CHAPTER THREE
MAYBE ONE DAY YOU COULD paint us together instead of plants. Elliott’s mind couldn’t stop repeating their conversation over in his head like litany. He finally had his first friend in eighteen months. He couldn’t stay still from excitement. You have watercolor eyes.
He noticed.
A flutter of sprightly starling birds landed behind Elliott.
Knox stalked over to the triad, his trawler boots striding over sedges and overgrown ferns. The fledglings scattered from his path. One young starling was crushed underneath his heavy fishing boot. “Is he going to brawl for the keys?”
“The keys?” Elliott repeated, blinking. The swallows in the trees fled.
Even the far hummingbirds took flight.
As though nature itself were warning him.
“No. He let us take it.”
To Elliott’s terror, Finch handed over Mr. Newton’s truck keys that Mr. Newton entrusted to Elliott. Elliott always kept them in his backpack. He realized Finch wasn’t searching through his sketches or cassettes with intrigue at all, he was looking for the keys to Mr. Newton’s truck.
How did he even know Elliott kept keys in there?
Slowly…it dawned on him why James had been watching him for weeks.
Unfathomable fury broiled within him.
Mr. Newton kept the car open at the risk of the pair encountering carnivorous wolves or feral black bears.
The Connecticut woodlands were bounteous in wild onions, savory mushrooms, dense shrubbery, and herbaceous plants, all attractive to voracious wildlife.
He parked the truck nearest to Elliott for Elliott’s protection in case catamounts stalked the region.
Exotic breeders had been reported in the area with several illegal animals that escaped captivity.
There were three catamount sightings last year alone.
Elliott frightened himself with how furious he sounded. “Give that back.”
Mrs. Ledgerman would put Elliott out on the street if he brought back any trouble. She abandoned him outside for a month once for opening the broken fridge without her permission. Elliott felt his stomach lurch. “I need to be home soon.”
Bees hummed as the river babbled in the silence of the white rapids between them.
Distantly, the sky darkened with leaden, towering clouds.
Knox instructed Elliott as if he hadn’t even spoken.
“Stay right here on Cannon Road, and we’ll drive right back.
Alright?” A few of the NCAA recruiters from upstate mingled on the sailboats at the annual country club river race.
That was their shot at introducing themselves to professional scouts for the year.
Blue collar boys from labor households, like Knox and Finch, didn’t get that sort of opportunity twice.
Even if it was a violation to accept bribery, they would shake hands with the recruiters in private agreements, if it meant financial security in their future.
Knox polished the Ford truck keys on his faded jeans.
“After we get back, you can leave. That’s it. ”
“No, fuck you. Hand it back,” Elliott snapped at him.
Finch stood in front of him with a wrinkled twenty dollar bill. “Do I have to break your jaw?”
Elliott grit his teeth at them. “Keep your money.”
Elliott had spat the words with venom, and James tucked a crisp hundred in Elliott’s gray hoodie pocket as if Elliott had agreed.
He realized they wouldn’t listen. He couldn’t stop them with their own language of violence either.
He skimmed his eyes over the wind-damaged trees, the slippery crags, and the weather-devastated boulders, blockading his path to safety to the nearest caves.
He’d have to clear half a mile of mud season debris to outrun them.
“What if the police arrive?” An authority figure might scare them.
Elliott felt the words tumble out of his mouth, it felt too vulnerable to mention his unstable home situation.
He was constantly on the verge of being put out onto the litter-strewn alley again with stray cats and rabid animals.
He still had a scratch on his ear from a squirrel.
He felt groundless, as though he had nothing secured above or beneath him, not even a roof over his head.
“Mr. Newton trusts me with the keys. He could report it stolen.”
That hurt worse than if the police were involved. Mr. Newton would never trust him again.
“We’ll be back before anything happens,” James promised. Though he had watched Elliott for weeks, he didn’t know anything about the mountains. At any moment, a vicious mauling could happen. What if Mr. Newton was mangled? What if Elliott was maimed?
A hiker exhorted him to watch his back yesterday. Animals attack without warning in those woods. I see you out there all the time. Keep your wits about you, alright? Be careful.
Elliott repeated himself. “It’ll rain soon, and the wildcats will roam for cover. They could run into me or Mr. Newton. It’s dangerous.”
Knox ignored his nature caution. “We’ll ask Coach Marshman to put you on the rowing team. Athletics scholarships are worth a hell of a lot more than music at Northmen. Think about it. You get a stipend.”
“Give him his keys back, we’ll walk,” James decided; nothing was worth the risk of a weak rower on the team. James returned the metal keys to Elliott’s palm. That was when Elliott should’ve taken the truck and left.
That was the final moment when Elliott could’ve driven straight to Mr. Newton and asked to go home.
Instead, he was flooded with a daring, vivid emotion. Hope. He could receive stipend payments with the Northmen. The students that rowed crew received the highest stipends. He could survive on his own. No one would kick him out in the winter.
A judge might let him emancipate, if he proved financial stability.
He’d have a steady intake of warm meals. He wouldn’t sleep at bus stations, shower in locker rooms, or bother any of his classmates if he could stay the night.
Most of all, he could take care of his little sister Kitty on his own.
Elliott handed the keys back to Knox. “Biology club ends at six.”
Knox flashed him a smile. “You won’t regret this.”
Stomach acid stung the back of Elliott’s throat.
He already regretted it. He didn’t know there would be an electrical storm that would lower the visibility on their return drive.
He didn’t know his Walkman was stolen out of his pocket.
He didn’t know Knox needed music to keep his nerves down after signing bribes with recruiters.
No one knew the half-broken yellow Walkman with the Nevermind cassette inside would die out right then, and as Knox rummaged through the glove compartment for batteries, he’d lose control of the rusted wheel.
His hand left the steering wheel for a minute. Only a short minute.
The truck hydroplaned.
Finch shouted, grasping the gearshift, but it was too late.
James lunged for the unmanned wheel, but the tire grip was gone.
Knox braced himself for damage.
Suddenly, in the cold dark, Elliott would only hear the familiar rattle of the engine and squealing of a burst tire. He’d felt a powerful ache of horror because he immediately knew it was the Ford. He knew the car would crash without a grip onto the road.
Elliott prayed beneath his breath that Knox, James, and Finch wouldn’t crash into the cluster of trees and injure themselves. That they all would remain intact.
However, he didn’t know to pray that his biology teacher wouldn’t be on his trail back for the night with a phytology specimen sample to examine the petrification and incrustation fossilization. His teacher crossed the rain-slicked path as he waved to Elliott. Excited to share his new findings.
Elliott didn’t know the impact would shatter Mr. Newton’s bones, eye sockets, cartilage.
He didn’t know it would be the beginning of several of their dark secrets.
At that moment, a single snowflake drifted down from the sky as if to take the body of Mr. Newton as sacrifice. Through the shock of trauma, all Elliott could think of was the annual winter sacrifice ceremony.