Dark and Shallow Lies

by Ginny Myers Sain

  “What dey say he did.”

  “I don’t understand,” I tell him.

  There’s cotton at the edges of my brain as thick as the dark at the edges of the sky. I try to push it back so I can think clearly. I need to know what happened all those years ago. I sit down cross-legged on the edge of the boardwalk, and Zale climbs the steps to sit beside me.

  “I don’t remember much of it.” He leans back on his elbows to study the thick clouds that have rolled in out of nowhere, blocking out the twinkling stars. “I never saw those little girls in the water. But folks came around real early one mornin’ and found dem dere, in the pond out behind our cabin. Drowned.”

  “Who came and found them there?” I’m trying to remember how the story goes.

  Zale shrugs. “Town folks, that’s all my mama ever said. I don’t have any memory of that part. I just remember the fire.”

  Somewhere, way off in the distance, a single bolt of lightning reaches down from the sky to strike at the ground like a snake.

  And I feel fear creep back in on me.

  “My daddy wasn’t even home that mornin’. He was off huntin’. It was just me and Mama and—” He chokes on something. Swallows back some deep hurt. “And all of a sudden, dere was fire everywhere. And smoke. So my mama grabbed me up, and we ran. I can still feel the heat of the flames.”

  “Nobody even knew he was married,” I say.

  In all our nightmares, the monster never had a wife.

  Or a child.

  Zale shrugs. “I don’t imagine they ever were. Not on paper, anyway.”

  He pauses for a minute, and the air around us is more charged than ever. I hear the sharp crackle of it. My fingers brush one of the copper nails along the edge of the boardwalk, and I get a zap that’s almost painful.

  “I remember the two of us running through the bayou,” he goes on, “her hand clamped over my mouth to keep me from yellin’ out. Mama said they’d kill us, sure, if they were to find us.”

  “So you left,” I say.

  He nods. “Knocked around some till we ended up down in Florida. And I never heard her so much as mention my daddy’s name again.”

  I think about that newspaper article. “But they’ve been looking for him. All these years. They’re still looking for him.”

  Zale turns those ice-blue eyes on me, and for the first time, I notice the deep sadness in them. “Well, they’re lookin’ for a ghost, then.”

  “You don’t know that, though,” I tell him. “Not for sure.”

  When he sits up, his shoulder brushes against mine. And there’s that little tingle. It feels so good. Not sharp, like the bite of the charged copper.

  “He never came for us.” Zale lifts his face toward the sky. “I don’t care what dey told you about him, Grey. He was a good man. If he’d been alive, he would have come for us. My mama and me.” I hear the heartbreak in his voice. Plain as anything. Real. And true. “He would have come for us. No matter what.”

  All these years people have said it was Dempsey Fontenot who burned the cabin to the ground. He lit it up like a bonfire, they told us, before he ran off for good.

  But now Zale is telling me that was a lie.

  And if that was a lie—

  what else was a lie?

  “You don’t believe he did it,” I say.

  “Killed those little girls? No. I know for sure he didn’t.” More distant thunder. The hair on my neck stands up again. “My daddy was a gentle man. He never hurt a solitary soul.”

  “Did Elora know?” I ask him. “Who your daddy was?”

  He nods. “I told her the truth, just like I’m tellin’ you now. But Elora said it didn’t matter. She told me everyone has at least one secret that’ll break your heart.”

  That’s such an Elora thing to say that I actually hear the words in her voice. Not Zale’s.

  “I’m glad you know the truth,” he adds. “I shoulda told you soon as I met you, but I didn’t wanna scare you off.” He looks at me, and there’s something different in his eyes. Something almost shy. “I been lonely, I guess.”

  “That’s why you came back here,” I say. “To find out what happened that night.” And Zale nods.

  “After my mama passed, I hitchhiked all the way from Everglades City. Did a little work here and there on the way. Picked up a little money to get me by. Been camping out back there, at the old home place, ever since.”

  I shiver in the summer-night heat.

  “You’ve been staying back there? At Keller’s Island? Alone? All this time?”

  He nods. “Bought me a tent and an old flatboat off a guy up in Kinter. It’s beat all to hell, but the motor’s good. And I settled in. Started poking around. Doing some diggin’. To see if I could find out the truth. To see if I could find him, maybe. If there’s anything left of him to find.”

  “You want to know that bad?”

  Bad enough to live out there for months? In the bayou? All alone?

  “He was my daddy,” Zale says. “Wouldn’t you wanna know what happened?”

  “I’m not sure,” I tell him. I’m thinking about my own mother. That photo with the haunted eyes. And about whatever Case did to Elora. “Maybe not knowing is better.” Zale shakes his head.

  “Knowing is hard,” he says, “but it’s a thing you can survive. The not knowing will kill you in the end. It’s the secrets that fester.”

  A breeze moves through, and I hear the tinkling of wind chimes.

  “How do you keep a secret in a town full of psychics?” I ask him, and light flashes bright inside those ice-fire eyes.

  “You tell the truth,” he answers. “At least part of it.”

  I turn and run. Bare feet pounding. Splashing.

  As fast as I can go. And I don’t look back.

  I don’t want to see. I don’t want to know.

  I don’t want to remember.

  15

  It’s full dark by the time Zale and I say goodbye.

  “I’ll tell you the same thing I told Elora, Grey. I’m not askin’ you to keep my secret. That’s too big a burden. If you need to tell about me, I won’t do anything to stop you.”

  I think about that, but then I shake my head. “You’re safe with me.”

  He told me the truth. And he didn’t have to. He could have lied. Stayed hidden.

  I look down at Elora’s ring on my finger.

  He didn’t have to give me back that piece of her, either. He could have kept it for himself.

  Zale smiles with obvious relief.

  “You’re safe with me, too,” he says. “I promise you that.”

  He reaches for my hand and gives it a quick squeeze before he disappears, and my heart races with the energy of his touch.

  I stand up and grab for the wooden railing outside the kitchen door to steady myself, but something bites at me and I draw back with a hiss. It’s too dark to see, but I feel a long splinter lodged under the skin of my palm. I figure I better get on inside and let Honey dig it out, so it doesn’t end up getting infected. But when I open the kitchen door, I hear Honey upstairs, laughing on the phone with her sister. And that could be a while. So I head back to my bedroom to find Case’s Saint Sebastian medal in my underwear drawer.

  That’s one huge secret I can’t let fester anymore.

  As soon as Honey gets off the phone, I’ll show it to her. And she’ll know what to do.

  I wrap the little medal back up in the tissue and stick it in my pocket, then I go out to the front steps to wait.

  Only someone is already out there. Waiting for me.

  Hart’s curls are wild and tangled, and his shoulders are slumped. He’s staring out at the river as the smoke of an exhaled cigarette lingers above his head in the yellow porch light. Honey would kick his ass from here to Kinter and back if she caught h
im smoking on her front steps, but judging by the looks of him, he probably doesn’t care.

  It makes me jumpy to know that maybe he was sitting right here, just on the other side of the house, while Zale and I were out back.

  I slip off Elora’s ring and hide it in my pocket like a stone before I drop down to sit beside him. I feel my secrets, huge and heavy.

  If I fell into the river, the weight of them would pull me straight to the bottom.

  I know Hart can feel them, too, but he doesn’t say anything. He just keeps his eyes on the river as he shakes out another cigarette and lights it up. I watch him pull the smoke into his lungs and hold it for a long time before he finally blows it out.

  “I don’t know what to say,” he tells me. “About last night. I just—”

  My cheeks burn. “Forget it,” I mumble. “It doesn’t matter.”

  I feel the dull throb of the splinter lodged deep in my palm.

  The beginnings of heat and redness.

  Infection.

  “Don’t say that, Greycie. It matters.” Hart flicks away ash and puts the cigarette to his lips again. “It’s just, everything’s all fucked up.” He tips his head back to exhale words and smoke at the same time. “I’m all fucked up.”

  We sit there together for what feels like a long time. Silent. And if he can feel anything from me at all, I hope Hart feels how much I love him.

  After a few minutes, he gets up and walks across the boardwalk to stand on the dock and stare out at the wide, rolling water. He doesn’t even smoke. He just lets his cigarette burn all the way down until it becomes a column of ash and finally goes out in his hand.

  He’s burning himself to the ground.

  The air moves, and Evie’s wind chimes ring out like voices. They sound like whispered secrets.

  And warnings.

  I get so lost in their musical murmuring that the other voice doesn’t register at first. Not until I see Hart turn around with his jaw set tight.

  And there’s Case, standing not five feet away from him.

  Jesus.

  Where the hell did he come from?

  “You hear me? We gotta settle dis, Hart.” When I get to my feet and cross the boardwalk, Hart moves to put himself between Case and me. “I didn’t do shit to Elora. And you know it.” The look in his eyes makes it clear that Case is itching for a fight.

  And Hart is happy to give him one.

  His muscles coil, and I grab for his arm. But it’s too late. He launches himself at Case without a word, and they both go down. Hard. Spilling across the dock. While I watch. Frozen.

  They trade blows—all fists and elbows—as they roll together on the white boards. They growl and snarl. Two mad dogs going after each other. If Honey were here, she’d turn the hose on them, like she used to do with the mean old hounds that Evie’s uncle, Victor, kept out behind the house.

  I hear a screen door slam, and Evie appears beside me on the boardwalk. I wonder if she was watching us again. Spying on Hart and me from her bedroom window.

  I reach to put an arm around her, and Evie presses herself against me, halfway hiding behind my back. Every time Case lands a punch, I hear her react with a pained little yelp, and when he somehow scrambles to his feet and kicks Hart hard in the ribs, she muffles a scream.

  Hart manages to get to his feet, too, still holding his side, and he grabs Case by the neck with one hand, slamming him back against a wooden post so hard I feel my own teeth rattle inside my skull. But then Case shoves him backward and they both lose their balance and go down again, rolling toward the edge of the dock.

  Toward the roped-off rotten place and the long drop to the dark water below.

  “Hart!” I call out his name in a panic.

  That’s when Evie pulls away from me. “Stop it!” she hisses. And at first, I think she’s talking to Hart and Case. But then she crouches down low with her hands over her ears. “Leave me alone!” Her voice is desperate. “You’re lying!” Eyes clamped shut. “Stop it!” she wails over and over. “Stop it! You’re a liar!”

  And I know then she’s talking to somebody else. Someone I can’t hear.

  More feet behind us. I look over my shoulder as Mackey, Sera, and Sander appear out of the shadows. They must have come from Mackey’s place, toward the upriver end of town.

  “Shit!” Sera’s eyes flicker from Case and Hart to me and finally to Evie, crumpled up in a heap on the ground. “Shit. Shit. Shit.” She motions to Sander, and he goes to Evie and pulls her up to her feet, so he can wrap his arms around her.

  Mackey looks back toward the houses lining the boardwalk. But there’s no point. This time of night, everyone is safe inside dozing in their recliners. Windows closed. Curtains drawn. Big window-unit air conditioners humming and rattling. TVs blaring.

  Nobody is coming out to stop this.

  Hart and Case grapple and roll. Punching at each other. The sound of boot heels against wood. Blood spraying across white paint.

  Then Hart gets his hands around Case’s throat. And he doesn’t let go.

  That’s when I know they really will kill each other if someone doesn’t put an end to this.

  And I don’t want to watch anyone die. Definitely not Hart. And not Case, either.

  Not even after what he did to Elora.

  “Hart!” I yell his name again. “Stop it! You’re gonna kill him!”

  Hart’s crying now. Sobbing and grunting. Totally out of control. And it scares me. He flips Case over on his back, and he’s slamming his head against the dock over and over, choking him.

  “Hart! Please!” My voice sounds hoarse, and I realize that I’m crying, too. I didn’t even know it. “Stop!”

  Hart glances in my direction, and then I see him look down at Case, red-faced and gasping for air.

  “Don’t,” I tell him. “It won’t bring her back.”

  Hart lets go then. He stands up and stumbles backward. He has the same look in his eyes that he had last night. After we kissed. Like he doesn’t know where he is or how he got here.

  Case scrambles to get his feet under him. Even in the moonlight, I can see the marks on his throat. But he’s not ready to call it quits. He takes a step toward Hart, and Evie screams again.

  “Case,” I shout. “Stop! I know what you did! I found it! I found your medal!”

  I reach into my pocket. Denim rubs against the throbbing splinter in my palm, but I ignore the pain and dig the medal out for them to see.

  Hart and Case both freeze. They’re breathing hard. Soaked. Dripping sweat and blood.

  “What the fuck, Greycie?” Hart sounds sick. Like he’s having trouble talking around whatever is rising up in his throat. He’s looking at me like I just stabbed him in the gut.

  “Where’d ya get dat?” Case demands. He takes a step toward me, but Hart grabs him by the shirt and yanks him backward. I wrap my fingers tight around the medal.

  And I feel that throbbing pain again.

  “It was on the floor in Honey’s shed,” I tell him. “Where you dropped it. The night you killed Elora. When you stole that old black trunk to put her body in.”

  Hart’s eyes go wide. And I’ve never watched anyone drown before, but that’s what the look on his face makes me think of. “Jesus Christ, Greycie.”

  Behind me, I hear four identical gasps as Evie, Mackey, Sera, and Sander all realize what’s happening here.

  “You found out she was planning to run off with someone else,” I say. “She sneaked away that night. To meet him. While everyone was playing flashlight tag. And you found out about it somehow. Only you couldn’t let her go. So you killed her.”

  The truth sounds so terrible, flung out into the night air like that.

  “Hell no!” Case turns and spits a broken tooth onto the dock. “Fuck dat!” His red hair is matted with blood, and one eye
is already swollen shut. “Dat ain’t what happened.”

  Hart shoves Case to the ground. He lies there, sprawled out in front of us while Hart towers over him. “Then you tell me what did happen.” Hart gives him a hard kick in the ribs, and we all wince. “Before I kill your sorry ass.” His voice breaks, and he chokes hard on tears and blood. “What happened to Elora that night?”

  “I don’t know,” Case insists. He clutches his side and sits up, wiping at his destroyed face with the back of his arm. “I told everybody dat. I been sayin’ it all along.”

  “Then why did I find your medal in Honey’s shed?” I ask him. “With Elora’s blood on it.”

  “Oh, God.” It’s Mackey behind me. “I think I’m gonna puke.”

  Hart’s staring at the medal in my hand. He sways a little on his feet, but he doesn’t go down.

  Evie’s breathing changes. She moans and sucks in air with a rattling, hitching wheeze. Covers her ears again.

  And I feel bad. Because none of them were prepared for this. They didn’t know it was coming.

  “What the hell, Case?” Sera’s sharp voice cuts through the chaos. Her river-sand-and-copper braid swings behind her back.

  “It ain’t my fault. Dat’s where Wrynn lost it is all.” Case starts to stand up. But Hart gives him another good kick. He groans and rolls onto his side. “Only she didn’t tell me about it till it was months later. I swear.”

  “Wrynn?” Hart’s face is really swelling up. His bottom lip is busted wide open. And it makes the word come out thick and twisted.

  Case nods. “Wrynn told me she found my medal dat night. Lying right here. On dis dock.” He manages to sit up, then he wipes at his face again. “Goddammit.” Now Case is the one who’s crying, big tears that make tracks down his cheeks through the smeared blood. “I loved ’er, you buncha assholes!” He glares at Hart. At all of us. “Since we were twelve years old, I fuckin’ loved ’er.” He pins me down with his eyes. “You know dat’s right, chere.”

  And maybe I do, but loving someone doesn’t mean you won’t hurt them.

  A heavy fog is rolling in off the river, and it wraps us all in thick, wet misery.