I shake my head. “Details matter.”
“What about you? You remember any details at all?”
“A few.”
“But not much.”
“No.”
“I’ve heard it’s not a real thing,” she says. “All that repressed memory stuff.”
I help myself to another swallow, trying to ignore the vague needling from Sam. Despite all we have in common, she’s incapable of peering into my brain and seeing the black hole where memories of Pine Cottage should be. She’ll never know how comforting-yet-frustrating it is to remember the very beginning of something and then the tail end. It’s like leaving a theater five minutes into the movie and returning right when the end credits start to roll.
“Trust me,” I say. “It’s real.”
“And you don’t mind not remembering?”
“I think it’s probably better that I don’t.”
“But don’t you want to know what really happened?”
“I know the end result,” I say. “That’s all I need to know.”
“I heard it’s still standing,” Sam says. “Pine Cottage. I read it on one of those shitty true crime sites.”
I had read the same thing several years ago. Probably on the same website. Once the investigation was over, Pine Cottage’s owner had tried to sell the land. No one wanted it, of course. Nothing sinks land values more than blood in the soil. When he went into bankruptcy, it passed into the hands of his creditors. They couldn’t sell it, either. So Pine Cottage remains, a cabin-sized tombstone in the Pennsylvania woods.
“You ever think about going back there and taking a look?” Sam asks. “Maybe it would help you remember.”
The very idea nauseates me. “Never.”
“Do you ever think about him?”
It’s obvious she wants me to say His name. Anticipation pulses like body heat off her skin.
“No,” I lie.
“I figured you’d say that,” Sam says.
“It’s true.”
I have another swallow of Wild Turkey and stare into the bottle, taken aback by how much we’ve drank. Actually, by how much I’ve drank. Sam, I realize, has barely touched it. I close my eyes, swaying a little. I can feel myself teetering on the edge of being drunk. One more drink will do the trick.
I tip the bottle back, take two gulps, relish their burn.
Sam’s voice has become distant and tinny, even though she’s right beside me. “You act like you’re totally over what happened, but you’re not.”
“You’re wrong,” I say.
“Then prove it. Tell me his name.”
“We should try to sleep,” I say, looking to the window and the increasingly lightened sky. “It’s late. Or early.”
“There’s no reason to be afraid,” Sam says.
“I’m not.”
“It’s not like it’ll bring him back to life.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you being such a pussy about it?”
She sounds exactly like Janelle. Nudging. Prodding. Goading me into something I don’t want to do. Annoyance swells inside me, tinged with anger. When I try to tamp it down with more Wild Turkey I realize Sam’s taken the bottle from my hands.
“You are, you know,” she says. “Being a pussy.”
“That’s enough, Sam.”
“If you’re so over everything that happened, then a simple name shouldn’t be that big of a deal.”
“I’m going to bed.”
Sam grabs my arm when I try to leave. I jerk free of her grip, slide off the bed and hit the floor. Hard. Pain spreads up my hip.
Drunk on both Wild Turkey and lack of sleep, it takes some effort to stand. The whiskey sloshes sourly in my stomach. My vision swims. Sam makes things worse by saying, “I wish you’d say it.”
“No.”
“Just once. For me.”
I turn on her, wildly unsteady. “Why are you making such a big deal out of this?”
“Why are you so against it?”
“Because He doesn’t deserve to have His name spoken!” I yell, my voice loud in the pre-dawn silence. “After what He did, no one should say His fucking name!”
Sam’s eyes go wide. She knows she’s pushed me too far.
“You don’t need to freak out about it.”
“Apparently I do,” I say. “I’m doing you a favor by letting you crash here.”
“You are. Don’t think I don’t know that.”
“And if we’re going to be friends, you need to also know that I don’t talk about Pine Cottage. I’ve moved past it.”
Sam looks down, both hands on the bottle, cradling it between her breasts. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I didn’t mean to be such a bitch.”
A moment of sobriety arrives as I stand in the doorway, hand on my throbbing hip, trying my damnedest to not look as drunk as I truly am. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe it is best if you leave in the morning.”
Having spoken coherently, drunkenness again crashes over me. I sway out of the room, needing multiple attempts to close the door behind me. Then it’s into my own room, where more wrangling with the door ensues.
Jeff is half-awake when I flop into bed, murmuring, “I heard shouting.”
“It’s nothing.”
“You sure?”
“Yes,” I reply, too exhausted to say more.
Before I freefall completely into sleep, a thought cuts through the fuzz of my brain. It’s a flash of memory—an unwelcome one. Him during the moment we first met. Before the killing started. Before he became Him.
A second thought arrives, one more troublesome than the first.
Sam wanted me to remember.
What I don’t understand is why.
Pine Cottage, 5:03 p.m.
Janelle decided she wanted to explore the woods, knowing full well the group agreed ahead of time to do the birthday girl’s bidding. So off they went, tramping into the trees that practically nudged up against the cabin’s back deck.
Craig, the former Boy Scout, led the way with a determination that was almost silly. He was the only one who brought along proper footwear—hiking boots with heavy-duty socks pulled over his taut calves to guard against ticks. He carried an absurdly long walking stick, which struck the ground in a rhythmic thud.
Quincy and Janelle were right behind him, less serious. Wearing cutoff shorts, striped tank tops and impractical Keds, they kicked their way through the fallen leaves that coated the forest floor. More leaves continued to fall, the late-afternoon sunlight shining through their brittle thinness as they spun, tumbled and whirled. Falling stars speckled red and orange and yellow.
Janelle grabbed a leaf in mid-fall and tucked it behind her ear, its fiery orange glowing against her auburn hair.
“I demand a picture,” she said.
Quincy obliged, snapping off two shots before turning around and taking one of Betz, trudging heavily like she’d done all day. To her, this trip was more burden than gift. A weekend to be endured.
“Smile,” Quincy ordered.
Betz frowned. “I’ll smile when this hike is over.”
Quincy took her picture anyway before moving on to Amy and Rodney, walking as one, their hips all but connected. Since they were never not together, everyone else had taken to calling them Ramdy.
Seeing Quincy, they squeezed tightly together, mugging. Amy wore one of Rodney’s flannel shirts, the too-long sleeves hanging past her fingertips. Beside her, Rodney resembled a Kodiak bear, with his stoner scruff and thatch of chest hair peeking over the collar of his V-neck.
“That’s it,” Quincy said. “Make love to the camera.”
Amy and Rodney kissed. Quincy caught it on camera.
“That’s a great one,” she said. “I’ll email it to you when we get back to school.”
“You guys keeping up back there?” Craig called to them as they all began to scale a slight incline. Downed leaves made the ground slick, and Janelle and Quincy held hands, alternately hauling each other up the hill.
“Seriously, you don’t want to fall behind,” Janelle said with the authority of a tour guide. “These woods are haunted.”
“Bullshit,” Rodney replied.
“It’s true. An Indian tribe used to live here hundreds of years ago. Then the white man came and wiped them out. Their blood is on our hands, guys.”
“I don’t see anything,” Rodney said, turning his hands in mock examination.
“Be nice,” Amy chided.