Little Blackbird (2 page)

W
HEN KATE AWOKE in the forest, she blinked up at the cloudless July sky and pushed herself into a sitting position. Her heart pounded a heavy, uncomfortable rhythm against her ribcage. A memory of blue streaking across pavement and the stench of blood hung in the air for seconds before fading. Butterflies flitted around her cheeks, and she waved them away before standing on quivering legs. How had she been stupid enough to forget to drink her tea? She rubbed her fingers across her collarbone, trying to smooth away the ache in her chest. Her temples pulsed as though her heart had grown tired of its placement in her chest and risen to her skull instead.

Kate wandered down to the river and removed her sandals. She stepped barefoot into the tepid water and followed the current toward her house. Her steps were sluggish, and she kept trying to grab hold of one thread of the vision. It seemed important to remember, and its misty images followed her home like a cloud of dust. What good were premonitions? Weren’t they meant to tell the seer
something
? And even if the visions did reveal a truth, Kate could only watch the world unfold around her. She couldn’t stop the future or alter someone’s steps. She was useless, dragging around a worthless, damaged ability.

Halfway home, the squeal of tires and the crunch of metal caused birds to burst from the tall pines. Kate stopped. She watched the birds fly overhead, blocking out the sun in groups of twos and threes, creating pulsing shadows across her face. Evan’s name struck her heart like a lightning bolt. Without thinking, she dropped her sandals and ran in the direction of the sound.

Kate crashed through the forest, imagining herself to be a deer escaping her predator. Why did she feel as though she was running toward the hunter? The wind whipped her hair behind her like a black, satin ribbon. Squirrels leapt from branch to branch, chittering questions.

Kate smelled gasoline and slowed to a jog and then to a walk. Up the steep slope in front of her, a royal blue convertible lay on its side, crushed into the bank of trees. One pine tree had splintered and fallen down the slope.

The acrid stench of burnt rubber filled her lungs. Her limbs tingled, and her stomach churned. When she closed her eyes, she imagined Evan behind a windshield that spiderwebbed, creating a thousand separate broken versions of his face. The cool breeze blew across her cheeks, and she exhaled.

Kate used the new growth on the slope to pull herself up higher and higher. Her pulse throbbed in her neck, and she wiped her clammy hands on her shirt when she reached the top. Her bare feet ached, and she winced when she stepped onto the loose gravel scattered across the side of the road.

Kate approached the overturned car, hesitant, blinking rapidly. The silver underbelly of the car faced her, and oil leaked onto the gravel road. She held her breath as she peered around the shiny, front bumper. Broken glass glittered on the road. There were no bodies in the car, beneath the car, or around the car. It was as though the driver had disappeared. Then she heard a muffled groan.

Her gaze fell upon a smear of blood leading from the opposite side of the road into the weedy grass. A young man slumped against the trunk of a pine. Kate darted across the road before considering whether or not it was a bad idea. As soon as her feet hit the high grass on the other side, she recognized his bruised face. Geoffrey Hamilton, the eighteen-year-old son of the wealthiest man in Mystic Water and probably the state.

How many times had she watched Geoffrey from across the schoolyard while he joked around with Evan? How many times had she wondered what it would be like to be a part of his world? She’d long ago memorized the way one corner of his mouth lifted into a smirk just before he laughed. She could recognize his gangly stride from across the baseball field. But she’d never been close enough to him to see the dusty shadow of stubble on his face.

She dropped down beside him. His head sagged toward his right shoulder. A gash on his high forehead spilled blood into his thick eyebrows and dripped a crimson river down the crooked bridge of his nose. His curly brown hair was plastered to his head in sweaty, dark patches like swirls of mud.

Kate reached out a hesitant hand and poked her finger into his shoulder. “Are you dead?” No answer. She pressed two fingers against the vein in his neck. A slow, steady beat pulsed against her fingertips. She remembered that someone had once pressed fingers to Evan’s neck, too, but the heart had already given out and the blood had stilled.

Geoffrey lifted his head. His pale green eyes shone with tears. He blinked and tried to focus on her. “I dunno,” he slurred.

Kate exhaled and pressed a hand to her chest. Specks of gold flecked his green eyes. Kate looked over her shoulder at the wrecked convertible. “How did you get over here?”

“Where am I?” he asked. He tried to shift his weight to see around her, but he groaned and reached for his leg. He lost his balance and slid from the tree, collapsing onto his side.

“Oh,” Kate gasped, reaching for him. “Are you okay?”

He groaned again. Kate noticed the bend in his ankle was all wrong.
Broken
? Geoffrey whimpered and rolled onto his back. Blood seeped through a rip in his striped button-down shirt. He shivered, and his eyelids fluttered closed. She leaned over him.
Is he going into shock
? What would her mama do? Kate slapped lightly at Geoffrey’s face.

“Hey,” she said, “hey, Geoffrey. Wake up. Don’t leave me. Stay here. Focus.”

He opened his eyes and exhaled.

She leaned away and grimaced. He smelled like the alley behind the bar on the edge of town. Kate had been there only once when she’d gone with her daddy on a job to see if he could help redesign the interior layout. She’d made the mistake of sneaking out the bar’s backdoor and nearly suffocated beneath the stench of regret and fermented drink.

Kate tapped his face again. “I need you to stay awake, and that would be simpler if you were sober.”

Geoffrey reached one hand toward his head. Kate grabbed it and shook her head.

“Your hands are disgusting. You’ll likely infect the wound if you touch it,” Kate said, thinking about how she was going to get help. This dead-end gravel road led to only two places—Look-Off Pointe and her home. Her daddy was working, and her mama was in town helping Mrs. Tyler deliver her fourth child.

Geoffrey’s head lolled to the side, and his eyes focused on the car. “Oh, God,” he groaned.

“Were you driving alone?”

“No,” he said, “Ben was driving.”

His oldest brother. The Hamilton son with the wild eyes and reckless spirit.

Geoffrey tried to sit up, but Kate pressed her hand against his shoulder. “Stay down. He’s not here.”

“I know.” He swallowed. Tears leaked down the sides of his face. “God, it hurts to think. Dad’s car. He’s going to
kill
us.”

“You and your brother were driving around drinking?”

His glassy gaze met hers. “
God
, I don’t need a lecture from Sacagawea.”

Kate narrowed her eyes. “I’m half Cherokee.”

“So?”

“Sacagawea was a Shoshone, you rude imbecile. I ought to leave you here on the side of the road.”

Kate tried to stand, but Geoffrey grabbed her wrist. His fingers were thin and long, looping around her narrow wrist and folding over themselves.

“Don’t leave me,” he said, pathetic and rasping. “I think my ankle is broken.”

“It might be,” she said. “And you have gashes on your forehead and chest.”
Not to mention the bruising
. “Here, let me check your ankle.”

Both of his shoes were missing.

“Where are your shoes?”

“I know
you’re
not judging
me
. We were just going for a quick spin.”

Kate scooted down toward Geoffrey’s bare feet. They were scraped and bloody, but most of the blood looked to be from topical scratches. “I’m going to check for a pulse.”

“In my foot?”

“Yes, so don’t kick me.”

Kate checked for a tibial pulse and found one. She told him to wiggle his toes, and she nodded when he did. His toes were long and thin, causing her to wonder if he could hold a pencil and write his name with his feet. She grabbed hold of his smallest toe.

“What am I doing?” she asked.

“Squeezing my baby toe?” he asked, as though his answer might not be correct.

She grinned at him.

“What?” he asked, sounding defensive. “It’s certainly not my good parts.”

She caught his gaze and blushed so hard that the tops of her ears burned.

“Well, that was inappropriate. Just slipped right out.” Geoffrey’s grimace turned into a smile, and he chuckled. “God, it hurts to laugh. It hurts to
breathe
.”

Then Kate laughed just to release the awkwardness constricting her throat. The limbs of the pine trees swayed around them. “You might have bruised or cracked ribs. Where is your brother? Why would he leave you?” Kate asked.

“He went to get Matt. Or Mom and Dad. Or anyone.”

“Your house is more than five miles away from here. He’s not likely to pass anyone on this road.”
Unless someone is going to Look-Off Pointe in daylight, which isn’t likely even for the town’s delinquents.
“He’s on foot?”

Geoffrey nodded.

“I’m going to help you, but I need to run home first. I can get back faster than Benjamin can get home, and we need to stanch this bleeding. Probably need to splint your ankle.”

“You’re a kid,” Geoffrey said, shuddering when he tried to move.

“I know
you’re
not judging
me
, and I’m all you have right now.” She stood and he reached up for her. His pupils constricted, causing his pale irises to swell.
Is he
…
afraid?
On impulse, she grabbed his outstretched hand. His skin felt clammy against her own.

“You’re coming back, right?” he asked.

“Promise.”

“I trust you.” His fingers squeezed hers. “I trusted your brother. He was a good guy. I liked him.”

Kate nodded and dropped Geoffrey’s hand. “Everybody did.”

“G
OD, THAT HURTS,” Geoffrey complained. His jaw clenched, and his sweat stunk of whiskey and smoke. “I thought you were going to bring back bandages and antiseptic, not flowers and spit.”

“Stop whining. The yarrow will numb the pain.” Kate pressed the yarrow poultice into the wound on his forehead. “And stop blaspheming or I’ll tell your mama. I can’t imagine she’s going to be too pleased to find out you were drinking and wrecked your daddy’s car. She doesn’t need to know you’re a blasphemer too.”

He opened his eyes and looked at her. “You don’t even know my mom.”

Kate rubbed the yarrow into the jagged cut on Geoffrey’s chest. Her cheeks burned at the intimate contact, but he didn’t seem to notice. He grimaced, revealing two crooked bottom teeth that were slightly out of line with the rest.

“I know she volunteers at the Baptist church during the weekdays, and she sings in the choir every Sunday,” Kate said. “She thinks her boys are the best-behaved in town.”

“Listening to gossip about my mom doesn’t make you an expert,” he snapped. “You don’t know
any
thing.”

Kate’s skin prickled. The grass around his body browned in his anger, and she moved her hands away. His gaze couldn’t seem to settle on anything, and his eyes lazily moved from one spot to another. Kate understood his anger wasn’t intentionally directed toward her. She assumed Geoffrey was anxious about the future, and for once, Kate more than understood the fear of what was to come.

Kate didn’t know Mrs. Hamilton. Geoffrey was right about that. Kate had only gathered information based on what she’d seen or heard around town. Mrs. Hamilton didn’t seem to do anything but brag about her sons and her volunteer work. Her outfits were always pressed so severely that she reminded Kate of a paper doll come to life—all angles and sharp edges. Even her smile was rigid and perfectly drawn. She looked like the kind of woman who never laughed.

“I’ll tell you what I do know. I know how to splint an ankle,” Kate said. “But you’re going to have to stay still.”