The Wishing Garden (32 page)

Emma didn’t say a thing, because she knew every word would come out like a sob. Her mother dropped the bag by the door. She gathered the makeup on the dining-room table and stuffed it in her purse. When it became obvious that Savannah was determined to go, Emma threw out the one thing that might stop her.

“Aren’t you at least going to say goodbye to Jake? Can’t you tell when someone’s in love with you?”

Savannah put the last blue eye shadow in her purse and looked up. “Love is a stretch.”

“I don’t think so.”

Emma gripped her pillow. She clawed her way clear to foam stuffing by the time her mother sighed and headed toward the door. “Go back to sleep,” Savannah said. “We’ll leave after dawn.”

Emma lay back down, but as soon as her mother stepped off the deck, she jumped off the couch. She had tears running down her cheeks with no idea why. She got into her jeans and boots and grabbed her sack by the door.

Though the roof was creaking in the night breeze, she could still hear her grandfather’s steady breathing. Ever since they’d gotten up here, Doug had been able to take deep breaths without shuddering. It was her grandmother who now moaned during sleep.

The dogs were all out with Jake. All Emma had to do was take this moment and run, but instead she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror.

Something was happening to her, and it wasn’t appealing. She no longer had any desire to finish school or play the lead in
Othello
. Her hair had lightened to the color of wheat, and her eyes, once dark gray, had been bleached to a light sandstone. Wanting was so bitter, lately she hadn’t been able to keep down anything but honey and marmalade.

She walked to the counter and snatched her mother’s tarot cards. She flipped through them quickly, until she found the Lovers, and then she stole it right out of the deck.

She didn’t care if this skewed her mother’s readings; she only knew she had to have that card. Love ought to be generous, but she had this feeling it was not. She was even worried that her own mother was taking her share. Whether Savannah knew it or not, she couldn’t look at anything but Jake when he was in the room. He’d been sacked out in that workshop all these nights, waiting for her to come to him, waiting for a lot more than that. She could see it written all over him. He was eating only honey and marmalade too.

She picked up the phone. As soon as it started ringing in Eli’s house, she took a good, long breath. Now that she was connected to him, she felt ten feet tall and full of light. She felt capable of anything.

“Yeah?” he said.

“Meet me at the mile marker as soon as you can.” Then she hung up and ran. She was out and free in seconds. It was so easy, she only wondered why she’d waited so long.

She had no company from stars. The sky was blank and moonless as she ran, and she was not surprised when she found the mile marker empty. It was obvious she was now on her own.

Then she heard the distant roar of an engine, and
she tingled clear down to her toes. Eli pulled up next to her and got out of the car, and she flung herself at him. She stroked his hair and face, jammed her fingers into the pockets of his jeans. She had shoplifter’s hands with him. She pocketed strands of his hair, loose threads on his shirt, the warm change in his pockets.

“What’s up?” he asked.

His voice quivered, and that was lovely. People thought he was nothing but a druggie, a thug, a delinquent. They couldn’t see the most obvious fact—Eli was a nineteen-year-old without a soul. Maybe he’d sold it to the devil, or had it snatched from him by his father’s brutish hand; either way, Emma vowed to get it back for him. She’d kiss him until he’d just have to accept there was someone in this world who loved him, who wasn’t going to leave.

She laid her head on his chest. “I love you, Eli.”

He looked down at the bag by her feet. Even the crickets had gone silent to hear the racket of his heart, his jerky breathing.

“They’re gonna call this kidnapping. You know they are. Shit, Emma.”

Emma stepped back. She had expected anything but cowardice. She kicked at her bag, then at the front tire of his Corvette. When she dented the rim, she kicked harder.

“Jesus,” Eli said, pulling her back. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“I’m doing something. Anything. And you should do the same, Eli Malone. You should fucking do the same!”

Eli stared at her, then brushed back his hair. He was so beautiful she wanted to hide him away some place he could never do damage to himself again. But instead she grabbed his hands and held on for dear
life. “I’m running away. I’m coming with you. Don’t even try to stop me.”

“They’re gonna come to me first thing.”

“Then we’ll just have to leave town.”

“Where will we go? Emma, I don’t have any money.”

“What about all those stolen stereos?” she asked him. “I’d say now’s the time to sell.”

He stared at her, and Emma dropped his hands. She would have forced him to love her, if she had thought it would work. Instead, she jammed her hands into her pockets and wondered how anyone ever came through love in one piece. She wondered why more people hadn’t gone crazy. If he didn’t tell her he loved her soon, she was going to crack. She could feel her bones quivering, but she was a better faker than she’d realized, because on the outside she wasn’t even shaking. She looked like the only kind of girl who could snare him, the kind who couldn’t care less.

“I can sell some of the stuff,” he said, “but there’s a better idea.”

“Good. You can tell me in the car. Let’s get going. Just drive where they won’t ever find us.”

She threw her bag in the back and got in the car. Eli got in after her and turned on the engine. He drove them to the highway in silence, then turned east for five miles. He pulled over on an old logging road and cut the engine. He lit another cigarette.

“The guys have been thinking,” he said. “There’s this liquor store …”

By the time he was through, she felt no more hesitation. All she wanted was the chance to prove her devotion.

“When do we do it?” she asked.

*  *  *

When Savannah walked through the door of his workshop, Jake figured his heart had gone out and some mix-up had gotten him into heaven. He had gone to bed this very night telling himself to just forget it, to stop wishing for anything, but his dreams had betrayed him. They’d been full of jingling bracelets and Panama hats.

Then he opened his eyes and it was real. She was there, naked, sliding into the sleeping bag beside him. She kissed his eyelids, his nose, the beard he’d cut shorter and shorter every day she was here, so that now it was just a shadow on his chin and tomorrow might be gone entirely.

His hand shook as he ran it down her neck and cupped his palm around her breast. “You know what you’re doing?” he asked.

“Not at all.”

She leaned forward and kissed him again. Jake ran his hand up her smooth back, traced the wings of her shoulder blades. Then he just held on.

He knew he was in trouble, because his fantasies had never gone beyond this. All he’d dared to dream about was holding her, and if she gave him more than that, he might not come away in one piece. He was in too deep, greedy for a woman, dependent on her loving him when it was still unclear if she ever would.

She was the one who reached for his pants, who slid them down and climbed over him. She took him deep inside her, and out of the corner of his eyes, he saw a light at the window. He didn’t blink when the comet streaked past, its tail crossing over the ladle of the Big Dipper, when he saw how lucky he really was.

But luck left. It was some time after he rose up inside her, after he sunk his fingers in the hot folds of her skin, that he realized she was really saying goodbye. She was fanning her fingers across his ribs to
memorize them. When she came, she was kissing the corners of his mouth and saying his name, so she could remember it later, when she might regret what she’d done.

“You’re not going anywhere,” he said, and she just kissed him harder. Her tears dripped into the hollows of his neck.

He pulled away and sat up. She pressed her cheek against his back, and the truth was, being haunted by Roy’s ghost would never come close to what losing her would do to him. The worst ghosts weren’t enemies, but the people you had loved best, the ones you wished would haunt you but didn’t. The ones who couldn’t, or wouldn’t, love you back.

“Try to understand,” she said.

“Oh, believe me, I do. I’ll bet this was how it was with your husband. You divorced him as soon as you started to feel something.”

She sat up and yanked on her dress. He had to be mean to her. Meanness was the only thing that would get him through once she was gone.

“It was never like this with Harry.”

“No,” he said, unable to help himself. “He got a little more time.”

She slipped on her sandals and turned around. “I don’t belong here, Jake.”

“Neither do I.”

She tapped her foot on the floor. “You want the truth then? All right, here it is. My father could die any minute and if I manage to keep Emma safe beside me, she’ll hate me for it. I’m not losing one more thing, you hear me? I’m going to fall in love with someone with no history of heart disease. I’ll marry a twenty-year-old, someone who will outlast me by a decade. Will you look at me when I’m talking to you?”

Jake could not, because right behind her, her
shadow had split off and walked out the door. It blended into starlight, and that meant it was too late for words. All he could do was get dressed and give in.

He put on his pants and walked out the door. Savannah came out after him, but he wasn’t going to look at her now, not when she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever watched walk away from him. He stared at the sky until he spotted what he wanted—a falling star. Then he made the most rational wish he could think of. He wished that the police would figure out who had killed Roy Pillandro and come for him already, because if he was going to lose the one thing that mattered, he might as well lose everything.

She finally took his hand. “I’m not crying over you, Jake, so just forget it.”

“Savannah—”

“What happens when your heart gives out? What happens when you leave me?”

“I couldn’t leave you,” he said. “It would be impossible.”

But Savannah was shaking her head. “There’s a story about a shepherd named Stanko. He was a master flutist and one night he played so beautifully, he entranced the Vila, a forest spirit. Stanko loved her at first, but after a while, he felt mauled by her devotion. He asked witches to help him rid himself of her, but no spells worked. Even worse, the Vila began to beat him. She was out of her mind with love for him and knew it was that very love that had turned him from her. For years, Stanko was discovered on the tops of trees, gagged and bloody. Then one morning he escaped and drowned himself in a ditch.”

Jake stared at her. “I imagine that’s one you’ve never told Emma.”

Savannah kissed him hard on the lips. When she pulled back, there were tears all down her cheeks.

“Love is a matter of degree. Too little and it’s worthless. Too much and it will drive you to suicide.”

“None of it and you turn into a hermit. Or a gypsy.”

“I’m going,” she said.

“So go.”

He was holding tight to her hand, but somehow she extricated it. When she was halfway to the cabin, his throat was so tight, he could only whisper, “You’re chicken, Savannah Dawson.” Probably she didn’t hear him, because she just went into the house.

Roy was up on the roof, cackling. Jake grabbed a rock and hurled it at him, but it just came tumbling back down. He realized he no longer cared if he was going to hell or not, as long as he got that son of a bitch off his property. He walked up the slope to the house, but before he could do any damage, he heard Savannah crying. He went inside and found her on the couch, her head in her hands.

“Emma’s gone,” she said.

Four hours later, when the sun was well up over Whitehead Peak to the east, Savannah was still on the couch, her elbows on her knees, rocking. Her mother was holding the telephone, but Savannah would not let her make the call.

“I cannot believe this,” Maggie said. “You call the police right this second, young lady. You put out an APB.”

Jake had returned from Eli’s house half an hour earlier. He’d found the Corvette gone, the oil puddle in the drive already dry.

Savannah went on rocking. Her father sat beside her, his thin arm around her waist. He hadn’t said a
word all morning. Now, he stood up and took the phone out of Maggie’s hands.

“She doesn’t want to do it,” he said. “Come on. I woke up feeling great this morning. I think I’m up to a stroll.”

“No strolling.” Maggie sat down beside her. She yanked Savannah’s elbows off her knees and held her face firmly in one hand. “Go get your daughter back.”

Savannah leaned forward and kissed her mother on the mouth. “No.”

“What about Harry? You think he won’t call in his fancy lawyers when he finds out you just let her go? You think this won’t give him exactly the ammunition he needs to steal Emma away from you?”

“He can’t steal Emma if she’s already gone.” Savannah stood up and grabbed her cards off the table.

“Doug, talk to her,” Maggie said.

Savannah kissed her father’s cheek, then walked out of the cabin. She was still psychic about Emma. She could see her running down this road, unwilling to turn around for fear of regret. She could see her with her face to the sky, where nothing would refute the belief that the more she and Eli suffered, the purer their love. She knew the feel of Eli’s arms around her, both electrifying and exhausting.

She could see them driving east, holding hands so tightly they both felt a little numb. Very deliberately, Savannah turned west. She had to consciously make her feet move, but however she did it, she walked the other way.

She reached the bald summit of Kemper Peak by noon and sat beneath a sky too blue for what she was feeling, a sky meant for children and lovers, not for mothers who were down to praying simply not to make the wrong move. She sprawled the cards in front of her. They’d been rummaged through the night before,
and now she looked to see what was missing. It took only a minute to realize it was the Lovers, a card that meant romance and love, but if drawn a little too often, also meant the sacrifice of the soul.