INFLORESCENCE
Harper
I LEAD THE WAY OUT the front of the cottage, texting Bobby as we walk down the flagstone path and out the front gate. A few moments later, I receive a reply and grin down at the device before nodding in the direction of town.
“So where is this dance?” Nolan asks as I take his hand. It’s a beautiful evening, the kind of weather that would normally bring the local kids out into the street for games of capture the flag or hide-and-seek. But tonight, the homes are eerily quiet. There’s no scent of barbecue lingering in the air. No sound of basketballs pinging against asphalt, or children laughing from the shadows.
“We’re catching the bus,” I reply with no further explanation. “Right there.” I point to a few townsfolk who wait on the sidewalk next to a random lamppost. They say hello to me by name, and I do the same in return. One of the older ladies who works at the bakery shoots a suspicious glance at Nolan, an obvious outsider to our little troupe. “He’s going to do the toenitiation,” I clarify, and her suspicion eases just a little before she shifts her attention down the street to the approaching music.
“What the fuck does that mean?” Nolan hisses in my ear.
“Just go with it.”
Even if I wanted to explain, which I don’t, there wouldn’t be time. Not when Bobby’s party bus rounds the corner and rolls to a stop in front of us, a corpse copilot strapped to the hood and disco lights flashing through every window to the beat of “Chop Chop Slide” by the Insane Clown Posse.
“Next stop, Hatchet Town,” Bobby says as the door swings open. His Pennywise costume is complete with red balloons that he passes to each
person who boards the bus. He’s loving every minute of being the town chauffeur, a job he takes on each year without fail. I don’t miss the way Nolan recoils before accepting his present and moving to the back of the bus.
“You’re not afraid of clowns, are you?” I say as I take my seat next to him
and the bus lurches forward.
“Pfft. No.”
“I guess I know what I’m going to be for Halloween in that case,” I say with a grin. But as soon as those words are out of my mouth, I want to stuff them back in. Halloween is months away. And I just threw it out there like it’s a given Nolan will still be here in Cape Carnage. But that’s not a given at all. The search is already winding down a little more each day. It’s only a matter of time until it’s called off completely, and we haven’t talked about what will happen when it is.
I don’t know if Nolan is thinking the same thing when he takes my hand. I don’t look his way to find out.
By the time we reach Dale Linden’s farm, we’ve picked up six more people, and the whole bus is singing to Bobby’s murder playlist, which is mostly a rotation of Halloween favorites. Even Nolan is belting out “Thriller” with the rest of the bus, his hidden vocal talent on full display, because of course he’s good at that too. Naturally, he takes great pleasure in the fact that we don’t share this particular skill, and that I sound like a rabid hyena.
“I’ve finally found something you’re not good at,” he snarks before diving back into the lyrics.
I slap an entry ticket into his chest as the bus lurches to a stop in front of Dale’s old barn. “Come on, Ballmeat Bieber. Time for toenitiation. And bring your balloon.”
The mention of toes wipes the smug smile off Nolan’s face, and he follows me off the bus.
We wait in the short line as music pounds from within the barn, multicolored lights shining through the cracks between the old plank walls.
Several partygoers catch their breath outside, plastic cups clutched in their hands, sweat dotting their brows and dampening their hair. A mangled- looking corpse copilot is clutched between them, its fingers already detached to be used as drink stirrers. “This place is so fucking weird,” Nolan says as
we approach the PVC meat locker curtains that hang from the barn door, their
surface spattered with fake blood.
“No argument here.”
We pass our tickets to the bouncer and enter the barn, which is packed with people of all ages and corpses in various states of disarray. Red balloons huddle among the rafters of the vaulted ceiling, their long, curling ribbons shifting in currents of air. To the left of us is a well-stocked bar beneath an overhang of the hay loft, the three bartenders mixing drinks and pouring beer for the patrons in the endless line. On the right side are tables with bowls of punch and snacks for kids, and a set of doors that open to a barbecue and seats beneath strings of lights. At the far end of the barn is the DJ table where Alex, the barista from A Shipwrecked Bean, is mixing tracks as stacks of lights flicker from his stage. Familiar faces are everywhere—from Maya and Maxine dancing near the DJ, to Lukas toasting a whiskey to Bob, to Henry dancing with one of his beloved corpses. It’s an epic barn dance, just like every year.
But before we can join the party, we must first pass the test of the Grim Reaper.
“Pick your poison, sweetheart,” Irene says to me as I turn toward the small table she guards in her Grim Reaper costume, a very real scythe clutched in her hand. There are three wide-necked jugs of liquor set before her—one amber, one clear, and one a radioactive shade of green. And at the bottom of each jar is a severed toe.
I point to the first bottle, the one of amber alcohol. “Piggly Wiggly, please.”
Irene beams with pride, wrinkles bracketing her smile. “Piggly’s getting a lot of love tonight.” She turns toward the bottle, grabs a fresh plastic cup and a pair of tongs, fishes the toe out, and plops it in the bottom of my cup before filling it with enough booze for a healthy-sized shot.
“What the fuck is that?” Nolan asks as I raise my glass to Irene’s good health and turn to face him.
I give him a flat look, gesturing to the cup in my hand. “It’s a severed toe, Nolan. In bourbon. What does it look like?”
“And you’re going to drink it?”
“Not the toe. I’m going to kiss the toe and drink the liquor, then give
Piggly Wiggly back to Irene.”
“But . . . why?”
“I told you before,” I say before raising the plastic to my lips and knocking back the liquor. The burn hits my throat as the toe bumps against my flesh, the nail hitting the bow of my lips. “It’s Cape Carnage. Nothing is Disney here.”
“I don’t think that makes sense in this context.”
“The Canadians started it,” Irene says as she gets a cup ready for Nolan, even though I’m not convinced he’s going to go through with it. “You never heard of the Sourtoe Cocktail before, Mr. Rhodes?”
“I can’t say that I have, ma’am,” he replies, eyeing the bottles with suspicion.
“My grandson Jaime met a smoke jumper from the Yukon who told him about it at the FDIC conference a few years back. Guess the idea must’ve stuck. When I had Piggly Wiggly taken off thanks to my diabetes, I thought, what the hell? Let’s preserve her and put her in some bourbon.” Irene points to the next bottle, the one of vodka. “Dale passed out drunk in his field the next winter and got frostbite, so he joined the club with his Tippy Tapper.
And then Bob’s little toe got crushed in a forklift accident. That’s when we got the Toe Jam with some crème de menthe. So,” she says as she dumps Piggly Wiggly into a fresh glass, topping it up with bourbon, “there you have it. Toenitiation—a toast to each toe. Gotta do all three to get past the Grim Reaper for the first time.”
“But . . . ” Nolan looks at the crowd of dancing partygoers, children weaving among the adults to chase each other with severed corpse limbs.
“There are kids here.”
“They get fruit punch,” I reply, gesturing toward a shelf next to the table where plastic fingers float in jugs of juice. “We’re not barbarians, Nolan.”
Irene pours two more cups, one from each bottle, dunking the severed digits into their appropriate liquid. “I recommend leaving the Toe Jam until last. Kind of like dessert.”
Irene slides the cup of Piggly Wiggly down the table toward him, and as he turns to face me, I’m sure this is it. I can almost hear the words on his
tongue, delivered through a grimace. I’m heading back to Tennessee, he’ll say. It’s been a slice, but you people are seriously fucked up.
Nolan’s eyes don’t stray from mine as he reaches for the cup and lifts it in a toast. He might look a little green, but he still smiles at me when he says, “Bottoms up.”
I halt his hand just before the cup touches his lips, and his brows furrow with a question. “Just do not drink the toe,” I warn. “It’ll cost you.”
“Cost me what?”
“A toe, probably. Or a fine. Maybe both—I dunno, nobody ever told me the specifics. But considering it’s Cape Carnage, I wouldn’t want to push it, ya know?” I slowly unfurl my fingers from his wrist. “Last chance to run. Or, you know, just sit morosely outside while I party with some corpses.”
“Right . . . no drinking the toe. Hadn’t planned on it, but thanks for the warning.” With a final wince, he takes a deep breath, squeezes his eyes shut, and sends the booze down the hatch.
“Atta boy!” Irene exclaims with a whoop as he returns the toe to her, swapping it for the Tippy Tapper. Nolan barely catches a breath before that one is done too.
“If the hangnail on the Toe Jammer tickles your lip, it’s good luck,” I say with a thumbs-up.
He covers a gag with a cough. “The fuck?”
“Less talking, more drinking,” I say, rapping on the bottom of his cup.
“I’m guessing I’m a better dancer than you, and I want to prove myself right.” I give him a cocky grin.
Nolan’s queasy discontent transforms to steely determination. “The hell you are,” he says, and then downs the shot. And I can’t help it. I bounce on the balls of my feet and clap like some fucking high school cheerleader with a disgustingly saccharine crush on the bad-boy new kid.
“Chrissakes,” Nolan hisses as he passes the final toe back to Irene. “It tastes like trauma and Christmas.”
I snort a laugh. “Two things that naturally go together.”
“Congratulations,” Irene says as she grabs his shoulder and pulls him in for a hug. “You’re a true Cape Carnage boy now.”
I hide the pang of worry, a smile ready and waiting as Irene releases Nolan
back to me and ushers us toward the dance floor. I take his hand, leading him to the line for the bar as we let our balloons float to the ceiling.
“I can’t say I had near-cannibalism on my list of vacation plans when I first set out for Carnage,” Nolan says as he swipes a hand across his mouth.
“But you managed it well,” a voice says from behind us before my anxiety about Nolan’s future in Cape Carnage can fully bloom. I see the flare of fury in Nolan’s face the instant before Sheriff Yates’s palm lands on his shoulder.
“Toenitiation is not for the fainthearted.”
By the time Nolan turns to face the sheriff, his easy smile has clicked into place. “Can’t say it would be something I’m eager to repeat.”
“I don’t blame you.” Yates gives Nolan a welcoming handshake, gripping him with both hands as though inducting him into a club. Then the sheriff turns his attention to me. “You look lovely this evening, Harper.”
“Thanks,” I say, sweeping the invisible dust from my dress. “Guess I clean up okay once in a while.”
“Well, you deserve a night out after all the work you’ve been putting in to make Cape Carnage beautiful. And you,” he says, returning his gaze to Nolan, “you’ve been so helpful, taking on the search like you have. I don’t know how we’ll ever repay your kindness.”
Nolan’s eyes meet mine for just a moment. The expression he wears for Yates might be a mask, but the warmth in his eyes is genuine and meant only for me. “No need. I’m happy to help.”
“Well, I’m sure you’re equally as happy to see an end to all this chaos.
Especially now that we’re finally making the announcement tomorrow about winding down the search.” Yates claps Nolan on the arm. “Thanks again for everything you’ve done—Cape Carnage owes you a debt of gratitude.”
I feel like I’ve been slapped across the face. The scents of sweat and booze and barbecued meat swirl around me and my stomach churns. Nolan’s fingers graze mine, but I slip away before they can take hold, moving closer to the counter.
Did Nolan know? When was he going to bring it up if he did? Would he stay here anyway, in this place of strange people and ridiculous rituals and more hidden graves and buried secrets than any town has a right to have? I can’t go. Cape Carnage is my sanctuary. It cloaked my grief when I needed a
shroud. It nurtures me as much as I protect it.
Stalemate.
When I close my eyes, I see the black knight on my chessboard, sitting in c6. But this time, it isn’t Adam’s voice I hear in my head. It’s Nolan’s.
Neither of us wins.
I take a shuddering breath and open my eyes, pressing my palm to the ache in my chest. I guess I always knew it was inevitable. But the imminence of it still cuts so much deeper than I thought it would.
Yates keeps Nolan occupied with questions behind me while I step to the counter, order two shots of tequila from the bartender, then down them both.
“ . . . gotta say, it sure has been a big help having a specialist in Search and Rescue around to lead things. When do you think you’ll head back to Tennessee?” Yates asks behind me as I order two more tequilas.
Nolan’s voice is the perfect balance of pleasant and grim when he says, “I’m not sure yet . . . I guess I’ll have to speak to my boss.”
“I gave him a call, actually. Great guy.” I can almost see Yates’s chest expanding with pride behind me. But his words sound hollow, like an incomplete replica of what affection should be. It feels more like he’s in on the cosmic joke that my life has become. “I wanted him to hear what a fantastic asset you’ve been, straight from the source.”
Whatever Nolan says is lost to the rush of blood in my ears as I down one of the shots. I hiss through the burn as I set the glass on the counter. With a shake of my head, I reach for the next one, but Nolan grabs it before I can pick it up. He tilts the glass and shoots the liquor. One of his hands splays across my skin, pressing heat between my shoulders, a hum that vibrates in my vertebrae. “Let’s talk,” he whispers as he reaches past me to set the empty glass on the counter, the sheriff still chattering in the background about search logistics. All I can manage is the slightest nod.
“Anyway, enough about work. Sometimes, I get a little obsessed with the job, you know?” Yates finally says, and I do my best to paint on a congenial expression as I turn to face him. Nolan’s hand remains on me, as though I could disappear without his touch. “You kids have a great night. You deserve it.”
With a nod of his head to us both, Yates moves toward the dance floor.
Even as he goes, I still don’t think I take a breath. When the sheriff is lost among the crowd and the colored lights, Nolan’s hand drops to the small of my back. “Let’s go outside,” he says, and the pit in my stomach burns with a sense of doom.
Nolan’s touch stays with me as we weave through the crowd and head past the bowls of punch, past a group of kids who giggle as they mix the flavors in their cups. We head through the open barn doors and past the barbecue, where meat burns on blackened racks, people talking and laughing with ease as they sit at picnic tables with burgers and beer. We don’t stop, don’t slow until we reach an embankment that looks across the fields of Dale’s farm and the setting sun. Only then does Nolan’s hand fall away.
“Did you know?” I ask, not turning around, too scared of what I’ll see in his face if I do.
“No. I didn’t.” The sorrowful notes in his voice seem to linger in the air.
“But we were going to have to face this eventually.”
I take a few steps farther, leaving Nolan behind me as I halt at the edge of the ridge. My fingers graze my lips like a lost kiss, wiping the last trace of tequila from my skin. For a long moment, there’s only silence. Even the music and voices seem to dim as I contemplate the horses grazing in their pastures. So serene. So beautiful in the waning light. Tails swish flies from taut muscles. All that power and grace, contained by three strands of electric fence. If they needed to, would they take the chance to escape?
We can run only as far as our boundaries will let us go. And when we crash into them, they wound.
But the cage might snap, if we’re willing to endure. If we’re willing to bleed. To leap before we know where we’ll land.
And that’s where I’ve been. Trapped in the enclosure of my own making.
I’ve been so afraid of telling Nolan how I really feel that I might never escape. I might stay in this cage forever, unless I finally take the chance to break through.
When I turn to face Nolan, his eyes seem to reflect the pain and fear that haunt every cavern of my heart. He takes a breath. But before he can speak, I whisper, “I don’t want you to go.”
His lips tense in a firm line, his throat shifting in a swallow.
“I don’t want you to leave,” I say, taking a step closer. The invisible barrier is there, grief that was laid down years ago, hardened and holding me back from the world I can almost touch on the other side. The edges of my vision waver and blur, until the only clear thing I can see is Nolan, illuminated by the orange light of the setting sun. “It sounds selfish to say it out loud. I know you have a whole other life, and this was only meant to be an interlude. But I don’t want it to end.”
Nolan doesn’t speak, doesn’t move. I can tell there are words lingering on his tongue. Maybe he’s ready to cut this short, to slice through the last filaments of fraying hope that I hold on to and let me drift out to sea. But he waits, giving me the space to take another step closer.
“I want to read your notes in the morning and touch your handwriting and know that you were thinking of me. I want to wake up in the dark and lay my hand on your chest and fall back asleep with your heartbeat beneath my palm.
I want to trace your scars and know they’re the map that led you here, and tell you they’re beautiful, even though I would take your pain if I could. I want to be the woman you’d burn the world for, the one you’d hunt through hell for, just like I would do for you. I want the villain just as much as I want the hero in you.”
A breeze drifts across my skin, cooling the tears that dampen my cheeks.
Aside from the muscle that feathers along his clenched jaw, Nolan still doesn’t move. But there’s a shine in his eyes.
“I love you, Nolan Rhodes,” I say through trembling lips. “And I don’t want you to go.”
The world slows to one simple motion: A single tear falls from Nolan’s lashes and slides past the dimple sleeping in his skin, a blink of time. “I’m not going anywhere.”
In two strides, we crash into each other.
The barrier that was there only moments ago seems to crumble. But fear still lingers, even when Nolan shelters me in the strength of his embrace. This could all be just one ephemeral moment in time. Love is for cherishing with delicate hands. It has sharp edges that tear through you when it’s taken away.
I know that better than anyone. But I will risk the wounds for Nolan, just to feel the beat of his heart. To feel his breath against my skin as he buries his
face against my neck. To hear him say, “I love you too, Harper. I will stay as long as you’ll have me.”
“What if I never want you to go?” I ask into his shirt as I hold him against me. “How does that work? You have a job back in Tennessee. Friends and family.”
“There are these things called airplanes—”
“Everyone keeps telling me that—”
“And I can easily get on one to visit people. Unless you intend to chain me
to the bed.”
“The thought has occurred to me.”
Nolan’s hands wrap around my shoulders and he pulls back, lowering his head to look me in the eyes as though whatever words he’s about to deliver will have a better chance of sticking. “I can figure out the details, Harper.
Work, family, friends—they’re important, but the challenges are not insurmountable. I can keep in touch with people I love. I can find another job.
The nonnegotiable for me is you.” Nolan glides a hand across my cheeks, a hopeless endeavor. Fresh tears only replace the ones he sweeps away. “If someday you decide you want me to go, it won’t change anything for me.
Even if I have to love you from a distance, I will never stop. You’re mine.
Always.”
“It sounds like the other way around,” I say. My touch lingers on the ouroboros tattoo on Nolan’s forearm, a design I can trace by memory in the dark. “Like you belong to me.”
“I don’t mean it the way you think I do.” His lips press to one of my cheeks, his breath an unsteady exhalation. “You’re mine to kiss.” Another kiss lands on the other side. “Mine to look after.” His lips land on the tip of my nose. “Mine to love.” This kiss lingers next to my lips. When he pulls away, his gaze solders to mine, holding steady despite the tremor in his hands when they frame my face. “You’re as much a part of me as my heart or my lungs or my fucked-up soul, Harper. You could cut yourself out of me, but all I’d ever feel is the absence of you. That’s what I mean when I say that you’re mine.”
He waits just long enough to be sure I understand before his lips finally press to mine. And this kiss feels like nothing we’ve ever shared before. It’s
not the heat of hatred catching fire into another form. It’s not the bite of something once bitter that’s finally ripened. It’s a slow sweep of tongues over longing that’s rich and honey-sweet. It’s the smoky warmth of promises that will be kept in the dark hours in my bed. It’s a kiss that changes everything.
I hold on to the corded muscle of Nolan’s arm, fold a hand across the scar down the back of his neck, and drift into another dimension. He takes my weight in his embrace, my back bowed. I’m not sure where he ends and I begin. Or how long we’re there. Or who might be watching. All I care about is never letting go of this feeling, of the warmth that coats every beat of my heart.
When the kiss slows, Nolan breaks it with a whisper against my mouth. “I want to dance with you.”
I smile with swollen lips. “So you can try to prove my suspicions wrong that I’m the better dancer?”
My teasing earns me a gentle bite that makes me gasp. “No,” Nolan says when he lets go. “I want everyone in this town to see that I’ve got what I wanted. That you’re mine. And then I want to forget that they even exist and go home with you.”
With a final kiss, Nolan sets me back in a world that seems brighter than it was before. He fixes the makeup smeared beneath my eyes. And then he takes my hand. He gives me a smile that feels like pride. Relief. Maybe even triumph.
We walk past the partygoers, past Bob and Bert eating their burgers, past Maya and Lukas and Maxine, past Sheriff Yates, whose smile warms his eyes
when he sees us.
And then we dance.
