Between the Spark and the Burn Read online

  Which was fair and all right, but I was running out of River’s money, damn it. Fast. I unfolded another origami creature and handed it over.

  Hayden had a small boat, just big enough for him and us. We left the car behind in Nags Dune, parked in a lot behind a hardware store. We took our suitcases and camping gear and the picnic basket and strode down a dock to a boat that looked as strong and weather-beaten as its owner.

  The open sea.

  For a girl who’s lived her whole life footsteps from the ocean, you’d think I would have set foot on a big sea-crossing boat at some point. But the Whites barely had enough money to pay the taxes on Citizen Kane, and buy canvases and paints. There was nothing left over for yacht buying. Freddie had talked about going to boat parties when she was young, and I’d listened closely and pretty much felt like I’d spent my youth yachting on the sea too. But the actual truth was that I was a girl born by the ocean who’d never ever done the Queen Mary, or anything even close.

  The three of us stood in the red boat, all together in a line, the dark twilight water moving under our feet and splashing us in the face. Hayden’s hair was cropped close and his eyes were permanently narrowed from staring into the sun all day. He held the wheel and looked over at us occasionally in a puzzled sort of way.

  “I was born on a yacht,” Neely said, after the houses and shops on the shore had become nothing but twinkling lights in the distance.

  I knew Neely was an old hand at this traveling-by-sea thing, but this was news. “No you weren’t,” I said, and smiled.

  “River’s the liar, remember?” He smiled back. “I came early. My parents were sailing to the Azores and my mother went into labor. My father delivered me with the help of the ship’s cook. My mother said later that River kept crying and calling out for her, but he stopped the second he saw me for the first time. I always . . .”

  Neely didn’t finish his sentence. His voice faded into the sound of the waves splitting to let Hayden’s boat through. He moved toward me, just an inch or two, just until our arms touched.

  Finch turned and looked at Neely. “When did she die?”

  Neely raised his eyebrows at him in a “how did you know?” way.

  “I heard it in your voice,” Finch said. He leaned his lower back against the side of the boat.

  Neely wiped a few drops of seawater off his forehead and stared at the dark horizon. “A while ago. Five years.”

  Finch nodded. “And your father?”

  “Still alive,” was all Neely said.

  Silence.

  “You kids know what you’re doing, going to Carollie this time of year?” Hayden asked a few minutes later. He was still throwing glances our way, and looking a little worried. I wondered if he had children at home. I pictured him with a strong sea wife, curly hair flying in the wind, her face pretty and clear except for the wrinkles settling in near her eyes from too much staring out at the ocean and thinking about her husband being at its mercy.

  “No,” Neely called out, with a laugh, back to his old self. “But we’re going anyway. Why? What’s the matter with Carollie this time of year?”

  But Hayden had turned his gaze back to the water and didn’t answer.

  And the next thing we knew he was pulling up to another dock and the long sandy beach of Carollie stretched out in front of us, blue-black under the blue-black sky.

  And, just as our feet hit the sand, we saw them. Dark shapes running through the dusk ahead of us, kicking up their heels, heads high in the air.

  Wild horses.

  “They’re descended from horses that survived a shipwreck,” Hayden said. “They swam to this island and have lived here ever since.”

  We all watched the horses run for a while, their bodies flying through the dark, tails swishing, not giving a damn about anything else in the whole world.

  I felt something release inside of me then. Something I hadn’t known I’d been holding on to. It ripped through my body and I shuddered as it left.

  Chapter 10

  HAYDEN TOLD US that the only place to get supper was “at the Hag’s Shack down the shore, near the town.” Everything else was closed for the season.

  We could see the Hag’s Shack lights from where we stood. The small town glimmered behind it, like a smattering of stars dripping down the beach. The three of us said good-bye to Hayden, and then headed toward the glow, the wild horses still beating a path down the beach behind us.

  Finch carried the sleeping bags and tents and he seemed overburdened, despite his strong arms and straight back. But when I asked him if he was all right, he gave me a quick glance and a quicker smile and said he enjoyed the labor of it.

  Neely walked next to me, whistling like he hadn’t a care in the world, because nothing really kept Neely down, did it.

  And I was in a good mood too. I was by the ocean again. And the ocean meant home. The waves didn’t crash here like they did on Citizen Kane’s bit of rocky shore, but it felt reassuring, nevertheless.

  The Hag’s Shack was a small little seafood place off by itself on the sand. It looked like it had been built from a large shipping crate, metal and blue and rectangular. It had an open-air counter where you ordered your food and then ate it standing up or sitting on the deck, your feet dangling off the edge. Without the sun, the air was cold, but there was a fire burning in a black fire pit, and that kept things warm enough.

  The menu was handwritten on a chalkboard, big and clear. There were a few locals in front of us, and I watched them for signs of Inn’s End–ishness. But they just looked like hungry people anywhere, tired at the end of a long day and anxious to put food in their bellies. If they noticed that we strangers were cuddling up to their seafood shack, they didn’t seem to care.

  The girl behind the counter was the only employee about the place. She was curvy like Sunshine, but shorter, and had dark, curly black hair, a round face, childlike rosebud lips, and feisty eyes. She took our order for three Vietnamese coffees and three clam chowders and three fried oyster tacos and a seared tuna salad, all while jumping between the register and the sizzling pieces of fish she was flipping on the grill.

  We ate by the outdoor fire, lemony sauce dripping through our fingers. And it was all hot and good, good, good, the fish tender and salty, the coffee smooth and sweet.

  Two local boys joined us after a few minutes—both with thick, dark brown hair and big smiles and a cocky, graceful way of holding their shoulders back and tilting their chins up. Brothers, no doubt. They were as pretty as a pair of Greek gods and they knew it too. They made eyes at every female between them and the counter, and they even winked at me. I noticed they didn’t flirt with the fish-frying girl, though. They put in their order and then leaned forward and whispered to her in a serious, intimate way—no smiles, no winks.

  When we finished eating we just stayed where we were by the fire. We had nowhere else to go. The place slowly cleared out. Two shiny-cheeked girls joined the Greek god boys and eventually they all swaggered off, laughing.

  I wondered if Neely would let me sleep in his tent again.

  I wondered if the horses would trample us as we dreamed.

  I wouldn’t mind that, not as much as you’d think.

  “You need a place to stay?” The curly-haired girl had broken free from her counter and stood looking at us where we sat by the fire, eyeing up our suitcases and camping gear.

  “What makes you think that?” Neely asked, and laughed his chuckling, contagious laugh. He stood up and reached out his hand. “I’m Neely. The blonde there is Vi and the redhead is Finch. We thought we’d camp here on the beach. Hotels are out—we blew through our money on coffee, gas, and train tickets. Long story.”

  The girl nodded. “I’m Canto,” she said, shaking our hands. She had taken her apron off and wore a red sweater and black knee-high socks and a skirt with a dolphin stitched on it.
“You can stay at my place for a while, if you want. It’s free, provided you help a bit with cleaning and cooking. If you’re lazy and you don’t want to work, then don’t bother. I hate lazy people and can’t stand to be around them. But otherwise, what’s mine is yours.”

  Finch, who had been silent until now, standing back in the shadows, stepped forward. “Yes,” he said, calm and bold as you please. “We aren’t lazy and we’ll take it.”

  “Agreed,” Neely added.

  That was quick, I thought.

  Canto was pretty and round and sure of herself and full of opinions on lazy people. And we didn’t have anywhere else to go.

  Still . . . it annoyed me a little, how fast the boys said yes. It did.

  “Well, I’m kind of lazy,” I said.

  But Canto just smiled and shook her head, thick curls flopping about her ears and shoulders. She leaned in and stared at me with sharp black eyes. “You don’t look lazy,” she said. And it seemed to be enough for her.

  We helped her close up the Hag’s Shack. Neely washed dishes and I scrubbed the grill and Finch packed the leftover fish on fresh ice. We left the fire to burn out on its own and then followed Canto into the town, which had the same name as the island, Carollie. It was small, just a smattering of houses and a couple of crisscrossing streets. Smaller than my hometown, Echo, but bigger than Inn’s End. Most of the shops and restaurants on the main street were closed, as Hayden had said, it being the off-season. Still, we walked by what looked like an active café. One that opened the next morning at six. Perfect.

  “Really?” I said. And then again. “Really?” Because we’d gotten to Canto’s house. It was at the end of town, on stilts like the Hag’s Shack, and facing the ocean. And it was . . . huge. Not as big as Citizen Kane, with its seven or eight guest bedrooms and two main staircases, but still. Huge.

  The house was weathered and ramshackle. The wood was a tough, sea-beaten gray, and it had a boxy four-story tower and bay windows and multiple decks and stairs descending into the sand. Several tiny blue shutters covered several small windows and it was pointed and gabled and a hundred years old if it was a day. It looked full of forgotten corners and nooks and crannies and ghosts and moaning sea captain widows. The ocean was lapping at its feet, and damn, if there was ever a house that belonged to the sea as much as Citizen Kane, this was it.

  We walked up some rickety steps and across a rickety deck and then we squeezed through a door and stumbled into a large room. Canto flipped on the lights, with a snappy little ta-da, and I set down my suitcase and looked around.

  Comfortable couches and wicker chairs and sunflower curtains and mismatched everything. There was dust on the fireplace mantel and cobwebs swinging from the ceiling and books piled up on the floor. It was cold, no fire in the fireplace, no heat running through the radiators. Sand crunched underneath my feet where it hadn’t been swept up in a while.

  And the walls were painted pale green. Freddie’s color. Like this was right. Like it was meant to be.

  “You live here all alone, don’t you,” I said, because suddenly I just knew. I felt it, like I felt the sea swirling about right outside. I was so familiar with living parentless in a big house that I would have known blindfolded.

  Canto tilted her head and gave me an odd look. “Yes. I do. My mother died when I was little and my dad is out at sea nine months of the year.” She paused, and seemed to read something in my face that made her keep talking. “Sometimes he forgets to send money and that’s why I work at the Hag’s Shack seven days a week.”

  And she shrugged, like it was nothing.

  But in that shrug I saw bills unpaid. Holidays spent alone. No letters or postcards. And the wondering, always the wondering.

  I didn’t say anything, and she didn’t say anything, and we both knew anyway. We could smell it on each other like some hopeful, melancholy cologne.

  Two peas in a pod. Us.

  But then Canto grinned, and there was a different feeling about her suddenly. A lighter feeling. She spread her arms wide and threw her head back.

  “Welcome to Captain Nemo. Sometimes I take in travelers and make them pay rent, but I won’t charge you guys as long as you help out. I’ve gotten really behind, trying to run the Shack and go to school at the same time.” Canto tapped her foot against the warped hardwood floor and it crunched. “Someone needs to sweep tomorrow. I vote Finch. He looks strong enough to empty this house of sand.”

  Finch looked at her, a sweet, woodland expression on his face. “I’ll see what I can do,” he said. And suddenly the sweet expression faded and his eyes went wild and I saw his dimple pop out, so he wasn’t hiding as much as he thought he was.

  Canto nodded at Finch, and then smiled. Maybe she saw the dimple too. “Good. Don’t disappoint me. My dad says my tongue is sharper than a shark’s hunger and he knows what he’s talking about. He almost lost his leg off the coast of Australia, caught between a tiger shark’s teeth.”

  That smacks of bullshit, I thought. And then realized I didn’t really care.

  Canto walked through the living room and started down a short hallway, flipping on more lights. “Go ahead and explore. Pick a bedroom. Mine is on the top floor of the tower, but everything else is fair game. I’ll get a fire going in the fireplace and then we can have some hot caramel milk. And while we drink it we can tell each other our stories.”

  “Can you put some coffee in that caramel?” Neely called down, already ten steps up what I figured must be the way to the tower.

  “You drink too much coffee,” Canto yelled from the kitchen at the end of the hall, though how she knew this I didn’t know. “You’ll drink my caramel milk straight and you’ll like it.”

  And Neely laughed and laughed, all the way up the stairs.

  Chapter 11

  February

  William was coming apart at the seams. Burning up from the inside.

  His family was richer than God now. They owned everything. Factories. Ships. Islands. All that burning. I told him there would be a price. There’s always a price.

  Chase Glenship swaggered back home from a couple of months abroad. We left the city to come and meet him. He was filled to bursting with stories and worldly wisdom so fresh and new it was practically still in the box.

  That night, after everyone was asleep, even the servants, he dragged us all up to the attic and showed us the pipes and things he’d bought off a sailor in Greece. He was a true Byron.

  I loved the Glenship attic, the angles and cobwebs. I wanted to have an attic just like it someday. Someday I would leave New York City and move to Echo for good. Lucas had promised, earnest, solemn, to build me a house on the sea, like the Glenship, and let me have it exactly the way I wanted. He was already building it, in fact. And was paying the workers double to hurry, in case I changed my mind.

  Will’s sister, Rose, sat on a sofa in the corner. She was flushed and excited, and Lucas sat next to her, stoic and tolerant, as usual.

  I had on my new yellow dress. It was slinky and daring and heavy with beaded fringe. Will said it made my gams look too skinny. He would say that.

  Chase stood in the center of the attic floor in his white suit and dared me to do it. To smoke the Oriental poppy. So I did.

  Afterward we went for a swim in the Glenship’s underground pool, naked as the day we were born. When I started stripping down to my skivvies, Lucas took Rose and left.

  The world was a sweet, dreamy blue mist. I slipped out of the water and put on a pair of Chase’s trousers and belted them tight to my waist. I buttoned one of his starched shirts too, right over my breasts, nothing underneath. I started walking into town. The boys followed.

  We ended up at the church. The doors were locked even though church doors were always open back then. But Chase had a key. Of course he had a key.

  It was a small, white building with Hawthorne gab
les. We went in. I stretched out across a wooden pew, and wiggled my toes. I was barefoot. Where were my shoes? Had I walked into town without shoes? Or had I left them underneath a pew somewhere?

  Then Will was kissing me, kissing my neck, warming me up, right there with God watching. Burn and opium. Opium and burn. Maybe Chase kissed me too. Maybe they were both kissing me when the priest found us.

  He leaned over me and said I was a drugged Jezebel blaspheming God in his home. He said I was Eve with the apple, and the snake too.

  He said nothing to the boys. Even Chase, who he knew from the occasional repentant Sunday. I think that’s what angered Will the most. He pushed the priest away from me. Hard.

  That night, long after we’d crawled into our beds to dream the dreams of the hell-bent young, the priest set the church on fire, with himself inside.

  And that’s when I knew how bad it was.

  ≈≈≈

  The bedroom I picked on the second tower floor of Captain Nemo had a treasure map theme. A large compass had been painted on one of the yellow walls, pointing north, followed by a trail of black slashes that went all around the big room and its big bay window, leading to a big black X. I wondered if Canto was behind the theme, and thinking so made me like her even more.

  The bed was soft and there was sand in the corners and dust on the warped wood dresser and the bay window had a comfy window seat where someone could sit and read and look out to sea. So I sat down right there, read the next entry in Freddie’s diary, and then closed the book, slam.

  Citzen Kane’s library had a rare, seven-volume horror collection—I read the series straight through one lonely winter. In one story, the main character found a diary left by a dead cousin. It gave clues and spilled secrets and solved mysteries. But. But it also stirred up trouble and opened old wounds and made the main character think she didn’t really ever know a person, not a bit, not at all.

  Part of me wished I would have remembered this story, about the diary, before I started reading Freddie’s.