Burying the Honeysuckle Girls (18 page)

She tells me to kneel, so I do, then she does too. I close my eyes and press my palms together like I’ve seen some girls do at school. We don’t go to church, even though I’ve begged a hundred times, but I do know what praying looks like.

She begins to chant. I’ve heard it before—she usually does it when she cooks or folds the laundry—but this time it sounds spookier than usual. My scalp prickles, so fiercely it feels like my hair is moving on top of my head. I open my eyes and peek at her. She is shaking all over. She opens her eyes, catches me looking. Now my whole body begins to tingle, starting with the tips of my fingers.

“I don’t know what it is, baby,” she says. “The pills or the sickness. Or maybe it’s something else. I’m not sure. Everything is different now.”

She drops down on all fours and, as she does, I hear the breath whoosh out of her mouth. It sounds like that time Wynn hit me in the stomach with the Wiffle-ball bat. I drop down too, mainly because I want to do what she does. A bizarre, midnight Simon Says game.

She is sweaty, breathing hard, and I’m afraid she might throw up. Or die. Instead, she tells me to go find a box she’s hidden under the tree in my playhouse. It’s an old box with a red bird on it, the lid sealed shut with layers of yellowed packing tape. When I bring it back, she tears through the tape and then lifts the lid.

There’s nothing inside but an old hair barrette, a couple of pieces of paper, some arrowheads, and an orange bottle of pills. She reaches into the neckline of her dress and pulls out an orange bottle identical to the one in the box, only empty. She lays it inside and picks up the full one. She shakes the bottle in front of me.

“See these, Thea?” she says.

I nod.

“I want you to take them when you’re older. When you’re thirty. They’ll help you.”

I nod again, but I don’t understand.

“Little Bit, listen to me. I have a story for you.”

I square my shoulders. I’m a good listener.

“There’s someone out there, someone very special. My mama called her the honeysuckle girl.”

Something in the air changes, turns enchanted and even sweeter smelling. The stars rotate their faces to us. All around the clearing, the forest hushes.

“My mama told me about her when I was little, like you. She told me she was wise. That she knows things.”

“What things?”

Mama’s eyes soften. “Everything you need to know to grow up strong and safe.”

I wait. This sounds like a fairy tale.

“Take the pills and wait for her. She’ll find you. I think. But if she doesn’t, you find her. You hear? You go and find her, Little Bit.”

I want to ask why, make her explain everything so I understand. But I’m used to doing what I’m told without arguing, so I don’t. I watch her put the pills back in the box and close the lid. Push it across the grass toward me.

“Hide this from your father,” she says in a serious tone.

I swallow. My father is a bull of a man with a square jaw and Brillo Pad hair. He’s a lawyer and wears black suits with starched white button-downs and maroon ties. He throws bad guys in jail. I’ve never hidden anything from him.

I put the cigar box back under the tree. When I return, she asks me if I want pancakes. I say yes, and we walk back. In the kitchen, she turns on the light over the stove, opens the yellow box, dumps half of it in her big mixing bowl, and sets to work. Her gold dress flashes in the light.

Daddy appears in the doorway from the darkness of the hallway. He’s still in his suit from the party. I smile at him, and he smiles back. I suddenly feel hot all over, remembering the cigar box. Mama walks up behind my chair and drapes her hands on my shoulders.

From the doorway, Daddy says her name—Trix. It sounds like a warning.

“Where have you been?” he rumbles.

“With my daughter.” Her answer sounds like a warning too.

His eyes go black, and, as if in response, her arms stiffen, her hands grip my head. It’s like she’s trying to keep from falling. I cry out, and she jerks back, pulling my chair with her, sending us both toppling to the floor. My father rushes toward us, barks at me to go to my room.

I do, holding back my tears until I’m facedown on the bed. Later, I watch out my bedroom window as an ambulance glides up to our house—no lights or sirens—and takes both my parents away. I creep into Wynn’s room. He’s still asleep. I crawl into bed with him, pulling the dingy blanket he still sleeps with out from his arms. I hug it close.

When I wake up in the morning, Wynn is still asleep. I go downstairs for breakfast. Dad is sitting at the table with a cup of coffee. He doesn’t look at me or smile like the night before, just gazes out the window and fondles Folly’s ears. He tells me to go play outside.

Under the magnolia tree, I find the cigar box with the red bird on it and open it, deliberately disobeying my mother’s orders. But I don’t care. Thirty is too far off. The bottle of pills has spilled . . . She must not have screwed on the lid tight enough. I put one on my tongue and let it melt in my mouth. It tastes sour, like bad candy.

I set up my kitchen and make magnolia-leaf pancakes, drizzled with drops of honeysuckle nectar. After a while, I feel a drowse begin to steal over me. I wander out into the clearing again and lie on my back. I feel so nice, like an angel. Mysterious and peaceful. I think of the honeysuckle girl Mama told me about. I pretend to be her, drifting and wise. I close my eyes.

Later, back at the house, Dad sits Wynn and me down and tells us that our mother has died. Something with her brain—a clot, he explains. A big word I can’t say.

As soon as he’s done talking, I run out of the house and to the clearing. I gather the pills from the cigar box and dump them in my pocket, crunching down on another one. I am going to take every pill, one at a time, so I can feel like the honeysuckle girl again. I put the cigar box back under the tree and head to the house.

When I turn and look back at the clearing one last time, with the slanting sun hitting it just so, I see something: the grass—the spot where we’d knelt the night before—seems to shimmer gold.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Tuscaloosa, Alabama

Now that I was finished with my story, my brain felt locked up. Swollen and thick and sludgy inside my skull. I fell silent, drifting.

I couldn’t think anymore. I didn’t want to.

I couldn’t focus my eyes.

Sleep seemed like everything. The only thing. I just wanted to go to sleep. I closed my eyes.

Wynn’s voice: “You remember you said Dad looked at you? And smiled?”

I nodded.

“That wasn’t a smile, kiddo, that was a look of concern. I think he looked at you and saw the same thing I’m seeing now.”

Something prickled over me. Not fear. I was too numb for that.

“A waste,” he said mildly. “Like Mom and our grandmother. A train wreck of a human being. You know what he told me, the day we sent you to rehab? He said you were just like her. Like Mom. Not because of the addiction. Because of the insanity. He said he’d known since you were little that you’d go crazy like she did.”

His words settled on my skin like a thousand-pound weight, pinning me to the bed. I was crazy, just like my mother. Wynn was right. And I must’ve known it all along, deep down. That’s why I’d taken the pills that very first day, why I thought I saw gold in the clearing and ever since then on my fingers. It was why I’d let Rowe use me all those years ago. I knew I was destined to be like her.

“Tell me this, Althea,” he asked. “In all your amateur sleuthing, have you found her? Mom’s honeysuckle girl?”

I tried to laugh, but it came out as a drawn-out sigh. “No.”

“Who is she?”

“I don’t know.”

She has a bird name. Wren. Robin . . .

“But you know things about her, don’t you?”

I rolled my head to face him. “She has a gift.”

“What do you mean? Like a psychic?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. She keeps you safe.”

“What did she say to Mom when they met?”

“I don’t know.”

“What did she tell Collie?”

“Nobody knows.”

“Bullshit.” A hand cuffed my neck, and the fingers constricted. I let out one choked cough and tried to suck in another breath. I couldn’t. My airway was being crushed. “You know,” Wynn said. “And you’re going to tell me. Now.”

He squeezed harder, so that I saw the spots again, then a wash of red. I was going to die. My own brother, my own flesh and blood, was going to kill me. I gave one flailing kick and twist, and, feeling a surge of adrenaline, wrenched free of him. I clattered off the bed, down onto the filthy, rubble-strewn floor. I scrambled to my hands and knees, darting looks around the room. I was on the far side of the bed, the side opposite the door. I tried to gauge my best path of escape, ignoring the shards of broken plaster and glass that jabbed into my hands.

Wynn planted his hands on his hips. “Where is the woman?”

I could go under the bed. If I was fast enough, I’d make it to the door before he caught me. Or I could try to leap over the bed. But I felt like I weighed a thousand pounds. It would be like running through molasses.

Wynn snapped his fingers. “Althea, pay attention. Where does she come from? The mountain? Sybil Valley?” He produced the bottle from his coat pocket and twisted off the lid.

I sat back and stared at him. “I told you, I don’t know.”

His face darkened, folded into itself, and his body expanded like it’d been pumped full of air. He threw out a finger, aimed it at me. “I’m tired of you lying to me. This woman knows things about our family, and
you
are going to tell me where she
is
!”

I leapt to the bed, hooked my fingers under the iron rail, and pulled. It flipped up, easier than I’d imagined it would, and crashed onto Wynn. He stumbled back, tripping over his feet. I scrambled for the door.

Then my head jerked back with jolt of pain. He had my hair. I ducked and twisted, but he held fast. He pulled me to him, wrapped one steely arm around my chest, and put his mouth to my ear.

“I need you to do what’s right for your family,” he whispered. “For Mom and Dad. This is what they’d want.”

He flipped me around and shoved me to the floor. My legs collapsed under me. He poured some pills out into his open palm. They made a neat, white pyramid. He squatted.

“Open your mouth.” He grabbed my hair and yanked my head back.

I didn’t move. Our eyes met. I could feel tears rising.

“Althea,” he whispered into my ear. “It’s not enough to kill you, I promise. You have to trust me.” I kept my head turned.

Wynn held up his cupped hand, and I could feel his gaze level at me. I glanced at him. His eyes, what I could see of them in the dark, glittered. “Just stop all this,” he whispered. “Stop and go to sleep.”

I saw my mother, on her knees, shaking in the dark, trying to explain something she didn’t even understand. Trying to protect me, give me a chance at life. It hadn’t worked. Whether she’d failed or I had just screwed everything up, I didn’t know. But it was over. Too late to do anything about it.

I had an overwhelming rush of homesickness, wanting to be with my mother. Wanting to be safe in her arms.

And it would be so good to taste the bitter crush of the powder between my teeth, coating my mouth and burning my throat. It would be good to feel weightless again. It had been so long.

My lips parted. My mouth opened.

Wynn was stronger than me. The past was stronger. I was alone and done with all the fighting.

He poured in the pills, and I crunched down, trying to work my tongue around the dry powder. He handed me a bottle of water, and I took it with a wave of gratitude. After I swallowed, he tipped more pills into my mouth. Shut my mouth, made me chew, poured more water down my throat.

More pills, more chewing, more water, and I waited for the buzz to drift in. Blunt every edge, make everything okay. Make me feel like the honeysuckle girl. Drifting, peaceful, and wise.

When it finally did, I closed my eyes.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Monday, September 24, 2012

Tuscaloosa, Alabama

A wide staircase curves below me and disappears into darkness. It is old but it’s real, I think—made of wood and marble and carpet.

At the foot of the stairs and across the expanse of scarred, cracked marble are doors. They lead to the outside. I want to go out to the wind and the night sounds. I want to leave this dark place forever. But I don’t think I can make it out on my own. I don’t know how far my legs will carry me.

If I jumped, it would be easier. But I would join the broken pieces below me. I would shatter and they would find me on a day when the sun finally decided to shine. Or they wouldn’t and I would soften and rot and dissolve into the floor, between the marble cracks.

Instead I float down the stairs and the doors part and give way beneath my hands. I am standing in the night air. The wind lifts my hair. The broken ground crunches beneath my feet. I turn until I see light. I run to it. I run and run and don’t even feel tired.

I am in the middle of a field. I drop to my knees, and then my hands, and release everything inside me. It burns coming up, but after that I feel the wind on my face. It’s a good, clean wind. Sweet and warm. It pushes the tears out of my eyes.

I will die here. But it’s good. I’ve found a level place that’s open to the stars and the moon. There are trees here, like at my clearing. They encircle me, and I smell honeysuckle.

I turn up my palms. There is no gold. No red raven. I only see those things when I’m in my right mind. When I am Althea. Right now I’m not even her.

I am a honeysuckle girl.

I awoke in a hospital bed. Parts of my body I could still feel on fire. The rest of me, my fingers and feet, arms and legs, were completely numb. An IV tube ran from my forearm to a bag on a stand beside the bed. It was almost empty. I drew a deep breath—even my throat felt scorched—and promptly vomited down the front of my flimsy gown.

I sank back, unable to even reach the nurse’s call button. I must’ve fallen asleep because, when I next opened my eyes, a nurse was rolling me back and forth, whipping the gown and the wet sheets out from under me. She didn’t say anything, but I noticed her lip curl in disgust. My eyes swept the room. Wynn was nowhere in sight. Neither was Rowe. I was alone.

The nurse rolled me back down and snapped the blanket over me.

“Where am I?” My voice came out a rasp.

“DCH Regional,” she said. “Tuscaloosa. Psych ward.”

“Psych ward?”

“Forty-eight-hour hold, at least.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Mandatory fifty-one-fifty whenever there’s a suicide attempt,” she said, then spun, her ponytail flying behind her like a flag, and slammed out of the room.