“The stone your mother left you when she died—”
Her eyes whipped up, finding his. Against the verdant forest, Ander’s turquoise irises were edged with green. “How did you know about that?”
“Try getting it wet.”
“Wet?”
Ander nodded. “My hypothesis is you won’t be able to.”
“Everything can get wet,” she said, even as she wondered about his dry skin when he’d reached for her moments ago.
“Not that stone,” he said. “If it turns out I’m right, will you promise to trust me?”
“I don’t see why my mother would leave me a water-repellent stone.”
“Look, I’ll throw in an incentive—if I’m wrong about the stone, if it’s just a regular old rock, I’ll disappear and you’ll never hear from me again.” He tilted his head, watching her reaction without any of the playfulness she expected. “I promise.”
Eureka wasn’t ready to never see him again, even if the stone didn’t get wet. But his gaze pressed on her like the sandbags tamping the batture along the bayou. His eyes wouldn’t let her break free. “Fine. I’ll give it a try.”
“Do it”—Ander paused—“by yourself. No one else can know what you have. Not your friends. Not your family. Especially not Brooks.”
“You know, you and Brooks should get together,” Eureka said. “You seem to be all the other thinks about.”
“You can’t trust him. I hope you can see that now.”
Eureka wanted to shove Ander. He didn’t get to bring up Brooks like he knew something she didn’t. But she was afraid that if she shoved him, it wouldn’t be a shove. It would be an embrace, and she would lose herself. She wouldn’t know how to break free.
She bounced on her heels in the mud. She could think only of fleeing. She wanted to be home, to be in a safe place, though she didn’t know how or where to find either of those things. They had eluded her for months.
The rain intensified. Eureka looked back the way she’d come, deep into the green oblivion, trying to see Magda miles away. The lines of the forest dissolved in her vision into pure shape and color.
“I can’t trust anyone, it seems.” She started to run back through the driving rain, wanting, with every step away from Ander, to turn around and run back to him. Her body warred over her instincts until she wanted to scream. She ran faster.
“Soon you’ll see how wrong you are!” Ander shouted, standing still where she had left him. She’d thought he might follow her, but he didn’t.
She stopped. His words had left her out of breath. Slowly, she turned around. But when she looked through the rain and mist and wind and leaves, Ander had already disappeared.
23
THE THUNDERSTONE
“As soon as your homework is finished,” Rhoda said from across the dinner table that night, “you’re going to email an apology to Dr. Landry, cc’ing me. And tell her you’ll see her next week.”
Eureka shook Tabasco sauce violently onto her étouffée. Rhoda’s orders didn’t even merit a glare.
“Your dad and I brainstormed with Dr. Landry,” she continued. “We don’t think you’ll take therapy seriously unless you’re held accountable. Which is why you’re going to pay for the sessions.” Rhoda sipped her rosé. “Out of your pocket. Seventy-five dollars a week.”
Eureka clenched her jaw to keep her mouth from dropping open. So they’d finally settled on a punishment for last week’s outrage.
“But I don’t have a job,” she said.
“The dry cleaners will give you back your old job,” Rhoda said, “assuming you can prove you’ve become more responsible since you were fired.”
Eureka hadn’t become more responsible. She’d become suicidally depressed. She looked to Dad for help.