rose as Sshe died.
Jonah didn’t know how long he drifted between waking and sleeping. He was strapped down, so he couldn’t move, and there were tubes and needles poking him everywhere, and thick mittens covering his hands so he couldn’t rip them out. Hardly anyone came in, and when they did, they left in a hurry. He slept most of the time, anyway.
Then one day he woke up, drowning in his own vomit. When the healers finally came in, they seemed angry, like it was his fault. After that, they unstrapped him so he could use the basin by his bedside. They unhooked all the tubes, but they left the mittens and a big clanking chain attached to his ankle. It was long enough for him to get to the bathroom and walk around the room, but that was it.
He knew a few things. For instance, he knew where he was—in one of the classrooms at school. But why was he here, all by himself, instead of in the healing hall?
They must have been giving him something that made him sleep most of the time, because now he was more awake. Now that he was awake, he saw who came in. There were two in particular—strangers who must have been healers, but they were unlike any healers Jonah had ever known. Not at all like Jeanette, who’d cared for him since he was a baby.
These healers never touched him unless they had to, and then only with gloved hands. Whenever they came close, their fear slopped over him like a cold fog. Often, they stood by the door and talked in low voices. He guessed they were talking about him.Jonah called them Thing One and Thing Two. Jonah wasn’t used to being feared. He was used to affection. He wished Jeanette had stayed—she always knew how to make him feel better when he was sick. She’d left Thorn Hill before any of this happened. But, if she’d stayed, then she’d probably be dead, like all the other grown-ups.
Chapter One
Mean Old World
By the time she woke up in the booth at Mickey’s, Emma Claire Greenwood hadn’t been home in three days. She knew it was wrong, that Sonny Lee would be worried, even though she’d called him every day. They’d agreed on that the last time they’d had a sit-down about her wild ways.
But it was sweet summertime in Memphis, and the call of the streets was like a siren song—impossible to resist. School was out, and there was no place she had to be.
Sleep all day, then stay out all night, walking pavement still breathing heat at midnight. Passing open doorways, letting the delicious music sluice over her from all the little clubs. Music that picked your heart apart and put it back together again. She was just sixteen, but she had a ticket into every club in Memphis. She’d sit in with bands all over town, big names and unknowns. Mickey put it this way: “That girl Emma? She’s an old soul. That girl can play the blues.”It sure didn’t hurt that she was Sonny Lee Greenwood’s granddaughter. Sometimes she’d cross paths with him in
Ssome smoky dive. She’d hear him before she ever saw him— he played slide guitar like nobody else. Sometimes they’d coax her onto the stage and she’d play alongside him, the air thick with cigarettes and beer and sweat—the smell of the blues.
Sonny Lee warned her about the streets. He told her there was danger out there. But she’d always fit in better there than anywhere else. Better than she’d ever fit at school. Besides, she was street-smart enough to say no to the pretty boys who’d try to sweet-talk her into making that first big mistake. To the older men who wanted to buy her a drink. It was the music that seduced her—nothing else. She looked out for herself because nobody else did.
She’d slept all night on the vinyl seat, her long legs and arms hanging over the edges, stirring only when the staff started trickling in. The clatter and bang of Robert as he racked dishes finally woke her up for good.
Yawning, she checked her phone. Two in the afternoon. She had one text from the guy who’d ordered a guitar months ago, wondering where it was. Three calls from Sonny Lee. He’d be in the shop by now. Where she should be.
Sonny Lee should fire her and get some good help is what he should do.
Her mouth tasted like sawdust, which she totally deserved. Stretching the kinks out of her back, she hobbled over to the bar, where Robert comped her a Coke. She carried it to the ladies’ room and sipped at it while she cleaned up as best she could—raking her fingers through her tangle of hair and gathering it into a rubber band. She dabbed at a spot of mustard on her T-shirt with a wet paper towel. Where’d that come from? Was it new? Or had it been there when she put it on? At home, laundry was hit-or-miss.
Good intentions rattled around her brain like dice against an alley wall.
Cooking was hit-or-miss, too.
She shoved open the door, letting it bang shut behind her, squinting in the sunlight. It must have rained overnight, because the wet cement was steaming. The air hung honey-thick, pressing all the scents of the city close to the pavement.
Emma turned off Beale Street and followed the cutthroughs and alleyways to the shop. She stopped at Sweetie’s along the way and bought two of the sticky buns Sonny Lee liked, though they cost her last few dollars. A peace offering.
The neon sign in front of the shop flickered.
S. L. Greenwood, Luthier. Custom Guitars and Repairs.
And underneath, their new sign, put up a month ago as a symbol of their new partnership.
Studio Greenwood.
To her surprise, the sign in the front window had been flipped from “open” to “closed.” Way too early.
Maybe business had been slow, and he’d closed up early so he could get some work done. Which he probably needed to do since Emma had let him down. Again.
Or had he not opened up at all? Sonny Lee wasn’t as young as he used to be. He sometimes had trouble making it down the stairs after a late Friday night. But music was blasting from the speakers inside the shop, turned up louder than Sonny Lee allowed, during business hours anyway.The front door was locked, so Emma let herself in with her key. “Sonny Lee?” she called, but there was no way
She’d hear her with the music blaring. She circled behind the counter and hit the off button, and an eerie silence descended. “Sonny Lee?” she repeated. “It’s Emma. I’m home.” No answer.
The air in the store had a charred quality, as if Sonny Lee had been using his wood burner recently. The coffee in the pot had boiled away to a thick syrup and the carafe had cracked. Her heart flip-flopped.
She pushed through the swinging door that divided the store from the workshop. It was dead quiet. Spooky quiet. Tools lay scattered on the workbench and sawdust littered the floor. The drawer in his workbench hung open. Her grandfather hadn’t cleaned up the night before. He always cleaned up. His apartment was a disaster, but you could eat off the floor of the shop.
“Sonny Lee!” she shouted, circling around behind the workbench.
And that’s where she found him, crumpled on the floor, his head haloed by a pool of blood.
Emma screamed, an anguished animal sound, and fell to her knees beside him. She pressed her fingers under his graybristled chin, felt for a pulse, and found one—thready and weak.
“Hang on, Sonny Lee. Hang on,” Emma whispered, reaching for her phone and punching in 911. The dispatcher had barely answered, when Emma burst out, “I’m at Greenwood’s on Hoopeston. My grandfather— Sonny Lee Greenwood—he’s been hurt.”
“Hurt how?” When Emma fumbled for an answer, the dispatcher said impatiently, “Is he shot or stabbed or what?”
“I don’t know. I think he fell, and hit his head. His head’s bleeding, anyway.”
“Is it bleeding a lot?”
“Looks like it was, but it’s scabbed up now.”
“How long ago did this happen?” To Emma’s guilty ears, the dispatcher’s voice sounded accusing.
