She knows not what the curse may be, And so she weaveth steadily,
And little other care has she,
The Lady of Shalott.
I’m about the only teenager alive without a cell phone, as Delaney pointed out a few days ago, and I reckon at the time I didn’t care. Now I’m wishing I had one something fierce. I’d call Pixie on hers and have her meet me out front.
Back inside, I scan the crowd. I don’t see Delaney or her court. I wave back when Ainsley and Sarah wave, dancing with two guys who look vaguely familiar. Pixie isn’t among them.
Newly brave, I find the wall and follow the smooth cream paint through another doorway into a spacious living room with leather chairs and couches and an entire back wall lined with books. People laugh and talk, and there’s a group of girls sitting on guys’ laps in front of a black woodstove, roasting marshmallows and hot dogs speared by long metal forks.
A folding table set up against the side wall holds a huge crystal bowl, from which a pretty girl with glasses and a sorrel ponytail ladles a red liquid into blue plastic cups. She motions for me to come over.
“Punch,” she says, holding out a cup, “to get you into the spirit.” I take the cup gratefully, my throat scratchy from the cold, dry air. “How much?” I ask nervously.
“Free. Or as much as you want.” She giggles.
I take a big swig and instantly choke, white lightning spraying
through my mouth and nose. The girl jumps back in disgust. “Jesus!”
“Sorry!” My eyes water. I wipe my face with the napkins she
shoves at me.
“You practically barfed all over me. You better have nothing
contagious.”
I don’t tell her how me and Nessa got our shots two weeks before starting school, like we were Shorty or something. I also don’t
tell her about the itchy, pearly pinworms wriggling in the toilet
bowl. We’d taken medicine for that, too.
The girl stares me down as she picks up her punch cup and throws
back the contents in one gulp. She slams the cup down on the table. “Ahhhh.”
“What is it?”
“It’s grain alcohol. What’d you expect?”
“Moonshine?”
“Yep. I almost saved up enough for the ‘quipment and the ingredi
ents.”
“Moonshine.”
“I could sell it and make a profit. You, of all people, should be glad of
that, girl.”
My body will buy the still and the ingredients:
7 pounds baker’s yeast
42 pounds brown sugar
4 pounds treacle (a thick, dark syrup produced durin’ raw sugarcane refinin’)
1 pound hops
“Where’ll we get treacle, Mama?”
“You let me worry about that, girl.”
The dormouse talked treacle at the Mad Tea Party.
Why not. The woods are their own sort of Wonderland. “What if I had to drive a vehicle home?”
“Then you’d better hope it’s a beater, and you’d chew this.” The girl flips a few foil-wrapped sticks at me.
I unwrap one and fold the gum into my mouth. “Thanks.” “Hey—aren’t you Fiddle Girl?”
Before I know what I’m doing, I shake my head no. “Sure you are. FYI, the kiddie drinks are in the cooler in the
I pick my way through a jungle of bodies, slowing down to listen to a shaggy-haired guy in the corner play guitar for two girls. Not bad.
Back in the great room, I notice the massive staircase winding to the second floor. The bodies thin out as I ascend. On the landing, I hesitate before a dark hallway of closed doors.
I rap on the first one.
“Pixie?”
No answer.
“Pixie, are you in there? It’s time.”
“Go away!” a male voice growls, startling me, and I almost trample a cat with a pushed-in face. It hunches its back and hisses at me before skittering off.
What if something happened to Pixie? I’m in charge.
I never should have left her alone.
I knock on the next few doors, but there’s no answer. I feel along
Would any of the guys hurt a little girl? What if they were drunk?
“Pixie!” I yell above the music. “Pixie!”
I have no choice but to go back to the first room, where I hear rustling, then silence.
Gently, I try the knob, surprised when it turns. Ever so slightly, I push the door open, my eyes adjusting to the light. There must be thirty candles burning, at least.
“What the hell are you doing in here, freak?”
I see much more than I want to— a guy’s bare buttocks rising and falling over a girl, also naked, her breasts exposed as she twists out from under him.
The guy looks over his shoulder, eyes narrowed. “Didn’t you hear her? GET OUT.”
“Get the fuck OUT!” Delaney yells, half-hysterical.
I slam the door behind me, falling to my knees in my haste. Her shrill voice penetrates the wood.
“Shit, Derek! She knows!” Her voice quivers, on the brink of tears. “Shit! Shit! Shit!”
I fly down the stairs, knocking into Marie at the bottom. She glares at me like Delaney does as she works to steady a silver platter of small sandwiches.
“Watch where you’re going. And for your information, the second floor is off-limits.”
I’m so not in the mood. “I reckon someone should’ve told Delaney that,” I snap.
She looks nervously from me to the upstairs landing.
I take one of the sandwiches. “Thanks.”
She rushes up the stairs.
“There you are! Where’d you get the food?”
I whip around, Pixie stands with her hands on her hips, cheeks flushed, the hairs framing her face curly with perspiration.
“Marie has a platter. Wait a minute— there I am? Where’ve you been? I’ve been looking all over for you.”
“You have any more gum?” she asks, watching me chew.
I’m still new to gum. I tend to chew it like cud.
I hand Pixie the sandwich, instead, which she inhales, her words garbled.
“I wish it were bigger. They call these finger sandwiches. I’m thinking of home and a honking big PB&J on pumpernickel—you know, the thick slices?”
I’m so relieved to have found her, I almost forget what I saw upstairs. Almost. I imagine my father’s face on fire as he shouts at Delaney. I imagine Melissa’s eyes, black as marbles, her arms locked across her chest, and I get it: It’s the same out here as it is in the woods— the silent shame of young girls having babies. Even Mama didn’t want that for me.
I see Delaney moving rhythmically in the bed, a smile on her face . . . a smile . . . until she saw me.
Pixie yawns so wide, I see her uvula.
“I was in the study, playing Scrabble with some of the freshman girls. You were the one who disappeared. With Ryan,” she says, teasing me.
I grin, the happier events of the night playing on a loop. Lips. Vivaldi. Snow angels. Lancelot.
She grabs my arm and turns it, checking my watch. I trail her to the coat closet, where she finds her coat easily, slipping it from the hanger, and I help her put it on, like I do for Nessa. She turns to me as she wraps her scarf around her neck.
“This had to be the most amazing night of my entire life. I wish it weren’t over already.”
“Mine, too.” I giggle. I feel like I could hug the world, like a big snow globe wrapped up in my puffer arms.
“I knew he’d kiss you,” she says, leaning in to me.
“I didn’t even know he’d be here.”
“I did. He asked me on Friday if you were going”—her eyes glint conspiratorially—“and I told him, ‘Hell yeah.’ ”
I laugh, realizing how much people underestimate Pixie. She comes in such an adorable package, but she’s really light-years ahead of all of us.
She takes my bare hand in her gloved one. Each finger of her gloves is a different color.
“C’mon. I don’t want my mom waiting too long.”
We wrangle our way to the front door, but I stop and turn when I hear a familiar voice.
“Hey!”
Delaney leans over the second-floor balcony, her perfect hair a perfect mess. One collar blade of her white button-down blouse stands on end, but it’s not that. Something’s different.
And then I see it. Her eyes aren’t defiant, superior, or icy. They’re terrified.
Pixie pulls at me to go. I stare at Delaney for a long moment, waiting for the sisterly braille to kick in. It doesn’t.
I turn and follow Pixie out the door.
“You girls have fun?”
Heat escapes in pockets out of Mrs. Macleod’s open window.
Pixie climbs into the front seat. I slide into the back.
“It was awesome, Amy!” Pixie sighs.
“Mom, please.”
“It was AWESOME, Mom! I had the best night of my entire
life. We ate birthday cake and danced all night, and the house was
huge. There was this glass fireplace in the great room, and everyone
was so nice to me.”
“Cake?” I poke Pixie in the back.
“Um-hmm.”
“Seat belts, please.”
Pixie sighs, her face dreamy as she turns to me.
“Thanks, Carey, for the best night of my life.”
“How about you, Carey? Did you have fun?”
Pixie giggles. I nod at Mrs. Macleod, and blush.
“It was quite a night,” I agree, making a face at Pixie, then smiling at her mom, who smiles back in the rearview mirror. We drive home through the slippery darkness, Pixie oohing and
aahing over the Christmas lights strung across the houses, each
display different, each amazing in its own right.
I remember Jenessa’s face when we drove through town and she
saw the lights for the first time. She thought it was her fairy world
come to life.
There have been so many moments when we’ve smacked up
against reality, struggling to gain our bearings and find our way
clear. But not the lights. The lights are magical. Ness is young
enough to make this world her real one, a place where sober people
string lights on houses and trees, whole rooms exist for canned
goods, and a fat old guy in a red suit leaves presents for children
on December 25.
“Wait until we get the tree,” Melissa says, her eyes shining. “A freshcut tree, with pine scent wafting through the house!”
“Imagine that,” I tell Jenessa, her eyes wide, unblinking. “A tree inside the house—hung with ornaments and even more lights!” At our farm, it’s dark and silent as the snow stops falling for the
first time in days. Our own Christmas lights, ginormous bulbs of
red, green, yellow, and blue, have been switched off for the night. “Would you like us to walk you in?” Mrs. Macleod offers as I
undo my seat belt and zip my coat.
“Thank you, ma’am, but I have my keys,” I pull the ring from my
pocket and jangle it, “and it looks like everyone’s asleep. I’ll be okay.
Thanks for the ride.”
“You’re welcome, Carey. Thanks for taking Courtney to the
party. I know it meant a lot to her.”
“You’re welcome, ma’am. She had a good time. We both did.” “Hello! I’m right here!”
I chuckle as I close the door. Pixie scrambles over the seat and
stretches out for a nap across the back, waving good-bye with her
eyes closed.
I let myself into the house, shushing Shorty as he bays once, sniffs the party on me, then licks some off my hand. I struggle with my boots, leaving them standing in the mudroom, and pad down
the hall in my stocking feet.
The fire in the living room is a pile of dying embers— sad, somehow. I perch on the rug before it, my knobby knees hugged to my
chest. Good old Shorty, waiting until he heard the dead bolt click
before disappearing up the stairs, back to Nessa.
I pat my pocket, remembering, my fingers closing around two
shiny rectangles of paper. When I turn the key of the Tiffany lamp,
there’s just enough light to see.
There I am in black and white, in profile. From that angle, my
violin case, slung over my shoulder, assumes the shape of an angel’s
wing.
The picnic in the woods.
It’s the second photograph, though, that causes my breath to
catch in my throat and sends me tumbling down Alice’s rabbit hole. A towhead girl and a gangly boy sit side by side in backyard
swings. Her flaxen hair falls over one eye. His skinny arm is dwarfed
by a neon green cast. Both wear grins for miles.
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I wanted to, but when you didn’t remember me . . . I don’t know. I
thought for sure you’d remember me.”
I touch my cheek where he touched it, smooth my hair like he
smoothed it, to feel what he felt. My cheek is winter cold, but soft,
and so is my hand. His grip had been gentle and warm; hesitant, at
first, and then bolder once we’d fixed things.
A starburst of headlights penetrates the front window, and it
can only be one person. I search the face of the chiming clock as the
beams wash over it. Five minutes to one, with our curfew extended
an hour from the usual midnight. She’ll just make it.
I hang my coat and take the stairs two at a time, closing the door
to my room and forgoing the light. I hide the photographs under a
sheaf of papers on the desk. I’m not ready to share them yet. It was an awesome night, Saint Joseph. Did you hear Ryan play? I barely breathe as Delaney climb the stairs. Hallway light spills
under my door. The shadow stands there, walks away, then returns. “Good night,” I call out to her sarcastically, waiting. But there’s
no fun in it.
The shadow hesitates.
Before I can rethink it, I throw open the door, grab her by the
upper arm, and pull her in.
“Hey!”
She tugs her arm from my grasp and turns up the light. “Like that hurts,” I say, bolder after tonight. “Why do you have
to be such a bitch?”
“ ‘Bitch’? The high- and-mighty Carey, cussing? Where’d you
learn that?”
“From the high- and-mighty Delaney. Get over it.”
“What’s your main problem, Blackburn?”
“You! You calling me ‘backwoods freak’ in front of people.
Enough, already!”
Delaney rolls her eyes. But I refuse to let it go. I say the next
softly, like a sucker punch to the gut.
“You know, if you call me a freak, you’re calling Jenessa a freak,
too.”
My words pain her. Her eyes shift from angry and flashing to
ashamed.
“Anythingelse?”
“I reckon there is. I want the letter from Mama— all the copies.” “Oh, you do? And what do I get?”
Like she doesn’t know.
“My silence. I won’t say anything to my father or your mom
abouttonight.”
We size each other up like the waddle badger and the shuffle
fox, those few times they’d crossed paths. Claws and teeth ready,
but not necessary unless absolutely necessary, and everyone knows
absolutes are rarely absolute. Especially after feasting on fermented blackberries.
“Fine. And for your information, I wasn’t planning on showing
the letter to anyone anyway.”
“Oh, so you reckoned you’d blackmail me with it instead? It’s
obvious how much you hate me.”
And it’s like I flipped a switch—one waiting, all this time, to be
fl i p p e d .
“I don’t hate you. For someone so smart, you can be so dense. I’m
just—” She hattsand begins again, the clouds speeding up across
her face. “It’s not all about you, okay? I mean, I get it. You lived in
the woods, cold and hungry with a drugged-up mother doing who
knows what to survive. You have dibs on the monster bites of attention. I get that. But it doesn’t make it any easier for me. It doesn’t
mean it doesn’t suck, to be constantly shoved into the background.” The shame washes over me in waves. She’s right. She’s absolutely
right.
“I didn’t mean to make it all about me. I wasn’t trying to—” “I know. And that’s exactly what I’m saying—it’s complicated.
The whole effin’ thing is complicated. You . . . me—we’re complicated.”
She crosses her arms and turns away. I take the leap. “I reckon it’ll take time, Delaney. That’s all. That’s what Mel—
your mom said.”
She collapses onto my bed, her head on my pillow. She looks
like someone different. Just a girl, like me.
“It was tough in the woods, huh?”
I swallow hard, nodding.
“I saw your sister’s back.” Her eyes are sorry, sharing the weight.
“I die, thinking of Nessa out there,” she whispers.
“I protected Nessa right fine.”
“I’m sure you did. I didn’t mean— Dad said—your father said
you had a shotgun.”
“Yup.”
“Did you ever have to use it?”
I curl up in my mind like the accidental- hedgehog into a prickly
ball of leave-me- alone. And then, whether a shift of light or shadow,
the walls crash back into place. I’m the old Carey again. She’s the
old Delaney.
I lie. “How do you think we ate?”
“Meat well- done, I hope. Or you’d both have worms.” I blush.
“So, Blackburn. A secret for a secret. That’s the deal, right?” She holds out her hand, and I pull her to her feet.
I think of her and Derek and their kind of sex. Smiling. Not for
money. Enjoying themselves.
A whole different world.
“A secret for a secret.”
She makes a fist and holds out her pinkie like a hook. I stare at it. “Just do it.”
I do the same, and she hooks her pinkie through mine. “Pinkie promise. Say it.”
“Pinkie promise.”
She lets go and wanders my room, her finger trailing the bindings of the poetry books lining the shelf above my desk. “Hey, what’s this?”
A corner of one of the photographs catches the light. Delaney moves toward it, sliding it out from under the papers. She studies it
for a long, long time.
“Oh. My. God. I get it now.” She holds out the photograph. “I
can’t believe it. Is that—”
“Me and Ryan. We knew each other as children.”
“Oh. My. God.” She stares at me, then back at the photograph.
“Wow. Just wow. No words.”
She puts the photo down and picks up the other. A tiny smile
plays across her lips.
“This is a beautiful picture of you, Carey.”
“Thank you.”
I check her face. She really means it.
“Make sure you keep them somewhere safe. If it were me, I’d
want to keep them forever.”
I nod, not sure how to respond to this new, softer Delly. I think
of the woods, the winter chill melting off into spring, how it’s natural. Maybe this is natural. Maybe Melissa was right, and Delaney
just needed time. Like all of us.
“On that note, I need to catch some z’s. Night, Carey.” “Night.”
She smiles at me from the doorway, and the chink, the tiny
crack that let us in, remains.