I spot Silas before he sees me. It’s rare to see him worried. Anxiety is never something he exudes, but for that split second before he notices me, I watch his gaze travel from one place to the next, never settling.
Then he finds me and—oh god—his face brightens. There’s joy in his eyes. Not relief, joy. He’s radiating it. Absolutely ecstatic. Leaping to his feet, he runs over, holding out his hands as if I’m about to fall, even if I’m not. Silas stands ready to catch me. I almost let him.
“Hey,” he says. “You okay?”
“I’m fine. Can we go?”
Silas nods and holds open the door for me. We step out into the sun. My eyes sting from the sudden flood of light and I bring my hand up to shade them. When my vision recalibrates, I notice a group of people standing on the opposite end of the parking lot. It’s just a trick of the light, but for a brief moment, they all look like maggots to me. Each one holds a homemade cardboard sign over their head. I try not to look at them but certain phrases leap out at me.
HAUNT YOU
IN HELL
SOULS
Silas guides me to my car, away from the crowd. Instead of hopping behind the wheel, I sit shotgun while he drives. We ride in silence until we’re finally on the highway.
“Can we go somewhere?” I ask. The doctor told me that it would be best if I rest for the remainder of the day. She told me to expect some bleeding, but that was about it. Perhaps some cramping. I can go back to classes as early as tomorrow, as long as I feel up for it.
“Where do you wanna go?” Silas asks.
“Anywhere. I don’t care. Just…not back to my apartment yet.”
We cross the Lee Bridge on our way to Belle Isle. Yet another memorial to a dead Confederate general, a ragged stitch connecting the Southside to the rest of the city. The James River flows beneath us and curves around fifty acres of public park.
I shouldn’t be walking but there isn’t a single part of me that wants to rest right now. I want to be outside, out of my head, in the open where I can breathe. I don’t want to be alone.
We take each step slowly across a footbridge that runs under the interstate. You can hear the hum of traffic passing along the highway overhead—but once you’ve set foot on Belle Isle, the sounds melt away. It’s like the city doesn’t exist anymore.
“You know this used to be a prison camp?” Silas says. “Thousands of soldiers froze their asses off right here.”
“Since when did you become such a Civil War buff?”
“I’m from Richmond,” he says. “Of course I’m a Civil War buff.” He has a point. You can’t live in this city without its history seeping into the fabric of your everyday existence. It’s a fact of life here. You simply accept all those Confederate skeletons in our collective closet.
“Can we slow down?” I ask. “Just a little?”
“Of course.”
You have to get to Belle Isle super early on the weekends if you want to beat the sunbathers and claim one of the broad rocks along the riverbank. Luckily for us, it’s a Tuesday in October. I pick a flattened slab right at the river’s edge. I can barely make out a couple’s spray-painted names across the rock’s broadside, faded to a dull, brown algae—ESTELLE + CALEB 1986.
Silas notices me wince as I lower myself. He holds out his hand for me. “Here. Easy.”
Neither of us say much of anything for a while. Which is fine. We end up watching the river in silence, the currents roiling all around, until Silas finally asks, “Want to talk about it?”
“Not much to say, is there?” What’s done is done.
I’d been terrified to tell him at first, unsure how he’d react. There was a part of me that could’ve easily just not said anything and dealt with it all by myself. But I knew I couldn’t keep it a secret from Silas forever. He would’ve found out eventually. He deserved to know. He listened intently when I told him the news at my place, quietly nodding along. Never interrupting, just listening to me. I waited for him to react. Was he going to panic? Run away?
We ended up spending the rest of the night together, holding each other.
The next morning I scheduled the appointment.
It must’ve happened the night of our graveyard raid in Hollywood Cemetery. This had to be our, what, eighth breakup? Tenth? What was the point of keeping count anymore? Our sporadic postmortem sexual encounters were de rigueur. The past still clinging to the present. The ghosts of our love that wouldn’t let us go.
I never told anyone. Not my parents. Not my friends.
Only Silas knew.
“I don’t want Amara to know,” I finally say. “Or Toby. Okay? Promise you won’t tell.”
“Of course,” he says. “Cross my heart.”
“Hope to die,” I say back.
When there isn’t much to say, Silas fills the silence with more history. “They’d bring a surgeon out to check the prisoners, figuring out which frostbitten limbs to saw off.”
“Everybody in this city’s a goddamn Civil War aficionado,” I mutter.
“You’re the daughter of the Confederacy here, not me.”
“Do you love me for who I am, or is it just because of my birthright?” I mean it as a joke, but plenty of dudes have wanted to date me solely on the basis of my Southern heritage. Not to mention I just tossed out the L-word at Silas, a big no-no on my part.
“Just you.” Silas slides across the rock and positions himself directly behind me. His legs now stretch out alongside mine. He wraps his arms around my chest and I lean back against his. The two of us nestle into one another as we watch the currents slip by.
We fall quiet again until Silas says, “I never left you, you know?”
“I know.”
“What if I told you we could be together forever?” His breath is warm against my neck. “All you have to do is stay. Stay with me.”
This isn’t how I remember that morning on Belle Isle. There’s an undertow to his breath that’s pulling me in. His arms continue to slither around my chest, tightening.
“This can be our house. Our home.”
“I’d like that.” Would I? I never said any of this. What’s going on here?
I glance up at Silas.
His eyes have gone completely milky. His skin is a pale robin’s-egg blue.
“I knew you’d bring me back.” His purple lips don’t move. His mouth simply hangs open. His tongue blooms out of his mouth, like a mushroom cap.
I push him away but a sharp pain stabs me below. I press my hand against my pelvis, hoping to halt the sting, but I lose my balance. I’m falling. Falling— My shoulder hits the rock as I slip into the river.
Cold water swallows me. My insides seize. I try to find the surface but I keep tumbling, spiraling end over end through water the color of ashes.
When I finally find the surface, I’m no longer in Richmond. I’m surrounded by black, churning waves. A sea of shadows that reaches as far as the horizon, where gray clouds gather against a soot-colored sky. My arms thrash in the water— “Erin!”
But I’m getting nowhere—
“Erin—wake up!”
I’m spiraling, tumbling back under—
“Erin!”
My eyes fly open to find Tobias leaning over me. His glasses reflect the light of the lantern and nearly blind me. I feel the plywood floor against my shoulders.
I’m in the living room back at the house.
I could’ve sworn it was the James River…Or something else. Somewhere else. A different place. A cold place.
My muscles ache but I swear I can still feel Silas’s arms tightening around my chest.
“Erin.” Tobias can barely hide his excitement. “Erin, he’s here!”
I can’t speak just yet. My throat’s too dry.
“We saw him, Erin! Silas is home!”
There’s still a part of me that hasn’t come back yet, trapped in the remnants of—what was that? A dream? A hallucination? I felt everything from that day, stronger than any sense of déjà vu. Silas holding me, the wind on my skin, the rock beneath us, the cutting of the currents.
I must’ve gone further. Deeper. Into the cold.
Amara is in the living room but she’s not present. She’s no longer participating, merely yielding to Tobias. I know this is the end of our friendship, and I am okay with letting her go.
Silas is back, that’s all that matters. Silas is here. Silas is in— our home
—away from home away from home away from home.
clear plastic tarp