Vi is shaking her head vehemently.
I stare at her. “What are you saying? I wish you could talk, already.”
Suddenly she begins to choke. She doubles over, but when she straightens, her mouth is clear. And suddenly I don’t wish it anymore, because the next thing that comes out is a whine. “I am not doing that,” she pouts. “Never ever ever.” Then she realizes what she’s done, and grins for half a second before she sneers at me. “Took you long enough, Miss All-Powerful. I’ve been begging you to do that for only a million years or something.”
I step back. “Wait. What just … Did I do that?”
Vi rolls her eyes and wipes the remaining mud from her chin. “For a Mistress, you’re really not that smart.” She leans against a tree, pouting.
Brat. I almost wish I hadn’t done that. Whatever it is I did, which I don’t know. I stare at my hands. Did I do anything with them? No, I clearly remember them being in the pockets of my jacket. All I’d done was say that I wished she could talk. I turn to Trey, confused. “I just say it, and it happens?”
He shakes his head. “We went over this. You don’t even got to say it. You just got to want it.”
Right. I do remember him saying something like that. I’ve wanted so many things, but I never just got them. I try to think of something, but nothing comes to mind.
She shrugs. “Anyway, don’t ask me to do that. To my sister. I can’t fight her.”
“Don’t give her that, little girl. I seen what you can do,” Trey says to her. Then to me he whispers, “Look, she’s eight. She don’t get things like you and I do. Her sister is the only family she knows. She don’t want to be alone.”
She rolls her eyes. “I can hear every word you’re saying!” she shrieks. “You think you know so much because you’re older than me?” She stares at me. “I’ve been around years longer than you. I know a thing or two.”
“Your sister isn’t nice to you. She killed you,” I say.
She looks from Trey to me and crosses her arms. Her face sours.
“Then why were you trying to hide my body?” I ask.
Trey studies her and says, “Because if her sister becomes Mistress, she ain’t gonna be just her sister.” And it makes sense. If her sister can weaken my mother and become Mistress, then she’ll be busy with other things. Vi won’t have her sister. “You afraid of being on your own, is that it?”
Vi doesn’t answer, so I just shake my head. “Right. Her brain’s still eight.”
Trey shrugs. “That don’t mean nothing. No fun being alone, whatever age you are.” He walks in front of the body and stands there, arms crossed. “We’re taking this body across the river, little girl, whether you like it or not. So scram.”
She stares at him, her nostrils flaring with rage. At first I think she’s going to challenge him. Instead, she turns and runs back down the path.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” I say. “She’s going to come back and bring her sister.”
He says, “You forget. This is what they want us to do.” He must realize I’m about to feel guilty again, because he squeezes my hand. “Kiandra. Everything’ll be okay. Now let’s get out of here.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
By the time we get back to the rowboat, the sun, orange and lazy, is sliding down behind the tall pines. Trey’s quiet as he rows across the river. Though we’re facing each other and our knees are only a foot apart, he rows with his head down, never looking at me. I watch the muscles of his arms strain as he rows the boat, which is the only indication he’s working at all. His breath comes slow and steady, and the rowing seems so effortless for him, like he must do it all the time.
Trey exhales and he arches his arms back, and the oars smack against the surface of the water, propelling us forward. “Your boyfriend must be real worried about you.” I can tell the gears in his head are turning, though, because he moves his mouth in about a hundred different ways but no words come out. Finally, he says, “When I was alive I thought I’d have all sorts of time for that kind of thing. Girls, I mean.”
“You didn’t have a girlfriend?” I ask.
“Nah. Not even close.” Trey shrugs. “Thought I’d have the time. But guess we never have as much time as we think we’re going to. Missed out on a lot.”
From the look on his face, a sad, distant longing, it’s obvious he’s thinking of something in particular. “What do you regret the most?”
I think he’s going to say something about his mom. Instead, he gives me a sheepish look. “Well, I ain’t asking for nothing, but I wished I’d kissed a girl.”
I raise my eyebrows. He looks away. I feel heat in my face and he looks over his shoulder, away from me, but I know he’s blushing, too. Talk about awkward. “Is that all?” I finally say.
“Well, maybe if you done it before, ain’t no big deal. But I ain’t, and I had a whole mess of years to think on it. And yeah, it may be a little thing to you, but it’s not when someone’s had that long to think it over.”
“No, I didn’t mean to … I wasn’t making fun of you. I just thought you’d say something else. Something about your mom.”
“Yeah, well. I hate dying in a way that she didn’t know what happened to me, but that wasn’t my doing. But kissing. Hell. I could have done that. I could have kissed the socks off a dozen girls at school. They all gave me looks. I was pretty hot stuff, I should imagine.”
I burst out laughing. “Oh yeah?”
He sticks out his lower lip, then sucks it in. “Well, maybe back then. Maybe girls these days want something else. I don’t know. Girls always kind of befuddled me.”
That word makes me laugh even more. “Befuddled?”
“Yeah. What? That not a word they use these days? Girls are befuddling. With a capital B. It means that one day they like the rain and the next they’re crying about it. They don’t know what they want but they expect you to know it. Be. Fud. Ling.”
“I don’t think girls are befuddling. I think guys are. What’s with the whole wanting-to-be-outdoors-in-subzero-temperatures? Cooking on an open fire? Who wants to be at one with nature? I’d rather not be, thank you very much.” I cross my arms over my chest. “I mean, hunting? Fishing? Gross.”
“You used to fish. You never minded holding them wriggling worm bodies in your hands then. You liked getting mussed up. You used to scrape up the fish scales and put them on your thighs and watch the sun dance on them.”
“Yeah, but I …” “Grew up” is on my tongue, but it doesn’t come out, because suddenly I’m transported to that day I met him, on the river outside my house. I didn’t catch a fish then, didn’t hold one in my hands. Sure, I’d caught plenty before, and I was so angry at him for catching so many and letting them go. But how did he know I liked the mess? How did he know what I did with the scales? “You … watched me?”
“You’re the next Mistress. I’m a guide. Of course I watched you. Up till you left. Then I couldn’t watch you no more.”
“Oh, right,” I say, feeling disappointed, though I’m not sure why.
He laughs a little to himself. “You know, the funny thing was, I had a picture of you in my mind, all this time, of what you would look like grown up. And it was right.”
“That’s … Really?” I wonder what I look like to him. I wonder if he’s disappointed that I don’t like to fish anymore.
“Most days I wondered if I’d ever see you again. Thought you were gone for good. But I’m glad I got the chance to before I …” He looks away. “I’m glad I got the chance to.”
He grips the oars tighter, and I realize that there’s something on his mind. Something he’s not telling me. “Before you what?” I ask.