by C. K. Brooke
Because yes, there is an us between Henry and me. Or at least, there was.
Same thing.
For, even if it was in the past, it’s part of the mystery that’s unresolved. And I realize it can be no coincidence that the two of us have been thrown into each other’s lives in a way that neither of us can ignore.
“Well, I’ve done some research myself.” My voice emits quietly. “Raymond Sanderson existed. He lived in Elms Creek, Missouri. I need to go there.”
“Why?” From my pillow, Henry scrutinizes me. In his eyes, I detect no judgment, just an earnest desire to understand. “What do you honestly think you’re going to find?”
“Answers.” I sit up straighter. “About Susan. Where she lived, what happened. Anyone still alive who might’ve known her.” I look down at my fingers in the scant phone light, heat spreading through my chest. “I want to know why she died.” I want to know who killed her.
His sigh is long and thin like a deflating balloon as he gets up from my bed.
“Tell me this, Henry,” I propose. “If it’s all just some spontaneous recollection of a story we both happened to have read somewhere, then why do you remember it all through Ray’s eyes…and I remember it through Susan’s?”
He’s made it to my door when he stops in his tracks.
“What if you come with us?” I add.
His silhouette turns.
Maybe seeing Elms Creek in the flesh will finally make a believer out of him. And maybe having him there with me can help us get to the bottom of this mystery, whatever it is.
In the darkness, I feel him meeting my gaze, and that’s when I know. Something began long ago. Something I’ve buried deep, in order to protect myself. It’s why I’ve refused to be Henry’s friend or more.
And I realize now, we have to finish it.
Volume 2
11
Milagro “Miracle” Romero’s new age shop, Ash and Oak, smells like cinnamon and pumpkin spice-everything. Like at home, Samhain decorations dominate with artificial autumn leaves framing the front windows and pocket-sized jack-o-lanterns grinning on the cash register. Comingling with the seasonal aromas are the scents of Persephone’s sandalwood incense and Amethyst’s cigarettes. I breathe in the familiarity of it all. It’s like nothing’s changed since I was nine years old, when we used to meet once a month at the tiny Unitarian Universalist chapel downtown before it closed.
I’m sitting in the book section with a couple of titles stacked on the coffee table. One of Miracle’s cats sashays my way, and I stroke his silky head. “All the food’s downstairs,” I tell him. With a proud flourish of his tail, he flattens his chin for one last petting, then disappears around a corner.
“Hey.”
I look up, and my heart does a funny little snare drum thing.
Mason Rychards grins at me. “You came.” He’s wearing a proper winter coat for once, and a pair of muddy combat boots that look like they’ve spent too many seasons volunteering at a horse farm or something.
“Yeah.” I indicate the pile of books on the coffee table. “But I’m not really in the mood to do the ritual tonight. I thought I’d just chill up here and read.”
“You’re so antisocial.” He plops down onto the sofa next to me. “Besides, don’t you want to help banish terrorism?”
Before I can remark about leaving that to the CIA, I hear my name. Among the women filing down the basement stairs is Persephone, Mason’s mother, who waves at us.
“You guys coming down?” she wants to know.
“We’ll stay upstairs,” Mason answers.
I hold my breath, silently begging my mom not to comment. She only makes eyes at Seph, and the two disappear down the steps together, grinning.
We wait until everyone’s gone. Faint strains of music from the stereo trail up to us. Mason unzips his coat, leaning back more comfortably, and I become aware how dimly lit and private it is back here.
I lower my feet from the coffee table, feeling the need to sit up straight, keep my knees together. I’ve been alone with Mason before, but this feels…different. I don’t know why. I trust him. But I feel his eyes on me and it’s like I suddenly don’t know how to act.
“So if you didn’t want to do the ritual,” he shrugs his coat off and lays it aside, “why’d you come?”
“Because you asked me to?”
His jeans swish against the faux leather sofa as he moves closer to me. “There are no wrong answers here, Willow.”
He’s wearing a casual, black button-down with the sleeves rolled up, and it’s kind of making the back of my neck hot. Wishing I’d brought a hair tie, I sweep my hair off my neck and around my shoulders.
Unspeaking, he finishes the job for me, brushing my hair aside. He lets his fingers linger, half-buried in my thick waves. I try not to breathe too deeply. The last thing I want is to start panting in his face.
“Do you have a boyfriend, Willow?” he asks.
“No.” The drummer in my heart performs double-time. “Do you?” I wince. “I mean…”
“No.” His goatee stretches as he smirks. “I can’t say that I have a boyfriend.”
“I meant a girlfriend.”
“I don’t know.” His hand falls away as he searches my eyes. “Do I?”
BZZ. BZZ. BZZZZZ…
“What the…?” My butt is vibrating. “I’m so sorry.” I dig into my back pocket, pull out my phone, and jam my finger against the side button to silence it. But the name on the screen keeps flashing up at me.
Mason straightens. “Answer it.”
I hesitate. “I don’t need to—”
“Go ahead,” he insists.
Reluctantly, I accept the call. “As always, your timing is terrible,” I grunt by way of greeting.
“Can I put your clothes in the dryer?” asks my stepbrother, Henry.
“Are you effing kidding me right now?” I hiss.
“No. I need to do laundry and all your stuff’s hogging the washing machine.”
“This is why you’re calling me on a Saturday night?” I could die. Right here.
“I still feel bad about shrinking your mom’s cardigan that was airdry only.” I hear the click of a dial being turned. “I didn’t want to ruin any of your clothes, too.”
“Yes, you can put my laundry in the freaking dryer.”
“Okay. Where are you? I ordered Marco’s.”
“I’m not home. Enjoy your pizza.”
By the time I hang up and toss my stupid phone onto the coffee table, Mason is on his feet, perusing the bookshelves.
I shouldn’t have taken the call. Why did I even pull the phone out of my back pocket? Mason was practically asking me to be his girlfriend, and I allowed Henry to interrupt the moment with a question about laundry? I should’ve let it ring until it went to voicemail. I should’ve thrown it out the store window and let a car run over it.
I can’t conjure what to say now, or how to prompt the conversation to return to where we’d left off. I decide to stand and join Mason awkwardly at the bookshelves. Downstairs, the music fades as it sounds like the witches are beginning their new moon ritual.
“So…”
At the sound of my hesitant voice, Mason turns.
Triggered by Henry’s phone call, I suddenly remember. “Oh—I totally meant to mention to you. My stepbrother is…kind of…going on our trip to Missouri with us.”
Mason laughs. When I don’t join in, his humor dissipates. “Oh.” He blinks. “You’re serious.” His tone is light, obviously trying to mask his dismay, but I can sense it. “Couldn’t help but invite himself?”
“Actually, I invited him.”
I guess Mason has nothing to say to that. He draws a line in the dust on the bookshelf with his fingertip, then brushes it off on his jeans.
“Look, I know a road trip with Henry isn’t exactly what you signed up for. But he plays a role in all this, too.” Like it or not. “If you don’t want to do it anymore, I understand.”
/>
“Are you saying you’d rather go to Missouri alone with Henry?”
“No, that’s not at all what I’m saying.” It comes out sounding way more defensive than I intended, and he looks up. I’m relieved to see a playful flicker of mischief in his lake-blue eyes.
“It’s okay to be honest with me, Willow.”
“Now I know you’re teasing.”
He tugs on the spine of a book. “Want to read about spirit animals?”
“No.” I take a step forward and nudge the book back into its spot, laying my hand over his.
He meets my eyes. We’re standing so close, I could count each one of his eyelashes, if I wanted to. “Mason,” I utter, as he leans slightly in. But the question that emerges is, “Will you teach me how to drive?”
He stops with his hand on the bookshelf, semi-blocking me in. His gaze roves my face, taking me in before seeming to register the request. He chuckles. “Where’d that come from?”
“I don’t know… When you told my sister that you were my driving instructor, it sort of had a nice ring to it.”
I can’t say why I’m stalling, resisting—why I just don’t feel ready for whatever it is that’s been slowly brewing between us. I thought I wanted this. Yet, something still feels incomplete. And somehow, I know that, if he kisses me now, I’m going to fall—hard. Falling like that is dangerous. It could shatter everything. Like it did for Susan.
I’m not Susan anymore, I remind myself.
“How about you drive us to Elms Creek, then?” he suggests.
“Ha, ha.”
“I’m not joking. I’m speaking as your official driving instructor here.”
“Mason.” I shake my head, although I’m smiling. “I don’t even have a learner’s permit.”
“Well,” he surveys me, “then let’s get you one.”
#
It’s just past dawn when I hear the rumble of Mason’s car in the driveway. I hurry to fasten the second stud earring into my earlobe, drain the rest of my thermos of chai, and head into the living room. I grab the duffel bag sporting my old middle school mascot and whisper-call down the stairs, “Henry, let’s go.”
I’m shocked at how cold it is outside as I step onto the front porch. Frost glitters on the railing and punctuates the blades of grass on the lawn. My breath clouds in front of me as I haul my bag to the car. Mason’s trunk pops open, and I swing my cargo inside.
He gets out of the car, and we exchange a one-armed hug. “I was gonna get your bag for you,” he says. I wave him off.
He gestures to the driver’s seat, where he’s left the door open. My nerves crackle like a livewire. But I know it’s time.
Henry emerges from the house just then, wearing his usual backpack. Rings of sleeplessness edge his eyes, as usual, but he doesn’t complain about the hour. He halts in front of me and Mason, looking confused to see me standing at the driver’s side door.
“Get in the back,” I tell my stepbrother.
He blinks. “You’re driving?”
I reach into my handbag and flash my vertical learner’s permit at him.
“Whoa. When’d you get that?”
“Yesterday,” Mason answers, helping himself into the passenger’s seat. Henry drops his backpack in with my duffel, closes the trunk, and slides into the backseat. It suddenly occurs to me that, once I get behind the wheel, both their lives are in my hands.
Just as I’m about to change my mind and tell Mason I can’t do this, a sense of reassurance overtakes me. I’m going to Elms Creek. I’m heading closer to the answers I seek than I’ve ever been before—in this lifetime. It’s where I’m supposed to go. The past is beckoning…it wants to be revisited. Needs to be resolved.
Determined, I claim the driver’s seat and shut the door against the biting cold. Mason has the GPS set up on his phone, and he connects it to the mount in front of me.
I. Can. Do. This.
Seatbelts on, mirrors adjusted, gear in reverse… Slowly, I back out of the driveway. Acid wants to rise up my throat, but I swallow it down, blocking out the tension. I need to concentrate on the road.
“Down for left,” Mason reminds me, referring to the blinker as I prepare for a turn.
“Yep.” I do as he says, and follow the GPS.
“Doing good, Wil,” Henry’s voice pipes up after a few minutes. “I’m not even carsick.”
“Yet,” I tease. A quick glance into the rearview mirror shows me a textbook’s already open in his lap. My gaze returns to the windshield as the sun rises languidly overhead. For some reason, it feels even colder now than it did before it came up.
“Mason, can you manage the heat?” I ask him. I don’t want to remove a hand from the wheel to mess with the dials.
He comes to my aid. “Does anyone mind if I switch on the radio, or will it be too distracting?” He glances over his shoulder at Henry, who’s studying.
“Doesn’t bother me,” my stepbrother mutters, and I hear the sound of a page turning. Oh, it definitely bothers him.
But Mason doesn’t know Henry as well as I do. He turns on the radio, and an annoying ad for a concert coming to Akron is playing. Mason lowers the volume and switches to one of the local college stations. Low-fi indie music floats out the speakers, no percussion, just a lone guitarist.
I think I’m getting the hang of driving. As I slow for another red light, I ask Mason, “Can you play something like this on your guitar?”
Leaning back in the passenger’s seat, he crosses his arms easily. I can’t determine if it’s to express confidence in me or in himself. “If I hear it, I can play it.”
“I’d like to hear you play someday.”
“This hipster music sounds like crap,” Henry remarks.
Before I’m ready, it’s time to hit the highway.
My upper arms tremble. Navigating the city streets was a big enough step for me this morning. I’ve never done highway speeds. I’m already second-guessing my decision as I accelerate up the entry ramp.
Both Henry and Mason are glancing out the back window for me. Somehow, that makes me even more nervous. Like they don’t trust me. Should I trust myself?
“Okay,” Mason braces me, eyes on the rear windshield. “Your goal is to merge into the left lane before your lane ends, without interrupting the flow of traffic.”
Three cars sail past. There’s a surprising number of cars on the road for so early in the morning. Then again, it’s Friday, and most of Middling, Ohio is on its way to work.
I shove the blinker lever down. I glance in the side mirror to my left and watch as a huge truck only speeds up and flies past me. “They’re not slowing down for me.” Don’t panic…
“They’re not going to,” says Henry, also watching out the rear windshield. “You have to time it. After this red car passes, you can go, but you can’t hesitate.”
“And keep your speed up,” Mason adds. “Maybe five over. Everyone seems to be in a hurry today.”
Can’t hesitate. Speed up. Hurry. Their words burn in my skull over the vibration of the road beneath my seat and the deafening sound of cars speeding past, nearly shaking the little sedan as they go.
“Merge now,” commands Mason, but he sounds unsure. Not unsure of his command—but of me.
“I can’t.” My voice cracks. The lane is ending. Another row of cars to my left accelerates, trying to pass the stupid girl who doesn’t know how to drive. No one’s slowing down to let me in.
I veer to the right, peel onto the shoulder, and brake to a halt. I shove the gear into park, shoulders heaving. Lines of cars zoom by, rattling our car furiously as it waits at a standstill. The three of us are silent.
Furious with myself, I smash down the button on my seatbelt and throw off the belt.
“Willow,” warns Mason. But I fling open the door and get out. I can sense him watching me through the window, but I can’t look at him. I’m a failure. An embarrassment. Impatient, I wait for him to get the picture and open his door.
Instead, the back door opens. Henry folds himself out and comes to meet me under the canopy of trees lining the highway. His shoes crunch over the gravel. The sound makes me feel cold.
“Hey.” The trepidation in his voice unnerves me. “You were doing really well back there.”
I turn my back to him. I don’t want him to see the humiliation stinging my eyes. It blurs my vision and the gravel beneath my shoes.
“I mean it. You were really driving just now, smooth enough for me to read without feeling like I was gonna hurl. That’s more than I can say about driving with my dad.”
Deep down, some part of me wants to crack a grin.
The passenger door finally opens. I hear Mason’s cautious footsteps as he exits the car. The keys jangle in his grip.
“I was stupid to think I could do this,” I confess, my back to both of them. “I’m sorry.”
Mason lays a hand on my back. “Do you still want to go to Elms Creek?”
“Yes.” I sniffle. Oh, gods, please don’t cry. Don’t be a baby. “But you two will have to drive.”
“I can do the first half,” Henry offers. “Then we’ll stop for lunch, and Mason, you can finish it out.”
“Is that good with you?” Mason asks me.
I nod. Feeling him step away, I turn and watch him get into the back seat.
Oh, I realize, as Henry takes the driver’s seat. Mason doesn’t want to ride up front for four hours with my stepbrother, after all. Go figure.
The door handle is freezing as I wrench it open and get in on the passenger’s side. The warm cab is a relief from the frigid morning air. Mason tosses Henry his keys, and my stepbrother reaches into his jacket’s inner pocket.
He pulls out a pair of eyeglasses I’ve never seen before. As he arranges them over his nose, I find I can’t stop staring. They’re squarish, sleek and black.
“Since when do you wear glasses?” I ask him.
“Since a few weeks ago,” replies Henry, “when the optometrist said I need them for driving.”
I’m oddly comforted by his command of the car, even though it isn’t his, or anything like the truck he normally drives. The way he turns the key in the ignition, watches for a gap in traffic to merge into, and steers us smoothly back onto even pavement…
