Deep Betrayal

chapter 29

CORNUCOPIA



Within the hour, Calder and I had driven the long and winding road up to Cornucopia. There was a crafts fair going on in the tiny hamlet, and people had parked their cars and RVs on every grassy inch alongside Highway 13, stretching a mile south out of town.

We parked and walked the rest of the way in, following the smell of wood chips, sugar, and hot oil, passing elderly couples headed back to their cars with the spoils of their day.

Calder held my hand as we weaved through row after row of booths, finally making it to the center of it all. “See anything?” he asked.

“I don’t even know what I’m looking for,” I said. “A wood-carver’s son? Was Pavati being literal or should I start looking for a freakin’ Pinocchio?”

Calder frowned. “I’m hoping it’s one of those things where we’ll know it when we see it.”

“Maybe we should ask someone.”

“You go that way,” Calder said. “I’ll take this row. I’ll meet you by the fry-bread stand.”

When Calder left, I was consumed by the crowds: old women in embroidered sweatshirts, old men in suspenders, young mothers pushing strollers over uneven ground. I saw plenty of watercolor paintings, clocks mounted in driftwood, and ceramic garden gnomes, but I didn’t see any marionettes, or any kind of wood-carver’s son, for that matter. There was nothing here that might give us answers. That is, unless the secrets of the universe were hidden in a tchotchke.

Wandering aimlessly, I found myself standing near booth 124 and a line of RVs where the vendors camped for the weekend. I caught a glimpse of Calder just as a little girl in a purple dress ran by, clanging and ringing with a hundred metal tassels sewn to her skirt.

“So cool,” I said under my breath.

“It’s a traditional Ojibwe jingle dress,” said a guy behind me. I turned to find Serious Boy lighting up a cigarette and leaning against a silver-bullet Airstream trailer. “They’re doing a dance demonstration over at the park.”

I gotta get me one of those, I thought.

“Forget it,” said Serious Boy, reading my expression. “You’d never be able to sneak up on anyone again.”

“I don’t sneak.”

“Puh-lease.” He blew a cloud of smoke in my face, and I waved it away. “You were made for sneaking. And why would you want a jingle dress when you look so good in band T-shirts?” He pointed at me with his pursed lips. “Where’d you score the Grateful Dead? That looks legit.”

He dropped his cigarette into the dirt and ground it out with the toe of his boot. I looked away and, in doing so, caught a glimpse of a wooden wind chime. A beautifully carved mermaid wearing an intricately braided crown of copper wire dangled from its center.

“That’s pretty,” I said.

“It’s one of my dad’s carvings. They’re very popular; he sells a ton of them.”

Serious Boy was the wood-carver’s son? He was one of Pavati’s boys?

“So,” I said, not really knowing how to start this conversation, but hoping I was right and he’d have the information I needed. “You’re from Cornucopia.”

He narrowed his eyes as if to say, All right, I’ll play along. “Grew up here.”

This was a good enough start. I wouldn’t have to look anywhere else for a while. “My friend and I are here doing a project for summer school.” I gestured at Calder, who was about twenty yards away now, picking through a table of wooden birdhouses.

Serious Boy looked where I pointed, then choked on air. The choking morphed into laughter. “You are, are you?”

“Yeah, do you have a problem with that?”

He dropped his chin and shook his head, still laughing softly to himself. “If that’s what you want to call it, that’s fine with me.”

“What else would I call it?”

“I know how you operate. The question is, does he know what he’s dealing with?” He tipped his head in Calder’s direction and when I didn’t answer, he grunted and walked away.

I grabbed his hand, and he snatched it back as if I’d burned him.

“Careful,” he said. “You trying to kill me?”

I mentally smacked my hand to my forehead. All the stares, all the weird behavior and innuendo. How could I have been so dense? Fine. If Serious Boy thought I was electric, if he thought I was a mermaid, I could play that trump card.

He got in my face, slight grimace, slight smile. “Listen. I could smell you coming a mile away. I know what you are. I know what happened to that boy on the island. And I know what you’re doing here.”

Well, that’s one of us. “You do? And what’s that?”

“Are you Pavati’s sister?” he asked.

“Depends.”

“Is she coming back?”

“I don’t know. Pavati doesn’t usually share her plans with me. You know how she can be.”

He nodded just as a terrifying man with his hair spiked out like porcupine quills came walking quickly toward us through the maze of booths.

Serious Boy looked at his watch and said, “That’s my dad. It’s time for my shift. Meet me at Big Mo’s. Noon. Tomorrow.”

Then he ran up to his dad, who tapped aggressively at his watch and smacked him on the back of the head.


The Coca-Cola clock over the jukebox at Big Mo’s read 12:21. My cup read pathetically empty. I’d slurped at the melted ice enough times that people were starting to turn and stare. I smiled apologetically and folded my napkin into a sailboat.

Calder didn’t think his presence would help me get any information out of Serious Boy, and yet he was nervous about leaving me alone with him. “Pavati makes friends easily,” Calder had said. “But if Jack is any measure, she makes enemies just as well. Be careful.” Neither of us was clear on how things stood between her and the Cornucopia boys, but Pavati hadn’t given us any confidence that they were good. Now and then I’d look up to see Calder walk past the restaurant windows, casually leaning into the glass to check on me. I’d give him a small wave and check the clock.

I shook my glass and the remaining bits of ice settled. I drew my fingers together and dug in the glass for the cherry when the door opened, and Serious Boy slid into the booth.

“Listen,” he said, as if our conversation hadn’t had a twenty-four-hour interruption.

Two other boys came in, one of whom I recognized from the camping trip on Manitou. They looked around the room, then marched toward us and slid in next to him. I felt conspicuous and awkward, alone on one side of the booth, facing the brewing threesome. This gang up inspired more stares from the families in the restaurant, and I glanced up at the windows, but there was no sign of Calder.

“It’s taken me all year to get my head on straight,” Serious Boy said. “I’m not letting any more of your kind mess me up.” I got the impression he was saying what the other two boys wanted to hear, rather than what he really meant, because he was leaning so far across the table at me I had to pull back for a little personal space.

“And we’re not going to let you,” said one of the other two.

“My brothers,” Serious Boy said.

“Maybe we could try again with names. I’m Lily.”

“Daniel Catron,” Serious Boy said. “My friends call me Danny.”

The brother I didn’t recognize coughed and said, “Guess that means you’ll be calling him Daniel.”

Daniel punched his shoulder, saying, “My oldest brother, Christian, and Bernard, he’s the middle. They wouldn’t let me come alone. They’re only twice as annoying as they seem.”

“Listen,” I said, doing my best not to sound desperate. “I’m not here to mess with you, or cause anybody any problems. I just need some information.”

“Then ask your question and get back to the lake,” said Bernard.

I made my eyes wide and offended. “But I just ordered you a pizza.”

“You eat pizza?” asked Christian, who was sitting in the middle, his broad shoulders crowding out the other two.

“Of course. Who doesn’t? But it’s all yours,” I said. “We’ll call it a trade. Pizza for information.”

This seemed to work for them, and when the pie landed in the middle of the table, six hands lurched forward and gooey strings of mozzarella dripped across the checkered tablecloth.

“Back at your trailer,” I said. “Was that wind chime, was it a representation of something called … called …”

Three heads bobbed and chewed. “Maighdean Mara.”

“So do you … have you, like, seen any evidence of … her activity lately?” I could feel my face burn as I asked the question.

Christian and Bernard choked as they swallowed.

“What are you playing at?” Bernard asked, folding his arms over his chest.

“Just answer the question, please,” I said with a sigh.

“We haven’t seen her,” Daniel said. “Nobody has. Our dad’s grandfather used to back in the day.”

Bernard chimed in, “Or at least according to our dad.”

“There used to be a line of devotees in our family,” Christian said, “but our dad’s the last of that line. Now he says it’s just campfire stories.”

“So you don’t have any infomation for me?” Why had Pavati sent us looking for these boys? They were useless.

Daniel wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “Wouldn’t you know more about her than us?”

I clenched my teeth and tried to figure out how to end this conversation gracefully.

“Hypothetically,” Bernard said, “if she really exists, they say she lives in Copper Falls and no human gets in without an offering.”

Christian pulled off another piece of pizza and folded it in half before shoving it in his mouth.

“You’d have to be an idiot to go looking for her,” Daniel said. “Even for your kind. She might have been a guardian at one point, but she’s turned into a monster. Her eyes bulge, and she has six-feet-long arms, with gnarled claws. She can swipe you out of a boat like that!” He snapped his fingers.

“What are you talking about?” Christian said, taking another piece before finishing the one he held.

“I don’t know about that,” Bernard said, “but they did find human skulls around the falls about ten years ago. Even if she’s only a myth, it’s still dangerous to go there.”

“So where is this Copper Falls?” I asked with a sigh. It looked like it was the only solid lead they were going to give me.

“On the Minnesota side. Just north of Duluth,” Daniel said. “But it’s not enough to go to the falls. The story is you have to get behind them.”

“That’s where she hides her magic,” Bernard said. “Behind the curtain of water.” He wiggled his greasy fingers in a mystical way.

I closed my eyes and took a calming breath. I didn’t think I could suspend my disbelief much longer. I’d gone along with this Maighdean Mara thing—tried to make myself believe that a mythological water spirit was to blame for Connor’s and Brady’s deaths—but this was getting ridiculous.

I exhaled slowly. “And how do you get behind the falls?” I asked, opening my eyes again.

“Don’t ask us,” Bernard said.

Just then the air in the restaurant turned dry and static on my skin. Bernard reached for the metal napkin holder, and a blue spark zapped in the air. The hair on my arms rose to attention, and all three boys’ spines stiffened against the booth. They stared at me, silently asking what they’d done to get me so uptight. Of course, it wasn’t me filling the air with electricity. Calder was standing inside the doorway.

Yeah. Time to go. I laid a twenty on the table.

“You’re sure you don’t want any?” Daniel asked. “Stay a little longer.”

I slid my legs out of the booth. “It’s my treat.”

“So is she coming back?” he asked.

“Who?”

“Your sister,” he said with annoyance. “Pavati.”

Christian backhanded Daniel’s head.

“Um. Don’t think so,” I said, looking back and forth between the three brothers and Calder’s urgent expression. “She doesn’t think she’s welcome in Cornucopia anymore.”

Christian and Bernard exchanged a look while Daniel asked, “It’s that other dude’s fault, isn’t it?”

I glanced again at Calder, who rolled his lips inward and jerked his head toward the door.

“You mean Jack Pettit?” I asked.

“Last summer Pavati was looking for … a mate. Don’t look at me like that, I know what we are to you.”

“Do tell,” I said.

“Us guys, we’re either mermaid Prozac or the Baby Daddy. That’s what she told me. I know how this works. I thought it was going to be me, but then she met that Pettit kid, and I never saw her again. I don’t know what happened between them, but something bad. She’d probably come back if it wasn’t for him.”

I held one finger up at Calder and leaned across the table toward the brothers. They inhaled sharply and leaned toward me, their eyes half closed, drinking it in. I knew they were only smelling Calder on me, but I used it to my advantage.

“What do you know about that, Danny?” I asked, imitating Pavati’s seductive voice as best I could.

Daniel swallowed and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I know that Pettit kid’s not doing himself any favors. Pavati’s not going to go anywhere near someone putting off that much negative energy. We all saw him on the news, and then on the island. I made a point of pumping him for information. He’s got the wrong approach.”

“You know us pretty well, don’t you.” I meant it to flatter him, and it seemed to work. His cheeks flushed until his skin look like a roasted chestnut.

“I told you. There was a reason I was so messed up.”

“Lily,” Calder said. “Let’s go.”

Daniel turned around at the sound of Calder’s voice. He grimaced, saying, “That’s no summer-school partner.”

Bernard and Christian turned, too. One of them said, “Ah, man. There are dudes, too? We’ll have to lock up the women.”

I ran to the door to meet Calder. “What’s the rush? Where are we going?”

“Copper Falls.”

“You mean now? Wait. You heard all that?”

“Of course. And if there’s any truth to Maris’s theory, we’ve got to hurry. Chief Eaton’s fishing vacation ended badly. His body just washed up on the beach.”