“Against the Dawn’s a great band. I just—”
“No. I mean, it was the most alive I’ve felt. And I wish you’d felt it too.”
Tyler chuckles and nudges me with his shoulder. “I’m alive. Trust me, I know.” He starts playing again, but I put my hand on the strings to silence them.
“It also made me realize death can’t stop life. Death ends one life, but it just starts another.”
“What?”
I’m not explaining it right. It all seemed crystal clear sitting on the Indian mound. “It’s just, we’re going to put Holly to rest sooner or later. And then we’re going to move on, you know? We’re going to have to figure out new lives without her. That’s scary to think about.”
“So, what? You think I messed up last night on purpose so I wouldn’t have to move on? Like, I sabotaged myself because I’m scared?”
“No. But being scared makes it easier to run away after you screwed up. It makes it easy to just curl up inside old memories. It’s the same as not coming to church now. Or not joining the praise band when Bo asked you.”
“Quit! You don’t know what you’re talking about. Just watch the water, okay?”
“Yes, I do know what I’m talking about. I know because I feel it too. It’s scary. Holly’s been my best friend since forever. I don’t even know who I am without her. And when this is over, I’m going to have to let go of her, and that’s scary, Tyler.”
“Just watch, Jane.” He starts to play.
“No. I want to talk.” But Tyler ignores me and keeps playing. I cross my arms and watch the water as evening settles around us like ash. A tear stings the corner of my eye. Too mad to let Tyler see me cry, I wipe it away quickly. For the millionth time, I wish you were here, Holly. Not your ghost, but really you. I wish you could tell us how you survived after your parents’ death, how you found the courage to build a new life all on your own.
Except you weren’t all on your own, were you?
“Tyler, stop. Stop! Holly’s not coming. She’s not here.”
“What?”
I rap my knuckles against my head, hard enough to hurt. “Think about it. Auntie Peake said Holly was just lost. But she was lost before—I mean, she must have felt lost when her parents died—and that time, her grandparents took her in.”
Tyler puts his hand to his mouth. “So she’d go looking for them this time, too. She’s not coming out of the river because she’s already gone home.”
Eighteen
I sit on a toolbox in the back of the van, craning around Max’s headrest. Tyler’s in the front seat, giving directions. “Turn here. Foster Mill Road.”
When Max turns, Ultimate looks at me. “You know this is breaking and entering, right? If you get arrested, saying you thought your dead friend might have gone home isn’t going to help much.”
“Who’ll call the police? Who worries if there’s a utility van parked in front of an empty house? Just act like you’re fixing the power or whatever, and nobody’ll notice us. Turn left up here.”
Catching my eye in the rearview mirror, Max says, “You’re giving off a real sneaky, criminal-mastermindy vibe. You know that?”
He means it as a sly compliment, I know. But I can’t summon a laugh or even a smile. “This house here. With the blue trim.”
Your house, without love, the porch steps lost in a fog of Queen Anne’s lace. Your house with a living room window broken. Your house surrounded by swallows. The birds that left their nests on the bluff—they’re all here, slashing between the orange sky and shadowed tree branches.
Max steers into the driveway. “So what do we do now?”
“Go look.”
LeighAnn says, “Jane, you shouldn’t rush … ”
I hop out as soon as the van stops. The driveway of white pebbles has melted like a snowbank, green grass nibbling at its edges. The swallows have built mud nests under the porch eaves. They build their homes from the same mud and sticks you build your body from. They saw you drown, saw you reshape yourself, and somehow they consider you kin. They love you and followed you here.
Ultimate, carrying his toolbox, pretends to check the meter. The others follow me up to the porch. Birds wheel up and out, dive straight down screaming at us. They saw you drown. Maybe, if they love you, they hate me and Tyler for not saving you. I hunch forward, ignoring them, and climb the steps.
The door handle has rusted away. I can see where you tugged on it until it finally crumbled in your hand. The pieces still lie on the porch. You cried for somebody to let you in, banged and scratched on the door until the panel rotted, knots in the painted pine sprouting stubby new branches.
I nudge the door open. “Holly?”
Tyler follows close behind, holding the bag of chalk and lime. He clicks on a flashlight and swings it around, into the corners.
“Holly? It’s Jane.”
The air inside is humid and still, heavy with the fecund stink of the lake bottom. Stalks of goldenseal grow from the carpet, hairy-stemmed and scarlet-berried. Even this far from the river, you carry its powers of rot and wild growth.
Max and LeighAnn watch from just inside the doorway. “Jane … this isn’t a great—”
I wave at LeighAnn to shut up, then call down the hall, “Holly? It’s Jane. Don’t be scared, okay? Okay?”
No answer. A few wrinkled snapshots lie at the mouth of the hall. I kneel down, flip one over. Water damage has blurred the colors and figures, but it’s a picture of some band onstage. It’s one of the photos from your pa-paw’s houseboat. I remember the photo we found of your me-maw. The wind didn’t blow it onto the shore; you dropped it.
Tyler yells, “Oh, God!”
I rush over and shoulder past him, pushing into the kitchen while he backpedals out. “Holly, it’s me! It’s Jane! I’ve been look—”
“Jane. Look at it, Jane.” Tyler takes my elbow. I blink and look again, seeing what’s in front of me. Shaped from mud and flotsam, the miserable copy of you lies stiff, dried out, and crumbling on the tile. Whatever scrap of your soul held it together has unraveled. Another copy crouches near the pantry, knees pulled up, face buried in earthen arms. As it dried out, one shoulder split away from the body. Ants crawl out of the wound.
“So … how are there two of them? Two of her, or whatever?” LeighAnn asks.
“She can reshape herself over and over.” Tyler glances from one body to the other. “She came once, but that body broke apart. So she formed a second body and came again. The heat. She must have come at night when it’s cool, but during the day, when it gets hot, the mud dries out and falls apart.”
“Why’d she come back at all?” Max asks. “There’s nothing here. What’s she looking for?”
“She’s looking for her grandparents,” I say.
Wings flutter inside the house. I look down the hall to see the cobalt bird dart into your bedroom. I follow it, knowing I don’t want to see.
One body is curled up on the bed, the sheets growing mossy beneath it and kudzu vines twisting around the rust-brown bed frame. Other husks crouch in the corners or have just dropped to their knees. One has gray teeth made from pieces of mussel shell. I try counting the bodies, but they’ve crumbled together—hands broken off spindly arms, chests crushed underfoot. There’s more trash carried up from the houseboat, too—a clock radio is plugged in but not working, more ruined pictures are propped carefully against the baseboards. Moldering clothes have been folded and stacked. They’ve started sprouting mushrooms from your touch. You even carried up your pa-paw’s guitar. You lie with fingers still encrusted around the Dreadnought’s neck.
I cover my mouth and try to look away, but there’s nowhere to look where you aren’t. Swooping to the jagged lip of the broken window, the swallow chitters, laughing at me for coming here, then vanishes outside.