We returned to Urizon that evening, our plan to collect Rafe from his rented room in Coeurs Crossing the next day. Matthew was to drive us, as Rafe did not have any vehicle but his motorbike, the existence of which was, to Matthew, another blot on Rafe’s general character. My first view of that bike standing sleek against the graveyard fence explained the feeling of familiarity I’d had outside Holzmeier’s—it had been Rafe parked by Urizon on those first days after Peter’s disappearance. When I asked why he’d left so quickly, Rafe explained he hadn’t wanted to intrude. Matthew rolled his eyes, and on our return home stomped up the stairs muttering something about the idiocy of those who forgo helmets. I could hear him still pacing the length of the hallway while Marlowe and I prepared for bed.
That night I dreamed of Rafe. I imagined he was with me on Urizon’s lawn, watching me. Together we rose out of our bodies, ghostly figures floating out over the yew trees, drifting far out past the house, past alders and hazels, hawthorns and pines, past the road, past the barley, into the heart of the old forest, where Rafe undressed me, tenderly unfastening each button of my blouse. He pressed his mouth to my neck and I ached for him, held him, my fingers tearing through his shirt and grasping his shoulders, twisting at his skin. His mouth was soft and warm against mine, his torso pressed so close I thought us caught up in some ritual, some ancient exchange: he’d entered me so fully that parts of him flowed through my veins, now he was me, now the me and he and we were interchangeable, were one. I awoke gasping, my fingers sticky with a transparent sap, stiff from exploring my body.
AFTER A QUICK, early breakfast, I bustled through the house, checking to see nothing was forgotten, peering into Peter’s study, tearing through the kitchen, digging through my dresser drawers a sixth, then seventh time.
“That’s the last of it?” Matthew asked when I’d finished my search, nodding toward the carpetbag I’d stuffed with any book that seemed relevant and now struggled to carry down two sets of stairs. I nodded and he took the heavy bag without acknowledging its weight, hefting it easily over a shoulder. “Make sure you have the key to lock the house behind you.”
I blinked at him, confused.
“Maisie?”
“It’s just we never lock it. I don’t know who you think will come by.”
Matthew gave me a strange look.
“I’m sure I have a key somewhere,” I said, “but it does seem rather silly if we haven’t ever—”
“Fine,” said Matthew, “don’t lock the door.”
“Besides,” I continued, starting with him to the car, “Marlowe will see no one disturbs things.”
“What, you aren’t going to bring him?” Matthew stopped suddenly, turning himself to face me. I could not tell if his expression was one of condescension or concern.
“Of course not,” I scoffed. “He’ll be much happier here. Clearly I’d like to have him with me, but we all know that wouldn’t be practical.”
I had not yet put words to the emotions that I felt regarding Marlowe, but I knew as soon as I’d spoken them this plan was for the best. I was leaving, and Marlowe must stay at Urizon. I could not picture him without Urizon’s garden to reign over, could not imagine him confined for hours to the back of a car, tied up as he’d been outside the café. He belonged here, and to take him from his home would be not only cruel but impossible. Marlowe was the grounds, the forest. My decision was simple as that.
Matthew squeezed his eyes shut, wincing, crinkling his nose. “Not practical,” he repeated. “Well, if we’re gone awhile, then who is going to feed him? Who’ll make sure he gets outside?”
It was my turn to look quizzically at Matthew. “Marlowe’s not a cat,” I said.
“Not a cat.” He was falling into that tic of repeating me, the one I so despised. After a moment, he shrugged and walked toward the car.
I crouched and called to Marlowe, who came over at once, his tail wagging, his claws clipping the drive.
“You’re a good boy,” I told him. “And I’ll come back to you soon.”
Marlowe nuzzled me and I felt my throat tighten. I buried my face in his neck and inhaled his familiar scent, pressing close as if to fuse us, trying to hold on to the feeling of life against my skin.
“Stay,” I said, though he seemed not to need instruction. He watched me as I moved toward the waiting car, which chugged comfortably, billowing gray smoke. I took my place in the back seat, squished against suitcases, leaving the front free for Rafe.
I kept my head turned and my eyes on Marlowe as the car pulled away. I watched him sitting there, growing ever smaller, watched the house and the gardens grow smaller, until we were out onto the main road and I was, at last, leaving home.
RAFE WAS WAITING for us at his bed-and-breakfast, his own luggage compact, shirt freshly ironed. He took the map and unfolded it wide across the front seats once he’d settled next to Matthew.
“We aren’t far from that one,” I said, pointing, stretching the limits of my seat belt to lean forward, very careful not to brush against Rafe’s neck. The mark I referenced was the nearest to Urizon, at the farthest edge of Mr. Abbott’s extensive property.
“Excellent!” said Rafe. “I’d say that’s a wonderful start. We’ll head there directly.”
Matthew rolled his eyes. “So you show up at each of these spots and do what exactly? Some chanting? Dance around? Is that how this game’s played?”
“We simply have to be there,” Rafe said pleasantly. “It’s like running an engine to get the heat going. Or raising one leg of a bridge. Do you see?”
I did not see, though I’d be damned if I’d admit it. Matthew’s expression informed us that not only did he not see but he doubted the legitimacy of anything Rafe said. I kicked the back of his seat, hoping he’d understand my warning and stop voicing his doubts, but he didn’t turn around. Rafe ignored both of us.
“We’ll travel here,” he said, brushing a mote of dust from the map, “and then this river, and then on to our final destination in the city, after which we just need to apply the right force . . . then we’re through.”
“Okay,” said Matthew, his voice rather louder than necessary, “and how exactly do you intend to meet up with Maisie’s father? We’ll just happen upon him in one of these spots?”
“Why, yes,” Rafe answered. “If we’re lucky. Otherwise, once we’ve ensured the door is open, we can follow him right through.”
“Of course,” Matthew muttered, “through the magic door. Makes perfect sense.”
THOUGH IN NO rush to endear himself to Matthew, Rafe did expend much energy on me. He was enamored of my father, turning around to pepper me with all sorts of questions about Peter’s upbringing and schooling, very few of which I was able to answer.
“So once he’d finished his graduate studies, he came straight to Coeurs Crossing?”
I bit my lip, my jaw skewed, wondering.
“Surely you help him, though? With all the research? You seem like the type who wouldn’t mind spending days in the stacks.” Rafe turned back to me, nodding in admiration. I had no idea what he meant by stacks, but I would take any compliment he offered. The experiences he projected upon me—time spent in libraries establishing theories, attending parties where I charmed prominent scholars—seemed like those I could have had, with opportunity. I wanted to be the girl he thought I was; I liked myself more through his eyes.
As we drove on, Rafe spoke of Peter’s studies. He was well versed in the legends of the forest, and the catalogue of missing Blakely women. He even thought he knew where they had gone.
“Imagine a holding place,” he said. “A slice of time outside of time, where all those women who should be dead are still living.”
“Like a memory.”
“What do you mean?”
“The way a memory is real, but also not real.” I spoke quickly, with bravado. “If time is one long line and we’re all moving across it, there has to be a place we’re headed, and a place that we’ve just left. Obviously, the memory is the place that we left.” Rafe seemed impressed.
“That works if you believe in the concept of progress,” said Matthew, chiming in for the first time in half an hour of conversation. “If you think progress is a fallacy, then there’s no destination. We’re just barreling forward blindly.”
“I didn’t say a destination, I said a place. And just because we aren’t in the place we’ve come from, doesn’t mean we haven’t left it.”
“So what you’re saying is the opposite of Schr?dinger’s cat.” Matthew smiled.
“What?”
“The cat in the box,” said Rafe. “Does the cat actually exist in the closed box if you can’t see it? A famous philosophical quandary.”