Chapter 12 Eva
Eva
Arthur looked even worse than before. In the jaundiced light of the holding cell, his already worrisome pallor looked even more sickly as his eyes latched on to the envelope containing Lottie’s note to Dad.
Eva had braced herself for lies. She knew there was something hidden just under the surface, something her father and sister weren’t telling her. But no matter how broken things were between her and Arthur, she expected that he at least would be honest with her.
Eva took the note from its envelope and pressed it flat against the bars. “You know what this is?”
“No.”
A crack split in the wall above his cot, spitting dust onto Arthur’s pillow. He popped to his feet to avoid the debris, surprise flashing over his face.
“Why did your mother bring you here that summer?” Eva had to fight to contain the swell of anger rising like a tide inside her chest. “How did she know my father?”
Arthur’s eyes dropped to where she’d wrapped a fist around one of the bars between them. Bright yellow lichen grew where her palm touched the cool metal, spreading like a sunlit disease. “Ev, I swear, I don’t know.”
Eva’s anger exploded into blooms. Weeds grew in the cracks in the floor, filling the empty spaces with furious green. Wildflowers ripped into life almost violently. She couldn’t stop the tide of growing things.
Nor did she want to.
With a snarl, Eva thrust the paper into Arthur’s hands. “Read it.”
Tension scored the planes of Arthur’s face, and he cut a glance to the wilderness spilling at their feet and up the walls before giving Charlotte’s letter to her father his full attention.
Eva flicked a look at the clock. They had four minutes before Dane came back.
Arthur frowned. “They wrote to each other?”
“Every week, for years,” Eva snapped. She didn’t believe his innocent little act. There was clearly more to their parents’ history than Arthur had ever divulged. How dare he keep it from her. Eva’s chin trembled. How dare he lie.
Something green and covered in thorns pushed through a crack in the wall as a tear slipped down Eva’s cheek.
“Ev, I didn’t know.”
She didn’t believe him.
Long past feeling guilt over snooping, Eva had torn the greenhouse apart searching for more letters before raiding her father’s office. The volume of letters she found stuffed into boxes and filing cabinets had overwhelmed her. How long had they been in correspondence?
Dad had slept on, his breathing steady but his heartbeat weak.
“You heard what he asked for at the cottage, didn’t you?
” Eva reached through the bars and snarled her fingers into the front of Arthur’s shirt, dragging him down to her.
Her lips curled back. “He didn’t just ask me for honey, Arthur, he asked for Lottie’s honey. You must know something about that!”
The clock on the wall ticked in the beats of silence.
“Please,” Eva whispered, not caring how pathetic she sounded, or if she was making a fool of herself coming here, expecting him to have the answers.
There was a bitter weed digging into her most tender places, as sharp as the vines now snaking through the brick wall into the jail cell.
The pain inside her pushed its own thorns deeper with every minute that passed.
The silence stretched so long that for a moment, Eva felt herself falter. She clocked the time. One minute, at most, before she had to leave. One minute wasn’t enough.
But then, Arthur swallowed hard.
And she knew she was right.
“What?” she demanded as the jangle of keys sounded just outside the door. They were out of time. She shook him by the shoulders. “What do you know?”
“I-I’m not sure.” Arthur’s eyes darted back and forth, seeing something that wasn’t before them now. “But I saw something, the night we…” His jaw worked. “The night I left.”
“Something?”
“You were asleep when Jack got home that night. He wasn’t well,” Arthur said. “When he asked me to check on you, I stayed and watched instead. And, Ev, he did something… strange.”
The door behind them unlatched as someone just outside—the guard, or maybe the sheriff—pushed it open.
Arthur’s eyes flicked over her shoulder. “I didn’t understand it then,” he said quickly.
“Just say it!” Eva’s impatience lit like a wick to a flame. The crack above Arthur’s cot widened, allowing more vines to snake inside, their snarled tips splayed against the painted bricks.
“There was a hidden jar of honey,” Arthur said.
Hidden honey?
“Where?”
“Time’s up,” Dane Walker said.
Eva’s panic spiked. Arthur knew something—she didn’t know what, or why Dad had kept it from her, but if there was any chance that he could help her father, she couldn’t let that pass her by. “Where, Arthur?”
“In the vent.” He licked his lips. Blood, dried and new, caked a path of switchbacks down his cheek. Her eyes fixed on the split of his brow. It should have been cleaned up by now. It should have been stitched.
But no one would touch him, she realized. No one but her. Maybe Izzy’s warning had scared them away, or maybe news of his return had reignited old rumors and sparked old fears. Audrey had never been very good at welcoming outsiders, especially those who were… different.
She straightened. “I’m getting you out of here.”
“Eva,” Dane said, crisp and stern.
She ignored him. “Stand back,” she said to Arthur as she squeezed her eyes shut, trying to focus her gift, to take the chaos and guide it into something sharp and intentional. Lichen and mushrooms spread over the walls at her call, filling the room with the scent of rotting summer.
She breathed it in. The cracks. That was it! Her eyes snapped open again, all her focus trained on the split in the bricks over Arthur’s bed. There was a network of roots beneath the building, twining deep into the ground. At her nudge, they trembled and reached upward.
The ground beneath them shook.
“Whoa,” Dane Walker said, and Eva turned to see the sheriff steady himself against the doorframe. Dust rained from the ceiling, chalking the air.
Crack.
Another split formed in the brick wall, this one leading all the way down to the floor.
CRACK.
Eva lost her balance at the next shake, falling against the bars. Someone shouted out in the hall. Spider-legging roots crawled out of the cracks, brown and feathery, seeking, seeking…
Eva’s breaths were ragged, her feet slipping over the now-slanted floor. She cut a gaze to the outer wall, beckoning her power forth. The rootlings already splayed against the bricks squeezed tight.
And the wall buckled.
Chaos broke loose. Eva covered her head with her arms to protect herself from the rush of falling debris.
An alarm blared, strobing the cloud of swirling dust in the holding room with blinking red flashes.
The world around her seemed to slow as she squinted, searching for Arthur.
He lay on the other side of the bars, head between his knees.
Behind her, Dane let out a grunt.
It brought Eva back to another night, one far too sharp to remember right now.
She shook her head to clear it away and dropped to a crouch beside the sheriff, her hands shaking as she unhooked the key ring from his belt.
The jangle seemed to rouse Dane, and he tried to push onto his elbows.
She scrambled away, the smell of green, blooming vegetation filling her nose as she tried one, two, three keys in the lock on the holding cell, searching for the right one.
“Eva?” Dane asked, blinking. He looked disoriented but not wounded, and relief collected inside her to see that she’d controlled her magic. He’d be okay.
“I’m sorry,” she lied. In truth, she felt triumphant.
The next key clicked in the lock. Relief flooded through Eva as she stepped into the holding cell, shoving the door closed behind her.
“Wait!” Dane coughed, pulling himself to his feet, only to sway against the wall. “Stop!”
Eva chucked the keys into a corner he couldn’t reach.
Then she circled Arthur’s wrist with her hand and yanked him to his feet.
“Come on!” she yelled. He stumbled awkwardly behind her, both of them stepping through fallen debris.
The roots around her seemed to pulse, responsive to her will.
Eva all but pushed Arthur through the hole in the wall, then followed quickly after.
Dane shouted at them through the bars. In seconds, another voice joined him. The guard.
They had to go, now. Eva pulled Arthur after her.
“What are we doing?” he panted.
“Running!”
It seemed good enough for him. Arthur stumbled down the street beside her.
Adrenaline pumped through Eva. There was nowhere to hide.
The only reason they’d gotten this far was the lateness of the hour, but even this late on a Saturday night there were usually a few stragglers in the streets, leaving Dawson’s Bar on wobbly feet.
Fear slithered up her body. They had to hide!
Arthur tugged her hand, pulling them into a narrow alley wedged between two worn-out buildings. Eva wanted to protest. They didn’t have time to stop, time to think!
“Breathe,” Arthur demanded. He walked her deeper into the shadows, looking every bit the fugitive she’d just made them both into. Dirt-smudged. Guilty. Panicked.
Well, maybe not as panicked as her. Eva pulled the end of her braid, every breath coming faster, harder, faster, harder.
“Arthur,” she whispered in disbelief. “I think I just broke you out of jail.”
To her surprise, he laughed—a short, humorless sound. “You sure did, bee girl.”
What had she been thinking? Eva’s chest fluttered, and dark spots constellated her vision. She wanted to be angry with him, not whatever this was. Her insides buzzed with furious and protective feelings as her gaze landed on the cut on his eyebrow again.
They hadn’t even cleaned it.
Eva felt a little faint, the rush of the jailbreak crowding into her thoughts. She didn’t know what to do next, hadn’t thought this through. She didn’t break rules.
“Ev?”
Shouts came from somewhere down the street. People were flocking to the jail, people who soon would be looking for them. For her.
She couldn’t breathe.
“Ev.” Arthur’s voice came as though from underwater. Eva blinked fast but failed to bring him into focus. “Ev, I think you’re having a panic attack.”
She couldn’t get enough air. It hurt to try.
“Shh.” Arthur gingerly cupped the back of her head and held her to his chest. His voice was an anchor she didn’t expect. An old tether. It pulled at something deep inside her that Eva wanted to keep buried. She squeezed her eyes shut.
Be here. Be now.
Arthur’s thumb skated over the back of her skull. “Take a breath with me?”
Together, they inhaled. They exhaled.
“Remember the storm clouds,” Arthur whispered, turning his face into her hair. “The rain comes and goes, but you, you are the whole sky, Ev.”
Eva couldn’t believe he remembered her telling him that.
They had to go. Eva felt the pressure of impending consequences, but Arthur didn’t hurry.
With every exhale, his breath warmed the skin behind her ear.
As Eva’s panic eased away, she became more and more aware of how wrong his delicate touch was.
They weren’t like this anymore. They weren’t anything close to okay, much less… tender.
She sucked in a hard breath and stepped out of his embrace. If Arthur was affected by the distance she put between them, he didn’t show it on his face. “Tell me again what you saw that night.”
She had to help Dad, before it was too late.
Arthur’s eyes flicked down the alley. “Now?”
Eva jerked a nod. They didn’t have time to waste. Arthur had to get away from these mountains, and as far from Audrey as he could. But she couldn’t let him go until she knew what he’d witnessed. “Tell me.”
Arthur pursed his lips. “I think his tree started growing that night.”
Eva sucked in a breath.
“He was in so much pain, after what… what happened,” Arthur said quietly, a pang in his voice. “When he didn’t think I was looking, he pried open the vent above your fridge and took out a jar of honey. He ate it, and…”
“Yes?” Eva asked, breathless.
Arthur swallowed. “It was miraculous. Like he’d taken medicine.”
Her mind swam with this new information.
Sometimes they had return customers who came raving into the Shoppe, claiming their honey had cured them of some ailment or another that no medicine had ever touched.
It was lovely, really. Eva thought it was all that bottled summertime stuff Dad was always going on about. The power of sun and soil and belief.
But what if it was real?
A tightness corded itself around her chest and squeezed. What does it mean, if it is?
“We need to get into that vent,” Eva said, forgetting herself for a moment. There was no we between them, and besides, the cottage was the first place the sheriff and his deputies would look.
Arthur’s van was there, though, parked in the cottage’s driveway after he and Dad had returned from getting the tire patched that morning. He needed that van to get away from here.
“Okay.” To her surprise, Arthur nodded, his attention shifting to the other cobwebbed end of the alley, where the forest had crept in, vines curling up and over the corners of the building in a shallow layer of emerald ivy.
Eva blinked. Did I do that?
“We’ll have to be fast,” Arthur said, meeting her gaze. “Can you run?”