The Storm King Read online

  Whatever it is, it happened. But let the record show that I didn’t do it for me. I did it for Mom.

  Christmas is only a month away, and we’re a mess. The babies are so young that they barely even realize Dad’s gone, that Mom’s tired, that our food’s down to supermarket generics. Christmas is supposed to be magic for kids, but they don’t even know this, and maybe that’s the saddest part.

  This time last year, I had a long wish list of fancy gifts, but I’m not one of those girls anymore. I don’t need to compete with everyone else, which is good, because I can’t.

  No present’s worth Mom picking up another shift at the hospital. She works too hard already. For Christmas I wanted there to be at least one nice thing for her under the tree.

  Me, Lindsay, and the Sarahs loved this boutique. Everything here’s delicate and expensive and made to be admired. I used to fit right in—you could have hung a price tag from my pinky finger and propped me in the corner. But that was before I learned that something fragile is just about begging to be crushed, and anything beautiful is asking to be defaced.

  Everything in the shop still looks like it’d be at home in a Manhattan art gallery except Mrs. Sackett, who’d fit in better in some moldy Egyptian exhibit. The old bag’s on the phone when I come in, and I’m happy to slink right past her.

  I try on a pair of huge sunglasses, pouting in the mirror like an actress. Part of me wishes Lindsay and the others would sashay in, all chittering like we all used to. They’d freeze when they saw me, and the silence in the little store would grow and fester and bloat until it became a physical thing.

  My eyes are on my reflection, but my attention’s on my left hand as it drifts to a display of bracelets. My fingers creep along the smooth band of a silver cuff studded with amethyst. They slide through the cool metal, and just like that it’s sitting on my wrist, perched like a crown on my winter skin.

  I play with the sunglasses awhile longer before moving to the pashminas, then get ready to stalk past Mrs. Sackett. The woman used to be one of Mom’s friends back in the days when they returned her calls.

  I should have smiled at Mrs. Sackett, but my smile’s broken. I check in the mirror sometimes and it’s all edges. About as heartwarming as a chainsaw.

  Would have been wasted anyway.

  Sackett clears her throat. Lifts and injections have left the creature’s face a weird combo of puffed and taut, but she can still squint her eyes. Now they’re slitted with disgust and, I’m pretty sure, satisfaction. Those bracelets are hard to resist, aren’t they? she asks me.

  Of course she’d been watching. Hoping for me to screw up.

  Our family’s disgrace is the kind where no one’s worse to us than the people we used to think of as friends. A criminal, just like her father, Sackett will tell the vultures at the club.

  Oh my gosh! Totally spaced, Mrs. Sackett! I tell her in the most convincing little girl voice I’ve got. That I’d stumbled home just before dawn and already smoked half a pack probably doesn’t help. I pull off the bracelet and put it on the counter.

  Sackett the Hatchet. Lindsay came up with the nickname, and it fits the lady way better than the tops she wears.

  What an airhead! the Hatchet says with a smile as fake as her tan. And then: Cash or credit?

  Obviously, I’d planned to plea ditziness and return the bracelet. But of course the Hatchet’s not going to let me leave her store before milking this for every possible drop of drama. This is around when I realize how idiotic it was for me to come here. Even before the trial and settlement, I knew the woman was a beast. And now her boutique is the forbidden territory of a lost life. Might as well be marked with caution tape and hung with blinking red signs. Trespassers will be prosecuted.

  Well? the Hatchet asks me again.

  I’m not rich and popular anymore. Sometimes I think the only thing left of that girl is her pride. But the card I’d been an authorized user for was shredded months ago, and I doubt I’ve got more than ten dollars in my pocket.

  I ask her how much it is.

  Three fifty-nine ninety-nine, she tells me.

  Crazy, right?

  Not including tax, she can’t help adding. Surgeries have dulled the Hatchet’s expressions, but the glee in her eye is like neon.

  I check and find out that my wallet holds all of seven singles.

  If you can’t pay for it, I’m afraid I’ll have to call the police, she says. She lifts the phone’s receiver to her ear.

  It really was an accident, I tell her.

  We should probably leave that to the authorities, she says. I’m sure the security footage will help, she tells me.

  Getting picked up for shoplifting won’t be the worst thing to happen to me—not even close—still, something about this really hits me. Like being carted to the police station will prove how far I’ve fallen and trash any hope of recovery.

  I’ve got to admit, begging for mercy occurs to me. I could throw myself to the floor and grovel like a dog. But that’d give this town exactly what it wants. They want me on my knees just to kick me in the face.

  I think about escape. Adam’s right outside, idling in his stupid car. Things have been rough between us since Halloween, but he might actually like the idea of being a getaway guy. But this is a dumb fantasy.

  I picture Mom picking me up at the station. Everyone would know, but they already know worse things about us. Our family burned to the ground months ago, so one more match won’t make a difference.

  So I’m doomed. But if the Hatchet’s going to take me down, I’m going to make it hurt.

  Fine, I tell her, go ahead and call the cops you plastic, coyote-faced—

  And I never get a chance to finish what I’m sure would have been a world-class burn, because right then, out of nowhere, someone says: I’ll cover it, Mrs. Sackett.

  I turn and see Nate McHale in the doorway.

  The Hatchet stares at Nate, turns to me, then back to Nate, like having both of us in her little store at the same time contradicts some basic law of physics.

  It’s not easy to avoid someone in a place as small as the Lake. Especially when you share three classes with the guy. Still, I’ve been doing a decent job of it since Halloween.

  This journal’s supposed to be whatever I want it to be, right? Worries and nightmares and dreams and all that teenaged shit. Well, ruining that Halloween for Nate was a primary short-term goal. Call me petty. It’d be the closest thing to a compliment I’ve gotten in weeks.

  By Halloween, Nate and I had been playing for months. A sport without rules. After breaking his bedroom window with another baseball, I knew Nate couldn’t resist some old-school Halloween mischief. So I made the house too juicy to resist and hid behind a tree with a cellphone.

  Shaving cream sprayed, toothpaste squirted, eggs launched. I guess it was too wet to bother with the TP. I know he’s doing all this to hurt me, but watching it happen, I don’t feel a thing. That little brick house is where I sleep, but it isn’t my home. Home is broken. Pieces of it are scattered between here and Ogdensburg.

  That’s where Mom and the twins were on Halloween, visiting Dad. They still go every other week, but I wonder how long that’ll keep up. I’ve gone a couple times.

  I remember them floating Nate’s kid brother up to the surface. Red polo shirt and khaki shorts. Bobbing there, facedown like a doll. Dad wasn’t in cuffs then, but he would be soon. You don’t run the chief of police’s best friend and his family off a cliff and get away with it. Not with a belly of Bloody Marys and a BAC twice the state limit. If Mom hadn’t been home with the babies, she’d have been driving. If I’d gotten a B+ in English instead of an A, Dad might not have taken me out for brunch in the first place.

  I was ten feet from Nate when he told the police about the baseball stuck under the car’s brake. He said it was all his fault—his words! It came up in the trial, but the poor orphan boy was all anyone cared about.

  Anyway, Nate’s deep into his eggs when I dia
l Adam’s cell. I only let it ring twice before hanging up. That’s the signal. I guess I light a cigarette, too. Nate’s sure to see it, but I’ve got to make my entrance sometime, so I do.

  Tom and Johnny run, but Nate stays.

  The two of us, alone. It’s been a long time coming.

  Are you happy? I ask him. Is this everything you wanted? Did the eggs and toothpaste and shaving cream make you feel like a man in control? Did that money you got from my family fill the cracks in your broken arm and the holes in your family tree? Do you feel better, knowing that you’re the Lake’s golden son, and I’m its most hated daughter? I don’t actually say all of this, but I wish I had.

  There’s a funny look on his face, but before he can say anything, Adam and the others rush him. Alpha male crap.

  Adam’s about to knock his head off when Nate smiles. I know this doesn’t sound like anything, but right then it feels like the most outrageous thing he can do. The light from the garage catches the blue in his eyes and makes his skin gleam. He’s smiling, but past that there’s a look way too old for his face.

  Those eyes. That face. The sadness behind it. Nate’s always been cute, but that’s when I realize he’s beautiful.

  I’m not even sure what happened next. Tom and Johnny appear out of nowhere, then Adam’s on the ground with his head bleeding. There’s running and shouting and then we’re piled into Adam’s car gunning for the boys.

  We lurch over the curb, all shouting to get them, but I can tell from the sound of my own voice that I don’t mean it. That’s when I understand I don’t want this anymore.

  Me taunting Nate. Nate hounding me.

  Our old world is wreckage. There’s no way back.

  The boys have darted into the trees because they’re not idiots and they don’t know what we’re going to do. Neither do I. I can point Adam in a direction, but who knows how far he’ll take it. Will he run over the boys? Will he crush them between the Mustang’s fender and the trunk of a tree?

  Am I happy?

  Next thing I know, Adam’s shaking me and I see we’re stopped in front of a fence. Nate’s only a flicker in the headlights. Adam asks if he should chase them down, and I hesitate. Such a stupid mistake.

  Adam has a predator’s nose for weakness, and next to me I can almost hear him sniffing. He makes a face at me, pushes open the door, and runs after the boys.

  So yeah, things haven’t been great between me and Adam since then.

  But, back to the boutique. Once the Hatchet sees Nate in the door and pulls herself together enough to pop her eyes back into her head, she says hello and asks if she can help him with anything.

  Nate tells her he’s here to pick up a shipment of glassware for his grandmother.

  It’s crazy to hear him in a regular, everyday conversation. Talking about glassware. The collar of his jacket’s up, and his face is pink from the cold. His dark hair’s been pulled into waves by the wind.

  He says the right things in exactly the right way, but this close to him I see that nothing touches his eyes. Something about him reminds me of a ventriloquist’s dummy. That calm face isn’t the real him, is what I think I mean. Neither is the polite voice, because how could it be? How can he make any sound but a scream?

  In the back of that ambulance in April I saw a boy broken in every way a person can be broken, so who is this?

  The Hatchet knows the shipment he’s talking about, and she leaves the counter to get it. She says a couple other things that make it sound like she’s flirting with him, which is just too disgusting and wrong for words.

  As Nate turns to follow the Hatchet, he makes eye contact with me. Peering into his arctic eyes I can still barely wrap my head around the fact that he’s here. That he’s sort of helping me. That he’s almost smiling at me.

  With Hatchet distracted, there’s nothing to stop me from walking right through the door. I mean, am I supposed to just wait around to get arrested? But leaving won’t help. Greystone Lake’s too small a town. A cop car will probably get to the house before I do.

  I never noticed it before the accident, but this town’s a place hardly anyone escapes from.

  Nate comes back with a box that clinks like a New Year’s party at midnight.

  Mrs. Sackett tells Nate she’ll send the invoice to the Union. She tells him to have a good day and to say hello to his grandmother for her.

  I remember the rest word for word, just like I remember every quirk of his voice and every twitch in his lips.

  “I’ll also take that bracelet,” Nate says. He puts the box down so he can reach into his pocket.

  “Oh, you don’t have to bother with that,” the Hatchet says. She glances at me, a blush somehow permeating her foundation, bronzer, and spray-on tan.

  “It sounded pretty important.” His smile is like the noon sun, but his eyes are as cold as the lake. He picks the bracelet up from the counter and weighs it in one hand. I try not to stare, but I can’t help it.

  “It’s the perfect Christmas gift for my grandmother.” He takes a credit card out of his wallet.

  “For Bea?” the Hatchet asks. “She might have simpler tastes.”

  “Most people don’t know what they want until they get it.” He glows with something I’ve never seen before. Something you can’t measure or map. Its own kind of magic. “If you could wrap it in something festive, that’d be great.”

  The Hatchet might say no to anyone else, but Nate McHale isn’t anyone else. Dad saw to that.

  The woman rings up the purchase and Nate signs the receipt like it’s an attendance sheet. Boom, four hundred dollars. I should be grateful, but it’s also sort of infuriating.

  Nate gathers his things, and I can’t decide what to do next. If I walk out of the boutique with him, he’ll expect me to say something. To thank him. But hanging back with the Hatchet is dangerous. If she changes her mind about calling the police, there’s nothing I can do to stop her.

  Nate thanks the Hatchet like a gentleman straight out of Austen and turns to leave without another word. I find myself following him.

  “Young lady,” the Hatchet calls from the counter. The door shuts behind Nate, and I can already feel my mouth tighten into a look of pure murder. The plaster of her face is winched into as stern a look as it can make. “Come here again, and I’ll call the police.”

  I can’t get out of the shop fast enough. It takes everything I’ve got not to slam the door, throw my fists at the sky, and scream out the boiling rage inside me.

  Nate’s standing to the side of the door, his hand fishing in his coat pocket. I realize then that he doesn’t expect me to say a thing to him. My thanks would mean no more than my apologies.

  He pulls a red stocking hat over his ears and looks up at the clouds. For a second his eyes mirror the colorless sky, and I understand that this boy is no longer of this world.

  “I guess you’re going to try to give me that bracelet.” I’d felt a powerful need to say something, and this is what came out.

  “You’d hate that, wouldn’t you?” These are the first words he’s said to me since April. He doesn’t even look at me.

  He stoops to lift the crate of glassware from the ground. He’s stronger than he looks.

  I try and fail to think of something else to say to him. I’m alone with Nate McHale, off my game and in his debt, but for some reason this is a moment I don’t want to end.

  On my sleepless nights and lonely walks I’ve thought of a million things to say to him. Things to ask. Things to tell. Things to demand. Now every one of them flies away. Maybe this is what this journal was meant for.

  My words and my fury were there a second ago. I don’t know where they’ve gone. He walks away. I watch him turn the corner, and he’s gone.

  But I’m not alone. A gaze burns into the side of my head. I look across the dreary street and see Adam watching me through the open window of his black Mustang.

  I pull my face back into a scowl and try to rediscover the person I’
ve been. Furious and forbidding and casually cruel. I jut my chin to Adam. Anything but anger or its close relations might as well be weakness.

  I check the traffic before crossing the street and that’s when the engine roars. I’m sure the surprise was all over my face. Adam lurches the car from its spot and tears across the lanes, cutting a turn only inches from me. The tires spin on the asphalt as he floors it. The smell of burning fills the air as the Mustang speeds away.

  What I’m trying to say is that it’s been bad, these last couple months. Really, really bad. But seeing Adam peel away like that made me realize that things can still get worse.

  WHILE CLEANING HIS breakfast dishes, Nate looked through the window into another gray morning. Ashen skies lanced by withered trees. Lawns of dead grass spotted with rotting leaves. The desolation of December without the consolation of snow.

  Behind him, he heard the answering machine kick in. He must have missed the phone ringing. He picked up the handset midway through the machine’s recitation of their number.

  “Dude, you got to get to your computer,” Johnny said.

  “What is it?” Nate kneaded his bad arm. It’d been hurting all weekend. Low barometric pressure was no good for it, and the skies had been heavy for days.

  “This’ll change your life.”

  He started up the stairs as call-waiting pinged in his ear. “I’ve got another call.”

  “It’s probably just Tom.”

  Nate knew it then. The pain in his arm sang with the weather, and something new was in the wind. “What’s going on?” He jogged to his computer.

  “Picture’s worth a thousand words. You gotta check your email.”

  “Working on it. How about you give me a hint?”

  “Ugh. You want spoilers? Come on, man.”

  “The modem’s dialing in.”

  “Yeah, I figured you didn’t have a dying dolphin in your room. Is there anything on the planet more annoying than that sound?”

  “One thing springs to mind.”