I found Melody’s eyes in the rearview mirror as she slid the buckets toward her. The look on her face made me wonder if Ida had told her to keep an eye on me after last night. I wouldn’t put it past her.
“Thanks.” I tugged at the rolled handkerchief tied around my head, dropping it to the seat beside me before I pulled my hair from its knot. The sun-warmed waves spilled over my shoulders.
“I didn’t know you were cutting the larkspur today.” She said, “This everything?”
“That’s it. They’ll be by with more in a couple of hours, and there should be room in the cooler.”
“All right.” She swayed from left to right as she lugged the buckets to the sidewalk. “Want me to get Birdie?”
“No,” I said, working the stubborn gear back into reverse. “I’ll catch her later.”
She gave me a dutiful nod as I pulled back onto the road, and I drove the rest of the way to the house, the truck jostling as I turned into the uneven drive. I came to a stop in front of the cottage. It was painted in a sunlit peach color, and the garden was in full bloom, making the house look like a page from a storybook or one of the postcards on the counter at the grocery. It still didn’t feel like that, though.
The screen door of the house squeaked as I worked the keys from the ignition, and I climbed out of the car as Ida appeared on our porch.
“Oh hey, honey.” She came down the steps as I pushed through the gate. She had the house key Birdie had given her dangling from a hooked finger. “I was just on my way to the courthouse, but I left some dinner in the fridge for y’all. Didn’t want to leave it out here in this heat.”
“Thanks, Ida.”
She hesitated, hands fidgeting with the keys. “I was a little worried about you last night. Looked like something gave you a fright.”
I could see that look in her eyes as they narrowed on me. To her, I’d always be the little girl in a torn dress stealing ripe cherries from the tree in her backyard, and I had a feeling she considered herself something like my keeper now that Gran was gone. That would become a problem, especially if I wanted to keep those flashes of light and vanishing sounds to myself.
I shook my head. “Just tired. It’s been a long few days.”
“Well, of course it has.” She softened, smile turning sad.
I stepped around her on the pavers that led to the porch, climbing the steps. “Thanks again.”
“No problem, honey.”
I watched her in the reflection of the window as I unlocked the door. She stood there a beat too long before she finally went out the gate.
Any other day, I’d walk into the house to find the smell of Gran baking biscuits or the sound of her humming from the sitting room, but this time, there was only silence. It didn’t sting like it had the night before, but it was still there—that emptiness.
I dropped the keys into the bowl on the table and took the pile of mail from its corner before I climbed the stairs. My legs felt heavy, and the tingle of sun still bit my skin. The bathroom I shared with Gran was at the top of the steps, lit by another stained glass window that painted the white penny tile with yellow and orange light. I propped the window open and turned the faucet to fill the tub before I raked a hand through my hair, holding it back from my face. There was still dirt beneath my fingernails. Somehow, there always was.
I rinsed my hands in the sink, studying the dark circles beneath my eyes. I was thinner. More pale than usual despite the morning in the fields. I sighed, folding my hands together beneath the water as it heated, and when I glanced down to turn off the tap, I froze, fingers dripping. A red swirl circled the drain like a ribbon of crimson in the water. It almost looked like . . .
I lifted my hands before me and turned them over, bringing them close. There were still little dark half-moons beneath my nails, my cuticles a mess from the cutting and digging. Just dirt, I thought. Only dirt.
I squeezed my eyes shut, blinking furiously as I reopened them, and when I looked into the sink again, the water was clear. I turned off the faucet, forcing my exhales to slow before I pulled the towel from the hook. I counted slowly, pressing my wet hands to my face.
Most of the time, I could feel the episodes coming. It was like static in the air, the details of the world sharpening and brightening like the surge of a lightbulb just before my mind slipped. Other times, it snuck up on me.
I turned away from my reflection, taking the mail from the sink and making my way down the hall to the bedroom. It was the same one I’d slept in since I was a girl, a small corner of the second floor with a slanted, wood-paneled ceiling and a window that looked out over the electric purple blooms of the weeping cherry tree in the yard.
I tossed the stack of envelopes onto the bed and stripped off my clothes, leaving only the locket around my neck. I instinctively opened it, as if to check that the little watch face was still inside.
I slipped it over my head and set it gently on the dressing table, taking the robe from the hook on the back of the door. I wrapped it around me before I sat down on the bed and reached beneath the mattress. The notebook was right where I’d left it, the pen making the binding bulge.
July 2, 2022, was the date scribbled on the first page, and I still remembered the feeling that had climbed up my throat when I wrote it. It was a journal, for lack of a better word. A record of every single episode I’d had since they started. The ones I was aware of, anyway. I’d begun to wonder if they were happening more often than I was aware of and I just hadn’t caught them. Maybe the man I’d passed on the road this morning wasn’t really there. Maybe Ida hadn’t just been standing on my porch. How would I know? At what point would it all just bleed together, like it had for Gran?
Dr. Jennings had been the one to call them episodes, but I didn’t like that word, and neither had Gran. I understood why she said it was like being in two places at once. It felt like two slides of film placed one over the other. Like an overlap that got clearer and more real each time it happened.
I flipped to the page I’d written on the night before, when I got home from the funeral.
June 13, 2023
Approx. 7:45 P.M.—I saw a man in the window of the church who wasn’t there.
8:22 P.M.—I saw someone on the porch. The same man, maybe? I could smell cigarette smoke.
I stared at the smudge of ink where I’d set the tip of the pen down for too long on the last letter, remembering that pinprick orange glow in the darkness.
I swallowed down the lump in my throat, turning to the next blank page. The clean, lined paper was the color of milk, a contrast to the creased and stained cardboard cover.
I picked up the pen, writing the date at the top.
June 14, 2023
Approx. 11:45 A.M.—Song on the radio again.
I glanced at the clock on my bedside table.
12:12 P.M.—Blood in the sink, beneath my nails.