Dark and Shallow Lies(33)

Sera and Sander and Evie and Mackey all make excuses to drop by that afternoon. Sander gives me a sketch he did. Elora and me sitting side by side on the front porch steps. “He drew it from memory,” Sera whispers, and I manage to tell him that it’s perfect.

Mackey cracks jokes. Tries to make me smile. All Evie can offer is a half stick of gum, but I take it, because I can see how desperately she wants to make me feel better.

At least all of them have the good sense not to mention what day it is.

Honey honors my request and doesn’t bring it up, either. She gives me plenty of space all day, and I appreciate that. But there’s still this pressure building inside me.

I feel it when I touch the little blue pearl on the chain around my neck.

It swells every time I twist Elora’s ring around my finger. I keep thinking about what Zale said. About how it was the most important thing she had to give. Because it came from me.

By nightfall, that pressure is crushing me, and I need to escape.

Late that evening the rain finally stops, so I grab a flashlight and head out the door. Honey and Sweet-N-Low both look up, but they don’t ask any questions. And that’s good.

Because I wouldn’t have any answers. I have no idea where I’m going.

My feet know, though. They carry me through the blackness toward the downriver end of the boardwalk. Toward the old pontoon boat. When I get there, I see movement down below me, in the dark. Something big. I suck in my breath from the surprise of it and almost lose my balance.

“Careful, Shortcake.” I click on my flashlight. Hart is sitting in the driver’s seat, boots propped up on the railing. “That’s a long drop for a little girl.”

I slip off Elora’s ring and hide it away in my pocket before I stick my flashlight between my teeth and make my way down the wooden ladder.

When I step into the boat, it moves underneath me and I almost lose my footing again. Hart holds out a hand so I can take it and steady myself.

The old pontoon usually sits in the mud at the edge of the gator pond – but it’s high tide, plus the water is up from all the rain – so tonight it’s floating, tethered to the dock by a rusting chain. Like a neglected dog tied up in somebody’s yard.

Hart has a case of beer, and by the looks of the empty bottles scattered around his feet, he’s already well into it. He uses the base of his cigarette lighter to pop the top off one, then he hands it to me. He’s shielding his eyes from the flashlight beam. “Jesus,” he grumbles. “Turn that thing off, will ya?”

I click off the light and take the seat across from him.

Hart is sopping wet. Soaked through. I figure he’s been sitting out here for a long time. Since before the rain stopped, for sure.

All day maybe. Probably. Just letting the water fall on him.

“What are you doing out here?” I ask.

“Celebrating.” He’s drunk. If the empty bottles hadn’t told me that, the thick sound of his voice would have. “And waitin’ for you.”

I watch Hart shake out a cigarette and smoke it in slow motion between swigs of warm beer. Every time he reaches out to flick away the ash, my eyes trail after his hand. I’m half hypnotized by the glowing orange embers hovering in the dark.

Willie Nelson hisses loud and angry from across the pond, and the sound of an airboat drifts in from somewhere back in the bayou.

I hear Hart clear his throat, then he pulls a beat-up envelope from his back pocket and hands it to me. It’s bent in half and all wet. He flicks open his lighter and holds the flame so I can see. The envelope is purple, and my name is scrawled across it in pencil.

“It’s just a card. But I wanted you to have somethin’ tonight.” I can tell he’s embarrassed. “Picked it up at the Chat and Scat in Kinter.”

That actually makes me smile. A wet gas station birthday card. Typical Hart.

I can’t stand the idea of reading it right now, though. Even a cheesy Hallmark knockoff might be enough to sink me this evening.

“Thanks,” I tell him. And I slip the soggy envelope into my back pocket.

“You believe in past lives, Greycie?” Hart’s already working on another beer. He’ll be totally wasted before long.

“Why?”

He runs one hand through his wet curls before he takes another drink, and I feel that familiar itch in my own fingers.

“Somethin’ my mama told me. She thinks all of us – you, me, Elora, Sera and Sander, Evie, Mackey, Case, Ember and Orli – all ten of us – are linked like that.” I add Zale’s name to his list in my head. Mysterious number eleven. “That’s why we pull so hard on each other.”

Hart digs the cigarette pack out of his shirt pocket and shakes out another one. It’ll be a miracle if the thing is dry enough to light.

But he holds it between his lips.

Flick.

Whoosh.

Pull in air.

Slow burn.

“Like maybe you and Elora were mother and daughter once. But another time, you stormed the beaches at Normandy together.” He slaps at an mosquito. “Shit. Maybe Case was my goddamn grandpa in another life. Or my boss.” He laughs low and quiet. “For all I know, Evie coulda put a bayonet through me during the War of Eighteen fuckin’ Twelve.”

I finish my first beer and immediately get handed a second one.