All the Colors of the Dark — Chapter 16

16

She dressed in navy overalls with a white blouse beneath and downstairs found her grandmother at the table reading The Tribune.

“You look too skinny,” Norma said.

Saint looked down at the jut of her hip bones. “I’m fine.”

“You have dirt beneath your nails.”

“I always do.”

“Wear your wedge sandals. Church.”

Beneath the fallow stone Saint stood in the colored flood of the sainted windows and did not sing with the others or listen to the old priest. He preached theirs was not a vengeful god, and Saint fought the urge to ask why the fuck not.

As they chorused about the fail of helpers and the flee of comforts a cruel hush fell for Ivy Macauley, who slipped in at the back and sat alone.

She wore a corduroy A-line dress, buttoned high, her dark hair pulled back, her eyes’ betrayal hidden only by a refusal to meet their gaze.

A kid from her class, Jimmy Walters, carried a single-chain thurible, but Saint did not see smoke, only the smile he aimed at her.

She ignored him, and her grandmother tutted at the slight.

“He smiled at you,” Norma said.

“His brain is likely damaged from inhaling too much incense. He doesn’t even realize he’s smiling.”

Norma sighed. “It’s okay to have more than one friend.”

“I don’t need more than one friend.”

The priest led them in prayer for the missing child. And at that Saint knelt on the cold and clasped her hands so tightly together her bones ground

in plea. She had not had call to ask much of God in her short life, but she offered herself fully, made promises she did not yet understand, if only he would have her friend return safely.

At the close she picked her way through a straggling crowd of one-time mourners.

Misty Meyer wore a neat navy dress and flats and no makeup at all. Her

lips were plump and her hair thick.

Together they sat on dry-laid stones.

“You’re friends with the pirate,” Misty said.

Saint nodded and felt a flutter of pride that Misty knew that.

“Every winter people say Monta Clare is too beautiful. It’s like a bigger crime, right? Because it happened here. It’s like none of us were prepared for the outside creeping in,” Misty said.

Saint wondered how Misty could be so poised, so complete at that age when she should be ill-fitting parts and contradiction.

“Cops can’t find him.” Misty’s eyes were warm blue and told her every thought before it reached her mouth. “My parents won’t talk about him… the pirate kid. Or the man. They won’t talk about what he might have done

to me.”

“You want to talk about that?”

“If I’d gone straight to school…instead of cutting in the woods. You think he would’ve tried it in the street? I keep looking at people and wondering about them. I can’t see his face. When I sit with Chief Nix, he’s so patient and I want to tell him, but…the guy, he wore a mask. And, I mean, I’m kind of used to ignoring boys.”

Saint had been there when the Meyers came to the station, and through the window she’d watched them flip the pages, waiting for the nod, the call to go to some place likely upstate, maybe by the turnpike where the dozen or so hunters cabins sat. Most knew there were likely a hundred more not on any kind of map, just dug into land fed by the backwater. The low hum of a generator buried beneath the baldachin of nature. They’d find him dead. Of course. And they’d catch the guy, but there would not be reason for it.

“My grandmother says some people are born to make others work

harder,” Saint said.

“The dyke that drives the bus?”

“She’s not a dyke.”

“She has the short hair and she smokes cigars.”

Saint shrugged. “She doesn’t really smoke them much. She just smells them.”

“She should beware, you know. Cancer of the snout.”

“Excuse me?”

“My grandfather smoked thirty Pall Malls each day and his dog developed cancer of the snout from smelling the fumes.”

Saint did not know what to do with that.

“Your grandmother isn’t a hound,” Misty offered.

Saint did not know what to do with that either.

“Why did you cut that morning, Misty?”

Misty looked over at her, studying her so finely Saint knew she could do

nothing but disappoint.

“I didn’t prepare for the math test.”

“You ace every test, Misty. People think you’re dumb because you act

dumb for the boys. But you’re—”

“It’s a meaningless lie,” Misty said.

They watched suited men, their hair long on their collars, trousers a little flared, and boots that carried a heel. Stomachs leaned over belts.

Saint plucked a cardinal from the long grass and shelled petals and waited. When it came her breathing quickened.

“I saw someone. I wanted to help him.”

“Who did you see, Misty?”

Misty finally tore her eyes from the stone and looked at Saint. “I saw Dr. Tooms.”

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