C. F. Martin & Co. Dreadnought.
Dread not.
God laid His hand upon your head and made a promise. Dread not, and even when you couldn’t be strong, music would make you as stubborn as spring. Dread not, Holly, and music would be your deep roots. You would survive drought and freeze. You played and played that old Dreadnaught until your fingers blistered and bled and calloused. You kept your end of the covenant. When your me-maw died, you almost forgot, but I helped you remember. I helped you decorate—dedicate—your new guitar.
Fear not.
In Britney’s kitchen, I start playing fearlessly, strings biting my fingertips. We just have to make you remember again.
Tyler’s head jerks up. “Jane! Jane, quit!”
“I know why Auntie Peake’s prayer didn’t work!” I say. “Holly had her own way of praying. She connected to God through music. See? Dreadnought. Like ‘fear not.’ Like she painted on her guitar. We just have to get her to pray her way.”
He blinks at me, eyes dull with sleep. “Huh?”
I explain everything, slower this time. In the living room, LeighAnn and Max sit up and listen.
“You want to get her to play music?” LeighAnn asks. “How do you even try without getting killed? And even if she remembers, how can that help?”
“If Holly remembers anything, it’s music. Music made her feel close to God.” I laugh as it all slides so easily into place. “That’s why Auntie Peake’s prayer wouldn’t work; Holly talked to God, heard God, in music. So if we get her to play, reconnect her to God, she’ll find her way out of the drowned forest.”
“You haven’t answered the ‘without getting killed’ part.”
“We have to try,” Tyler says. “Me and Jane, we loved her. We owe her. But you guys don’t owe Holly anything. You guys should stay clear.”
“Are you kidding me?” The bedroom door swings open. Ultimate steps out, zipping up his pants. “Back when we were in the Banana Hammocks, Holly came to our first-ever gig. Can’t leave a fan hanging.”
“Thanks, man.” Tyler gives him a shoulder-bumping half-hug.
Max and LeighAnn look at each other. Max says, “If Steve dies, we gotta find a new drummer.”
“Yeah … wanna ask Davis?”
“He’s in Gypsy Fingers now. What about Twitchy?”
“Twitchy’s a pothead. He’ll never come to practice. Maybe Karen?”
“I’m not putting up with that Britpop crap.”
LeighAnn groans and kicks out of the sleeping bag. “Forget it. Easier just to keep this one alive.”
Ultimate Steve bumps shoulders with her too. “Leave Hobbit here. I’ll write a note for Britney.”
Slipping on shoes, grabbing the Dreadnought, we head out into the night.
Twenty-two
When you prayed like us, did you feel anything at all, Holly? Or was it just endless dark behind your eyelids and clasped hands itching for steel strings?
The lights still burn in Stratofortress’s house. I walk through carrying your pa-paw’s guitar. Ultimate grabs a mic stand and follows me.
“Holly?” Through the kitchen, out to the patio. “Holly?”
But your latest body lies still, the cymbal stand’s rusted leg planted deep in its chest. Ultimate didn’t just draw a magic circle around you, he poured the chalk and lime on top of you like he was salting a slug.
Tyler kicks at a clump of pokeweed that’s sprung up where Cookie died. There’s nothing left of the dog except a few brittle bones. Then we go back to the others, standing on the patio.
“So what now?” LeighAnn asks. “Just sit around and wait until she comes back?”
Tyler shakes his head. “Every time she dies, her soul gets pulled back to the drowned forest. That’s where she must be now. We need to go to her, now that we’re ready.”
“But what if she’s scared and angry?” I ask. “What if she doesn’t want to come out of the water?”
“We’ll make sure she can’t ignore us,” Max says. “Load up the gear. We’ll bring the two-by-twelve and the mini colossal.”
“Where are you going to plug in an amp by the river?”
“I’m an electrician, Lee-Lee. We always know where to plug it in.” When LeighAnn rolls her eyes, Max grins. “That was a joke. A dirty one. See, by ‘plug it in’ I could have been referring—”
“I got it, cowboy. I just didn’t want it.”
LeighAnn and Ultimate have loaded and unloaded the gear so many times, they work without a word passed between them. They only have to speak to tell me or Tyler where stuff fits and how to strap down the amps.
While the rest of us load the van, Max buries Cookie’s bones in the backyard. We’re sitting in the van when he comes around, wiping his hands on his jeans. “Ready?”
LeighAnn nods, sniffling back tears for Cookie.
The streets are empty. The van’s pale reflection slithers across darkened windows of law offices and the Starbucks. I’ll always remember our nights downtown, Holly. Just running around, burning to be loud and be alive. Sometimes I’d look up and there wasn’t any sky. The moon was hidden. City lights blinded us to the stars. I’d look up into dead black forever. You saw it too, didn’t you? It’s why you always laughed louder than me, howled and sang. You were the most alive person I ever knew. I get it now. It was the only way you had to keep all that horrible nothing from reaching inside you.
I have to remember that tonight. Tonight and the rest of my life.
They padlock the gate to Veterans Park after sundown. Pulling up, Max says, “There’s a hacksaw in the toolbox by your foot there.”
“Got it.” Hopping out, LeighAnn cuts through the lock and waves us through.
We drive behind the baseball diamonds, the van swaying hard as Max pulls off the paved road and onto the grass near the shore.
Hidden in the tall grass, crickets thrum like a pulse. As I help set the amps on the ground, the van’s headlights are warm against my skin. They stretch our shadows out across the land and the water.
Kneeling by one of the stadium light poles, Max opens the steel panel in its base with a special wrench. He hooks up the amps with alligator clamps, and they fill with their electric, wasp-nest murmur. Tyler pours the last of the chalk and lime on the grass, sketching out a stage around the band. Then he stands back and watches them finish setting up.
“Tyler,” I say. “You need to play with them.”
“Huh? No way. We may only have one chance at this.”
“But you need to play or else Holly won’t know it’s us. Remember?”
He remembers, his face growing pale as wax paper in the lamplight. He starts twisting the plastic bag in his hands nervously. “Jane, what if I mess up like last time?”
“You won’t.”
“What if I do? Holly might not come. Or she might end up hurting somebody else.”
I look at him, choosing my words very carefully. “I never liked you much,” I say.
Tyler snorts. “Gee, thanks.”
“Well, I didn’t. I thought you were a loud-mouth and a goof-off. And I figured Holly just hung out with you because you were a good musician, like, you could talk about music and guitars and stuff that I didn’t really know anything about.” It’s hard to admit. I usually think I have most people figured out, and lately, it seems like I’m wrong a lot of the time. “But she loved you because of your heart, because she knew you’d never let her down.”
He turns away, squeezing her eyes shut. “Except I did. I let her die, Jane.”
“No. That was an accident. You’re not responsible for that, only what you’ve done since. And since then you’ve stuck by her, stuck by me. I couldn’t have done any of this without you.”