Into the Tall, Tall Grass by Loriel Ryon

Author:Loriel Ryon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books
Published: 2020-04-07T00:00:00+00:00

Twenty-five

AFTER my sister healed Benjamín, it was silly to think he would leave on his own. Mami knew the truth, of course. He had fallen in love with Vi. You couldn’t really blame him. We’d all felt the chemistry between them. And she’d saved his hand. But no one dared tell Papá. Violeta was his firstborn. He could never admit that she was turning into a grown woman. Oh no, he would have lost his mind had he known what the rest of us knew.

Benjamín loved Violeta.

And she loved him back.

Benjamín stayed through the summer. My sister convinced Papá to let him help out on the orchard after his hand fully healed, which took a few days. He was a strong young man and a hard worker, determined to spend as much time as possible with my sister. Papá agreed because we had a lot of work to do and could use the extra help. But in the end, I think Papá might have suspected something because he insisted Benjamín stay in the adobe casita.

Benjamín moved himself into the casita the next night. I offered to help him move, as his hand was still a little sensitive and healing. And I was curious. Who was this young man who had come and fallen in love with my sister? As we walked down the center of the orchard, our path lit by an orb of fireflies, he refused to let me help with the massive black trunk on wheels. He wouldn’t even let me touch it. This only made me sure I needed to find out what was in it.

During those summer nights, long after supper and long after all the lights were out, I would sneak out of the house, tiptoe as quietly as I could through front door and down the creaky steps, climb up the low-hanging branch of the pecan tree out front, and practice. The butterflies slept at night, so instead I danced fireflies in my palms and summoned them from afar. I coaxed summer buds to bloom and turned pecan flowers into nuts. I don’t know why, but I enjoyed working at it alone, without anyone knowing or seeing what I was doing. And it felt good to be outside, in the warm moonlight, discovering it for myself. In private.

Some of those nights, Violeta would creep out the door and wait on the porch swing, her nightgown to her ankles, looking like an angel in all white. I would never move when she came out, for fear of her discovering me. And I knew what she was up to.

She would glance over her shoulder now and again, rocking the swing back and forth as the chain creaked, and wait.

Benjamín would arrive sometime later, walking up the center of the orchard, pushing his black curls from his brow, hands shoved in the pockets of his gray tweed pants with a wry smile on his face. Both of their faces would light up when they saw each other, as though they had been apart for so much longer than the few hours since supper.

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