Another scream is trapped in my chest and bubbles race from my mouth as I let go of him, hands desperately searching for something, anything to grab hold of. I find it when the pain in my lungs feels like it’s going to explode. The black pushes in around my vision, my legs going numb.
I wrap my fingers around the shape, and with every last bit of strength inside of me, I wrench my arm through the water, swinging it in an arc until it breaks the surface and collides with his temple.
Nathaniel’s hands suddenly loosen. He stumbles back, and I feel myself floating, the current pulling me from him.
I come up with a painful gasp and I’m gagging, hunched over with the rock still clutched to my chest.
Nathaniel makes a sound, and I blink furiously, the river water blurring my vision, to see him still standing. He has one hand pressed to his bleeding head. Something escapes his lips, and then he’s lunging toward me.
I watch as he stumbles, falling to his knees, and my body feels so heavy that I’m sure I’m going to faint. I’m sure that at any minute, everything will go black.
I heave, raising the rock over my head with both hands. And when I bring it down, it’s with a horrifying sound that tears from my throat. I hit him again. And again. I hit him even after I realize he’s not moving. It’s not until the rock slips from my blood-soaked fingers that I fall to the bank.
I’m flat on my back, and when my head rolls to the side, I see him looking at me. But there’s no life left in those empty eyes. I don’t have to check to know that he’s dead.
A snap in the trees makes me scramble back to my hands and knees, and when I look up, I see that little white flame.
Annie is standing on the path, watching. She blinks once. Then again.
Only then does it come to me, what I’ve just done. At my feet, Nathaniel Rutherford lies motionless, the water parting around his body in the shallows. His blood is everywhere. My hands, my arms, my dress. It’s spattered like paint on the rocks.
I scoot away from it, suddenly sick, and I vomit on the shore, my hair tangled and plastered to my face. I’ve barely finished when I get back to my feet and climb the slope. Then I’m picking Annie up, and I run.
I don’t look back when we make it to the trees. I don’t slow, despite the burning tremble in my legs. I cross the footbridge and lift Annie over the fence of the Grangers’ west pasture, then I keep running. I don’t stop until I see the smoke trailing from our chimney.
“Eamon!” I scream his name as I disappear into the tobacco. “Eamon!”
My steps finally begin to drag, a sharp pain surfacing in the center of my right foot. I look down and find that somewhere, I’ve lost a shoe.
“Eamon!”
His name crumbles on another cry, and I break through the edge of the field, just as the back screen door flies open. It slams against the house, and I can see him. He’s a black silhouette against the kitchen light.
Annie is crying now, clinging to me, but I’m sure I’m going to drop her. I sink to the ground before I do, my knees scraping in the dirt.
Eamon is coming down the steps a second later. “June?”
I can’t breathe.
“June?” He pulls Annie from my arms. “What happened?”
I didn’t notice until now that her white dress is dotted with the blood that covers me. He’s frantically pulling it off of her.
“Where are you hurt, love?” He’s panicked, searching her body for the source of the blood.
“She’s okay.” I feel my mouth say the words but I can’t hear them. “She’s okay.” The words stick to my tongue, because that’s all that matters. “She’s okay. She’s okay. She’s okay.”
Eamon stands. Carries her into the house. Then he’s taking hold of me, getting me to my feet, but I instantly collapse against him and he catches me in his arms.
“June?” He sounds so scared. “Tell me what happened.” Now his hands are all over me, lifting my hair, unbuttoning my dress.
“I killed him,” I say, my mouth numb.
“What?”
We’re in the house now, and I can finally see his face.
“Nathaniel Rutherford. I killed him.”
He sets me down in the chair, coming down onto his knees in front of me. “Where? How?”
“He followed us. He tried to—” My whole body shakes with a silent cry. “He tried to drown me in the river.”
Eamon is suddenly so still that it doesn’t look like he’s breathing. He’s staring at the center of my chest, hands still holding on to me. When his eyes finally lift, the panic in them is gone.
“Listen to me,” he says.
I double over, crying again.
“June,” he says, more firmly. “Take a breath.”
I swallow, trying to do as he says. I’m shaking so badly.
“Tell me exactly where he is.”
I try to think. “At the bend before the footbridge. He’s down by the water.”
Eamon stands, going to the stove, and I hear him light it. Then he’s propping open the back door and hauling in the two buckets of water from outside. I watch in a daze as he dumps them into the small tub beside Annie’s nook.
The kettle is beginning to hum when he fetches Annie’s stained dress from outside and pulls the remaining ribbon from her hair. He takes her stockings, her shoes. Then he does the same to me, gently helping me out of the dress until I’m sitting naked on the chair.
I can’t move. I can’t even ask what he’s doing, but I realize once the fire is going and he throws our clothes into it. That’s when I finally notice my hands. The blood caked beneath my fingernails.
I move to the sink robotically, turning on the tap and shoving my hands beneath the water. I scrub violently, watching the ribbon of red circle the drain.
The kettle squeals, and Eamon pours it into the tub before he comes back for me. I wrap my arms around his neck and he lifts me, lowering me into it. He’s setting Annie into my arms next, and the water sloshes over the side as she burrows into me. She’s not crying anymore. Neither am I.
“If anyone knocks on that door, you tell them I’ve gone to help Esther with her truck. You get her cleaned up. Put her to bed.”
I think I nod.
“June? Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
He brushes a hand over Annie’s head and kisses me, but his lips linger on my forehead just a little longer than usual. Then he’s walking across the sitting room. He’s disappearing out the back door.
The only sound is the crackle of the fire as I stare into the flames, watching my dress burn.
Twenty-Nine
The night played out in my head one frame at a time. The wood plank fence that stretched along the flower fields. The aching cold in my hands as I stood over Nathaniel’s body. The fireflies blinking in the dark as I ran. The clearest part of the entire thing was the sight of those clothes burning in the fireplace. I could almost smell them, even now.
“When I got to the river, it was dark,” Eamon began. “I didn’t see anyone on the road, but I kept my light off anyway, just to be safe. No one saw me.”