16. The Creek

Ava balances the flashlight on the knees, holding the beam steady on the fuse-box while he works, fingers deft with the wires and little bits of burnt-out plastic and metal. When the lights had gone out with a hissing pop that had set her teeth on edge she had started, dropped a glass, felt the splash of water and ice against her legs. For a moment she had stood while darkness as thick and heavy as molasses had enveloped the house. She had never been afraid of the dark, only of the things that could happen in it, but when she heard him calling her she had tried to speak, found her mouth dry, finally managed to find a thin high semblance of her voice to tell him she was all right and when she had crunched across the kitchen floor, glass splinters embedding themselves into the soles of her house-slippers, she had also realised she was shaking.

Now, down in the basement with its dank smell that catches at the back of her throat, she's been given the task of holding the light while he mends the fuses. With the first look at the tangle of wires he had sighed, shaken his head, muttered something under his breath.

She hates it down here. Even if it got given one of those makeovers - a conversion - that they always have in magazines and on the TV, she would still hate it, still be able to smell its stench of rancid water and decay. She shivers and inches forward just enough that she can feel the warmth rising from the curve of his back.

It's a humid night, although not particularly hot, cool clammy weather that she also hates, but anything is preferable to this and she looks forward to being back out in the open.

They had driven down to the creek one night, she remembers, her and Bowman and Boyd and the girl he had been seeing at the time - Jenny? Janey? Jaime? Something like that. A tiny thing, big eyes and a cloud of hair around her heart-shaped face. She remembers envying her that particular brand of dark, delicate beauty.

They had played music through the car stereo, drunk the beer they'd brought with them and watched the fireflies skim across the water.

Bowman had spent most of the time trying to make Jenny - she'll settle on calling her that - laugh and she had complied, a mellow husky sound that swooped and dipped on the night air. But her eyes always slipped sideways, watching Boyd from under her lashes and he watched the scene with evident amusement, contributing the occasional comment that subtly undermined his brother without Bowman even noticing it.

He was still thin after Kuwait, too thin, skin stretched over the sharp lines of his cheekbones, sunken in the hollows at his temples; but the dullness in his eyes had been replaced by a kind of fever.

'Ava.'

She starts, swinging up the flashlight she has let sag and the beam catches him full in the face, the light bouncing off his glasses. He shields his eyes with one hand, moves the flashlight with the other.

'I need you to hold it steady.' Patient, the merest whisper of reproach at the edges.

'Sorry.' She holds it firm.

The white dazzle off his lenses has caused dancing lights like sunspots before her eyes, a private light-show every time she blinks.

They had eventually gone swimming, Bowman challenging everyone to a race and striking out across the water before anyone else had a chance to set a toe in.

'He's real competitive, ain't he?' Jenny, tying her hair back, exposing the perfect long lines of her neck.

'Bowman?' She shrugged. 'I guess. He always has to win.' Boyd had nearly caught him up, though, she noticed, even with a late start; he didn't seem as interested in winning as in stopping Bowman from reaching the far bank. Bowman, she thought indulgently, against the shouts and whoops of laughter, wouldn't like that at all.

The water felt blissfully cool, silken, after the heat of the day and the patches on her shoulders where she'd caught too much sun. She floated, limbs languid, fingers of water through her hair. When she was a kid she'd play at being a mermaid, sliding through the water until the skin on her fingers and toes was bleached white and wrinkled and her hair smelt almost permanently of the cool depths of the creek. Her mama despaired of her - 'No man wants a girl who smells like a fish' - but she didn't care.

She watched the stars overhead and she drifted, sounds fading in and out as the water lapped at her ears. Then covered her face and she choked, took in more water, tried to right herself and found a tangle of reeds, weeds, something, wrapping around her ankle. Water in her mouth, in her eyes, in her ears; she was flailing and moving down and not up. The water didn't smell fresh anymore, it was brackish and decaying and so so dark and she didn't want to die like that, dragged down into the blackness.

Arms around her waist pulled at her, hard, her head snapping back and air against her face. Her breath came in choking whoops, still not getting in enough air. Dragged through the water, pushed up onto the bank, then Boyd hit her, hard, on the back and water dribbled out of her mouth. She coughed hopelessly against him and he pushed the wet hair away from her face, fingers following the curve of her cheek. He rubbed her back where he had hit her, comforting circles that followed the rhythm of her slowing breathing. Wet skin still darkened from the desert sun gleamed bronze and his face close to hers was carved in desperate lines. Even when the worst of her shaking had stopped he still held her and when she felt his lips press against her right temple she didn't ask him what the hell he thought he was doing. She closed her eyes and wondered if that was still her heart she could hear hammering, or his.

At the sound of other voices, he released her. Bowman was all crooning concern, making a great show of making a fuss of her (show is what it was, she had plenty of time later to find that out). Jenny had stood apart, her dark hair a sleek rope, rivulets running down her body and her eyes wide and black and furious.

The lights come on, power surging through the house with an audible rush.

'Do you remember we went down to the creek one time? There were four of us.'

'I remember,' he says after a moment. He fits the cover back over the fuse-box, wipes it down like he's removing his fingerprints, turns to her and switches off the flashlight she's still holding. 'Night swimming can be mighty dangerous.'