of beauty and freedom, the walk back for me was a blur. All I could see were my feet. My flip-flops, one in front of the other.
About halfway to the house, Bouncer met us in the woods, tail wagging and tongue lolling. He passed Rennick right up and came and nuzzled my leg. I chose a perfectly sized stick from the underbrush and we played fetch all the way home.
When we were in clear view of the house, I could see the new smoky pink and purple formations of sunset light refracting off of the lake. I stopped in my tracks, scratching a panting Bouncer under his muzzle. “It’s beautiful here.”
“Promise me you’ll be careful, Corrine,” Rennick said. He stood in front of me, did not turn around, but I could see this line to his shoulders, the fear, the resolve in it, and it made me wonder about his story a little more.
“How should I be careful?” I said, my voice barely above a whisper.
“Just be careful. Keep yourself safe. And don’t worry too much about what they print in the papers about you.”
“Okay,” I said. He had me worried. I was still coming to terms with the idea of this power itself; now to have to top that off with fear that my power might not be looked on favorably … I didn’t know what to think. My head was spinning. My insides felt oddly hollow and brittle, like I could snap.
“Let’s get out of here, do something fun,” he said, finally turning around.
“Okay,” I said. Rennick opened the back door. He ushered Bouncer into the house and called out to Dodge to let him know we were leaving.
“Doesn’t it seem a little unreal to you that we met all that time ago?” I still couldn’t believe the coincidence.
“It doesn’t seem so crazy.” Rennick led us toward his Jeep.
“Why not?”
“Your aura is pulling me in.”
“Oh, really?” I smiled in spite of myself.
“Your aura loves me already,” he said, opening the passenger door, and he gave me a smile, his one- dimpled smile, and winked.
I let out a laugh as I took my seat, and I tried to ignore the way my stomach flip-flopped at his words. Rennick got in beside me and started the Jeep. “Where are we going?” I asked, glad to be anywhere but home. I needed something to do while my mind worked on everything. Could this all be real? Me? My powers? Rennick? I couldn’t take it all in, and I caught myself thinking about Chicago. If I had been in Chicago, if I had been swimming laps at Chaney Pool, walking home from there at dusk, on our Midwestern streets, under our Midwestern streetlights, I would’ve laughed at all this stuff. Sixth sense. We Midwesterners were too practical for that.
“You’ll see,” Rennick answered. “It’s why I moved here. With Dodge.”
He drove us into the city, through the French Quarter and out toward the wharf. And I had to admit to myself that everything, the touch, all of it seemed more plausible here. This city of ghost stories, birthplace of American voodoo. Even the way the air felt on your skin in the Crescent City. It was all a little bit left of center. Things felt different here, with just a hint of the mystical, the magical, the impossible.
“You know, I thought about you for a long time after that night, after that July Fourth,” Rennick said. Goose bumps trailed up and down my arms.
“You did?”
“I saw your aura even then. It was unmistakable. I mean, I didn’t know what I was looking at exactly. I know more now.”
“What do you know about me?” I said, my voice quiet, waiting.
He held the steering wheel tight, looking straight ahead. I saw him draw in a deep breath. “I know you’re brave. I know you’re generous and kind. You saved a young kid’s life that night on the beach. You’re whip-smart and stubborn. Decisive. And I remember you have a laugh like a sleigh bell.”
I thought of my mom. I always thought her laugh sounded like a jingle bell. “Haven’t I laughed since you re-met me?”
“Not truly.”
Well, considering the string of events since I had re-encountered Rennick Lane, that was understandable.
“Do you still play the violin?”
“Yes. No. I did.”
He nodded. “Corrine,” he said, and there was a seriousness to his face now. “Thank you. For saving Lila. You’ll never know what that does for Dodge.”
And there it was, this tangible thing between us, this knowledge and certainty that I had brought his grandmother virtually back to life.
Rennick pulled us into a small marina. Three boats—two large bay boats and one small motorboat—were docked, and there was a small storefront, with hand-printed signs for bait and ice. A larger sign, weatherworn and charming, declared in bold blue and yellow letters: CRESCENT CHARTERS.
“This is Dodge’s outfit. Been running it for sixty years. Dad was going to make him shut it down. He couldn’t keep up with stuff. The hard labor end of things.”
“Does he fish for shrimp or something, sell them in town?”
“No, it’s a charter company. He takes people out who want the real N’awlins Angling Experience, ya know?” Rennick put on his best drawl when he said this and I nodded a little. “You’d be surprised. Businesses, vacationers, Northerners, they come down here, and they want the experience of fishing in the marshes. They’ve heard the stories about how big the redfish can get. They want to see alligators. So they rent out a little slice of bayou life.”
“They pay Dodge to take them out on his boat?”
“Yeah, and they can drink beer, enjoy themselves, fish with someone who knows what they’re doing, who does all the real work of it. It’s a real load of shit. Hell, I even gut and clean their catch for them at the end for a fee. You’d be surprised how much people will pay when they don’t want to deal with a little mess.”
“So you came to help out Dodge? That’s awfully nice of you.”
Rennick got an embarrassed look on his face, his eyes cast down. “That’s not entirely true. I mean, yes, Dodge had a heart attack last spring, then Lila went into the home. It got real bad, real quick, but when Dad said that Dodge couldn’t keep the charter going, it was just going to kill him. I could see it. I mean, I’m not exaggerating. It would do him in. So I volunteered.”
I quelled the urge to reach out and grab Rennick’s hand as we walked across the gravel parking lot. We were nearly to the bait shack. “You showed him kindness,” I said, almost in a whisper.
Rennick stopped, turned toward me. “Corrine, it makes me sound like a saint. But the truth is, Dodge gets me. I needed a change. It worked both ways. My father and I don’t
I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything.
“The stories at school make me sound better, cooler. Sorry to disappoint.” He said this with a laugh, but I could hear a bit of a real question in there.
“Don’t say that. Don’t even think that,” I said. “Bad boys are highly overrated.” Even as I said it, I realized that this hinted at something between us. Was I overstepping the boundaries?
At first, Rennick didn’t seem to notice. He only took keys out of his pocket and laughed. But I saw something lighten in the way he held his shoulders, no longer in defense. And then the soft upturn at the corners of his mouth. He liked that I had said it. Had he been hiding behind this bad-boy story?
The pieces of his real story. His reasons for coming here. I wanted to know the whole story, but I didn’t want to pry. I could tell the feelings here, they ran deep. This meant a lot to him, and my reaction did too. While I watched Rennick fumble for the right key to the bait shop, I realized this was a moment I would revisit many, many times. An important moment. Something very much at the core of Rennick had just been approached. And I wanted to do right by that, to hold it with me, keep it in my heart. Even more than the pictures on the wall of his
