One hundred and one since Elora disappeared.
One hundred and one days since Wrynn saw whatever she saw. Or whatever she thought she saw. Whatever she imagined.
I push that flash aside – the teeth – and tell Wrynn that she can’t be right. That there is no rougarou. That those stories are no more real than her tales of unicorns and fairies. She looks at me like I’ve let her down, but she doesn’t say anything else. She just takes that jelly jar full of lightning bugs and heads off in the direction of her house, moving barefoot through the tall swamp grass. Silent as an apparition.
Case and Wrynn’s people don’t live on the boardwalk. Their house sits up on a narrow strip of high ground, back toward Li’l Pass. Their mama, Ophelia, is the best cook for at least a hundred miles. They’re pure Cajun, through and through. Real Acadians.
I don’t have a drop of Cajun blood, but I always loved having supper with Case and his family. étouffée and jambalaya. Homemade pistolette rolls. Giant cast-iron kettles of bubbling gumbo. Enough to feed everyone in La Cachette twice over. After we stuffed ourselves silly, we’d all move out to the front porch and his daddy would play the fiddle or the harmonica and all the boys would sing. Even Case.
Joie de vivre.
The joy of life.
Good food and good music. Good times. Good people.
I feel ashamed for being afraid of Case. Hart is wrong about him. He has to be. Because Case is one of us. One of the Summer Children.
Inside the house, I pull Sera’s folded drawing out of my pocket and tuck it into the bottom of my underwear drawer. It’s a cliché, but I’m too tired to think of a better hiding spot. I barely manage to brush my teeth and pull on a clean T-shirt before I crawl under the covers.
My first night home.
Honey comes to sit on the edge of my bed again. She scratches my back and hums me a song. It’s a ritual that’s been ours ever since I was born, I guess.
“Good night. Sleep tight. Don’t let the mosquitoes bite,” she tells me. “Love you, Sugar Bee.”
“Love you,” I answer, and Honey kisses me on the forehead before she flips off the light and heads upstairs to bed, closing my door behind her.
But sleep plays hide-and-seek with me, the way Elora used to. No matter how hard I try, I can’t find any way to rest. Maybe it’s those wind chimes of Evie’s keeping me awake. I hear them outside, singing in the dark.
Or maybe it’s more than that.
Maybe it’s the constant ache of the Elora-shaped hole somewhere in the middle of me. Memories of long summer nights spent wishing on stars in her backyard. Or singing along to the radio in Honey’s kitchen while we churned homemade ice cream.
Or it could be all my questions that won’t let me drift off into oblivion.
I keep thinking about that trunk that isn’t there.
And Sander’s drawing. The stranger without a face.
It’s almost two o’clock in the morning when I give up and crawl out from under the covers. I pull on a pair of shorts and tiptoe through the shop. Sweet-N-Low comes waddling out to investigate, but when he sees it’s me, he loses interest and heads back to bed. Then I open the front door nice and slow, so the little bell doesn’t jingle, and slip out on to the front porch.
As soon as my feet hit the slick dampness of the painted boards, I realize I haven’t bothered to put on shoes. And I think of that water moccasin Case killed earlier.
Careful where ya steppin’， chere.
I take a good look around before I sit down on the front steps to stare out toward the water.
Nobody would call the lower Mississippi a beautiful river, but it looks prettier at night than it does in the harsh light of day. And the constant movement of it has always soothed me. I can’t see much of it tonight, though. The fog is too thick.
The night is alive with the sound of wind chimes. When I look next door, I see that there are two of them now, hanging right outside Evie’s bedroom window. I don’t know how she sleeps with all that ringing and clinking.
I’ve only been out there a few minutes when I hear something else, too. The soft sound of someone crying. I freeze and squint into the darkness, in the direction of the dock. And there it is again. Muffled sobbing wrapped in a blanket of mist. The thick, damp air plays tricks, distorting the sound. It seems to come from nowhere in particular. And from everywhere all at once.
Then it stops.
I hold my breath until it comes again. And this time, there’s something familiar about it. I stand up and take a few steps out on to the boardwalk, and I’m instantly walled in by the suffocating fog.