The Dark Divine (2 page)

I found Jude sitting on the front porch, wrapped in the blue afghan from the couch. His breath made white puffs in front of his face.

“It’s freezing, Jude. Come inside.”

“I’m fine.”

I knew that he wasn’t. Few things ever upset Jude. He didn’t like the way some girls at school would say cruel stuff and then try to pass it off as “just kidding.” He hated it when people used the Lord’s name in vain,
and he absolutely couldn’t tolerate anyone who claimed the Wild would never win the Stanley Cup. But Jude didn’t scream or yell when he was mad. He got real quiet and folded into himself.

I rubbed my arms for warmth and sat next to him on the steps. “I’m sorry I spoke to Daniel. I didn’t mean to make you mad.”

Jude massaged the parallel scars that scraped across the back of his left hand. It was something he did a lot. I wondered if he was even conscious of it. “I’m not mad,” he finally said. “I’m worried.”

“About Daniel?”

“About you.” Jude looked into my eyes. We had the same Roman nose and dark brown hair, but the resemblance in our violet eyes always felt a bit eerie—especially now, when I saw how much pain was reflected in his gaze. “I know the way you feel about him….”

“Felt. That was more than three years ago. I was just a kid then.”

“You’re still a child.”

I wanted to say something snide, like
So are you
, because he was barely a year older than me. But I knew he wasn’t trying to be mean when he said it. I just wished Jude would realize that I was nearly seventeen; I’d been dating and driving for almost a year.

Cold air seeped through my thin cotton sweater. I was about to go inside when Jude took my hand in his.

“Gracie, will you promise me something?”

“What?”

“If you see Daniel again, promise me you won’t talk to him?”

“But—”

“Listen to me,” he said. “Daniel is dangerous. He isn’t the person he used to be. You have to promise to stay away from him.”

I twisted my fingers in the yarn of the blanket.

“I’m serious, Grace. You have to promise.”

“Okay, fine. I will.”

Jude squeezed my hand and looked off into the distance. It seemed like he was staring a million miles away, but I knew his gaze rested on the weathered walnut tree—the one I’d been trying to draw in art class—that separated our yard from the neighbor’s. I wondered if he was thinking about that night, three years ago, when he last saw Daniel—the last time any of us saw him.

“What happened?” I whispered. It had been a long time since I’d had the nerve to ask that question. My family acted like it was nothing. But
nothing
wasn’t bad enough to explain why Charity and I were sent away to our grandparents for three weeks. Families don’t stop talking about something that was
nothing. Nothing
didn’t explain the thin white scar—like the ones on his hand—above my brother’s left eye.

“You’re not supposed to say bad things about the dead,” Jude mumbled.

I shook my head. “Daniel isn’t dead.”

“He is to me.” Jude’s face was blank. I’d never heard him talk like that before.

I sucked in a breath of frigid air and stared at him, wishing I could read the thoughts behind his stony eyes. “You know you can tell me anything?”

“No, Gracie. I really can’t.”

His words stung. I pulled my hand out of his grasp. I didn’t know how else to respond.

Jude stood up. “Leave it alone,” he said softly as he draped the afghan around my shoulders. He went up the steps, and I heard the screen door click shut. The television’s blue light flickered through the front window.

A large black dog padded across the deserted street. It stopped under the walnut tree and looked up in my direction. The dog’s tongue lolled out in a pant. Its eyes fixed on me, glinting with blue light. My shoulders collapsed with a shiver, and I shifted my gaze up to the tree.

It had snowed before Halloween, but that had all melted away a few days later, and it probably wouldn’t snow again until Christmas. In the meantime, everything in the yard was crusty and brown and yellow, except for the walnut tree, which creaked in the wind. It was white as ash and stood like a wavering ghost in the light of the full moon.

Daniel had been right about my drawing. The branches
were
all wrong, and the knot in the lowest one
should have been turned up. Mr. Barlow had asked us to illustrate something that reminded us of our childhood. All I could see was that old tree when I looked at my piece of paper. But in the past three years, I had made it a point to avert my eyes when I passed it. It hurt to think about it—to think about Daniel. Now, as I sat on the porch, watching that old tree sway in the moonlight, it seemed to stir my memories until I couldn’t help remembering.

The afghan slipped off my shoulders as I stood. I glanced back at the front-room window and then to the tree. The dog was gone. It may sound weird, but I was glad that dog wasn’t watching as I went around to the side of the porch and crouched between the barberry bushes. I braved a nasty scratch on my hand as I felt under the porch for something I wasn’t even sure was there anymore. My fingertips brushed something cold. I reached farther in and slid it out.

The metal lunch box felt like an ice block in my bare hands. It was spotted with rust, but I could still make out the faded Mickey Mouse logo as I wiped years’ worth of grime off the lid. It came from a time that seemed so long ago. It used to be a treasure box where Jude, Daniel, and I kept our special things like pogs, and baseball cards, and that strange long tooth we found in the woods behind the house. But now it was a small metal coffin—a box that held the memories I wished would die.

I opened the lid and pulled out a tattered leather
sketchbook. I flipped through the musty pages until I found the last sketch. It was of a face I had drawn over and over again because I could never get it right. He had hair so blond it was almost white then, not shaggy and black and unwashed. He had a dimple in his chin and a wry, almost devious smile. But it was his eyes that always eluded me. I could never capture their deepness with my simple pencil strokes. His eyes were so dark, so deep. Like the rich mud we used to sink our toes into at the lake—they were mud-pie eyes.

MEMORIES

“You want it? Come and get it.” Daniel tucked the bottle of turpentine behind his back and lunged sideways like he was going to run away.

I crossed my arms and leaned against the trunk of the tree. I’d already chased him through the house, across the front yard, and around the walnut tree a couple of times—all because he’d sneaked into the kitchen while I was working and stole my bottle of paint remover without saying a word. “Give it back, now.”

“Kiss me,” Daniel said.

“What?”

“Kiss me, and I’ll give it back.” He fingered the moon-shaped knot in the lowest branch of the tree and flashed me a devious grin. “You know you want to.”

My cheeks flamed. I wanted to kiss him with all the
longing in my eleven-and-a-half-year-old heart, and I knew he knew it. Daniel and Jude had been best friends since they were two, and I—only a year younger—had trailed behind them since I was old enough to walk. Jude never minded when I wanted to tag along. Daniel hated it—but then again, only a girl could play Queen Amidala to Daniel’s Anakin and Jude’s Obi-Wan Kenobi. And despite all Daniel’s teasing, he was my first real crush.

“I’ll tell,” I said lamely.

“No, you won’t.” Daniel leaned forward, still grinning. “Now kiss me.”

“Daniel!”
his mother shrieked from the open window of his house. “You better come clean up this paint.”

Daniel shot straight up, his eyes wide with panic. He looked at the bottle in his hand. “Please, Gracie? I need it.”

“You could have asked in the first place.”

“Get in here, boy!”
his father roared out the window.

Daniel’s hands shook. “Please?”

I nodded, and he ran toward his house. I hid behind the tree and listened to his father yell at him. I don’t remember what Daniel’s father said. It wasn’t his words that ripped me open; it was the sound of his voice—getting deeper and more like a vicious snarl as he went on. I sank into the grass, with my knees pulled to my chest, and wished I could do something to help.

That was almost five and a half years before I saw him in Barlow’s class today. It was two years and seven months before he disappeared. But only one year before he came to live with us. One year before he became our brother.

THE NEXT DAY, FOURTH PERIOD

My mother had this weird rule about secrets. When I was four, she sat me down and explained that I was never to keep one. A few minutes later I marched up to Jude and told him my parents got him a Lego castle for his birthday. Jude started to cry, and Mom sat me back down and told me that a surprise was something everyone would eventually know, and a secret was something no one else was ever supposed to find out. She looked me right in the eyes and told me in this real serious tone that secrets were wrong and no one had the right to ask me to keep one.

I wish she’d set the same rule for promises.

The problem with promises is that once you’ve made one, it’s bound to be broken. It’s like an unspoken cosmic rule. If Dad says, “Promise you won’t be late for curfew,” the car is fated to break down, or your watch
will magically stop working, and your parents refuse to get you a cell phone so you can’t just call and tell them you’re running behind.

Seriously, no one should have the right to ask you to keep a promise—especially if they don’t consider all the facts.

It was completely unfair of Jude to make me promise not to have anything to do with Daniel. He didn’t take into account that Daniel was back in our school now. He didn’t have the same memories that I had. I didn’t intend to speak to Daniel again, but the only problem was—because Jude had made me
promise
not to—I was afraid of what I might do.

That fear gripped the breath in my chest as I stood outside the art-department door. My sweating palm slipped on the knob as I tried to turn it. Finally, I pushed the door open and looked to the table in the front row.

“Hey, Grace,” someone said.

It was April. She sat in the seat next to my empty chair. She snapped her gum as she unpacked her pastels. “Did you catch that documentary on Edward Hopper we were supposed to watch last night? My DVR totally had a meltdown.”

“No. I guess I missed it.” I scanned the room for Daniel. Lynn Bishop sat in the back row, gossiping with Melissa Harris. Mr. Barlow worked on his latest “prorecycling” sculpture at his desk, and a few students trickled into the classroom before the bell.

“Oh, crap. Do you think there’s going to be a quiz?” April asked.

“This is art class. We paint pictures while listening to classic rock.” I checked the room one last time. “I doubt there are going to be quizzes.”

“Boy, you’re crabby today.”

“Sorry.” I got my supply bucket out from the cubbies and sat in the seat next to her. “I guess I’ve got a lot on my mind.”