Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (24 page)

John said you stopped wearing makeup and drinking and sponsoring artists and throwing parties and all the things you used to adore so much. All the things that gave you life. He said you’ve holed up in your mansion, and spend your days staring at the ocean, or the sky. 

People die, Freddie. Even children, sometimes. It’s not your fault. God’s not punishing you for being wild. Just like he’s not punishing me for . . . things I’ve done. It’s just life. 

You always said I had the Devil in me, when we were young. But people can change. I’ve changed. I’m not the Devil, Freddie. 

Write to me. Please. 

—Will 

I got dressed and went to the guesthouse. I picked my way over the dark, wet grass, shuddering with each cold gust from the sea. River was still awake, sitting in the kitchen drinking coffee. If he was surprised to see me, he didn’t show it. I told him to go wake up Neely, because I had something to show them. He didn’t say a word, just went down the hall and did as I’d asked. 

I started down the path into town, River and Neely behind me, nothing dividing us from the dark night except the watery white beam from the flashlight I carried.It had stopped raining, but the path was slick and muddy. 

“Where are we going, Vi?” River asked, finally, after we’d passed the tunnel. Neely still hadn’t spoken. 

“To find proof,” I answered. “At the White mausoleum.” 

“Proof of what?” River asked, and it was nice, that he was asking the questions for once. 

I ignored him. “Jack was on top of the Glenship mausoleum when he was looking for the Devil. But the White mausoleum is buried back in the trees, farther away. It’s bigger, though. And it has Gothic columns. And a puzzling phrase carved over the doorway. You’ll like it.” 

“I’m sure I will.”River stumbled over a rock on the path, but caught himself before he fell. “Wouldn’t I like it just as well in the morning? When it’s warm, and we can see what we’re tripping on?” 

“No,” I said. 

Neely just laughed. 

The moon was beginning to stick its face out into the night sky as we reached the cemetery, and the sea gusts were gentler now, having left the witching hour behind, I guess.The iron gate was open.The three of us squeezed through the gap. 

I stood still and tried to absorb that calm, lonely, cemetery feeling. And then I led River and Neely to the White mausoleum. 

Our family tomb was by itself at the back of the cemetery,along with some early suiciders’graves,and an abandoned caretaker’s cottage that was spitting out old bricks and looking plump with atmosphere. Freddie was buried there, and my grandpa, and a mad uncle, and two poor little stillborn babies that Freddie had given birth to before my dad was born. 

The Glenship tomb got mowed and trimmed now and again because it was near the graveyard’s entrance. But not ours. Ivy poured off the stone roof as if it owned the place, and blackberry bushes crowded the walls like thorny leeches. Now that I was there, in front of our mausoleum, I was a bit shocked by the brutal neglect. It was tangible. Almost oppressive. I wondered when I had last been to visit. When
anyone
had been to visit.Was it when Freddie died? Had it been that long? 

I felt the bitter bite of guilt stirring up inside of me. Why hadn’t I taken better care of Freddie’s grave? 

Maybe I had absorbed neglectfulness from my parents, along with art and snobbery. 

Oh, it’s okay, Violet,
came Freddie’s voice in my head.
I like my tomb this way. Forgotten and still.
 

And it was true. Freddie had always liked abandoned, quiet things. Like ghost towns and rusted-out cars in junkyards and broken windmills standing where farmsteads used to be. 

She’d had a collection of keys to buildings that had burned down in Echo.There were eleven of them, all looking pretty much the same, except for the great big key that had belonged to an old wooden church, reduced to ashes by some priest gone mad. She kept them in a pink handkerchief, and showed them to me one summer night when we both couldn’t sleep. I remembered the fireflies, and Freddie’s handkerchief smelling like rose petals, and the humid night air, and the ginger lemonade, and soft, wrinkled, familiar hands. 

I reached up and tugged on a strand of ivy. It had been hiding the words carved into the stone over the door.They swooped and curled and glowed in the moonlight like something from Middle-earth. 

“Is it in Elvish?”River asked,not two seconds after the thought of Tolkien danced through my brain. 

“Mea Culpa. By That Sin Fell the Angels. Exuro, Exuro, Exuro.”
I stood on tiptoe and traced the words with my fingers.
“Mea culpa
translates as
my fault,
which you probably know. The second line is from Shakespeare,
Henry VIII.
The end is
I burn, I burn, I burn
.Freddie had it carved up in there decades ago, and would never tell me what it meant. I finally had to do some research at the library. I translated the Latin, but as far as what Freddie meant by it . . .” 

“She’s sorry,”Neely said,speaking for the first time since River had woken him up. He looked sweet and disheveled in wrinkled linen pants and his Windbreaker. “She’s sorry for the sins she committed.And the burning is the fires of hell.” 

“I think not,”I replied.Freddie wasn’t burning in hell.I was sure of that, if nothing else. 

I tapped the rusted-out lock on the door of the mausoleum, and it shook flakes of metal onto the ground. I supposed I could break it with a rock if I wanted to. Who the hell knew where the key was anyway. 

But wait. 

The names might be on the outside, buried under green leaves. 

I moved to the other side of the tomb and pulled back the ivy. 

The first name that came into view was True White. My aunt.The little girl that drowned.The ghost that River conjured up to scare Luke.The daughter that drove Freddie into the arms of God, and the Devil. 

But the name we were all staring at wasn’t True’s.
ROSE REDDING 

Beloved daughter, beloved sister 

Murdered on her 16th birthday, June 8th, 1929
 

I pulled out the red card and the five letters I’d been keeping in my pocket. I gave the flashlight to River. He read everything. Silently. And then he gave the letters to Neely. 

“Did you know?” I asked River, after a few more long moments of silence. “Did your grandpa talk to you about Freddie, and Echo, and is that why you came here? Did you know he had the glow too?” 

River paused. His eyes held mine. Then he leaned back onto the blanket of ivy covering the mausoleum and nodded. 

“My grandfather called it the
burn
. And yes. A few years before his death he started talking to me. That’s when I first learned that this thing of mine,this glow,ran in the family.My father didn’t have it,but my grandpa did. And I learned about a woman named Freddie, who was the only girl Will Redding ever loved. I learned about a town named Echo, where my grandpa lost control of his burn, and it got his sister killed. He tried to warn me, back before he died. But it was too late. Dad already had me working for him,and I’d gone too far with it.I was already addicted.I thought . . .I thought if I came here,to Echo, I might . . . I don’t know. It might help me.” 

“It didn’t,” Neely said. 

And I was thinking the same thing. 

River looked at me, and his eyes were sort of pleading. “I got to Echo and found out Freddie had a granddaughter that looked just like her. And this granddaughter was looking for someone to rent the guesthouse. It seemed too good to be true. I thought it was fate. I thought . . . I thought you were going to save me,Vi.” 

“I’m
trying,
” I said. 

“I
know,
” he said back. River reached for me . . . and then stopped.He put his hands back down.“It’s not about that, Vi. It’s not about Freddie, and my grandfather. It’s not about the glow. It’s about you sitting on those great big steps, reading in the sun. It’s about the way you drink coffee on your tiptoes. It’s about you being direct and shy at the same time, and caring and eccentric and kind of a snob. It’s all of it.” River stopped talking for a second, but his eyes didn’t leave mine.“There’s never been anyone before.Any girl.I don’t know what I’m doing.Vi.Vi,look at me. Do you believe it? Do you believe what I’m telling you?” 

He said the last part fast, really fast, like he was embarrassed, maybe. 

“No. You’re a liar.” But it didn’t come out as sharp as I wanted it to. 

Neely laughed. “She’s got you there, River. Told you there’d be consequences for all that ly—” 

A shout. A kid’s shout. Almost a scream. It came from the direction of the Glenship mausoleum. 

We all looked around at each other, and then took off toward the sound. As we neared the old tomb, I saw two kids moving in the shadows. A tall, lean, black-haired boy. And a smaller boy, cowering on the ground by a headstone, his arms covering his face because the older boy was kicking the hell out of him. His wails filled the night air; they were ghostly, gossamer things, weak and pathetic and heartbreaking. 

Neely shouted,
“No, River, let me do it, don’t touch him
,” but it was too late. River threw his shoulder into the older boy, knocking him back against the mausoleum. He grabbed the bully by his shirt and dragged him into a standing position.Then he put a hand on the kid’s throat and pushed him into the ivy-covered wall. Hard. 

The boy’s head jerked back and cracked against the stone. 

“River,
stop,
” I called out. It was the boy from a few days ago. The bully.
Casablanca
and the yo-yos.“He’s just a kid.
Stop
.” 

River ignored me. 

“Beating up a kid half your size?” River yelled. “You think that’s
fair
? You think that’s
okay
?” 

The bully squirmed underneath River’s hand.He raised one arm and pointed it at the boy crumpled on the ground. “I came in here, looking for a place to smoke, and that kid had the balls to tell me to leave. Because of the Devil. The
Devil
. Those lying little brats told everyone they saw the fucking Devil, and made our town look stupid. And then I catch one of them, telling
me
to leave the cemetery. That little
shit
.” 

I knelt down by the boy on the ground. I recognized him. He was the blond kid who had hesitated by the gate when the other kids were leaving the cemetery. He was dirty, and his clothes were torn, and there was blood coming from his mouth and his nose. He swiped a hand across his eyes and glared at the black-haired boy. 

“I’m not a liar.The Devil was here.We saw him.We all saw him.” 

The bully struggled in River’s grasp.“
You lying little shit
. I’m gonna kick you until your chest caves in and your lying little heart squeezes out between your ribs—” 

Neely shot forward and ripped River’s hands away from the black-haired kid.The boy stood frozen for a moment, eyes staring stark white out of the shadows, and then he darted off into the trees like a deer. 

Neely’s hands were shaking. I could see them, moving in and out of the moonlight. His breath was coming fast. His shaking hands tightened into fists. “Did you? Did you, River? Did you use the glow on that kid?” Neely’s voice had changed. It was low, and kind of eager, as if he
wanted
River to say yes. 

River put his hands on his temples.“I . . .I don’t know. I just— My hands were on his throat, and I was so mad, and I—” 

Neely pulled his right fist back, the one with the scars that ended at his wrist, and hit River dead across the face. 

River’s head jerked to the side and he stumbled back. He brought his hand up to his cheek and looked at his brother. “Thanks” was all he said. He shook his brown hair away from his forehead, kind of cocky. Almost,
almost
like he was inviting Neely to do it again. 

“Come on,” Neely said, and his voice was tense and excited now. He circled River for a second. Then he threw his fist out again, smooth and fast and hard. 

River glided out of the way like it was nothing to him. Neely put his head forward and ran his body hard into River’s side. Both of them hit the ground and rolled. Neely came up on top, but River had him—his arm was wrapped around Neely’s neck and wasn’t going anywhere. 

“Are you done?” River shouted
. “Are you done?” 

“ Yes. Yes, damn it,”
Neely whispered back, because the inside of River’s elbow was pressing on his throat. 

River let go. He got to his feet, and so did Neely. River looked at his brother, and then looked at me, and then he walked off down the hill. 

I turned to the blond boy. “Are you hurt?” I asked, stupidly. 

“A little,” he replied, his right hand pressing into his ribs and his left hand swiping at the blood coming out his mouth.“But I’ll be all right.” 

I moved his hand and felt around his little chest to see if anything was broken. 

“Here, let me.” Neely knelt down beside me. He was breathing fast, still, but he seemed . . . calmer, somehow, after the fight.“I’ve had first aid training. I did a summer as a volunteer EMT.” 

Neely searched the kid over. His knuckles were bloody, either from hitting River or from hitting the ground, but he didn’t flinch as he moved his hands.He was gentle and efficient and not remotely bothered by the blond boy’s dark, staring eyes, as I was. 

“You’re in luck,”Neely said, after a few minutes.“No broken bones. Only bruises. You had better go home and let your mother put some ice on those.” 

The kid pressed his hands into the earth and pushed himself to his feet. 

Neely put a hand on his shoulder.“You shouldn’t come back in here.There is no devil,and there never was,okay? Promise me you will stay out of the cemetery.” 

“I’ll try,” the boy answered, his dark eyes blinking at Neely, and his hand on his ribs. He turned and walked down the path. 

I watched him until the stubborn black night swallowed him up.