But Honey doesn’t give up. “Your mother was still coming into herself . . . into her abilities . . . when she crossed over. And she was a lot older than you are.”
My mother killed herself. But Honey never says it like that.
I was eight years old when she did it, and after, I remember asking Honey if she could talk to my mother for me. If she could ask her why. But Honey says the dead are picky about who they talk to. They get to choose who they communicate with, if they choose to communicate at all. And my mother has never reached out to Honey from the other side.
She’s never reached out to me, either.
Since my mother died – or crossed over or whatever – I’ve spent the school years up in Arkansas with my dad and the summers down here with Honey.
That’s one of the things Elora and I went round and round about last summer. She couldn’t wait to turn eighteen and get the hell out of here. And I couldn’t wait to turn eighteen and finally come home. Full-time. I imagined myself helping out in the shop, then running it on my own. Someday.
Honey is still watching me. She tucks a piece of hair behind my ear, and I somehow find the courage to ask the question I couldn’t ask her earlier.
“Has she reached out to you?” I hear the fear in my voice. “Elora’s ghost? Or spirit or whatever?”
Honey chuckles a little. “Oh, goodness, no, Sugar Bee. Why would Elora want to talk to an old lady like me?” Then her voice turns serious. “Besides, if Elora has crossed over, she may not have the energy to reach out to anyone yet. Sometimes it takes a while for spirits to gather themselves. And even then, they may only have the strength to communicate with one person, so they have to be choosy about which channels they open up.” Honey is quiet for a moment before she goes on. “It would make much more sense for Elora to contact someone she was close to in life. Someone she already had a deep connection with.”
I know she’s talking about me, but I’m not ready to share those strange flashes with Honey yet.
“Did you know Mackey had a death warning?” I ask. “About Elora? The night she disappeared?” I shiver a little in the air-conditioning. “Death in the water.”
Honey sighs and pulls the blanket over me. “I heard about that,” she admits. “But a death warning is just that. It’s a warning. That’s all. It means death is close by. But it’s not a sure thing. Not always.”
I remember an old story about Mackey’s uncle knocking on the front door one morning to give Honey’s first husband, my grandfather, a death warning that had come to him over breakfast. Death from below, he’d told them. And sure enough, my grandfather had been bitten by a huge water moccasin that very afternoon while he was out hunting. He nearly died that night. But come morning, he was still hanging on. He ended up losing his big toe, but he didn’t lose his life. Not until a heart attack took him a couple years later. And nobody had warned him about that.
Honey’s hand is still in my hair. It’s making me so sleepy. I can hardly keep my eyes open, and an old nightmare comes creeping in around the edges of my consciousness.
“Do you remember anything about Dempsey Fontenot?”
Honey tucks the blanket around my shoulders. “Well, I never knew much about him, to tell you the truth. He lived way out there all alone. Kept to himself, mostly.” She pauses, like she’s trying to choose her words. Being careful. “He had some odd ways. There were stories . . .” She stops and smooths my hair again. “I don’t guess folks cared much for him, even before what happened.”
“Do you think he got Elora?” The words come out thick and sleep-coated. Heavy in my mouth. “Like he got Ember and Orli?”
“No. I don’t think so,” Honey says, and for a long while, there’s only the hum of the air conditioner in the window and the soft sound of Sweet-N-Low snoring beside me. By the time she adds the next part, I’m almost too far gone to hear it. “I don’t imagine poor Dempsey Fontenot ever got anybody.”
When I wake up, the light coming in the windows is different. I’ve slept the whole afternoon. Which means I’ve missed lunch. And I’m starving.
I hear Honey humming to herself in the kitchen while she makes dinner. “Crazy” by Patsy Cline. She promises it won’t be long, so I head out front to the steps to wait.
Five thirty. The shuttle boat is blowing its horn for the final upriver trip of the day. The last of the tourists are heading back to Kinter, where they’ll climb into their cars and drive north to New Orleans for a night out on Bourbon Street.