Still, I’m anxious to go. I fold the prayer she wrote out into tight little squares. Then I unfold it, then fold it back. I want to get this over with, Holly.
“What about foxfire? There been a lot of foxfire this summer?”
“Um, I don’t think so. Haven’t heard anything, at least.”
She nods. “When people start seeing foxfire lights every night, especially in the graveyards, it’ll mean the Lord is coming. The time of Revelation is at hand. We’ll have days then, maybe weeks, but not more.”
We finally leave and drive to Home Depot. Slaked lime comes in big ten-gallon buckets. The only powdered chalk they have is electric blue, but we find sticks of white sidewalk chalk we can crush up. Since the lime is caustic, I get heavy-duty rubber gloves too. We carry everything out to Tyler’s truck and head out to Swallow’s Nest Bluff.
Holly, don’t you remember the ice storm when we were ten? Power lines were down all over the city, but you came and stayed with us because we at least had propane for heat. There was no TV, no computers, nothing. We spent hours just walking around the neighborhood, seeing the snow cover everything. We walked over to Swallow’s Nest Bluff. It looked so different from how we’d ever seen it before. The lake had a white crust of ice, and the blackberry bushes were leafless, brown, and curled up asleep. The storm had sheathed every branch of every pine, and every needle of every branch, in clear ice. When the wind blew, they jingled together like thousands of tiny bells.
How can I be the only person left who remembers that day, Holly?
Tyler pulls over near the bluff. Nobody is around, so we get to work. I take a chunk of limestone and use it to grind the chalk into powder on the truck’s tailgate. We haven’t been to the river since we came with your pa-paw. I think about him, and my stomach tightens into a knot. My hands shake. I drop one of the chalk sticks, and it rolls into the weeds. “Son of a biscuit!”
“Jane, relax.” Tyler touches my shoulder, making me jump. I punch him in the arm. He just laughs. “Relax. I know you’re nervous. Me too. But if we do this right, we’ll put Holly to rest and you can go home. Just focus on that. Going home, okay?”
The thought is a cicada in my chest, light and buzzing. I might be holding Faye—tickling her, smelling her sweet skin—in a couple hours. I’m gonna squeeze her so hard her head might pop off.
I take some deep breaths and steady myself. We’re here for you, Holly. We’re going to put you to rest. We’re going to make sure you don’t hurt anybody else. I find the stray chalk stick and grind it to powder. We fill one of the bags with the lime and chalk. Tyler slings Max’s guitar over his shoulder, and then we sidle between the blackberry bushes. The water winks orange between the pines. The tire swing turns slowly, looking for all the world like a noose. We walk past it, creeping down the steep slope of the bank, getting as close to the water as we dare.
Mud-crusted turtles bask on a half-submerged log. When we get close, they slide into the green water, splish, splish-splish, then everything falls quiet again. Suddenly, Tyler stops and stares, then picks a white piece of trash out of the wildflowers. “Jane, check it out.”
It’s a water-splotched photograph, wrinkled and peeling. But I can still make out the grinning face of your me-maw.
“This must be one of the pictures Mr. Alton had on the houseboat,” Tyler says. “It must have floated up from the wreckage, and the wind blew it up here.”
I nod. Is this a good omen or a bad one, Holly? It doesn’t matter. Tyler can’t just drop the picture back onto the ground, so he trudges back up to put it in his truck.
Waiting for him to come back, I take two fistfuls of the lime-and-chalk mixture in my gloved hands and draw a thin line of white powder around us. “Think it matters if it’s not a perfect circle?” I ask when he reappears through the blackberry bushes.
“Probably not. Just make sure there aren’t any gaps. Actually, go around twice to make sure.”
After I draw another wide circle across the rocks and earth, Tyler starts playing “The Drowned Forest.” Shielding my eyes with my hand, I stare out across the lake. Tyler’s sad little melody still makes my chest ache, but I think about Faye, keep myself together, and keep watch.
The heat sags my shoulders like an old mattress. I smack at bugs and would love to dip my face in the water. Instead, I pace the inside of our white chalk border. I worry at the paper with Auntie Peake’s prayer until it hangs limp with sweat from my palms. I borrow Tyler’s Aviators so I can see better, but besides the bugs and boats zipping along in the distance, the world lies still.
Everything is still.
I squint up into the face of the bluff, up at the mud nests dotting the limestone. When I walk closer, Tyler stops playing. “Jane? Hey, don’t cross the circle, Jane.”
“The swallows are gone.”
“Huh?”
“All the swallows. They’re gone.”
Tyler leaves the circle to walk up beside me. “Probably asleep. They feed mostly in the mornings and evenings.”
I whip a stone at one of the nests. The wad of mud and dry grass comes spinning down, trailing a few downy feathers. No angry squawks, though. No rustle of wings from any of the nearby nests.
“Well.” Tyler shrugs again. “When do they migrate?”
“Not this early. Something’s wrong.”
“What?”
“I don’t know, but it’s weird, isn’t it?”
He pushes sweat-damp hair back. “I bet Holly scared them away. Animals maybe knew somehow she wasn’t … you know, she wasn’t right.”
“She sent that catfish. Why would the swallows fly away when that catfish is doing what she tells it? And the plants aren’t growing like last time. Remember the milfoil?”
“Yeah, but … I don’t know. I don’t know about catfish or stupid swallows or seaweed. I don’t know what they meant when they were here, and I don’t know what it means that they’re not here.”
Nudging the fallen nest with my toe, I say, “Just weird is all.”
“What isn’t weird anymore, Jane? C’mon, let’s stick to the plan. Let’s get back in the circle, okay? She might come any second.”
So Tyler steps back into the magic circle and plays the song again. I sit down beside him and keep watch, but you’re not coming, are you, Holly?
When Tyler finally gives up, I say, “Maybe she doesn’t trust us anymore, after last time.”
“Then let’s just say the prayer.”
“But Auntie Peake said we had to pray over Holly.”
Tyler slumps down. “Well, what then?”
“We have to be patient. She’s lost. She’s scared. We were here once and—in her mind at least—we ran away from her. We have to keep playing, show her she can still trust us.”
After another minute of rest, Tyler stands up again and keeps playing. He plays to the sinking sun. He plays while our stomachs cramp from hunger, and after my skin feels gritty and gross with dirt and sweat. Our protective circle has almost blown away. Finally, he sets the guitar down and says, “I don’t think she’s coming, Jane.”
“What time is it?”
“Ten after five.”
I sigh. I promised LeighAnn I’d have Tyler back for band practice at five thirty. As much as I hate leaving, it’s pretty clear nothing is going to happen here tonight. “We’ll come back tomorrow.”
“Jane, I—”
“And the next day and the next day. As long as it takes until she knows she can trust us again.” The words hurt. I want to hold Faye. I want to hear Yuri’s laugh and sleep in my own bed. I want to go home tonight, and as I say the words, I feel that hope drift away like a dandelion seed. But it doesn’t matter, Holly. I offer my pain up to you, a sign of my devotion.