The flash of a bulb goes off, a crackling, fizzing sound that fills my head. The wash of the bright white light fades, and the soft glow of the tent settles back over me. The tinny strum of a banjo rings out, and bodies move on the dance floor; the wind catches my dress. The photographer snaps another photograph, and the bulb sizzles again.
I’m at the Midsummer Faire.
Laughter drifts through the syrupy air, and I smile when I see Margaret’s and Esther’s faces push through the crowd.
Margaret is out of breath, her face flushed from dancing.
“Where’s Eamon?”
“At the house,” I answer. “Callie’s gotten out again.”
She frowns, eyes dropping to my shoulder. “You want me to take her?”
I glance down, just registering the warm, heavy weight I’m carrying. A small Annie is propped on my hip, her legs dangling and her arms curled into me. She’s asleep on my chest.
“That’s okay,” I say, thinking that I like this feeling, even though my arms are aching. I’ve been holding her for more than an hour.
Esther is already tying a scarf around her head. “You girls ready?”
We follow her out to the truck, the sound of the Faire bleeding away behind us, and we drive with the windows down. There’s a pastel sunset just beginning to gather over the mountains, and the fireflies are blinking when we pull up to the flower farm.
By the time we’re out of the truck, Annie is awake, hopping up and down the steps barefoot while we eat cake.
We talk about the tobacco harvest and an overdue trip to Asheville, and then I’m scooping Annie up into my arms again. I want to make it home before dark.
“Sure you don’t want me to drive you?” Esther asks from her rocking chair.
I look at Annie, who’s pulling one of the ribbons from her hair. The cake is like catnip, and it will have her up late if I don’t get some of her energy out.
“No, it’s a good night for a walk,” I say.
It’s not quite twilight. The bugs in the flower fields are loud as we make our way to the back corner of the land, and Annie skips ahead of me on the overgrown path until we reach the river. There’s a small footbridge that serves as a shortcut through these fields, but it’s not even in sight when she stops to inspect a giant silk moth that’s clung to the trunk of a nearby tree. I sink down beside her, letting my finger come beneath its furry legs, and it climbs on, wings fluttering.
I hold it between us, and Annie’s honey brown eyes widen in wonder, making me smile.
It’s moments like these that I’m afraid to miss. It’s moments like these that make me sure about what I have to do.
The moth takes off, teetering in the air as it flies away, and Annie watches it go. The water of the river is a glowing blue now, ready to fall dark in the next hour.
“Evening, Mrs. Stone.”
The southern-sweet voice is slippery in the dimming light, but I immediately recognize it. I’ve heard it pouring from the open doors of the church many times. I’ve heard it in my nightmares.
I turn to see Nathaniel Rutherford standing on the path at the top of the riverbank. His nice suit is pressed, his hat in his hands, and even from here, I can see the shine of his boots. I hadn’t seen him at the Faire, but I’d felt his presence. Somehow, he always seemed to be near. Watching.
I swallow hard. This isn’t the first time I’ve found him on Esther’s farm. But that feverish gaze that hovers behind his eyes is fixed on me, and tonight, it feels a little more crazed.
Did he follow us?
There’s a moment when a prick of fear climbs up my spine, and I’m suddenly reaching out to put a protective hand on Annie. We’re too far from the house to be heard if I call out, I realize.
“I think it’s about time we talk,” he says, taking a step off the path.
“We’re on our way home. Eamon’s expecting us.”
He smiles, as if amused, but his eyes are still flat and dead. When he takes another step, it’s a little unsteady, and it occurs to me that he’s been drinking.
“For we know him that hath said, ‘Vengeance belongeth unto me,’ ” Nathaniel begins. “ ‘I will recompense,’ saith the Lord. And again, the Lord shall judge his people.”
My pulse quickens when he moves again, coming slowly down the bank toward us.
“We really do need to get back. Have a good night, Mr.
Rutherford.” I take Annie’s hand and try to step past him, but he moves faster, blocking me.
I look around us, not sure what to do. There’s no easy way to get past him, especially with Annie in my arms, and though the river is crossable, it’s deep. What if the current is too strong? What if she slips from my arms and I lose her under the water?
“That’s what this is, isn’t it?” he continues.
“Vengeance?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” My voice is shaking now.
“I know who you are, June. I know my own flesh and blood when I see it.”
For a moment, I’m not sure if I can read the tone in his voice. But that look on his face doesn’t change. He knows.
We’ve danced around it many times before, but he knows who I am.
“You are a seed planted by my own sin. An abomination.
The both of you.”
I look to the trees up the slope. We’re closer to the flower farm than we are to home, and we’ve walked that shortcut through the fields countless times. Annie could find her way back to the house, I tell myself. She knows not to go down to the water without me. She’d stay on the path until she saw the lights of Esther’s porch.
“Annie, go back to the farm,” I say, trying to push her toward the trees.
But she doesn’t move.
“He sent Susanna to torment me,” Nathaniel continues.
“The devil knew that I was weak.”
Again, I nudge her. “Go, baby.”
But she’s watching him, transfixed, a single blade of grass clutched in her little fist.
“I knew there was something evil about your mother the first time I saw her. In my pride, I thought I could overcome it.”
His feet come down the bank, half sliding toward me, and before I know what he’s doing, his hands are gripping my shoulders tight.
I gasp, my eyes going wide.
Fingers twist into the fabric of my white dress, and I stumble backward, trying to keep my balance. “Annie!
Run!”
She finally does, her dress like a flame in the twilight. I see it disappear in the brush a second later.
“I loved her.” Nathaniel is crying now, his face contorted.
He shakes me, hard. “I loved her more than I loved God.
And that is the worst kind of sin.”
He shoves me back with so much force that I crash into the shallows behind me. Rocks scrape down my back, and the current pulls my weight, but I grasp for a hold on the bank. He’s on me a second later, yanking me back up.
“There’s no way to clean that stain.” The words twist. “I tried. I tried to clean it.”
A sharp pain lances the nape of my neck, and I realize he has my hair in his fist. “Please!” I sob. “Stop!”
Nathaniel’s eyes clear for only a moment before he goes still. His grip on me is like a vise as he looks down into my face.
“I took her down to the river and I held her under the water until she stopped screaming,” he whispers.
Another cry breaks inside of me. “Please.”
“And then I buried her under the oak tree.” He sniffs.
“But God’s punishment isn’t over for me yet. It can’t be until I put it right.”
I claw at his hands, tear at his shirt.
“It’s all right,” he says, gently, looking into my eyes. “I baptize you, June Rutherford.” He plunges me down beneath the surface and the sunset disappears, replaced by rushing water. My feet slip out from under me, and then he pulls me up again. I scream, choking.
“In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy—”
He shoves me back down, and I scratch at his arms, the outline of him a wavering black blot above me. I kick, but I can’t get my footing. I thrash, but his grip is too tight. His weight presses down on top of me harder. He pins me there, and over the roar of the water, I think I can hear him sobbing.
I understand now what is happening. I’m going to die.
Another scream is trapped in my chest and bubbles race from my mouth as I let go of him, hands desperately searching for something, anything to grab hold of. I find it when the pain in my lungs feels like it’s going to explode.
The black pushes in around my vision, my legs going numb.
I wrap my fingers around the shape, and with every last bit of strength inside of me, I wrench my arm through the water, swinging it in an arc until it breaks the surface and collides with his temple.
Nathaniel’s hands suddenly loosen. He stumbles back, and I feel myself floating, the current pulling me from him.
I come up with a painful gasp and I’m gagging, hunched over with the rock still clutched to my chest.
Nathaniel makes a sound, and I blink furiously, the river water blurring my vision, to see him still standing. He has one hand pressed to his bleeding head. Something escapes his lips, and then he’s lunging toward me.
I watch as he stumbles, falling to his knees, and my body feels so heavy that I’m sure I’m going to faint. I’m sure that at any minute, everything will go black.
I heave, raising the rock over my head with both hands.
And when I bring it down, it’s with a horrifying sound that tears from my throat. I hit him again. And again. I hit him even after I realize he’s not moving. It’s not until the rock slips from my blood-soaked fingers that I fall to the bank.
I’m flat on my back, and when my head rolls to the side, I see him looking at me. But there’s no life left in those empty eyes. I don’t have to check to know that he’s dead.
A snap in the trees makes me scramble back to my hands and knees, and suddenly I see that little white flame.
Annie is standing on the path, watching. She blinks once.
Then again.
Only then does it come to me, what I’ve just done. At my feet, Nathaniel Rutherford lies motionless, the water parting around his body in the shallows. His blood is everywhere.
My hands, my arms, my dress. It’s spattered like paint on the rocks.
I scoot away from it, suddenly sick, and I vomit on the shore, my hair tangled and plastered to my face. I’ve barely finished when I get back to my feet and climb the slope.
Then I’m picking Annie up, and I run.
I don’t look back when we make it to the trees. I don’t slow, despite the burning tremble in my legs. I cross the
footbridge and lift Annie over the fence of the Grangers’ west pasture, then I keep running. I don’t stop until I see the smoke trailing from our chimney.
“Eamon!” I scream his name as I disappear into the tobacco. “Eamon!”
My steps finally begin to drag, a sharp pain surfacing in the center of my right foot. Somewhere, I’ve lost a shoe.
“Eamon!”
His name crumbles on another cry, and I break through the edge of the field, just as the back screen door flies open.
It slams against the house, and I can see him. He’s a black silhouette against the kitchen light.
Annie is crying now, clinging to me, but I’m sure I’m going to drop her. I sink to the ground before I do, my knees scraping in the dirt.
Eamon is coming down the steps a second later. “June?”
I can’t breathe.
“June?” He pulls Annie from my arms. “What happened?”
I didn’t notice until now that her white dress is dotted with the blood that covers me. He’s frantically pulling it off of her.
“Where are you hurt, love?” He’s panicked, searching her body for the source of the blood.
“She’s okay.” I feel my mouth say the words but I can’t hear them. “She’s okay.” The words stick to my tongue, because that’s all that matters. “She’s okay. She’s okay.
She’s okay.”
Eamon stands. Carries her into the house. Then he’s taking hold of me, getting me to my feet, but I instantly collapse against him and he catches me in his arms.
“June?” He sounds so scared. “Tell me what happened.”
Now his hands are all over me, lifting my hair, unbuttoning my dress.
“I killed him,” I say, my mouth numb.
“What?”
We’re in the house now, and I can finally see his face.
“Nathaniel Rutherford. I killed him.”
He sets me down in the chair, coming down onto his knees in front of me. “Where? How?”
“He followed us. He tried to—” My whole body shakes with a silent cry. “He tried to drown me in the river.”
Eamon is suddenly so still that it doesn’t look like he’s breathing. He’s staring at the center of my chest, hands still holding on to me. When his eyes finally lift, the panic in them is gone.
“Listen to me,” he says.
I double over, crying again.
“June,” he says, more firmly. “Take a breath.”
I swallow, trying to do as he says. I’m shaking so badly.
“Tell me exactly where he is.”
I try to think. “At the bend before the footbridge. He’s down by the water.”
Eamon stands, going to the stove, and I hear him light it.
Then he’s propping open the back door and hauling in the two buckets of water from outside. I watch in a daze as he dumps them into the small tub beside Annie’s nook.
The kettle is beginning to hum when he fetches Annie’s stained dress from outside and pulls the remaining ribbon from her hair. He takes her stockings, her shoes. Then he
does the same to me, gently helping me out of the dress until I’m sitting naked on the chair.
I can’t move. I can’t even ask what he’s doing, but I realize once the fire is going and he throws our clothes into it. That’s when I finally notice my hands. The blood caked beneath my fingernails.
I move to the sink robotically, turning on the tap and shoving my hands beneath the water. I scrub violently, watching the ribbon of red circle the drain.
The kettle squeals, and Eamon pours it into the tub before he comes back for me. I wrap my arms around his neck and he lifts me, lowering me into it. He’s setting Annie into my arms next, and the water sloshes over the side as she burrows into me. She’s not crying anymore. Neither am I.
“If anyone knocks on that door, you tell them I’ve gone to help Esther with her truck. You get her cleaned up. Put her to bed.”
I think I nod.
“June? Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
He brushes a hand over Annie’s head and kisses me, but his lips linger on my forehead just a little longer than usual.
Then he’s walking across the sitting room. He’s disappearing out the back door.
The only sound is the crackle of the fire as I stare into the flames, watching my dress burn.
