Shadowed Summer (5 page)

T
he air had a funny feel to it, heavier than it was supposed to be, hotter than usual. July got stingy with the wind, and even the birds and bugs kept their songs to themselves.

“We could ask Poseidon to raise him up,” Collette said. Her breath puffed between words as we rode our bikes out to Lake Chicot.

I said, “Maybe there’s nothing left down there.”

Ben stood on his pedals as he coasted down the hill. “We shouldn’t mess with other people’s gods, I don’t think.”

“All right,” Collette said. “We’ll ask the naiads instead.”

I didn’t bother pointing out that the naiads were a river god’s daughters. Why bother? They didn’t need me to have a conversation, so I pretended I was mute.

Ben said, “I think we’ll find something this time.”

“I bet we do,” Collette agreed.

Reaching the pier, Ben jumped off his bike and offered Collette a hand down. I managed to make it to the shore on my own.

“The cattails are thick here,” Collette said. She brushed her hand along the stalks, making their heavy heads bow before her. “Wonder if they fed on his body?”

Ben trailed Collette’s touch with his fingers. “You want me to write that down as evidence?”

“If you would, please,” she murmured.

I peeled off my sandals and sloshed ahead, breathing through quicksand. My chest was full of silt and stone, so I walked quicker. They didn’t need me around for
that,
either, any more than I wanted to be.

Clinging to the truth of my haunt in the graveyard, I figured I’d let them have my pushed-around lies. My Elijah, my real one, was my secret.

At the edge of the lake, the water didn’t bother moving. When I stepped in, warm algae laced around my ankles. Out toward the middle, it would be deeper and clearer, good to swim in, but I didn’t want to walk home wet.

Voices drew me down the shore. I waved when I saw a couple of girls from our class sunning on the banks. Nikki lived down in the trailers, and Carrie Anne lived right inside the bayou. She was a champion frog gigger, even better than the boys. One time, she caught two on her spear at once.

“Hey, y’all,” I said.

Carrie Anne shaded her eyes with her magazine. “Hey, Iris, what’s up?”

“Nothing. Hot, ain’t it?”

“I know, right?” Nikki sat up. “You going in?”

Sliding my hands into my back pockets, I shook my head. “Nah, just walking with Collette and Ben.”

“Collette’s here?” Nikki flew to her feet, looking past me to Collette “Oh snap, come here!”

Now, maybe
I
couldn’t hold Collette’s attention lately, but a good talk about French braiding and who knew the fancy twists could. I backed off, sort of embroidering the space around them until I ran into Ben.

“I don’t think they’re talking English anymore,” he said. He pulled out a silver pocketknife and started peeling a switch. Strips of bark came off, baring pale, green wood beneath.

I shrugged. “I could translate.”

“That’s all right.”

I flopped down in the dry, stingy grass. Without looking up, I asked, “You going out for baseball this summer?”

Ben streaked his knife down the switch. “Nah.”

“How come?”

“Shea’s better than me, and the scouts didn’t come to see him, so . . .” He trailed off, shrugging.

I sat beside him. “You got time, though.”

Turning his knife, he pressed the flat of the blade against his lower lip. His gaze turned toward the distance, watching gold spark off the waves. “I don’t know if you know, but my mama’s real sick.”

I didn’t want to, but I felt bad for him. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“So it’s probably better if I ain’t going away to games, just in case.”

Twisting a wood shaving around my finger, I nodded. “Probably.”

Ben folded his knife and leaned forward, dangling it between his knees. He looked tired. All at once, like he’d gathered up shadows to wrap himself in, he blurted out, “What do you do when your mama dies, Iris?”

“I don’t know.”

“Thanks,” Ben said, quietly aggravated.

“I ain’t messing with you, Ben. I don’t remember having one. How could that be the same?”

That satisfied him, I guess, because he settled. “You ever try to call her up?”

“No.” I said it hard and fast. “I wouldn’t, ever.”

Maybe I didn’t remember her, but she wasn’t old bones to me. She was human and sacred and real.

“I wouldn’t either,” Ben said, and I sighed. That meant we had something in common.

It took the breath out of me when Collette pulled out the chair at her own desk to let Ben sit in front of
her
computer. She leaned against the corner of the chair, swaying, playing with her hair as she leaned over his shoulder.

“Where’re you gonna look?” she asked, like she hadn’t ever seen the Internet before.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, way out in Siberia, I watched Collette “accidentally” rub her arm against Ben’s as he typed. He incidentally grazed his cheek against her hair when he turned to talk to her. Huddled together, they blocked the screen so I couldn’t see, and I sort of expected I wasn’t meant to.

“I’m not finding anything,” Ben said.

Collette reached over his shoulder, typing with one finger. “Okay, hit
ENTER
.”

Rubbing my thumb into my palm, I considered my escape. It would be too obvious to jump out the window, and I’d have to bump all around them to get out the door. I thought if I wished hard enough, I could just astral-project and go home. My spirit, at least—my body could wait till supper to come home.

“Here’s an Elijah Landry.”

I jerked my head up, but I still couldn’t see the screen. “What did you find?”

Collette didn’t look back. “It’s not him; don’t worry about it.”

“This says there are five people in the whole country with his same name.”

I tried again. “But is he our one?”

Ben said, “Nah,” and went back to typing. They didn’t say anything else. They clicked and clicked, shuffling through Web sites and leaving me on hold.

The window looked better all the time, and I wondered if I’d get to eat nothing but ice cream if I ended up in the hospital with a broken leg.

“It seems like there should be something,” Ben complained.

“You’d think,” Collette said.

“You wanna go back to the lake?”

All off balance, I needed the ground to feel solid under my feet again, so I interrupted. I didn’t look directly at them, but I did raise my voice enough to be heard.

“If we can get a ride to St. Amant, I know a better place to look.”

Mrs. Lanoux looked like Collette, only older, her lines starker and sharper. She kept her hair up, twisted and held fast in a silver wire cage. A few curls escaped, framing her sweet tea-shaded cheeks.

She left a half-moon ring of cranberry lipstick on her glass when she put it down, pointing at us with a yardstick when we came in. “Unless you’re here to work, you can turn right back around.”

No fool, Ben backed onto the sidewalk. I stayed at the door, but Collette, unafraid, walked up to the counter. “Can you put the sign out and take us to the library?”

“I’m running a business here,” Mrs. Lanoux said, then suddenly whipped her head around. “Rooster, if you don’t quit playing in my purse, so help me . . .”

Turning her mother’s glass, Collette stole a drink from the unmarked side, then put it back quick before she got caught. “Nobody’s coming in till lunch. You have time.”

“What do you want to go to the library for, anyway?”

Collette shrugged. “Look at some books.”

Mrs. Lanoux crossed her arms on the counter and leaned forward. “You’ve got a whole room full of books at home.”

“It’s the fifteenth,” I said helpfully. I offered a bright smile and a wave when Mrs. Lanoux turned her attention to me. “They get their new books on the fifteenth.”

Catching the scent of a liar, Mrs. Lanoux arched one thin brow at me. “Is that so?”

I kept my smile going. “That’s what my daddy says.”

With a stretch, Mrs. Lanoux straightened again. “Look now. Y’all want a little, you gotta give a little. I have grease traps that need cleaning and a Rooster that needs minding.”

Collette melted against the counter, groaning. “Mama, come on!”

“How about it, darlin’?” Mrs. Lanoux disappeared behind the pie case, coming back up with her purse in one hand and a handful of Rooster’s collar in the other. She carried on with her thought even as she hustled Collette’s squirming brother from behind the counter. “I could make you work every day, like Patsy does Lonette at the gas station.”

A hand fell on my shoulder and I jumped, startled. Wound up tight, I slowly looked over my shoulder, expecting brown eyes and a laughing
Where you at?
but it was just Ben.

“Tell her to never mind. My brother’s gonna take us. Come on,” he whispered.

Before I could answer, he bolted off. Left to make up an excuse, I scratched a mosquito bite on my ankle and said, “Collette. Collette!”

She rolled her eyes and her body, twisting around to face me. “What?”

Using all my psychic powers and a good, strong bug-eyed look, I commanded her to play along. “We can go later. I just saw the mail truck, and Uncle Lee said he was sending me some catalogs. You wanna go see if they’re here?”

Collette stared blankly for two seconds, then kick-started. “Oh, those candy ones?”

“It better be candy ones,” Mrs. Lanoux said, turning a place mat over and slapping down some crayons for Rooster to draw with.

Me and Collette had both learned the meaning of the word
confiscated
when Mrs. Lanoux caught us with one of Uncle Lee’s novelty catalogs. She didn’t think farting piggy banks were too awful funny.

I backed against the door to open it. “They are, swear.”

Mrs. Lanoux waved us off with her yardstick.

As she passed me, Collette said, “Nice save. Now what?”

Cars never died in Ondine; they just got handed down. Shea Duvall’s ancient station wagon wasn’t pretty or quiet, but it ran, and that was all that mattered.

For two dollars each, Shea volunteered to ferry us two towns over to the library, and for one dollar more, he didn’t even ask us why we wanted to go. He didn’t care; he just wanted the extra dollar.