Dark and Shallow Lies(40)

Dead.

Not Elora.

I know it’s true – some part of me has known it ever since that night back in February when I woke up and felt it, clear as anything – but I still can’t make any sense out of it.

Because if she were really dead, surely I would be, too. How do you go on living with only half a heart?

Suddenly I can’t get enough air. I’m panicking. Gasping for breath. My vision is blurry. I’m trembling.

Zale reaches over to take my hand, and I feel the electric shock of his skin against mine. My whole arm tingles. I pull my eyes away from Elora’s ring. Zale’s hand on mine.

And I find myself in the blue of his eyes.

For a split second, I think about Hart.

Dark curls. Teeth bared against the skin of my neck. Rough fingertips on the small of my back.

That gnawing need.

His.

And mine.

But then I feel the gentle heat of Zale’s touch spreading out through my whole body. It isn’t hot. I don’t feel that burn. Like I did with Hart last night.

But finally, I’m warm again. And I let myself breathe in deep.

I think about something Honey always says when she does a tarot reading.

It may not be what you were expecting, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t what you need.

That reminds me that we’re supposed to go up to Kinter this morning. Honey has a hair appointment. And I’ve totally lost track of time. How long have we been out here?

I don’t have any idea.

“I need to head back,” I say. And Zale nods.

I don’t want him to let go of my hand. But he does.

“Maybe I’ll see you this evening.” Something in his voice sounds hopeful.

“Yeah,” I tell him. “I’ll come back out tonight.”

And I’m surprised by how much I’m already looking forward to it, because I know it doesn’t make any sense. I just met Zale. And he still seems only half-real to me. I’m curious, though. About this stranger who loved my twin flame. This secret friend who sat with Elora in the dark of the night when I couldn’t be here to save her from herself.

I cover the ground between Li’l Pass and the boardwalk as quick as I can, hoping like heck I’m not in trouble. When I get back to the Mystic Rose, Honey is already out on the dock getting the boat ready, so I hurry inside to trade my mud boots for flip-flops and grab my sunglasses.

Like most people in La Cachette, Honey has a little flatboat with an outboard motor that she uses to scoot up to Kinter and back. You can’t really take a tiny boat like that out on the river, though. The Mighty Mississippi is too everything. Too fast. Too treacherous. Too full of logs and submerged dangers. Too crowded with enormous cargo ships and barges.

You have to go the back way.

Up through the bayou.

I think about my friends in Little Rock and their sweet little grandmothers. Delicate, grey-haired Southern belles with strings of pearls and pastel sweaters dyed the colors of Easter mints. I bet not one of them could pilot a flatboat through the thick of the swamp. But Honey makes it look easy. One hand on the tiller and the other hand on her head to keep her bright blue scarf from blowing away.

On the ride up to Kinter, Honey plays wildlife guide, pointing out the big swamp rabbits grazing in the Bermuda grass and the pink spoonbills feeding at the water’s edge.

I can’t really hear her, though. My mind is too full of Elora.

And Hart.

And Case.

And Zale.

The things I know.

And all the things I still don’t.

I’m so lost in my thoughts that I don’t even realize we’re there until I feel the boat bump against the wooden pilings.

Most everyone in La Cachette pays a few bucks a month to keep a car parked at the bayou dock up in Kinter. So once Honey gets things squared away with the boat, we haul ourselves into Eliza, a dented old Toyota pickup with faded red paint and no air-conditioning.

“This is the truck I bought your mama when she headed off to college,” Honey tells me. Like she does every single time. “Good ol’ Liza Jane.” She pats the steering wheel. “Your mama drove her up to LSU in Baton Rouge that fall. Only eighteen years old.”

And only twenty when she got pregnant and dropped out to come home so Honey could help raise me. Before my mom died, I’d met my dad a handful of times. I can’t complain about him, though. We talked yesterday. On my birthday. And I told him everything was fine.

Dad does the best he can by me, but – even half my lifetime later – Little Rock is just Little Rock.

La Cachette is still home.

Honey parks Eliza outside the Kut and Kurl, and I wander across the street to the tiny public library to pass the time. It’s only been a couple weeks, but it seems like forever since I’ve seen civilization. Not that two-stoplight Kinter really counts. Still, it feels weird to be in the library. The lighting is too bright and the AC is too cold.

I wander through the fiction section for a while, but I already have too much summer reading to do for school. I’m supposed to be slogging through The Tempest, and I haven’t even started. So I can’t commit to anything else. I make my way over to the periodicals section, just to see if I can find something worth flipping through, but I’m not really into Field & Stream or Southern Living.

Then I notice a newspaper tucked down in between the magazines. It’s a copy of the Advocate Times Picayune from up in New Orleans. I figure that’s better than nothing, even if it is dated almost a month ago, so I pull it out.