Chapter 12
Then
I didn’t think of calling Casey. I just kind of did it. Autopilot, I guess, from years of him being the person I took everything too.
If I hadn’t been in that miserable fugue state, if I’d had even an ounce of forethought, I’d have remembered the moths in my chest and that topsy-turvy sloshing in my stomach or that teeth-knocking kiss and falling cans of tomato soup.
But I didn’t think. I only dialed, punching the number into Hattie-May’s relic of a house phone, wanting nothing more than the boy I used to boss around in my backyard.
I’d promised Frances I wouldn’t tell the aunts or anyone else her secret, as long as she ended things with Mr. Fortenberry. And I always kept my promises.
My lips were sealed. I wasn’t going to confide in Casey, I just wanted—no, needed—a moment to sink away into something good, something easy. For most of my life, Casey had been just that.
“Hey,” I said when he picked up on the first ring.
“Milly.” A slight hitch, then, “Is everything okay?”
Shit. He’d always read me like a book, but how could he know from one word that I was miserable?
I twisted the phone’s spiral cord around my wrist as I assured him I was fine. Great. Perfect, even. It didn’t matter if he believed me or not, as long as he agreed to meet me at our spot an hour before curfew. I breathed easier when he said okay.
I sat on a sandy patch of earth yards away from the creek, my knees pulled into my chest, staring toward the sound of trickling water, when the crunch of boots on leaves told me he was near.
“Hey,” I said, without turning around.
“Hay’s for horses.”
I groaned, rolling my eyes as I shifted to face him. There was a click. A burst of light.
“Dammit.” Spots danced in my vision. “You and that damned camera.”
“Couldn’t help it.” There was a grin in his voice. “You looked so thoughtful.”
“How would you know how I looked? It’s pitch dark out here.”
“I just knew.”
I tried to think of something witty to say, but all that came to me was, “Yeah. Well.”
There was another click, and I stuck up my middle finger just as the flash went off.
“Are you done now?” I tried to sound the way I used to sound when we bantered, but my words held too much bite, overcompensating for the butterflies in my stomach.
“I think so,” he said. There was a rustle of fabric as he shoved the camera into the pocket of his baggy army surplus coat.
I turned back to the sound of the creek, hoping he’d sit next to me, maybe we could prop against each other the way we used to.
“Come on.” Casey nudged my back with his leg. “Get up.”
“I don’t wanna.”
“Too bad. I didn’t drive over here to watch you sit and mope.” Another rustle of fabric, then a small beam of light sliced through the darkness.
Of course he’d have a flashlight. Casey should’ve been a Boy Scout. He was always prepared.
“Let’s go.” He walked past me, through the trees.
“Fine.” I pushed to my feet and followed him through the brush, to the edge of the shallow creek.
“Remember when we used to skip rocks?” He bent and picked up a stone.
“Yeah.” I remembered when I skipped stones and Casey threw rocks at the water, never quite able to get the hang of it. I kept this to myself.
He reared back and sent the stone flying. It landed with a splunk, sinking immediately. Guess some things never changed. “So.” He shined the flashlight over the creek bank. “You going to tell me what’s got you upset, or…?”
Light glinted off the perfect skipping stone. It was thin and flat, wide but not too heavy. I picked it up.
“Nothing. I told you I’m fine.” I cocked my arm and sent my rock sailing. Casey pointed the flashlight, and we watched as my stone arced over the water before skittering across the surface and finally disappearing.
“Still got it,” he said, and I smiled. For a moment, my life wasn’t falling apart.
We silently tossed a few more, mine skittering gracefully, his plopping. “Milly, come on. I know you. Talk to me.”
“It’s nothing. Just stupid family drama.”
“You mentioned that the other day, about Frances. What’s going on?”
I frowned.
“It’s just…” Maybe it was okay to tell him part of it without breaking my promise. Wouldn’t it feel good to get at least some of it off my chest, like letting air out of a balloon before it burst? “Frances said she might not go to the Tennessee Math & Science School.”
“What?” His arm fell to the side, taking the light with it. “What do you mean? She’s gotta go. It’s all she’s talked about for years.”
“That’s what I said. But she won’t listen.”
He swept the light across the ground as he spoke. “I wouldn’t worry. You know what an introvert she is. It’s probably nerves.” Casey stopped, suddenly. He bent his knees, squatting to the ground. “What the hell?”
I watched as he stood, the flashlight tucked under his arm, something cradled in his hands. “Take the light,” he said. “Shine it over here so I can get a better look.”
I did as he asked and before I knew it, he was holding up a baby turtle.
It was no bigger than the first stone I’d skipped, and it was tangled in fishing line, trapped in a knot of sticks and leaves.
The little creature’s eyes stared blankly, and for a horrified second I worried it was dead, relieved when its front legs twitched.
“Poor thing.” Casey pulled a pocketknife from his coat, the same knife he’d pilfered from his dad years ago and used to carve our initials into the climbing tree.
I held the light as he carefully cut away the fishing line, then sat the tiny turtle on the ground.
Silent minutes stretched out as we watched the little turtle, unmoving near the water’s edge, each of us letting out a deep breath when it finally scurried away.
Casey looked at me. I could feel it. His stare always had weight to it.
“What?” I faced him.
“You’re beautiful when you smile like that, you know,” he said, dipping his chin.
Am I smiling? Yes, grinning like an idiot. Over a turtle. But I couldn’t help it. “Casey—”
I wondered if he felt it then, the way the air grew heavy and charged.
“Yeah?”
My heart thumped. I opened my mouth, unsure what to say, but wanting to say so much.
“Shut up.” I flinched at my own voice, shaking me out of the warm daze.
“Huh?”
“Um. Nothing. It’s past curfew.” I turned away from him, toward the path, thankful for the darkness because I could feel my cheeks flaming. “I gotta go.”
It was a bullshit excuse, and we both knew it. I was nearly eighteen, and the aunts didn’t care if I stayed out a little late. Especially not with Casey and especially not on our own property.
He didn’t object, only followed me from the forest, then up the greenhouse path back to the house. I watched as he strapped on his helmet and disappeared down our driveway.
Shut up?
He called me beautiful and I told him to shut up?
My hair was puffy and my chin was broken out from stress. Why had he called me beautiful? Was he teasing me?
I was still pondering this as I crept into the house and eased the front door silently closed.
I stood for a moment in the entryway, mind still buzzing as my eyes flitted across Aunt Hattie’s drawings tacked to the papered walls: endless blooms and trees, roots burrowing into the ground. Branches yawning.
Frances startled me, appearing silently across the living room, dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, sneakers in hand.
“What are you doing?” I demanded in a whisper.
“Shit.” Her hand clutching the keys, went to her chest. She whispered, “You scared me.”
“Answer me.” Any lingering giddiness Casey lent me drained away. My anger flared. “What the hell is going on?”
“You said I had to break up with him. That’s what I’m going to do.” She blinked innocently.
“First off, that’s not what I said. This isn’t a breakup.
He’s not your boyfriend. And second, I said to tell him he can’t see you anymore or I’ll tell on him.
Do it tomorrow. At school.” I shook my head, thinking back to another night when Frances wasn’t in her bed.
When I’d assumed she was just taking some space away from me.
“This is why you’ve been sneaking out? To meet him. ”
“You know about me sneaking out?”
Instead of answering, I crossed my arms over my chest.
“Fine. Yes. Sometimes we meet up. And I have to go. This was already planned. If I’m not at the end of the driveway in ten minutes, he’ll think—”
“I don’t give a shit what he thinks.” I narrowed my gaze. “Go back to bed, Frances. Before you wake everybody up.”
As if I’d conjured her, Ruth’s groggy voice came from behind her closed door down the hallway. “Girls? Is that you?”
I raised my brows. “Or don’t. We can get Ruth or Aunt Hattie in here right now and explain everything.”
“Fine,” Frances seethed. “But Milly? I’ll never forgive you for this.” She stormed back to our bedroom, no longer bothering to be quiet.
I stared at the place where she’d stood, my chest constricting. She doesn’t mean it. She’s just angry.
“Milly? Frances?” Ruth called out a second time.
“Just me, Aunt Ruth, grabbing a glass of water,” I replied. I crossed the living room into the kitchen, planning to make my lie true.
She doesn’t hate me. I assured myself, but it was hollow. I could feel that pit calling to me, a rattle at the internal door.
Look, look, look, it urged, my whir of emotions amplifying its summons.
Fine. I’d look. Reading my own leaves wasn’t technically against any of the real rules. Ruth just didn’t like it much.
I pulled a cup from the cabinet and scooped the tea, then filled the kettle and put it to boil.
A faint wave of guilt washed over me. I knew I shouldn’t turn to my own fate to solve this. Ruth’s warning echoed in my head.
You gotta face your life head on, Milly girl.
Part of me secretly thought Ruth overstated the risks of searching for my own fortune in the bottom of my cup.
It wasn’t far-fetched to think my frugal aunt’s true concern was me wasting the tea on myself.
I snuck glimpses of my own fate all the time, usually over some silly nonproblem. Other times because I was bored.
But this time wasn’t like that. This time it was desperation that drove me to look. Desperation to know that everything would be okay. That place inside—the Sight—urging me toward the conduit.
When the water was warm enough, I pulled the kettle from the burner before it could whistle, then filled my cup.
As it steeped, I thought of my sister and Mr. Fortenberry.
I thought of my promise to always protect her.
I downed the tea and eased open the internal door.
The Sight uncurling in my chest, welcomed me.
It was just beginning to show me something—a weight in my hand, a vibration up my arm, fear and relief and forest sounds—
“What are you doing?” Aunt Ruth’s voice, thick with sleep, startled me, and I almost dropped the teacup.
“Uh,” I said. “I was…I was having some tea. To help me rest.”
It was a weak excuse.
Aunt Ruth crossed the room in two strides and took the cup from my hands. Without a word, she took it to the sink and filled it with water, washing away the link.
“Milly. I don’t know what’s going on with you and your sister, but this ain’t the answer.
You know better. I’ve told you time and again.
Reading your own fate’s a slippery slope.
At best you’ll waste your life peering into the leaves.
At worst… Well, I’ve told you the stories about Robbins women unable to face their own futures without first consulting the Sight.
Ain’t no way to live, always curled over a teacup in fear. ”
There was nothing I could say. I could’ve argued that I’d read my leaves off and on for years and I was just fine.
Or even admit how once I’d secretly witnessed her do the very thing she was fussing about, and since she always kept the rules like they were her sacrament, deciphering our own fate must not be that big of a deal.
There was a lot I could’ve said. If I’d have had it in me.
But in the moment I could hardly breathe.
“Go to bed,” Aunt Ruth groused. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”
“Yes ma’am,” I mumbled, heading toward my room.
Later, I lay in my bunk staring at the ceiling until pink morning light glowed through my window blinds.
The leaves had spoken to me. I’d glimpsed them, if only for a moment.
I’d been thinking of my sister as I drained the tea. My baby bird who I’d do anything for.
Tears born of stress stung my eyes.
Because when you see death in a teacup, it’s not always literal, but it’s rarely good.