“I do know for sure, Marnie,” Max said. “I know exactly what Skye was doing, and where she was, during the time we’re talking about. She did not have a baby then. It’s not possible, Marnie. Do you hear me? It’s completely impossible.”
Max swallowed. But he looked directly into Marnie’s eyes and his voice, again, was strong. “I’m going to tell you everything, Marnie. It was never meant to be a secret forever. Just until you were twenty-one.”
In a strange, new calm, Marnie waited. She had a feeling that she’d been waiting … maybe forever.
“Skye was in a juvenile detention center for nearly three years, from fifteen until she turned eighteen.”
Marnie’s calm wavered. She opened her mouth but nothing came out. Her stomach churned. “She … she what? What?”
“She was in a medium-security girls’ lockup,” Max repeated. His mouth was a grim line. “In Mississippi. Her time there is completely accounted for, and is a matter of public record. Some girls do have babies in prison, but Skye did not.”
Marnie said nothing. She kept hearing Max’s words repeating in her mind. Kept hearing them, yes, but they seemed like gibberish. They didn’t make any sense at all.
“Sit down,” said Max after another moment. “And we’ll deal with the rest of it. I’ll explain everything. Marnie, I—”
Marnie put out one hand and waved it. Max stopped talking. She didn’t know what she had expected—but not this. Surely not this. Everything she thought she’d known had shifted, again. She struggled for something to grab on to. Some fact. Some certainty. She found nothing.
Max got up, took Marnie’s arm, and guided her into his abandoned chair. He squatted awkwardly and looked her in the eye. He took her hand.
Marnie had no concept of how much time passed then. Finally, however, she managed to ask the obvious question, the one that—she knew—Max was waiting for. She hardly recognized her own voice.
“What was Skye in prison for?”
Now that Max had made up his mind to talk, he didn’t waver. And he looked directly into Marnie’s eyes.
“For murder, Marnie. Premeditated murder. First-degree murder.”
CHAPTER
33
“Skye’s name,” Max said evenly, “was once Lea Hawkes.” And when Marnie’s eyes widened, he added, “It’s spelled L, E, A.”
Marnie thought of the song Skye had written, the one Leah Slaight had so identified with. Leah with an H. The more common spelling.
Max pulled up another chair. Once he’d settled in, he moved as if to take Marnie’s hand again, but she pulled it back. Max cleared his throat. “Shall I go on?”
“Yes.” Marnie was pleased with her voice. It was clear and calm. In her head she could feel the Sorceress’s soothing presence. It made her feel as if she weren’t alone, as if a wise friend were with her, listening also.
Lea Hawkes, of Full Moon, Mississippi, had been the illegitimate daughter of a local girl and an unknown father. When Lea was seven, her young mother ran away from Full Moon without her child, and Lea was sent to live in a foster home. By her teenage years, she was still in the same foster home but was not considered to have good prospects.
Marnie interrupted. “Let me guess. She was flunking out of school.”
“Well,” Max dithered, “it wasn’t that she was stupid—”
“I know,” said Marnie softly.
Did the corner of Max’s mouth turn up ruefully for a second? Marnie couldn’t be sure. If so, it immediately turned down again, and then Max looked away. There was a rather long pause before he resumed. “It wasn’t just that she was skipping school all the time,” he said. “It was what she was doing instead of studying. Not that anyone knew except me.” He paused again, still not looking at Marnie. Then he added: “She was learning to shoot.”
For a minute Marnie almost felt her eyes bug out of her head. Learning to shoot? Skye?
Max was staring into the distance. “She was using my rifle. I was ten. I told my father I’d lost it and I gave it to her. He whipped me for it but it was worth it.
“You see, I hated hunting. Always did. But my father … well, in any event.” He cleared his throat. “And Lea Hawkes was my friend. She was nice to me, and in those days, not many people were. So when she asked me …” His voice drifted off and then strengthened. “I helped her at first, taught her everything I’d been taught, but she didn’t need much help. And after two years of practice she was the best marksman in the county. Lea Hawkeye, I called her. It gave me a kind of thrill to think that she could outshoot my father if she wanted. I thought we were working toward a time when she’d just show them all. I was pretty confused, actually; I don’t know why I thought that would prove anything to my father. About me, I mean. But it didn’t matter anyway. That wasn’t what Lea had in mind.”
Max was watching his hands, but his voice was even now. “I told you Lea was my friend. But what I came to understand—later—is that I wasn’t hers. Not then anyway, though later on … well, that’s another story. But then, you see, she was playing for stakes I couldn’t imagine. Or … not playing at all, I suppose. It was never a game.”
Into the difficult pause, Marnie finally said carefully, “I—I see.” Premeditated murder, Max had said. “She wanted to learn to shoot so she could kill someone specific….” Marnie’s voice trailed off.
“Her foster father,” Max said quietly. “Since she was thirteen, her foster father had been raping her.” He added, “I didn’t know, of course.” And then, with a touch of self-loathing: “Not that I was capable of doing anything if I had known.”
There was silence, then, for some minutes. Oddly, Marnie found herself wondering how many times over the years Max had imagined himself telling this story to Marnie. How many times he had told it to himself …
“Marnie?” said Max. “It’s difficult. I know it’s difficult.”
She could feel his eyes, but she couldn’t look back just yet.
Please, she asked the Sorceress. Just—take over for a while, okay?
The Sorceress looked up calmly and met Max’s eyes. “I’m okay, Max,” she said. “You’re right, it is a shock … but I think I always knew something bad must have happened to her.”
Max looked dubious.
“Really,” the Sorceress said. “It’s better to know.”
Max nodded, though his eyes said he didn’t quite believe her. “You want me to tell you the rest now, or later?”
“Now,” said the Sorceress, while Marnie stayed safe and quiet.
“She killed her foster father, as you guessed,” Max said. “It might seem unfair that she went to prison for it…. She was only fifteen.” He paused, and the Sorceress nodded. “But what you have to understand is that legally, it couldn’t be considered self-defense. Self-defense is in response to a current threat to life. More importantly, it was first-degree murder because she planned it in advance. She spent two years figuring out how to do it, working every angle, setting things up, making sure it would look like a hunting accident. And it did. A stray bullet, hitting a habitually careless hunter who’d gone out, a little drunk, without his orange vest. She didn’t use my rifle, by the way. She was too smart for that.”
Marnie felt her eyes widen. Her composure began to fall away in bits. Plans. She was a planner, too, a strategist. A gamer.
Not now, whispered the Sorceress, correctly.
Marnie took a deep breath and refocused. I’ll take over now, she told the Sorceress.
You’re sure?
Yes.
Max had gone on. “Someday you can read her confession, Marnie. If you want to. It’s in the public record in the Full Moon courthouse. She—it was really a rather brilliant plan. Went off without a hitch, too. Nobody suspected a thing.”
Marnie said, “But how did she get caught, if nobody suspected?”
“She didn’t get caught,” Max said.
Marnie blinked. “I’m sorry?”
“She confessed. Fo
ur weeks after the murder, she walked into the local police station and told them everything. At first she had some trouble getting them to believe her, but she had proof—she had kept the murder weapon, a shotgun that she’d stolen from her foster father two years before. She pleaded guilty, so there was no trial; and they sent her straight to the juvenile lockup. She was released at eighteen—that was back when there was automatic lenience for juvenile offenders. On top of which, the court system—not to mention the town of Full Moon—had a lot of sympathy for her. We all believed her about the abuse. And I think we were all ashamed … that no one knew. That no one did anything … because afterward, it was so obvious … I know that I …”
Max stopped. He seemed to expect Marnie to say something.
Smoothly the Sorceress took over again. “Why did she confess? You said she’d have gotten away with it.”
Max seemed relieved to have a question to address. “What she said to the police was that, in those weeks after committing murder, she did a lot of thinking. She said that that was when she found she did believe in God, after all. That she needed to clear her conscience and face her punishment.” He hesitated, then looked directly into Marnie’s eyes again. “What she said to me, also, later, was that this was when she began to change inside, from Lea Hawkes into Skye.”
Yes, Marnie thought. It was what Skye would have done. Confess. Skye, not—not little Lea Hawkes.
She could feel the Sorceress’s agreement.
“Another thing to know,” Max said, “the people of Full Moon were good to Skye. Not just by being sympathetic when she confessed, but after she got out, after she changed her name. When Skye became a gospel singer, and then a writer, and became so well known … well, there were a few occasions when people—newspeople—tried to find out her background. And the Full Moon folks, they knew perfectly well that Skye was Lea Hawkes, but nobody ever told.
“Skye has friends there, Marnie. Well … what I’m trying to say … it’s not the same as having a family, of course, but you have people in Full Moon, Marnie. People who feel connected to Skye and to you. I have two sisters…. It’s a small town, maybe a little bit of an odd town. But someday you might want to go there. Meet people.”
The Sorceress whispered a sudden, urgent question to Marnie. Marnie was feeling too numb to do more than repeat it. “My father?”
Max shook his head. “I don’t know, Marnie. That secret she kept.”
Oh, said the Sorceress.
“Oh,” echoed Marnie.
Max said hesitantly, “You do realize—whoever your father was, it wouldn’t have been a big romantic thing. Your mother knew a lot about love, in a way, but she didn’t seem ever to want to risk an intimate relationship. I think—well … well … well, I don’t know. But—you know?”
“Yeah,” Marnie said softly. Oddly, she was feeling stronger suddenly, as if she’d been transported back to familiar ground. She thought of her old sperm bank theory. “I do know, Max. Don’t worry.”
A pause. And then: “I do worry,” said Max bluntly. “Every minute. Every day.”
Marnie looked at him then. For a split second she had a sensation of what a weight, what a very great weight Max had been shouldering all this time. She raised her chin. “Thanks, Max,” she said, and thought he probably understood.
She wanted, terribly, to be alone. Well, alone with the Sorceress. “Is that all of it?”
Max nodded.
Marnie wet her lips. “I still want a funeral,” she said steadily. “For Leah Slaight.”
After only a second, Max said, “Okay. We can do that.”
“Thanks,” said Marnie. And then, after another long minute, she added: “Max?”
“Yes?”
But found, after all, that she didn’t have words. So she said again, feebly, “Thanks.”
Max stared bleakly at her, and tried to smile.
CHAPTER
34
Marnie walked back toward her dorm on automatic pilot. Oh my God, the Sorceress kept whispering, and Marnie’s churning stomach spoke her agreement. She tried to breathe deeply, to keep from stumbling, while thoughts assaulted her. Now that Max wasn’t present, she couldn’t keep from imagining it, all of it….
Lea, not Skye. Lea. Lea Hawkes, only thirteen. Younger than Marnie was now, and small, and alone. And then that man, whoever he was … In her mind, Marnie could see the back of his head, his hunting jacket, his big hands—but not his face. She swallowed. She didn’t want to imagine his face, and she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t.
Still, she had to stop for a moment, in the empty hall just inside her dorm, and put out a hand to lean against the wall.
She couldn’t see the man’s face, but she could see Lea Hawkes’s, and clearly. Expression concealed by shaggy dark hair, behind which watched Skye’s eyes. No, not Skye’s eyes. Not so sad, not so wise, not so loving as Skye’s. Lea’s eyes were bewildered. Scared. Helpless, and aware, very aware, of her helplessness.
Then, in Marnie’s vision, those childish eyes changed. They were wary now. Watchful, missing nothing. Planning eyes now. Planning …
In a quick flash of her imagination, Marnie saw Lea’s thin teenage arm snake out and snatch her foster father’s rifle to hide away.
Marnie leaned more fully against the wall. Oh, little Lea, she thought. Little Lea …
She was brave, said the Sorceress insistently. Brave and smart. You see that, don’t you? Not a victim! You see that? Marnie, you see that?
Yes, Marnie saw. But she saw more, too. She put her forehead against the cool painted concrete of the wall. Little Lea Hawkes, smart, brave Lea Hawkes, who had found the sheer guts and nerve within herself to transform from prey to predator.
A necessary transformation? Maybe. Yes. Oh, yes. But what became of a predator once she existed? How did she live?
What she said to me was that this was when she began to change inside, from Lea Hawkes into Skye.
Marnie closed her eyes tightly. I don’t understand, she thought desperately. I don’t understand, but I need to understand.
She felt her breath come out of her in a sob. It was beyond her. It was beyond understanding. She didn’t know what to think, what to feel, what to do. She wished suddenly, fiercely, that she were exhausted enough to drop into a deep dreamless sleep, right here, right now … because in another minute she would scream and scream, and maybe she would never, never stop….
At that moment, a hand fell uncertainly on Marnie’s shoulder. “What’s wrong? You weren’t at dinner …” The voice was sharp, reluctant. Familiar.
And, somehow, hearing Jenna Lowry’s voice brought Marnie back into reality. Breathing carefully, she fumbled for a grip on herself, and got it. Then, when she was ready, she swiped her cheeks with the back of her hand and straightened, defiantly, to face Jenna.
Jenna, ponytailed, was wearing sweats and running shoes. She took in Marnie’s face and her eyes widened. She opened her mouth.
Marnie found words first—casual words, designed to tell Jenna she was pretending everything was normal, and to suggest that Jenna ought to do the same. “Hi, Jenna. Going running?” Her voice shook on the greeting, strengthened on the question.
Reflexively Jenna nodded. She hesitated, shrugged, and half-turned away. Then she snapped back around to face Marnie. “You—uh—should I go get—”
Marnie was staring at Jenna’s worn running shoes. She meant only to cut her off, firmly and definitely. But the words she actually said shocked herself, instead. “Can I come with you?”
The moment she’d said it, she knew that she—Marnie Skyedottir, superslug—wanted nothing more passionately right now than lengthy, hard physical exercise.
Jenna’s mouth had dropped open.
Marnie added, “Please? It’ll only take me a couple minutes to change.”
She knew Jenna didn’t want her. She knew it.
“Okay,” said Jenna. “I’ll wait outside.”
“I’m doing a three-mile loop this
evening,” Jenna said as they stretched. “But you shouldn’t do that much; you’re not used to it. A mile is plenty. There’s a turnoff at around half a mile where you can double back. And another at one and a quarter.”
Marnie nodded, but she knew she wouldn’t use the turnoffs. Adrenaline pulsed through her veins. She fell into step beside Jenna and they began to jog. When Jenna picked up speed, her longer legs stretching out, Marnie matched her stride.
They ran in silence, leaving the campus behind and heading away from town on a secondary dirt road. Their feet pounded steadily. Overhead, trees were beginning to leaf, and the air was warm as the sun moved steadily toward the horizon. Within a few minutes Marnie slowed long enough to pull off her sweatshirt and tie it around her waist. Then she caught up again to the more lightly clad Jenna.
“The first turnoff’s coming up,” Jenna said after several minutes. “You want to loop back?”
“No,” Marnie panted. She felt, rather than saw, Jenna’s shrug. Distantly, as if it were happening to someone other than herself, Marnie was aware that her legs were already sore, her lungs laboring in the early-evening air. But it didn’t matter. She could go on. She wanted to go on. Without noticing, she sped up a little, and Jenna kept pace.
They reached the second turnoff. “You still okay?” asked Jenna.
Marnie thought she would have an asthma attack. Her left calf was screaming; the right one merely moaned. “Yes.” She barely got the word out, but she picked up the pace again anyway.
They ran on. Marnie could hear her breath wheezing in and out of her lungs. Her heart was pounding twice as fast as her feet. Jenna kept stealing looks at her but she ignored them. Kept on, kept on. There was a horrible pain in her left shin but she ignored it. She kept perfectly in pace with Jenna. Mind over matter. Remarkable. Everything had disappeared from her mind and body but the pain, and it was wonderful. Wonderful. She had no idea how much time had passed, how far they’d come….