Saundra Mitchell - Mistwalker

After that, I made my kids say one letter of the alphabet each, in order, all the way up the hill. If a J or a Q dropped off, I knew I had a runner.

Denny streamed past with her white blond hair and an orderly line of first-graders. It wasn’t until she got the whole class ahead of me that she turned around. And it unnerved me, because she met my gaze on purpose. Her face was soft, her lips pursed.

She looked thoughtful. Or sorry. Something sympathetic, and it dragged a cold touch along the nape of my neck. That wasn’t the face of the girl who’d spat at my feet or gone riding with my boyfriend. I raised my hand to acknowledge her.

Fog curling around her pale head, Denny only stood there. Then, out of nowhere, she said, “I liked Levi, you know.”

Stiff, I tried to nod. “There was a lot to like.”

Whatever had stopped Denny pushed her to move again. She swept up her first-graders and flowed on toward school. Her voice echoed in my head. It hurt in a whole new way to hear my brother’s name. Like forcing a needle through a blister and going too deep. It left me with a sour taste in my mouth.

I turned back to my fourth-graders, then heard Nick calling in the distance. It was another blister to recognize my name on his voice, actually. We hadn’t talked since the bonfire; I wasn’t sure I wanted to. But his little sister was in fourth grade, and she hadn’t been at the base of the hill when we were ready to head up. They must have been running late together.

I put one hand on each of the twins’ heads to keep them from wandering and called back, “I’m not going anywhere!”

From the pale, Nick appeared. He was shaggy as ever, clinging to his sister’s hand. But instead of letting go, he plowed into my fourth-graders and pointed back to town. “Your mother’s been trying to call you. She says go home right now.”

My heart knotted, and I shook my head. “I can’t, I’ve got to walk them up.”

“She smells like cheese,” Jamie Lamere volunteered beneath my hand.

Nick clamped him by the back of the neck and nodded me away. “I’ve got ’em. Seriously, Willa, you better go.”

Fixed in place, I hesitated. But just for a second, only long enough to hand over Ash Lamere, too. That one thought I smelled like onions, and he wanted to start the alphabet. I thanked Nick and ducked away from them, walking just short of a run. Pulling my cell from my pocket, I shook it, like that would make it ring or something.

Suddenly, the fog burned off. Not gradually; instantly. It was so clear, I could see the church steeple at the other end of town. Completely bare, trees stretched their naked limbs, sharp, black streaks against the sky. There were no clouds, not even a contrail to break the expanse of blue. This light washed everything brighter. Cleaner.

As I turned the corner onto Thaxter Street, I slowed. An unfamiliar car sat in front of my house. Its shape nagged at me as I came up the walk. Like I should have been able to place it. Once I opened the front door, it made sense. Ms. Park, the prosecutor, stood in the middle of my living room.

She held her elbows at awkward angles. Kinda like she wanted to comfort my mother but didn’t know how.

When I stepped in, she looked to me. Her smooth poker face revealed nothing, and my mother saved her the trouble of speaking.

“They’re not gonna charge Terry Coyne,” Mom said coldly. Blame flowed from her. She held out a hand to me, and that was soft. But her face was hard. Her eyes were diamonds, flashing from my face to Ms. Park’s. “There was a problem with the warrant. The bullets in his car don’t count. ”

Ms. Park tried to soften it. “They don’t, and I’m so sorry. But this is only a setback. We’re running down a lot of other evidence.”

“There wasn’t any,” I said, lips numb.

“There’s always more evidence,” Ms. Park replied. She even sounded like she believed it. “And we still have you.”

“Then let me talk,” I said. “I saw it all. I was there. They have to listen to me.”

“And they will. But you’re not enough, Willa. Not for an indictment, not for a conviction. And I’d rather convict Mr. Coyne in five years than let a jury find him not guilty now.”

Throat raw, I spun toward Mom, then back to Ms. Park. It didn’t make sense to me. The bullets made a connection, yeah. But I’d seen it all. I was there. I could have sat in a courtroom and pointed him out all day long. For the rest of my life, I’d never forget his face in the night, and that should have counted for everything.

My voice broke as I insisted, “But I was there. ”

Ms. Park said something soothing and meaningless. That only ticked my mother off, and she started shouting. It was a hazy mess to me, voices tangled up. High and low, loud and soft.

When it got hot, Ms. Park said she’d come as a courtesy, that she wanted to make sure Mom heard it from her, and not the news. Ma told her where she could shove that courtesy.

The next thing I knew, Mom had chased the prosecutor out of the house. I followed my mother to the porch, just in time to catch her. She didn’t faint, she just gave up on standing. Flailing at the world, she didn’t want to be set down gentle, but I did it anyway.

Curling around her, I tried to soak up her tears. I tried to calm her—like Ma Dyer said, I tried to help her breathe. But this was a kind of drowning nobody could save her from. Especially not me. I was going down with her. I could only manage one thought, tangled in grief with her like that.

“Does Daddy know?” I asked, rocking with her and digging my fingers in.

He didn’t. Not yet. But he would.

Twisting braids into my hair, Bailey sat on the top porch step, and I sat on the bottom. Her knees framed my shoulders. With every new knot, she made my head bob. I was her marionette, and I sort of wished she could just stay in charge of me.

After the shock, all I had was despair. My legs didn’t want to support my weight any more than I wanted to stand. If I had, I might have walked into town. I might have seen Terry Coyne buying a box of chew and sucking on a bottle of root beer.

Bailey dragged another lock into place. There were too many obvious things to talk about. When my father would be home (soon). How he had reacted to the news (badly). Whether Mom should have told him in person instead of over the radio (nope).

Instead, Bailey kept my buzzing head full of things that didn’t matter. Mental sandbags against the coming flood. “I heard Amber was chasing Nick around, angling to get invited to the winter formal.”

“Good luck with that,” I said.

“I know, right?” Bailey tipped my head the other way. “Cait got her dress, did I tell you?”

“Uh-uh.”

“It’s blue, with silver lacy stuff on top. It matches that bracelet you made.”

“Hope they sew better than I string beads.”

Cranking my head all the way back, Bailey looked down at my face. “Not really. It’s all ragged at the bottom, and it’s only got one shoulder. It’s like Picasso in real life. I’m not sure how any of the parts match up. I’m afraid too much is going to show.”

Grim, I smiled. “Mean.”

“Truth.” Bailey let my head go, then made a soft, worried sound. “There’s Dad’s truck.”

In a way, I expected him to screech up to the house, tires smoking and brakes protesting. Instead, the old pickup glided toward us. Smoke filtered from the window; Daddy wasn’t even trying to hide his cigarettes now.

My stomach went bitter. The memory of ash in my mouth was vivid; I felt the roll of the boat again. The ache in my head from hitting the glass—it was all brand new. One of Bailey’s hard tugs brought me back to the present. Daddy pulled into the driveway, but he didn’t kill the engine.