Swoon 02 - Swear Read online

  He looks at me, and my look says Ding! Ding! Ding!

  “Crane’s missing.” This from, of all people, Pen. “He’s been gone two days. That’s why we’re all here. Sorry if that interferes with your dream of pop stardom, Tork.” Tosh doesn’t take the bait. Brow creasing, he passes a palm across his unruly Afro. “Shit. Missing. Two days? And no one’s heard from him?”

  We start up again, an aimless meander, while filling Tosh in on everything we don’t know about Crane’s vanishing act.

  As our path takes us to the edge of the lawn, we pass through a gate into a thriving though unkempt garden. Clearly the Williamses don’t retain a groundskeeper, other than someone to cut the grass; Lillian must like her flora au naturel, and Paul must not care. Flowers push up willy-nilly between neglected topiaries and ornamental sculptures. Every few yards, a bench, some made of marble, others with wrought-iron frames.

  Marsh sinks onto a seat with a sigh. Pen, back in touch with her nurturing side, sits next to her and holds her around; while Duck, not be outdone in the mother hen role, kneels at her feet and takes one of her hands. Tosh and I prefer to stand, an inch of space between us, and as I again become aware of his steady swerve, I notice myself moving, just barely, in tune with his physical flow.

  “Don’t worry, Marsh,” Duck says. “Wherever Crane is, he will come back.”

  “Do you really think so?” Her hope is a fly in a web.

  “Well, yes—of course I do.” To me it sounds like he’s trying to convince himself as well as Marsh. He releases her hand to sit cross-legged on the ground, pressing fist to lips as though to imprison a restless confession. “He wouldn’t take off, not now, with his plans to . . . but he couldn’t have been serious . . . although he did seem so happy, so sure . . . even though it’s utterly bonkers, you both being so young . . .” Huffing, Pen gives him a swift kick in the haunch. “Out with it, Duck. What the hell are you trying to say?”

  “All right, all right!” He lurches onto his knees again. “I know Crane wouldn’t have left without you, Marsh, because I know how much he loves you. You see—I saw it!” We stare at him, stumped.

  “Oh, Marsh—he showed me the ring!”

  IV

  The light in the garden is almost gone, yet Marsh’s eyes shine diamond bright. It takes her a second to locate her tongue, strap it to the syllable: “Ring?”

  As in engagement ring? Precursor to wedding ring? No, no, no! Marsh still in high school, Crane barely nudging twenty.

  Yes, yes, yes! When you’re in love, you’re in love—what’s age got to do with it? I’m too stunned to comment.

  Pen, however, has no problem. “Pfffff!” she spews. I throw her a scowl—this is so not her business—yet she persists. “Hail the handsome prince and his fair maiden, till death do they fart.” Grunting at her own bad pun, she makes bug eyes at all of us. “What kind of fairy tale are you people stuck in?” She rakes her hair, shakes her head. “Clearly I’m the only one here even mildly in touch with reality.”

  Maybe so—but not for long, since right about then reality goes awry. A heavy, heady scent seizes the atmosphere—the same one I almost OD’d on an hour ago. Now, though, it’s not merely the aroma of roses. All around us there’s a rustling. . . a bursting. Shrubs that bore only leaves when we entered the garden explode in frantic profusion—think time-lapse photography on crystal meth. On a bower above our heads, buds surge into bloom so fast, the lattice groans with their weight. On every side, we’re engulfed.

  Marsh, Duck, and even Pen spring to their feet to stand with Tosh and me in a spellbound cluster. This is happening—to all of us. It’s not some trick of my mutant mind alone.

  Together we succumb to impossibility in action. I’m overjoyed, overwhelmed, until all of a sudden the bottom drops out of my bliss. My blue bruise begins to throb, from the surface of my skin to the chambers of my heart, as I fiend for the one I most want to share this moment with.

  Sin!

  Do I shout his name or murmur it or simply feel him so strong, need him so bad, crave him so crazily, that the blunt-force trauma of my desire tweaks this event, spinning it from amazing to menacing. All I know is, adding Sin to the mix makes the roses encroach with belligerence now. And with thorns.

  I can’t tell who’s yelping—even if it’s me. Slender stems encircle, pulling taut like wires, and tines attack. The essence of roses is ether now, and a small, weak part of my brain urges me to breathe it in, gulp it down, and let oblivion take over, anesthetize against the barbs that want my flesh, my blood, my very life. So I do—I breathe, I gulp, I go . . .

  When I come to, it’s cool, the air no longer sickly sweet but earthy green. The first stars flicker on, and evening calm pervades. I’m out of the garden, flat on my back in the grass.

  “Dice? You okay?” Tosh’s voice is clear, and close.

  Woozily, I pull onto my elbows.

  “Hey, Cuz.”

  Pen’s here too, and Marsh and Duck. It’s all too reminiscent of that last scene in The Wizard of Oz. I’m loath to say, “And you were there! And you—and you!” in case they chuckle indulgently; in case, in fact, they weren’t. So I just say, “Things are a little fuzzy . . .”

  “You passed out, and then boom, it was over,” Tosh says.

  “Then I, uh, Duck and me carried you out.”

  “Uh-huh,” I say, then nip my lip. On one level I want to talk about what happened, but then think, no: the less said, the better. Aside from that black-and-blue mark that thinks it’s a tattoo, there hasn’t been a whiff of otherworldly weirdness in my life post-Sin. No need to call attention to the perverse rose parade. If I shut up, maybe we can all forget it.

  Unfortunately, my cousin feels otherwise. “So, Tosh, guess this was your induction into Dice World.”

  “Uh . . . huh?” he queries, like he’d rather not know. But Duck rivets on me, like he very much wants to. Willing myself invisible doesn’t work, but Marsh steps up.

  “Ignore her, Tosh,” she says. “Pen’s being a bitch.”

  “Oh?” My cousin flicks a lighter, fires up a doobie. On the exhale she says, “You want to crown Candice Reagan Moskow Miss Average American Teenager?” Squinting, she gestures with the joint. “You’re saying where she goes, spooky-dooky doesn’t follow?” Hits again, blows smoke. “Don’t you think these boys have a right to know what dimensions their bandmate is capable of traveling into?”

  “Do you intend to pass that, Pen?” Duck says. “And while you’re at it, stop insinuating and start illuminating, hmm?”

  “No,” says Tosh with terse authority. He gets to his feet and offers his hand, helping me to mine. “We just did battle with berserk rosebushes; I think we should survey the damage, get with some disinfectant.” He directs himself to Duck. “You got any hydrogen peroxide in that big house of yours?” Marsh rises as well and dusts the seat of her pants. “Now there’s an idea. We ought to eat something too. That’s why Dice passed out, if you ask me. I used my supernatural powers to turn chicken into ashes earlier, and neither Dice or I has had a bite since fourth period.”

  “Of course,” Duck agrees. “First aid first, and then we’ll forage.”

  As we make our way back to the house, I’m still a little shaky, feverish, definitely drained. When the doobie wends my way, I say no to drugs—I don’t want to mess with my electrolytes any further. When Duck puts a meaty arm through mine, I eagerly use his bulk for support.

  A mistake.

  “You know, Dice,” he says, slowing us to lag behind. “I’ve seen some incredible things.” Assuming this to be one of his long-winded travelogues, I lean in and even let my lids half close. “The pyramids, the temples of Angkor Wat. Bolivia’s Salar de Uyuni—these salt lakes that change color from turquoise to flamingo when the wind blows.” His ramble takes on a lulling quality. “Not just natural phenomena, either. Umbanda rituals in Santa Catarina, all right? A voodoo ceremony outside Port-au-Prince.”

  “Uh-huh,” I say, dragging my fe
et.

  “I want you to know, I’m a very open-minded person. I believe, Dice, I believe.”

  “Yeah? Cooll. . .”

  “And I know you believe too. Not just because of what Pen was hinting at. I can tell; I can sense it.” Sure, sure—everyone’s a psychic. I don’t say this aloud.

  “That’s why I feel I can tell you . . .” He lowers the volume a notch. “What we just experienced in the garden confirms certain suspicions of mine.”

  “That’s great, Duck.” I am so tired. How many miles of lawn to go?

  “I didn’t want to say it in front of Marsh, but I don’t think Crane is off finding himself, and I don’t think he’s run away, either.” His voice is low as he brings us to a full stop and faces me. “Dice, I believe he’s in there . . . someplace.” He chucks his head toward the structure before us, a brooding stone beast against the moonlit sky.

  I don’t get it. “In the house, you mean? Like . . . hiding?”

  “Not hiding,” he says, gripping my arm now. “Hidden. Stolen.”

  V

  Investigating a supernatural abduction doesn’t exactly jibe with my goal to be Miss Average American Teenager, so I keep mum as our group troops inside. Duck drops it for the moment and flips the switch in the great hall so we can inspect one another. There are few scratches on anyone, which helps put the freaky flowering in perspective.

  “There’s got to be some meteorological explanation,” Marsh reasons. “It’s been so warm for May, and we had all that rain the other day.”

  “Uh-huh.” Tosh is quick to agree. “And the way we were tripping about it, we just must’ve bumbled around in the bushes.”

  At a gilt-framed mirror above the mantelpiece, I address a faint red line on my cheek, another across my clavicle. Sure—heat wave, monsoon, klutziness. We merely imagined the ninja thorns, a mass hallucination brought on by purely natural phenomena.

  Pen simply snorts. “You said you’d feed us,” she reminds Duck.

  Ever the solicitous host, he leads us to the larder, where we snack on gourmet packaged goods from the mother country (Lillian Williams retains a nostalgic taste for the shortbreads, lemon curds, and biscuits of her native land). Munching out helps drive the rose garden incident deeper into the fuzzy recesses of our psyches.

  That’s when Lillian sweeps in to inform us she couldn’t stop Paul from contacting the sheriff to report Crane’s disappearance.

  The cops are on their way.

  “We’re out of here.” Pen grabs her purse, grumbling animosity toward “the pigs” in a way that makes me wonder if this is simply a required aspect of her current phase, or if she’s got over an ounce of weed stashed in a zippered compartment.

  I don’t pester her about it, though—I’m good to go too.

  For the next few days, I dodge Duck. Not too tough, since here in Swoon, ordinances protect the hills and dales from all but a few unsightly cellular towers, so he can’t hound me with calls and texts. And since he’s homeschooled, he’s not stalking me around Swonowa. Poor guy—his only recourse is the landline at 12 Daisy Lane.

  “Duck called,” Marsh tells me Thursday afternoon. I’m coming in from chorale—we’re doing a precommencement concert—and she’s on her way out.

  “Cool, thanks.” I proceed to litter the downstairs with my gear, eliciting a frown from my housemate—she’s kind of a neatnik and I’m sort of not.

  “He said it was important.”

  I scoop up RubyCat and plop to the couch with my furball.

  “Come on, you know Duck,” I say. “He gets a hangnail, he alerts the media. You off to the stables?” Marsh nods. Of course she is—the Crane situation has only heightened her need for peaceful equine company; she rides each morning and often in between. While everything her father owned had to be sold to pay his debts, Marsh’s attorneys finagled a way for her to keep two of the horses, boarding them at a local stable in exchange for cleaning stalls. The mare, Brandy, is hers in every respect—more Marsh’s bestie than I am. And then there’s Black Jack, who she might’ve given up if anyone was nuts enough to buy him. Always a bit headstrong and moody—bullish for a horse—once Sin put a saddle on him, that was it, game over: The stallion could be mounted by none other.

  “Mac and cheese tonight?” I tempt.

  “Oh . . . sure.” Marsh shrugs. “Fine.”

  Such lack of enthusiasm worries me—my mac and cheese rules. The girl is wound tighter than a banjo string, and I can’t blame her; in fact, I relate, having also lost the boy of my dreams to who knows where. Sighing, I opt to tend my vegetable patch—how nice and normal is that? I change into grungy shorts and a threadbare tee that has too much sentimental value to join the rag bin, then shove my curls into a haphazard topknot. Once in the shed, I stop short, leery of the Miracle-Gro. Cut it out! I tell myself. There’ll be no attack of the killer tomatoes; they’re just plants—at this point, two inches high.

  And I really want to be harvesting peppers, cukes, and basil too.

  It might be my last chance. The house at 12 Daisy is up for sale. With me set to start college in the city come fall, it just makes sense for me to move home. Yeah, sure, I’ve had my sights set on Columbia practically since birth, only with everything that went down over the last year . . . let’s just say it won’t be easy to bid good-bye to Swoon. So I’m out here digging, visions of homemade gazpacho dancing in my head.

  That’s when I hear my name.

  Duck, no doubt; the dude is relentless.

  “Yo! Dice! You around?”

  That Brooklyn brogue—a little tough, a little lazy—definitely not Duck. Getting vertical, I push an escaped tendril out of my face with a dirty glove, and there’s Tosh. “Oh . . .hey.”

  He’s pointing at my chest?! No, no, no; he’s pointing at the logo on my T-shirt. “Ramones, all right.” His hydra of hair bobs approval. “Seminal.”

  “My mom interviewed Joey once,” I say. “She does a celebrity tabloid now—you know, Julia Roberts and Jennifer Aniston and whose husband is screwing the Nazi stripper of the moment—but she used to be cool.” Oh, how I blather.

  Tosh nods again, rocks to his inner beat. Then, silence. Not really awkward. Just sort of fraught.

  Then, “So what’s up? What are you doing?” Thinking of what I’m doing reminds me of how I must be looking. Ratty clothes, no bra, and have I shaved my legs in recent memory? Not that Tosh is dressed to impress, in those checked pants cooks wear. “I don’t really know, to tell you the truth,” I say. “Before last year, the closest I got to a backyard was Central Park.”

  “Yeah, we are in the wilderness.” He’s being funny, and I like funny. I also like how his eyes change color—green-no-gray-no-gold.

  “The hinterlands,” I banter.

  “The outback.”

  “The provinces.”

  Are we . . . flirting? It feels that way, with a surge of heat and a twitchy smirk. I pick up the watering can, a convenient prop.

  “Yeah, well, good thing the local yokels like curried goat,” he says. “Or I’d be at Columbia or some shit.”

  “Columbia? You’re kidding! That’s where I’m going.” Geek! Geek! Geek! “I mean, I’ve been accepted, but the future—who knows?”

  “Yeah, exactly. Oh, hey, kitty.”

  R.C. has poked through the cat flap to remind me that kibble doesn’t pour itself. Which means I need to stop dicking around, start the people food too. The thought of asking Tosh to dinner occurs, then unsettles. Am I daunted by the prospect of cooking for a pro? Or is it something more, inviting him in akin to a betrayall. . .

  “So I guess you’re wondering what I’m doing here.” He gets to it at last.

  I cock my chin in the international posture of explain, please.

  “Band business.”

  Oh. Yeah. Band business. Of course.

  “It sucks, Crane missing and all—unless he’s where he wants to be, and then it’s all good—but I don’t think we have to stop.

  Du
ck ought to play, get his mind off his troubles. Only if I can be selfish a minute, here’s the thing: Since you came into the picture, I think this band could actually go somewhere. We’re not just three guys wanking anymore.”

  I remember catching them as Not From Connecticut at a party the Williamses had last summer. What a fateful night that turned out to be. “Whoo . . . ,” I say quietly. “NFC!” Tosh smiles. “Stupid. But then you bust in, and straight up, you give us a real name. Bruise Blue.”

  Hey, I figured anything would be an improvement. It does have a certain resonance, though.

  “That’s deep, Dice,” he goes on. “That’s meaningful.” If he only knew how much—to me.

  “And you’ve got a set of pipes on you. Really.” I’ve got to appreciate his taste.

  “If we worked on it, maybe we could line up a gig, play out.

  Even without Crane’s songs. People love cover bands; they like to hear songs they know as long as they’re done well.” He waits a beat, letting his sales pitch sink in. “So what do you say?” Good question. I can sing; I know I can sing. A solo in chorale? No problem. But front a band, seriously? That first time was just random. The boys jamming, Marsh and me hanging in the studio, and Crane recalling that auspicious hayride last fall. A weather-beaten wagon. A harvest moon. A bunch of kids, a little high. Sin had been making mischief as usual, then settled down and pulled a harmonica out of his pocket, huffing and puffing while Crane strummed his Martin.

  Next thing I knew, the moonlight was my spotlight for this forceful freestyle, on-the-spot blues song to my boy—a song of woe, a song of warning, a song of what love gone wrong can do.

  So last week in the studio, they all got to daring, then begging, then threatening that I better sing right now. Tosh grinned at me, intrigued, and Crane played the intro to that uber-mega-gonzo hit on everybody’s iPod right now, so WTF, I obliged. And it was weird: There I was, fooling around with the kind of catchy pop that makes my Cocoa Puffs habit seem healthy, goofing with three other guys, when— bam! —a sense of Sin came on strong. So strong, it was like he stood there, nodding to the beat, eyeing me with his signature half smirk, waiting for the bridge so he could chime in on mouth harp.