Between the Spark and the Burn Read online

  I thought about the burn, and the glow, and Will Redding going mad with it, and River going mad with it, and Freddie wrapped up in it, just like I was.

  I got up and went to see what rooms the boys chose. Neely took the other bedroom on the second floor—it had striped wallpaper coming loose in spots, and two black trunks filled with old sea maps and charts.

  Finch was in a bird-themed room on the top floor. Bird knickknacks and bird wallpaper and feeders were hanging outside the windows.

  I peeked into Canto’s room while I was up there, since the door was open. It was cluttered with clothes and books and a sewing machine. Half-finished skirts and dresses were thrown over worn chairs near the windows. Bowls filled with pretty beachcombing finds like seashells and polished glass sat on every free windowsill and dresser. I felt someone behind me, and turned around. Finch was standing there, taking a peek into Canto’s room too. He must have liked what he saw, since his damn dimple showed itself again.

  We gathered in the living room by the fire, Canto and Finch and me on the floor, Neely in a ragged, rusty-orange loveseat, one elbow crooked around one knee, leaning back. His skin looked smooth and soft like someone who got way more sleep than he did, and drank way less coffee.

  I poured myself a cup of caramel milk. My mug was thick, white on the inside, brown on the outside, and missing its handle. The drink was earthy and sweet. I tasted salt on the back of my tongue. I wasn’t sure if Canto had added salt to the caramel or if it was just in the air. Everything on this island was salty, much more so than Echo—after all, the ocean sloshed against the stilts underneath the floorboards I sat on. If a person swiped his finger down the mantel and licked it, I’d bet the deed on Citizen Kane that the dust would taste like sea salt.

  “So why are you here?” Canto asked, blunt, no hesitation. “No one comes to Carollie in the winter.”

  “We’re here to find the sea god,” I said, betraying my hard-earned Agatha Christie wisdom. But Canto seemed like the kind of girl who wanted the truth straight up and in her face anyway. “We heard a rumor that a North Carolina island was worshiping a sea god, and we came to see what was what. He . . . we think this sea god could be a friend of ours.”

  Neely leaned in closer to watch her face, and then, a second later, Finch did the same.

  Canto’s dark eyebrows bunched up, and she smiled a puzzled half smile, like she thought we were joking. “A sea god? Who told you this?”

  “A late-night radio program called Stranger Than Fiction,” Neely answered with a confident, cocky grin, like he’d just said “The New York Times.”

  Canto took a sip of the caramel, swallowed. “Stranger Than Fiction? That sounds reliable. What time is this show on? Wait, let me guess . . . three in the morning?”

  Neely laughed. “Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.”

  Finch made a small sound, kind of a hmmm. He was sitting to Canto’s right, watching everything she did from the corners of his eyes.

  “Speak up, Finch,” Canto said, tilting her face to look at him.

  “He said,” I interrupted, when Finch didn’t answer, “that the radio show has been right before.”

  Finch nodded, once, slowly, the tips of his red hair brushing his chin.

  “There was another North Carolina story too,” I added, when Finch still didn’t talk. “A haunted fisherman’s hut. Teenagers go in and never come out again.”

  Canto’s eyes snapped on mine. “That story is bullshit.”

  I perked up. “What story?”

  “Oh, that the Lillian Hut is haunted. A long time ago a fisherman named Clayton Lillian strangled his sister Winks Lillian with a piece of fishing line in a shack by the sea. And then he disappeared. People won’t go near it now. But the hut is right down this beach a ways and I’ve walked by it a thousand times and nothing has ever happened to me. It’s just an abandoned shack.”

  I met Neely’s gaze.

  I knew where we were going tomorrow.

  I opened my mouth to ask a few follow-up questions, but before I could frame a sentence, Canto pushed her thick curls back from her face, stuck a short finger out, and pointed to Finch. “You. Tell me your story. I don’t think you belong to these other two.” She turned to point at Neely and me. “At least, you haven’t for long.”

  Neely laughed and started rubbing his right forearm with his left hand in an absent way. “You’ll want to keep an eye on this one,” he said, speaking to me but looking at Canto. “She’s doesn’t miss a thing.”

  “Yeah, I noticed.” There was a bit of gloom in my voice. And I guess if I thought about it long enough, I might have figured where it came from and why it was there.

  So I didn’t think about it.

  “I have no story,” Finch said. His voice was low, with a throaty, hoarse quality that reminded me of scratchy old records playing in the Citizen’s attic. “When I was eight years old my mother went deep into the forest to gather wintergreen berries and I never saw her again. Who knows who my father was. I was raised by my grandmother Owl Grieve. Sometimes I went to Inn’s End for school, but mostly not. My grandmother died and then it was just me. Chopping wood and walking through snow and making rabbit stew. And the sun rising and setting and the seasons passing. And that’s it.” He paused. “There’s nothing else to say.”

  I was impressed. Canto ordered Finch to open up, and he did.

  “You must have been lonely,” I said, mostly to myself.

  In twenty-four hours I’d met a boy raised by his grandmother and a girl left alone in a big house. Maybe my life hadn’t been as uniquely sad as I’d previously thought.

  I guess this is the benefit of travel.

  Finch didn’t answer me. He was still looking at Canto. “One night I was watching the stars and thinking everything would always be as it always was. Then I was tied up and dragged into the church to be hanged or burned or bled. I was rescued in the nick of time and then taken to the sea. Who knows what will happen next, with the way things are going.”

  There was a long silence. I leaned back into the sofa behind me and my shoulder brushed by Neely’s knee. He didn’t move for a second . . . and then I felt his fingers reach through my long hair and stroke my neck. Just the once.

  I looked at Canto. “The radio show said Inn’s End had a devil-boy stealing girls’ dreams. But the real boy had left by the time we got there. The town had decided Finch would be a good enough substitute. They were going to kill him.”

  “Oh,” was all Canto said. No questions about the devil-boy or about a town that executed its own vengeance. But her expression wasn’t quite as nonchalant as her mouth. Her black eyes looked thoughtful and her eyebrows bunched up again. She had inched closer and closer to Finch while he talked, until the two of them were sharing the same blanket by the fire, her shoulder touching his.

  There was something about Finch. There was something strong and welcoming and . . . expectant about him, like a cool autumn breeze blowing across your neck on a hot September day. I was already growing attached to the caged, wild look that slid into his eyes whenever he thought no one was looking—it was charming and cryptic and exactly what I’d expect to find in the eyes of a boy who grew up alone in a forest.

  “So what do you think of the world outside Inn’s End, Finch?” Neely asked, when he noticed me staring at my Inn’s End souvenir. “Does it suit you?”

  “It does,” Finch answered. “It’s less quiet. And a lot more interesting. I think this place is going to be good for me.” And he was looking at Canto when he said it.

  Canto yawned. She put her hand to her mouth, and the yawn turned into a smile.

  “I get up early,” she said. “Have to get the fish when it comes in. I’m going to hit the hay. We’ll talk more tomorrow night.” Here she looked at Neely. “I want to hear more about this friend who may or may not be a sea god.”


  She waved a good-night to us, walked to the tower stairs, turned, and came back. She slid her fingers into Finch’s red hair, and messed it up. “Devil-boy. Right. I think you’re all a bunch of liars, and you’re the worst of the bunch. Still, thanks for telling us your story.”

  Finch watched her climb the stairs. I couldn’t see his face, but I figured his dimple had popped out again.

  The three of us went to bed too, not long after.

  I drifted off to sleep in my little treasure map room, listening to the waves lap and feeling a bit of my homesickness drain away. I thought about my brother, and Sunshine. I wondered where they were, if they had made it home yet, if they were scared, if they were hating me for not going with, if it had been the right thing to do, in the end. I was worried about Jack. And I missed Luke. It had only been a day, but knowing he wasn’t nearby, that I couldn’t walk down the hall or out to the shed and talk to him anytime I wanted . . . it disturbed me in some deep way.

  And then my thoughts went to Inn’s End as I started sinking into sleep. Inn’s End and Finch. I seemed drawn to on-their-own types. Jack, and Finch, and now maybe Canto too. Them and me. Metal and magnet. I guess it was my lot in life, like red-haired, green-gabled Anne, with the twins . . .

  ≈≈≈

  “Violet.”

  I opened my eyes and turned over. “Hey, Neely,” I said at the dark shape standing by the bed. “Is it time for Stranger Than Fiction?”

  He nodded, and his blond hair flopped around, silver-blue in the moonlight. “But you need to see this first. Hurry,” he added, grabbing my hand after I crawled out of bed.

  He dragged me over to the bay window.

  I blinked several times, and leaned my face against the glass to see better. Neely kept hold of my hand and I let him.

  I saw it. A light on the beach. Coming toward the house. Closer. And closer. Right up on the deck. I heard a door open downstairs . . .

  Neely’s hand was on my mouth before I could say anything. He waited a second, took his hand away, and brought his finger to his lips. I nodded.

  The tower stairs creaked. A door opened somewhere above me, and closed again.

  Canto.

  “She could have been doing anything,” I whispered. “Checking fish traps or other fisherwoman things.”

  “That’s true.” Neely looked at me, and then grinned. “But, all things considered, what are the odds?”

  Despite myself, I grinned back. “The odds are terrible,” I whispered.

  I sat down on my bed and tucked my knees under my chin and my cold feet underneath my long nightgown. “She wasn’t lying, though, when she said she didn’t know about the sea god.” I let my hair fall over my cold cheeks. “I know she wasn’t.”

  Neely sat down next to me and started rubbing my cold right foot between his warm hands. “Tomorrow we’ll find this Lillian Hut. And tomorrow night, if she sneaks out again, we follow Canto. All right?”

  I nodded.

  Neely warmed up my other foot, and then stood up again. He went over to a beat-up plastic radio on the dresser. Turned it on. Spun dials.

  . . . Eyed Theo. I’m here. You’re here. And it’s the witching hour. Time for your daily dose of Stranger Than Fiction.

  My only update tonight comes out of the Colorado Rockies. My source, who lives by himself in a cabin and seems to be the rugged mountain-man type, claims the nearby town is acting strange. He said, quote, “All those folks in Gold Hollow have gone stark mad. They keep talking about the trees, saying the trees told them to do this or that, and none of it any good. And now I’ve heard the children have all gone missing too. They followed a tall, thin, red-haired girl into the mountains and no one’s seen them since.”

  This is a new one, listeners. Talking trees full of bad intentions and a pied piper girl. My source refused to mention any specifics—he said he didn’t want to be laughed at on the radio—but he wanted me to send someone out there to investigate, since, quote, “the nearest law is in Boulder and they don’t believe me, and won’t drive up here anyway because of the snow.”

  Anyone near Colorado want to do some investigating? I’d owe you one.

  It’s Wide-Eyed Theo, signing off for the night.

  Go forth and find the strange.

  “Maybe we should have gone to the mountains, instead of the sea,” Neely said, and laughed. “Damn it. I hate being wrong.”

  “Don’t you have a half sister, Neely?”

  “Do I?” he asked, quiet.

  “You sound like River,” I answered, quiet too.

  Neely raised one eyebrow and looked so cocky and mischievous and River-like suddenly that my heart started to ache. And then he grinned and it went away.

  I met his eyes. “Back in the guesthouse. The day I met you. You said you had two half brothers and one half sister, that you knew about. And the half sister was in Colorado. It could be her, Neely, leading those kids into the woods.”

  Neely shrugged. “Or it’s Brodie in a dress. Or it’s just nothing at all.” He shrugged and turned the radio off . . .

  . . . and the next thing I knew he was pulling his shirt over his head and slipping out of his wool trousers and climbing into my bed and I was climbing in right next to him and picturing those wild horses in my mind and nothing happened except me squeezing myself into his smooth side and resting my head on his shoulder and feeling his soft scar underneath my cheek and my feet nestling in between his warm legs.

  Neely whispered, No wonder River liked this so much, and heaved a deep sigh, and then both of us, sleep, sleep, sleep.

  ≈≈≈

  My dreams were loud. And dark. At first it was just flashes of Neely smiling and the spindly Captain Nemo and Canto with an odd, blank look and Finch swimming in a black sea, his red hair looking redder than the setting sun . . .

  But then my dreams turned to River.

  River with a glint in his eyes and a gold crown on his head.

  River with his arms wide, wild horses behind him, hooves pounding, kicking sand into the air. The sea and the wind and a ragged shack and then he grabbed me and his palms were covered with sand, and I didn’t care, it belonged there, and the grains scraped down my skin as he pulled me in, and I was soft and pliable as seaweed in the surf and when River opened his mouth the sounds of the sea came out, crashing and lapping, and the wet, and the blue, and the deep . . .

  When I woke in the pre-dawn dark, Neely was still beside me. He was breathing in and out, slow, soft. I let my forehead rest against his warm, smooth back for a minute, and then I stretched, long and slow, trying to shake off the bad dreams, my arms hitting the wooden headboard, my feet reaching toward the end of the bed . . .

  And that’s when I felt it.

  Sand.

  My hands went to my head, to my skin, to the sheets. It was everywhere. Crusted over my scalp, underneath my fingernails, underneath my pillow, caked around the necklace Neely gave me, in between my toes, everywhere.

  I ran my fingertips down my cheek and sheets of it flaked off.

  My hair was wet too; I felt it slap against my shoulder when I got up and started brushing at the quilt with my hands.

  I was quiet, so quiet.

  Slow, Vi, slow. Don’t wake Neely.

  My palms scraped the grit to the sandy floor, over and over, again and again.

  Then I slipped off down the hall and got in the shower.

  I didn’t let myself think about it, not one thought, not for a second.

  In the morning I would think it all a dream.

  Chapter 12

  June

  I found her. And him. We had all come up from the city to celebrate Rose Redding’s sixteenth birthday. Chester and Clara Glenship were her godparents, and she helped fill the hole that their poor broken-necked daughter Alexandra left when she fell from the tree house.


  The sky on Rose’s birthday was blue and clear. A perfect day for a perfect girl. She was apple-cheeked and chestnut-curled and innocent as one of the round brown puppies in the barn. I knew. I knew when Chase gave her that book of naughty French poetry for a present and she smiled up at him like he was God. I knew what he’d done.

  Will figured it out later, when he found Rose in Chase’s bed.

  Chase was a fine match for me, in Will’s mind. Daring, worldly, flashy Freddie. I could have handled him.

  But not Rose.

  Rose was the kind of girl to fall in love once, and forever. Chase and “forever” didn’t mix.

  I crawled into Will’s arms that night, as I’d done so many nights before. I woke with a start, a few hours before dawn. Maybe I heard a scream. Or maybe not. Something called me to the cellar. I slid out from between Will’s hands, and legs, and followed the feeling.

  Chase was holding her, rocking back and forth, back and forth, her hair swinging between his elbows, blood soaking them both.

  I saw the knife. Small. Steel. A red handle.

  My heart broke. Right down the middle.

  And the color went out of the world

  ≈≈≈

  Canto was gone by the time we got up, off to fetch the fish, like she said. I read some of Freddie’s diary in bed, and it was dark and sad. I sighed, got up, and brushed my teeth in the small bathroom down the hall—the water was hot enough but cut out when I still had toothpaste in my mouth. Living by the sea did bad things to pipes. I knew this from the Citizen. We’d had to abandon four of its seven bathrooms because nothing in them worked anymore.

  I pulled on a clean wool skirt, tights, black boots, and a dark gray sweater. I saw a phone in the tower hallway, a black, metal one with a rotary dial. I wanted to call the Citizen, to see if Jack was all right, to see if Luke and Sunshine had made it home. I picked up the handset and put it to my ear . . . no dial tone. I guess Luke and I weren’t the only kids who couldn’t pay the phone bill sometimes.

  Luke, are you all right?