Sacred (3 page)

He searched my face as if looking for the answer to some riddle, and I felt my anger seep out of me, leaving in its place a warm, soft feeling that I didn’t have a name for.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured at last. “I didn’t mean to cause you trouble. That is the last thing I want to do.”

He fixed his eyes on me. “I’m Will,” he said, offering his hand. “Will Cohen.”

Will tilted his head slightly to one side, waiting with his hand extended while I tried to diagnose his motives before I finally gave up and thrust my hand toward his.

“Scarlett Wenderoth,” I murmured in the second before our hands connected. Then our fingers touched, and for a long moment I don’t think I could have told anyone my name at all.

His grip was warm and firm, and he held my hand rather than shook it, as if sealing a promise. His other hand came up to grasp mine too.

Then Delilah nudged me with her muzzle, her warm breath sending shivers down my body, and I felt a colder breeze than I’d felt all summer. Fall was coming. I smelled it all around me. I pulled my hand free.

“I’m really sorry,” Will said, his eyes pleading. “But I thought … I thought you were in some kind of trouble.”

I snorted. “Trouble? I don’t think so. I’ve been riding these trails all my life. I know this island better than my bedroom.”

Somehow, saying “bedroom” to this boy sent a blush across my cheeks, though he didn’t seem to notice.

“Yeah,” he said softly, as if contemplating something very important. “You did seem in complete control … and I don’t see anyone else nearby.” His eyes scanned the terrain as if searching for predators.

“What’s the matter with you?”

Will shook his head. “I don’t know. Something …”

He stopped abruptly and walked away, stumbling as if drunk, his head bowed in what looked like pain, his hand once again massaging his temple.

I watched him as he wandered back along the trail and rounded the corner of the large oak tree. Then he disappeared from view.

I wanted to call out to him—what for, I didn’t know—but I bit my lip instead, hard, until I tasted my blood, a bad habit I’d developed in the months since Ronny’s death. The pain and the metallic taste of my blood did what I knew it would—it cleared my head.

I took a deep breath and turned to Delilah. She stamped her hoof, probably eager now for her oats. It was nearing dinnertime.

“All right, girl,” I said, rubbing her wide, red forehead with the hand that Will Cohen had held. “Let’s go home.”

Effortlessly, with the ease of years of practice, I swung myself back into the saddle. I made a clicking sound with my tongue; Delilah’s ears rotated to hear me, and she picked up a pretty trot. The reins swung loose and long in arcs from her mouth to my hands, and we settled into a practiced rhythm.

Back at the barn, I took my time untacking Delilah. Gently, I unhooked the bridle and lowered the bit from her mouth, replacing the bridle with her purple halter and tying her loosely to the cross-ties before hanging the bridle on a nearby peg. Then I pulled my cross-country saddle from her back, noting the square of sweat left on her where the saddle had been. I took the pad out from underneath the saddle, flipped it sweat side up so it could dry overnight, and hung it on its peg in the tack room.

I led Delilah from the cross-ties to the wash racks and tied her securely before turning on the hose. I sprayed her spindly legs first, then worked the water up across her back. As she got wet, her red coat darkened and shone. I sprayed between her withers, and her muscles shivered in pleasure.

When she was rinsed, I pulled the sweat scraper from my tack bucket and swept the water from her coat, from her neck, down her sides, across her shoulders, down her flanks. There was something supremely satisfying about this activity—all the activities, actually, that went along with taking care of my mare. I didn’t even mind cleaning her stall. Keeping her groomed and well fed brought me more pleasure than I ever got from taking care of my own body.

I spread a thick coat of sealant over all four of her hooves. They shone as if polished in the late-afternoon light.

Finally, there was nothing more to do, so I led Delilah to her stall, where a thick flake of hay and some oats awaited her. She pulled eagerly at the lead rope, nickering at her food.

I laughed. “All right, girl, you’ve earned it.” I unfastened her halter and she pushed past me into her stall. I closed its heavy door and latched it securely behind her.

I wasn’t alone at the stable, though I would have preferred it that way. Two men were working in the garden, watering and weeding the twin bands of flowers at the stable’s entrance.

And Alice was in the office, waiting for me to finish my ride so that she could drive me back to town. I felt a twinge of guilt at how late it was; I knew Alice had a husband and kids waiting for her back home, and I was pretty sure that she would have left by now if she wasn’t held up waiting for me.

Cars on the island are a rare commodity, and even though I’d turned sixteen last April, there was no hope of my having my own car anytime soon. There was a long waiting list to bring cars onto the island, and anyone who already had one held on to it fiercely. Around town I walked, or took my family’s golf cart through the narrow streets if I was in a real hurry, but the road out to the stable was too far and windy to safely negotiate by golf cart, so I caught a ride with Alice whenever I could, at least three or four times a week.

Before Ronny Died, Alice used to hassle me about taking
so long with Delilah. “Are you still messing with that mare?” she’d call at me across the courtyard. “That horse must be sick of you by now!”

But since Ronny’s death, Alice didn’t rush me anymore. Even on the days when I came off the trails at twilight, Alice waited patiently in the office, with a light shining like a beacon for me. She never complained about how long I took.

That was no excuse to take advantage of her goodwill, I admonished myself. Alice was not my personal chauffeur. She was a family friend, as close as an aunt, and since my mother had disappeared into the deep cave of her grief, Alice had been the closest person in my life.

I hurried over to the office now. Alice must have seen me through the window because she switched off the light and came out through the door, closing and locking it behind her.

Alice was the kind of lady who made everything look easy. She had to be the same age as my mom—forty-five—because they had graduated from college the same year, but her face was luminous and bright.

Alice wore her light brown hair in a neat bob, the ends turned under, just chin length. Sometimes she pinned one side back with a colorful barrette, but usually her hair fell like wings on the sides of her face, framing it.

Even on the days she was at the stable, Alice did her face. Mascara, lipstick, the works. I harbored a secret suspicion that she ironed her jeans.

Today, her fingernails were painted a pretty pearlescent
pink, and I would have bet twenty bucks that her toenails, hidden in her shiny black stable boots, were painted the same shade.

“Hey, kiddo,” she called to me as we both headed to her truck.

I flinched, invisibly I hoped, as I did every time she called me “kiddo,” which was what Ronny had always called me. I would have asked Alice not to call me that anymore, but I knew how horrified she would have been to learn that she was echoing my dead brother’s nickname for me. All of Alice’s actions were governed by her desire to lighten the burden on my heart … as if that were possible.

“Hey,” I answered, and climbed into the truck.

It was spotless, of course, like Alice herself, and some easy jazz song came on as she turned the key in the ignition.

As we headed down the dusty road, away from the stable and toward Avalon, I could feel Alice’s flitting glance landing on my body again and again like a troublesome fly. She’d look at my leg, then back to the road, then at my arm, bare in the pink T-shirt I was wearing, then down at the radio, back to the road, and across to my face.

Her forehead creased with worry, and her lips pursed as if she was deciding whether to speak.

Please don’t speak, please don’t speak
, I silently willed, and I reached out to turn up the volume on the radio.

But Alice beat me to it, and she flicked the radio off.

“Scarlett,” she said. “I notice you’ve been losing weight.”

My window was down, blowing the strands of my hair around my face. I pushed them back and tried to flatten
them behind my ears, but the wind thwarted my efforts. From her seat, Alice pressed a button, and my window silently slid up. The wind died out at once and the cab was suddenly, unbearably quiet.

I wondered what the most polite way to say “It’s none of your business” might be … but I found my mouth dry, no words coming.

“It’s natural, I’m sure,” Alice went on, her words coming faster now, as if the floodgates were open, “when you’re going through such grief, to lose your appetite, though for me I guess the opposite is true. Whenever I’m stressed-out or sad, I tend to hit the peanut butter cups pretty hard. So I’ve hesitated saying anything. But Scarlett, you’re starting to look … downright scrawny.”

I appraised my body the best I could from my position in the truck. “Scrawny” certainly isn’t a word I would have chosen, but I couldn’t deny that my jeans were much looser on my hips and thighs than they’d been at the beginning of the summer, and my arms, I guess, were skinnier too.

But I wasn’t about to admit this to Alice. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, my voice rougher than I’d intended. “I’m exactly the same as I was six months ago.”

I felt the lie in my words, though, and I knew Alice heard it too. Nothing was the same as it had been six months ago. Everything was terribly, permanently different. A whole new version of the future, one that never should have become reality, was playing out now. Ronny should be getting ready to go back to UCLA for the fall. He should be sunburned from all the fishing he’d done with Daddy over
the last few months on the island, and he should be contemplating the best way to break up with whichever girl he’d occupied himself with this summer.

Instead, his body was decomposing in a coffin. I wondered grimly if he looked anything like he had when we’d buried him, or if he’d be unrecognizable now. I wondered too if all of him was dead. I wanted to hope that some part of him lived on, but I couldn’t feel him out there … all I felt was alone.

Thoughts like these came to me often. They were hard to control, and they made me feel sick and breathless, dizzy, like I would pass out. Not much counteracted them, but focusing on the details of living—like how many strokes to brush my hair, how many ounces of water I drank, how many calories I consumed in a day—seemed to take the edge off, at least for a little while.

I considered explaining this to Alice, but I figured it wouldn’t really help anything. It would just make her worry more, and maybe even prompt her to share her worries with my parents, who were pretty much incapacitated by their grief over Ronny already. I certainly didn’t want to add to their stress with my own problems.

So instead I plastered what I hoped was a sincere-looking smile on my face and turned to Alice.

“You’re right, Alice,” I began. “I guess I have been losing a little weight. I don’t know … I guess it’s been hard since Ronny died. But I’ll pay better attention. I promise. Just … don’t worry my parents about this, okay? Mom especially … she’s not doing well.”

Alice grimaced, and I knew I’d hit a nerve. My mom was her best friend, after all, and it must be hard for Alice to watch her going through all this. She nodded, tight-lipped. “All right, kiddo,” she said. “I won’t talk to your mom—yet. But I want to see you filling out those jeans again, you hear?”

I nodded, fighting down the ball of anger in my chest. There was no reason to be mad at Alice; she was just trying to help. But my anger rose anyway, bilious and bitter, and I bit down on my lip again to suppress it.

This is how it was, lately: my emotions were stronger than I was. If I slipped up, even for a moment, they could erupt from me in a spew of ugly words, and if I started to cry and scream, I feared I would never stop.

I pressed the button on my door to lower my window again, and Alice flipped the music back on—then, as if reading my thoughts, she switched the station to something loud and full of bass and turned the volume way up.

We finished the drive to town like that—the cab of the truck full of wind, my hair whipping about my face, blissfully obscuring my view, the screams of the rock music pushing my own thoughts away from my mind.

When we pulled up to my house, Alice turned the volume to low and swiveled in her seat to look me in the eye. “Go on in now, Scarlett, and eat something good—a burger, maybe.” Then she smiled, and I saw her eyes were kind. I could see why my mom loved her so much. Alice was a good lady. Still, though, I didn’t need a babysitter.

“Sure, Alice, will do,” I muttered, and I slammed the door
of the truck a little harder than I needed to after I hopped down. “See you tomorrow?” I asked, sticking my head back through the open window.

“I’ll pick you up at ten,” Alice said, and she waved at me as she drove away.

Then I was alone, and I sighed with relief. It was hard to be around people. It was like I didn’t know what to say anymore, or how to act, to give them what they seemed to want.

I’d always thought I was a pretty good actress; I’d been in Drama Club since freshman year. But this summer, I’d found acting normal to be a challenge that was beyond my skill.

I turned to appraise my house. A 1925 classic Victorian, our large wooden home was all turrets and spindles, wide porches and graceful steps. Three stories tall, the house featured a great room where our visitors could mingle and six guest rooms, each painted a different color, on the first and second floors. The third story was reserved for my family—three bedrooms, one small shared bath with an old claw-foot tub, a small kitchen.

Mom cooked for the guests in the house’s main kitchen on the bottom floor. When we had visitors, she prepared amazing quiches and muffins for breakfast, and cheese and cracker plates in the evening, along with complementary wine. When it was just the three of us, we ate cereal in the morning, and I pretty much fended for myself for the rest of the day.