right? Can I ask you some questions?”

  “No,” Barrie and Eight answered simultaneously.

  Barrie averted her eyes, but that brought her attention to the charred boards of the Colesworth dock. Memories are powerful things; a whiff of the burned wood, and she was right back in the midst of that night, smelling the smoke, heat licking her skin, water closing over her, and the lack of oxygen searing her lungs.

  “Is your shoulder hurting?” Eight asked.

  She hadn’t realized she was rubbing it. “Not much,” she said.

  He swung out toward the Beaufort side of the river to go around the other boats, then returned to cross the midpoint and nose the Away back toward the Watson side. Barrie had a brief moment to realize that at some point in the future, that spot, the midpoint between Beaufort Hall and Watson’s Landing, might be the only place where she and Eight could meet without one or the other of them being in pain. Then the surge of returning hit her like she imagined a dose of ecstasy or some designer drug must feel—like a shot of Alice’s “muchness” infused into her veins. The boat bumped against the pilings on the dock, and Eight jumped ashore to tie the line.

  “You don’t have to walk me to the house,” she said. “Isn’t your sister coming home from camp today? It’s already bad enough your dad won’t be there, and if you’re meeting with the coach from Charleston later, you’ll want to spend some time with her.”

  “Kate is self-sufficient. Five minutes after walking through the door, she’ll have grilled the housekeeper like a backyard cookout and wrung every piece of news out of her. Trust me, I’m going to be a low priority.”

  Barrie hesitated, glancing back at the intruding boats, then gave a shrug. Hooking his hands into his pockets and watching the ground beneath his feet, Eight fell in step beside her. They passed a fresh line of NO TRESPASSING signs along with several gray-green boxes that hadn’t been there earlier that morning. Which probably meant that the perimeter control system had gone in—or at least part of it had.

  Eight scanned the woods on the way to the house, only stopping a few feet from the terrace steps, where they were out of sight of the kitchen and the rooms above. The look he gave Barrie was like a physical touch, curious fingers probing her thoughts.

  “Are you done being mad at me yet?” she asked.

  “I don’t like you being generous to Cassie when she doesn’t deserve it. But that’s who you are, and since who you are is what I happen to like about you, it wouldn’t make sense for me to blame you for it.”

  “Does that mean you don’t?”

  “It means I’m working my way out of it.” Leaning forward, he stole a kiss before she could decide whether they were still in a kissing sort of relationship anymore. Her lips made the decision for her; she couldn’t help responding. When he pulled away, his grin held a smugness that should have made her want to grind her heel into his instep.

  “I’ll call you as soon as I’m done with the coach and I know what Dad has planned for tonight,” he said. “He’s probably going to want to take Kate out for dinner. It’s what we usually do, but I’m sure she’s dying to meet you, so maybe you and Pru—”

  “No. Your sister should get you to herself for one night. Anyway, I need to tell Pru about Cassie and the restaurant. Plus I still have unpacking and sleep to catch up on. I think I could sleep for a week now that I’m back.”

  The stir of the wind in the trees and the splash of the fountain seemed louder as he reached back over and pulled her toward him. He hadn’t bothered to shave that morning, and the stubble was dark against his tanned skin, a contrast to his sun-lightened hair. His eyes stood out, as bright and green as the little tree frogs that congregated near the river.

  He kissed her more slowly, a permission-asking kind of kiss, a glad-we’re-back kind of kiss. “Are we okay now?” he asked. “I’m not mad at you, and you’re not mad at me?”

  Barrie’s eyes filled and her throat clogged, and she hated Seven and magic and gifts for making it all too complicated. “Yeah,” she said. “We’re fine. Good luck with the coach.”

  Taking the steps two at a time, she fled into the kitchen and shut the door behind her. Fingers pressed against her lips, she watched Eight through the window above the sink. In spite of what he’d said, he walked with his head bowed and shoulders hunched, looking as close to defeated as she had ever seen him look.

  Not that she could blame him. He had given up something he had wanted badly, and neither of the two people he had expected to cheer for him had given him anything but grief.

  Before she could stop and think, she threw the door open again and ran after him, but he had reached the Away before she came level with the fountain. She couldn’t bear the idea of shouting across at him and having strangers listening and judging from the boats on the river, so she stopped and waited, hoping he would turn and look back.

/>   He didn’t.

  The sun beamed down relentlessly. Yunwi chased one another along the rows of hedges, and the pulse of Watson’s Landing thrummed beneath her feet, echoed in the hum of the earth’s energy, the whisper of marsh grass, the warbled conversations of the birds, and the low, incessant drone of insects. Across the river, Beaufort Hall sat on the opposite bank, and she could’t help wondering if the binding and connection felt the same to Seven.

  She turned back toward the house. A shadow crossed above her with a rush of wings, and another raven alighted on the edge of the fountain basin. Cocking its head, the bird studied her curiously, its ink-oil wings glistening with purple highlights in a way that made her think she should be remembering something.

  She found herself thinking of Obadiah, and with the name on the tip of her tongue again, she wondered how many Obadiahs there could possibly be. Thousands probably. Hundreds of thousands. Still, she dug her phone out of her pocket, opened up the web browser, and typed in O-b-a-d-i-a-h, hoping she had spelled it right.

  A voice spoke behind her as the browser began to think. “Careful, little one. Names are powerful. You don’t want to call for things you can’t control.”

  Barrie’s heart jumped. Hand at her throat, she felt the thud, thud, thud of it beating in triple time. She turned and found Obadiah himself sitting on the edge of the fountain in the precise spot where the bird had been. Stepping back to put distance between them, she ended up in a flowerbed with her legs pressed against a boxwood hedge.

  Obadiah didn’t come toward her, though, only watched her with mild amusement. The more she looked back at him, the more he seemed raw and out of focus, like a modernist painting come to life. She blinked, and the impression cleared. He was just there again. Present instead of absent.

  “I wasn’t aware Google was magic,” she said, trying to sound anything but petrified.

  Obadiah raised his eyebrows, and the slight flicker of his eyes suggested he was laughing. “I suspect more people believe in Google magic than in my particular kind.”