Poison Princess

Had they listened to my voice message from earlier? “Yes, I’ll spend the night with you.” My face burned, my fury ratcheting up to new heights.

When we came upon the new bridge, stretching over acres of swamp, my lips thinned. Without this line of dull gray cement, I’d never even have known Jackson Deveaux.

Once we reached the end of the bridge, we were officially in a new parish. Cajun country. Bayou inlets and smaller drawbridges abounded. A pair of wildlife agents in their black trucks sat chatting on a shoulder.

Mel exhaled. “Why are you forcing me into the voice-of-reason role? You know that never works out for us.”

“I need to do this,” I said simply. When I’d realized Jackson had played me, that the almost-kiss had been a ruse—it’d hurt. Even though I’d never wanted his kiss to begin with.

Why did he have to act as if he’d liked me? It was a mean-spirited, coldhearted prank. How he and Lionel must have laughed at my gullibility!

“It’s getting really dark,” Mel said as we approached the Basin turnoff. She didn’t just mean daylight- wise.

Ominous clouds were back-building over the swamp. “Yeah, but what are the odds that it’ll actually rain?” Those clouds reminded me of the scene I’d painted on my wall, and of the blazing eyes I’d soon see.

Folks didn’t usually drive to lower land when faced with a gale like that. I didn’t know which storm would prove worse—the weather or Jackson’s anger.

Didn’t matter; I was bent on seeing this through tonight. I directed Mel to turn onto the dirt road that led to the Basin.

After a few miles, she said, “We’re not in Kansas anymore.”

We saw shrimp boats, bayou shacks, and shipyards filled with rusted heaps. Statuettes of the Virgin Mary graced every other yard. I’d known how Catholic the Basin folk were, but even I was surprised.

We neared the end of the road, closing in on Jackson’s address. There were fewer structures down here, but more palmettos, banana trees, cypress. Trash had collected all around the ditch lilies.

By the time the marsh was visible, it was dark and the car lights had come on. Red eyes glowed back from the reeds. Gators. They were so thick, some of the smaller ones lay on top of the others.

Pairs of beady red dots, stacked like ladder rungs.

Mel nervously adjusted her hands on the wheel, but she drove onward. The car crept deeper under a canopy of intertwined limbs and vines, like a ride going into a haunted tunnel.

When the road surrendered to a rutted trail, Jackson’s home came into view—a shotgun house, long and narrow, with entrances on both ends. The clapboard framing was a mess of peeling paint. A couple of gator skins had been tacked over the worst spots.

The roof was a rusted patchwork of mismatched tin sheets. In one section, a metal garbage can had been battered flat and hammered down.

This place was as far from proud Haven as possible. I thought I’d seen poor. I was mistaken.

“That’s where he lives?” Mel shuddered. “It’s horrid.”

Suddenly I regretted her seeing this, as if I’d betrayed a secret of Jackson’s, which didn’t make any sense.

“Evie, my car’ll get stuck if I drive any farther. And it’s not like we have our phones on us.”

“Not yet. Just stay here, and I’ll walk it. Be back with our stuff.”

“What if he’s not even here?”

I pointed out his motorcycle, parked under an overhang beside the rickety front porch. “That’s his.”

When I opened the car door, she said, “Think about this.”

I had. This entire situation was so unnecessary. None of this had needed to happen. All because Jackson had stolen from me! He’d violated my privacy, had possibly seen and heard my intimate exchanges with Brandon.

And he’d seen my drawings.

That freedom I’d vowed I would never take for granted? His actions were threatening it!

Remembering what was at stake made me slam the car door and venture forth. Yellow flies swarmed me, but I kept going, wending around tires, busted crab traps, cypress knees.

Closer to his house, there was no cut lawn, there wasn’t even grass. In these parts, some folks who couldn’t afford a lawnmower “swept” their yards, keeping them free of vegetation—and of snakes. His yard was a giant patch of hard-packed earth.

As I neared, I saw tools hanging from the porch roof. A machete and a saw clanked together in the growing breeze.

I crossed a dried-out depression in front of four wobbly-looking steps. The first stair bowed even under my weight. How did a boy as big as Jackson climb them?

There was no knocker on the unpainted plywood door, just a rusted lever to open it. The bottom was shredded in strips.

From when animals had scratched to get in?

With a shiver, I glanced back at the sky, saw the clouds were getting worse. I gazed at Mel in the distance, pensive in her car. Maybe this is . . . stupid.

No. I had to get that journal back. I found my knuckles rapping the wood. “Hello?”

The door groaned open wide.

12

“Mr. or Ms. Deveaux?” No answer. “I need to talk to Jackson,” I called as I stepped into the house.

I saw no one inside but still got an eyeful. Just as bad as the outside.

The main living area was cramped, the ceiling hanging so low I wondered if Jackson had to duck to walk around. Dangling from it was a single lightbulb, buzzing like a bee.

The sole window had been boarded up. The door to a room in the back was closed, but I heard a TV blaring from inside.

On the left wall was a ridiculously small kitchen. Six fish lay cleaned beside a sizzling pan. Some kind of game was chopped in chunks, already breaded in cornmeal. Had Jack angled, trapped, or shot everything on that counter?

Why leave the stove on? “Jackson, where are you?” With a despairing eye, I took a closer look around the room.

Lining the wall to the right was a plaid couch, with cigarette burn holes pocking the arms. Frayed sheets had been spread over the sunken cushions.

His boots sat on the floor at the foot of the couch. This is where he sleeps?

My lips parted. He didn’t even have his own room.

A Spanish for Beginners book lay on the floor, spine cracked and opened in the middle, with a worn copy of Robinson Crusoe beside it. That novel wasn’t on our reading list. So he read for enjoyment? And wanted to speak another language?

I felt something tugging inside of me. As much as I thought of him as grown, he was an just eighteen-year- old boy who would have a boy’s plans and dreams.

Maybe he imagined running away to Mexico or sailing away from this hellhole.

It struck me how little I really knew about him.

As my anger faded, I reminded myself that what little I knew, I hated. Still, I found myself trudging forward to turn off the stove before the place caught fire.

I nibbled my lip. Where is he? What if my sketchbook was at Lionel’s? I didn’t see any of the phones here either.

After I turned off the burner, I heard yelling from the back. Not the TV?

Suddenly a harsh drumming pelted the tin roof. I gave a cry of surprise, but that noise drowned it out. “Just the rain,” I murmured to myself. “Drops on tin.” Finally!

Water started beading along bulging seams in the ceiling, dripping down to the floor, over the couch. Jackson