King and the Dragonflies: Chapters 1–6

The dragonflies live down by the bayou, but there’s no way to know which one’s my brother.

There are hundreds, maybe even thousands, just sitting on tree branches and rocks, baking in the sun, flitting over the brown water that seeps up from the dirt, zipping across the sky, showing off their ghostlike wings.

I like to look for my brother in the afternoon by the bayou, on the long and hot and sweaty walk back from school, down the hard dirt road that weaves between the thorny bushes with their big fluffy leaves, and through the trees with their moss and vines, cicadas making their noise and birds whistling their tunes.

It’s been a particularly hot past few months here in Louisiana, but today it feels like the devil came up out of his grave.

Dim light swirls in through the windows and the gauzy curtains.

My mom’s hands were clenched, hard, around a crumpled-up cut tissue in her lap, and she was staring without blinking, her eyes wide—staring right at where my brother’s old body was lying in his casket.

I know what my brother looked like when he was asleep. He was always dreaming. Always smirking, or frowning at something I couldn’t see, outright laughing before he mumbled and turned over, some nights even speaking to me.

“I’m not annoying,” he yells. “You’re annoying!”
She puts her hands on her hips. “Good job, Darrell. Great comeback.”

Jasmine would say that’s ignorant of me.

Finally, I make it to the round clearing, where a pond sits before me, the edge of the swampland that stretches out for miles and miles.

All I can do is look for the dragonfly. Same one that came to the funeral, rested on the casket, and fluttered its wings. That can’t just be a coincidence.

She smells a little musty, like sweat and paper and mothballs.

It’s another hot day in Louisiana. So hot you can see the steam rising up from the ground. It’s a mirage, Khalid told me once—like the mirages you see way out in the middle of a desert, but instead, they shimmer over the cracked pavement and potholes of our little town.

I stand on my tiptoes, and I see Sheriff Sanders standing on the stairs of the courtroom building, right behind a podium with a microphone.

Jasmine takes my hand beside me and clenches it tight. I look down at our hands intertwined, surprised and a little embarrassed, scared Darrell will see and won’t let me forget it.

“I saw Sandy Sanders yesterday,” I say, my throat scratchy and my voice hoarse.

I lean over to the window and pry it open so that thick heat hits me in the face, and I climb outside and thump onto the dry grass to crunch across the backyard, sharp stones digging into the undersides of my bare feet.

My dad got it for Khalid when he was a kid and wouldn’t stop begging for a tree house—got this tent for him as a consolation prize, since my dad’s too tired from working construction all day to then come home and build something else.

“The whole town’s looking for you.”
“I know,” he says hesitantly, staring down at my sleeping bag.

Just shoves a hand into a bag of chips, rustling around until he pulls out one and pops it into his mouth with a crunch.