Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (25 page)

And then I felt warm fingers intertwine with my own. Neely had grabbed my hand and now stood shoulder to shoulder with me, facing the woods. I could feel drying blood under my fingertips. 

“I’ll go look for the other boy later,” he said. “I don’t know what River glowed at him,but it . . .it couldn’t have been good. I’ll need to clean it up.” 

I nodded. And then we walked back to the Citizen, listening to the late-night creatures sing their late-night songs.Neely’s fingers stayed tight around mine,until I let go.
≈≈≈
 

When we got back to the guesthouse, River was missing, still. Neely went looking for him around the grounds. It was late. A few hours from dawn.The grass was dewy and the air was moist and cool, almost cold. The moon was out,and everything was quiet,except the ocean.Even the crickets had gone silent. 

I went home, dug around in the Citizen’s freezer, and found some ice. I grabbed two washcloths, put four ice cubes in each, and went outside. I sat down on the front steps, in the spot where the light from the foyer spilled out the front windows. 

Neely showed up a few minutes later. No River. 

“Here,” I said, handing him one of the cloths. 

He grinned, and the bruise under his eye stood out stronger for a second. He put the ice on his swollen hand. “Thanks,sweetheart.A guy could get used to this—being taken care of after a fight.” 

“Everything’s going to be all right with the bully, you know,” I lied, because sometimes a girl needs to lie. “I’m sure River just made him see Cthulhu or something on the way home.” 

“Yeah. Maybe.” Neely laughed. “I shouldn’t have . . . My brother just really,
really
pisses me off. So . . .” He lifted his wounded hand and gestured to the bruise on his face. “Sorry you had to see that.” 

“It’s all right. I’ve wanted to hit River myself, a few times.” 

“He’ll do that to a person.”Neely sighed, and I saw that sad smile, again, the one from before. “I know it seems like I’m not taking his problems seriously,but I am.I worry about him. Constantly. I just think you should know that.” “I do.” 

And Neely was grinning again. “Does anything get by you,Vi?” 

I shrugged, thinking about Luke and Sunshine, and Freddie’s hidden letters, and Daniel Leap’s secret. “Yeah. Lots of things.” 

He laughed. “Well, I’m going for a walk. I don’t want to be here when River comes crawling home because I’ll probably just punch him again. I’ll be back soon, okay?” 

“Okay.” 

Neely left.The four ice cubes I’d kept for River melted in my hand and dripped onto the ground. I traced the edge of the red skirt I was wearing (Freddie’s) and thought about the blood on the blond boy’s mouth, and Rose Redding with her throat slit, and the letters, and River. 

He showed up about twenty minutes later. He swaggered up the Citizen’s front steps like always, and smiled at me like a damned angel. 

“I think Neely’s been wanting to do that for a long time.” River laughed, putting his fingers on his cheek. It was swollen and evil-looking and starting to bruise. Brothers with matching smiles. And matching bruises. 

I went inside, to the kitchen, and River followed. I fished some fresh ice cubes out of the freezer,put them in a dishtowel, and handed it to him without a word. A feeling had stirred in me, looking at River’s bruised, smiling face, and it was hard and strong and bitter, like over-brewed black coffee without milk or sugar. 

“Stop smiling, River,” I said. “You don’t even know if you used the glow on that boy. Do you understand how dangerous that makes you? Do you understand what that means?” 

River pressed the ice to his face, and the cocky light dimmed in his eyes. “Do you think we can talk about this later? My face hurts.Tomorrow we can figure out what’s to be done with me. I’ll pack, and I’ll leave, and I’ll go home,screw everything up,and run off again.”He paused. “The next town won’t have you, though. Which kind of pisses me off, when I think about it.” 

And he sounded half sincere. Which was something. 

I stared at him for a second. “The things you said in the cemetery, before we heard the kid’s screams, about there never having been another girl before me. You were telling the truth, weren’t you?” 

River looked at the wall, and kind of, well, fidgeted, in a way that Neely would have laughed at had he seen. “Yes. Yes, I was.” 

“Are you lying?” 

“Yes.” 

“Did you just lie, again?” 

“Yes.” 

River let out a long sigh. And the last bit of his cockiness flickered, and went out. He looked younger, suddenly. 

“Vi,would you please sleep next to me tonight? Please?” 

“All right,” I said. Because it would be the last time. Besides, I kind of believed him, about the things he said in the cemetery. 

We went to River’s bedroom in the guesthouse,opened his windows so a sea breeze could drift in, and slipped under the covers. River winced when his swollen cheek touched the pillow.I didn’t kiss him,and he didn’t kiss me, but I drifted to sleep with his arms around me and his face in my hair. 

And I dreamed. 

I dreamed about cemeteries. And a tunnel. And a man with furry teeth, and a slit in his neck. I dreamed about the Devil, who looked liked River except he had red hair and bloody red eyes.Only it wasn’t the Devil.Or River.It was Neely, his blond hair red from the setting sun, his face red from fighting.Fighting with River,who was suddenly kissing me, and I was feeling so good, so good, because River was kissing my neck, and then my shoulders, and I slipped out of my clothes and he helped me and then I helped him do the same and we were naked, and I didn’t care, and I just wanted the River kissing to go on and on forever and ever and ever amen and everything felt right and I knew it was time and I wanted him, oh how I wanted him . . . 

A door slammed. 

I jerked awake. 

I took a deep breath. And opened my eyes. 

It was almost dawn, the light an eerie bluish dark gray. I’d only been asleep a few hours.And I was in River’s bed. I’d been dreaming. Just dreaming. Such a good dream. 

Damn
that door for slamming. 

But wait. Something was different. I felt warm. Hot, even. My skin tingled. I moved. 

And suddenly I realized what was different. I was naked. 

And so was River. 

Our bodies were pressed against each other, tight. My dream.
My dream had been real.
River’s naked body was curled into mine, and it felt so right, like in the dream . . . 

“Violet?” River whispered. 

“Yeah,” I said, really quiet. I took another deep breath, and my chest swelled into River’s body. I let my breath back out. My eyes met his. He moved his hands and pressed them into my lower back. 

“I think I was . . . I think I was using the glow in my sleep.I didn’t even know I could do that.Aw,hell.We,we almost . . .god,I’m sorry,Vi.I don’t know what’s happening to me . . .” 

I didn’t move. 

“Neely’s right,”River said,and his voice sounded unsure, and tense, and very un-River.“I’m out of control.” 

“Yes,” I answered. And still, I didn’t move. 

“Violet, I’m not safe,”River said, at last.“
You’re not safe around me
.You should go. Get out.Vi, get
out
.
Now
.” 

My heart shut down, shuddered, and started back up again. I slid out of River’s arms, and out of the bed. My clothes were scattered on the floor,mixed in with his.I got dressed. Left. 

Then I turned around, went back down the hall, and back into River’s bedroom. 

“River, you need to leave Echo,” I whispered. I stood by his bed, with my hands on my heart, and waited. River shifted, and the blankets fell off his body, exposing his naked hip down to the thigh. “Tomorrow. And I don’t want to see you before you go, all right?” 

“Get out of here,Violet” was all River said. 

And so I did. I left.
_≈≈≈
 

Neely was in the guesthouse kitchen. He was drinking coffee from a small pink cup with a chip in it. His back was to the window, and the sunrise was starting up behind him. “Neely, I don’t know how you can drink so much coffee.” My voice broke a bit when I said it. I took the cup from him and swallowed what was left in one go. I felt a little better, with the joe burning its way down my throat. 

Neely looked at me. He was smiling, but his eyes were digging into mine. 

“You all right,Vi?” 

“Yep. Completely.” But my hands were still shaking, and Neely knew I was River-lying. 

“Okay,” he replied. “I’ll leave that for now. Want to know where I’ve been?” 

I didn’t. 

“I tried to track down the kid that River glowed,” Neely continued,when I didn’t answer.“I went back to the cemetery and followed that trail through the trees for a while. But nothing. I’m worried about him.” 

I stared out the window and wouldn’t meet Neely’s eyes. “Me too,” I said at last. 

Neely looked at me. Really looked at me. 

“So why are you awake?”he asked.“Why aren’t you still sleeping in my brother’s bed, buried in his arms, breaking your promise to not let him touch you?” 

I shook my head and didn’t answer. 

“What happened?”Neely asked,his voice quiet.“Violet, what happened?” 

I looked at Neely’s right hand,the swollen one.The one that hit his brother across the face. “Will you promise not to start fighting again?” 

“No.” He paused, and ran his hand through his hair, and looked like River. “Yes. Yes, I promise. So help me God, Vi.” 

“River used the glow on me. In his sleep. He didn’t mean to . . . but he did it anyway. And things were happening, and we were both letting them happen, but then I heard the front door open, and it woke me up. In time.” I added that last bit of information, only because Neely’s eyes were doing the antsy, eager thing they’d done before, a second before he punched River. 

Neely took a deep breath and grabbed my hand. He squeezed it, hard, so hard, his fresh scabs split open and started bleeding again. And we just stood there, quiet, in the guesthouse kitchen, with the sun rising, and the sea breeze coming through the windows. 

S
omeone was saying my name in a soft voice. I batted my eyes against the bright morning sun, and turned to see who had decided to wake me this morning.Sunshine? 

Luke? Neely? I stretched, and realized that there was no one next to me in bed. 

River. 

I sat up and rubbed my eyes. And then the memories from the night before flooded my brain and woke me up faster than a bucket of cold water. River leaving. He was in trouble, out of control.The glow.The letters— 

“Violet?” 

It was Jack.He was standing in a sunbeam at the end of the bed, looking serious as usual. “Jack. Hey. I was sleeping. Alone.”
Concentrate, Violet
.“What’s going on?” 

“I went walking this morning,” he said. “I wanted to find the perfect tree, and paint it. But I found . . . something else. In the ditch, by the tracks.” 

I looked at him, uncomprehending. 

“I need you to come with me,” Jack continued.“Now.” 

I nodded. “All right.” 

I brushed my hair, and my teeth, threw on a green skirt and a soft, long-sleeved button-down that my mom used to paint in.Jack waited for me outside.I didn’t tell anyone I was leaving, not Luke, not Neely, not . . . River. I told River I didn’t want to see him before he left.And I wasn’t sure I still meant it. 

Damn
. 

I followed Jack down the path to Echo, past the tunnel, past the cemetery. The sun was bright in the sky, and the dew on the grass was making my feet slick inside my flip-flops. 

We heard a train whistle go off in the distance, and Jack’s small shoulders stiffened in front of me. We had passed the town center and were walking by the empty field that led off from Glenship Street,and
still
Jack hadn’t said a word. And it was making me nervous. 

“For God’s sake, what did you see, Jack?” 

But Jack only shook his head.We walked another couple of minutes. I could hear the creek now, the one that circled the town and, some miles away, dropped into the sea.I swatted at a mosquito,and grimaced at the streak of blood it left on my arm. 

When I looked up, Jack had stopped walking. He was pointing at the tracks. 

Trains still went through Echo. The tracks near the Citizen had disappeared long ago,but there was still an active line that ran outside town, carrying cargo and, less often,passengers,all the way into Canada.Jack was pointing down a tree-lined stretch of those tracks. 

He slipped his hand into mine, and together we stepped onto the rails. I listened for the sound of a train, but heard nothing but the mourning doves, coo coo-ing to each other in that husky,melancholy way they had.Jack pulled on my hand, and we half walked, half slid down the ditch on the other side of the tracks. 

When we got to the bottom, I looked at Jack, puzzled. His red-brown hair was glinting in the sunlight. His face was pale. 

And then I saw it. 

Him. 

Black hair, tangled, and clotted with dried blood. That’s what I noticed first. The rest of the boy was hidden in the shadows cast by the trees. But his face was in the sun. I stumbled to the side, and almost stepped on the dead boy’s hand. 

My mouth made a noise, a screaming, wailing noise, and the rest of me shivered at the sound of it. 

“He was hit by a train,I guess,”Jack said.“The conductor probably didn’t even hear him.He bounced off,and . . . rolled.” 

I didn’t answer. I was looking at the dead boy’s eyes. His eyes, which had been so angry in the cemetery, with River’s hand gripping his neck,were now wide and staring. And dead. Dead, dead, dead. This was different from seeing Daniel Leap,cutting his throat in the town square.The body in front of me had belonged to a kid. Just a kid. And his head was twisted at a horrid, unnatural angle, and his skin was purple and gray, and his black hair was dirty and full of leaves and blood and oh hell, I was looking at a dead boy, close enough to touch his poor dead boy body— 

“Did River do it,Violet? Did he make him step in front of the train? I haven’t told anyone else. I don’t want River to get in trouble. I was going to tell the cops, but then I thought, what if it was River?”