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Back Heaven, My Home Save as PDF
Chapters (40)
  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Dedication
  5. Epigraph
  6. Marion County
  7. Part One
  8. 1.
  9. 2.
  10. 3.
  11. 4.
  12. Part Two
  13. 5.
  14. 6.
  15. 7.
  16. 8.
  17. 9.
  18. Part Three
  19. 10.
  20. 11.
  21. 12.
  22. 13.
  23. 14.
  24. 15.
  25. 16.
  26. Part Four
  27. 17.
  28. 18.
  29. 19.
  30. 20.
  31. 21.
  32. 22.
  33. 23.
  34. 24.
  35. Camilla
  36. Acknowledgments
  37. Discover More
  38. About the Author
  39. Also by Attica Locke
  40. Praise for Attica Locke’s

He heard the clicking again. And then the engine died a death quicker than any he’d imagined possible. No gurgling last breaths, like the gunshot victims he saw on TV, none of the babbling nonsense of Pappy’s last days—rambling sorries and sorrows over his friend Leroy—just a silence so stark he felt it in his chest. He realized he was holding his breath, waiting on the engine to hum again. But it was dead and cooling by the minute. Between here and home, he saw no other boats; the fishermen, pleasure cruisers, tourists with their kayaks, they were all gone. Help. It could have been a whisper or a scream, and it wouldn’t have mattered. He was out here alone, and he knew it. If he kept due west, he would eventually reach the shores of home. But all he had for forward motion was the rotted oar, and he didn’t trust he wouldn’t turn himself in circles and end up drifting halfway to Louisiana. No, he should stay right where he was till morning. In a few hours, surely Ma or Dana would borrow someone’s boat and come looking for him. He could make it that long, couldn’t he, if he didn’t lean so much as a fingernail over the side of the boat, where even now he could feel the wildlife that was burbling beneath the water? He felt something bump into the back of the boat. Gator, he thought, and flat-out panicked, jerking upright, standing even, as if he thought he could outrun it. The boat tipped again, taking on even more water, and now it was nearly up to his ankles. Up ahead, he saw something.

It was a black shadow floating toward him.

He thought he heard the low hum of an engine.

But couldn’t be sure he hadn’t imagined it, that he wasn’t just a little bit losing his mind out here. A night in the Caddo Motel. His every thought was bent away from this coming reality. A light clicked on and shone in his eyes as the shadow neared. Levi remained standing, waving his hands over his head, tilting the narrow boat this way and that. It rocked so much that it threatened to tip over for good. But Levi was desperate now, willing to risk capsizing if it meant being saved. “Here,” he called, the sound like a single drop of water on cotton as the Spanish moss ate the words out of his mouth whole, needing the cries of lost souls as sure as it needed the blood of the bald cypress to survive in the swamp.

Part One

Part One

1.

1.