Chapter Five

Once Is All You Get

Zeke and Worth Latham are two brothers who roll around in the dirt, beating the hell out of each other more often than I care to count. Hearty, hefty boys who work like dogs on their father's farm. At fourteen and sixteen, they can do the work of any man.

It's faster for me to run up through the forest the half mile than go back to the church and drive the winding four miles of road. But I can't help the feeling I'm not alone in these woods as I make my way there.

I don't know which Latham boy is hurt, but I hope it's not Worth. I've already talked the death out of him once before. He was barely four at the time. A bad fever stiffened his neck and worked its way to his brain. Meningitis, they said. Fourteen-year-old me crawled up in the bed, we snuggled close, and I talked the death out of him.

Once is all you get. I've never tried to talk the death out of somebody twice.

I'm out of breath by the time I make it there. A white clapboard farmhouse with a fresh metal roof. Clumps of moss hang from old hearty oak trees anchoring the property. The home goes back generations, but the Lathams have taken great care of it.

"She's here." Zeke hops up off the porch at the sight of me. Dread washes over me. It must be Worth that needs me. Zeke's a burly kid with strawberry blond hair that looks more like a man at sixteen than most do grown. He rushes over, blood staining his shirt.

"What happened?" I ask, still trying to catch my breath.

"We were looking for a place to build a deer stand when we saw..." His eyes scan my face. There's a petrified fear shrouded in those gray eyes of his, like whatever he saw will forever haunt him.

"Saw what, Zeke?" A knot thrums in my throat where my heart got stuck.

"You'll just have to see for yourself." He shakes his head, like he's pushing away the horror. "Worth found him first," he says. "He tripped, his foot sunk into a hole—almost like a grave or something."

"He who?" I ask as he opens the front porch door for me to go in.

"Ellis Rutledge."

I freeze. A half-second hesitation, really. A Rutledge is dying—Stone Rutledge's son. How I feel about it tests my good nature.

Between a crack in the porch boards, the tiniest of a black frond peeks through. The coil of its foliage unfurls like an open palm.

"Praise Him." Miss Caroline Latham greets us from the living room. Her fair skin and apricot hair, just like her boys', makes her look frailer in this situation. Worth looks seasick, green as celery, as he waits on the couch, wringing his hands. Miss Caroline drags toward the rear of the house.

The smell of Ellis's death trails down the hallway. Not the traditional smell one might think of, like an animal rotting on the side of the road. No, this is the curdled smell of soured milk; reminds me of the bibs and burping cloths at the church nursery.

"We called his family, they're on the way. He's too bad to transport." Her voice cracks. "We called Dr. York, but he's all the way in Mercer at a family reunion. So we called you." She pushes into the bedroom. Facedown on the bed is Ellis Rutledge, shirtless. A towel soaked in blood covers the upper part of his back and shoulder. Closest hospital is almost an hour away. With that much blood, he wouldn't last the trip. I should have brought Davis.

"She's here, honey. She's here." Miss Caroline's voice is shaky but full of relief. She kneels on the floor to look Ellis in the face. I nod a hello to Mr. Latham who stands in the corner, trying to keep it together, but looking like he's going to vomit.

"Um...hey, Ellis." I kneel beside Miss Caroline, feeling very conflicted about helping someone whose family caused mine so much pain. Ellis's brown eyes find me, and he attempts to smile, but his mouth barely twitches. He's much slimmer than the chubby cheeked boy I met as a child. His curls longer and fluffier than back then.

Miss Caroline lightly lifts the bloody towels at his neck to show me. A punctured hole, where the neck meets the shoulder, weeps with blood. She quickly covers it. "Boys say they found him with a branch pierced through his neck. He must have fell back and speared himself." Just hearing this makes me queasy.

Ellis's head wobbles and a spittle of blood splatters on the pillow when he tries to speak.

"Don't try to talk," I tell him.

Death is so thick I can barely hear his soul-song—the soft sweet sound of a violin. A weeping sound that tugs at your heart and makes you feel sorry for it.

"I'm gonna see what I can do for you, okay?" I say to him. "At least until the doc comes." I stand and look at Mr. Latham. "We need to get him on his back. It'll work better if we can." I glance up to Zeke and Mr. Latham, expectant.

They exchange looks, as if checking with the other whether they think they can or even should move him.

"Hurry!" I urge, getting them to snap to it. Mr. Latham and Zeke jump into motion. They fold the covers from the opposite side of the bed over his body, sandwiching Ellis in between, readying to flip him.

"Miss Caroline, I need a mug. Some kind of coffee or teacup," I instruct her. She nods, leaving to go fetch one. "One that's never had whiskey in it," I add.

She glances over at Mr. Latham, who promptly looks away, unable to attest that such a cup exists in their house.

"I'll find something." Miss Caroline disappears into the hall.

On the count of three, they flip Ellis over. He makes a god-awful garbled scream, one that'll surely be in my brain for the rest of my days.

Miss Caroline returns with an old tin cup with BABY engraved on the outside, a common heirloom around these parts.

"I use this for cutting biscuits." She passes it to me, her hand shaky. "Should be safe from whiskey." She cuts a glare to Mr. Latham. He nods a confirmation.

"Y'all know how this goes. Let me do my work."

Hurriedly, everyone leaves the room.

Miss Caroline pauses at the doorway, her blue eyes pinning me. "It's a good thing what you're doing. Helping this young man, despite...all that's happened." Then she shuts the door, leaving me alone with Ellis.

And death.

I wonder if the Lathams weren't here, would I still do this? If no one would know, would I just walk away and let him die? But no, he didn't kill Adaire; he shouldn't be made to pay.

Bubbles of blood foam around Ellis's mouth; he sputters a cough. I use the wet washcloth to wipe clean his chin.

"She's—" Ellis tries to speak, but it comes out more like a hiss.

"Don't worry about Miss Caroline," I try to reassure him. "She wants to help."

He gasps for air to speak again, a wet breath. "She's here." His words a garbled slur from the blood. His eyes loll to the window.

Hairs on my neck prickle. I don't think he's talking about Miss Caroline anymore.

"You've lost too much blood. It's got your thoughts all jumbled up. Just focus on me."

Ellis tries to speak again, but when he does, he chokes on more blood.

The pungency of death clings tight to him. It's now or never. I drag a wooden chair over to his bedside; it's a wicked scrape across the floor. I pull his arm out from underneath the blanket and gently open his hand. Smoothly, I brush my hands over his shoulders and down the length of his arms. Caressing over him and then over me a few times, mixing the sounds of our souls, letting death know something more desirable is here, wanting it.

Ellis's breathing is shallow now as he struggles. I do my best to tune it out and focus on the task.

I lean forward and poise my mouth over his open palm. The secret scriptures slip between my lips and over his skin. Talking to death. Luring it to me.

The gift my papaw passed on to me before he died. A gift to be passed to the opposite sex before I die, or it will be lost forever.

The temperature in the room drops to the icy cold of a winter's night as death answers my call. Clouds of my breath puff as the words begin to draw death out of him. The frigid air burns my throat like taking a long drag off a harsh cigarette. It dries my words into a thin rasp.

The soft violin of Ellis's soul grows stronger as it frees from death's grasp. I hum my own soul-song, and it invites Ellis's soul to join mine, so together we can expel death.

Our soul-songs dance alongside each other, his in my one hand, mine in the other.

Ready.

Then I clap, combining our two souls into one and boot death right out of him, then—a zinger of a vibration hits my teeth. Sharp and unexpected. It sends an electrical jolt through my entire body and knocks me out of my chair.

The sound of my soul-song and his crash, forming a disharmonious chaos, like two violins choking each other. I clamp my hands over my ears as it pierces my hearing. The squelching grates down my spine like nails on a chalkboard.

"What the hell?" The ringing in my ears slowly fades as the connection of souls is broken. As soon as they touched, it was like a static zap to my nervous system. That's not how it's supposed to go at all.

My throat clinches tight and starts to close up. I gag. With a harsh cough, I hack to clear it. A wad of phlegm clogs my throat. Up it comes and I spit into the tin cup. A translucent wad oozes down the side.

Not the black death-ooze my body usually makes.

What in the hell is going on?

Oh, shit! The weed. The beer. Could that be it? My gaze slips to the tin cup. Whiskey—or any alcohol—can't be in the cup or ever before, but does that mean alcohol can't be in me, either? This isn't a situation I've ever been in.

I catch Ellis watching me with troubled eyes, so I fumble a smile. "It's okay. Just a bad connection. We'll try it again." I ease back over to the bed.

Ellis's eyes are barely slits as he struggles to keep them open. I push aside my worries and try harder. Seek deeper. Hum my hymnal more smoothly.

I trail my hands over my head, my face. Then over his head, his face. Then again over me. Over him. And again. Back and forth. As I reach out my soul to grasp ahold of his, a lightning bolt of electricity rips up my arms and jars my body into a paralytic freeze.

The ice of death causes the room to shrink, vacuuming itself back into Ellis's body. His chest bucks up at the suddenness of it. His eyes widen with fear.

"Weatherly," he croaks, my name a desperate plea. He grabs at my hands. He gasps once. Twice. A cragged noise that comes from his throat, then his eyes soften as they lose focus. His body relaxes into the bed.

"No! No, no, no. Wait." I pull at Ellis's limp shoulders; his head wobbles loosely.

A cold clammy hand grips my elbow and yanks me off him.

"You satanic whore!" Dr. York shoves me out of the way, mumbling something about the Devil's work. He immediately starts to administer CPR.

The cold wash of his words lands home. I shrink into the corner so the doctor can attempt to perform the impossible. The frigid look on Miss Caroline's face sends shame flaming up my cheeks.

Desperately, I offer, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry." To each one of them. To Ellis. To the room.

Clumsily, I back away and collide into Grandmama. When she arrived, I don't know. Her surly form blocks the doorway. Disgust, that's what I read in that leathery, wrinkled face of hers. Her wiry gray hair cinched in a bun as rigid as her hate. Her foggy eyes search the room through sounds and movement, seeing only blurs of color and light, but assessing everything. She bares an open palm to me, and I place the tin cup in her hand. One sniff of the contents and her loathing deepens, nothing but worthless ooze that wouldn't even sicken a child.

If drinking that beer kept me from saving Ellis, and Grandmama finds out, I'll never hear the end of it.

Grandmama grips my arm tight and ushers me from the bedroom as the doctor confirms what we all already know. Her fingers dig into my elbow from her angry grasp as she pushes me down the hall. My feet shuffle and stumble. I feel ten again. That childhood fear prickles the hairs on my skin.

With a quick shove out onto the front porch, she simply says, "Go home." The battered screen door slaps against its frame, cracking the silence of the woods.

Bone Layer, who waits there, spares a glance long enough to realize Grandmama wasn't speaking to him. He returns his focus on the stick he's whittling.

Dr. York—a bony fellow with pale skin and arms covered in a carpet of dark hair—walks over to talk with Sheriff Johns, who is the very opposite in stature, as he's getting out of his patrol car. The bloody towel the doc wrings between his fingers, as he cleans his hands, feels like damning evidence. He glares my way.

Satanic Whore, my mind whispers. It revels in repeating this.

Some believe my death-talking is a gift from God. Though nothing about me, or what I do, feels holy. Others deem it the work of the Devil. Yet, I never asked Satan for this burden.

It's neither good nor evil. Taking the death from one and leaving it for another day is more like shuffling the cards and re-dealing them.

Except instead of God, Grandmama is the dealer.

At the sound of skidding gravel, we all turn. Stone Rutledge's bright red Corvette whips into the yard. My footing stutters at the sight of it.

Lorelei Rutledge, Ellis's twin sister, jumps out of the passenger side of the car. Stone eases himself out as well, terror leaching the color out of his face.

"Where is he?" Her frantic cries cause the sheriff to step into action and hold her back. He's doing his best to calm her. But it's the doctor's solemn confirmation that breaks Lorelei.

Stone stumbles backward at the news, as if he's going to pass out. He catches himself on the hood of his car and sits, looking stunned and lost. His shaky hand worries over his face, his life shattered by the loss of his only son. I might have felt sorry for the bastard if I didn't hate him so much.

"We should go," Bone Layer whispers next to me, pulling me toward the truck. I couldn't agree more.

"Somebody killed him!" Lorelei screams in a panic.

Inside the truck, I keep watching as we pull away.

We're not too far down the road before a deputy flies past us, lights ablaze. Urgently headed to the house.

"Do you think he was murdered?"

Bone Layer shrugs, then he flicks on the windshield wipers as the rain begins to pour.