Firefly Rain (39 page)

One of Mother’s, I realized, and for an instant, my heart damn near stopped. The hair on the back of my neck stood up, and I smelled ozone sharp and clear.

And then she was on the grass and walking toward them, the broken glass taking a terrible toll from her bare feet and her not noticing it.

“Not like this!” Adrienne shrieked. “It wasn’t supposed to be
like this,” and suddenly I could hear Mother’s voice overlaying her own. The two of them spoke in some terrible harmony, each echoing the other and making weird music of their voices. “This is not what I wanted. Not what you promised!”

Carl staggered past me, long red slashes across his face and arms from the glass. “Elaine, let us finish this,” he begged, and he dropped to his knees. “Please. Then you can rest.”

“This isn’t what I asked for, Carl,” she whispered. “You promised to protect him, to bring him home.”

“He needs protecting from himself!” Carl’s voice was frantic now. Behind him, the other men slowly backed away. No sounds came from inside the house, which I prayed was a good thing. “He was going to leave again. He was doing everything wrong. This is for his own good!”

“This is for my own good?” I asked, and I held up my hand. I could see white bone through torn skin, brown dried blood cracking as I reached toward Adrienne. “Please, Mother. Not this. Not anymore.”

She turned toward me, her eyes shining bright. “Jacob,” she asked. “My darling boy, is that you?”

“It’s me, Mother,” I said. “Please. Make it stop.”

“You never came back,” she said, walking closer to me. Carl, forgotten, blinked wordlessly beyond her. “You promised and you promised, and you never came back.”

“I know,” I said. “I was wrong. Punish me if you have to—I was a bad son, a liar. I know that now. I deserve it. But let Jenna go. Let them all go, Mother. Please.”

“You’ll stay?” she asked, and it was all Mother now, Adrienne’s voice gone somewhere I couldn’t and didn’t want to imagine.

“I’ll try,” I told her. “I can’t promise any more.”

“Elaine,” Carl began, and Adrienne turned toward him, cold
fire dancing in a halo around her. “Let us do what we have to do. It needs to be finished.”

“It’s finished now,” she said in a voice of infinite sadness. “I keep my promises too, Carl. Always and forever.”

And with that, the green-gold light came up from inside and around her, and swallowed us all.

They’re dead?” Jenna asked. “All of them?”

“All the ones who are still here,” I said, too tired to keep the pain out of my voice. “The others… gone. The ones who’d been kept past their time? Here.” I pointed with my good hand, at the bodies stretched out on the ground. Dr. Trotter was there, and Mr. Hilliard, and Carl, and Sam Fuller. They looked peaceful, even with the slashes and tears. Around them, bits of broken glass reflected weak starlight. The fireflies that had followed in their train were gone, though, and I found I missed them. Dawn was an hour off, at the very least, and the sky was still dark. “I think my mother let them go.”

“Your mother,” she said, like the words tasted funny in her mouth. “Strange to hear you say that.”

I shrugged. “It’s the truth. How’s Adrienne?”

“Sleeping it off inside. I don’t think she knows what happened, but poor thing, she’s terrified. Her feet…,” she started, and then her voice trailed off. “They weren’t as bad as they looked. Just so you know.”

“Thank God,” I breathed. “Thank you for taking care of her.”

She gave me a hard look. “You could go inside and comfort her, you know.”

“I could,” I agreed. “But I don’t think I can comfort anyone right now. Except maybe the two people I should have given that to a long time ago. Help me up?”

She reached down and clasped my hand in hers. There were vicious cuts on her arm, I could see, and I wondered what else had happened in that house that I didn’t know about. Maybe she’d tell me, someday.

The two of us managed to pull me to my feet, somehow. Our hands stayed intertwined longer than absolutely necessary, then slipped apart, and I turned to face her.

“Jenna,” I started to say, but she put a finger on my lips.

“Go do what you have to do,” she said. “Talk to them. I’ll be in the house when you get back. Then we can start thinking about what happens when the sun comes up.”

I nodded, and started the slow trudge down the hill to where my parents lay buried. Jenna was right. There were things I had to say to the dead before I could talk to the living.

It took longer than expected to reach the graves, each step a new kind of agony. But at last there I was, looking down on them in sorrow and regret.

Lacking any other path to take, I spoke to them. “Mother,” I said. “Father. If you’re here. If you can hear me. I’m home. I should have come back sooner, I know, but it wasn’t home for me for a long, long time. I don’t know if I can stay, either. You know
that. I’ll keep the land, I promise. It’ll always be in the family. I love you. I miss you. I wish I’d been a better son, but I am the man I am. And I wish I could see fireflies here again.” Then my throat pulled itself tight, and any other words I could have said would have found themselves wrapped up in tears.

“I love you,” I said again when my throat finally stopped catching. Then I headed back toward the house. Through the pine trees, I could see the lights of the kitchen come on. Jenna was no doubt busy making coffee inside. Maybe Adrienne had woken up. There was glass to sweep up and damage to assess and a phone call to the police to make and maybe even some deep dreamless sleep to dive into.

Slowly, but with rising speed, I walked toward the light.

Hanratty was there within the half hour, with half the emergency vehicles in the county following close behind her. The noise woke Adrienne, who stumbled out into the kitchen wrapped in a blanket and an old shawl of my mother’s. Her eyes were wild, and I knew right then that she’d never spend another night in this house.

“Mr. Logan?” she asked haltingly. “Jake? What happened.
What happened?”

“It’s all over,” I said. “I promise.”

She saw my hand then, still bleeding through the torn-up old shirt we’d wrapped around it and the bloody rags we’d wound around my arm. She saw the wreckage of the door, the broken glass still on the floor, and the shattered furniture. She saw Jenna standing there like a hawk, and past her, paramedics moving stretchers with covered bodies on them. Hanratty’s voice carried over the racket, bellowing orders.

Adrienne’s jaw dropped. Her eyes widened and she started shaking. “No,” she whispered. “What did you do, Jake? What did you
do
?”

“Adrienne…,” I started, and reached out for her.

“Leave me alone!” she screamed, and she ran back down the hall. A door slammed a moment later.

“I think I’ll be taking her out of here,” Hanratty said as she walked up the porch. “Trouble does have a way of finding you, doesn’t it, Mr. Logan?”

I stared at her. “I’m too tired for games, Officer Hanratty. Just take care of her, okay? She means a lot to me.”

“You got a funny way of showing it.” Hanratty snorted, but she didn’t push it any further. “I suppose you have an explanation for all this?”

“Not really,” I admitted. “I could tell you what happened, but you’d never believe it. Besides, the autopsies will show that Carl Powell died of cancer, and Reverend Trotter of heart disease, and you don’t want to try to figure out what they were doing out here in the middle of the night anyway.”

“You’d be surprised,” she said softly. “Have all the promises been kept?”

I blinked. “In their own way. I think. How’d you know?”

“I know what’s going on in this town,” she said. “It’s my job. You’ll be staying, then?”

“I don’t know. I’ll give it a shot and see what happens.”

“Good enough,” she said, and she turned to Jenna. “He’s not a total asshole, you know. You could do worse.”

“I could,” she agreed, as she shot me a look I chose not to read.

Hanratty yawned then, a sound like one you’d hear in the wrong end of a zoo. “I’d better take Miss Moore out of here.
Maybe get her feet looked at, and her hands, too. You two,” she added conspiratorially, “might want to get out of sight while I do so. She looked a bit upset.”

“That she did,” Jenna noted. “Come on, Logan. Let’s get some air.”

“Good thought,” Hanratty said. “Go let the folks at the ambulance check you out while you’re out there. ’Specially you, Logan. That hand looks nasty. You might even think about a trip to County and some time in a hospital bed. I’ll expect you in town to make a statement when you’re feeling up to it.” She cocked a sharp stare at us both. “You
will
come in and make a statement, won’t you?”

“Promise,” I said, and I nearly swallowed my tongue trying not to laugh. Hanratty gave a snort.

“Fine, whatever,” Hanratty said. “Get out of here already so I can take that poor girl somewhere else.”

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. Jenna took my arm, the good one, and we stepped through the broken door together.

Dawn was coming up slow and wary, like it wasn’t sure it wanted the job. The sky overhead was clear, but where the sun was rising there were ragged strips of cloud, just starting to glow red. Out in the fields, the creatures that normally went to bed with the day were uneasy. You could hear it in their calls—ragged choruses of croaks and chirps, all the rhythm lost. It reminded me of a good old, big-city traffic jam, with everyone leaning on their horns all at once and no one getting anywhere.

“So you’re staying,” she said.

“For a while,” I told her, and I leaned gingerly on the railing. “I have to, you know. I think it will be better here now, though.”

“It might be,” she said grudgingly. “The house feels… different.”

“Breezier,” I said, and we both chuckled. “No, I think you’re right. I think they’re gone. My father went with her when she decided it was time to go. I hope they’re where they need to be.”

“You’ll know tonight.”

“I will?” I looked at her. “How?”

“Look for fireflies,” she told me. “If they’re back, it’s over.”

I smiled at her. “You know, you’re right. I never would have thought of that.” I blinked, then, as I realized what she was saying. “You’re going back? Today?”

Jenna nodded. “Today. It’s been interesting, Logan, but I have to tell you, this isn’t the restful trip I was looking for. I’m sure you’ll be fine, but I can’t stay here, not for a while. Maybe once you get things back together, I’ll come back down and we’ll give it another shot.”

“I’d like that,” I said, and found that I meant it. My good hand slid toward her on the rail. After a moment, she took it and gave it a squeeze. “I’d like that a lot.”

“I might, too,” she said, and she kissed me.

We broke apart after a long moment, and I blinked. “Hurry back,” I said, only half joking.

“I just might,” she said in a quiet voice I’d never heard from her before. “Now come on, let’s get your hand looked at. And your arm. And your nose. And, Jesus, Logan, I hope you still have insurance, because you’re a fucking mess.”

“COBRA,” I told her. “And you’re an absolutely beautiful fucking mess.”

“Smooth talker,” she said, even as she led me down the steps toward the paramedics.

It was another day before Jenna left, her rental car roaring down the road in a plume of white smoke that somehow didn’t feel like a good-bye. I watched her go, feeling better than I had in a long time, and kicked off my shoes. It seemed like the right thing to do, and I wasn’t going to argue with an urge like that.

They’d kept me in the hospital ’til the next morning, much to my surprise and Jenna’s worry. She’d decided to stick around long enough to see that I made it home safe and sound. “But not a minute more,” she warned me as they loaded me into the ambulance, and she even sounded like she meant it a little bit. Then she followed us to County, and damned if she wasn’t five feet off the ambulance bumper the whole way there.

The prognosis on my injuries was mixed. My nose was
reparable, or so the doctor said, but I was never going to be quite the same handsome devil ever again. Having a chunk of your face knocked a few degrees off line will do that for a man.