His fingers slid into my hair as he paged through his contacts, then talked to a friend at the sheriff’s department —not surprisingly, a woman.
“Well . . . nothin’ to report.” His motion was relaxed and casual as he tucked the phone back in his pocket. “See, I told you they’re just out . . . doing whatever. They’ll show up. Relax.” He stepped away from me, and my skin went cold where his warmth had been. In the tiny living room of the cottage, Ross seemed out of place, his bulky, six-foot-four-inch frame dominating the space as he looked around, trying to decide what to do next.
“You got anything to eat in this place?”
“Eat . . . huh?” Nothing had been reported to the sheriff, but still, my kids were missing. Zoey wouldn’t do this, especially not when they had school the next day. “I can’t think about food. I have to know where my kids are.”
Ross’s sigh communicated his frustration. “You’re gonna have to relax, Tandi. They’ll show up when they’re ready, and then you can whip some tail. Till then, there’s no sense starving to death. Man, I could go for some of that beach boil right now. . . .”
He wandered off to the kitchen and started rummaging through the box of goods I’d brought home from Iola’s house. “What’s with all these cans of Beanee Weenees? Haven’t you got any meat around here except hot dogs? No wonder that kid of yours looks like he’s a baby anorexic. A man needs meat.”
Ross’s voice faded into the background as I wandered out the front door and stood gripping the porch railing. Tears pressed again. “Please . . . please,” I heard myself whisper. I wanted Rowdy’s car to come rolling up the driveway. “They have to be all right.”
Beyond the old stable yard, the church bells rang, then stopped.
“Who’re you talking to?” Ross passed by the door with a spoon in one hand and a can of Iola’s Beanee Weenees in the other. “Standing out there won’t make them show up any sooner.” He scooped a bite from the can, swilled it around his mouth, and swallowed. “These aren’t half-bad. It’s not crab legs and corn, but it’s food. You want me to fix you a plate?”
I didn’t answer but walked to the steps, searched the yard, and listened to bullfrogs croaking in the sedges, the hush of wind across salt meadow hay, the seemingly endless trill of a nightjar calling. A fog rolled off the sound, creeping through the bayberry hedges, filling the low places first, stringing upward in ribbons that hung suspended, silver-bright in the moonlight.
I wanted to take J.T.’s hand in mine, steal through the fog, whisper, “Ssshhh,” as we moved closer to the bird’s call. I would translate its song for him the way my grandfather had for me: Chuck-will’s-widow, Chuck-will’s-widow, Chuck-will’s-widow . . .
The cat mewed, the sound mingling with the bird’s call, their voices coming in rapid succession, a song in two parts, performed in perfect time. Chuck-will’s-widow. Meow. Chuck-will’s-widow. Meow. Chuck-will’s . . .
Slipping around the corner, I found the one-eared cat sitting in a spill of moon glow, his fur blue-black in the light, his gaze focused through a thin streamer of fog into the live oaks overhead, as if he were conversing with the nightjar.
The bird stilled, and the cat looked my way, meowed, then swiveled toward the old stable.
There was something in the fog, a faint light. Squinting into the darkness, I focused on it, lost it in the mist, then found it again, nearer this time. The cat took a few silent steps, maintaining the distance between us as I moved closer.
What was that? . . . What was out there?
I blinked, tried to see. Light reflected against the vapor, outlining an image that faded into a bank of condensation, then reappeared again, took on a human shape. A person, seeming to hover in the mist . . . someone small . . . a woman with long hair . . . carrying a lantern.
The image pinned me where I was, left me mesmerized and terrified at once, unable to find my voice. “R-Ross!” I croaked finally.
“Mama?” the specter answered.
“J.T.?”
The lantern stopped, the shadow figure coming no closer. A whiff of breeze stirred, lifted the long, thick hair, rippling it, flag-like. I had the sense that this was all just another dream. None of it real.
The cat yowled and darted away.
I thought of J.T.’s words after his nightmare a couple days ago. I heard the cat screaming in the yard. . . . They do it when there’s a ghost.
“J.T.?” I called out again, louder this time. “Is that you? If that’s you, you come over here right now, you hear me?”
The kitchen window slid open in the cottage. “Tandi, what the . . . ?”
I didn’t hear the rest of whatever Ross had to say. Next door, a car circled the church parking lot, the headlights strafing the stable yard, pressing over the veils of fog just long enough that I could see J.T.’s scrawny form —shorts, skinny legs, tennis shoes with reflector tape, a light of some kind in his hand. He had a cloth wrapped over his head.
Before the car had pulled away, I was running through the yard. I caught him by the bayberry hedge, scooped him to me, sobbing and gasping. He was here. He was safe. Trammel didn’t have him. No one had him.
“Where were you?” The words tumbled out. “Where’s your sister?”
Vaguely I was aware of Ross leaving the cottage, his boots echoing on the porch, his footsteps crunching against the oyster-shell path. “You scared your mama half-outta her mind,” he complained as he approached. “Where’ve you been?”
J.T. stiffened in my arms, pulled away, then reached up and snatched the thing from his head, a Windbreaker hanging on only by the hood. His backpack slid on his shoulder, and he hiked it into place again.
“Where’s Zoey?” I looked toward the stable, expecting her to materialize as well. What could J.T. possibly have been doing over there? That building was one step short of falling in. Why would they go there in the dark?
Folding the jacket against his body, he hugged it close. “I dunno.” His voice went high, then cracked. “Her and Rowdy went someplace after school got out. I saw her at Bink’s when I got off the bus. She told me to just go on home, so I did, and she left with Rowdy.”
“Yeah, who guessed that one right?” Ross pointed out.
I turned back to J.T., grabbed his shoulders. “Why weren’t you at the cottage? Why didn’t you let yourself in and wait like you’re supposed to? I’ve been going crazy.”
“The key was gone.” J.T.’s voice was barely audible. His shoulders crumbled beneath my fingers, shrinking inward. “When I got home, the key wasn’t under the mat, and Zoey didn’t come, and you didn’t come, so I went back down to Bink’s and helped the guys for a while, and then, so it was getting dark, and Brother Guilbeau came to the store, and he said they were havin’ spaghetti dinner and a family movie night at the church and did I like spaghetti? And I said I did, so I had spaghetti, but it tasted so good I ate too much spaghetti and popcorn, and my stomach hurt, so then I went to the bathroom for a while after the movie was goin’. By the time I came out, the hallway was dark and everybody was headin’ home. I saw the windows were lit up in our house, so I got my key chain light out and —”
“Yeah, well, I’m glad somebody got to eat.” Ross braced his hands on his belt, towering over J.T. “We missed out on a good beach boil because we had to come look for your little butt. If I ever did that to my daddy, he would’ve whipped me till I couldn’t stand up straight, and then I would’ve known not to do it again.”
J.T. backed against me, and I slid an arm around him. “It’s my fault for not putting the key back.” While I was rushing off with Ross earlier, I’d forgotten to make sure the extra key was under the mat. For the past two days, I’d been using the one on the ring Brother Guilbeau had given me. “It’s okay now.” I turned to guide J.T. toward the cottage, holding tight to his shoulders, feeling the little points of bone beneath my fingers. “There’s no real harm done.”
“Yeah, except it screwed up our whole night.” We passed through the light from the kitchen window, and I could see Ross glaring at me, expecting me to take his side.
“Let’s just go in the house.” My body was quickly turning to mush, awash with relief as we made our way back to the cottage and closed the door behind us. I was ready to let the tension wane, not keep the fight going.
“It’s no wonder they don’t listen worth a flip,” Ross complained. The can of Beanee Weenees hit the trash half-full, and the spoon sailed across the kitchen and clattered into the sink.
J.T. stopped. Froze. He looked up at me, his eyes two brimming pools of ocean blue, the freckles over his nose trembling. “I woulda come home before, but it was dark in here, and I was afraid of the ghost,” he whispered, ducking his chin. A nervous glance flicked toward Ross, then back to me.