Page 15

She was right, and I let her lead anyway. The air was hot and heavy, draped with the scent of murky water and honeysuckle and something a little wilder, a perfume of wet earth and old cypress. The weeds at the shore were taller than Lisette, and she vanished into them without a ripple. I followed, feeling less certain than she was.

“Here,” she said, crouching in a nest of sawgrass and palmetto. “Best spot. You can see the dock, but they can’t see you.”

I settled in, knees in the soft, spongy loam. I peered through the reeds. From here, the world was a haze of sunlight, every leaf glowing a different shade of impossible green. Dragonflies zigzagged past our noses, iridescent and loud, and somewhere a bullfrog rumbled contently.

I heard Etienne counting from the dock, his deep voice bouncing off the water. “Thirty. Twenty-nine. Twenty-eight.” He stretched each number to buy time.

I nudged Lisette. “Maybe we should have made Hugo be seeker? Your daddy will be too good at this.”

She shook her head. “Hugo cheats,” she confided. “But I cheat better.”

I stifled a laugh, which comes out as a snort and shakes the reeds around us. For a moment, I forget to worry about babies or pack politics or even what I creepy crawlies I might be kneeling on. All that matters is hiding, waiting, and maybe winning.

Lisette leaned into my shoulder. “When the baby comes, will it have to play with us?”

“Absolutely,” I said. “But you get to decide if they are on your team or Hugo’s.”

She considered this, then nodded. “Okay. But it has to be born first. Hugo says you can’t play until you’re at least two, because you don’t know any of the rules.”

“Maybe this one will be smart,” I said, and Lisette giggled so hard she nearly falls over.

“Ready or not, here I come!” Etienne’s voice rang out and we fell silent, not wanting to give away our location. I shrunk down smaller.

Lisette tensed, eyes wide as if she was hiding from an orge rather than her own dad.

“He’s close,” she whispered.

I hold still, not daring to even breathe. I could see Etienne’s silhouette moving between the trees, and for a split second, I wasfive years old again, hiding from Violet in our mother’s flower garden, My heart thumped so hard I think it’ll give me away. Funny how that feeling of dread and excitement never really changed.

He passed our spot, and Lisette let out the tiniest of squeaks. I clamped a hand over her mouth, and she dissolved into silent, hiccupping giggles.

We sat in that little cocoon of grass, safe for now, the whole. Insects buzzed. Water dripped somewhere. Moving away from us, Etienne hummed an old Cajun song, low and comforting.

I closed my eyes for a moment and soaked it all in—the heat, the sweat, the perfect hiding spot and the girl by my side who would soon be someone’s big sister. I hope I’ll be enough for her, for all of them.

Something tugged at my sleeve.

“Don’t worry,” Lisette whispered, her mouth still half-covered by my hand. “You’re good at this.”

She meant hiding. But I want to believe she meant everything else, too.

A shadow fell across the reeds. Uh-oh, Etienne was moving closer.

“Found you!” he shouted, popping up from the tall grass, and both of us dissolved into shrieking, gleeful laughter.

But for a split second before he parted the grass, I felt something else. A prickle at the back of my neck. The sense that there was another set of eyes in the weeds with us. Watching, waiting. Something not part of the game at all.

I shook it off. It was just the nervous thrill of the game, making me wary. Still, I glanced over my shoulder as we tumbled out of the grass, just in case.

The dock, the sun, Etienne’s laughter. Everything was normal. Everything was fine.

Still, I looked over my shoulder again as we came out of our hiding place.

The noveltyof the game was starting to wear off after the fourth round. Not to mention it was getting harder to find better hiding spots. So, this time I moved deeper in the weeds, just out of sight of the dock. I didn’t want to get too far away since it was Lisette’s turn to be the seeker. But I found a perfect place between the roots of a fallen cypress, where the air was damp and thick with the smell of wet bark.

I crouched low, hugging my knees, and listened. A dragonfly droned by me. Then I heard Lisette call in a sing-song voice, “Huuuu-gooo, I’m coming for you.”

The sun filtered through the trees, green and watery, making my surroundings feel a little surreal. I waited. Then I heard movement. I imagined Lisette getting closer, her little feet smushing the grass with careful, deliberate steps. She sounded as if she was circling around me. Maybe hoping to spring out and give me a start.