“Mine would.” I can’t share everything with them, but I could share Beau. I want to.
“And what makes you think that?”
“Because I like you,” I say. He laughs and his face drops, the corners of his eyes crinkling. For a moment, he looks just like a little boy. “Do you like me, Beau?” I tease, shaking his elbow.
He looks up and knots his arms behind my lower back, easing me against the seat and climbing on top of me. “What do you think?”
“It doesn’t matter what I think,” I say. “It matters what you think.”
“I’m not good with words, Natalie.”
“Try.”
“You remember that night on the football field?” I nod. “I want you more now than I did then, and I didn’t think that was possible.”
“You like me.”
“I like you,” he says softly.
“You want me,” I whisper.
“Everywhere,” he says, “all the time.”
It’s the same look he gave me when I asked him what he wanted in the dance studio: serious, almost sad. I reach up to trace the lines of his face, committing each to memory. “I want you too,” I tell him. “Everywhere, all the time.”
His eyes dip, his arms tighten, and his voice drops into a whisper. “Natalie . . .”
“You need sleep.”
“I need you.”
A momentary battle rages inside my head, and then I make one of those choices that isn’t really a choice. “Let’s go inside,” I say.
We hurry to get out of the car, leaving it parked on the street, and take off down the dark cul-de-sac, humidity sheening us in sweat by the time we reach the porch. I climb up first to let myself in through the open window, and then turn back. I can’t see Beau in the yard below, so he must already be on the porch railing. I wait for a few seconds of silence, but he doesn’t emerge over the side of the porch roof.
“Beau?” I hiss into the night, disrupting the cricket song. I listen for an answer, but none comes. After the longest minute of my life, I scramble back onto the porch roof to see what’s taking so long. I lean out over the ledge and gaze down into the yard, but I find no sign of him. “Beau,” I whisper again, a bit louder.
No response but the hoot of an owl.
I scurry back down to the porch railing and drop down into the yard, scanning the cul-de-sac. “Beau?” I say again, louder still. My heart is wild. Something’s wrong.
He must’ve slipped back into his world.
I jog up the street to the curb where he left his truck, but it’s gone. I spin in place, searching for any of the flickers of change that have become my norm. “Beau,” I call again. “Beau.”
I close my eyes and try to grasp at the fragments of song drifting through my mind.
I feel nothing. Hear nothing.
“There once were four ghosts,” Grandmother said, “and they lived in four houses beneath the ground, each one deeper than the last.
“There was a woman from a nearby tribe, whose father had died, and she went to his grave and lay on it and wept for four days. But on the fourth day, she heard a voice from below the earth. ‘Crying woman,’ the voice said, ‘Come downward.’
“So she jumped up and followed the voice of the ghost downward through the earth until she reached a house called Hemlock-Leaves-on-Back. She went inside and saw there an old woman in the corner, near the fire. The old woman said, ‘Sit down and eat.’ Then she passed the crying woman dried salmon.
“But before the crying woman could take the food, another person came in and led her to the next house below, Maggots-on-Bark-on-Ground. Here again she saw an old woman beside a fire, who appeared identical to the woman in the first house. This old woman also offered the crying woman something to eat, and again, before the crying woman could take it, another guide appeared and said, ‘Come to the house of the Place-of-Mouth-Showing-on-Ground,’ and the crying woman followed.
“As before, she saw an identical old woman preparing meat beside the fire. As before, the crying woman was interrupted by another guide before she could take the food. ‘Come to Place-of-Never-Return,’ the guide said, and led the crying woman deeper into the earth and to the next house.
“When she entered this time, though, the crying woman saw her father sitting beside the fire, and he became angry at the sight of her. ‘Why have you come here?’ he shouted at her. ‘Whoever enters the first three houses may return, but from this place there is no return! Do not accept the food of the ghosts, and return home at once! We will sing, so the tribe will hear and come for you.’