Illusion Page 9

  Beneath the dock, something thrashed in the water and thumped one of the thick wooden pylons hard enough to make it shake. Cassie stepped backward, and Berg jerked Barrie to her feet.

  “What was that?” Barrie asked.

  “The alligator. Likely it’s killing something.” Cassie’s eyes narrowed on Berg’s hand still holding Barrie’s arm.

  Berg let go as the alligator emerged downriver, struggling with a four-foot snake of some kind that dangled from its mouth. He moved to the edge of the dock for a closer look.

  “That’s a cottonmouth,” he said.

  Barrie backed to the upriver side of the dock. Smiling unpleasantly, Cassie followed her. “Cottonmouths are veeeery poisonous,” she drawled, her face close to Barrie’s. “You hate snakes don’t you, cos? I don’t blame you. I hate anything disgusting and slimy that slithers in where it isn’t wanted.”

  With a venomous glare, she whipped around to head back toward the beach, knocking Barrie hard with her shoulder as she turned. Off balance, Barrie staggered but couldn’t catch herself, and she plunged sideways into the water upriver from the dock.

  The water closed over Barrie’s head. Panic came hard and fast, thoughts of drowning because she still hadn’t learned to swim, the alligator, the snake, memories of being in the water the night that Wyatt and Ernesto had tried to kill her.

  Her heart and lungs clenched into a fist so tight that she couldn’t breathe. She swallowed a mouthful of river, and knocked her knee against something hard. Fighting to orient herself in the murky water, she tried to kick her way to the surface.

  A splash nearby—the alligator? Arms and legs flailing, Barrie finally got her head above water and sucked in a choking breath. But her lungs spasmed, and she was coughing, taking in more water. Something grabbed her and pulled her backward, and only after her panicked attempt to scream had ended in more water and more coughing did she realize it was Berg.

  “Stop struggling. I’ve got you,” he mumbled, his words distorted around a large knife clenched between his teeth.

  With long, easy strokes, he towed her toward the shore, and a moment later he had his arm wrapped around her waist to help her walk up onto the beach. They hadn’t been more than ten feet out, and Barrie felt stupid and ridiculous, but with her hands to her knees, coughing up water and fighting to breathe, she couldn’t even apologize. Berg folded the blade of the knife back inside its black plastic handle, tucked it back into his pocket, then bent beside her and waited while she choked and shivered. A splash behind them made them both turn to where the alligator was just emerging from under the dock at the spot where Barrie had fallen in.

  Barrie’s legs and hands were numb. Still coughing lightly and feeling sick, she hobbled up the beach toward the path where Cassie had disappeared.

  “Where are you going?” Berg followed close behind her.

  “I’m going to kill Cassie. And thank you—” Barrie looked over at him and didn’t even know how to begin to say what she felt. ”Thank you” wasn’t enough. “You saved my life.”

  Berg shook his head. “I’m not even going to pretend that was an accident. I thought you and Cassie got along okay. But then, I guess she got in trouble with the police in the first place for locking you in the tunnel.”

  “Yes, and maybe I should have let her go to jail for that,” Barrie said. Then she paused and sighed. “I don’t know. It’s hard to say how much of this is actually Cassie’s fault. I wanted your attention—so the curse means she had to want that, too, and she wasn’t getting it. Maybe she pushed me because of the curse and not out of spite and jealousy, or maybe the curse was only part of it. It’s hard to separate our own feelings from the magic. At the same time, I can’t help feeling like Cassie doesn’t even try to fight what the curse makes her want.”

  “I suppose that’s why stories about wishes rarely have happy endings,” Berg said. “Even in stories, magic can’t be pinned down.” He sighed, and picked a long piece of marsh grass out of Barrie’s hair. “I doubt that yelling at Cassie is going to do anyone any good. Why don’t you let me take you home instead?”

  Barrie looked behind her. The alligator still drifted in the water. Despite all the splashing Barrie and Berg had done, it hadn’t let go of the prey it had already caught, and it still chewed the snake occasionally—torturing it until it died.

  Possibly that was an omen.

  Probably not a good one.

  Barrie wasn’t going to let that stop her. If Daphne couldn’t talk Ayita and Elijah into dropping the curse, she had to find an alternative solution. Somehow, someway, the Watson Island story needed to have a happy ending.

  “What do you know about cosmograms?” she said to Berg. “That’s what Obadiah called the symbol he drew on the ground. He used it to try to control the dead and communicate with them.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Like Barrie, Berg had paused on the beach to watch the alligator. He hurried to catch up as she set off uphill.

  “A cosmogram does a lot more than control or communicate with the dead,” he said. “It represents a whole belief system. Relationships within a community. Past and future generations. Humanity and nature. Time. Our place in the universe. Life and death. It’s funny.”

  Barrie glanced over at him. “Not that funny.”

  “I mean, it’s strange how a small shift in perspective can have a domino effect on everything you’ve ever believed was true. Once I accept the idea of spirit paths and ghosts, the realm of the dead represented below the horizontal line of the cosmogram is suddenly real. The underworld could be an actual place.”

  Barrie ran a hand across the back of her neck where the cold was settling in from his words and from her soggy clothes. But, of course, spirits had to go somewhere. Luke and Twila had disappeared once Barrie had found and acknowledged their bodies, and Alcee and Ann Colesworth seemed to have left as well, now that people knew their daughter’s skeleton was down in the hidden room. Obadiah had said he’d crossed over into death and that Ayita and Elijah had brought him back.

  “When you say ‘underworld,’ are you talking about heaven and hell?” she asked.

  “I was thinking more like the underworld where Hades took Persephone. A place that’s here and isn’t.”

  Barrie stopped at the top of the path and looked around until she spotted a smudge of hot pink in the cemetery beneath the statue of the angry angel. She marched off in that direction, trying to ignore the way her wet clothes clung to her as she passed the archaeologists working at the dig site.

  “Hey, are you okay?” Stephanie called to her, straightening from where she was pushing a load of soil and debris through the sifting screen.

  Barrie flashed a bright and misleading smile. “I fell into the river. Stupid, right?”

  A couple of the students stared at her openly as she passed, and Andrew removed his hat and wiped his head, opening his mouth and closing it again. Then he shook his head. “You about ready to get back to work, Berg?”

  “Give me half an hour,” Berg said. “I need to run Barrie home.”

  He followed Barrie toward the cemetery, jogging to catch up as she rushed on. “So what are you going to do? After you yell at Cassie, I mean. Unfortunately, I’m serious about not being able to pry Andrew and Dr. Feldman away at this point. And you were right—Cassie and her family would still be here, not to mention the police.”

  “What if we took Obadiah somewhere crowded?” Barrie voiced the only nebulous idea she’d managed to have so far. “Someplace like a baseball game, where he could take in a lot of energy a little bit at a time. Of course, then he wouldn’t be here to protect the crew from Ayita and Elijah, so you’d have to get them away for at least that long.”

  “You said he mentioned energy stored in the heart, liver, and bones. Let me research that as well as the vortexes and lodestones. I’ll also try to look into the early history of the plantations and see if there’s anything about the bargains or the bindings. Some of the old records
might have been digitized. Even if your grandfather destroyed whatever was at Watson’s Landing, someone might have given journals or old documents to the historical society or taken a diary away when they got married. That’s common enough.”

  Barrie reached the cemetery gate and shoved it open hard enough that it banged back against the fence. Beneath the statue at Charlotte Colesworth’s empty grave, Cassie’s dark jeans and hair blended into the blue shadows of the overhanging trees, and she appeared ghostly, pale, and disembodied as her head whipped around. Berg drew in his breath—a small sound, but a dead giveaway just the same.

  Barrie tapped him on the shoulder. “I should slap you for your own good. Are you a masochist? Because you know she’s crazy, don’t you? With or without the curse.”

  “Since I didn’t run away screaming in the middle of that conversation about Obadiah, I’d say masochism’s a given,” he said with a reluctant grin. “Cassie does have redeeming qualities, though.”

  “At the moment, I’ll have to take your word for that.” Barrie concentrated on navigating the mossy, uneven ground without falling on her face. Roots from the nearby trees had pushed up the surrounding monuments and cracked the tombstones. The air smelled brackish, as if there were standing water somewhere nearby, and mosquitoes hummed in the shade beneath the overhanging trees. She swatted as one buzzed past her face, but Cassie didn’t seem to notice the bugs. She sat shivering, her arms around her knees. Tears had left dusty tracks along her cheeks.

  From a distance—and as long as Cassie wasn’t talking—it was impossible for Barrie to not feel sorry for her. “Is she having another flashback? I don’t want to yell at her if she’s having one, but I deserve to be able to yell at her.”

  Berg gave a half smile and shook his head. “Sorry, flashbacks don’t come at your convenience. That’s part of what’s so hard. You never know what’s going to trigger memories, or when, or how bad they’re going to be. Being startled by the alligator could have done it, or guilt at pushing you into the river, or who knows. And there probably aren’t many places around here that feel completely safe to Cassie anymore after having Ryder walking around.”

  The idea of not feeling safe in your own house took the last edge off Barrie’s anger. Stopping abruptly, she caught the waist of Berg’s faded T-shirt as he moved past her.

  “Couldn’t you find a way to get her away from here for a while? Isn’t there some kind of rehab center for PTSD? Maybe one for her and her family? Then the dig would have to shut down and at least everyone would be safe. . . .”

  “What about the migraines?” Berg asked. “I’m not sure being in constant pain somewhere else would be any better for her than staying here and dealing with the flashbacks. But I can talk to some friends and see if they have suggestions.”

  They’d both spoken softly, and they were far enough away that Barrie didn’t think Cassie could possibly have heard what they said, but maybe it wasn’t the words as much as it was the fact that Barrie and Berg were having a conversation at all. Cassie jumped up and strode toward them with her hands balled into fists. The wind rustled through the leaves overhead, spilling a kaleidoscope of light across her face.

  “Can’t you just leave me in peace?” she yelled at Barrie. “I came out here to be by myself, but you’re everywhere. All the time. And all you ever do is make me feel worse about myself.”

  The unfairness of that left Barrie speechless.

  Berg raised his hands, palms outward, as if he were trying to calm a feral cat. “No one is trying to make you feel bad. Barrie least of all. She’s trying to help you.” He turned back to Barrie. “Give me a few minutes here, and then I’ll come drive you back.”

  Barrie almost left. She wanted to storm away almost as much as she wanted to scream at Cassie to grow up, to stop being so awful, but what Berg had said about PTSD and the pinched, frightened look in Cassie’s face both tore at her. Having the curse directing Cassie’s actions, at least in part, had to be frightening and hard enough, but Barrie was starting to recognize the quicksand of the past. The idea of being lost in memories, locked in them with no way of knowing when or if you were going to be able to claw your way back out . . . It was awful to contemplate having to relive the pain and loss of control over and over. That was what it had to be like for Cassie. Maybe every act of violence was like a stone cast into water, leaving ever-widening ripples.

  For the rest of her life, Cassie was going to carry the scars of having been raped. Everyone around her would expect her to “get over it” and “move on” without talking about it, just like no one ever talked to Barrie about the night of the speedboat explosion. As if by not talking, it would make it easier to forget. On the other hand, not talking meant Barrie never had to tell anyone how many times she relived what had happened, how responsible she felt.

  Barrie didn’t have flashbacks, not like Cassie’s, but the memories and the guilt were always there. Logically she knew the explosion hadn’t been her fault. She knew the Fire Carrier had been trying to save her, but she still couldn’t escape the guilt.

  Guilt didn’t need rhyme or reason. It was poison. In a moment of vulnerability, Cassie had admitted that she blamed herself for not fighting back when Ryder had raped her, blamed herself for not being stronger. Barrie had to be strong enough not to abandon Cassie now.

  “You didn’t manage to drown me or feed me to the alligator,” she said, moving up to stand beside Berg. “I guess you can’t get rid of me that easily.”

  “How hard do you want me to try?” Cassie arched an eyebrow, but the venom was gone from her voice, replaced by a hesitant, wobbling hope.

  Taking the last two steps to reach her cousin, Barrie held her arms open. Maybe neither she nor Cassie had ever had a genuine friend their own age—their own gender. After all, where were Beth and Gilly, the girls Barrie had met with Cassie at the Resurrection Tavern? Ever since Wyatt’s death and Cassie’s disgrace, they’d been conspicuously absent.

  Not sure whether Cassie would want to be touched, Barrie waited. Cassie leaned forward stiffly, but she didn’t pull away, and after a moment, her arms closed around Barrie’s back. They both squeezed, just a little, and held on until Barrie’s shoulder was even wetter, and she realized that Cassie was crying silently.

  “You need to let Berg help you find a therapist, Cassie,” she said as gently as she could. “You need to talk to someone honestly. No one deserves to have to pretend they’re all right all the time. You don’t get better by pretending.”

  • • •

  Berg had the air-conditioning in the car turned to maximum cold, which was too cold on Barrie’s still-damp clothes. She rested her head against the window, savoring the outside heat against her cheek. The sound of the tires grew echoey and hollow on the bridge that crossed the narrow creek separating Watson’s Landing from the rest of Watson Island. Below them, the shallow water bubbled and frothed around a brown pelican perched on a rock near the bank. They passed the historical marker on the other side, and then followed along the length of the brick wall that enclosed the property.

  “I remember how confident and put-together Cassie seemed when I first met her,” Barrie said as Berg slowed down to turn into the driveway. “Have you ever wondered whether anyone is actually ‘normal’? I’m starting to think we all fake it. Maybe the whole idea of ‘normal’ is propaganda people try to sell each other.”

  Berg grinned and braked the car in front of the wrought-iron gate. “That’s one of the reasons I love the South. Down here, people embrace their crazy a lot more than they do anywhere else. Except maybe Hollywood, but that’s a whole different kind of crazy.”

  “You’re talking about eccentricity. I’m talking about desperation and pain. The kind that doesn’t leave any physical traces. I always assume everyone else in the world is managing better than I am, but how does anyone know what someone else is going through?”

  Barrie dialed the security code for the front gate on her cell phone and leaned back a
gainst the seat as the black iron gates opened beneath the overhanging gold W. Berg pulled through between the thick brick columns, and the gate closed behind him.

  “I think we all put up a wall to keep people out,” he said, squinting into the light that flickered between the double row of overhanging oaks, “but breaking those down, bit by bit, is part of building a friendship. You have to let people in to see the ugly, or you’re never going to have the kind of truth that connects people to each other. I guess that’s why it’s so hard to fathom that Cassie’s parents had no idea she’d been raped. Maybe they put it down to the trauma of being kidnapped, but I can’t imagine that there weren’t clues.”

  “The word ‘clue’ implies that someone is searching for a solution to a problem. Cassie said her parents didn’t want to ask the question.”

  “Some people don’t. It’s easier for them not to know.”

  Barrie couldn’t help thinking of her own mother—and Eight’s father. Even herself sometimes. She stared down at the phone she was still holding in her hand. “The problem,” she said, “is that the longer you ignore things, the harder they’ll eventually hit you.”

  Two long, white trucks from Edward G. Burnham & Co. Antiques stood parked at the bottom of the front steps with their ramps down. Berg pulled in beside the nearest one, and Barrie unclipped her seat belt and opened the passenger door.

  “Thanks for being willing to help with the research, too, and for not having me committed when I told you what was going on. I’m glad you know the truth.”

  “I’ll text or call you if I find something. It may not be until tonight or tomorrow morning—whenever I can get away from the rest of the crew. How long do we have before Ayita and Elijah are dangerous again? Did Obadiah give any kind of timeline?”

  “I’m not sure we could count on anything he says. He didn’t even know the spirits could hijack his magic.”

  Barrie climbed out of the car and waited on the steps thinking about what Berg had said as his car billowed dust down the long, gravel-lined drive between the double rows of oak trees. A man in blue overalls came down the steps, carrying the Queen Anne table from the front parlor, and the idea of throwing things away was the last straw. Her thumb pressed Eight’s number in her call history before she could change her mind. Of course, the call went to voice mail. She hung up without leaving a message, but then the phone rang almost immediately. It was Eight’s sister, though, not him.