Dill suddenly felt as though he’d tried to swallow a huge ice cube, and it had gotten stuck in his throat. He knew the smell of impending loss, how it felt to have parts of his life erode from under him and be swept away. Panic seized him. Like he should take a mental photograph of Lydia and everything surrounding her, in case he never saw her again.
The way she sat too close to the steering wheel, staring straight ahead, one arm on the windowsill, her head propped on that hand. The other hand—chipped blue nail polish, the color of a vintage car—resting on the wheel. The line of her neck as it met her shoulder. The piece of black tape that covered her perpetually illuminated “check engine” light starting to peel off. The five or six spent vanilla air fresheners hanging from the rearview mirror. The ornaments adorning her wrists and fingers.
Please God. Quicken my tongue. Make me mighty of speech. Please let me not be prideful in this hour. Let me say exactly the right thing I need to say to keep from losing one more part of me.
“Fine,” Dill said. Not what I had in mind, God. Guess you’ve gone to bed and left one of your lesser angels at the duty station. Then he remembered the church sign. One last chance for God to speak to him. He looked up the street. IF GOD SEEMS FAR AWAY, GUESS WHO MOVED.
Good one, God. A message about moving apart. That’s helpful right at this moment. He got out. Not a sideways glance from Lydia. Not a goodbye. He barely managed to close his door before she sped off with a squeal of her tires.
Her taillights faded into the darkness and disappeared.
Raynar Northbrook sat at his table, holding the latest missive from Lady Amelia of the Southern Lands in his eager hands. He pored over her flowery script as she recounted the happenings of her life. His heart sang every time he heard news of her.
So what are you up to today? Travis texted.
I’m going to take Pickles and visit my grandma and grandpa. You hanging out with your friends today? Amelia replied.
I don’t know. Lydia’s in New York visiting colleges. I haven’t heard from Dill. They’re being kind of weird.
Aw.
Yeah. I love my friends and I don’t want to say bad things about them, but I feel like they don’t get me sometimes.
I get you.
I know. That’s why I like you.
You’re lucky to have even two good friends at school. I don’t really have anyone.
Oh yeah, I know, I just wish
Travis’s phone rang in the middle of composing his reply to Amelia.
Speak of the devil. “Hey, Dill, what’s up?”
“Hey, Travis, do you have to work today?”
“Nope, yard’s closed on Sundays. Why?”
“I could use your help. My mom’s car won’t start, and we need to get it fixed before Monday so she can get to her jobs. But I don’t know anything about cars and we can’t afford the mechanic. Do you think you could help me try to figure it out?”
“Oh yeah, no problem. Let me eat some quick breakfast and wet down my hair and I’ll be over.”
“Hey, Travis? I’m sorry about the other day. Being a jerk.”
Travis laughed. “Don’t worry about it, man. I’ll be right over.”
Most people wouldn’t be excited to get a call on a quiet Sunday morning, asking them to help fix a car. But Travis loved helping people do things; being with his friends; being away from his father; and pulling a diseased part out of a car, holding it in his hands, and then replacing it with a shiny new one that resurrected the car. Dill offered him the chance to do all four things. Plus, he was in the mood to talk to Dill. He felt like it was time to tell him about Amelia. Dill wasn’t as good with the jokes as Lydia, so Travis felt safer telling him.
Travis went into the kitchen, where his mom had some warm biscuits and gravy, bacon, and eggs ready. He hugged her and told her where he was going, then texted Amelia goodbye. He wolfed some food, grabbed his toolbox—he suspected Dill wouldn’t have much more than a screwdriver and a pair of needle-nose pliers—and headed over to Dill’s. As a bonus, he didn’t even see his father, who had gone bowhunting.
Travis parked his red Ford pickup behind Dill’s mom’s Chevy Cavalier. Dill had the hood open and was studying the engine.
“You looking for the on/off switch?” Travis said, grinning, as he got out of his truck.
Dill smiled, stepped aside, and ran his hand through his hair. “I really hope you can help me figure this out.”
“Let’s see what it’s doing.” Travis took the keys, got in, and tried to start it. “Lights work fine, so it’s not the battery,” he mumbled. He turned the key. Nothing. No click, no sound whatsoever. He turned the key again. Nothing.
He thought for a second, running through some scenarios in his head. If it were the alternator, the battery would be dead and the lights wouldn’t come on. If it were the fuel system, the engine would turn and chug, but not start.
He got out of the car and closed the hood. “I think you’ve got a bad starter motor.”
“You sure?” Dill asked.
Travis readjusted his baseball cap. “Nope. But it’s the best guess I’ve got.”
“Are starter motors hard to replace?”
“Nope.”
“Are they expensive?”
“Probably fifty, sixty bucks for this car.”
The look on Dill’s face said that even that was expensive, but they’d have to manage.
They got in Travis’s pickup and rumbled off to the auto parts store. Travis had another reason he was glad to be helping Dill. Something else had been weighing on him. “So, I know she’s been gone most of this week looking at colleges with her mom, but have you talked to Lydia since last Friday?”
Dill took a deep breath and exhaled through his nose. “No.”
“Not a word?”
“Not a word.”
“Don’t you think you should say something?”
“What would I say?”
Travis fiddled with the heater and craned to see any oncoming traffic before turning left. “I dunno. Sorry?”
“I’m not.”
“You should be.”
Dill snorted. “How you figure?”
“You sorta freaked out on her.”
“Yeah, so? I was having a bad day.”
“Even if I were having a bad day, I wouldn’t take it out on you or Lydia.”
“Don’t you think Lydia’s been acting different this year?” Dill asked. “Ever since she realized that she’s getting out of here? Snobbier or something?”
“No, not really. Maybe it’s your imagination.”
“I swear it’s not, dude. I swear she’s being different.”
“Man, I think you’re being hard on her. I mean, it’s good she’s getting out of here to go to a bigger city with lots of fashions, right? Be happy for her.”
Dill frowned. “Speaking of, do you ever read her blog?”
“Yeah, sometimes. Not religiously.”
“Doesn’t it bother you that for all the pictures she takes of us, and all the stuff we do together, neither of us has ever once been mentioned on there? Like she even put up pictures of the lady who owns that store in Nashville. They were friends for fifteen minutes. Doesn’t it seem like she’s embarrassed by us?”
Travis shrugged. “That lady was really pretty, though, and she wore nice clothes. You and I aren’t big fashion guys. Why would we be on there?”
“I guess. Still bugs me. Makes me feel like she thinks we’re less than her or something.”
They pulled up to the auto parts store and went in. An older man and a younger man, both wearing green vests and baseball caps, stood behind the counter, chitchatting.
“What can I get for you, bud?” the younger man asked.
“Need a starter motor for a ’92 Chevy Cavalier. Four cylinder,” Travis said.
“See what my computer tells me.” He squinted at the screen. “Says we got one in stock. Wait here a sec, let me put my hands on it.” The man wrote something on a slip of paper and headed for the back.
The older man nodded at Dill. “?’Scuse me, young man, you don’t mind my asking, you ain’t Dillard Early’s grandson, are you?”
Apprehension flashed across Dill’s face. “Yessir, I am,” he said quietly. He seemed to be hoping the old man would be careful with what he said. Travis had never mentioned to Dill that he knew anything about the Serpent King. Dill surely preferred it that way.
“My goodness,” the man said. “I used to work with your papaw. At the old Gulf station on North Church. It’s a Conoco now.”