At some point my phone died. I fell asleep at 3:40 p.m., 2 percent power, and when I awoke, the screen had gone dark.
The world was silent, except for the scream of wind, and Livvy, tugging breaths from the air, and Ed, a faint crackle in his throat. And me, sobs guttering somewhere in my body.
Quiet. Absolute quiet.
I came to in that womb of a cabin, my eyes bleary. But then I saw light leaking into the car, saw the dim glow behind the windshield, and heard the silence the way I’d heard the noise. It inhabited the car like a living thing.
I uncoiled myself and reached for the door handle. It clacked reassuringly, but the door wouldn’t budge.
No.
I scuttled on my knees, rolled onto my aching back, crammed my feet against the door and pushed. It budged against the snow, then stopped. I kicked the window, clopped it with my heels. The door stuttered open. A little avalanche piled into the car.
I slithered outside on my stomach, crushing my eyes shut against the light. When I opened them again, I could see dawn boiling over the distant mountains. I rose to my knees, surveyed the new world around me: the valley, drenched in white; that faraway river; the plush snowfall beneath my feet.
I swayed on my knees. And then I heard a crack, and I knew it was the windshield collapsing.
I sank one foot then the other into the snow, stumbled to the front of the car, saw the glass staved in. Back to the passenger door, back inside. Once more I pulled them from the wreckage, Livvy first, then Ed; once more I arranged them side by side on the ground.
And as I stood above them, my breath steaming before me, my vision went fuzzy yet again. The sky seemed to bulge toward me, pressing upon me; I crumpled, eyelids clenched, heart hammering.
I howled, a wild thing. I turned onto my stomach, flung my arms around Olivia and Ed, clutched them to myself as I whimpered into the snow.
That was how they found us.
67
When I wake on Monday morning, I want to speak to Wesley.
I’ve twisted myself in the sheets, have to peel them from my body, like apple skin. Sun is pouring through the windows, lighting up the bedclothes. My skin glows with heat. I feel oddly beautiful.
My phone is on the pillow beside me. For an instant, as the ring purrs in my ear, I wonder if he might have changed his number, but then I hear his voice boom, unstoppably loud as ever: “Leave a message,” he commands.
I don’t. Instead I try his office.
“This is Anna Fox,” I tell the woman who answers the phone. She sounds young.
“Dr. Fox. It’s Phoebe.”
I was wrong. “I’m sorry,” I say. Phoebe—I worked with her for almost a year. Definitely not young. “I didn’t recognize you. Your voice.”
“That’s all right. I think I’ve got a cold, so I probably sound different.” She’s being polite. Typical Phoebe. “How are you?”
“I’m fine, thanks. Is Wesley available?” Of course, Phoebe’s quite formal, and will probably call him— “Dr. Brill,” she says, “has sessions all morning, but I can ask him to give you a buzz later.”
I thank her, offer my number—“Yes, that’s what I have on file”—and hang up.
I wonder if he’ll call back.
68
I head downstairs. No wine today, I’ve decided, or at least not this morning; I need to keep a clear head for Wesley. Dr. Brill.
First things first: I visit the kitchen, find the stepladder as I left it, leaning against the basement door. In the morning light, almost combustibly bright, it looks flimsy, preposterous; David could knock it down with a smash of his shoulder. For an instant, doubt tiptoes into my brain: So he’s got a woman’s earring on his bedside table; so what? You don’t know that it’s hers, Ed said, and that’s true. Three small pearls—I think I’ve got a similar pair myself.
I watch the ladder as though it might walk toward me on its spindly aluminum legs. I eye the bottle of merlot gleaming on the counter, next to the house key on its hook. No, no booze. Besides, the place must be littered with wineglasses by this point. (Where have I seen something like that? Yes: that thriller Signs—middling film, splendid Bernard Herrmann–esque score. Precocious daughter strews half-drunk cups of water everywhere, and they end up deterring the space invaders. “Why would aliens come to Earth if they’re allergic to water?” Ed ranted. It was our third date.) I’m getting distracted. Up to the study with me.
I park at my desk, slap my phone next to the mouse pad, plug it into the computer to charge. Check the clock on the computer: just past eleven. Later than I thought. That temazepam really put me under. Those temazepams, technically. Plural.
I look out the window. On the other side of the street, right on schedule, Mrs. Miller emerges from her front door, soundlessly shutting it behind herself. She’s in a dark winter coat this morning, I see, and white breath flows from her mouth. I tap my phone’s weather app. Twelve degrees outside. I stand, pad to the thermostat on the landing.
I wonder what Rita’s husband is up to. It’s been ages since I saw him, since I looked for him.
Back at my desk, I gaze across the room, across the park, at the Russell house. Its windows loom empty. Ethan, I think. I’ve got to get to Ethan. I felt him waver last night; “I’m scared,” he’d said, his eyes gone wide, almost wild. A child in distress. It’s my duty to help him. Whatever has happened to Jane, whatever has become of her, I must protect her son.
What’s the next move?
I chew my lip. I log on to the chess forum. I start to play.
An hour later, past noon, and nothing has occurred to me.
I’ve just kissed the bottle to the wineglass—again, it’s past noon—and think. The problem has been droning in the back of my mind like ambient noise: How to reach Ethan? Every few minutes I glance across the park, as though the answer might be scrawled on the wall of the house. I can’t call his landline; he doesn’t have his own phone; if I were somehow to attempt to signal to him, his father—or that woman—might see me first. No email address, he told me, no Facebook account. Might as well not exist.
He’s almost as isolated as I am.
I sit back in the chair, sip. Set the glass down. Watch the noonday light crawl over the windowsill. The computer pings. I move a knight, hook him around the chessboard. Await another move.
The clock on-screen reads 12:12. Nothing from Wesley—surely he’ll call? Or should I try again? I reach for my phone, swipe it to life.
A chime on the desktop—Gmail. I grasp my mouse, guide the cursor away from the chessboard. Click on the browser. With my other hand, I bring the wineglass to my lips. It glows in the sun.
I peer over the lip of the glass at the inbox, empty except for a single message, the subject line blank, the sender’s name in bold.
Jane Russell.
My teeth chink on the glass.
I stare at the screen. The air around me is suddenly thin.
My hand quakes as I place the glass on the desk, the wine trembling within. The mouse bulges against my palm as I grip it. I’ve stopped breathing.
The cursor travels to her name. Jane Russell.
I click.
The message opens, a field of white. There’s no text, just an attachment icon, a tiny paper clip. I double-click on it.
The screen goes black.
Then an image begins to load, slowly, band by band. Grainy bars of dark gray.
I’m transfixed. I still can’t breathe.
Line upon line of darkness on-screen, like a curtain slowly falling. A moment passes. Another.
Then—
—then a tangle of . . . branches? No: hair, dark and knotty, in close-up.
A curve of fair skin.
An eye, closed, running vertical, edged with a frill of lashes.
It’s someone on their side. I’m looking at a sleeping face.
I’m looking at my sleeping face.
The picture suddenly expands, the bottom half bursting into view—and there I am, my head, in full. A strand of hair trailing across my brow. My eyes clasped shut, my mouth slightly open. My cheek submerged in the pillow.