Beware the Wild Read online

  “Heath,” I say, unsure of my own mind. “I remember him.”

  His voice is wounded. “Sterling—”

  “I didn’t. I swear, I didn’t until you said his name and somehow . . .” I gesture helplessly at the swamp. “Everything cleared and now I do.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Not even a little!” Excitement rushes through me. If I can remember Nathan, there’s hope. “Doc’s son. A year ahead of us. Basketball, tongue ring, great laugh. Heath!”

  My enthusiasm barely stirs him. His smile is cautious when he says, “That’s him.”

  “How did it happen to you? To Nathan?” I ask.

  Heath stares into the oaks and sinks into the memory. “We grew up together. When he got his license last spring, we drove to New Orleans. Because we could. Got all the way to the Quarter, but parking was so damn expensive we couldn’t do anything other than turn around. It was late when we got back. We thought we’d take a few laps around the racetrack. See if anyone else was there.”

  The track is at the end of Candy’s street and if you go to Sticks High, you’ve been there more than a few times. It’s a sad piece of pavement that all the good ol’ boys do their best to keep flat and functional, and it’s about as far as you can get from the swamp without leaving Sticks. Phin’s grand plan for the Chevelle was to have it fixed in time for a graduation loop of glory three and a half days from now. More than anything, I want him to be home in time to make that loop.

  I’m glad I saved his car from that thief.

  “We never made it to the track. Not even close,” Heath continues, picking at a leather band around his wrist. “Someone came tearing down the side road and forced us into the swamp. They must’ve been drunk. We crashed nose-first on one of the fence posts—I still can’t believe it didn’t break.” He pauses; the memory looks like it’s closing in on him. “I blacked out. Woke up with blood in my eyes, a tree practically in my lap. All alone. I had to climb through one of the rear doors—mine was crunched shut.” He makes a shape with his hands to mimic the destroyed door. “Whoever it was that ran us off didn’t even stop and at first I didn’t see Nathan anywhere.

  “This is where it starts to sound crazy.” He pushes his hands through his hair and that’s when I see they’re shaking.

  “Heath,” I say, being bold by taking one of those hands in mine. “I know you’re not crazy.”

  His expression is guarded, but his hand settles, and he goes on with a little more confidence.

  “The driver’s side of the car had punched through the fence and was sinking in the muck. The swamp was full. It had been raining for days and there was so much water. There was nothing else to do so I waded in, looking for Nathan. I kept tripping because I couldn’t see where I was stepping. I was soaked. Choking on swamp water—I remember how horrible it tasted and thinking that I shouldn’t care about a thing like that, but I couldn’t help it because it tasted so bad—but I kept trying to run. Jezuz, I was terrified that Nathan’d be floating there. Dead.

  “I didn’t see him at first because I didn’t expect him to be on his feet and so far into the swamp. Just standing there.”

  I’m chilled to the bone. Suddenly, I see Lenora May’s figure, a ghostly silhouette deep in the swamp. The horror is fresh as new.

  “I yelled, but it was like he couldn’t hear me. Twenty yards away and he couldn’t hear me. I don’t really know what happened next. I turned away for a second and when I looked again, he was gone,” Heath finishes with a tight shrug.

  “And no one remembers him except for you,” I add, both horrified and relieved. There’s some comfort in simply not being alone. “Did anyone replace him?”

  The look he gives me is answer enough.

  “When the swamp took my brother, it sent someone—something else to take his place. I don’t know what Lenora May is, but she’s not my sister.”

  “Are you shitting me?” Heath reels, stepping back a few paces. “She’s not your sister? You don’t have a sister? She came from the swamp?”

  “Yes and no. I’ve never had a sister. Only a brother. Phineas. Phineas Harlan Saucier.”

  “Phineas,” Heath repeats. And then he pauses, jerks a little, and frowns. “Phin Saucier.”

  “He only ran into the swamp yesterday and—”

  “Wait, wait, wait,” he says, pinching his eyes shut. With his hands braced against his hips, he keeps his eyes closed for a long minute.

  “Heath?”

  “Yeah. I just. I don’t know.” He looks at me, frowning hard. “Phin was a senior?”

  “With a full ride to Tulane in the fall. I guess that’s Lenora May’s now, too,” I say, letting my bitterness show.

  “Dark hair, dark blue eyes. Like you,” Heath continues, studying me so intently I feel myself squirm. “Quick temper. Better in a fight than the Wawheece boys?”

  He can’t be saying what I think he’s saying. “You . . . remember?”

  “I don’t know.” Heath rubs a hand over his face. “I don’t know.”

  He stands then and paces over the weedy gravel in the full sun, stopping with his back to me. He stays like that until sweat speckles his shirt between his shoulder blades.

  “Heath?”

  Slowly, he turns to rest glossy eyes on me. “I remember him,” he says.

  The moment tightens around me.

  “Like you said. I didn’t before,” he says, caution rough in his voice. “I only remembered that you had a sister—Lenora May—until you said his name, and now”—he shrugs, casting around for the right words—”now, I can practically see him. We weren’t ever friends, but I knew enough to be afraid of him. Especially after—um, well, after the summer I ditched you, I kept my distance.”

  At any other time, I’d be stuck on him admitting he ditched me. But now, all I can think of is Phin.

  “Yeah,” I say, nearly breathless with wanting this to be truth. “That’s Phin. But why doesn’t anyone else remember?”

  “None of this has ever made any kind of sense to me. I stopped trying to understand it a long time ago.” He falls into silence, then adds, “Jezuz,” drawing out the word. Finally, he says, “So, what do we do now?”

  “I wish I knew.” I try not to feel defeated. “We’ve got to start moving, though. It’s a long walk to town even if we don’t follow the road.”

  We don’t dawdle, but it’s early evening when we finally reach his truck at Clary General. He drives me home, idling at the end of my driveway. The whole truck rumbles like a pile of thunder.

  “Thank you,” I say. “For today.”

  He’s the closest to a true smile I’ve seen in a long time. “I’m the one who should be thanking you. Grand theft auto, creepy old houses, and a two-mile hike in the hot sun? You sure know how to show a guy a good time. Next time, I’m thinking bank heist.”

  I know I’m blushing by the heat in my cheeks, but I counter, “Or maybe something really insane. Like going after Phin and Nathan.”

  We’re both quiet and I can’t decide if I’m glad or mad at myself for saying it.

  Finally, avoiding my eyes, he says, “I haven’t been hopeful in a long time.”

  At first, I think he means he’s hopeful now, but then I realize it might be a warning. Maybe after a year, hope wears thin.

  “Got your cell?” I ask.

  “Um.” He absently pats at his pockets. “Yeah.”

  “What’s your number?” I ask. He recites the numbers, but when I start to give mine, he stops me with, “I still have it.”

  He kept my number. For an entire year, my name has been living in his phone.

  I have the urge to confess that I technically didn’t delete his, that it was Candy who did the deed, but instead I offer an “oh” and my second blush of the evening.

  “Sterling,” he says, uncertain. “Hey. I’m—sorry. Since Nathan disappeared, I’ve been kind of messed up.”

  “I remember,” I say, thinking of how many times Darold was
called in the middle of the night to track Heath down, how often he and Sheriff Felder discussed Heath in hushed voices at my kitchen table, how often he’d been pulled from class by a scowling principal.

  “Right,” he says. “I guess your stepdad won’t be thrilled if he sees me here.”

  Gravel crunches behind us and we both jump, but it’s only Candy’s white Ion. Not a police cruiser, but maybe not much better.

  “Gotta run,” I say, pushing the door open and sliding to the ground. “Remember me tomorrow?”

  “I promise,” he says without a pause.

  Suddenly, we both freeze, neither of us realizing how serious the request was until after. Now, I hold the door for a moment longer than necessary. The truth is neither of us can make that promise, because we can’t fight something we don’t understand. But I remember what Heath said about hope. I’m not going to let the swamp have that, too.

  I run my fingers over my bracelet and make my voice firm. “I promise, too.”

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

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

  “I HOPE YOUR RADIO SILENCE is a sign your fingers have been twisted up in those golden locks,” Candy says, resting her chin on my shoulder. It takes me a minute to realize she means Heath’s golden locks.

  From a few feet away, Abigail answers for me. “You can’t go judging what other people’ve been up to based on your own personal scale. The thing only goes from easy to slut.”

  “Better than a scale of freezing to nun,” Candy counters with a grin. Their snipes may carry sharp edges, but we all know it’s only combat training. There’ll be no mercy for the person who calls any of us a slut and means it. “Or have you been keeping secrets? Did you ask Shannon out and not say?”

  A blush spreads on Abigail’s dark cheeks. Discretion is one of her principle virtues, which isn’t always easy for a girl who prefers girls in a small town. Even with her best friends, she finds it difficult to talk about her love life.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask.

  “Ouch, Saucier. A boy walks into the picture and we’re suddenly gutter trash?” Candy grasps at her heart. “C’mon, don’t be that girl. I’ve got no time for that girl.”

  I look to Abigail for help. “It’s Monday,” she offers.

  Monday.

  Monday has been our study night all year. It’s the night Mama goes to church to prep meals for the eldest members of Sticks, and Darold goes with all of the other deputies to play pool at Mean-Eyed Possum’s House of Beer and Cues. This is the night Phin would make his signature grilled cheese and Tabasco sandwiches. Candy and Abigail would come over and we’d study, polish our nails, and listen to whatever music Abigail had discovered during that week until one of our parents called an end to things.

  It’s not exactly that I forgot. It’s more that it was something I thought would’ve disappeared with Phin.

  “Right. Sorry. Study night. Sure.”

  “First things first. Spill,” Candy commands.

  “What, Heath? There’s nothing to spill,” I protest.

  “B and S,” she returns fire. “You’ve been gone for hours with the Greek god of all things stoic and beautiful. This is the guy who abandoned you last year without a word. There better have been an apology or he’s got a world of hurt coming. So. Spill.”

  “Leave the girl alone,” Abigail says, coming to my defense. “Sterling, don’t answer her.”

  “I’m not holding out on you, I swear. We talked and yes, he apologized. That’s it.”

  Abigail’s had enough. She derails Candy the only way she knows how. “Know what I heard today? Quentin Stokes is totally into you.”

  Candy looks at Abigail with signature suspicion. “Prove it.”

  “All I know is he’s planning on making a move at the track Thursday night, so you might want to put a little effort in.”

  “That’s not proof,” she says pointedly. “Did he tell you to your face? Write it down? Is my name tattooed on his beautiful bicep? No? Then I don’t believe you. Saucier, this thing with Heath—”

  “Look, Candy, I don’t want to talk about boys,” I say, suddenly impatient with everything. “Unless we’re talking about my brother, Phineas.”

  She and Abigail share an uncomfortable look.

  “That’s the boy you say disappeared?”

  “It’s the truth. And if you were really my friends, you’d at least give me the time of day.”

  “Why don’t we study?” Abigail suggests, she tugs on our hands, making a gentle plea for peace in her calming way. “I know you both need help with history.”

  But Candy’s not having any of it. “You want the time of day? Here’s a minute or two!” As I protest, she grabs Abigail’s hand and drags her across the yard and over the broken section of the fence. “Let’s settle this.”

  The Wasting Shine glimmers at their approach. Pine branches bob in the breeze like a great gaping maw. A nightmare descends. They can’t really be in the swamp.

  “Candy, c’mon,” I urge, “this isn’t funny. Please, come back.”

  “Why?” She moves deeper into the woods. “This whole town thinks there’s something horrible hiding in here, but it’s just a swamp, Saucier. Louisiana is lousy with them. They smell like shit and they’re full of gators and ducks, but you know what they’re not full of? Demons and ghosts.”

  She smacks her palm against the trunk of a skinny black gum tree and swings around it until she’s facing me again. Shine skitters away, avoiding her touch as if she were a negatively charged magnet.

  “Hey!” she shouts. “Demons of this sweltering mud pit, if you exist, come forth, I summon thee!”

  When nothing happens, Candy splays her hands as if that’s proof of anything.

  “I hate to agree with her when she’s being so obnoxious, but I think she’s right.” Abigail’s moved off a little ways, down the fence where blackberry bushes have always grown just beyond reach. She plucks a few and eats. “Ugh. Except maybe fear these blackberries.”

  “Okay, great. You’ve made your point, both of you, now please come back into the yard.”

  Long ropes of Shine lash at Abigail’s ankles and lick up her calves, but she doesn’t notice them. She tosses the berries away and begins to move a little deeper into the swamp as though the Shine guides her.

  “Do you guys see that?” she calls. Cypress trunks block my view of her tall form.

  This must be what happened to Phin. And to Nathan. Now, it’s happening to Abigail right here in front of me and I’m too scared to cross the fence.

  “Candy, please go get her,” I plead, trying to keep as much of the fear from my voice as possible. “Please. Abigail?”

  Abigail’s still out of sight, but she answers my call and Candy jogs in the direction of her voice. The hum of summer fills my ears, too loud and too quiet all at once. For one horrible second, I can’t see either of them, but then they come into view, arm in arm, Shine whipping at their heels and no longer wrapped around Abigail’s ankles.

  “Are you sure you didn’t see him?” Abigail’s saying when they climb over the fence. “Tall, skinny, white T-shirt? You didn’t see anything?”

  “Only cypress trees, which are all of those things minus the T-shirt,” Candy answers with finality.

  “A boy?” I ask, pulling them to the safety of the porch. “Did you recognize him?”

  Candy becomes impassive.

  I’m too eager. A tall, thin boy. Nathan? Phineas? “Abigail?”

  Abigail takes her sweet time pulling her eyes from the swamp to look at me, and her gaze is a brick wall when she answers, “No, I didn’t see anything.”

  I have two choices: pursue the truth with two people unwilling to entertain it. Or preserve the fragile friendships I have.

  We study.

  We spend the better part of four hours sprawled across my room with history notes and textbooks coveri
ng every available surface. Instead of grilled cheese sandwiches, we order a pizza from Mrs. Trish at the Flying J gas station. She installed a pizza oven and an automatic espresso machine last year in an attempt to add a touch of class. Of course, it’s hard to be classy when you time baking a pizza by smoking a cigarette. We break when her daughter, Chrissy, arrives on a motorbike with the pizza in tow. If the grease weren’t enough to turn my stomach, the idea that it was christened in smoke and exhaust is, but I take a piece to keep Candy from grousing. Which she does anyway when I only manage a few bites.

  The rest of the evening passes as it should, with reviews and quizzing and the occasional discussion of how we can possibly get to New Orleans more than once this summer. By the time they leave, the night almost feels normal. But when I return from walking them to the door, there’s an unwelcome surprise in my room.

  Lenora May stands in front of the full-length mirror on my closet door. She holds a sundress in either hand, scrutinizing each in turn. One is a subtle, pale yellow thing. The other is dramatic—white with red petals cascading from one shoulder to pool around the hemline.

  “Which do you like best for the senior graduation party?” she asks as though we’re sisters. “I think the red is striking, but I think the yellow is more me, don’t you?”

  I’m helpless against the assault of memory. I think of the dozens of times I’ve seen her wear the yellow dress; she always manages to make it look new by adding different accessories. The red, though, is stunning with her dark hair and hugs her curves in the best way. Once, she wore it to church and when we came home, Mama gently suggested she never do it again. We’d laughed quietly in her bedroom over Mama’s prudish sensibilities, and vowed to each wear bloodred lipstick next Sunday. We’d been grounded for the offense, but even that punishment had been worth the moment of horror on Mama’s face when we hopped in the car. Laughter, admiration, love. All for Lenora May.