Kate Fox & The Three Kings (8 page)

I’d never spent the night outside before. Well, that’s not entirely true. For my tenth birthday party, Grams allowed me to invite a bunch of girlfriends over for a sleepover. The night was warm and crisp. After we finished inhaling a greasy pepperoni pizza and homemade cake, Grandpa announced there was a surprise waiting in the backyard. He led us to an old, tattered tent, erected next to a blaring campfire. I shivered in delight, and some of the other girls squealed with excitement. Sleeping outside was a grown-up activity, like drinking coffee or ironing pants.

That night, we rounded out our healthy dinner with toasted marshmallows. Grandpa stuck around, reciting tales fireside. As darkness closed in, the stories became spookier, and my friends and I huddled close, listening intently, until we could no longer keep our eyes open. Giant quilts and mounds of fluffy pillows adorned the inside of the tent, which, at first glance, didn’t appear large enough to accommodate eight ten-year-old girls. We chatted until our eyelids became heavy. I was about to put away my flashlight as I saw something graze the outside of the tent, causing a dip in the side and a whirring sound against the taut fabric, sending us girls into a fit of screams. Grams ran out in her nightgown, unzipping the tent to find all of us trembling in the corner. She snuggled under the patched quilt next to me and kept all of us safe that night.

While my body felt invigorated, even though Beastie hadn’t allowed us a moment of rest, my mental state was a different story. My mind reeled with questions of where to go next, and my thoughts lingered on money and how I didn’t have any. I had nothing of value on my person. My other worries surrounded the black beast leading the way and the grumbling in my stomach, but being with a dangerous—perhaps rabid—animal, famished, and in the middle of nowhere, was far favorable than being in Brushy Fork.

The heat resulted in my shirt sticking to my back and underarms, laden with condensation. The waterfall ahead gushed white water, cool and inviting. Each trickle rushing down to the creek below was tantalizing. I only bothered to remove my shoes. The creek appeared fairly deep, not shallow enough to break my legs from a dive. With one last glance back at Beastie, I pushed off the ledge and dove into the water.

The creek was much shallower than I anticipated, and once again, I cursed my lack of girl scout tidbits as I hit the muddy bottom with my feet, feeling the smooth rocks and pebbles with my toes. The creek felt nice with the slightest chill, but when I gazed up to the surface, my eyes stung as I tried to keep them open, focusing on the sunlight reflecting off the top of the water, shattering into a million pieces.

I surfaced to catch a breath and instantly choked on a mouthful of salt water when I glanced back at the waterfall, which was replaced by a sandy shore hundreds of yards away. I breathed in smells of old fish and salty ocean and prodded around the ocean floor with my toes. The brackish water came up just below my nose, barely shallow enough to stand without gurgling water through my nostrils. When I took a step forward, I was immediately reprimanded with pricks to my toes from jagged oyster shells.

“Beastie?” I yelled mostly at myself, gargling water. I craned my neck to take in the sights behind me. A concrete bridge connecting two islands stood overhead, the sides rimmed with squawking flocks of seagulls and stone piers jutting out of the water. I swam over to one of the piers not too far away, compared to the other option of getting to the shore, which was quite a distance and lined with sharp oyster beds. Warning crossed my mind, as I swam close to the piers, lined with multicolored barnacles and crustaceans. I fought through my fear and hoisted myself up onto the rusty ladder built into the cement, probably originally intended for the folks who built the bridge, but it was my saving grace now. I regretted not stripping down before I jumped into the creek. My wet clothes caused me to be twice as heavy as I climbed to the top of the bridge, panting and groaning along the way.

I relieved sigh escaped my lips when I lugged myself over the concrete guardrail and onto the road, and granted myself a second to assess my whereabouts. Every few minutes a car sped by, slowing to examine the saturated and barefoot girl wandering towards the connecting town in the distance. I cursed myself for abandoning my shoes with each crunch of oyster shell and rock under my feet every time I stepped forward. When I reached the bottom of the bridge, I hopped down from the guardrail and onto the sandy shore below, tiptoeing across the hot sand like walking on fiery coals, then plopped down beneath the shade of the bridge’s underbelly. I attempted to suppress a cackle, but failed, flinging myself on the ground with excited laughter, for of this I was certain: I was no longer in Brushy Fork, Kentucky.

I
awoke
from my nap on the beach with a dog licking my face, but this time, the dog wasn’t Beastie. The scraggly yellow lab with a greying face wagged its tail excitedly at its new hobo friend.

“Nice doggy?” I asked wearily, holding out my hand for the dog to sniff, praying that the lab didn’t have Beastie’s temperament. I was answered with more kisses.

“What do you think you’re doing?” a cold, feminine voice asked.

I found the source standing behind me. An impeccably dressed lady with long, dark hair, shinier than I’d ever seen hair be before, with a single patch of grey streaked through her bangs. Despite the splash of grey, the woman appeared youthful, with glowing olive skin and spectacular violet eyes. She wasn’t conventionally attractive, with her crooked nose and square jaw, and though her face was without a trace of emotion, she was beautiful. Truly stunning.

“Are you asking me or the dog?” I replied, still in a state of elation.

“Get up,” she ordered, stomping over to me and pulling me up by arms, roughly dusting the sand off of me.

“Who do you think you are?” I yelled, wiggling out of her grip.

She scoffed at my question and rolled her eyes, which killed my blissful state of euphoria. I smacked at her hands when she attempted to reach for me again and backed away. The yellow lab took a submissive stance, rolling over on its back in the sand between us.

“You’re rude and lack gratitude,” the woman placed her perfectly manicured hands on her hips and pursed her lips together. “I arranged for you to evacuate that wretched, Bible-thumping, little town, and what do you do as soon as you reach safety?” Her face crumpled into a disgusted scowl. “Make a spectacle of yourself and nap under the goddamned bridge. What great instincts! It’ll only be a matter of time before those hillbillies nab you again!”

“You?” I looked her up and down, “You helped me escape from W.H.O.R.E.?” I shook my head, correcting myself, “I mean—Blood of Christ?”

“Indeed,” she hissed through her impressively straight teeth and crossed her arms in front of her chest. “So you can either go back there and sacrifice sheep for the rest of your miserable life, or you can follow me,” her piercing eyes studied my expression, knowing that my decision had already been made before she ever opened her mouth. “Your family is less than a mile away from where we stand. Would you like to meet them?”

I nodded and followed her to her brand-spanking-new Audi, petting the yellow lab on the belly and saying good-bye.

“Don’t you dare get sand in my car!” she barked as I opened the passenger door. I shook out my loose hair, watching grains fall to the ground, then attempted to brush off the rest of my body before taking a seat. “I should’ve made you walk,” she glared at my sandy feet as I joined her in the car.

“Who are you?” I questioned, ignoring her.

“I’m not your friend, if that’s what you’re wondering,” she said simply, without even a glance my way.

“I was aiming for a first or last name…”

“I’m dropping you off at your aunt’s house,” she interrupted as we zoomed by a row of old shops with brick faces and colorful signs. The town appeared incredibly small and old, with uneven pavement and fading paint. Wooden docks and fishing boats rested beyond the town on all sides. Spanish moss hung from giant oak trees in the front yards of old-fashioned homes with wrap-around porches. My heart raced in my chest as we passed the old homes, and I thought back to the last time I had seen my Aunt June.

My grandparents and I visited my aunt and uncle every summer. We’d make the drive from Atlanta to the Forgotten Coast, stopping along the highway at the boiled peanut signs and produce stands. The last time I saw Aunt June was two weeks before my Grandparent’s accident.

“The nastier the place looks, the better the peanuts are,” Grandpa joked, passing the Styrofoam cup of salty boiled peanuts to me in the backseat, studying the map as Grams drove.

“The muddier the peanut water is, the more Grandpa is intrigued,” Grams winked back at me in the rear-view mirror.

Aunt June recently separated from Uncle Rick, and her sadness was palpable. My cousin, Billie, three years older than me, tried her best to hang out whenever we were together. We walked along the beach while our grandparents and Aunt June barbequed.

“Mom says she and dad split ‘cause he’s a ‘lying bastard,’” Billie relayed when I asked what was happening with the divorce. She was quick to change the subject whenever conversation lingered on her parents. “Sometimes I find shark teeth where the waves hit,” she pulled me close to the water, and we walked slowly, combing the beach for treasure.

“Aha!” I heard her exclaim a few yards away from me. “Got one,” she held up a shiny, black triangle the size of my fingernail. She placed the tooth in my hand, allowing me study it closer. “The teeth turn black because they’re old. It’s what happens when something fossilizes,” she explained, delight twinkling in her eyes. Billie was easily the smartest and coolest person I’d ever met.

“How old do you think this tooth is?” I asked breathlessly, exhilarated by the find.

“Probably like, a million-years-old.”

“Woah.”

“Probably the oldest thing you’ve ever touched,” I tried to hand it back to her, but Billie shook her head. “No, you keep it,” she smiled and skipped off.

Days later, back in Atlanta, Grams taught me how to craft a necklace, tying wire around the shark tooth and attaching it to a thin piece of leather. I wore it for two weeks, until Joy ripped the necklace from my neck and tossed the tooth in the trash. For months, I wondered how I’d ended up in Brushy Fork. I had family. Why hadn’t they come for me? Did they not want me as their responsibility?

The sour lady parked her Audi in front of a miniature white plantation house, with a silver tin roof, black trim and accents, and a red door with glass inserts on either side. Roses climbed the lattice under the porch and ivy clung to the sides of the house, rising to the second story. A single lemon tree adorned the expertly manicured yard, with dinosaur-egg sized lemons hanging from the branches. My grandparent’s last name, “Moon,” was written in bold letters across the wrought iron mailbox. The house was just as I’d remembered it.

I opened my door and pulled myself out of the car without saying another word or even glancing back. The Audi sped off in a loud screech as I opened the white gate and walked through. There were two cars parked in the driveway, and the sun was setting. I prayed someone might be home as I tiptoed onto the porch and rang the doorbell with a shaky finger.

Wrecked with nerves, I momentarily considered turning back to find a cozy spot under the bridge, but footsteps padded on the other side of the door. And then I saw her face, older and plumper than I remembered, with more lines around her mouth and on either side of her eyes. Her hair was short and dark, fashioned into a neat bob. Her checkered apron hung over her t-shirt and sweatpants.

“Yes, dear?” she asked, standing in the threshold.

I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came out.

“Is everything alright, honey?” a flicker of worry flashed across her pleasant expression.

“A-a-aunt June?” my voice cracked.

She faltered, her voice turning hard as she gripped the edge of the door. “Who are you?” she demanded.

“I’m Kate…” I choked out, disheartened by the sudden absence of her warmth. “I’m Kate Fox,” my knees wobbled as I turned to leave. Aunt June didn’t want to see me. I should’ve known she wouldn’t want to put up with me. I wasn’t worth caring for. Determined not to let her see me crumble, I hurried down the porch steps and told myself I’d wait until I scrambled outside of the gate, then I was allowed to cry.

“Wait!” Aunt June called after me, scurrying off the porch. The solar lights lining her yard blinked on. Her warm hands shook when she grabbed the sides of my face, and a single tear trailed down her cheek. “It’s…it’s not possible...But you look just like Jamie-Lynn,” she sobbed.

“What’s going on, Mom?” a young woman with auburn hair called from the porch, defensive with her cell phone in hand.

“We went to her funeral,” Aunt June told Billie, pulling me into a hug, talking about me like I wasn’t there. “How is it possible?”

“How is what possible?” Billie sounded annoyed, confused even. She stalked forward, recognition clouding her face. “Kate?” Billie breathed, studying me as she cautiously approached. I nodded as Aunt June combed her fingers through my hair, pulling the bangs away from my face. Billie eyes flicked from me, to Aunt June, then back to me. Her brows crumpled in disbelief. She reached out to touch me like I might disappear.

“What funeral? I’ve been in Kentucky living with a cult for the past six years! Why didn’t you try to find me?” I demanded, feeling anger bubble inside my chest, struggling to detach from Aunt June’s embrace. My lips quivered and tears stung my eyes. “I waited for you. Every night, I’d pray that you’d come for me. But nights turned to weeks, and weeks turned to years, and…” I was interrupted by choked sobs.

“We thought you were dead,” Billie said with a glazed expression, still standing at a distance. “Did you…Did you escape?”

“Yeah. You could say that,” I snapped back, balling up my fists.

“I’m sorry,” Billie whispered.

“Please come in,” Aunt June spoke softly, wiping away tears and tugging me toward the house. I didn’t resist. Even though I was angry, deep down I still wanted to be wanted. I couldn’t handle being refused again. I believed I might shatter at any hint of rejection, so I let her lead me into their home.

The foyer was open and airy, conjuring happy memories of Grams wiping down mine and Billie’s feet before we ran inside, after a long day at the beach. White lace curtains danced across dark wooden floors as the sea breeze flowed through the windows. The walls were filled with faces of family and friends. A photo of me and my grandparents hung near the entryway. The picture was taken our last visit, all huddled together on the beach, barefoot with matching white shirts and blue jeans. Repurposed shelves forged of driftwood adorned the soft yellow hallway, crowded with trinkets galore. The scent of fresh baked bread and something savory filled my nostrils, and my stomach groaned from the absence of sustenance for over 24-hours. We shuffled into the kitchen in silence. Aunt June seated me at the giant farmhouse table.

The moment felt surreal, as though the entire scene was fleeting and would disappear with an unexpected jerk back to Brushy Fork reality. I tugged on a short arm hair to grant myself pain and to ensure that I was, in fact, not dreaming. Aunt June and Billie appeared as rattled as I was, both exchanging lingering glances without really saying anything. Aunt June continued squeezing my hand and stroking my hair back from my face.

“Mom, she’s hungry,” Billie raised her eyebrows, directing her glance at me then nodding her head at the stove.

What an astute observation. I was famished and tired and filthy. With a sense of purpose, Aunt June shot up from her seat and marched to the stove, stirring a pot of something steamy and thick. She retrieved a paper wrapped package from the fridge and dumped it into a cast iron pan with garlic and butter.

“It’s really you,” Billie spoke softly. I nodded, not knowing what else to say. Aunt June placed a big bowl of grits in front of me, then ladled a pink and white mixture over the top.

“I should’ve asked if you liked shrimp!” Aunt June said to me, exasperated and running her hands through her hair, as I stared down at my bowl. “I’ll make you something else. Anything, honey. You used to love grilled cheese. I can make you a grilled cheese. Anything you want. Name it,” she rambled.

I’d never had shrimp before. I scooped up a spoonful of shrimp and grits and devoured the first bite—delicious, rich, and warm. Billie scooted a piece of buttered sourdough bread my way, and I was in heaven. I felt self-conscious about how much I was eating and how I enjoyed the food. I typically didn’t care to eat in front of others. Joy would’ve reprimanded me for showing such pleasure and allowing myself to have a big bowl of something caloric, rather than a salad, but I tried to silence her shrill voice pounding in my head. Aunt June seemed pleased that I appreciated her cooking, and she insisted I have a second helping. I obliged without protest and finished off the rest of my meal with cold iced tea. When my belly was full and I couldn’t possibly eat another bite, I took my plate to the sink in an attempt to wash it off, but Billie intercepted and told me not to worry about the dishes.

My cousin led me upstairs, to the bathroom, handing me a set of fresh, white towels. I desperately wanted to feel clean, to wash away the grime and blood from the altercation at the church and hours of wandering through the forest, but something about how fluffy and soft and nice-smelling the towels were stirred up a fit of tears that I couldn’t suppress. My throat was still sore from Gideon’s rough-handling. I caught a glimpse of my reflection above the sink. She was a stranger, with wild eyes and a thick mane tangled in every direction. Her face was streaked with dirt and dried blood, and her neck was bruised badly, with varying shades of purple lingering across her throat.

Billie wrapped her arms around me. She smelled good, like dryer sheets and flowers. I expected her to tell me to stop crying, to suck it up, to quit feeling sorry for myself, but she never did.

“I’ll stay with you,” she murmured, her voice sad. I tore my attention from the mirror and nodded, wiping tears from my face. I undressed and started to fold my clothes neatly, knowing I didn’t have a spare pair for when I got out of the shower. “No,” Billie said, grabbing the clothes from me and tossing them in the wicker trashcan. “You can have something of mine for the time being. You’re not wearing those again.”

I relished in my first hot shower in over six years. I squeezed and lathered on every bottle of fruity-smelling liquid in the shower, watching the dirt and sand bead off me and roll down the drain. Billie sat quietly on the counter and waited, handing me a towel when I was done. I followed her to her bedroom, where she picked out a pair of sleep shorts, underwear, and a t-shirt for me to change into. I worried her clothes wouldn’t fit me, but it seemed like we wore a similar size. I thanked her, and she urged me to perch on the wooden chest in front of her sleigh bed. My toes wiggled around on the cowhide rug that adorned the floor. Her room was lined with shelves of books and twinkly strings of lights. She had a walk-in closet and her own bathroom. Billie’s room wasn’t particularly clean, but not particularly messy either, more like she had tried to choose from several outfits that day and ended up throwing all the options on the floor.