Page 22 of The Witching Hours

“Her? Who?” After a brief delay she realized he was talking about the car. “You don’t mean the car. You’re naming the car?”

“Nothing strange about that.”

“In whose weird perspective is there nothing strange about naming a car?”

“Come on. It’s your only chance to put your two cents in. Because today is the naming ceremony.”

“Naming ceremony,” she said under her breath. “Stranger and stranger.”

“I was thinking C.C.,” he said.

“Like Cecilia?”

“No. Like Cassius Clay.”

“I don’t know who that is, but it sounds like we’re doing boy names.”

“He was a boxer. He changed his name later, but he was born Cassius Clay. He was famous for saying he floated like a butterfly, stung like a bee.”

She faced forward. “Stung like a bee. You mean because of the color.”

“Well, yeah.”

“Why not just name it Bee?”

“Too obvious.”

“I didn’t know we were going for clandestine. Anyway, it’s your car. You should be stuck with the name you choose. So, you ought to choose it. The only rule is that once you decide youcan’t change your mind later. My only input is that you can’t give it a boy name and use girl pronouns.”

“Wait. When did we start making up rules?”

“Just now. Try to keep up.” After a brief pause, she said, “Where are we going?”

“I was thinking Thibodaux. Get a burger. Head back.” Something about her responding silence made him feel less sure about the plan. “How does that sound?” he ventured.

“Good. I mean if we’d started earlier or if it was daylight savings…”

“You’re thinking Plan B?”

“Well… What about we head toward Jean Lafitte? Just skirt the wilds and come home?”

“Sure. Yeah. Less people means go faster.” He grinned.

She laughed.

Just before Avondale they turned south instead of west.

Tristan had envisioned a Sunday afternoon of speeding along state roads with curves and little traffic. He hadn’t envisioned his sight being blocked by the back of an eighteen-wheeler doing fifty-five without an option for passing. It seemed there were either no pass yellow stripes or waves of oncoming traffic.

Jeanette sensed his frustration. “Don’t get mad. Trucks happen.”

“Yeah,” was all he said.

It felt like days passed behind that truck before they finally came to a one-light town where he was able to get around the truck. That was the good news. The bad news was that the trip was feeling less and less like fun as the sun was getting lower and lower.

After promising Jeanette they’d be back by dark, Tristan had checked sunset time in Louisiana in the middle of January. Five thirty. It gets dark early on standard time just a coupleweeks out from Winter Solstice. And in winter, once the sun is gone, most of the warmth goes with it.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked. Tristan didn’t often fall into long periods of quiet, but when he did, something was going on in his head.