When it’s finally over, he digs a wadded-up tissue out of his pocket and hands it to me, so I can wipe my mouth. Then he helps me back to the crate and sits down next to me.
I hear him sigh, and I know he’s wishing for a cigarette. But he dropped his lighter in the mud back at the gator pond.
“Ember and Orli have been missing three days,” he starts. “No sign of ’em anywhere. Sheriff can’t find hide nor hair of ’em.”
“Like Elora,” I murmur. And Hart nods.
“Just like that. So the search party decides to go check out at Keller’s Island again. ’Cause everybody knew Dempsey Fontenot wasn’t right. The way he looked at people.” He pauses to glance at me. “So they all head out there. My mama and daddy. Your mama. Bernadette. Leo. All the parents. Victor, even. Everybody in town, really.”
“Honey?” I ask, and Hart shakes his head.
“Miss Roselyn didn’t want anything to do with that. At least that’s how Leo tells it.” Hart digs around in his pockets until he finds another lighter. He holds it up like a trophy before he shakes out a cigarette and lights it. Then he goes on.
“And it’s real early when they head out there. Not even dawn yet. But they find Ember and Orli. Sure enough. Floating there in that pond. And Sheriff had already been out there, but Dempsey Fontenot must have had ’em hid somewhere. Cause there they are. Drowned.” He pauses for a second to breathe in smoke. “And people kind of lost their minds, I guess. They wanted to hang him right there. String him up from one of those big old live oaks. They yelled for him to come out of that cabin, but he wouldn’t.”
“He wasn’t in there,” I say, and I think about Zale’s mama. Waking up to all that. Her there alone. And two little boys to protect.
“So everybody got worked up, and things got out of control. People were swept up in that moment, you know?” He ashes the cigarette. Hesitates. “And that’s when your mama lit it up.” Hart looks at me. “That’s the story, anyway. Burned it to the ground just by casting her eyes on it.”
“How do you know all this?”
He shrugs. “I’ve heard it in bits and pieces over the years. A little from Leo here and there. Even Vic told me part of it one night when he was drunk off his ass.” He inhales smoke again. “A man will tell another man shit like that. If he’s fucked up enough.”
“Do the others know? Sera and Sander? Case? And Mackey? Does Evie know?”
Hart shrugs and exhales. “We’ve never talked about it. But I imagine some of them probably know some of it. Or at least suspect it.”
“Did Elora know?”
“She did.” Hart flicks his wrist, and ashes scatter across the dock. “I told her back at the beginning of last summer.” He pauses to put the cigarette to his lips again, and I get impatient waiting for him to exhale. “That’s a big part of why she was tryin’ to drive you away.”
“From her?”
Hart shakes his head. “From here. No matter what else was going on between the two of you, she didn’t want you comin’ –”
“Why the hell didn’t she just tell me? Why didn’t anybody ever tell me?” I’m so angry that everybody’s been keeping me in the dark. “This is my home, Hart!” I glance up at the houses along the boardwalk and lower my voice to a pissed-off whisper. “Have you guys been laughing at me? All this time? Because I’m so stupid? Because I don’t know? Is that it?”
“Whoa.” Hart puts out the cigarette under his heel. “Hold up, Greycie. It’s not like that.”
“Well how is it, then?” I feel like the world’s biggest idiot. The only one at the party not in on the joke.
“Elora didn’t tell you because she didn’t wanna give you that secret to keep. She didn’t wanna put that burden on you. That guilt that comes with knowin’ what happened down here.” He runs a hand over his face. “Shit,” he mutters. “What happens down here.”
“I could have handled it,” I tell him. “She never gave me a chance.”
“Because that kind of shit changes you. You know what I mean? It messes you up. For life. You can trust me on that.” Hart sighs, and the sound of it is as deep and muddy as the Mississippi. “You keep saying this is your home, Greycie. But it isn’t.”
“Yes, it is!”
Hart growls at me in frustration.