The next day, she rose late after a night of tossing and turning but decided to walk anyway, in the early afternoon when the heat seared her skin, when the storm clouds had gathered in the east. She set out with two frozen water bottles strapped to her waist like pistols, in a new blue floppy canvas hat she had bought on sale in the District. She wanted to see the old lake again, to see what the woman had added to her art. When she reached it, the wheelbarrow sat empty next to the dock, but there was no sign of the woman. She again climbed up on the dock and peered down at the spiraling stones. She stared at the gash in the bottom, thinking of the red stain along the woman’s jaw.
She pulled a rock from her pocket, took a deep breath, and swung her arm underhand, aiming for the hole. It’d been a long time since she’d taken aim. She let go, and the stone disappeared into the dark space. She listened for a splash but heard nothing. In the stillness, she could hear only her own breathing. She took off her shoes and socks and looked down at her feet, frighteningly pale against her tan.
In the woman’s pile, Laura spied a round one of the perfect size and picked it up, tossing it between her hands until it cooled enough to clench in her fist. Stepping onto the dock, she planted her right foot behind her, lowered her shoulders, and cocked her elbow. She narrowed her gaze and pinpointed a target: a small tuft on the rim of the lake that wasn’t a lake. With her breath barely a whisper, she went into her windup, thinking, Don’t think. Speed. Go.
The rock flew. She watched it sail across the chasm, clear the lip, and bounce into the brush inches from where she’d aimed. She pumped her fist and did a twisting shimmy, the wood hot and scratchy on the balls of her feet. That strong-armed part of her: it was still there, even if she’d forgotten.
She breathed hard, hands on her hips, looking at the land around her. A lake made of stones, trees that didn’t look like trees. The whole landscape was so absurd and otherworldly she started laughing. She lived here. Holy shit. She looked down at her feet. They looked smaller, elfin. Nothing was recognizable, not even her own two feet. And yet: there she stood.
Laura slid her bare feet into the tennis shoes, grabbed the wheelbarrow, and scooted down into the dry wash. At the bottom, she checked the sky: storms still a ways off. Lining the wash above her were mesquites, shrub oaks, junipers, yuccas, and other pointy stalks she made a mental note to look up later. She stepped with care on the uneven surface, liking the crunch of rock, the buzz of insects, the softened whiz of car tires overhead. She hummed a little under her breath, warmth in her cheeks. The walls of the wash were high enough that no one could see her down there. What a strange sort of secret, to walk in a crevice of the earth.
She walked with her eyes on the ground, scanning, kicking the smooth pebbles and shale under her shoes. No sign of snakes. No signs of people either, except for the plastic bags, cellophane, and wrappers plastered in the weeds. She would return later to pick up trash, but for now she picked up stones, beautiful smooth ones that fit the heart of her palm, large round ones that lined the floor like fresh citrus. She plucked and weighed her choices, liking their loud clunk in the wheelbarrow.
She pushed the wheelbarrow farther from the lake, her eyes on the bed, scouting, following the wash’s twists and turns. Its walls grew taller as she progressed, too steep to climb out easily. At a crack of thunder, she looked up. Fat black storm clouds crept overhead. She needed to head back before she got soaked. She needed to get out of the wash, but the walls were too steep here, more like a small canyon.
She swung the wheelbarrow toward the lake. At the base of the west wall, she spotted a gray stone so smooth it shone. As she reached for it, she noticed a stick protruding through a crevice in the wall. A snake. She let out a short scream and scrambled backward. But the stick didn’t move. She squinted and then eased closer to it. She drew a sharp breath. Not a snake. Not a stick.
She kneeled against the wall and studied the shape, the notched end. A tibia. She hissed through her teeth. Her heart kicked, and she glanced around. No one there. She climbed the sloped wall, digging the tips of her shoes into the dirt to get closer, pushing her hat aside. The sky rumbled, the thunder louder and closer now.
The bone appeared to be weathered, porous and cracked. Buried shallow in the crevice, or perhaps the dirt had been eroded by gushing water and rain, or perhaps an animal had been there digging. She brushed at the dirt above the protruding bone, and there: what seemed to be the curve of a rib.
She slid down to the bottom of the wash and dusted the dirt from her knees. She straightened her hat, trying to stay calm. She might be wrong—it might not be human. She walked through the wash to the dry lake and climbed out. She walked around the lake to the river path—to home, to the phone—as the rain began to fall. After a few steps, she began to trot, and then to run. She was a hundred yards away, almost to the bridge, when she realized she’d left the stone-filled wheelbarrow in the wash and her socks and water bottles on the dock, but she did not turn back.
Laura ran, her breath coming as hard and blotchy as the rain, which pelted her skin, stinging, and knocked her new hat off. She didn’t pick it up. She ran. The stones in her pocket rattled, and though there was no way she could know by sight, she thought: A girl. Somehow she knew. A girl who, not so long ago, stood somewhere, her gaze long and steady, as if she had all the time in the world.
Sounds from Inside
The noise again. Chatter and laughter, the clang of hand trucks, the drone of air-conditioning, a hiccupping thrum that ping-ponged off the metal cases and concrete floors. To Maud Winters, who stood at her case with her back to the mailroom, it sounded as if a fidgety child were twisting a radio dial, skipping across static and stations. As she pulled letters and flats from the crook of her arm and slid them into the correct slots, she clenched her teeth until her jaw bulged. Mornings like this, she wished the right ear would go all the way, too; in her darker moments, she fantasized about jamming a pick in the canal. Strike it fast, like a snake, and all would fall silent. She’d stopped wearing her hearing aid years ago because it amplified the din instead of tuning it in, and because it didn’t help with the one voice she could not stop hearing.
She paused with her hand on a white envelope, the address scrawled in blue ink. Every time, her heart made a little twitch, as if tugged by a piece of twine. She closed her fingers on the envelope, and a wave of warmth washed through her. It had been several days since she’d found one—fewer and fewer letters these days. The address was 125 Arrowhead, the last street on her route, Ms. Byrd’s old house where the new professor had moved in. Maud cased it in the correct slot, bottom right corner, the lone piece of mail in the box for the day. She repeated the address under her breath to remind herself, as if she would forget.
Maud drained her coffee and began to pull down the now-organized mail from the slots to rubber-band it and put it in her delivery trays. A voice cut through the din, seeming to come from behind her. Maud jumped and spun around. No one stood there. Luz Navarro was on the other side of the case, peering around the corner. Maud cupped her good ear. “Say again?”