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Early Spring

By the time Alex managed to get the blood out of her good wool coat, it was too warm to wear it. Spring had come on grudgingly; pale-blue mornings failed to deepen, turning instead to moist, sullen afternoons, and stubborn frost lined the road in high, dirty meringues. But sometime around mid-March, the slices of lawn between the stone paths of Old Campus began to sweat themselves free of snow, emerging wet, black, and tufty with matted grass, and Alex found herself notched into the window seat in the rooms hidden on the top floor of 268 York, reading Suggested Requirements for Lethe Candidates.

She heard the clock on the mantel tick, the chiming of the bell as customers came and went in the clothing store below. The secret rooms above the shop were affectionately known as the Hutch by Lethe members, and the commercial space beneath them had been, at varying times, a shoe store, a wilderness outfitter, and a twenty-four-hour WaWa mini-mart with its own Taco Bell counter. The Lethe diaries from those years were filled with complaints about the stink of refried beans and grilled onions seeping up through the floor—until 1995, when someone had enchanted the Hutch and the back staircase that led to the alley so that they smelled always of fabric softener and clove.

Alex had discovered the pamphlet of Lethe House guidelines sometime in the blurred weeks after the incident at the mansion on Orange. She had checked her email only once since then on the Hutch’s old desktop, seen the long string of messages from Dean Sandow, and logged off. She’d let the battery run down on her phone, ignored her classes, watched the branches sprout leaves at the knuckles like a woman trying on rings. She ate all the food in the pantries and freezer—the fancy cheeses and packs of smoked salmon first, then the cans of beans and syrup-soaked peaches in boxes marked emergency rations. When they were gone, she ordered takeout aggressively, charging it all to Darlington’s still-active account. The trip down and up the stairs was tiring enough that she had to rest before she tore into her lunch or dinner, and sometimes she didn’t bother to eat at all, just fell asleep in the window seat or on the floor beside the plastic bags and foil-wrapped containers. No one came to check on her. There was no one left.

The pamphlet was cheaply printed, bound with staples, a black-and-white picture of Harkness Tower on the cover, We Are the Shepherds printed beneath it. She doubted the Lethe House founders had Johnny Cash in mind when they’d chosen their motto, but every time she saw those words she thought of Christmastime, of lying on the old mattress in Len’s squat in Van Nuys, room spinning, a half-eaten can of cranberry sauce on the floor beside her, and Johnny Cash singing, We are the shepherds, we walked ’cross the mountains. We left our flocks when the new star appeared. She thought of Len rolling over, sliding his hand under her shirt, murmuring into her ear, “Those are some shitty shepherds.”

The guidelines for Lethe House candidates were located near the back of the pamphlet and had last been updated in 1962.

High academic achievement with an emphasis on history and chemistry.
Facility with languages and a working knowledge of Latin and Greek.
Good physical health and hygiene. Evidence of a regular fitness regimen encouraged.
Exhibits signs of a steady character with a mind toward discretion.
An interest in the arcane is discouraged, as this is a frequent indicator of an “outsider” disposition.
Should demonstrate no squeamishness toward the realities of the human body.
Mors vincit omnia.

Alex—whose knowledge of Latin was less than working—looked it up: Death conquers all. But in the margin, someone had scrawled irrumat over vincit, nearly obliterating the original with blue ballpoint pen.

Beneath the Lethe requirements, an addendum read: Standards for candidates have been relaxed in two circumstances: Lowell Scott (B.A., English, 1909) and Sinclair Bell Braverman (no degree, 1950), with mixed results.

Another note had been scratched into the margin here, this one clearly in Darlington’s jagged, EKG-like scrawl: Alex Stern. She thought of the blood soaking the carpet of the old Anderson mansion black. She thought of the dean—the startled white of his femur jutting from his thigh, the stink of wild dogs filling the air.

Alex set aside the aluminum container of cold falafel from Mamoun’s, wiped her hands on her Lethe House sweats. She limped to the bathroom, popped open the bottle of zolpidem, and tucked one beneath her tongue. She cupped her hand beneath the faucet, watched the water pour over her fingers, listened to the grim sucking sound from the mouth of the drain. Standards for candidates have been relaxed in two circumstances.

For the first time in weeks, she looked at the girl in the water-speckled mirror, watched as that bruised girl lifted her tank top, the cotton stained yellow with pus. The wound in Alex’s side was a deep divot, crusted black. The bite had left a visible curve that she knew would heal badly, if it healed at all. Her map had been changed. Her coastline altered. Mors irrumat omnia. Death fucks us all.

Alex touched her fingers gently to the hot red skin surrounding the teeth marks. The wound was getting infected. She felt some kind of concern, her mind nudging her toward self-preservation, but the idea of picking up the phone, getting a ride to health services—the sequence of actions each new action would incite—was overwhelming, and the warm, dull throb of her body setting fire to itself had become almost companionable. Maybe she’d get a fever, start hallucinating.

She eyed the thrust of her ribs, the blue veins like downed power lines beneath her fading bruises. Her lips were feathered with chapped skin. She thought of her name inked into the margins of the pamphlet—the third circumstance.

“Results were decidedly mixed,” she said, startled by the husky rattle of her voice. She laughed and the drain seemed to chuckle with her. Maybe she already had a fever.

In the fluorescent glare of the bathroom lights, she gripped the edges of the bite in her side and dug her fingers into it, pinching the flesh around her stitches until the pain dropped over her like a mantle, the blackout coming on in a welcome rush.

That was in the spring. But the trouble had begun on a night in the full dark of winter, when Tara Hutchins died and Alex still thought she might get away with everything.

THE FOURTH ORDER

Before he met the girl, the boy in the orphanage moved like a sleepwalker. Tasteless meals, hard beds on cold nights, the bul­lying and the beatings—he passed through all of it unseeing. Let them bully him. Let them beat him. They were nothing. Their language was the one he had listened to as he watched his family die.

Instead of listening, he remembered. He remembered his family around him, his sisters’ laughter, his brother’s teasing, his mother’s voice. A world of light and warmth, great fire­places tended by servants, ornate glass windows overlooking the Firemouth, chandeliers hanging low over tables piled high with food. He remembered the sight of his father at court, resplendent as he received his subjects. He remembered lift­ing aloft, the city falling below, his father’s arm steadying him as the wings of his stormscourge beat the air. Her name was Aletheia, and sometimes, his father allowed him to bring her scraps from the table.

“One day,” his father told him, his arm around him as the highlands of Callipolis stretched below Aletheia’s wings, “this will be yours, if a dragon Chooses you. You will learn to rule, just as I did.”

“Did your father teach you?”

“What he could. But much of it came naturally to me, Leo. Just as it will for you. We were born to rule, just as the peasants were born to serve.”

He found that he could live in these memories for hours. And when they ran out, he invented futures: a dragon he would be Chosen by, dragonfire he would have power over, the people who had taken everything from him helpless and awaiting pun­ishment. He imagined making them pay.

When he did this, it kept the real world, and the other mem­ories, out. Nothing hurt so much as being forced back to the present.

That was what happened when he met the girl.

He could see through the doorway that it was one child against two larger ones. The girl struggled. It was all familiar.

But then, for the first time since he’d come to the orphanage, he found himself walking toward the violence rather than away from it.

He pulled a kitchen knife out of his pocket as he approached. The words in the other language came slowly, but they were there. “Go away.”

At the sight of his knife, they fled.

As he knelt beside the girl, he realized he recognized her: She shared courses with him at school, despite the fact that she was at least a year younger than him and his classmates. She had scrawny limbs, scraggly red-brown hair, and clothes that were well-worn even by orphanage standards. He was struck, as he looked at her, by how small she seemed.

It was the first time he had ever found himself thinking this about someone else: In his family, he had been the smallest.

“You shouldn’t have fought them,” he said. “They only make it harder for you when you fight them. They only hurt you more—”

He stopped himself.

The girl shrugged and looked up at him, her face wet with tears, and he saw a bitter ferocity and determination there that he recognized.

“Sometimes, I can’t not fight,” she said.

ANNIE

No amount of practice prepares you for the sight of the arena’s stands completely full, banners flapping in the wind, trumpets sounding the Anthem of the Revolution as the drums keep time. Aela and I delight together in the searing blue horizon, the sharp late-spring breeze, the city cheering below us as we perform the opening ceremony. Moments like this, it hits me like it did the first time: that the life I have begun to think of as routine is, in fact, extraordinary. Today, in the stands below, the people are watching commoners like themselves ride dragons. It’s the kind of thing that can’t help making you feel proud of your country.

Even if it turns out that your country is not so proud of you.

But as that thought threatens to overwhelm, I feel Aela’s body, warm through the saddle, her presence soft at the back of my mind. Hold. Be still. Not now. For as long as I can remem­ber, Aela has been able to temper the feelings I couldn’t. Even in the very beginning, when I was still a child with lingering nightmares of dragonfire. With Aela, they fell away. A dragon’s comfort for a dragon’s crimes. What would people from my vil­lage think? What would my parents have thought, my brothers and sisters? Questions I’ve never had answered, but when I’m with Aela, they don’t matter anymore.

Together with Lee sur Pallor, we lead the aurelian squadron over the heads of the audience while the shimmering skyfish dart back and forth across the arena above us. As we practiced this morning, Cor keeps the stormscourge squadron high, their ash safely out of range of citizens in the stands below.

Atreus begins his speech after we’ve landed and dismissed our dragons. Even at a distance from the Palace Box, it’s impos­sible to miss Atreus’s presence, his close-cut steel-gray hair, his confident pose that more than makes up for his simple, muted garb. The only thing lost is the way his gaze makes you feel pow­erful. Important. Needed. When we first met him, as children freshly Chosen by the new regime’s hatchling dragons, a shiver went down my spine when he said my name. Bound for the first time to Aela’s, in drakonym, like a dragonlord’s. Antigone sur Aela, make your vows.

What would it have been like, I can’t help wondering, to receive a note of good luck from him this morning, instead of one of caution from the Ministry of Propaganda? What did Lee feel as he read those words? And is that why, standing beside me, he is able to look so unabashedly confident as he regards the waiting crowd—

But confidence has never been something Lee’s been short on, notes from Atreus or no. That’s been apparent from the beginning.

A lot of things have been apparent from the beginning, with Lee.

“Men and women of Callipolis,” Atreus proclaims, “wel­come to the quarterfinal Firstrider Tournament. Ten years ago, you made a historic choice. You chose to test everyone equally, to choose the best among you to become dragonriders, and to train them to lead. To bring Callipolis into a new era of great­ness, of air power in the service of what is right. Of virtuous leaders and just rule. For the years between the old way of drag­ons and the new, you have allowed me to be your steward. Now I ask you to look to your future. To your Guardians. Four of whom today will become semifinalists for Firstrider, and mem­bers of the Fourth Order.

“In a few years I will say: May the most virtuous Guardian rule. But today, I say: May the best riders win.”

The cheering goes up, resounding. It sets my blood on fire.

“Just put it in your mouth already.”

2017

From a distance, the midnight blue dress looks as though it has been cut from one single piece of silk. Its graceful lines drape and flow, skimming the form of the mannequin on which it is displayed.

But if you look more closely, you will see that this is an illusion. The dress has been pieced together from scraps and off-cuts, sewn edge to edge so cleverly that they have been transformed into something else.

The years that have passed have aged the gown, making it so fragile that it must be protected if it is to tell its story in the years that are to come, and so the museum staff have placed it in a glass cabinet for the exhibition. On one side, the display case is made of magnifying glass to enable the viewer to study the detail of the seamstress’s handiwork. Each fragment of material has been hand-sewn with invisible stitches, as tiny and regular as any modern-day machine could manage. The people who come to see it will marvel at its complexity, and at the time and patience it must have taken to create it.

There is a history displayed in this glass case. It’s a part of all our shared histories, and it’s a part of my own personal history.

The museum director comes in to check that all is in order for the opening. He nods his approval and the rest of the team head off for drinks at the bar round the corner to celebrate.

But I hang back and, just before I finally close the cabinet, I run my fingertips over the delicate silver beads that draw the eye to the neckline of the dress. They are another clever distraction from the patchwork pieces, a scattering of stars against a midnight sky. I can imagine how they would have caught the light and how the eye of the beholder would then have been drawn upwards, to the sweep of the neck, the line of the cheekbones, the eyes of the wearer of this gown; eyes which would have held that same light in their depths.

I shut the display cabinet and I know that everything is ready. Tomorrow, the gallery doors will open and people will come here to look at the dress whose image is displayed on the posters on the walls of the Metro.

And from a distance they will think it’s been cut from one single piece of silk. It’s only when they look more closely that they will see the truth.

Harriet

A gust of hot, stale air, belched from the tangle of tunnels below ground, buffets my legs and snatches at my hair as I wrestle my heavy suitcase up the steps of the Metro and emerge into the light of the Paris afternoon. The pavement is busy with tourists, who amble and dawdle, consulting maps and phones as they work out which direction to go next. With quicker, more purposeful steps, smartly dressed locals who have recently returned to reclaim their city, having spent the month of August by the sea, weave their way in and out of the crowds.

The river of traffic streams by — a continual blur of colour and noise — and for a moment I feel dizzy, light-headed with the mixture of all that movement and the nervous excitement of being in the city that will be my home for the next twelve months. I may look like a tourist right now, but soon, I hope I might be mistaken for a native Parisienne.

To give myself a moment to regain my composure, I pull my case to the railings alongside the entrance to Saint-Germain-des-Pres station and consult the email on my phone, rechecking the details. Not that I need to — I know the words off by heart .

Dear Ms Shaw, further to my phone call, I am pleased to confirm that your application for a one-year internship at the Agence Guillemet has been successful. Congratulations! 

As discussed, whilst we are only able to offer the minimum wage for the position of intern, we are pleased to be able to offer you accommodation in an apartment above the office.

Once you have finalised your travel arrangements, please confirm the date and time of your arrival. I look forward to welcoming you to the company.
Yours sincerely,
Florence Guillemet
Directrice
Agence Guillemet, Relations Publiques
12 Rue Cardinale, Paris 75000.

I still can’t quite believe that I managed to talk Florence into taking me on. She runs a PR agency specialising in the fashion sector, focusing on a client list of smaller companies and start-ups who can’t afford their own in-house communications personnel. She doesn’t usually take on interns but my letter and CV were persuasive enough to make her call me at last (after I’d resent them twice, that is, and she’d realised I wasn’t going to leave her alone until I’d had an answer). The fact that I was prepared to do the job for a whole year on minimal pay, coupled with my fluency in French, led to a more formal Skype interview. And a glowing reference from my university tutor, emphasising my interest in the fashion industry and my commitment to hard work, finally convinced her to take me on.

I’d been prepared to look for a place to rent in one of the less salubrious suburbs of the city, eking out the small inheritance which had been left in trust for me in my mother’s will. So the offer of a room above the office was a fantastic bonus as far as I was concerned. I’d be living in the very building that had led me to find the Agence Guillemet in the first place.

I don’t usually believe in fate, but it felt as if a force was at work, drawing me to Paris. Leading me to the Boulevard Saint-Germain. Bringing me here.

To the building in the photograph.

I’d found the photo in a cardboard box of my mother’s things which had been pushed to the back of the highest shelf of the wardrobe in my bedroom, presumably by my father. Perhaps he’d wanted to hide it away up there so that I’d only find it when I’d grown up enough to be ready to see its contents, once the passing years had softened the edges of my grief so that they could no longer inflict such pain. Or perhaps it was guilt that made him push the taped-up box out of sight and out of reach, so that he and his new wife wouldn’t have to see this pathetically meagre reminder of the part they’d played in the unbearable sadness which finally led my mother to take her own life.

I’d discovered it one damp day when I was in my teens, home from boarding school for the Easter holidays. Despite the trouble they’d gone to — making sure I had my own room, letting me choose the colour for the walls and allowing me to arrange the books, ornaments and posters I’d brought with me however I liked — my father and stepmother’s house never really felt like ‘home’ at all. It was always their house, never mine. It was the place where I had to come and live when my own home had suddenly ceased to exist.

I’d been bored that wet April day. My two younger stepsisters were bored too, which meant they were niggling at one another, and the niggling had inevitably escalated into name-calling, a full-blown argument and then a good deal of loud screeching and door-slamming.

I retreated to my room and plugged my earbuds into my ears, using my music to block out the noise. Sitting cross-legged on my bed, I began to turn the pages of the latest copy of Vogue. At my request, my stepmother had given me a subscription for my Christmas present. I always savoured the moment when I opened the latest edition of the magazine, poring over each of the glossy pages, expensively scented with samples of the latest perfumes and lotions, a portal into the glamorous world of high fashion. That day, there was a picture of a model in a primrose-yellow T-shirt heading up a feature entitled ‘Early Summer Pastels’. It reminded me that I had one quite like it somewhere in my wardrobe among the summer clothes that I’d washed and folded carefully last autumn, swapping them over on the top shelf for the warmer tops and jumpers that were stashed there.

I laid the magazine aside and dragged the chair from my desk over to the wardrobe. As I reached for the pile of summery tops, my fingertips brushed against the age-softened cardboard of the box pushed to the back of the shelf.

I’d never paid any attention to it before that day — probably because I hadn’t been tall enough to see the writing —but now, standing on tiptoes, I pulled the box towards me and saw my mother’s name written in thick black marker pen on the parcel tape that sealed the top shut.

All thoughts of early summer pastels forgotten for the moment, I lifted the box down. Alongside her name —Felicity — was scrawled ‘papers/photos etc. for Harriet’ in my father’s handwriting.

I ran my fingers over the words and my eyes filled with tears at the sight of her name, and mine, written there. The wide brown tape had lost its stickiness over the years and it lifted away from the cardboard as I touched it, crackling softly. I brushed away my tears with my sleeve and opened the box.

The pile of papers within looked as though they’d been hastily — and somewhat randomly — thrown in in no particular order, the roughly sorted remnants of my mother’s life that had made it on to the ‘keep for Harriet’ pile landing in a brown box instead of a black bin bag.

I spread them out across my bedroom floor, sorting official documents — her out-of-date driving licence and passport — from copies of my old school reports and the handmade birthday cards that I’d given her over the years. I cried again at the sight of the clumsy, childish drawings of the two of us hand in hand, alone together. But I smiled through my tears as I realised that even at that early age I’d added fashionable touches in the form of large buttons down the front of our dresses and brightly coloured handbags to match. The handwriting inside the cards ranged from laborious nursery school printing to a rounded primary school script, heartfelt messages of love that she’d treasured enough to hold on to for safekeeping. Maybe I imagined it but it seemed to me that, even after all these years, those pictures were scented — very faintly — with the perfume that she’d always worn. The sweetly floral smell brought back a vivid memory of the black bottle with a silver top sitting on her dressing table, a French perfume called Arpege.

And yet, my pictures and messages hadn’t been enough. They hadn’t been able to pull her out of the quicksand of loneliness and sorrow that had eventually overwhelmed her, dragging her down so deep that the only escape she could find was death. Her name was one of the ultimate ironies in a life that had been anything but felicitous. The only time she had seemed really happy was when she played her piano, losing herself in the music she made as her hands floated effortlessly across the keys. My throat closed around a lump of grief as solid as a stone as I sorted the cards into a careful pile: the evidence that my mother had loved me so much, but that love, ultimately, hadn’t been able to save her.

When, at last, I was able to set the other papers aside and dry my eyes, I turned my attention to a bundle of photographs at the bottom of the box.

At the top of the pile there was one which made me catch my breath. It was a picture of her cradling me in her arms, my baby hair a halo of thistledown, catching the sunlight which streamed in from the window alongside us. The light, which made her look like a Renaissance Madonna, bathed my baby features in gold as well and it was as if I was illuminated by the love that shone from her eyes as she gazed at me. On her wrist, clearly visible, was the gold charm bracelet that I now wear. My father gave it to me on my sixteenth birthday, explaining that it had belonged to my mother and to her mother before her. I’ve worn it every day since. In the photograph, I could make out some of the charms that hang round my own wrist today — the tiny Eiffel Tower, the bobbin of thread and the thimble.

My father must have taken the picture, I realised, once upon a time when it was just the three of us and we were enough. When we were everything.

50 years before…

Don’t leave the street. They can’t get you if you don’t leave the street.

Little David Olson knew he was in trouble. The minute his mother got back with Dad, he was going to get it. His only hope was the pillow stuffed under his blanket, which made it look like he was still in bed. They did that on TV shows. But none of that mattered now. He had snuck out of his bedroom and climbed down the ivy and slipped and hurt his foot. But it wasn’t too bad. Not like his older brother playing football. This wasn’t too bad.

Little David Olson hobbled down Hays Road. The mist in his face. The fog settling in down the hill. He looked up at the moon. It was full. The second night it had been full in a row. A blue moon. That’s what his big brother told him. Like the song that Mom and Dad danced to sometimes. Back when they were happy. Back before David made them afraid.

Blue Moon.

Little David Olson heard something in the bushes. For a second, he thought it might be another one of those dreams. But it wasn’t. He knew it wasn’t. He forced himself to stay awake. Even with his headaches. He had to get there tonight.

A car drove past, bathing the fog in headlight. Little David Olson hid behind a mailbox as rock ’n’ roll poured from the old Ford Mustang. A couple of the teenagers laughed. A lot of kids were being drafted into the army, and drunk driving was on the rise. That’s what his dad said anyway.

“David?” a voice whispered. Hisspered. Hisss.

Did someone say it? Or did he just hear it?

“Who’s there?” David said.

Silence.

It must have been in his head. That was okay. At least it wasn’t the hissing lady. At least he wasn’t dreaming.

Or was he?

David looked down the hill at the street corner with the big streetlight on Monterey Drive. The teenagers passed it, taking all the sound with them. That’s when David saw the shadow of a person. A figure stood in the middle of the pool of streetlight. Waiting and whistling. Whistling and waiting. A song that sounded a little like

Blue Moon.

The hairs on the back of David’s neck stood up.

Don’t go near that corner.

Stay away from that person.

Little David Olson cut through the yards instead.

He tiptoed over an old fence. Don’t let them hear you. Or see you. You’re off the street. It’s dangerous.He looked up in a window where a babysitter was making out with her boyfriend while the baby cried. But it sounded like a cat. He was still sure he wasn’t dreaming, but it was getting harder and harder to tell anymore. He climbed under the fence and got wet grass stains on his pajama bottoms. He knew he couldn’t hide them from his mom. He would have to wash them himself. Like how he was starting to wet the bed again. He washed the sheets every morning. He couldn’t let his mother know. She would ask questions. Questions he could not answer.

Not out loud.

He moved through the little woods behind the Maruca house. Past the swing set that Mr. Maruca had put up with his boys. After a hard day’s work, there were always two Oreos and a glass of milk waiting. Little David Olson helped them once or twice. He loved those Oreos. Especially when they got a little soft and old.

“David?”

The whisper was louder now. He looked back. There was no one around. He peeked back past the houses to the streetlight. The shadow person was gone. The figure could be anywhere. It could be right behind him. Oh, please don’t let it be the hissing lady. Please don’t let me be asleep.

Crack.

The twig snapped behind him. Little David Olson forgot about his hurt foot and ran. He cut through the Pruzans’ lawn down onto Carmell Drive and turned left. He could hear dogs panting. Getting closer. But there were no dogs. It was just sounds. Like the dreams. Like the cat baby crying. They were running after him. So, he ran faster. His little booties hitting the wet pavement. Smack smack smack like a grandma’s kiss.

When he finally got to the corner of Monterey Drive, he turned right. He ran in the middle of the street. Like a raft on a river. Don’t leave the street. They can’t get you if you’re on the street. He could hear the noises on either side. Little hisses. And dogs panting. And licking. And baby cats. And those whispers.

“David? Get out of the street. You’ll get hurt. Come to the lawn where it’s safe.”

The voice was the hissing lady. He knew it. She always had a nice voice at first. Like a substitute teacher trying too hard. But when you looked at her, she wasn’t nice anymore. She turned to teeth and a hissing mouth. Worse than the Wicked Witch. Worse than anything. Four legs like a dog. Or a long neck like a giraffe. Hssss.

“David? Your mother hurt her feet. They’re all cut up. Come and help me.”

The hissing lady was using his mom’s voice now. No fair. But she did that. She could even look like her. The first time, it had worked. He went over to her on the lawn. And she grabbed him. He didn’t sleep for two days after that. When she took him to the house with the basement. And that oven.

“Help your mother, you little shit.”

His grandma’s voice now. But not his grandma. David could feel the hissing lady’s white teeth. Don’t look at them. Just keep looking ahead. Keep running. Get to the cul-de-sac. You can make her go away for ever. Get to the last streetlight.

“Hsssssss.”

David Olson looked ahead to the last streetlight in the cul-de-sac. And then, he stopped.

The shadow person was back.

The figure stood in the middle of the pool of streetlight. Waiting and whistling. Whistling and waiting. Dream or no dream, this was bad. But David could not stop now. It was all up to him. He was going to have to walk past the streetlight person to get to the meeting place.

“Hiiiiiissssssssss.”

The hissing lady was closer. Behind him. David Olson suddenly felt cold. His pajamas damp. Even with the overcoat. Just keep walking. That’s all he could do. Be brave like his big brother. Be brave like the teenagers being drafted. Be brave and keep walking. One little step. Two little steps.

“Hello?” said Little David Olson.

The figure said nothing. The figure did not move. Just breathed in and out, its breath making

Clouds.

“Hello? Who are you?” David asked.

Silence. The world holding its breath. Little David Olson put a little toe into the pool of light. The figure stirred.

“I’m sorry, but I need to pass. Is that okay?”

Again there was silence. David inched his toe into the light. The figure began to turn. David thought about going back home, but he had to finish. It was the only way to stop her. He put his whole foot into the light. The figure turned again. A statue waking up. His whole leg. Another turn. Finally, David couldn’t take it, and he entered the light. The figure ran at him. Moaning. Its arm reaching out. David ran through the circle. The figure behind him. Licking. Screaming. David felt its long nails reaching, and just as it was going to grab his hair, David slid on the hard pavement like in baseball. He tore up his knee, but it didn’t matter. He was out of the light. The figure stopped moving. David was at the end of the street. The cul-de-sac with the log cabin and the newlywed couple.

Little David Olson looked off the road. The night was silent. Some crickets. A little bit of fog that lit the path to the trees. David was terrified, but he couldn’t stop. It was all up to him. He had to finish or the hissing lady would get out. And his big brother would be the first to die.

Little David Olson left the street and walked.

Past the fence.

Through the field.

And into the Mission Street Woods.

CHAPTER 1

Allison

September 2015

You’ll feel like a new woman.

That’s what Annie said. The perfect opportunity to reinvent myself.

Annie was raving excitedly, brushing her hair away from her face as we sat outside on the patio of Chez Monsieur, a name that sounded way fancier than the actual restaurant. Perhaps that was why I was skeptical of her enthusiasm — I was uncomfortable, distracted by the sucking sound that came each time I pulled my forearms off the sticky plastic tablecloth. And that loaded term: new woman. Was Annie suggesting that I was damaged?

Perhaps I was skeptical of everything. Nothing worked out to be perfect. There was no perfect, no happy-ever-after. No happy ever, it seemed.

Still, my younger sister was almost the only thing I had left, so I nodded, sipping my water from a filmy glass with only a few chips of ice still withstanding the late-summer Philadelphia sun.

“The off-season at the beach,” she said wistfully, staring off into our very un- beach-like surroundings as a taxi driver honked his horn and tossed a select finger at another driver trying to back into a space on the narrow street. “It’s a great opportunity to relax, recoup — recover.” She smiled reassuringly. “And the house — oh, Allison. It’s divine. You won’t even believe it.”

I tried not to roll my eyes at my sister’s undying optimism. “And I’m sure these heavenly people are just going to hand me over the keys, right? Without even checking up on my … background?” I asked.

A large cumulus cloud whipped over the sun, dimming the patio and turning the strong wind cold. An omen, my mom would say, but quickly dismissed it.

“No, no, no.” Annie leaned forward, and I caught my reflection in her large lenses — a hunched-over, thin waif of a person with hair too long for forty. Ever since I’d gone off-air I’d let it grow past my shoulders, though vainly I still dyed it every five weeks. I could never stand the gray roots.

I sat up straighter, adjusted my chair. Annie was still going. “Like I said, my friend Sharon knows the couple really well. And the town — she grew up right near there. I can vouch for you, no problem. They want someone they can trust — not just someone off the street. Oh, Ally. It’s so perfect for you. A chance to get away from … from all this.”

I thought about making a snide comment along the lines of, you mean get me out of your apartment, but that would’ve made her feel self-conscious about Mike, and I didn’t want her to feel guilty for having a stable relationship. So instead I said, “Do you think I could really ever get away from any of it?” Because, contrary to what Annie believed, despite the protests she was now making at my negativity, I didn’t need to become a new woman — I needed to get back to the old me. The me I was before. Before it all crashed.

Yet in spite of my sarcasm and doubt, already, already the idea was beginning to appeal. An oceanfront home, rent-free for the winter. The couple had just bought the place last year, but the wife’s job was unexpectedly calling her abroad and they didn’t want the house to be vacant for that many months. But they also didn’t want to bother with the mess of renting the place out — distrustful of random strangers trooping in and out of their home week after week. All those horror stories you heard about people renting their homes through Airbnb on the internet —

“Do they use Google?” I asked, half joking.

Annie just shook her head at me. “Allison, please don’t.”

“YouTube? I’m just being practical.”

“You just need to see this house,” she said, ignoring my comment.

My sister had a talent for ignoring subjects she didn’t want to discuss. It came as part of her nurse package — cute kitten-adorned scrubs, a cheery sing-song voice and a no-nonsense attitude for dealing with grumbly, pessimistic patients. The best medicine is a positive attitude, she always said, and I mostly admired it, though sometimes I wanted to do what one of her patients once did — dump a filled bedpan on her. She put up with a lot, but she always did it with a smile.

“Four bedrooms, a back deck, a sunroom overlooking the ocean. You could use the time to relax. Or you know, figure out your next steps. The beach is a great place to study weather, right?” Annie snaked her hand across the table to squeeze mine, but I picked up my water glass and watched her pull her hand back. “Besides, you’re doing much better.”

“Well, according to everyone else, that bar is pretty low, isn’t it?”

Annie ignored that, too. She knew where this conversation was headed. It was a relief, really. I didn’t want to talk about Duke anymore either — the same ground over and over again.

“Just think about it, okay? We’ll take a look tonight — they’ve got pictures. We have to act fast, though, because someone’s going to snatch this up, I just know it. It’s like a dream come true.”

* * *

It turned out that Annie wasn’t exaggerating. Divine was a good word for Patty and John Worthington’s beach house. Cozy, but also lavish. The place looked like it had morphed out of an issue of Architectural Digest. Wooden siding on the outside, cute A-frames. On the inside, an open living room with a ceiling that stretched to the top floor. A sunroom off the back with views of the ocean and a second-floor back deck with sun chairs.

“Built in 1986,” the online ad read. The house had an opulent charm, and I immediately fell in love. It was exactly what I needed. A chance to get away. A place of beauty to run to.

“See? I told you.” Annie squeezed my arm, shaking me until I broke into a grin. She squealed like she used to when we were kids and pressed snails or earthworms we’d found near the neighbor’s pond into each other’s palms. Or later, as teenagers, when we’d slip into each other’s beds after a night out and whisper secrets about the guys we’d met, the way their clove cigarettes had smelled, sweet and smoky, the way their hands had nestled onto the smalls of our backs. Annie would giggle, her face pressed into her pillow, then sit up, hair streaming around her, eyes gleaming in the moonlight with all the possibility. We’d always been each other’s ears, there to absorb both the delights and the horrors. So when Duke betrayed me, Annie was the one to help me pick up the pieces.

Annie kissed the top of my head and jumped up from the couch. “I’m going to call Sharon.”

I sat back and closed my sister’s laptop, staring up at the ceiling of her little apartment in Manayunk. My home for the last nine months.

This was not where I was supposed to be. This was not in any of the New Year’s resolutions I’d sketched out each year in my leather-bound planners. I was supposed to be in Annapolis, living in a large, single-family home not far from the water, giving the morning weather report on WDLT Annapolis with a beaming smile and a jaunty flair, married to Dennis “Duke” Shetland. I was supposed to be finding tile to remodel our kitchen, planning a trip to Greece, fighting with my mother about not having kids. In other words, turning forty with a husband, house, job and friends — like everyone else I knew.

Instead I had regular appointments with a divorce attorney, sleeping pills, antidepressants, jaw pain and a tiny bedroom my little sister let me crash in while I sorted out my life. Instead, for the first time in my adult life, my compass was twirling around and around, unable to find direction.

Maybe the house was the solution. A chance to prove I was just fine, to show everyone — including myself — that I was no longer the Allison- puddle-toxic-hot-mess that I had been for the past year. In a new space, I could get perspective. Annie’s apartment had its charm — with her stacks of dog-eared paperback books, colorful afghans over every chair, cross-stitch framed inspirational quotes posted slightly askew in the halls (You can’t see the sunshine with your eyes closed!) — but it was nowhere close to the breathing room I’d have in a three-story house right on the coast.

I tried not to, but I started to get excited. An actual new start. The possibilities were whirling inside me, gaining momentum like a tropical storm gathering strength just off the coast. I could use the time to figure out my next steps, as Annie had said. Repair the self-confidence that Duke had systematically filed down to a small sliver. Find a new job or take a class. I could start a blog — my lawyer had told me to bump up my online presence with good things, positive things, that would push the bad stuff down in the search results.

Page two, my lawyer had chanted. Your goal is to get them to page two. Do you know what the percentage is of people who click to page two of the search results? It’s low, Allison. Very low.

How sad my goals and aspirations had become.

The mechanics stepped apart, revealing none other than Dash Slater stalking my way. His strides were purposeful. Potent, even. I’d expected to meet him here, hoped for it even, but I hadn’t been mentally or physically prepared.

Our eyes met and my heart boomed, stealing my breath. My mind went blank, unable to concentrate on anything except the way his dark jeans draped over his long legs and those thick, bulging thighs.

I’d never seen a man move like Dash, with confidence and charisma in every step. His hazel eyes, a vibrant swirl of green and gold and brown, threatened to lure me under his spell.

My body betrayed me, the quiver in my core irritating my rational senses. I was here for a story. I was here to steal this man’s secrets one by one, then plaster them across the headlines. This raw, animalistic response was asinine.

But damn, he was hot.

Dash’s black T-shirt strained across the muscles of his chest. It pulled tight around the swells of his biceps. The skin exposed on his arms was tan and smooth, except for the array of tattoos that snaked up both forearms.

Scorching. Smoking. There was another s word somewhere in my mind but as he stepped into our huddle, I lost my advanced vocabulary.

Seriously . . . damn.