I looked away from the window at him. Those weedy gray strands of his hair caught the fading sunlight, the unusual hills and valleys of his face. “What’s that?”
“Earlier, you mentioned you never wanted to forget certain things. It made me remember the tapes from my interviews with your parents. Their voices are on them. The police made me turn over the cassettes, but you should ask the detective for them, so you can have those pieces of your parents at least.”
By then, we had reached Butter Lane. Heekin stopped in the exact spot where I’d met him that morning. I told him I would inquire about the tapes, and then he gave me his business card with his home number written on the back in case I needed to reach him. I thanked him and pushed open the door. The question I’d started to ask him back at the preserve had been niggling at my mind ever since, and it made me stop. “Were you and my mother—” I paused, finding it hard still, to say the rest of what I wanted to know.
“In love?” Heekin said, doing the job for me.
I nodded.
“No, Sylvie. I would have wanted something more between us. But she was loyal to your father and to you girls too. I’d be lying if her rejection didn’t fuel some part of my motivation in refusing to change certain details in my book.” He stopped and let out a sigh that seemed weighted with regret. “Anyway, speaking of my book, whatever more you need to know can be answered in the pages you’ve been avoiding. Maybe it’s best if you discover it there. It might not be tomorrow or next week or next year. But I’m guessing at some point, you’ll be ready.”
Even as he said those things, I knew the time had come. When I was alone in the house again, I needed to dig that book out of the police bag in Rose’s closet and finish it at last. There seemed no point in telling Heekin that, however, so I just thanked him again and got out of the car. Daylight had begun to slip away, so he flicked on his headlights to help me see as I headed down the lane. When I reached the house, I listened as his VW bug stalled out before he started the engine again and sped off down the main road.
Standing at the edge of the property, not far from the NO TRESPASSING! signs that had never done much good, I looked at Rose’s truck in the driveway, the light in the basement window, which still glowed. Once I walked through the front door, I knew I wouldn’t walk out again until it was time to go to the station in the morning. Fifteen, maybe fourteen hours left, I guessed. The thought, coupled with the idea of facing my sister, made me want to put off going inside a little longer.
As night fell, I wandered to the empty foundation across the street. For a long while, I stood on the edge, not far from the twisted roots of the fallen tree. Same as Rose used to do, I reached down for a handful of rocks, tossing them at the metal rods that snaked up out of the cement in one corner. And then my memory of Rose was replaced by a memory of Abigail, sketching a map on the wall with a stone in the moments before blood pooled on her palms.
Now do you get it, Sylvie? Now do you understand how much I need your help?
When I grew tired of thinking about Abigail, tired of tossing rocks too, I sat on the ledge, legs dangling over the side the way a person sits by a swimming pool. Enough time passed that the last of the sun disappeared and the moon began to loom over the edge of the woods. And then, amid the never-ending shhhh, came the sound of an engine, like an animal rumbling down the street. I looked to see the glow of headlights against the bare tree branches. They came to a stop halfway down the lane, not far from the spot where I witnessed those two witches kissing on Halloween night.
Slowly, I stood. I saw a figure step out of the car and walk in the direction of our house, carrying an object of some sort. Another teenager with a doll to throw on our lawn—that was my first thought, since the person was difficult to make out with the car’s headlights so bright behind. But when the figure came closer, I realized it was the woman with the grim, head-on-a-totem-pole face, wearing the same sort of frill-less dress.
Just as I’d done while waiting for birds to land in my hands, I did not move. The woman reached the edge of our property and paused. I waited for the moment when she stepped into our yard—and that’s when I began moving, hurrying along the far side of the road in the direction of her idling station wagon. She had left her door ajar, and I slipped inside, leaning across the seat and reaching for the glove compartment, which popped right open. First thing I pulled out was a bible, thin pages highlighted and dog-eared same as my mother’s. I dropped it on the floor and fumbled for an envelope, pulling out a yellow slip of paper. In the dim glow of the dashboard, I looked to see: