The Deepest Roots Read online

He smiles at me.

  We stand in the ambient glow of the porch light, cicadas chirping around us.

  “I had a good time,” Jett says.

  That’s it.

  There’s no surprise, no pity. No disgust. Just a boy standing in a front yard with a girl, probably wondering whether or not we are going to kiss, just like he would have if we were really that imaginary boy and girl standing in front of Mercy’s house.

  I find my voice. “Me too.”

  “This may sound really lame, but I like you. And tomorrow I’ve got a game and there’s going to be a party afterward with the team at Clay’s house. Is there any chance you’d want to come with me?” His last words come out in a nervous rush.

  “You want to take me to an Evanston party?” I ask. I hope when I say the word Evanston it doesn’t sound synonymous with the word shit, but it probably does.

  “Yes.”

  “As your mechanic or your date?” I tease.

  Jett manfully attempts to keep a straight face. “My brakes are great, by the way. I’m surprised you didn’t ask. Seems like something a responsible mechanic would do.”

  “So would this date include me in the baseball stands, cheering for you or something? Would I need to wear an Evanston Eagles shirt? Or have pom-poms?”

  “It would be awesome if it included that. But if baseball doesn’t thrill you, we could meet up after.”

  “I think I could probably make it to a game,” I say with a shrug. “I’ll have to find where your parents are sitting, though, so I can ask your mom about her goats. And the chickens. And whether or not it’s too soon to call her Mom.”

  He laughs, his eyes crinkling up in that way that makes something light and quick jolt in my stomach.

  I kiss him.

  I can tell he’s a little surprised, because he stiffens at first before settling his big, warm hands around my waist. He goes for a second kiss, and then a third.

  “I like you, too,” I tell him when we both pull away.

  Fifteen

  I STAND ON THE FRONT porch, waving at Jett as he drives away. When his taillights fade, I look down at my feet and see Lux’s stupid ballet flats. And then I remember our fight. And how it had all started when she told me that her mom had warned her to stay out tonight because Aaron is pissed about his truck and thinks we had something to do with it. I was angry with her, and we’d each hurt each other over the secrets we’ve kept.

  I stare at my palm, at that thin white scar slicing across it, remembering everything that we’d sworn to each other, me and Lux and Mercy. But I broke that promise. I turned away. I turned away from Lux when she needed me because I was angry. The air around me grows cool, as if Emmeline Remington didn’t disappear with her diary. And I realize now how wrong I’ve been. I thought that I was meant to find Emmeline’s diary so that we could find the dowry chest and I could buy back the Mach and Lux and her mom could kick Aaron out.

  But that wasn’t it at all. Emmeline wanted us to know that she hadn’t cursed us. She’d meant everything to be a gift, not just the talents, but the strength of our bond, the lengths to which we will go for each other. And that’s why I was supposed to find the diary, to remind me of what Lux and Mercy and I truly are to each other. But this is one thing I will wish with my dying breath upon all the daughters of Cottonwood Hollow who follow mine: May they depend on each other; protect each other no matter what the cost, as my sister would have done for me if she were here.

  I have to do the one thing that only a true sister could do for Lux.

  I have to protect her.

  Even if the cost is our friendship.

  I don’t even bother to go inside the trailer. I know where Lux is, and I know she needs me. I start running, not a jog, but a flat-out sprint that blurs the world around me, streaks of houses and cottonwoods and the pounding of my feet on the road in those beautiful, fragile shoes.

  When I get to Lux’s house, all the lights are on, turning the small bungalow into a beacon. The neighbors have come to stand out on their porches, and a few more peek from behind drawn curtains. Their faces are conflicted, the look of people unsure about whether or not they should act, if what happens behind closed doors should be left there.

  Only Tina’s car is parked in the drive.

  I open the screen door and jiggle the handle of the front door. It’s locked, but I know where the spare key is. I almost stumble when I feel that familiar tug from the other side of the door, like many broken things are waiting for me to Fix them. I put my hand on the door to steady myself when I hear the muffled sound of someone crying inside.

  I’ve got to do it now, before I lose my nerve. I have to do what Emmeline wanted me to do. Protect Lux, no matter the cost. Even if I know she’ll never forgive me. I dial Rick Ruiz’s number on my phone. He’s the sheriff’s deputy, and my neighbor, and he owes me one for Fixing his electricity last Sunday.

  My hands shake like I’m eighty years old. I don’t know what I’ll find when I open this door. But I’ve known Rick since I was a kid, and I’ve babysat Letty loads of times. I know Rick will answer when he sees my number, even though it’s late.

  He picks up on the second ring. “Hello?” he answers, his voice slurred with sleep.

  “Rick, I need help.”

  “Rome, what’s wrong?” he says, more awake now.

  “Come to Lux’s house quick,” I say in a low voice. “I think she and her mom are in trouble. Get one of the local EMTs to come, too.”

  My fingers are still trembling when I lean down and grab the key out from under the ceramic toad on the front stoop. These are Fixer hands, and they have been steady all my life. But they are not steady now. I scrape the key around the keyhole twice before I’m able to jam it in and twist.

  Then I push open the front door, briefly confused by the resistance I meet, as if someone is leaning on the other side. There’s no one there, but the little table where Tina and Aaron drop their keys when they come home is knocked over. I shove the door with my shoulder, wincing at the noise as the table scrapes across the wood floor.

  I’m not fully prepared for what I find in the living room.

  At first I can only process the big things, and then the smaller ones come into focus. The recliner is turned over on its side; the television has been knocked off the stand. Then it’s a bottle of Budweiser leaking on the couch, a lone ballet flat by the radiator. The hand-drawn map of Cottonwood Hollow, the glass broken out. Fragments of the vase Mom and I gave Tina as a wedding gift. Debris litters the floor, shattered dishes and what looks like drops of blood, and it takes me a few moments more before I find the people in all the mess.

  Lux is lying on her side, curled up near the fallen TV, its screen cracked and splintered. Her nose is bleeding, smearing red over her lips and chin, and her left eye is nearly swollen shut beneath the smudge of her eye shadow. Her school uniform top is ripped at the shoulder and hanging nearly completely open, exposing pink, flushed skin and part of the polka-dotted bra she’s wearing.

  Tina is collapsed against the wall near the kitchen, her face purplish and almost unrecognizable. She doesn’t even notice I’m here. It’s hard to tell if her eyes are barely open or swollen shut.

  I rush to Lux and drop to my knees, desperate to see how badly she’s hurt. I wouldn’t even know she was alive if it weren’t for the occasional shudder of her body. Dried tears have left salty tracks down her cheeks.

  My hands hover above her, unsure of what to do first. I should have listened to Lux when she said she shouldn’t go home. I shouldn’t have fought with her. I shouldn’t have put bleach in Aaron’s gas tank. Oh, shit, shit, shit. This is my fault.

  Lux’s strawberry-blond hair is coming out of its bun, trailing limp, pale strands around her neck and pooling in gentle whorls on the floor. I cautiously stroke the hair away from her face and neck. Tears make it damp against my hands. She opens her eyes, the puffy one barely a slit.

  “What happened?” I ask, even though I know
.

  “He said it was my fault,” Lux whispers.

  I continue to stroke her hair back off her face, exposing more swelling as I do.

  The bleach. Aaron must have decided for sure that we put the bleach in his gas tank to get revenge for him hitting Lux. My chest is tight and cold and it’s hard to breathe, because I’ve never hurt this much in my life. But I am not prepared for her next words.

  “He said I use my curse on him. That I tried to seduce him. That I make him do those things. But I don’t, Rome. I swear I don’t.”

  I feel vomit rising in my throat. I have to force the words past my tongue when I ask, “Did he try to touch you?” All the pieces are coming together now. This isn’t about Aaron’s truck, and Lux’s fear of Aaron was never just about him hitting her.

  “He kissed me, even though I told him to leave me alone. He grabbed me,” she says, her lower lip trembling as she moves her hands to wipe his touch away. “I begged him not to, Rome. It’s not the first time. I always tell him no, Rome. You have to believe me. I don’t ever use my curse on him. I never did. I swear it. Please, please believe me.” She reaches out and her bloody fingers wrap around my wrists.

  I look her straight in the eyes. “I believe you, Lux.” I clench my fists, wishing he were here so I could smash his face in. Aaron was trying to touch her, to force her to do things she didn’t want to do, all the while blaming it on her and her talent as a Siren. Of course she said it was a curse. Who would believe Lux if she told them that she wasn’t doing it? After the algebra teacher in Evanston, would anyone believe her if she said it wasn’t her fault?

  Lux struggles to sit up, looking around the room like she’s not sure where she is. I reach out and try to steady her.

  When she speaks, her voice is crackly, distorted. Maybe she had screamed for help for too long. “He tore my shirt when I tried to get away from him. And then Mom came home early. And she just flew at him. And he hit her. And he kept hitting her.” She looks around for Tina, sees her slumped against the wall. Lux’s chest heaves like she’s beginning to hyperventilate. “Is she breathing?”

  “Let me check on her. We have to call an ambulance, Lux,” I tell her, hoping that she’ll see reason. Hoping that she won’t hate me forever for calling Rick. I feel her fear when I touch her, see the panic rising in her again. “We have to get help.”

  “No,” she hisses, looking frantically around her, as if someone might hear us. “We’ll be all right. Mom can Heal us. She’ll wake up. She has to wake up. We can’t tell anyone what happened. This is why I made you promise, Rome. No one will believe it’s not my fault. They’ll think I used my curse to seduce him. To lead him on.”

  “No, Lux,” I whisper gently. “It’s not your fault. It was never your fault.” I hate myself for not having listened more closely. For not poking and prodding and making her tell me everything. That’s what friends, no, sisters, are supposed to do. And I’ve failed her.

  “Remember, you promised.” Lux pulls away from me and finds her feet, stumbling drunkenly over to her mom.

  Rick shouts as he enters the house in his deputy uniform, pushing his way in against the debris as I had before, “Hello? Rome? Lux? Tina? Where are you?” His hand hovers over his holstered gun as he surveys the scene.

  Our eyes meet, his dark with understanding.

  An EMT comes in with a black bag, looking around the room with a placid expression, as if he’s seen this kind of thing before. When he spots Tina, he immediately hurries over to her.

  I pull Lux away from her mom to give the EMT some room to work. He’s trying to talk to Tina, touching her face and lifting her eyelids to shine a small flashlight in her eyes.

  Something must have dissipated the fog of fear and panic in Lux’s brain, because she realizes now that Rick and the EMT are here. “The police,” she whispers, turning around in my arms to face me. Her hands grab my shirt. “Someone called the police. They’re going to find out. They’re going to think I did what Aaron said.”

  And I realize what a complete betrayal this will be when Lux realizes that it was me who revealed her secret. Her curse will be in the spotlight again. There will be people who believe Aaron. People who believe she somehow did all this to herself by being too pretty, too young, too flirtatious. People who believe she was asking for it all along, this beautiful Siren from Cottonwood Hollow.

  “No, Lux,” I tell her, grabbing her wrists in my strong hands. Fixer hands. I wish I could Fix us now. “You didn’t do anything wrong. Rick and the EMT are here to help. We’re all here to help.”

  “It was you,” she hisses as she puts all the pieces together. She tries to pull away.

  “It was me,” I admit, because I can’t lie to her, not now. I did the one thing I could do. What I should have done from the very beginning, what Emmeline was trying to tell me all along. Protect my sister, no matter the cost.

  “No,” Lux sobs. “Not you, Rome. Mrs. Montoya or the neighbors, but not you.”

  We are both crying now, hot tears spilling down my cheeks. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’m sorry,” this time louder. “But I can’t let him hurt you again, Lux.”

  “That was never your call, Rome. That was never your decision. You promised me that you wouldn’t tell.” Her face is mottled and red, tears barely escaping the eye that’s nearly swollen shut.

  “I know. And I’m sorry. But this is bigger than us, Lux.”

  She cries, her beautiful, battered face crumpling before my eyes, breaking beneath my betrayal. “I trusted you, Rome. You were my sister. My blood sister.”

  “I know, Lux. That’s why I did it.” I’m still holding on to her, refusing to let go. As if I can just hold on long enough, she’ll forgive me.

  Mom enters the living room, her lips pursed and her eyes wide as she surveys the damage. I don’t know if Rick called her, or if some maternal instinct in her signaled that I was in trouble. “Rome,” she says. “We need to get out of the way and let them work.” She’s right. Two new EMTs bring in a stretcher to move Tina, and I hear the wail of an ambulance heading toward us.

  “I won’t leave you,” I tell Lux, wishing her hold on our friendship was stronger than my broken promise. “I’ll go with you to the hospital. I’ll come with you to talk to the police, whatever you need to do. We’ll do this together.”

  “Get away from me! I never want to see you again!” she screams, ripping out of my grasp and shoving me away. Her hair falls completely down, tangling around her in thick ropes.

  “Lux, honey, we’ll come to the hospital with you—” Mom begins, trying to make peace between us.

  But Lux can’t see or hear anyone but me now. Her green eyes slice across me in a way that cuts me to the bone. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. Everything in me aches, like I’ve been hit by a truck. “I’m sorry, Lux.”

  “Don’t,” she hisses. “Don’t pretend you ever cared about me.”

  Mom and I stand outside in the yard and watch as the paramedics roll the gurney carrying Tina into the ambulance. Lux comes next, and she’s fighting all the way, screaming at Rick that she’s fine, that everybody’s fine.

  I’m holding the broken picture, the hand-drawn map of Cottonwood Hollow. I can’t stop crying. It shakes my shoulders, shakes my whole body, wrenching loose screws and bolts that have held me together for so long. I cry for Lux. I cry for Tina. I cry for broken promises. And then I cry just for me.

  Sixteen

  I MANAGE TO DRAG MYSELF to school the next morning. Mom would have let me stay home and hide forever in my bedroom if that was what I really wanted. She’d done the same when she lost her job at the café. But that isn’t who I am. At least, I don’t think it is. I can’t believe I failed so spectacularly. All I had to do was be Lux’s sister, her best friend, and really look into what was going on in her life.

  I slink into first period, finding my seat in the back next to Lux’s empty one. Of course she’s not here. Mom said they released Tina early this morning, but Lu
x had never been admitted to the hospital, instead refusing any treatment other than what she’d gotten from the paramedics. Even if Tina had been conscious, she still might not have been able to Heal herself, Mom had told me in a whisper. Even Healers can’t mend broken bones. She looked at me with careful eyes that suggested she’d figured out what was going on in that house, too.

  Aaron still hasn’t been found.

  In first period, Morgan stares at the empty seat between us, looking uncomfortable. “Do you know where Lux is?” she asks, her blue eyes locking on mine. “She’s not answering her phone. I’ve left a million voice mails, texts. Did she say anything to you?”

  I shrug. I’d tried texting Lux this morning, too.

  I’m sorry. I had to do it. Please let me come over to talk.

  I’m so sorry. Let me know if you want me to skip school and help you clean up.

  Lux, please don’t let go.

  Dammit, Lux. Answer your goddamned phone.

  “Well, can you at least tell me if she’s okay?” Morgan asks, her slim, pretty hands clutching the edge of her desk as if it is the only solid thing in her ephemeral world.

  “I can’t tell you anything,” I reply. “You’ll have to talk to Lux.” I’ve done enough damage to our friendship without getting involved in her relationship with Morgan.

  “Is she breaking up with me?” Morgan asks, her blue eyes tearing up. “Is that what this is? She can’t even do it to my face?”

  “Oh, Jesus Christ, Morgan, not everything is about you, okay?” I say, spearing her with a glare.

  Morgan sniffs, looking down so that her bobbed hair slips forward and covers her face.

  “I’m sorry,” I say quickly, my voice low. “It’s not anything that you did. Something happened with her stepdad.”

  Morgan looks up, immediately alarmed. “What happened?” she asks.

  “I can’t tell you everything. But I know Lux loves you. And that she needs you. Don’t stop texting her. Just keep trying. It can take time to get through to her.” I wish that Lux would answer my texts, tell me I hadn’t broken everything apart. But since she won’t, I have to take solace in knowing that she has Morgan to comfort her.