The pain radiating at my temples was spreading, my own heartbeat like the strike of a hammer in my ears. But the more she spoke, the more twisted it sounded.
“She didn’t disappear, did she? Susanna?” The words withered on my tongue.
“No. She didn’t.”
I looked around the room frantically, my hand finding the skin inside my forearm and pinching hard. I waited for the walls of the house to dissolve. For my eyes to wake to morning. But nothing happened. I was here, in our home, and I could feel the ground beneath my feet. I could hear the birds singing outside.
I pinched harder. “How long have you known about this?”
That childlike look returned to Birdie’s eyes. “A long time.”
“And what? You and Gran just decided to keep it from me?”
She looked down at the envelope in her hands before she held it out to me.
“What is that?”
“It’s something I’m supposed to give to you.”
I stared at it, eyes inspecting what I hadn’t seen before. It wasn’t one of the brown envelopes from the shop, like the one Gran had mailed to me. It was square and wrinkled with damp, the corners soft and worn.
When I didn’t take the envelope, Birdie extended her hand further. “I give you this, and the rest is up to you. I can’t say anything else. I can’t interfere in any way.” Her tone wavered as tears filled her eyes. But her mouth was set in that straight line again.
“Tell me what’s going on!” I was furious now.
“I made a promise. One I’ve kept for a very long time. I’m not going to break it now. Not even for you.”
I looked at her for a long moment before I finally took the envelope. There was nothing written on it, but it was sealed.
Birdie took a step toward me, and I moved from her reach, headed for the door. I couldn’t be here. I couldn’t look at her or bear to hear what she’d say next.
I’d made it only a few steps before she caught hold of my wrist firmly, and she pulled me into her arms, not giving me a chance to push her away. She held me so tightly that it hurt.
“The next time you see the door, open it.” Her voice shook before she finally let me go, but she didn’t look at me. She walked straight past me, taking her purse from the hook by the door. Then she left, and it slammed behind her.
I stood there, frozen, as her car pulled out from the drive. It was several seconds before I could even feel myself breathing. I looked down at the envelope, hesitating before I tore it open.
Inside, there was another envelope, this one different. It had once been white, now stained with yellowed edges. I slid it free.
There was an address written on the front.
46 Hayward Gap Rd
I knew Hayward Gap Road the same way I knew every road in Jasper. I passed it every time I went to the farm, and I was sure that at some point, I’d driven it. There wasn’t a single inch of this town that didn’t feel familiar to me, but I had no idea what made that address significant. Most of those farmlands were nothing but empty fields and the crumbling barns once used for drying tobacco. Looking closer, I realized this wasn’t Gran’s handwriting. This was a hurried, frantic script in smudged pencil. The fleeting, terrified thought that skipped through my mind was one that I couldn’t bear to consider. Could it be my mother’s?
I slid a shaking finger beneath the seal, and it opened easily. My heart all but stopped beating as I reached inside, but my fingers didn’t find a letter or a photograph. There was something else. Something small and spindly. Fragile.
I slipped it out of the envelope, holding it to the light coming through the window. It was a perfectly pressed flower. A stalk of bluebells. They grew wild all over Jasper each spring. I held the blooms up to the light, turning them slowly. The petals had almost completely lost their color.
I searched the envelope, turning it upside down, but there was nothing else inside. When the flap fell closed, two words stared up at me.
Trust me.
Eight
It was from Susanna. It had to be.
I pushed out the screen door and went down the steps with the envelope still clutched in my fist. The GPS on my phone said that 46 Hayward Gap Road was only twelve minutes away, not far from the farm. From the map, I could see that two corners of the properties actually touched on the northeast side.
The Bronco’s engine roared to life, and I already had the truck in reverse when Ida came out onto her porch. She lifted a hand in a wave, and for once, that concern was missing in her expression. As if seeing me go off to work like I did on any given normal day was reassuring. Like maybe I was okay.
But I wasn’t. I wouldn’t ever be again.
A faint, static buzz flickered from the broken speakers as the road bent and stretched before me. I let my foot fall heavier on the gas pedal. I was headed east, where the hills started to flatten just a little and the trees that lined the road spread apart. Sunlight sparkled on the dew-spotted grass, where wide, flat blooms of water hemlock swayed in the wind along the roadside ditches.
Gran had had thirty-four years. Thirty-four years to tell me what happened to my mother. But she’d let my life pass with the unknowing and the only one Gran had trusted with the truth was Birdie.
It made sense now. This was why she’d never wanted to talk about Susanna. Why she’d never seemed haunted by the mystery of her disappearance, the way any other mother would be. I’d always taken it as grief, that maybe she couldn’t bear to think about what had happened. But all this time, she’d known Susanna was in the past, safe and sound. She’d lived a life and died in Jasper. She just hadn’t taken me with her.
I stared at the envelope in my lap, those two words like a beacon in the dark.
Trust me.
The turn onto Hayward Gap Road was marked with a makeshift scrap of wood. I slowed down, checking the GPS when I spotted it. The edge of the property I was looking for was at the turn, but the hill in the distance hid whatever was waiting there. The truck rocked over the deep, rain-filled potholes as the pavement gave way to gravel. But it took only a few seconds for me to spot a stone chimney ahead.
The rest of the structure came into view a few seconds later, and my fingers gripped the steering wheel tighter, as if I were bracing myself for something. I couldn’t shake that feeling, like every soft thing in my body was turning to stone.
It was an old farmhouse.
The shingled roof was caved in on one side, the rotting wooden siding almost completely gray where the white paint had chipped off. A small porch that wrapped around one side was still standing, but the house clearly hadn’t been lived in for a very long time.