All the Colors of the Dark — Chapter 6

6

Saint spent more than an hour tramping woodland that fanned like a seashell around the back of the tall house and toward the Tooms farmland beyond, stopping now and then and hoping to God to hear the low hum of her bees, that they’d simply clustered on a tall elm while her scouts looked for a new home.

By the time she made it to Main Street her braid had pulled a little loose and sweat was beginning to dot her upper lip. In the small police station she was about ready to call for the arrest and swift beheading of Mr. Lewis when she saw Misty Meyer standing before a cop.

Young and scared and breathless.

The skin scraped from her knees.

Saint saw a stack of papers fluttering as the girl fell like she’d been robbed of the bones in her body. The cop caught her and helped her into a chair.

“Take a breath,” he said, kneeling in front of her.

“He’s there,” Misty said, glancing back into the bright of the street, her body shaking as she stared straight through Saint.

Saint noticed the red print on her arm. A hand. A big hand. A slight swelling by her eye, her shirt torn at the neck.

“You’re safe now,” the cop said. “There’s no one out there.”

“You don’t get it,” she said, still breathless. “He saved me.”

“Who saved you?”

Misty took a drink of water, her lips full and pink against hair so light it touched platinum. A halo for a girl who already carried too much that shone.

Saint might have turned, left her bees for another day, but then she heard it, and her blood cooled and her skin pricked, and it was like she knew that

things would be different from then on.

“The pirate kid,” Misty said.

Saint moved toward them, instinct guided her. Instinct and that cold kind of dread.

“He hit him. But the guy was so big,” Misty said, tears falling now.

Saint felt her pulse quicken. “Joseph Macauley?”

Both turned and noticed her. Saint stood there tiny, her frames balancing on a small nose with a smattering of freckles. Her collar bones stood proud, her braid thick over one shoulder. She wore a simple gold cross on a thin necklace. Her grandmother had given Patch a matching one.

“Where is he now?” Saint said.

The cop crouched, his muscles tight against a shirt bright and unblemished.

Saint knew about shock, the way it purged rational thought. She’d learned that the day she came home from school and found her grandfather lying in the kitchen as her grandmother pumped his chest, face straight like she was beating a mixture.

“Misty.” Saint tried a smile. Her grandfather had said it was a good smile, the kind that lit January mornings, that recalled spring in the belly of Missouri winter.

“Where did this happen, Misty?” the cop tried.

Misty made no sound as the cop took a jacket and wrapped her in it to stay the shivering.

“Goddamn, where the hell is Patch?” Saint said, as the cop reared up.

“The clearing. By the old railroad,” Misty said.

Saint heard the cop reach for the radio, and then she sprinted down Main Street, drawing looks as she seared toward the woodland.

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