Page 8

Too many people fill the lawn, and when they notice us, they’ll clamor toward the Goode twins, begging for more tulips. Pleading.

“We shouldn’t be here,” I mutter to Archer.

But he claps me on the shoulder. “Let’s go stir up some mischief,” he answers, and he starts toward the crowd.

“Archer!” I bark.

He turns back, raising an eyebrow at me. “I’m going to find Willa. You coming or not?”

My feet shift in the overgrown grass, and I clench my jaw, wishing I’d never come in the first place. Archer might love the attention, but I never have. This was a terrible idea.

I shake my head, and he sighs. “Fine. I’ll see you at home.”

He turns away, and I watch my brother weave through the crowd as people lift their eyes in his direction, whisper words to one another, a few even standing up to follow after him. Archer Goode will indeed stir up mischief tonight. But I want no part of it.

Before anyone can recognize me, I tip my chin to the ground and start back up the dirt road. Away from the theater screen.

When a voice behind me says, “Did you find your thief?”

I stop, taking in a breath. I should keep going, not look back, get away from here before more people spot me. But I risk a glance over my shoulder, and my eyes find the deep green of his.

He’s standing beside the ticket booth, one shoulder leaning against the wood clapboards, like a boy from one of his books, from one of Huck’s films, not a boy from the real world. Certainly not from Cutwater.

My throat struggles to find its footing. “What?”

“Your thief,” he repeats. “Did you find out who it was?”

“Not yet.”

“So I’m still a suspect?” His tone is light, but his features are cold, stiff, giving nothing away. He’s wearing the same gray sweatshirt from two days ago, but my eyes trip over the outline of his shoulders, his arms, his cheekbones, instilling them into my memory this time. Determined not to forget. And out of some dangerous reflex, I step toward him, a gravity I can’t explain.

“Everyone’s a suspect,” I answer, surprised at the playful tone of my voice.

His upper lip twitches, nearly becomes a smile. But never completely forms. “I’ll have to be careful, then. Until I can clear my name.”

I can’t help it, my own mouth pulls into a grin, then I drop my eyes to the ground, careful not to let our stares linger for too long. But just like before—he seems unflustered by the scent of my skin, the lingering sway of my gaze. His hands are sunk into his jean pockets, his shoulders drawn down. No part of him is beckoned closer to me. No nagging in his chest, no flicker in his eyes reworking itself into desire. He stays right where he is.

“I wasn’t sure…” I pause. Now that I’m here, this doesn’t seem like the kind of place where he would spend his time. A noisy, crowded drive-in. “You came all the way here from Favorville?”

He straightens up from the corner of the ticket booth, and I flinch, ready to back away if he starts moving closer.

“It wasn’t far,” he answers vaguely. “I came to watch a movie.”

“No one comes here to see the movie.”

“Then why do they come?”

I flash a look to the crowd; the reasons are obvious: to press themselves close to the one they desire, to do whatever they want without any rules.

“How did you even hear about it?” I try. “No one outside of Cutwater knows about this place.”

He lifts a shoulder. “Word gets around.”

I can tell he’s hiding something—an icy, indescribable edge to each word.

A cheer erupts from the crowd—applause and hoots of excitement. Across the lawn, the old, weathered theater screen is flickering with an image, black-and-white lettering flaring across the screen: CASABLANCA . More shouts of excitement, then a speaker perched on the roof of a blue Honda near the front of the lawn belts out the opening music for the movie, the volume turned up too loud, rattling the speakers. Someone shouts to turn it down, but no one does, and the movie now shows an image of a crowded marketplace. I cringe at the tinny, crackling audio and realize that Oak is now standing closer to me, looking up at the theater screen.

Secretly, I try to capture every curve and slope of his face—the tension along his jaw, the sturdiness of his features, the river-dark hair. Gazing at his eyes, I notice a fleck of brown, an imperfection in his left eye. A notch of hazel in the rim of green. A boy whose eyes are unlike any I’ve ever drawn before.

I should pull my gaze away, not let my eyes sink into his, not risk letting his heart begin to pump too quickly, his mind turning soft with thoughts of me. But I can’t. My eyes want only to peer into him, absorb every outline and shape. Possess it, coil it around my fingertips so I can sketch it later from my pencil onto paper. This boy I want to remember.

“Do they always play black-and-white films?” he asks, all soft, languid vowels tangled up in a cool winter breeze.

It occurs to me how strange it is to stand this close to him—to have a conversation that is so ordinary and commonplace, a thing I’ve rarely experienced—and it makes my chest feel like bubble gum, light and airy, about to pop. “Always,” I answer, my traitorous voice a little breathless.

He keeps his gaze on the film as it sputters to life across the oversized screen.

“At least, that’s what I’ve heard,” I add. “I’ve never actually seen a film here.”

He shifts his weight, settles a little on his right foot, and his skin seems darker than I remember: amber and tree bark, skin that is pulled from the page of a fable, a boy whose origin is unknown, descended from old gothic tales, from mystery novels. I imagine a past for him that is part fiction and part truth. A boy who has surely seen the world beyond our county line. “Then why’d you come tonight?” he asks.

I flick my eyes away, unsure what to say. “My birthday,” I answer. This isn’t a lie—Archer and I will be eighteen tomorrow. But it’s not a day we normally celebrate. It sits on the calendar as a reminder of the day we were forced into this cursed life. I don’t know why I reveal this to Oak, why these words fell from my lips.

“Happy birthday,” he says, his bottle-green eyes dipping into my skin. “And…” His gaze sweeps over the crowd, the theater screen showing a commotion in the marketplace, music screeching from the speakers. “You’re here with friends?”

A short, uncomfortable laugh escapes my throat. “No.” I don’t have any friends; no one would dare spend longer than a few minutes with me.

His shoulders settle, or maybe they tense, and the light that was in his eyes dims just a little. A distance spreading between us that can’t be measured in feet, but in breaths held in tight lungs.

I feel a strange, dagger-sharp prick inside me.

The thudding of something that has no name. Indefinable.

His eyes flick away, blunt and quick, as if he’s suddenly uncomfortable. He’s been here too long. Stood too close to Lark Goode—although he shows no signs of lovesickness taking root in his veins. And this indifference only makes me want to edge closer to him—perplexed, fascinated—wanting to know what thoughts are resting behind his impossible eyes.

I want to speak, to ask him the truth about who he is, but the air in my throat feels like feathers tangled together, like I’ve swallowed a bird.

I peer at him, beneath the moonlight, sensing a storm of thoughts thundering across the unknowable landscape of his mind.

A few yards away someone shrieks—a girl with blond cascades of hair who’s seated on a blanket at the edge of the lawn, two other girls beside her. She jumps up, a beer spilled down her T-shirt, and she stomps away as one of the other girls, with cotton candy–pink lipstick, runs after her.

I swallow, pulling my focus back to Oak….

But he’s gone .

I spin around. Confused. Head thumping.

And up the dirt road I can see his shadow, hands still in his pockets, striding away—melting into the dark and the trees.

He walked away and never even said goodbye.

Never said a word.

If he felt the luring pull of the Goode curse, he showed no signs of it. Somehow he felt nothing.

I close my eyes, letting the image of him sink into my memory like bare feet in April mud. I need to memorize him, hold on to every detail so I can sketch him later—shade in the unfinished parts of his face, the tensed angle of his neck, the soft arch of his lips when they nearly edged into a smile.

“Hello?” a voice says a few yards away, so small I barely register it.

My eyes flip open, and for a heart-stuttering second I think maybe Oak has returned, circled through the trees and come back. But when I blink through the dark, it’s a different boy standing before me.

Jude is only a few paces away, holding the paper origami chatterbox in his left hand, his pale blue eyes blinking rapidly as if he’s struggling to keep himself calm in the presence of Lark Goode—local oddity, the girl you might tumble heedlessly into love with if you’re not careful.

He rubs his free hand down his mustard-gray cardigan, then shuffles in his brown loafers that look to be a full size too big, as if they were borrowed from his dad or pilfered from the local thrift store.

“Do you want your fortune read?” he asks quickly, a nervous twitch fluttering his upper lip.

He’s never asked me this before, never dared to get this close, but I shake my head at him. “I don’t have anything to trade.” I know the rules, but my pockets are empty. I have nothing he needs.

“This one’s free,” he answers, and there is something in his voice, a slippery tone, like he’s wanted to read my fortune for some time but has always been too afraid. And truthfully, I’ve always wanted to know what’s written inside his origami chatterbox. I’ve watched with envy as he hands out fortunes at school, always wondering what my fortune might be. My fate . But also a little afraid to know.

He positions the chatterbox over his small fingers, holding it out for me to see. Across the folded, diamond-shaped paper, four words are written in shaded blue pencil—the same color as Jude’s eyes.

East, West, North, South , they read.

I know he wants me to choose one, and I blink down at the chatterbox, sensing that I don’t want to get this wrong. This might be my only chance to have my fortune read by Jude—he likely won’t offer it again, certainly not for free. I swallow, lifting my eyes. “West.”

West is the direction I’ll go when I leave this town. West is the direction that Swamp Wells Road heads away from our house, over a long hill that winds its way into Favorville, and then to a larger town called Park Grove, and then to the ocean. Wide and flat and endless. From there, you could set out across the Pacific to any continent in the distance.

Jude expands the paper origami, counting off the letters that spell “west,” then opening the chatterbox wide to reveal more words inside. But instead of navigational directions, I see names—ones I recognize. Jude senses my hesitation, and he says, “They’re names from classic novels.”

I scan them quickly: Gatsby, Pip, Sherlock, Inigo .

I ask myself which feels the most true , the most right in this moment, but they all feel the same.

“Everyone hesitates here,” he says, a tug at the corner of his pink lips. “One day I wrote ‘Veruca,’ for Veruca Salt, on every triangle. I wanted to make it easy. Give only one option. But still…” He lifts a shoulder. “Everyone hesitated. They stared at the name Veruca like they couldn’t decide, even though there was only one choice.” For a second Jude grins up at me, looking me clear in the eyes. But I drop my gaze—afraid he’ll stare too long and start to sink closer and closer until he can’t imagine a life without me. He clears his throat, like he felt the shifting in his chest, like he knows he needs to make this quick. “Fate will give you the fortune you need—it doesn’t matter what name you pick.”

Before I can doubt myself, I say, “Pip.”

Jude nods. “Good choice.” And he quickly flicks the chatterbox open and closed, then open again, until he lands on four different names: Huckleberry, Moby Dick, Jane, Ichabod .

I don’t let myself overthink it, I don’t hesitate, I just say the name that my eyes land on first. “Ichabod.”

But it’s Jude who hesitates this time, who stares at me a moment before opening the chatterbox to peel back the paper. He unfolds the carefully creased angles, flattening open the origami to reveal what waits beneath.

But under the Ichabod name… lies a blank triangle.

It’s the only triangle that doesn’t have several words— a fortune —waiting beneath it.

“I always leave one blank,” he explains, his tone shallow, like it’s lost all its weight. Its courage. “But no one ever chooses this one. After all these years, I started to think no one ever would. But you did.” He doesn’t look at me, just stares down at the white triangle, no fate waiting for me.

No fortune to be read.

“Does that mean I don’t have a fate?” My chest feels scraped clean, an empty cavity, like a cruel darkness has seeped under my vulnerable flesh.

“No,” he answers, running his thumb over the blank paper. “It means you make your own fate. It hasn’t been decided for you.” He quickly folds the origami back into its original shape, then slides it into the oversized pocket of his cardigan. But before he turns away—as I expect him to—he reaches out suddenly, like a snake snapping at its victim, and grabs my left hand, pulling it toward him.

I let out a little squeak, caught off guard, but when I look up at Jude, his eyes are closed, fluttering like honeybee wings, and he places his other palm flat against mine—as if we are two sheets of paper laid one on top of the other.

“You shouldn’t touch me…,” I say, starting to pull away, but he holds firmly to my hand—not painfully, but enough to keep me from slipping from his grasp.

I watch his eyelashes flap, his bottom lip sag, and I feel the strange heat of tears against my own eyes—a loosening in my chest I can’t quite explain. Jude’s mother is from Germany, his father from Tampa, Florida. But his mom was a fortune teller when she lived in a small town outside of Hanover—at least that’s the rumor. People came to her home and sat in her living room over a pot of black tea. She was a seer of fates.

And now Jude can see them too.

“Your family has caused so much heartache in this town,” he mutters, tilting his small-angled chin, the voices of Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman blaring from the speakers behind me, the flickering images of Casablanca cast out onto the lawn and through the line of trees. “You want to leave Cutwater… don’t you?” I nod, but he doesn’t see; his eyes are pinched closed. His palm becomes too warm against mine, sweat beading down his forehead. I want to pull away, but I also want to hear the rest—I want him to finish. “Tears and rain… it’s all the same.” His eyebrows pucker. “Forsaken Creek… is the only way to leave.”

“What?” I narrow my eyes at him.

Jude’s head sways a little, then his swimming-pool-blue eyes break open at the same moment he releases my hand, letting it fall to my side. A tingling numbness spider-crawls across my palm, as if I’ve just felt an electrical shock.

“How does the creek… help me leave?” I rub my hands together, trying to work out the nervy sensation.

Jude blinks at me, then reaches forward, pushing his index finger into my chest, right over my heart—sharp and pointed. “This must break. This must weep, and then…” He breathes. “You will finally be free.”

I shake my head at him. “I don’t understand…. What does that mean?”

But Jude pushes his hands into his cardigan pockets, and his eyes water like dew on cut blades of grass. “It’s your fate…. It’s for you to interpret, not me.”

“But what does the creek have to do with anything?” I lean closer to him, anxious suddenly, disoriented. Confused.

Someone starts laughing to our left, a deep, rolling belly laugh, and Jude’s eyes snap toward the sound.

“Jude,” I press, but he’s backing away from me. “Please.”

From his pocket he pulls out the origami chatterbox again, and without another word he heads away from the ticket booth, away from me, toward a group of juniors seated on a large beach towel.

He has more fortunes to give tonight, more fates to hand out, and he’s already spent too much time beside Lark Goode. But as I pull in a warm breath of air, my mind crunching and churning over the words he spoke, the sky makes a low rumbling sound. A second later rain begins pinging against my forehead, the start of a storm darkening the skyline.

I turn and run home through the rain.