Shadowed Summer (9 page)

“Who said I didn’t?”

Because I did want to know. She had a list of names, too, and we were supposed to meet up after supper to share our research.

“You don’t act like it.” Raising her nose in the air, Collette put on her queen attitude; she didn’t even need a crown to do it. It didn’t last long, though. Her curls bounced and her eyes sparkled, the way they always did when she was fit to explode with something interesting. “Elijah didn’t know how to swim. You know why?”

It took me a minute to answer, because I couldn’t wrap my head around that. If she’d said Elijah only ate pickled eggs, it wouldn’t have sounded as strange. If you lived in Ondine, you knew how to swim.

“His mama wouldn’t let him.” Collette nodded, her eyes gone round and amazed. “She didn’t let him swim or wear shorts or play games where he’d have to touch somebody, because it was a sin!”

At first, I wanted to argue with her, because I’d seen Elijah in shorts. Just like I knew God was real, I knew that once upon a time, Elijah’d lain on the creek bank and chucked stones into the water.

Of course, I wasn’t supposed to sit on my mama’s couch and I did it anyhow, so Collette’s information and mine could both be true.

“Who told you that?”

Collette grinned. “Miss Nan, down at the gas station. I asked Uncle Teddy about Elijah, and he said I should talk to her.” Collette’s grin spread, as she leaned in to whisper, “They were going out behind his mama’s back.”

“She told you that?”

“Yuh huh.” Dancing around me, Collette yanked on my arm and pulled me along. “And she said if we wanted to know more, we could come down to her trailer anytime.”

My sunburn kept me from bouncing, but I wanted to. We had a personal invitation for an interview with somebody who’d probably known Elijah better than almost anybody. “You wanna go now?”

“We should wait for Ben.” Then she made a face at him in his absence. “That way we don’t have to repeat ourselves.”

I made a face, too. “He’s wasting a whole day for us.”

“I know!”

Dust rose under our feet as we scuffed away from the graveyard.

“You hungry?” she asked.

“Just for something sweet.”

Collette’s mama only made us sweep up to pay for our pie, so in spite of my sunburn, it was a mighty fine afternoon.

“I don’t think my daddy wants to talk about it,” I said, sitting on the Duvalls’ back stoop.

Sunset colored the sky with purples and oranges, shades that flattered Collette as she leaned against the porch rail. “How come?”

“ ’Cause he was all cagey when I brought it up.”

Ben wandered the same two squares of sidewalk. Watching the empty window instead of us, he thought out loud. “Maybe if one of us did?”

Piping in, Collette said, “Uh-uh, once her daddy decides something, it’s decided. Besides, we got Miss Nan, and you haven’t even done your list yet.”

Looking toward the house again, Ben lowered his voice. “Mama says you can’t believe anything that comes from Nan Burkett’s mouth. She’s easy.”

I wrinkled my nose. “That doesn’t make her a liar.”

“That’s just what she said.”

Ben stuck his hands in his pockets. “I think we ought to try the witchboard again.”

Collette jumped on that right away. “Oooh, we could ask him who to talk to.”

“We’ve already got a list,” I protested, afraid they would see my eyes and know I’d done most of the talking on the board last time.

“We’ll still do the list. But we should do this, too.” Collette’s voice went up at the end, and I looked back at her, waiting for her next brilliant idea. “This time we should do it at night. The dead are closer at night.”

“Why is that?” Ben didn’t sound like he expected an answer; he was just filling up space until he thought of what he really wanted to say. “Nighttime’s fine by me, except I have to be home by ten.”

A shadow crossed Collette’s brow. “How come? Shea comes into the diner almost till midnight sometimes.”

“I have to count out Mama’s pills,” Ben said flatly.

She should have left it alone at that, but sometimes Collette didn’t know when to quit. She tried to sound concerned, at least. “Shouldn’t your daddy be doing that?”

His voice flat, Ben answered, “I do it.”

I cut in, trying to save everybody. “Then we can’t, because it should be at midnight.”

“That’s the witching hour,” Collette agreed. Peeling herself off the rail, she bounded down to sit on the bottom step, next to my feet. She folded her hands on her knees and looked up at Ben, serious. “After you’re done counting, sneak out.”

Ben shook his head. “Dang, y’all, she’s right there in the kitchen.”

A little quieter, Collette pressed on. “Look, all you have to do is set your watch for a quarter till, then climb out your window. I’ll take the witchboard home tonight so you don’t have to carry it.”

“What about Iris?”

Collette snorted. “Her dad works nights, remember? She can go anywhere she wants.”

That wasn’t exactly true. My daddy let me roam where I wanted during the day. After dark, though, when the purple sky started going black in the distance, I had to be at home with the doors locked.

Changing sides to help Ben, I said, “If I get caught out, I’ll get switched.”

“You haven’t been switched ever,” Collette said.

“Probably ’cause she never got caught out.” Ben grinned, dropping his head so his sandy bangs fell in his eyes.

It was nice to see him smile after being so tense. He wasn’t broad or fine like Elijah, but for an interloper, he wasn’t too bad.

Scowling at both of us, Collette tried to shrug like she didn’t care. “Then I’ll just do it on my own.”

“You’ll get possessed,” I said.

“Not without the board you won’t,” Ben said at the same time.

All of a sudden, the air tightened like guitar strings; I could almost hear the hum. People didn’t make a habit of telling Collette no.

Locking my fingers together, I shut my mouth tight to keep from interrupting and just watched. If it had been me, Collette would have said something snappish and flounced on home, but I could see in the way she pursed her mouth that she was weighing her answer.

Then, very carefully and real slow, she said, “Well, I’d like to use yours since it’s so nice, but if you don’t want to lend it to me . . .”

“I don’t. It was my nonna’s.”

A statue, that was what I tried to be, even though I wanted to laugh. I pressed my hands to my mouth, bowing my head like I was trying to stay out of it. I shouldn’t have enjoyed listening to them bicker as much as I did, but I couldn’t help it.

Ben never got mad; he just dug in his heels. When Collette finally realized she wouldn’t get her way, she disappointed me by flopping onto the stairs in surrender. “Bring it to Iris’s tomorrow, then.” Her mouth twisted, bitter in defeat. “After dark but before curfew.”

Eventually, I’d learn that keeping my mouth shut wasn’t the best way to get what I wanted.

Bristling, I slapped my hands on my knees as I stood, then tried not to cry out. That sunburn wasn’t as numb as I thought. “Fine, except we’re meeting at Collette’s.”

Collette stared at me like I’d grown another head, and her snappishness came back. She knew she could boss me and get away with it. “We are not! Mama and Daddy will be home. Are you crazy?”

“Then meet at the cemetery.” Ben threaded his way between us as he climbed the stairs, and to my surprise, he pulled my hair when he went past.

I rubbed the sting on my scalp and looked back at him. I hadn’t wanted to bring the board into it at all, but Ben had helped me get half my way, at least. Still, I couldn’t tell if he was on my side or Collette’s, so I didn’t know if I should be grateful. His smile and shrug as he let himself into his house didn’t clear it up, either.

When I got home, I clung to the rail like an old lady as I climbed the stairs to my room. My legs glowed like embers, and my face felt stretched tight enough to split. I still couldn’t believe I’d fallen asleep in the cemetery instead of casting a spell.

I concentrated on that instead of on Ben’s pulling my hair. If I thought about that, I’d have to wonder about his taking up for me and making jokes with me, and I didn’t want to. Ben was Collette’s concern, not mine, and I knew if he ever liked me too much, that would be the last of my best friend.

It took forever and a day to waddle upstairs, and when I was almost at the top, I stepped on something round. For a second, I had that roller-coaster feeling—my stomach fluttered like I’d gone weightless—and I sucked in a sharp breath, feeling it pinch between my ribs.

Something sturdy and solid bounced down the steps, and when I looked back, I saw a rock coming to rest on the landing. I frowned at it. It didn’t belong on the stairs, or even in the house, but I was too sore to go pick it up. I figured it wasn’t going anywhere.

When I opened my bedroom door, I let out a little cry.

My curtains waved around the open windows, stirred by the coldest breeze I’d ever felt. Scattered everywhere, papers twitched and skittered across the floor, thrown off my desk and torn from my walls. My shelves were bare, the books in fanned heaps on the floor, my prisms tossed like dice. In the middle of it all, more rocks than I could count covered my bed.

All that fire on my skin died; I crackled like February ice.

I missed the doorknob twice before I managed to grab it and slam the door shut. Something crashed inside my room. I didn’t care. Whatever it was, it was locked in and away from me.

I ran down the hall. Every step was an earthquake up my spine. Aftershocks came when I threw myself into Daddy’s room and slammed that door, too.

His dark damask curtains stirred, swaying toward me. They seemed alive, like they wanted to grab me and wrap me up. I scrambled across the bed to get away.

Grabbing the phone, I shut myself in Daddy’s closet and slid all the way to the back, onto a pile of old boots. It was stuffy beneath the canopy of his work shirts; I couldn’t breathe in the dark.

But I could dial, and I did.

I tried not to count how many neighbors had come out to watch when the police cars stopped at our house instead of at the Delancies’.

Deputy Wood sent me to wait on the porch while he searched the house with the state trooper who’d shown up right after him.