Indigo

I could try to reel myself in. Keep things going, but in moderation.

All of this seemed impossible to me. It was like the touch was the only thing keeping me from going back to my guilt-ridden world, and I had to use it, keep it in motion and alive. I knew it didn’t make a lot of sense, but there it was.

I must’ve dozed off eventually because I awoke to a one-note whistle, the gray-yellow light of an overcast sunrise filling my room. I got up and looked out the window, and sure enough he was there. When I went down to greet him, I knew I looked like a hot mess.

But I didn’t care. He opened his arms to me, and I was in them, folded into him, resting my head on his chest, his chin on the top of my head. “Corrine,” he said. He kissed the top of my head.

I could smell the leaves of the banana trees out in the wet dew of the morning. And I could smell the scent of Rennick, his laundry-fresh skin.

“You told my parents,” I said into his chest.

“I had to.”

“I’m trying not to be mad at you.”

“And I’m trying not to lay you down on this grass and get us both into more trouble than we need.”

This made me chuckle. I lifted my face to him, and he kissed me, slow and soft. “Mmm,” I said. “Good morning.”

“What do you say we go to Jackson Square today, maybe ride the ferry? We only have so many free days till school.”

I shook my head. “I’m going back to the Shack. Come with me?” I readied myself for an argument.

He sighed deeply, and I braced myself. “Corrine, I think your parents are right when they say that you have to walk a thin line here.”

“They are talking about moving.”

I watched him closely, to see if he knew this, but when this registered, his face blanched and he had difficulty recovering. “We gotta play by their rules. I want you here.”

I nodded. But I knew I had to do what I had to do. “Let me shower, and meet me in the kitchen in ten.” I pulled myself away from him, but he held on to my hand.

He shook his head at me. “Corrine, I told myself I wasn’t going to come here and give you ultimatums. I wasn’t going to try to pressure you. I figure you got enough of that on all sides. But going right back there this morning?”

I nodded, jutted my chin out in defiance.

“Do you still have a fever?” he challenged.

“No.”

“Are you still shaking?”

I held my hands out in front of me and, thank God, they were steady. He rubbed at his jaw, pulled me over to Sophie’s garden, and sat us down on the little cement bench. “Why can’t you let it go?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You didn’t kill your sister.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

I couldn’t hold his gaze. He continued, “Is that what this is about? Trying to make up for allegedly killing Sophie?”

“No.” But it felt like a lie, and the heat kicked on under my sternum.

“Because I think that’s what this is about. I watched you yesterday, and it was like you didn’t give a shit about what happened to you. You just kept going and going. It’s like you didn’t even want to have time to think. You just wanted to do.” His eyes pierced me.

I rubbed my knuckles against my lips. I knew there was some truth in this. I hadn’t really been able or willing to put words to it, but I knew there was a part of me, a huge, self-destructive guilty part that knew there was truth right there. A seed of it in everything Rennick was suggesting.

“I can’t say no to anyone.” My voice sounded small.

“How many will it take to make up for Sophie?”

I shrugged and fought against the tears in my eyes.

“A hundred? A thousand?”

I said nothing.

“Or will it only be even when you use yourself up and kill yourself in the process?”

It fired up, roared, and I swallowed it back down. Rennick reached for me, just a tiny gesture, a hand to tip my face up, but I pushed him away. Pushed him hard. I got up and walked back into the house.

I hated him. Because of what he’d said.

Because it was true. Every word.

15

The Crawdaddy Shack opened at seven, but there were already a few people out front when I came biking up. “Morning,” I greeted them.

“Good morning, Corrine,” one middle-aged man answered. The rest sort of chimed in.

None of these patrons had any requests for me, so I went into the kitchen when Mrs. Rawlings opened up, and she was all up in my business from the get-go. “You are not going to make me a party to this when you know good and well your parents are taking issue with you setting up shop here.”

I ignored her as much as I could. I greeted Casey and grabbed a deep-fried donut from the cooling tray, poured myself some coffee. But Sarah Rawlings did not suffer being ignored.

“Girl, you better look at me when I’m talking to you.”

I turned around, looked into her face. “I have to do this,” I answered.

To my surprise, Mrs. Rawlings looked more empathetic than I had expected. “You got till noon. Then I am kicking you out.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“Granny Lucy used to help a lot of folks. You girls, you laugh at the old tinctures she used to put together. The spells. But there was something to them. She had herself a way, Corrine. She kept it on the down low.” She eyed me. “You’ll learn.”

I heard Mia-Joy’s barking laughter from out front, and then she was calling for me.

The little restaurant was filled again, and there was already a small crowd around the bistro table from yesterday, front and center. “This woman here, she’s got lupus and lymphoma,” Mia-Joy whispered to me.

“Ma’am,” I said in greeting, sitting down at the table. One look at this poor woman’s face and I knew I was right to come back here this morning. She still had all her hair, but her cheeks were sunken, her skin sallow, her fingernails yellow. She looked seventy-five if a day, so when she began speaking, no wonder the flames erupted inside me.

“I’m only forty-four,” she began, and I fought against a gasp. “I don’t have insurance. I didn’t get any treatment, and I know I’m almost at the end of it here. My children don’t know that, but I know it,” she said. And the matter-of-factness in her voice leveled me.

I gripped her skeletal hands and let it rise, brewing and growing, swelling into one powerful wave. The woman’s eyes, they had a flat look to them, of things borne, endured. I wanted to help her. I let the current reach its frenzied peak. And when I focused the flame, when I directed it into this woman, something happened. It left me in a different way, not in a smooth current but in jolts. I couldn’t see anything different. It was all still indigo blue, but it felt different, spastic and uneven.

The woman jerked, fell to the ground, and seized with ugly convulsions. Like she was being electrocuted. Just like in the movies. Horrible jerky movements.

I broke the connection, let her hand go. I held my hands out in front of me, watched them for a moment before I bent down next to the poor woman at my feet. Was it my imagination, or could I see little sparks of