Her psychiatrist had told her that when she suffered an uncontrolled emotional reaction, she should examine the circumstances that surrounded it. It hadn’t been a coincidence, she felt sure, that she’d yelled at Ben just after going through their most recent financial statements. They had not held good news. Most of the proceeds from the sale of their apartment and Caroline’s severance had gone into buying and renovating the Crofts, but this was not nearly the end of their expenses. They hadn’t yet begun to restore the grounds, and 90 percent of the house remained unfurnished. Without Caroline’s salary, their financial resources were spread thin and becoming ever thinner. The fact that Ben had decided to scrap the book he’d been working on and begin another would also cut into their cash flow. But misplaced anxiety about this wasn’t the only reason she’d lashed out at him.
Caroline tried hard not to resent Ben for the time he spent on his book and all the drives and meetings and other activities he claimed were related to his writing process. The new book he was working on could well be a tremendous resource for the inn. But the cavalier attitude with which he approached the Crofts bothered her. Sure, he was always game for a few hours of painting and sanding, but it was Caroline who worked long days, every day, to fix up the Crofts. When she wasn’t restoring molding or varnishing floors or scrubbing away mold, she was coming up with a unified interior design, haggling with furniture manufacturers, or trying elaborate dishes for the restaurant’s menu. Ben seemed to think that if the Crofts didn’t work, they could simply sell the place and try city life again. He didn’t understand that they didn’t have the resources to do that anymore. He didn’t grasp the fact that they didn’t have the luxury to fail at this. That this wasn’t a chance for them but the chance.
Mrs. White, the kind old woman from the Preservation Society, had dropped off a tincture of oils for bathwater that was supposed to promote relaxation. Caroline thought she might give it a try once she finished her run.
She wiped sweat from her eyes with the back of her hand. So damn hot, she thought.
Bub, her own personal angel, took delightfully predictable naps, so Caroline decided to risk a short detour into the forest. A few months ago, she could never have imagined leaving the baby alone for any length of time, but they were alone on the Drop and the monitor gave her a long tether—just another way in which their lives had changed since leaving the city. This new route took her north, along the top of the slope before it dipped into the woods. It was cooler here. Caroline darted over the bulging roots and between the coarse trunks with the fleet grace of a native creature. She followed the edge of a ravine downslope, the momentum and challenge of the course spurring her to run faster. This leg of her jog was reckless. The misjudgment of an inch could earn her a broken ankle, but she’d always been sure-footed, and running the forest’s gauntlet made her feel invincible.
The forest air was wet and thick with solitude. Sound did not travel the way it was supposed to. But today Caroline only had ears for the pounding of her steps and the pulse in her temples. An undernote of smoke lingered on the breeze. It reminded her of her father’s grill, of the long summer nights of her childhood, when a Popsicle and a running sprinkler were all she needed to be incandescently happy.
A flicker of movement to her right caused Caroline to turn her head. A large crow perched on the trunk of a fallen tree on the far side of the ravine. Its glossy black head shone blue in the scattered light, its onyx eyes watching her with a chilling predatory stillness. Her eyes were drawn upward, and she saw that the trees were full of the creatures. They stared at her as silently as gargoyles. She was so startled that she lost her footing. She tripped over a root and caught herself hard against the trunk of a massive oak. The baby monitor clipped to her waistband crunched in protest. The birds didn’t move.
Now that she had stopped, she smelled the rancid stench of rotting flesh caught on the air. Carrion scavengers, she thought. Eaters of the dead. One of the creatures in the branches above her had a long rip of putrid sinew hanging off its beak. The sight of it, coupled with the smell, made Caroline gag, and she staggered along the edge of the ravine. She’d hurt her ankle when she tripped, and she tested it carefully, keeping one eye on the motionless birds.
Caroline limped away from the flock of birds as quickly as she could. The stench was terrible, and she couldn’t tell if it was from the birds themselves or from whatever dead thing they’d found to feed on. She climbed over a fallen birch tree, her fingers finding purchase on the tangles of bark that had warped from its trunk. The regular course of her run would have taken her west, down the slope, but it was clear her jog was over. She wanted to get out of the forest as quickly as possible.
The light became murky as she picked her way to the edge of the woods, streaming in hazy beams through patches in the forest’s canopy. She chanced a look over her shoulder at the birds, but she didn’t see anything other than their dark silhouettes in the high branches. She was having trouble seeing anything with distinction. Her eyes watered, and she’d caught the tang of burning things again. An acrid taste collected in the back of her throat.
The fields were unrecognizable when she got to them. The clear summer’s day had been replaced with the rolling fog of October. Her eyes suddenly brimming, she squinted to make sense of what she was seeing.
It wasn’t until Caroline saw the plume of black smoke billowing from the Crofts that realization ricocheted around her brain like a wayward bullet: the taste of smoke, the haze in the forest, her baby alone in his crib. That’s when the pain in her ankle disappeared and Caroline rediscovered the pace she’d been missing.
20
Girded by mountains, the valley was shielded from the wind and left to bake in the July sun. With the rains of past weeks forgotten, the streets and buildings were glazed with sediment from the parched fields. Ben’s Escape left twin burns of dust in its wake, as if it traveled five times its true speed.
Deputy Simms and Mose Johnson from the gas station sat outside Harp’s General Store, facing the street and drinking something out of aluminum cans. Ben hailed them with an open palm as he drove by, but only Johnson waved in return.