I lose my grip on the mud, and I feel myself being pulled along with the torrent.
Tumbling.
Spinning.
Arms over head over knees over elbows.
Mud in my nose. My mouth. My eyes. There’s nothing to grab on to. Nothing solid in the whole world.
And then it all goes black.
My head slams against the base of the toilet, and I scramble to my hands and knees on the dark bathroom floor. My chest hurts. Everything hurts.
I can’t see. I can’t think. I can’t breathe. I can’t –
My stomach heaves. I sputter and choke. My throat burns again as the water comes up.
I’m vomiting and coughing.
Water.
Water everywhere.
It comes up and up and up. It gushes from my throat. Pours out my nose.
My ribs ache. I retch and gag and listen to the splash of water against ceramic tiles. It spreads across the floor and pools around my fingers. And it keeps coming.
I vomit up water from my stomach. I cough it up from my lungs.
Again and again and again.
So much water. Enough water to drown a person.
Enough water to drown Elora.
When it finally stops, I fold in on myself and hold my aching sides. The smell of the bayou fills up my nose. I grab the edge of the sink and pull myself to my feet. My legs are shaking, and my bare feet splash through the puddle as I feel my way out of the bathroom.
Blind.
I can’t be in the house any more. There’s no air in here. I need to be out.
Outside. On the front porch. Where maybe I can breathe.
It’s late. After midnight. I stumble my way through the dark bookstore, and Sweet-N-Low comes padding out of the kitchen to see what’s up. I hear the jingle of his collar, so I put one finger to my lips, like he’s a person, and whisper to him to go back to bed.
Then I open the front door. Slow and easy. So the bell won’t wake up Honey.
And everything goes silent.
The wind. The rain. The thunder and lightning.
It all just – stops.
No movement. No breeze.
Dead still.
But I can hear the faintest tinkling of wind chimes.
When I slip out on to the front porch, my feet skitter on tiny pieces of ice. Hailstones the size of green peas. I pick some up and hold them in my hand, but they’re already melting in the summer heat.
I cross the boardwalk and step out on to the dock. Hart would be pissed.
But Hart isn’t here.
I avoid the rotten, roped-off area and move to the other side of the platform to stand over the dark Mississippi.
I wonder if maybe I’ve become a water witch.
Like Elora.
Suddenly a strange energy swirls around me. The damp air hums and crackles, and the hair stands up on my arms and the back of my neck. Evie’s wind chimes whisper louder and louder until they ring like church bells.
And I know it’s him.
When I look back over my shoulder, he’s standing right behind me. Blond hair and ice-blue eyes that shine with a deep-lit fire.
He’s so close. If I put out my hand, I could touch him.
I should be afraid.
But something in the water murmurs not to be.
I turn to face him, with all the strength of the great, rolling river at my back, and I can’t even explain it. This weird calm settles over me, and I don’t feel any fear.
“I didn’t mean to scare you, Grey.”
I wonder if all our conversations will begin with those same seven words.
His smile is genuine. Open.
Up close, there’s nothing about him that reminds me of Sander’s drawing. The faceless stranger. étranger is all emptiness. And there’s so much blazing light in Zale’s eyes.
He’s not wearing anything but a pair of faded jeans. His skin is beautiful. Golden. And that blond hair of his is storm-blown. It shines like silk in the moonshine. It occurs to me that he’d look right at home on the cover of one of those cheesy romance novels. The kind Honey keeps stashed in her nightstand. The ones I’m not supposed to know about.
“Who are you?” I ask him.
“Zale.” I notice a little bit of a gap between his front teeth. And somehow that makes him seem more real. “But I already told you that, didn’t I?”
I swear that ocean-deep voice could sweep me out to sea. But I refuse to let it.
“How did you know Elora?”
Something like sadness crosses his face, and he looks past me, out at the river.
“I told you, she was a friend of mine. That’s a thing we have in common, Grey. You and me.”
“Do you know what happened to her?”
He shifts his focus back to me again, and my stomach drops like I’m riding a roller coaster.