Finley’s legs were covered with tattoos—a girl dancing, a gun, a glade of towering trees morphing into The Three Sisters—none of which she remembered getting. She ran her hands along her skin, which was greasy and smelled of coconuts. She only remembered lounging on a beach in a bikini a couple of times—once in Florida, once in Hawaii, both trips that were characterized by her parents bickering and arguing from dawn till dusk. But today there was only silence, except for the white gulls and the sound of the surf.
“There is no answer,” said Eloise. She sipped from a straw punched into a hollowed-out pineapple. Finley had one, too. The drink inside was like nectar, sweet and refreshing, the most delicious thing she’d ever tasted. It made her relaxed and lightheaded.
“It’s something different to everyone,” Eloise went on. “Like life. You take from it what you bring to it.”
“But it’s not like other places,” said Finley.
“No,” said Eloise. She, too, looked peaceful.
“It wants something,” said Finley.
“We all want something,” said Eloise.
Finley was annoyed. Why must Eloise always be so vague? Maybe she didn’t have the answers, after all. When she looked over again, it was Abigail. The girl, with her wild auburn hair, wore that eternal blue dress, tattered and worn. She tilted her face toward the sun with a smile.
“Too many bad things have happened here,” said Abigail. The voice that came from her mouth was Eloise’s. “It might have started with just one thing, one tragedy or injustice.”
Finley closed her eyes. When she opened them, there was a little girl in an owl tee-shirt, the knees of her jeans ripped and bloodied. The voice was still Eloise’s.
“That anger was a seed that grew. The energy expanded and spread itself, like violence runs in families. Now a blockage has been created, and nothing can pass through as it must. It’s like a clogged drain. And the muck gathers, collects, rots, and festers.”
Finley listened, though Eloise’s voice was barely audible now over the sound of a strange whispering. And more so, Finley didn’t want to hear what the old woman had to say. She was tired of all the darkness. Why couldn’t she just stay here on the beach, with the sun on her skin? She looked down and it was all gone, all the ink on her arms, on her legs. Her skin was clean, clear of any marking. She felt such a tremendous sense of release, but loss, too.
“Someone at peace has to show them the way out,” said the little girl with the very old voice. “Once the negativity has been released, it won’t attract more.”
“I don’t know what that means,” said Finley.
She turned back to Eloise, but the woman was gone, her seat empty, her drink tipped, leaving a dark stain on the sand.
*
Finley had blood on her hands, and a long dark streak marred each leg of her jeans as if she’d tried to wipe it off there. Far from being warm, basking on some unnamed beach, her body felt rigid with cold, shivering from her core. Where was she? Awareness came in pieces. She was alone in Rainer’s car, engine running, sitting in the driver’s seat. The car didn’t have heat, and her breath plumed out in great clouds. She gripped the steering wheel hard, as if she were bracing herself for a crash.
She was parked on a tree-lined street—Jones Cooper’s street. A light came on in an upstairs window. Shit. Her heart thumped; there was a big blank space where her memory should be. Panic beat its wings in her chest. What was the last thing she remembered? Think. THINK. A text from Alfie. Abigail in the mirror. Rainer’s hands on her body. The old maps of the iron mines.
Rainer. Where was he?
She felt around for her cell phone, finally fishing it out of her jacket pocket. It was a block of ice, and her hands were so chilled that she couldn’t get the touch screen to work. She blew on her fingers, rubbed them together, and then tried to call. It rang and rang. Then he finally picked up.
“Rainer?” she said. “Where are you?”
But there was only static over the distant sound of his voice.
“Down here—” That was all that she could make out, or something like it.
“I can’t hear you,” she said.
Then the line—infuriatingly—went dead. She tried again, then again. But the call wouldn’t go through. Why were they not together? Why did she have his car? Had she taken it? Was he back at the tattoo shop and cell phone reception was just bad because of the weather?
The snow fell in big fat flakes, powdering lawns and the trees. The world was a hush, a breath held, her own coming out deep and ragged.