I get out in time to hear Clay yell, “That’s what you want? Come on then.”
He’s standin’ in front of his bumper, darin’ Virgil to hit him.
“Right? That’s what this is? Come on, you so goddamn brave!”
Virgil revs the engine, and I run to Clay’s side.
“Evvie, go! I know what I’m doin’.”
“So do I.” I stand my ground and shield my eyes from Virgil’s high beams.
“If you wanna hit him? You gotta hit me, too!” I shout.
“NO, Evvie!”
I dig my fingernails into Clay’s hand to make him shut up and let me do this.
“Hey! Hey, Hampton?” I call. I get closer and bang on his hood. I feel outrageously bold right now.
“You want me? COME GET ME!”
A new car comes down the street toward us. Shit.
“Evvie?” Clay sounds helpless, and I got him in my grasp so he can’t move. The car comes up behind Virgil and honks.
Clay and I look at each other. We know what’s to be done.
He hops up onto his trunk, reaches out for me, and I do the same. We sit, hands interlaced together, legs danglin’ over the edge, watching Virgil. We ain’t goin’ nowhere.
Virgil revs his engine again. I hold my breath. Clay squeezes my hand. The truck starts backing up. The driver behind him lays on his horn and curses all of us but has no choice but to back up too. Virgil backs all the way to the end of the street. Where he halts.
I dip down into that deep, pulsing, anger place for strength. I seize it, and it’s mine. I feel it and I understand. I am not afraid.
Virgil revs that engine again.
“Hey, Evvie?”
“Yeah, Clay?”
We both hold our breath.
“I love you.”
Virgil slams on the gas.
“I love you more,” I cry, and hold him and hold me with everything I have and there’s no time left to run, to scream, to do anything but be here. The red-orange fire burning in my belly tingles my insides with a terrible joy, and within the blink of an eye, Virgil loses control of the truck. It jumps the sidewalk and smashes into a fire hydrant, sending water blasting up into the air.
We run, and we’re back in the car before Virgil can come to his senses. Clay starts driving, tearin’ down the road way too fast. And I can feel the band’s potency fadin’. Normal Evalene thoughts are coming back to me. Like where are we goin’? What are we doin’?
“Stop the car!” I plead.
“Where?”
“Anywhere!”
He swings us into an empty lot. We’re both gasping for air, words, thoughts, anything.
And then I start to laugh. Low at first, but it gets louder.
Clay shakes his head in disbelief. We both finally start to catch our breath. To use our lungs like functioning humans again.
“I don’t know what the hell you think’s so funny.”
“It ain’t,” I laugh. “I know it ain’t funny.” I stop laughing. I have to stop because I am so tired. “I just felt really good there for a second.”
“Adrenaline,” he says, starin’ straight ahead.
“No. It was more than that.” Happy-happy, Evalene. I shiver. I heard it. Clear as tap water. I look around, but I don’t see anybody or anything. Clay didn’t hear it. He woulda said somethin’ if he had.
We sit for another few breaths. I can’t hear our breathing without straining my ears now. All is quiet. No otherworldly beings tryna start a conversation. Good.
“Evvie? You did that?”
I’ve calmed down. I’m calm enough to feel a li’l self-conscious now that reality’s settin’ in.
“Yes. Are you scared?”
Clay nods. “Uh-huh,” he says. “I am.”
We coulda died tonight, if I hadn’t used my abilities right. Could be the level of fear, or the adrenaline Clay mentioned, or I don’t know what, but Clay grabs me, and let me tell you: we have no trouble workin’ off any excess energy we might have left. Right there in that lot. Not carin’ who might see.
17
Haunted
NOT TOO HOT OUT. LEAST there’s that.
I follow Grammie Atti out in the woods behind her shack. When you get out far enough, you end up in what people call the General’s Woods. I hate it. They love honorin’ their generals. They lost the damn war, but you’d never know it around here.
If I’m being honest, I do think I’ve gotten better at controllin’ my jubin’, and that’s mostly cuz a her, but damn if she don’t get on my last nerve. We been at this shit for two hours already, and now she wants to take a field trip.
“Quit walkin’ so slow,” she calls back at me. “Slower you walk, longer this’ll take,” she warns.
I pick up the pace, rolling my eyes at her back. I wouldn’t dare do that if she was lookin’ at me. She probably knows I did it anyway.
The light gets dimmer deep in the woods, just able to peek through here and there. Big, ol’ black moss trees tower over us. Imposing. The more time you spend in the forest, the more alive the trees seem to be.
At one such tree, Grammie Atti stops. She inspects its trunk and stares way up into its thick branches above. I watch her but don’t say anything. Grammie Atti places a hand on the trunk and closes her eyes. She moves her lips but makes no sound.
“Grammie Atti?”
She opens her eyes, looks up into the branches again like she’s searching for something and then, reluctantly, takes her hand from the trunk. Without sayin’ a word, she starts trudgin’ again, so I trudge behind her.
We get to a small clearing near Bottomless Pit. Which isn’t a pit but a pond; that’s just what folks call it. I’ve also heard it called Bottomless Shit, because apparently it was once used for that. It ain’t too big across, but supposedly if you get out in the middle of it, there is no bottom. Mama said when she was in school,
