Beware the Wild Read online

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

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  Advance Reader’s e-proof

  courtesy of HarperCollins Publishers

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  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  DEDICATION

  For Tess, who always believes

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Disclaimer

  Title

  Dedication

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Part Two

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Part Three

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

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  PART ONE

  Beware the swampy places, child,

  Beware the dark and wild,

  Many a soul has wandered there,

  And many a soul has died.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

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  IT’S NO SECRET, OURS IS the meanest swamp in Louisiana.

  Regular swamps are dangerous enough. Loud, stinking things, they hide their claws in the mud between cypress knees, beneath the surface of stale, brackish waters. There are a hundred ways to die all cloaked in the twist of pale trees—gators fast enough to catch a grown man, mosquitoes teeming with disease, stinging plants, hungry black bears, and nasty cottonmouths all filled with spite and patience. Heat so dense it collects in your ears, air so thick it coats the inside of your nose, and plenty of putrid, sucking mud that’ll pull you down and fill your lungs with slow death.

  But what’s in ours is worse.

  Ours is a creature all its own. We don’t stare into its depths and we don’t ever go inside. We live alongside it, tolerate it the way every Southern town tolerates creeping vines of kudzu, and I’ve done my best to avoid it until today.

  It’s a million degrees, and I’m baking my butt on the cherry-red hood of Phin’s old Chevelle. He’s been fixing it up, and he’d get after me if he saw I was sitting on it, but I like the way the heat sears my thighs.

  Only one week to go in my sophomore year. I should’ve been blowing off studying for finals because I was too busy painting my nails or spending a lazy afternoon at the racetrack. But everything changed a few hours ago, and I’m blowing off studying for a totally legitimate reason, hoping Phin will come home just to cuss at me for sitting on his car.

  My phone buzzes against the gravel on the ground where Candy Pickens sits. She scoops it up and screens the text. I can’t be trusted to answer anything right now. Not without burning a whole host of bridges.

  “It’s Beale,” she reports. “She’s finally done with church and wants to know if she should come over.”

  I’m tempted to say yes, but I shake my head. Other than Candy, Abigail Beale’s my closest friend. She’s nothing if not calm and collected, and if I need anything at the moment it’s to stay calm, but having her here won’t make me feel any better. She’d only sit as powerlessly as I’ve been doing all day.

  The front door opens. Voices spill into the yard.

  Candy takes my cue and we keep quiet to avoid being noticed.

  “You’re sure you don’t want to press charges? He’s eighteen now. Not a boy anymore, and there isn’t a soul in Sticks who’d think poorly of you for it, Gatty.”

  I recognize Sheriff Felder’s lazy voice. He’s been inside with Mama and my stepdad, Deputy Darold Gatwood, for the better part of the afternoon.

  “No charges,” my stepdad says. “It was an accident. Plain and simple.”

  “Maybe so, but he could’ve really hurt Sterling and I don’t much like the idea of letting someone get away with hitting one of my deputies. Sets a bad precedent. A particularly bad one, if you know what I mean. I hope you’ll reconsider.”

  I’d like to walk right around the corner and tell him to do his job and go find Phin instead of looking for excuses to arrest him, but Darold gets there first.

  “Nothing to reconsider. That boy’s had enough trouble in his life. It’s not for me to add to it.” He pauses. I strain to hear his next words. “He might be in danger, you know.”

  It’s the sheriff’s turn to pause. Then he says, “I can’t send any of our men into that swamp. You know it, Gatty. I’m sorry. Let’s wait and hope for the best.”

  Darold’s muffled response is followed by the front door closing hard. Sheriff Felder comes into view, halting his slow stride to tip his Stetson. Sunlight flashes over the star pinned to the brim and he drawls, “Girls,” before pouring into his cruiser like molasses.

  “Hope for the best” is his way of saying he won’t be looking for Phin, but he might feel bad about it. It’s the same approach he uses for hurricanes or flu viruses, anything he feels powerless against. Or, in the case of my brother, anyone who’s more trouble than they’re worth.

  But Sheriff Felder doesn’t know Phineas like I do. Maybe he’d feel differently if he’d known Phin as a ten-year-old twig of a boy, willing to put himself in danger to keep me safe. Maybe he’d care if he’d seen Phin standing bare-chested and shaking brave in front of a man big enough to snap him like kindling. Maybe if he had, he wouldn’t be ready to give up so easily. Or maybe he’d go on turning his eyes away from the swamp no matter what.

  “I’m sorry, Saucier,” Candy says from the ground, her hands pressed to either side of a volleyball. She’s more gentle than usual with the syllables of my last name, SO-shur—the name Mama was born with, and Phin and I took after Dad left.

  “Sorry for what?” I’m aware that being snappish isn’t kind, but I lost kindness hours ago. “Even if they cared, they’d never have looked in the swamp.”

  This entire town would rather believe we’re better off without him, that it was only a matter of time before violent Phineas Saucier crossed a line. When the story gets out, they’ll care that Phin and I were fighting
, and Phin got so mad he nailed the carport by my head. They’ll care that when Darold grabbed Phin’s shoulder, Phin spun and punched him in the face.

  They’ll care that Phin did what every man, woman, and child in Sticks knows not to do and crossed the split-rail fence into the swamp. Then, they’ll shake their heads and cluck their tongues like it’s such a shame, and if they’re generous, they’ll hope for the best.

  I peer over my shoulder at the far edge of my yard where pine trees dust everything in shadow. Their branches bend down in a way they shouldn’t, like greedy claws. We all know better than to cross that fence.

  But the only time Phin gets dumb is when he’s angry.

  And he hasn’t come back.

  “They know what happened, Candy,” I say. “The swamp ate my brother.”

  “Don’t be dramatic or anything,” she says flatly.

  From beneath the pines, the air somehow winks both dark and bright. On our bit of fence, beads and Christmas lights glitter against the old gray planks. A tradition started by Mama’s daddy, Grandpa Saucier, to remind the swamp that there was nothing for it beyond its edges. Mama adds more Mardi Gras beads every year, clearing the oldest and dullest ones to make room for new strings of black-and-red top hats, purple-and-green fleur-de-lis, peppers, gator heads, and whatever else was tossed during the parades. And now, behind that familiar sight, something shines in the dark.

  Sweat slides down my spine and I rub my eyes to clear them. When I open them, the air shimmers again.

  It’s too early yet for fireflies, but the lights I see are unmistakable. They dance above the fence, a hundred glowing eyes.

  “Do you see that?” I ask. “What is that?”

  Candy’s face is impassive. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

  I hop off the Chevelle, my skin ripping from the hot chrome, and stalk to where the unremarkable split-rail fence is ghostly pale against the dark swamp. It’s as easy to climb over as it is to scoot beneath, but no one does, and for some reason, the swamp stays firmly on the other side. A few brave plants may reach across the line, but by and large, the swamp keeps as much distance from us as we do of it.

  I stop just shy of the fence. It’s at least ten degrees cooler here, but that’s not what makes my skin prickle. There, wrapping around every other tree trunk and dripping from the underside of broad, leafy plants, are lights as bold as fireflies. They swirl in and around the foliage, hover in the air, and thread through the tangle of Spanish moss. A chill races down my arms.

  “I know you have him,” I whisper.

  The lights wink.

  “What are you on about?” Candy calls from behind, running to catch up.

  “What do you see in there?” When I rest my hands on the fence, little lighted fronds reach for me. They brush over my hands like butterfly wings. I snap them away.

  “Nothing but swamp,” she says, climbing boldly onto the bottom rung. “No sign of him.”

  “Nothing strange? No little lights?”

  This time she doesn’t even look. All our lives, she’s told frightening swamp stories at sleepovers and on camping trips. She’d grin a cat-grin when someone screeched or woke from a nightmare, but now her frown is for me alone. “This is what happens when you starve your brain, Saucier. You get stupid.”

  “Well, I see something. What do you call the lights that are always leading people into the swamp? The ones from the Clary stories.” If anyone knows the finer details of the Clary Tales, it’s Candy.

  She steps off the fence. Sweat has pulled her straight, blonde hair flat against her forehead and the bridge of her nose is beginning to flush pink. We’ve been outside too long, but there wasn’t an ounce of me that wanted to sit and listen to anything the sheriff had to say.

  “You mean the creeping lights people claim to see when they’re drunk? That strand men and children deep in the swamp? The Wasting Shine. Or just Shine,” she says confidently. “And they’re easy to explain away with our good friend Science.”

  “That’s it. That’s what I see right now. Long, creeping lights like vines. Not at all like Science.” I’m not usually quick to dismiss science, but this is different. The Shine beckons and blinks, beckons and blinks, turning the whole of the swamp into a living thing. I know I shouldn’t say more, but worry makes me reckless. I ask, “What if there really is something different—dangerous—about our swamp?”

  “That’s called superstition. Or crazy. And that’s no one’s friend.”

  The screen door squeals. Mama pushes her head through enough to be visible. Her dark curls are as limp as her voice when she calls, “Time to wash up, Sterling. Dinner in ten.” And then she’s gone. I don’t think she even saw us standing here.

  “That’s my cue.” Candy squeezes my hand, pulling me halfway to the house. “Want me to see if I can weasel out of the Pickens’ weekly drama and stay for dinner?”

  Selfishly, I do, but it’ll be miserable inside our house with or without her. I shake my head. “Thanks, though.”

  She nudges the heavy silver bracelet on my wrist and smiles. It’s as much encouragement as she can muster. She retrieves her bike and pedals down the drive, leaving me alone in the middle of the yard.

  I twist the bracelet, letting the silver push into my bones. Phin gave it to me early this morning before everything went wrong. This morning. He hasn’t even been gone a full day. It feels impossible. He’d been proud as a robin when I opened the box.

  “I found it up in the attic with Grandpa’s old things,” he said, grinning.

  There’s a reason Mama tucked it away when Grandpa died. It’s horrid. A thick band of tarnished silver with a small gap where a wrist could squeeze through, embellished with a gaudy bloom of curling flowers. I frowned at Phin’s grin. “You don’t say.”

  “Sass,” he said with amusement.

  No one can dismiss my frowns like Phineas, and I felt the beginnings of a wretched smile respond to his teasing.

  I picture his dark hair, charting an improbably choppy course around his head. It took more than one hair product to change his curls into the mess he preferred. The long line of his nose, the sharp angles of his jaw, the three freckles that trip down the left side of his neck—I know my brother better than anybody.

  “Let him go,” I whisper, looking into the swamp.

  I feel the flood of sunset against my back, but my eyes stick on the dark place where Phin vanished. I should have gone after him; I shouldn’t have let him carry that rage away. But there was a look in his eyes I recognized and it nailed my feet to the ground.

  Darold told Mama that Phin only needed to blow off some steam. He’d be home before we knew it. Neither of them had been willing to voice the grim thought plaguing us all: the swamp always demands a price of trespassers.

  And he hadn’t come home. Not in an hour and not in eight.

  Now, finally my eyes burn and panic balloons in my throat. Of all the stories we keep in Sticks about the dangers of the swamp, there’s not one in which someone who went inside it returns unchanged. If they escape at all, it’s with half a brain or madness in tow. Of course, those are just stories: tales kids tell to scare one another, but they wouldn’t be so frightening if our parents weren’t so guarded.

  I’m certain that right now, something awful is happening to my brother and there’s not a single thing I can do to help him.

  Long after Candy has gone, I keep staring into the tangle. The Shine grows brighter as the light of day fades. Then, somewhere deep inside, I see movement.

  I squint, clench my fists, and wait.

  I want it to be Phin so very badly.

  Surfacing through the dusk in flashes of white and green, a figure coalesces. I try not to breathe, not to move or do anything that might draw attention and make the swamp stop this person from emerging.

  Its steps are slow. Mockingbirds shout their litany of songs at the setting sun. I smell something soft and sweet on the air.

  It gets closer.

/>   I see long hair and a dark green sundress, and I feel an icy pain in my chest. A girl. A girl, not my brother, is walking out of the swamp.

  “Hello?” I call, disappointment heavy in my throat.

  She pauses briefly, but doesn’t answer before continuing her slow progress toward me.

  “Hey!” A dozen swamp stories flash through my mind. Is this even a girl? Unnerved, I step closer to the house, putting distance between us. “Can you speak? I said hello.”

  But again, she doesn’t answer. Her hand extends slowly and she hesitates before finding the fence. Dark hair hangs in her face, wild with curls and lovely in a way mine will never be. She climbs with something less than grace, fumbles with her dress, and nearly falls to the ground in my yard. She catches herself in a crouch, halfway to her knees. This clumsiness does nothing to relieve me.

  All at once, the shining vines reach toward the girl, grasping for her as if they never meant to let her go. But she’s beyond their reach. She rocks. Finding her balance, she tests the ground with her hands and feet before pushing up again.

  Then, her eyes lock on to mine, and she heads straight for me.

  I can’t think of a single good reason for a strange girl to stumble out of a swamp. But to stumble out of this swamp?

  My mouth opens to shout or scream or make demands when Mama’s voice comes from behind. “Girls, what are you waiting for? Come wash up for dinner!”

  When I turn, she’s standing with the screen door pushed open wide, a steaming spoon in her hand, and no hint of weariness about her. She watches me expectantly before shifting her gaze to the strange girl.

  “What are you waiting for?” she asks again. Her irritation is split evenly between me and the girl I’ve never seen before in my life.

  “What?” I ask.

  “Sterling.” Mama points her spoon in warning. “Don’t start tonight. You and your sister, pull that cotton from your ears, for Pete’s sake, and come in for dinner.”

  “My what?” I ask, but she’s already gone. The screen door slaps three times behind her.

  There’s a hollow feeling in my gut as I turn to the strange girl. Her hands are folded demurely, her face is pale and radiant in the light escaping the kitchen windows. She wears a simple and quiet smile. Behind her, the swamp is flat black against the dusted blue sky. In comparison, she’s all watercolor and light. She doesn’t look real and I think it’s because she’s not, but she steps forward and still smiling says my name, “Sterling,” and then, “let’s not keep Mama waiting.”